Royal: A Sci-Fi Romance (The Jekh Saga Book 5) Read online

  “A whole wall of window seats.”

  “Exactly.” She let out a dry laugh and rotated her wedding ring just over the circle of skin that the sun hadn’t reached. “I wanted a window seat so bad when I was a kid. Never happened.”

  “I’m surprised with your father being in the business he is, he couldn’t have a window seat constructed,” Alex said.

  “Unfortunately, my father has never made a habit of indulging me. One day, I’ll have one, though. Nice quiet place to pretend that I’m going to do work, but really I’ll just stare outside until I nod off.”

  “Better than falling asleep at a desk like Brenna always does,” Luke said. He moved closer to Autumn, hands in pockets, lips tugged up at one corner.

  She didn’t know if she liked that expression or if she was terrified of it. It read “trouble” and she didn’t need any more trouble.

  “Speaking of Brenna, she’d been sending us drips of news from the farm.”

  “Oh?” Autumn gulped nervously. “Anything interesting?”

  “A lot of the usual stuff. Plus she finally got caught up on the website backlog. Also, I guess Headron’s been driven insane by his new apprentice. Brenna’s been observing him like a wildlife specimen because he’s probably about to lose his shit in a way he never has before.”

  “Headron…the baker?” She should have known all the names. She would have bet that Cree knew them, but Autumn had always been the kind of learner who needed repeated exposure to a person in order to commit their names to memory. That was one of the things her assistant used to do for her—to stealthily reintroduce Autumn to people she’d already met.

  She passed a hand through her messy hair and grimaced.

  If I get to stay, I’m gonna need to hire a new assistant.

  “Yeah.” Luke took the seat beside her and leaned forward with his forearms against his legs. “Headron’s with Erin and Esteben.”

  “Esteben is…the older of the Beshni brothers?” Autumn had made herself a pneumonic device to remember which was which, but she’d forgotten it.

  “Yep. It’s interesting to look at his kids and Courtney’s daughter to see how much they look alike.”

  “You do that, too?” Alex chuckled and smiled broadly.

  She realized then that his smiles for Luke were vast and devastating. The rest were restrained, perfectly symmetrical arcs that were pleasant, but conveyed tolerance more than emotion.

  He’s…smitten with him.

  She rolled her eyes at herself.

  Of course he is.

  Luke was a fantastic-looking individual with a fascinating personality. He was a catch, and Autumn had caught him and been too daft to hold onto him.

  “Yeah. I don’t think I’ve encountered any other double cousins before. They can’t be that rare, but I’ve just never seen them.”

  “Happens all the time in the circles I navigate,” Autumn said, just trying to be in the conversation. “A pair of brothers will marry a pair of sisters.” She scoffed softly. “Saves their parents some work of having to vet the other family again. God, I hate people.”

  She hadn’t meant to say that last part aloud, but she wasn’t going to take it back. She tended to reside squarely in the “I said what I said” camp.

  Luke gave her knee a squeeze and stood. “Unfortunately, people are a necessary evil.”

  “You must think I’m awful.”

  He shrugged. “Spend some time with Precious, and you’ll see that she’s the biggest selective misanthrope in the galaxy.”

  “Selective misanthrope.” Autumn turned the words over in her head, trying them on for size. “I like that. Leaves some possibility for charitable deeds.”

  “Yeah. You don’t have to like all people to help some.”

  “I toil with that a lot.”

  “I think you need to get out more,” Alex muttered.

  Sighing, Autumn leaned forward to make eye contact with him. Pointless, it turned out, because he wasn’t looking back. “Pardon me?”

  “You’re cynical because of your environment. You spend your life around people who mistrust each other and are only looking for ways to claw their way up. They want more wealth, more status. I suspect that if you’d been more integrated amongst normal people, you’d hate fewer of them now.” He turned to look at her then. His expression was coolly neutral, as it generally was when he was dealing with her. She wondered what she’d feel if he actually smiled at her just once.

