Chapter 5
Ellax
T he blitza should not have worn off as quickly as it did, I thought, observing her from the corner of my eye as I led her towards my ship. She had acted like a female with sufficient blitza in her body to make her pliant and agreeable. Exactly how I liked my females. That she had been attracted to me was obvious. I had been with plenty of females, of many different species, including humans, to know when they were sleeping with me because of attraction or because of my rank and status.
This female, this human female, was acting on attraction. That, and, I surmised, the blitza was urging her to surrender and do something she normally would not do. From what I had garnered from our conversation, she had likely lived a quiet, sheltered sort of life there on Earth until her husband's affairs had shattered her existence.
I did not think it was the beverage wearing off that had altered her mood as much as memories of her former husband. She was a woman angry at men who cheated in their relationships since she had been on the painful end of that.
She would not like you very much , a sober little voice spoke up.
Ruthlessly, I shoved it away. What she did not know would not harm her. After all, if anything were to happen between us, it would be for one night and one night only. After tonight, I would never see this female again. My ship was leaving in the morning. I had thought Drixus would be an excellent diversion from my problems. Instead, the females, the music, the gaming, and even the drink that had often so enchanted me throughout the years now rang hollow in the face of my estrangement from Caide, not to mention the loss of my wife and son.
I'd assumed I did not care. The pain had not overwhelmed me as it should have, yet I was finding their loss hard to forget. If Drixus could not shake these dark thoughts from my mind, what could?
The confrontation with my only living son, not to mention his rejection, had left me feeling hollow. Questioning everything I had ever done in my life; every decision I had made. I wanted to abandon the pleasure houses and go home. I wanted to sit in the gardens of my palace in silence. I wanted to meditate upon the stars and lose my consciousness in the vastness of the galaxy. It was a practice I had followed as a younger man, when I'd judged being an Elder was such an important position that I might use it to change lives and sway the course of history. Somewhere along the way, the meditation had fallen out of practice, as had my ideals.
A young male's foolishness, I thought bitterly.
I could not help comparing myself at that age with Caide, the son I had just left. I saw so much of myself in that boy that I had never seen in his brother. Somehow, I did not think Caide would be lured away from his hard work, his good intentions, or even his love for his human wife as I had been by the luxury and grandeur of my position.
The changes had been gradual. In a position of authority, surrounded by powerful Asterions and other species, working with the Interstellar Coalition, making decisions that affected the lives of millions across our galaxy, it was easy to become inflated with a sense of one's own importance. To begin to see others as less than yourself, their value less, their lives less, their opinions less. Everything less. Afterward, it had become easier to forget my original ideals and turn toward doing what I wanted.
I was stressed from a long day of meetings with the Coalition. Why should I not unwind and entertain myself on the pleasure planets?
My wife was out drinking cansta with her friends. Not blitza, though, like the human female on my arm. That would have been too strong for her. Seeing she was not home when I needed a female to release into and relax, why should I not call the maidservant to my bed? My wife should have been home to tend to my needs She was not. As for the maid? What did her desires matter? She was merely a female paid to scrub my floors. She should be honored an Asterion Elder had even glanced her way a second time, much less taken her to his bed.
So, the thinking had gone, the patterns had begun, and somehow, I had found myself enmeshed in a lifestyle I had never foreseen. A lifestyle I'd not questioned in years—not until my wife was killed and my son lay dying. Not until I was pacing the floor outside his sickroom, praying to the stars, to any deity who might listen, that he might live so I would not have to reckon with finding or producing another heir.
Not until my bastard son, Caide, had chosen a simple life on a war-torn planet and a human female of no rank or value, beyond that of a breeder, over returning to Asterion with me. Try as I might to ignore the questions, they dug into my soul like needles pricking my skin. Why would he—why would anyone —choose that life, that female, over the life I could have given him? And yet, Caide had disdained my offer. As if the life I led was so repugnant to him that he would never consider it, unless for the sole purpose of truly using his power to help Asterions, humans, and other species.
My turn of mind was dark as I led the human female aboard my ship, granted unquestioning access by the Asterion guard at the sliding door. We passed the Doreethan female who had been waiting on me since I came aboard. I had suspected her interest earlier in sharing my bed. I was convinced of it now, by the glare she shot the human female accompanying me.
Perhaps all I had endured the last few weeks was granting me new insight. The part of me that had long cloaked myself in self-importance as an Elder—and now a Lead Advisor—simply did not care. She would do her job and continue to serve me whether she was annoyed that I was bringing another female into my chamber or not.
