Blue and Alluring by Viola Grace Read Free Book Online

her, but she just moved away from the flames.
    One by one, she dragged them to the ground and pried their masks off. They asphyxiated and stilled in the cool of her hallways.
    When there was no answer to their calls, the men in the ship came into the station and found the roiling mass of fog.
    “We have come for what is ours. Surrender her and you can keep the men.”
    She moved around them, examining their bodies, clothing and appearances. She might need to make a Raider one day or a Vorwing. One never knew.
    Lightning shot through her, and she pulled back. The Vorwing was wielding lighting on her station. That would never do.
    She pulled his feet out from under him and pulled off his mask. Without hesitating, she plunged tendrils of mist into him and stopped his lungs from filling or holding air.
    He twitched and thrashed violently, his companion staring in horror. Finally, he was still. His pulse slowed and stopped. When his body began to cool in the freezing station, she removed her mist from him. His companion ran for the ship, but she stopped him, holding him down and removing his mask.
    No one could threaten her patient and live. Yimeera didn’t want to be hunted, and Illuma hoped that she never knew what had transpired while she was out.
    With care and finality, Illuma lifted the bodies and equipment and put them back on their ship. She didn’t want them dirtying her halls.
    For the next two hours, she watched over the station until the Sector Guard arrived in time to pull the Raider ship off her dock and repair the station entry.
    When all was complete and the Guard had checked her halls for intruders, she set about gathering herself in. It was going to take a while.
     
    * * * *
     
    The shuttled arrived, and Olwick emerged from the airlock with a smile and a few bags on his shoulder.
    “Hello, Illuma.”
    She smiled and ran a hand through her hair, self-conscious about the tendrils of mist that followed her like wings and a halo. “Hello, Olwick.”
    He walked to her and dropped the bags at her feet. “I have missed you.”
    “It has been less than a week.”
    “Every day away from you, I miss you.”
    She chuckled, and her tendrils picked up his bags. “You said you had another assignment?”
    “I do. I am now the only other permanent inhabitant of Incognito Station.”
    “What?”
    “Citadel Lowel feels that you would benefit from another warm body here, and I concur. I feel that you definitely need me at your side, and I need you.”
    She blushed. She touched her cheek; it was definitely hot.
    “As a fellow Breethin, you know that it isn’t proper.”
    “Which is why I have come from a meeting with your parents with a cohabiting contract. If you agree, we are betrothed in the eyes of the Breethin government.”
    She smiled shyly. “Why would you want that?”
    “You are my sister’s champion and my hero. Why would I not want that?”
    She hugged him tight and lifted them a few inches off the ground, moving them through the station, showing him his quarters, across from hers.
    “The station is busy with a recreation for the next week. No more visitors. Would you care to play dice?”
    He grinned. “Where would a respectable girl like you learn dice?”
    “The very respectable servants’ quarters. I may have looked five years old, but I was twenty. Folk tended to forget that.”
    They spent the next few days learning about childhood mischief and favourite assignments. Olwick was fascinated by Yimeera and her transformation as well as her origin.
    “Aren’t you curious where she came from?”
    Illuma looked at the medical reports and smiled. “I looked into her eyes and saw haunted pain. I don’t care where she came from; I just want to help her get where she wants to go. Her past isn’t my concern. We all have a past; it is what we are now that matters.”
    He nodded and looked over at the patient under the slow ministrations of the machines. “Her soul is steady. She has been bent but