  “Maybe you’re right,” she murmured.

  She didn’t want to argue with him anymore, because it was obvious that their bickering upset Luke. Luke was in the middle of the mess—a wishbone being yanked apart by two hungry people—and that wasn’t fair.

  Besides, there was truth in what Alex was saying. Her attitude toward humankind had much to do with the quality of the company she’d kept on Earth.

  “You look like you could use a shower,” Luke said.

  Panic knotted in her belly as she wondered what sort of fright she looked. “Are you offering? I didn’t want to ask.”

  He tilted his head toward the bathroom. “Clean towels under the sink. I washed them myself earlier.”

  “I’m going to take you up on that. Sorry to be such a needy guest. The dirt is starting to make me itchy. It’s all of the silica, I think,” she said as she backed toward the bathroom. “I may have a mild irritation to it. Not a conclusive diagnosis, but I looked at the list of components and that’s only one that was questionable.”

  Luke followed her to the bathroom and leaned against the doorway. “Silica?”

  She peeled off her socks. “I looked it up yesterday. Silica is a desiccant, and my skin tends to be dry to start with, so…”

  “So it gets worse if you get dirty.”

  “Seems that way.” She shrugged and nudged her socks into the corner with her foot. “Just a theory.”

  “Best get clean, then.”

  “Okay.” Idly, she fondled the bottom of her work shirt and shifted her weight. If she was going to shower, he needed to go away first. But he was standing there, smirking and watching her as if she’d been walking around with bird shit on her face without knowing it. She put a hand to her cheek and patted it, and then the other. Nothing there, as far as she could tell. “So, um… I guess I’m all set. Thanks.”

  “Sure.” He didn’t move.

  “Are you going to watch, or…”

  “You won’t even get that far,” Alex said blandly from the front of the ship. “He’s waiting to see how long you’ll take to ask for help with the shower controls.”

  Oh.

  Clearing her throat, she nudged the curtain aside and peered at the control panel. None of the buttons were labeled, and the color scheme didn’t make any intuitive sense. Normally, things coded red meant hot and things coded blue meant cold, but there were six colors, and not even any arrows to indicate hotter or colder, or higher water pressure or lower.

  “You couldn’t just volunteer the information?” she whispered tartly to Luke.

  He shrugged. “Teaching you a lesson.”

  “What’s the lesson? Frustrate the hell out of me so I’ll go away?”

  He laughed. “Nah. The lesson is to always assume that there’s going to be something unfamiliar in a new space. This isn’t Earth, and this ship isn’t modeled on Terran technology. The first thing you should do before your guide goes away is to look for what’s different.”

  “Ugh. Pretty sure Cree would have.”

  He shrugged again. “Cree is Cree. She thinks differently. Has a unique sort of curiosity about things. That’s the way she’s wired. That doesn’t mean you’re not teachable.”

  “Just go ahead and put the dunce cap on me, already.”

  “Nah. Wouldn’t be flattering, otherwise, I’d loan you mine. Here.” He pointed to the leftmost column of buttons. “These three are for temperature. Cool. Warm. Hot. Next column is for pressure. Lower, normal, and blast-your-skin-off. The last column i
s for time. It’ll decide how much hot water to allocate depending on which setting. First is about fifty seconds. Second is about six minutes. Last is fifteen.”

  “I’m going to need fifteen minutes of hot skin-blasting, please.”

  “Nah.” He shook his head. “Then you’ll come out all pink and burnt, and that’s probably not great for skin like yours.”

  “Dry?”

  He picked up her hand, lifted her arm, and made a demonstrative gesture. “Fancy lady skin.”

  “Fancy?” She rolled her eyes and pushed him, laughing, through the doorway. “Get out.”

  “Hey, I’m just trying to help you. Shove your clothes into that receptacle beside the sink and hit the button. They should be clean and dry in an hour unless the computer decides there’s too much dirt in them.”

  “Got it.”

