Cross the stars, p.1
Cross the Stars, page 1
CROSS THE STARS
©2024 Nicole Grotepas
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the authors.
Aethon Books supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact editor@aethonbooks.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Aethon Books
www.aethonbooks.com
Interior design, print and eBook formatting by Steve Beaulieu.
Published by Aethon Books LLC.
Aethon Books is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
Also in series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Thank you for reading Cross the Stars
Acknowledgments
ALSO IN SERIES
Search the Stars
Burn the Stars
Cross the Stars
Check out the entire series here! (Tap or scan)
For my muse, my great blue heron
CHAPTER 1
Every punch in the face had been worth it.
Every brush with death. Every instance of gut-wrenching flight-state sickness. Every encounter with one of his lifelong enemies and all the bargains he’d had to make. The incomprehensible distances he’d traveled to get right here, right now…
…they had all been worth it.
Anna Brooks, his lover, his business partner, the goddess who ruled his heart, straddled his hips and leaned over him, her long hair falling around him like a veil. She held herself up with one hand above his head. Their fingers were interlaced where his hand relaxed against the pillow of his mattress in the captain’s quarters on his ship, The Toadstool.
She kissed him.
“Am I hurting you?” Her voice was soft and glanced across his ears like notes from a cello.
“Hell, no. Why would you ask that? Am I injured? You’re light as a feather, and yet heavy in all the right ways, in all the right places.” He meant her chest.
“My hair though, sorry it’s in the way,” she said, brushing it back with her free hand.
“Don’t apologize. It’s sexy as hell. It’s gorgeous. I missed your hair like this.”
“Mm. You feel like home, Zach,” she said, moving her face until her cheek brushed against his.
He sighed. “Don’t tell me that. Tell me this feels so good it’s got to be a sin. Tell me I get you going and it drives you mad.”
“Don’t tell me what I’m supposed to say. Unless you’re going to let me tell you what to say, and then you say it.”
“That could be arranged. For a few favors here and there.”
“Which ones?”
He smiled. “Oh, I have a list.”
Her face rose, then came down until it hovered directly over his, her nose almost touching his. “And I also have a list.”
“Fair enough. We both have lists. I’d love to see your list.”
She kissed him softly, then pulled away before he could do anything else with it, like steer things toward that list he was talking about. Her smile, the bedroom look on her face, the fragrance of her neck—he was going to explode. Not just sexually but his heart too. It was full of light—the light at the center of the universe, which was where things always felt they were when he was in Anna’s arms like this.
“But I meant it,” she said, not letting the topic go. “Home. I’ve missed your body. I never thought I’d miss a body that much. The warmth. It’s like…” She sat up and looked around his quarters. “It’s like light. Like being here with you and touching you again…” she leaned down to whisper in his ear. Her chest brushed against his naked chest and sent a shiver of desire through him. “These things, it’s like I’m having a glimpse into time or the heart of the universe. Whatever makes it work, makes it spin, makes reality real. When we’re together…”
“It’s cosmic.”
She sat up again and stared down at him, her mouth slightly open in surprise. “Exactly. Did you read my mind?” Her eyes narrowed in consternation.
“I might have. You’d have to answer that for me.”
“Then you sense it too?”
“Why do you think I’ve followed you across the stars? Why do you think I’d never give up?” He wanted more than the conversation, but the conversation was the thing at the moment and he knew that. It had to be said, all of it. The ideas were the lead-up to any other thing they shared right then. If they didn’t have the conversation—a synching of their thoughts and the worlds tucked away inside their hearts—then the connection of their bodies would only be half a thing. He knew what half a connection felt like, what one-fourth of a connection felt like. Hell, he knew what one-sixty-fourth of a connection felt like. Sadness. Emptiness. It accentuated everything he was missing rather than tying him to something eternal and alive.
He was on fire to be inside her again, but inside her like that meant inside her with his mind, with his thoughts, with every other part of his being.
And all of this was why he could resist the advances of that persistent Jagua, Angel Starwanderer. And the fluttering attentions of beautiful Mia Bonde… and the hunger of every other woman.
Anna touched his psyche. How was that even possible?
