I swung my feet out of the bed. I’d gotten an hour of sleep. My head felt too heavy for my neck. I couldn’t remember the last time I worked so hard. I still wasn’t sure if the pits in the otrokar rooms were low enough. There was some sort of sacred proportion between the central “pit” area and the height of the plush circular couches around it. I’d consulted my guides and made them to the exact specifications listed, but my gut told me the height was off. It just didn’t look right, so I’d spent the last thirty minutes of my day lowering and raising the wooden makeshift couches before I had the inn make them in stone. It would all be worth it.
Another phantom tug, like ripples in a shallow pond. Someone stood at the end of my driveway, just inside the inn grounds, waiting politely to be invited in.
I got up and slipped on my innkeeper robe. A simple gray affair with a hood, it hid me from head to toe. Beast raised her head from her post by my bed and let out a quiet, sleepy bark. I checked the window. A dark figure stood by the front hedge, melding with the thick night shadow of an oak. It would be tall for a human. Probably a couple of inches taller than Sean.
Ugh.
I picked up my broom and left the bedroom, walking down the long hallway to the front staircase. Beast trotted next to me. The architecture of the inn had changed so much in the past few hours, my trek to the front door nearly doubled.
The floor was cool under my bare feet. The rain was still falling, and the inn and I agreed on a comfortable seventy degrees inside, but as in any house, some spots were warmer and some cooler, and I wished I had worn socks.
Why did I even think of Sean Evans?
Sean was an alpha-strain werewolf. His parents had escaped the destruction of their home planet and come to Earth where they built a life, had Sean, and raised him, all in secret. Earth served as a waypoint for many travelers from the Great Beyond. The universe, with all its planets, dimensions, and timelines, needed its central hub to be a neutral place to meet, do business, or sometimes simply stop over on the way to somewhere else. Earth had served this role for thousands of years while its native population lived in complete ignorance of the strange beings who sometimes visited the planet in twilight. That’s why inns and innkeepers like me existed. We had only two concerns: keeping our guests safe and keeping them hidden. We stayed neutral and we didn’t get involved. Sean Evans had entered my life when I’d chosen to throw caution to the wind and involved myself in something really dangerous.
In retrospect it was probably foolish, but I didn’t regret it. Together, Sean, Arland, and I had saved my small town from an interstellar assassin. Arland got to avenge a murder as an added bonus, and Sean learned the truth: he wasn’t an Earthborn mutation like his parents had told him, but a product of a military genetic breeding program from another planet. All werewolves were soldiers designed to repel a planetwide invasion by an overwhelming force, but Sean was an alpha-strain variant. Bigger, faster, stronger, a Special Forces kind of warrior. The genetic programming must’ve held true, because he became a soldier here on Earth, but he could never quite find the right place for himself.
Then we met, and I thought we had something.
No, that would be wishful thinking. We had the beginning of something, but once he glimpsed the universe beyond this planet, it was all over. The werewolves had destroyed their own planet rather than surrender it to their enemy, and he could never go “home,” but the stars called him. Because of me he ended up owing an old werewolf a favor, and once the danger here had been dealt with, Sean left to repay his debt. I knew the pull of the stars. I’d answered it myself for a while. When he walked through a portal to the sun-drenched streets of Baha-char, some part of me knew he wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon, but still I hoped he might be back in a month or two. It’s been almost half a year now. Sean was gone.
I’d decided to put him out of my mind, and for the most part I completely succeeded, but sometimes he just popped into my head. I’d glance at the back patio, remember him jumping three feet in the air when I moved it, and smile. Or I’d recall his voice. Or how it felt to be kissed by him.
“I can’t help it,” I told Beast. “It will get better. It just needs time.”
If Beast had an opinion about my occasional involuntary mooning, she kept it to herself.
I opened the front door and strode down the grass to the dark figure waiting for me by the oak. He stood swaddled in a cloak. He seemed tall when I looked at him from above, but on the same level he was towering, six five at least. I had to tilt my head. Beast growled low.
The dark figure raised his left hand, fingers up. “Winter sun.” His voice was rough, but his diction was flawless. Whatever translator he was using worked perfectly.
An otrokar. “Winter sun to you as well.” Winter sun was the kinder, gentler sun. “Welcome.”
We walked back to the front door, and I let him in.
He shrugged off the cloak. I’d seen an otrokar before. They’d frequented my parents’ inn. But having him here in my small front room was an entirely different experience.
His shoulders were broad, his stance light despite his size. A dark brown armor of braided leather strips clasped his body. Hard plates dappled with sprays of black and red in an organic pattern only a living creature could produce shielded his forearms, thighs, and shins. The same plates guarded his chest, the chitinous substance streaked through with complex swirls of golden metal that announced the presence of high-tech electronics. A belt with pockets sat on his waist, and small metal, bone, and wooden talismans hung from it. Otrokars were excellent spacers, and his was the kind of armor designed to protect while still letting one bend and flex when fighting within the confines of a spacecraft. He carried no weapons except for a short sword or a long knife that rested in a sheath on his right thigh.
From the back he could almost pass for a really tall native, but his face made it clear—this was the same primary human seed that had given rise to us and vampires, but it had clearly grown on a different planet. Otrokars had evolved on a world with a scorching sun and endless plains. They hunted in packs and ran their prey to ground. The planes of his face were sharper than those of the Earthborn, as if he had been hacked with a knife from a piece of clay; the texture of his deep bronze skin rougher; the proportions of his features skewed slightly, giving him a dangerous, predatory air. His jaw was triangular, his nose narrow, and when he spoke, his lips showed a narrow flash of sharp teeth. His short hair, coarse like the mane of a horse, seemed black until it caught the light and shone with the deep, violent red of a pigeon’s-blood ruby. His eyes, under thick eyebrows, were a startling light green.
We looked at each other. Beast growled low by my feet. She clearly didn’t like his smell. The otrokar glanced at her, his eyes evaluating. He looked like a man who expects to be jumped at any moment, and he wanted there to be no doubt that he’d pull his knife out and slice his attacker to narrow ribbons.
“What can I do for you?” Stop sizing up my dog, please.
“My name is Dagorkun.” The otrokar raised his hand. A golden medallion studded with jewels hung from a leather cord clasped in his fingers. A stylized sun with stabbing rays, the symbol of the Khan, the leader of the Horde.
I inclined my head. “I’m honored.”
“I’m here on behalf of my people to inspect the rooms.”
“Very well. Would you like some tea as we walk?”
He blinked. “Yes.”
“It will only take a moment.” I stepped into the kitchen. Some things were constant in the universe. Two and two didn’t always equal four, but every water-based species at some point had heated water and thrown some plants into it.
Dagorkun followed me into the kitchen. I took two mugs from the cupboard, one with strawberries on it and the other with a small black cat, filled them with hot water from the Keurig, and put two bags of chai in to soak. Dagorkun watched me like a hawk. Clearly he expected to be poisoned.