Chapter One
Azure Rettca knew finding the leader of the Underground Union
Movement in a crowd of eighty thousand was insane. But with her hormones raging
and a forced marriage contract hanging over her head, she was desperate enough
to plead insanity and look anyway.
Terrified her father would find her and drag her home to the
male she despised, Azure searched the Equate Space Station located in World
Two, Nashete territory. Here, every few years when casualties grew gruesomely
high from the Great Galaxy War, the two populated worlds joined together to
talk peace.
Nothing ever came of these discussions, Azure thought as she
tucked a curl of her powder-blue hair behind her ear and squirmed on a long,
narrow bench against a scrolling info-wall. She watched the two
peoples—Nashete, who were larger and darker, and Vitca, her people, who were
smaller and paler—walk by in racially clean clusters, sneering and threatening
each other. Their racism made her sick.
Where were all the dual bloods her father spoke of with such
disdain, the offspring of Nashete and Vitca intimates whose trinity-of-being—body,
heart and spirit—fit together as pieces of a whole? She saw none or, more
accurately, smelled none. Dual bloods were supposed to carry both the citrus
smell of Nashete and the sweet smell of Vitca blood in a combination that her
cousin Corra once described as peace wrapped in lemon sugar.
Corra… Tears sprang to Azure’s eyes as she thought of her
cousin forced into a marriage with a male who was all muscle and meanness, a
male who’d given Corra anything but peace since their marriage contract had
been sealed months ago.
Peace. She shook her head—peace was impossible when
the majority of the two races refused even to mingle. Hell, if weapons were
allowed on the space station she’d run away to, they’d all be dead a few
minutes into the discourse.
This was the most obtuse, bigoted, stubborn group of beings
she’d ever had the misfortune of seeing, and that was saying something given
the fact her family, from whom she’d never been away before, were pureblooded
Vitca who prided themselves on their separatist lifestyle and support of the
never-ending war.
“I’m such a moron. Finding him is impossible in this crowd,”
she whispered to herself as a very large, very hot Nashete male stepped in
front of her. Her gaze locked with his for the briefest of moments and then she
took in his shoulder-length, blond, wavy hair that shone like gold, his broad
shoulders, which were squared at attention and, as he turned away…an ass made
for cupping.
Despite his unbelievable good looks, he had an aura of
sadness so strong that she had to fight not to cry. Something was horribly
wrong with him. His extraordinary eyes showed that his soul had not only been
broken but set on fire, flayed alive, leaving a twisted, crippled mutation that
could never heal.
His overwhelming sorrow cooled the sexual ache burning
through Azure that signaled she had reached maturity and was more than ready to
mate. But not with him. As hot as he was, her body knew he was not her
intimate.
At least gorgeous guy’s deep depression was helping her control
her newly awakened hormones, which were screaming for relief that only her
intimate could give. Still, it was really too bad that this male was not the
one she was meant to spend her life with. She had the impossible impulse to try
to heal the shattered pieces of him.
But if he were her intimate, he sure as hell would not be
scanning the crowd as if he was looking for something or someone else. And he
matched only one of her trinity-of-being, her body. Her heart and spirit were
not drawn to him.
A young, babyish voice cut through the babble of the crowd.
“Pemmi!”
The male Azure was beginning to think of as the gold god
turned toward a baby bot—a robot sold while in a state of learning who, like a
sentient child, bonded to its “parent” and learned from experience. Only the
very
Azure Rettca knew finding the leader of the Underground Union
Movement in a crowd of eighty thousand was insane. But with her hormones raging
and a forced marriage contract hanging over her head, she was desperate enough
to plead insanity and look anyway.
Terrified her father would find her and drag her home to the
male she despised, Azure searched the Equate Space Station located in World
Two, Nashete territory. Here, every few years when casualties grew gruesomely
high from the Great Galaxy War, the two populated worlds joined together to
talk peace.
Nothing ever came of these discussions, Azure thought as she
tucked a curl of her powder-blue hair behind her ear and squirmed on a long,
narrow bench against a scrolling info-wall. She watched the two
peoples—Nashete, who were larger and darker, and Vitca, her people, who were
smaller and paler—walk by in racially clean clusters, sneering and threatening
each other. Their racism made her sick.
Where were all the dual bloods her father spoke of with such
disdain, the offspring of Nashete and Vitca intimates whose trinity-of-being—body,
heart and spirit—fit together as pieces of a whole? She saw none or, more
accurately, smelled none. Dual bloods were supposed to carry both the citrus
smell of Nashete and the sweet smell of Vitca blood in a combination that her
cousin Corra once described as peace wrapped in lemon sugar.
Corra… Tears sprang to Azure’s eyes as she thought of her
cousin forced into a marriage with a male who was all muscle and meanness, a
male who’d given Corra anything but peace since their marriage contract had
been sealed months ago.
Peace. She shook her head—peace was impossible when
the majority of the two races refused even to mingle. Hell, if weapons were
allowed on the space station she’d run away to, they’d all be dead a few
minutes into the discourse.
This was the most obtuse, bigoted, stubborn group of beings
she’d ever had the misfortune of seeing, and that was saying something given
the fact her family, from whom she’d never been away before, were pureblooded
Vitca who prided themselves on their separatist lifestyle and support of the
never-ending war.
“I’m such a moron. Finding him is impossible in this crowd,”
she whispered to herself as a very large, very hot Nashete male stepped in
front of her. Her gaze locked with his for the briefest of moments and then she
took in his shoulder-length, blond, wavy hair that shone like gold, his broad
shoulders, which were squared at attention and, as he turned away…an ass made
for cupping.
Despite his unbelievable good looks, he had an aura of
sadness so strong that she had to fight not to cry. Something was horribly
wrong with him. His extraordinary eyes showed that his soul had not only been
broken but set on fire, flayed alive, leaving a twisted, crippled mutation that
could never heal.
His overwhelming sorrow cooled the sexual ache burning
through Azure that signaled she had reached maturity and was more than ready to
mate. But not with him. As hot as he was, her body knew he was not her
intimate.
At least gorgeous guy’s deep depression was helping her control
her newly awakened hormones, which were screaming for relief that only her
intimate could give. Still, it was really too bad that this male was not the
one she was meant to spend her life with. She had the impossible impulse to try
to heal the shattered pieces of him.
But if he were her intimate, he sure as hell would not be
scanning the crowd as if he was looking for something or someone else. And he
matched only one of her trinity-of-being, her body. Her heart and spirit were
not drawn to him.
A young, babyish voice cut through the babble of the crowd.
“Pemmi!”
The male Azure was beginning to think of as the gold god
turned toward a baby bot—a robot sold while in a state of learning who, like a
sentient child, bonded to its “parent” and learned from experience. Only the
very
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