A Wider Sky Ch. 07

"What's your name?" I finally ask my dance partner, leaning into him. He had a great charming smile as he just started at me like a mute. "What's your name?" I repeated. Shaking his head pointing to the ceiling. Again I ask a bit louder, "Your name?!"

"Oh?!" Recognition of my question came to his eyes. "Lance Saladin. You are an awesome dancer..."

"Kiowa. Thanks," I pursed my lips in a smile and swayed more into Lance. His hands moved around my body to my hips, pulling me closer to him. The beat hit heavy pulses awakening something basic and feral within our brains.

The entire room seemed to slow down into a deep sway of sea bodies. Corporately digging deeper into each others bodies, hips pressed closer together bending and swirling nearer to the ground.

Lance leaned over me brushing his sharp nose against my neck. His mope of messy auburn hair was so soft to touch, it tickled my ears pleasantly. Impulsive, I know, but I wanted to drag my hands through his hair feeling it tease between my fingers.

Everything about a apropos and just what i needed. Lance was tall and lanky unlike Matthias who was my height. He was hard in the swirl of hormones and his sweet patient attentive to me. His chest and arms that held me so warm. No longer was I stiff and awkward, I was becoming intenerate to his masculinity. With delicate respect, he guided my head to lay on his shoulder which made me feel cherish. The simple move chased away my abandonment from earlier in the evening.

Part of me wanted to pull away and admit it was the brainwave beats in the music that was causing these feelings of attachment. But the other part wanted to just relax and melt more into his body.

"You are so sexy, Kiowa." He whispered in my ear, his hands drifted down my back to cup my butt. His hands were inflamed with heat that was so soothing.

The music picked up again into a different beat that made everyone start to jump up and down with arms pumping in the air. The room roared amain with cheer. We stopped our slow mating like dance and just looked around watching everyone shout a chat to a song I had no idea what it was. My gentle giant peering down at me held my hips steadfast. We couldn't help but giggle. Then Lance joined in with the rest of the crowd pumping his fists in the air as the room called out the chant in Y'vroi.

Wow, the language. It was the first time I had ever heard it. It sounded like a romantic Latin yet had the deep timber of a Germanic or Asiatic language with a slight lilt of inflection.

My eyes swept over the room looking for Gaelen. He was still on the couch with Sebol. His arm also hung in the air and he closed his eyes, mouth in a solid line, as if in prayer.

When the song ended everyone cheered and clapped, others started reciting the words again even though the music had changed. Lance pulled me off the dance floor towards the refreshments our host laid out.

The dishes looked so odd like translucent slugs and sparkling inedible crystals that would rip your stomach and esophagus to shreds if swallowed.

"Are you hungry?" Lance took the opportunity to lean into to me as he pulled two plates from the stack. What a gentleman but alas I shook my head with a dim smile. "Are you sure, this is great. Sebol went all out. I suppose that's a perk when your father is a founder of the college."

Graciously, I waited for him to fill his plate with the Y'vroi expensive delicacies and followed him to the staircase outside that lead to the terrace roof.

"What an amazing view?" I said as I sat down on the stairs and Lance joined me sitting close as if to try to use his body heat to keep me warm.

"Isn't it? My favorite building, no doubt is the Main Building which was designed by a human."

I looked at the tall tower that seemed to animate itself in the sky like a staircase climbing to the heavens.

"It is amazing. I didn't know it was designed by a human."

"Yeah, I can't believe it either. The human architect designed it post-Eclipse as an homage to the Tower of Babel. But instead of trying to reach God, it is meant to look like the steps to Y'vroi's home planet, connecting our former home to our new home. Amazing right? It's so real. Blending themes of architecture from both planets as it reaches the middle. Maybe he was part alien," he joked.

As if that human and alien relationships were ever allowed even pre-Eclipse. I took quick stock of my taught and felt better about being slighted by Gaelen, it wasn't like it could go anywhere anyways.

"I bet the middle is the most expensive offices."

"Of course, that's the International Offices. Everything happens in the middle of the building. The world leaders meet in the center of the building. The colony managers meet and have their staff in there too. The world's scientists and technological developers all have desks and labs on the floors of that building." He looked off as if he wanted to grab the offices that radiated a beam of light that jutted a lined across horizon of the city's skyline. "One day, I will be in those offices."

