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PROLOGUE PART ONE
Fiona
(Please see the preceding author’s note for an explanation of the prologue format)
“What are you drawing, Fiona?”
I glanced up from my vakta and found Tilly looking over at my work curiously from her spot beside me.
“Oh, God, I’m boring.” I turned my vakta towards her, showcasing my plain Jane jack-o’-lantern design with its triangle eyes and grinning mouth. The thing was, I was actually pretty good at drawing. For a long time when I was a teen, I thought I’d be a tattoo artist. But the carving part was such a pain in the ass that when it came to pumpkins, the simpler the design, the better.
“Nah, it’s classic. I like it,” Tilly said, nodding firmly. The firelight at the end of Gahn Errok’s hall flickered across her cheekbones and pile of kinky curls on the top of her head as she turned her attention back to her own vakta. “I still don’t even know what to do for mine.”
A group of us were carving vakta plants tonight. The blue Deep Sky succulents were a little bit like Sea Sand valok plants, but much larger, rounder, and, well, more pumpkin-y. They were too bitter to cook with, but apparently the braxilk loved to eat them, and Stephanie noticed the similarity to pumpkins when feeding her braxilk, Henrietta.
The Deep Sky people were fascinated by the idea of slicing them up for human Halloween, and so a bunch of the big blue things had been harvested from the mountains and brought here to carve. It hadn’t taken long for Lerokan and Errok’s boasting about how their carvings would turn out for it to become a contest among the alien men with us human ladies as the judges. The Deep Sky kids, and most of their parents, had all gone to bed by now, and their carved vakta plants glowed all along the ledge of the hall that led directly out into the darkened night sky. The only ones left now to carve were Kohka, Oxriel, Errok, Zakkar, Lerokan, Dalk, Tilly, Nasrin, Priya, Steph, and me. Valeria and Grim were keeping tabs on things at our shuttle near the Vrika’s mountain, and Abby had long since taken Keir to bed. He was too small to carve anyway, and he just kept trying to shove the bitter guts of the vakta plant into his mouth despite how truly awful the stuff tasted.
I dipped my braxilk feather back into the dark blue ink and finished off my simple design before turning to the hulking figure on my other side. Dalk was hunched over his vakta, his copper-warm sight stars pulled into tight points of focus as he dragged the ink-soaked tip of his braxilk feather along the rounded surface.
“Need any help?” I asked, trying to peek round to see his design.
“No,” he grunted, never taking his eyes off of his work. “I do not require assistance with my pumm-kin.”
I snorted, shaking my head. For some reason, everyone thought the word pumpkin was much more exciting and exotic than vakta, and all the aliens now refused to use any word but that when talking about the succulents we were now carving.
“Fair enough,” I said. “Just offering.” Every alien guy had a human expert to guide him along in his vakta carving. Priya was seated beside Lerokan, and Stephanie was supervising Errok. Oxriel, Tilly, Nasrin, and Zakkar had formed a sort of group of four, and Abby of course had been with Kohka before she’d ushered their sleepy kiddo off to bed.
Which meant that I was paired with Dalk. Not that the guy seemed to want a human pumpkin-carving partner. He barely spoke two words together at the best of times, and focusing on his pumpkin didn’t seem to be doing his usually snarly mood any favours.
“Alright, well, can I borrow something to carve my pumpkin? Mine’s ready,” I asked him, eyeing the varying sizes of blades strapped to his bronze back.
That made him look up. His sight stars slid to me before going back to his work.
“No. You’re more likely to slice one of your own tiny fingers off than you are to successfully carve your pumm-kin.”
“Hey! I take offense to that!” I said, but I laughed even as the words came out. God, this guy could be such a freaking grump. It was incredible. “I’ve been carving pumpkins for years. I am a certified master.”
Not exactly true, considering I usually fobbed off the carving part of the whole deal to my Nan when I was younger, and then to boyfriends when I was older.
Dalk grunted, sounding unconvinced.
“How does one become declared as a master of such a thing? I’ve never seen you with a blade in your hand and I am not inclined to believe you.”
I gasped with mock horror.
“Excuse me? Fine! I’ll just have to go beg somebody else for a knife!”
I put down my vakta and made a move to get up when Dalk suddenly muttered, “Wait.”
I looked at him, brows raised so high I felt the blunt edge of my short bangs tickle them.
“Oh, do you finally believe me? I have serious pumpkin-carving skills,” I said smugly, even though I was completely blowing smoke out my ass by that point.
“No,” Dalk growled. “I simply do not trust any other man’s blades but my own. A dull blade can be more dangerous than a sharp one.”
He put his vakta down and reached around his back with expert, practiced precision, easily grasping the smallest knife from its place and handing it to me handle first.
“Thanks,” I said, taking it from him. “Shit. OK, this is bigger than I thought it would be.” It was easy to get size and scale mixed up between humans and Sea Sand guys. Dalk was tall even as far as alien men went, and he was broad and bulky and just big all over. The knife had seemed a lot smaller on his back than it was in my hand.