  He started easing away from the doorway and turned toward the cockpit.

  “Luke?”

  He stopped. Turned.

  “Um.” She crooked her thumb toward the bathroom. “Thank you. For your help, I mean.”

  For everything.

  “I like to help. Don’t forget that.”

  I won’t.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  When Autumn eased the bathroom door open after her shower, the lights in the ship were dim, and the windows darkened. Luke and Alex had cleared out of the cockpit and she couldn’t see them in the main area, either.

  Did they go out?

  She poked her head out more to try to see them. Going outside wouldn’t have made a lick of sense. All throughout her shower, she’d heard the wind’s constant bombardment against the ship’s sides. Anyone walking outside in those conditions would have been risking serious damage to their skin, eyes, and lungs.

  “Hello?” She gripped the knot of her towel between her breasts. She hadn’t planned ahead well, as far as clothing went. Her clothes were in her suitcase, which was stored in a shallow bunker along with her tent and the rest of the visitors’ gear.

  “Over here. On the bed,” Luke said.

  Autumn pulled the door open a little more and looked to the left. Both men were reading on the bed. “I must have lost track of time. Is it that late?”

  Alex grunted. “No. We’re running on auxiliary power right now. The sensors say the solar panels are too clogged to activate the swipers to clear themselves, and I can’t get outside to clean them manually right now. I’ll have to wait until the wind tapers off.”

  “Oh. Well, hopefully, I charged my tablet enough. I can do some research. I pulled a bunch of articles earlier and was waiting for the translation app to finish running them through the Jekhani module. I’m praying that they’re readable.”

  She crouched in front of the washer and peered at the timer. It appeared to be stuck. For that matter, there was no sound coming out of the machine. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “Washer stopped mid-cycle.”

  “You all right in there?” Luke asked.

  “Um.” She cringed. “I put all my clothes in the machine, and now all that’s between me and the air is this wet towel.”

  “I’ll get you a shirt.”

  She heard rustling, then footsteps. A moment later, Luke dangled a flannel shirt through the door gap.

  “It’s even clean,” he said, sounding somewhat pleased with himself.

  A laugh fell out of her mouth, and she really couldn’t help it. Taking it, she murmured her thanks and then bumped the door closed with her hip.

  “Want a cup of tea?” he asked, apparently still just outside the door. “The water’s still hot enough to steep a bag in.”

  “Thank you. I think I do. Maybe that’ll chase away the wind chill from my bones.”

  After drying her hair the best she could, stuffing the wet towel into the hamper, and donning Luke’s shirt—which, thankfully, was long enough to cover her scandalous parts—she stepped into the main ship’s area and accepted a steaming mug from him.

  “Pulled out the blankets from the chest for you.” He retreated to the bed and picked back up the Terran magazine he’d been reading. His sister must have brought it from Earth.

  Autumn loved the escapism current events magazines provided. She hoped she’d have an opportunity to squirrel it away from him when he was done.

  “If you need help converting the seat to a bunk again, just let me know. No way of knowing when the wind will pass. You may as well spend the night.”

  She certainly hadn’t been enthusiastic about setting out for the tent staging area in the dark and making camp again. Knowing she wouldn’t be thrown out on her ass the moment the weather conditions improved was nice.

  Powering up her tablet and putting the backlight on the lowest level to conserve the battery, she curled up on the same seat she’d occupied during the trip down to The Barrens and pulled a blanket onto her lap. She took a deep breath, enlarged the font on the screen, and settled in.

  Ten minutes later, Luke laughed.

  She looked up at him, thinking he’d found some amusement in his own literature, but he was staring right at her.

  “I’m not sure I want to know,” she said. “What’s funny?”

  “You are. I keep looking up and tracking your gaze. You’re sort of sweeping the page rather than reading, and you haven’t tapped the screen in five minutes.”

