The Space Colonel's Woman (Dragonus Chronicles Book 1) (28 page)

“Mmm…”

“I met this super-sexy man who asked me to marry him, so I did.  He was
really
good with his hands.”

She giggled at the look in Mark’s eyes when he pulled her to him. “I don’t know how to break it to you, darlin’, but that was no dream.”

“Just as well.”

“I’m starving.”

She stretched her hands above her head and yawned until her jaw cracked. “When’s the glider booked for?”

He glanced at his watch where it rested on its side on the dresser. “Couple of hours.”

“Great.” Julia grinned, tossing back the blankets and hauling him out of bed after her.  “Just enough time for a shower and breakfast.”

“You’ll be the death of me, woman.” Mark groaned as he stumbled his way into the bathroom after his wife.

Julia kissed him hard, her fingers drawing spirals of soap bubbles over the spot where a stunner blast had once scored his arm. “But, Colonel, what a way to go.”

Chapter 21

There was, of course, no sign of Hayden or Ange at the small bon voyage gathering in the Birdcage.  Not that Julia had expected to see them.  The amused gleam in the corner of Mark’s eye meant he’d noticed their friends’ absence too.  Colonel Archer, Valentina, and Stephen, among others, had gathered to wave off the newly-minted Colonel and Mrs Holden.

“Have a fabulous time.” Valentina gushed as she hugged Julia tight in farewell.

“Thanks, Lenti.  I’m sure I will.”

Mark and Stephen thumped one another on the back in a manly expression of friendship and congratulation.

“I’ll expect both of you back here in exactly one week’s time, Colonel.” Colonel Archer’s smile neutralized the commanding edge to her words.

“Yes, ma’am.” Mark flipped a perfect salute before stooping for the two duffels and lifting a brow in Julia’s direction. “Ready, Mrs Holden?”

“Sure, I have no idea where we’re headed, but I’m prepared to go on trust.” Julia grinned in answer to the tittering laughter and followed her husband up the ramp into Glider one.

He hadn’t told her where they were going but when he smiled at her, soft and hopeful, the knot of uncertainty that had been curling tighter since waking melted away as if it had never been.  She had trusted Mark with her heart and her life.  It made sense to trust him with her future too.

“What?” His shoulders were tense and his eyes wide in the light from the console.

She shook her head, smirking as she leaned across to kiss him, a chaste brush of lips and a tentative press of tongue to the seam of his mouth.  Her breath warm in the intimate space between them.

“You look so fucking hot in mufti.”

“Civvies.” He choked on the breath he’d tried to sneak in and they chuckled, Julia tilting her cheek into the hand he’d curved to her jaw. “You’re not lookin’ to bad yourself, Beautiful.”

“Why thank you, kind sir.”

He kissed her silent, chaste but with the promise of more; once, twice, and again before pulling away and lounging back in the pilot’s chair.

“If we don’t go now.” Her mischievous gaze locked with his. “I suspect the others will wonder what we’re up to in here that’s preventing us from initiating flight.”

Mark smirked, plush lips tugging up as he tapped his radio and confirmed Glider one’s departure. 

Acilajan, capital of Haep Provence, was Phoenix City’s bohemian cousin.  There wasn’t a right angle in sight.  All her buildings were wonderful distortions of molded clay in an array of hues ranging from chemical orange, through cerise and cobalt, to lime and lemon.  Each structure a masterpiece with pre-school craft table influences, decorated with gaudy mosaics, reflective inlays, and stained glass windows.

Julia grinned as she walked down Glider one’s ramp; her eyes wide and darting everywhere to avoid missing anything.  The air slapped her in the face with its sharp minty freshness and made her exhale on a gasp, only to envelop her in a sensual cocoon of warm spices and the sweet honey of exotic pollen; intense and seductive.

From the vast south plain that served as parking for interstellar crafts of all sizes, to the cacophony of sights and sounds of its marketplace.  Acilajan was alive with the energy and excitement expected from a trading center that catered to the diverse needs of half the Dragonus galaxy.

Every stand, stall, tent, and gazebo had sprung up like enthusiastic toadstools.  With every color and pattern imaginable employed to lure patrons, and capture their attention long enough to secure a sale.  All vendors, whether they wore kaftans, turbans, homespun, flamboyant hats, or endless strings of wooden beads over naked six-breasted torsos, bellowed their pitches to the masses.  Competing with one another, yet cheering their fellows when a customer was won.

