Page 19 of Adrift!
From one kiss? Was shethatdesperately needy?
For him, apparently yes.
It was her turn to pull back, just a little, wanting to check in with him, to see if…
But when she searched his wide eyes, the icy half-moons were awash with scintillating auroras that pulsed in rhythm with their rough breathing.
And the lights were bleeding out across the Starlit Salon.
Her heart jolted hard, and she froze. “Ikaryo? What…?”
His voice was a broken whisper. “You see it too?”
The translucent rainbows spun into diminishing fractals, but somehow she knew they never quite vanished, continuing onward into some realm she couldn’t perceive. “Is it…you?”
“No. No? My augments don’t generate or project likethis.” He didn’t sound entirely certain.
But the effect was clearly centered around them.
And it was already fading. Right before the votive glow reclaimed the room, she felt a wave of something wash over her—not quite sound or emotion, but the echo of it. Like standing in an empty concert hall and yearning for the phantom applause of a thousand shows that never actually happened.
“The energy anomaly,” he murmured. “It’s supposed to be contained.”
“Does the monster know that?”
Although it was hard to think of the lovely lights as a monster, even if it had hijacked their ship and left them adrift.
Ikaryo shoved to his feet, rocking her on the couch. Even as he reached out a hand to steady her, he was toggling the datpad on his wrist. “Captain? We may have a problem…”
Remy sat quietly while he volleyed a confusing conversation—sounded like something out of a pulp science fiction novel—with the captain and someone named Suvan who was apparently the engineer.
Before the exchange was over, the big Kufzasin captain was striding through the salon doors, Felicity close behind.
The cruise director bustled toward them, brow furrowed and strands of her blonde updo frazzling. She slid onto the couch next to Remy, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right? And you, Ikaryo?”
The captain curled his lip impatiently, revealing a lion-like incisor, but waited for them both to answer in the affirmative. “If it was the anomaly, there was once again nothing on sensors.”
Remy clamped her hands between her knees. “Something happened. We both…saw it.”
Felicity glanced up at the captain then back at Remy. “Saw it? Or felt it?”
Almost as bad as getting caught onstage with no pants. “I definitely felt freaked out.” By the monsterandby a kiss. But she wasn’t going to get Ikaryo in trouble by telling his bosses what they’d been—
“I was kissing Remy when the anomaly manifested. And singing.”
She blinked. Well, it wasn’t like they could fire him while they were lost in space. But to her surprise, she wasn’t so embarrassed by the confession. Maybe it was lingering shock.
Or maybe kissing Ikaryo had been just that good.
“Kissing.” The captain’s whiskers bristled. “And singing. What happened?”
Despite her nonchalance, Remy felt heat flood her cheeks. How much detail was needed to explain that making out had apparently triggered some sort of cosmic light show?
“I’m certain it was the anomaly,” Ikaryo said, mercifully taking the lead. “Or some sort of echo of it. We already suspected it responds to…” He gestured vaguely between himself and Remy. “To emotional resonance, yes?”
Was that what they’d been doing? Emotionally resonating?
She wanted to scoff, but the tiny eternity of the kiss kept looping through her, the touch of their lips and the breathbetween them like the crescendoing bridge of the song they’d shared.