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to be a colony manager. It is the most lucrative job."

A colony manager? We had known that our governor had pretty much no power other than to listen to what the aliens dictated. I had always thought the governor was under a President or a congressional body. I would have never guess our fate was in the hands of a business man; that was more like a modern desk jockey with a cubicle, in a high-rise office tower, drooling our the rules, regulations or even the mandates to turn on the switch to power our homes.

"What kind of manager would you be?" my curiosity was catching up to the cat quickly.

He pulled me close to him, "The best kind, sweetheart. You can count on that."

A fresh breeze flew across the terrace causing Sebol's beautiful flowers to shudder with it, Lance pulled his jacket off and draped it over my shoulders.

I liked Lance and I wanted to become his friend because perhaps he could be the key to make our lives better.

"Can I ask you do something?"

"What?" Before I could answer, Lance tipped my chin up towards him and pressed his soft lips to mine.

The kiss fast and strong. His cologne was a perfect match to the kiss of black licorice and spice. I matched his kiss with a second one and he in-turn rewarded my courage with a third with more fervent kiss. I was doing flips in my mind. This was my first real kiss. Matthais kissed me, but he had never meant it for anything more than an exertion of whim. My proximity was beneficial for him to experiment his sudden proclivity to want to practice kissing without sincerity. Matthais was never attracted to me.

His tongue smoothed over my bottom lip before capturing it pulling with his teeth. He wrapped my hands around my neck and I gasped against his lips. This was moving so fast. I didn't want to seem like a novice so I combed my hands through his hair. I moan with the lost inhibitions only pleased him more causing him to groan with pleasure against my mouth.

"You are very sweet." He said pulling away from me to take a cleansing breath of air. "I could kiss you again."

My fingers traced his ears and he melted with a satisfied goofy smile of ecstasy, "Why not do it again,"

He pulled me into his lap and held me close before tipping my head back into another kiss, this time his tongue teased into mine. I was now melting poetically into lust.

"Am I interrupting something," a familiar deep voice chuckled from the window. "Time to go Bookmouse."

I sat up, my turn to take a cleansing breath of air. I didn't want to go, part of me was happy that Gaelen kept his promise to make sure he saw that I got back to campus in one piece, the other part wanted to stay with Lance to see where things would go.

"See you in class, Kiowa," Lance said as we both stood up and stretched in a way that mimic our reluctance to leave each other.

I nodded simply and then passed his jacket to him. I wanted to be cool, unaffected and more alluring but not seeming too interested, but I know my blush couldn't lie. He was an amazing kisser. What a pleasant surprise. My first kiss in the non-friend-zone. I couldn't stop the pride that made my heart speed up. My first real kiss given to me by a tall alien with a messy mop of auburn hair that could change the world for good.

***

Gaelen hoofed in front of me to the train station not saying a word to me. I tucked my hands deeper into my pockets because the chill I was receiving from his frosty behavior. He was making me uncomfortable. He skipped stairs, bounding up to the train platform to get away from me as fast as he could and still escort me. He paid for our fares before I reached the top. I trailed behind him on the platform, not wanting to encourage whatever it was that had made his so sore with me.

I sat down on a silver bench and starred at the ground while he paced back in forth with long single strides in front of me. I really had no clue what happened at the party while I was on the terrace. Whatever it was, it had infuriated so much that he wouldn't speak to me. He just threw darted embattled, green eyes at me.

"I was worried about you!" He shouted finally. He leaned over me, trapping me with his long arms. His breath was minty fresh but his eyes were an inferno. I couldn't help but blush. He exhaled, quieting down and collapsed into the seat next to me as all the angry tension evaporated from his body. "Oh, not with that blush now. I was worried about you. I couldn't find you anywhere." His anger which seemed to tapper was mounting again with every word.

"I just went to the terrace to get fresh air."

"Fresh air," he snorted. "You were making out with Lance."

"What do you care?!" I yelled, "You seemed quite occupied on the couch."

"You left the dance floor and I couldn't find you." My breath hitched at this acknowledgement, he had been watching me- strategically placing himself on the couch so he could watch me. "You made me promise to take care of you and you ran off to make out with some guy who asked you to dance! I looked all over the loft for you- worried."