It was impossible not to be swept along by their enthusiasm.  Julia, with her hand caught tight in Mark’s, waded into the tidal pull of the eclectic throng.  Acilajan’s spell worked its magic on you, whether you were a Dragonus local, or a woman from an alternate reality Earth.

Mark tightened his grip to get her attention and she glanced back over her shoulder, brow raised in query above wide sparkling eyes.

“You want anything in particular?” He shouted to be heard and she pointed to the turquoise gazebo ahead. 

Held aloft by ashwood logs, the structure was an experiment in the balance between gravity and artistic license.  Julia’s muscles ached, sweat beaded in her armpits and between her breasts, and her hair hung limp in the humidity of so many beings crushed together.  It was like being caught in a stampede.  One wrong step and you’d be trampled beneath the herd.  The market thoroughfares had been laid out with this in mind though, because the mass kept moving; seething and surging forward, creating little eddies around those who had located their vendor of choice, and moving on, like a fast-flowing river traversing its rocky riverbed.

Mark used his broad shoulders to both shelter her from the brunt of the crowd and advance their progress.  Julia held tight.  Her hands were clamped to his forearms, the fear of being swept away coloring her enthusiasm.  It would be all too easy to disappear forever amid a thousand witnesses.  Even if there was hope of seeing beyond their own goals and the burly coppersmith toting his wares; or the fantastical pink headdress of an avocado-skinned man holding up a matching corset so the sequin trim glinted in the sun.  Mark’s internal radar had to be pinging on a loop.

Once the awe had worn off, Julia was in her element.  Acilajan’s market barely compared to the hordes of rabid women during sixty-percent-off sales at
Bootalicious.

“Excuse me, how much?” She held up a length of red silk shot through with golds and pinks for the vendor to see, but he ignored her.

“No fixed prices.” Mark spoke close to her ear as the crowd battered against his back. “You have to tell him what you’ll pay.  He’ll pretend to be insulted.  Then you offer less, he’ll charge way more than it’s worth.  You pretend to leave.  He’ll smile and sell at your original offer.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“But that’s stupid.  You’d think with all these potential customers, he’d keep it short so he can make more sales.”

“It’s a courtship, Beautiful.  A dance where each has something the other wants.  A seduction where you both leave satisfied.”  Mark slipped a handful of little wooden squares the size of Scrabble tiles into her palm and folded her fingers around them. “Show him two of the goats.”

Julia sifted through until she found a head with horns and held it up, along with two fingers. “Two.”

The vendor snorted, the thick gold ring through his broad nose gave an indignant bounce against his chiseled indigo lips.  Julia feigned indifference and laid the fabric back on the trestle in front of her.  A thrill hummed through her veins.  She was beginning to enjoy the dance.

“One.”

She jumped back into Mark’s chest when the vendor produced four arms from the loose sleeves of his black kaftan, gold cuffs stark against onyx skin, a multitude of fingers splayed.  Julia counted under her breath.

“Thirty-two!”

Mark laughed against her back.  He’d been right, it was fun.  She scooped up the entire collection of fabric, each more vibrant than the one before it, leaving the wood trestle bare.

“Outrageous! I should have ten at that price.”

The whites of the vendor’s eyes were so clear.  Not a vein or blemish marred their perfect surface.  His scarlet pupils bled a spiral of color into his black irises as he grinned a mouthful of tobacco-stained teeth at her.  Mark tugged on her arm as if he had lost interest in the game and she dropped the silks back to the table, pretending to agree with his decision.

All but one of the vendor’s arms retracted from sight.  The remaining one held two fingers aloft.  Julia grinned and nodded.  “Two, for the lot.”

He bent from his shoulders; bobbing a series of enthusiastic nods in agreement.  She nodded back and handed over two goat tiles.  A hand spirited them away with a warm velvet touch, while two others folded and wrapped her purchases in a square of waterproof burlap.

“You done?  We could come back in the morning.” Mark’s eyebrows spoke for exactly how happy he’d be to plunge back into the chaos a second time. 