  Closing her eyes, she settled lower in the seat and sighed. Then she pulled the blanket up to her chin. The ship was getting cold fast. “I’m not having the greatest success in parsing this stuff. I’m used to technical literature, but the poor translation quality combined with the fact that I’m reading on a screen rather than on paper is making this a grueling read.”

  “You still read on paper?”

  Groaning, she closed her eyes and hugged the tablet against her chest under the blanket. “Go on and tease me if that makes you feel good. There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already heard from my father.” And her father hadn’t been teasing when he’d called her things like “stunted” and worse.

  You get that stupid shit from your mother, I guess,” he’d say, and she’d bite her tongue and wait until he found some other person to harass.

  Her mother was the smartest person she knew, but her English still wasn’t completely fluent. People underestimated her because of that.

  “What?” There was a note of undisguised surprise in Luke’s voice. “There’s nothing wrong with reading on paper as long as you’re not treating the books as disposable. Also, most book producers nowadays have access to their own tree farms. Overhead is a lot lower than it used to be since they ship directly to the consumer in most instances.”

  “I don’t treat them as disposable.” She closed her eyes. “Every book I own, I use for reference again and again. They’re all dog-eared and have dozens of fluorescent flags marking specific passages.” She shrugged, not that he could see it. “I guess I just absorb information better when it’s…more tactile. Using a finger to highlight passages on a tablet screen just doesn’t do the same thing for me.”

  “Nothing quite like thumbing through pages looking for something in particular, either.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How many books do you have?”

  “I’m afraid to say.”

  He’d think she was excessively indulgent or wasteful, and she wasn’t either of those things. She wasn’t a woman prone to vices and luxuries. Her mother had never let her get used to having nice things, likely fearing that at some point, the other shoe would drop, and they’d get blackballed from renting anywhere in New York and get thrown out onto the streets.

  When she wondered if Luke’s silence meant that a response wouldn’t be forthcoming, she opened her eyes and found him carefully wriggling Alex’s tablet out of the sleeping man’s hands. He somehow managed to adjust Alex’s head and situate him in a more horizontal position without waking him.

  “Must be fascinating stuff he was reading,” she murmured.

  “Nah, he always does that. F
alls asleep if he stays still for too long. Perfectly caveman of him, I guess. Sometimes, the body will take what it needs whether or not you intend it to.”

  The tender way he smoothed Alex’s hair back from his face made Autumn’s chest constrict with yearning. Perhaps that was what the crush of a soul felt like—of a will being squashed under the weight of too many years of loneliness and rejection.

  Again, Autumn was alone, and that wasn’t Luke’s fault. Perhaps he hadn’t been completely honest with himself when he’d signed up for the match site, but she hadn’t been honest at all. She hadn’t known what she needed, only what she wanted.

  Or what she thought she’d wanted.

  Getting clear of her father’s long reach was only part of it. She’d also gotten far enough away that she could actually love someone…herself included.

  She didn’t realize she was crying or that Luke had left the bed until he was right in front of her and the pads of his thumbs were swiping tears from her cheeks.

  He didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask questions.

  He peeled away her blanket and took away her tablet. He turned it off and set it on a shelf overhead. After another swipe of her cheeks, he pulled her to her feet.

  “Probably going to get colder,” he said. “No use sitting there shivering all night.” Pressing his palm to the small of her back, he guided her toward the side of the bed.

  Creasing her brow, she looked up at him.

  “Go ahead. Your choice. Middle or edge. Alex burns hot in sleep. If you tend to be a cold sleeper, you’re probably better off in the middle.”

  Autumn rubbed the hem of her borrowed shirt between her thumbs and forefingers and looked at Alex. He was positioned facing Luke’s side and had his arm slung across his pillow and onto Luke’s. She might have made a different decision if he’d been facing the other way.

  “I’ll…sleep on the edge,” she said.

  “Okay. I’ll try not to roll over you.” He climbed onto the bed, chuckling. “Can’t make any promises, though.” He patted the space to his left and she climbed in, being careful to keep the shirt down as she settled beneath the covers.