Page 12 of Into Orbit
I bit my bottom lip, guilt churning through me; I hoped my mother’s fury wouldn’t be too bad. There wasn’t supposed to be a thing I did without Ashton’s knowledge, but he’d been with me so long I knew exactly how to bend his boughs; all I’d had to do was say I was feeling poorly and ask for some berry tea to settle my stomach. He’d left at once to make it for me, and I’d slipped away, making for the hangar. The hardest part of my temporary escape was dismantling the Pod tracker so no one could follow me, but I’d followed a step-by-step cast on my screen from the on-board library, and it was done.
I tried to hold onto the heady sense of freedom I’d felt as I’d piloted the Pod down to Maeve’s planet. I didn’t think I’d feel it again in my lifetime – not if my mother had anything to do with it, anyway.
‘Lady,’ Willow said respectfully, inclining his head to me. ‘Will you join us? Or will you wait for your bonded outside?’
I glanced at Maeve, who was looking at anything but me. ‘Maeve? What do you wish?’
She swallowed audibly. ‘I’d prefer it if you came with me.’
I tried not to be too pleased. We followed Willow through the hangar; I glanced across at Maeve, but she was determinedly looking straight ahead, ignoring the stares of the engineers and the cleaning rotation. I all but bared my teeth when one engineer flashed Maeve a flirtatious smile; it was not unusual for Tirians to bond outside our kind, and Maeve’s humanoid form was close enough to our own that a being would have to look hard to notice the difference. It wasn’t just the similarity, though; Maeve was objectively lovely, with shining chestnut hair pulled back from her oval-shaped face, striking blue eyes made arresting by dark cosmetic on her lids and lashes, and wide, full lips that softened the fierceness of her expression – when they weren’t twisted into a savage scowl, anyway. She was beautiful, and I could hardly fault the others for staring.
But that didn’t mean I was willing to share her. The human wasmyadventure, the one thing I’d done for myself in my twenty-six years. The others could keep their roots in their own soil – unless Maeve decided otherwise.
Willow’s clinic was to one side of the hangar. It had to be close to the dock, because he managed the decontamination for all souls boarding the ship – whether they were crew or prisoners or visiting dignitaries – but the hangar was also the place where most physical injuries occurred, so it made sense for the ship’s doctor to stay close by.
The clinic door slid open, and I followed Willow inside. Maeve hung back slightly, chewing her bottom lip.
‘Will this hurt?’ she said gruffly. ‘My head is still killing me.’
My hearts constricted at the sight of her wariness. ‘It won’t hurt at all. The spores work swiftly. You will need to hold your breath for half a minute. Will that be an issue?’
‘I don’t think so?’ Maeve answered. ‘Depending on how long your minutes are.’
‘Less than one of yours,’ Willow said, his brow creasing slightly. ‘Possibly. You have many units of measurement, and I didn’t have a lot of time to research; there’s always a chance I’ve confused them.’
‘Comforting,’ Maeve muttered.
Willow gestured to a small, partitioned room. ‘You’ll need to undress. Your traditional garments will be returned to you once they’ve been decontaminated and some testing samples taken.’
Maeve looked down at the odd clothing she was wearing, a short-sleeved black shirt and some kind of skin-tight pants. There must have been another layer of clothing beneath her shirt, one so thin I couldn’t see the seams, for her toned arms were covered in drawings – mostly of flowers. ‘My trad … Oh. No, really, you can keep the shirt, as long as I get my boots and jeans back. I don’t really like this band anymore.’
Willow inclined his head and moved to his monitoring station, though he couldn’t have understood that comment any more than I did.
I carefully pulled off the outer garment Maeve had offered me, then gave the vines of my armour a gentle stroke until they began to unlace themselves. I blinked in surprise at the cluster of arcadia blossoms on my shoulder; I hadn’t noticed them bloom, but arcadia always had a mind of their own. I pulled the vine out gently. Willow would need to test them, too, but he’d be careful and if there were no problems, I could replant them in the Forest later, somewhere close to my heartree so I could see them. Once all the vines had unwound, my breastplate slid to the ground. I bent to gather it up, and placed it against the wall, nestling the arcadia blossoms on top, making a soft trill sound to comfort them as they budded tight in protest.
I looked up to see Maeve staring at me, her lips parted and her cheeks flushed.
‘Are you all right?’
She shook herself. ‘Fine. It’s just … My clothes don’t sew themselves.’
‘Oh,’ I said, and frowned. ‘Do you need some help undressing?’
‘Nope,’ she answered hastily. ‘I’m good.’
She pulled her shirt over her head, and it was my turn to stare.
She loosened her rich chestnut hair until it spilled down her back in soft waves. The hair colours I’d seen on humans in the bar had varied wildly, from white to purple to brown to black, but I liked Maeve’s best of all; it reminded me of the dappled light in the undergrowth of the Forest. The loose waves meant it rippled as she moved; my fingers twitched with the need to touch it, but I kept my hands by my sides.
Even more extraordinary than Maeve’s beautiful hair was the realisation that the drawings I’d taken for another layer of garment were on herskin. She was wearing some kind of black strap around her breasts, but the rest of her torso, along with her arms and shoulders, were covered in stylised floral designs. Some were black, and some had colour; some were vibrant, and others were comfortably faded. I could have spent hours studying them, following the curving lines of vines and leaves and petals across her body.
I felt green blossom across my cheeks. I’d seen plenty of naked Tirians – sometimes they forgot that the Forest was more than just trees and used it for trysts with their bonded – but I’d never seen one that looked like that. And bythatI meant all slender muscle and hard curves, so wholly delicious that my hearts beat out of time.
Don’t stare, Elswyth.
I turned away to hide my face, then coaxed the vines in my boots to unravel, smiling when they tried to wind themselves around my wrists instead. I settled them next to the arcadias and stripped off my leathers and undergarments.
Maeve coughed. I turned back, concerned, and forgot my no staring rule immediately. She’d removed her boots and pants and her breast binding, and my breath caught in my throat. Her breasts were small and tipped with pink, her thighs all graceful lines of muscle.