Speaking of which, once we were inside my room, the human female glanced about, lips pursed. Finally, she said, "It's not much bigger than mine, actually. It is a little fancier."
This irritated me. The implication that an Asterion Elder and a Lead Advisor on the Interstellar Coalition did not have quarters aboard a space ship much better than those assigned to a lowly human female of absolutely no consequence.
"I have plenty of luxuries," I growled, stalking past her. I pressed a button on the wall, beneath a gilt mirror, and a hidden tray slid out, flipping itself aright. Along with it came a stand of carved, gleaming wood containing a row of liquor bottles.
"Whew, okay, that's pretty nice," the female said, approaching slowly. "Some of this writing I don't recognize and can't read," she added, touching a couple of labels lightly with her fingertips.
I gave her a questioning look. "They are from other planets in the Coalition. I am not surprised you're unfamiliar with their writing, but how are you to be an administrative assistant on a space ship if you cannot read Asterion writing?"
She flushed a little, whether from embarrassment or anger I could not tell.
"I didn't say I couldn't read Asterion writing. They actually brought me on board because I've had the translating chip implanted," she said. "Not all humans have it, especially women. But I was given one years ago due to my husband's job. I had to be there at official functions with him and needed to be able to speak with the Asterions or whoever else might attend. And, for that matter, I do read Asterion writing. Not as fluently as English, but I can read it."
"Ah." I reached for a tall green bottle, unscrewing the top. "Then, even if you cannot write our language well, you can speak…"
"Any number of languages, thanks to the chip," she finished softly.
She retrieved a crystal glass, holding it out to me. "What is this?" she asked as I poured the blue-purple liquid into her cup.
"Lyven," I answered, "a sort of wine made from the blossoms of lyvent trees on my home planet. Try it."
She raised the glass to her mouth, took a cautious sip. I watched her face, knowing the exact moment the liquid passed her lips and swirled across her tongue. Her expression smoothed; her eyes brightened. She swallowed, lowering the glass.
"Oh my," she said, shaking her glass a little to swish the liquid. "That's…that's amazing. I've never tasted anything like it."
"No, and you won't elsewhere," I agreed, filling my own glass. "It is a drink unique to my planet."
She sipped it again. And again.
What I did not tell her was lyven was even more dangerous than the blitza she had been consuming earlier. Blitza certainly held its own deadliness, but it tended to strike so quickly that one was aware of becoming intoxicated. Lyven built up slower, steadier, and so gracefully you truly were not aware of what was happening until you were too far gone to retain control of your senses.
I likened it to mating, the pairing of the bodies. Taking a sip, I eyed the female over the rim of my glass, my focus roving over what curves I could see beneath her functional blouse and slacks. Sometimes one wanted raw, uninhibited mating for the sole purpose of mating and pleasure. That was blitza.
Lyven was the dance, the seduction, the teasing. The gradual buildup of discovering the desire to mate, even if one or both was reluctant to admit it. A touch, a glance, a caress of a forbidden area, a kiss. Until both were naked and skin was against skin, and mouths were exploring and tongues meeting. Until the glorious and inevitable conclusion of body joining body. Until…
"How many women have you brought back here and showed your magic bar?"
The female spoke, shattering my thoughts, along with my sensual daydreams.
Mostly of her in my bed, but she did not need to know this.
Yet.
"Magic…bar?"
Was this some coarse human reference to—
"Yes, this," she clarified, waving a hand over the shelf of liquor. "A bar is what we call a place to go drink. They used to be more common than they are now. And it's like magic because of the way it popped up out of the wall." She shrugged. "Sorry, lame description, I guess."
Human and Asterion descriptions did not always align, even with the translating chip, but I grasped her meaning.
"Why do you wish to know?" I asked, arching a brow.
She shrugged again, drinking her lyven. "I don't know. Just curious, I guess. Wondering if you're the playboy who uses alcohol to seduce tons of women or if you only try it every now and then when you're lonely."
There was the tiniest edge to her tone that warned me she would not like my answer if I told her the truth.
Choosing not to be forthright, I said, "I have a proposal. I will give you the answer. In turn, you must answer any question I ask."
Her brows lifted. "So, like a game of twenty questions then?"
"Five, ten, twenty…what matters?" I waffled a hand. "And there is more."
"More?"
"For every question we ask and answer we give, we must take a drink."
She leaned against the wall, holding her crystal glass by the stem. "We're already drinking."
"This will make us drink more."
She tilted her head, considering. "What have I got to lose? Who goes first?"