Chapter 6
Chapter six
Ra’odah
I turned, watching Logan stalk off down the corridor, his hands in his pockets.
He didn’t look upset by the conversation we’d just had, but perhaps I had misinterpreted it.
It had sounded so much like he was telling me he had feelings for me, and almost as if he’d allowed Olzi to mark him to erase those feelings.
Maybe I had misinterpreted the whole thing.
My stomach turned, and I sank down on a bench, covering my face with my hands.
Even if I had misinterpreted that conversation, he was off limits now, bound to a known Vul criminal.
Why would he do such a thing? It had almost sounded like he’d sacrificed his future to find out what Olzi knew about the Vul still stationed on earth.
A feminine laugh startled me, and I looked up to see Logan’s sister, Mia, walking with a human soldier named Nora. The two of them had likely bonded over being the only human women on the space station at present, but their bond seemed closer than some lifelong Aunga’ri friendships I had.
“You okay, Doc?”
Did I look visibly upset? I tried to compose myself, running a hand under my eyelids in case I’d been doing something unseemly like crying.
Though there was nothing really to cry about.
I had a slight, very mild infatuation with a man, and he had bound himself permanently to another alien. No big deal.
“I’m fine, why do you ask?” I smiled up at the two women, hopefully back into my professional self.
Sure, my hands shook and my breathing didn’t steady, but they probably didn’t notice that.
I would not cry. It would be absolutely ridiculous to cry right now.
Mia sat next to me, reaching for my hand, then changing her mind at the last minute.
“You don’t look okay,” she said. “Perhaps you’ve come down with something?”
“No,” I whispered. “I’m not ill.”
“Are you sure?” Nora asked. “You look sort of… pale. Do Aunga’ri with light skin tones get pale?”
I laughed softly. “I suppose we do. Thank you for your concern. I had some bad news, and it’s taking me a little while to process it.”
“Oh no, bad news?” Mia asked, her eyes widening in alarm. “Well, if you need a friend to talk, we’re here for you, okay? Though I suppose you have friends on the ship.”
Nora snorted. “An Aunga’ri making friends? I mean, no offense, but seriously?”
“People always say ‘no offense’ when they say offensive things,” Mia said.
“Oh,” I felt a flush rising to my cheeks.
“It wasn’t offensive, it’s true. Our culture does not encourage intimate relationships of any kind.
I have friends, but they are more like what humans would consider associates, from what I gather.
They’re lovely to eat lunch with and discuss the latest medical technology, but I would not speak to any of my friends about something personal.
” I tilted my head. “Of course, I’m not really sure about the protocol here.
This… difficulty is something new to my kind. ”
“Ooh. Romance! She has a romance!” Mia rubbed her hands together, looking like she’d just discovered something incredible and not my humiliating secret. “Tell us. Who is it? A hot doctor? Your work rival? A sexy off-limits intern?”
Nora blinked. “How many romance novels have you been reading?”
“Well, I can’t exactly commute in to the University of Montana and resume the study I was working on in the labs.
What else is a bored girl to do but read?
” Mia asked, pulling out her Earth communication device.
She swiped her fingers across the screen, then waved it at us.
“My latest obsession is this author. She writes historical romance, heaving bosoms and all.”
“What’s a romance novel?” I asked, frowning at the two women.
And that was a question that Mia was very prepared to answer.
She spent the next few minutes scrolling through her book collection, most of which seemed to have bare-chested men on the covers, or couples kissing, or things that were even more salacious than that.
“You’ll have to listen to the audiobooks, of course, unless you’ve learned to read English?” she was muttering, clicking the download button on a few items. “Do you like audiobooks?”
“Audiobooks?”
I widened my eyes at Nora, and she shrugged, chuckling. “They’re just love stories. I think Mia enjoys the ones with lots of sex in them. It might help you understand humans to listen to one, though. Who’s the person you’re having feelings for?”
I blushed and ducked my head. “It would be better to keep that to myself. It’s nothing; a mere infatuation. I simply never considered that it could happen to me, so I’m thrown.”
“Okay, you have Bluetooth on your Aunga’ri communicator device, right?” Mia asked, ignoring us.
“Are you sure I want these novels?”
“They’re audiobooks,” she said. “You don’t have to listen to them, but if you feel curious about love, and feel too shy to ask, they could be a nice resource.”
Nora cleared her throat. “Bear in mind that they can be a little unrealistic.”
“Says the woman married to two insanely sexy aliens,” Mia said, laughing.
I sighed, accepting that I may be better off just accepting the books and never reading them than trying to argue. So I showed her how to transfer files to my communicator, a little embarrassed by some of the book covers. Even so, it all made me feel warm all over in a way that I wasn’t used to.
“I’ll listen to them tonight,” I said, although I was a little afraid to. “I’d better get back to the lab.”
Mia pouted. “Come on, let’s go to lunch together. You don’t have to tell us who you have a crush on, but we’re still good company, and I’m so damn bored.”
Nora glanced at Mia, then back at me. “Mia used to be a scientist. Now she’s just waiting around while her husbands do things. I don’t think that suits her, so she annoys me with it.”
Mia elbowed Nora, and I smiled, thinking that I liked the rapport between the two women and wondering how I could get to be a part of something like that.
An easy relationship with a little joking and a little teasing, but someone you could trust with your troubles.
Was that really as terrifying as it sounded?
“I uh…” I trailed off, unable to think of another excuse.
Another Aunga’ri would have accepted my first excuse and graciously moved on.
“Sorry, Mia is an extrovert. She’s unstoppable when it comes to stuff like this,” Nora said, waving. “You can join us if you like, but if you don’t feel comfortable, it’s fine. Maybe another time?”
“Yes. Maybe another time,” I said. Because I did like the possibility that could happen in the future.
As I walked back towards my office, I frowned down at the audio file Mia had sent me, then clicked on it, and was immediately transported into a story.
It was lovely, really. The woman’s voice was soothing.
The story was about two people who were bickering in silly ways, but both secretly yearned for each other.
And then I got to Chapter 9. My cheeks heated, and I set the communicator down.
Then picked it back up. Then set it down again.
Mia listened to words like this? I picked it back up, feeling a strange rush of warmth in my core, and an almost unbearable urge to touch myself.
And when I closed my eyes and imagined what the woman was saying, the only man who would come to mind was Logan.
And strangely, there was a beautiful Vul soldier in the background.
I hadn’t even met Olzi, so that seemed odd.