My eyelashes hid as best they could my embarrassment and relief. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize-"

"No, you didn't!" He took a long breath of the crisp cool fall air, his hands combing through his hair as if to alleviate his stress. "So do you like this guy?"

"I don't know I just met him. Do you like Sebol?" I countered trying to hide any jealousy I had bubbling and brewing all night.

He leaned back against the bench, again his legs sprawled long and again anxious fingers comb through his midnight blue iridescent hair.

"I don't know.. I do like her but I am not sure she's the one."

"I don't know if I believe in the one." I mean, I used to but my one married Natalia and Matthais was my soulmate without a doubt. "I can't believe that there is only one person in the entire world for one other person. Not when there are so many types. Of people that offer so many positive perspectives and experiences to a match."

"How can you say that?" He looked at me like I was insane. "You can't reverse what is meant to be?"

"Maybe there are more than one meant-to-be's. Maybe what you think is an only-option is still a choice. You know?"

He again stared at me with chartreuse windows to his soul that were so deep with question and intrigued I felt goosebumps rise.

"You cease to amaze me." He attempted to smile but his lips aligned in a worried line. "How can you go against the name that is written on your soul? What if I do want to love someone else but the name on my soul is forcing me to love that person."

My lips matched his worried line, I had delved into a part of alien life that was completely foreign to me. I wasn't sure if he was speaking in literal terms or in the most romantic illustration of love and will that I had ever heard.

I erred on literal. "Do you know anyone who won against predestination?" Nervously I waited for him to chuckle in his sweet way for my misunderstanding but instead my stomach went sour watching his body fill with a deeper anxious.

"My brother, Thaddeus," he said in a near whisper. "He fell in love with a girl his final year of university. She was so much his match we were all sure she was the one written on his soul. But then, during Spring Break during graduation, they took a trip to the Southern Hemisphere to monitor the occupation and re-establishment. My brother was working with the General's son down there and the three of them became friends. Shortly before leaving in the middle of the night while hold her in their tent, her soul revealed the name written on it." He paused as if his brother's pain was his own. "No I don't believe that you can change fate."

I blinked away my confusion but curiosity broke through. "Did you brother try to show her that they had developed a relationship? They had history, they were in love, it doesn't make sense."

"Once her chest glowed the general's sons name, she didn't love my brother any less, she just began to love the general's son more."

I leaned over in the bench considering all that I had learned. I felt like my head was going to exploded the things I was taking in minute by minute living in the realm these short 72 hours. I had considered it so unfair to not have the chance to pick your own career path and having the aliens choose it for you with no regards to your wants, desires or loves. But to not have a choice in who you fell in love with was a low blow, and it was the first time I sympathized for the Y'vroi.

"Did your brother's soul reveal his mate?"

"He was so distraught by his heartbreak he went into the cities district and sought after a soul reader who opened his soul, before it was ready, and found out the name of his mate." Gaelen yawned and stretched. "He hasn't met her yet. So its just a matter of time but he gets nervous anytime he meets a girl named Isobelo." Gaelen chuckled and his body seemed to relax. "I considered going to the soul reader too, but I think there is a reason why the soul reveals the name when it does."

"Maybe because you truly start to fall in love with that person and then the soul inscribes it on your heart. Maybe it is blank until you meet the person."

"I doubt that Bookmouse, but I admire your optimism." He stood up and looked down the platform waiting for the train to pull in. "So do you think Lance is written on your soul?" A single raven eyebrow jumped up framing his beautiful inquisitive expression that could help but make me smile.

"I don't know. I don't think so we just met."

"Well if your chest starts to pulse and project a name tonight then we'll know." He grin deviously which I knew signaled for a tease coming up. "Lancelot and Kiowa kissing in a spaceship. First come the soul lights then comes the mating ring, snug like a bug with a baby shot from a star.." He sung and I couldn't help but smack his arm.

*****

Dear Readers,

So we are learning a little bit more about Gaelen and the Y'vori college student's. Kiowa is adapting to life in The Realm and has a new ally. I guess you need allies when the world is gone to the aliens.

Thank you for your comments and votes. They help tremendously and keep me going. I am updating previous chapters posted as well with slight and major changes. Chapter 1 I've posted a question regarding pacing that I hope you can share your thoughts on.

Cheers,

~Talyis