But Julia was riding the high of her first attempt at haggling in an alien marketplace and was content to let the throng take her where it would.  The fire-pit meat smelled divine.  As did the fresh-baked spice swirls a human girl with blonde curls peeking out her mop cap, was toting on a tray.  A being she had no name for was bellowing above the hubbub as he turned one way then the other.  Julia couldn’t understand him but she guessed it was something about the fragrant steam wafting from the pails, balanced either end of the pole across his shoulders.  It was popular, judging by the crowd of satisfied customers sipping from their wooden tankards.

“Thirsty?”

“You’ll be under the table after one sip.”

She pouted, but allowed him to steer her toward a profusion of lush greens and autumn golds.  He smirked at her curious stare and stepped up to the elderly vendor with Julia tucked tight into his side.  When they moved on, Julia was convinced the old woman was in love with Mark.  But then, who could blame her.

“So…do you have an interest in botany you forgot to mention?”

He braced his purchase on his other hip.  Its waxy lilac leaves looked artificial against the black twisted rope of its trunk.

“Me?  No.  You know that fruit you’re always snacking on, fuck, woman, the
sounds
you make…I’m hard as rock the second you take your first bite.” Julia stumbled at the image he painted and he tugged her closer still. “We should
never
run out of those damn fruit.”

She laughed until her abs ached and his cheeks were crimson.  He’d bought a fruit tree so she’d always have her favorite treat on hand, and he’d be able to listen to her eat them.  It didn’t get more romantic than that.

“Let’s go.  I’ve a sudden urge to check into our hotel.”

A warm swirl of need low in her belly had Julia squeezing her thighs together.  Until, the magpie in her was distracted by something shiny and gorgeous.

“Just one more purchase, please.  Look at those lamps! When they’re lit, I bet the patterns they throw on the walls would look amazing.”

And like every newlywed man before him, Mark bowed to his bride’s wishes and steered them to yet another essential bargain.

~*~

The clerk at
The Coronet’s
reception reminded Julia of both Anora and Hayden.  If their friends were to sire a child, she could imagine it would resemble the graceful carriage of the woman leading them up the ten flights of stairs to their room.  She bore the same body art as Hayden did; only its design was a lacy feminine filigree of pink and orange iridescence riding the curve of her spine.  It disappeared under both brown leather vest and short shorts, reappearing down the backs of her thighs and up into the tight dreadlock curls covering her scalp.

“Thurac-Zefeirs.” Mark nodded when the clerk had returned downstairs. “Neither the Thuranian nor the Zefeirian cultures believe in interracial bonding, but of course it happens.”

Julia frowned, finding it difficult to adhere the new information with what she knew of their friends.  It didn’t fit.  Anora was open in her thinking, willing to learn the intricacies of new civilizations.  It seemed to be the main reason why she would be on Mark’s team.  A queen could not rule wisely if she had a narrow, uninformed experience of the universe.  And Hayden, though he carried himself close to the chest, nothing about the man seemed judgmental or elitist.

Mark smiled, obviously having guessed the direction of her thoughts. “They’re unique.”

“Yes, they are.” She agreed and turned her attention to their surroundings.

From the outside
The Coronet
, named for the spiral of snow white confection atop its roof, that reminded Julia of a soft-serve ice cream with sprinkles, looked much like its neighbors.  Being that it was an original among other originals.  Its twelve story structure held no architectural logic and yet it had stood, just as it was, for three centuries.

She loved it, and hoped Mark would bring them here again.  Their room was less a single space and more a collection of alcoves, like the inside of a pumice stone or expandable foam that set like rock when dry.  A myriad of colors licked over the room’s contours from the stained glass windows.  She opened one, a wave of sound from the market below rushing in to lure her back out.  But Julia was more interested in the horizon; a line of sun-glinted promise.  An ocean of liquid bronze.  She had to see that.  Would it feel like any other ocean? Or would it cling to her skin and leave a shimmery sheen in its wake?  She wanted to see Mark on his board, surfing metallic waves; wild black whorls shot through with glints of gold, and the long lines of his body flexing with the effort to keep balanced.

“Care to join me, Beautiful?”

She turned, unaware of how the late afternoon light played in her hair, to see her husband sprawled naked and ready across the intense purple fur of their bed.  Open in a way he was with no one but her.