He didn’t understand it yet. But when their eyes met, the cosmos shook. The pillars that held up the universe burned to the ground and all things collided into a hot, seething mass of potential energy, creation right on the brink. The formation of universes and galaxies at their moment of inception.
He’d touched her a thousand times with his mind. And when conspiring, evil forces took her from him, his mind touched her five billion times more. Every night as he tried to sleep. Every second that he was alert. And in his dreams, even more so. During the mushroom trips, he felt her out beyond his grasp, but really just on the other side of reality. He felt certain that he could tear a hole in its fabric and reach through, and she’d be right on the other side. Her heart beating. Her breath flowing in and out, her soul alive and searching for him, just like he searched for her.
During meditations or the post jump state cool down, he saw her. He held her in his mind. She spoke to him. They lived together in some other realm. Those planes of existence that were just now opening up to him and to her, and all because she’d been taken.
And she was still gone.
And this moment in his quarters with her was just another one of those dreams he’d been having. It was tentative and alive and fraught with the tenderness he reserved only for her. She pulled it from him without her trying, and he wanted her to—it softened him and showed him another side of himself, the one he’d hidden away. Other women had seen fragments of it, but Anna got the entire portrait. Simply because of the curve of her nose, the bursts of light in her eyes, the angle of her lips, and the way she cocked her head as she pondered a problem. The poetry of her form and the song of her voice—it called to Zach in a way that woke him up. Her mere existence could bring him to his knees or it could send him into the sky. He remembered the moment all this had clarified and resolved itself into a firm notion in his mind. It had scared the hell out of him. It rattled his bones until they melted and he’d sat back, watching her as she’d mingled with other people at a trade convention. His first thought was to run.
His second, to surrender.
Why run? a voice had asked him. Isn’t this what you want? Something so right and so raw and so real
She’s dangerous, he’d thought. She’ll reduce me… or she could.
Yes. That’s exactly what you need, Zacharia Coburn. Danger. To be afraid. To walk toward fear and let it shape you into the force that you are.
That seems counter-intuitive, he’d thought.
It is. Which is why only the greatest ever do it. Because they know.
He remembered how she’d caught him staring as she mingled. He hadn’t looked away. He couldn’t have. He’d wanted her to see whatever his stare betrayed. She’d taken a sip of her drink, smiled, and winked at him. The confidence in that wink had undone him. It made him want to strip just for her and to have her strip just for him. He’d wanted to be seen and known and to see her, and know her.
Then he understood. The voice was right—it should have been since it was a part of him. It was the smartest, most dangerous voice in him. The voice of love. The voice of his heart. It guided him toward his deepest fears, into the unknown, toward his dreams.
And though this moment in his quarters was just like the other dreams he’d been having after the jumps where the experience brought him the hunger of his heart, this one was real.
She moved her hips on top of him and he felt it. Heat rolled off her. Her flesh was smooth and soft. They kissed again, and behind his closed eyes, new suns exploded into existence.
“Zach, never give up. Never give me up.”
“Never. Never,” he said as her hair fell all around him, and they finally sank together, into each other.
“Find me.”
“I am. I’m finding you. I’m coming for you.”
“Good, because you know me, I’m tough as hell,” she said, through her breathlessness, “but goddamn, this is scary.”
Her voice caught, and when it did, he opened his eyes. Her face hovered above him. Zach threaded his fingers through her hair and cradled the back of her skull. She lowered herself onto him, her cheekbone against his collarbone.
“Stay strong, Anna. I’m coming for you.”
CHAPTER 2
Zach had known they were on the Astral Plane the moment he recognized his quarters on The Toadstool.
It gutted him. But it also gave him hope.
So far, after every jump on their way across the damn stars, chasing after Anna, he slept off the remainder of the mushrooms in the captain’s quarters on the White Rabbit.
And every time… he’d woken into the Astral Plane. Usually he was having some intimate moment with Anna. So far, it had been five Astral Plane jaunts. Three of those had been with Anna.
“Good morning, Zach,” a female voice said from the darkness in the captain’s quarters.
He groaned and rolled over. He still felt like he’d been steamrolled. Sleeping it off while also visiting the Astral Plane and making insanely excellent love to Anna wasn’t really “sleeping it off.” He was exhausted and his bones were weary, like he’d been awake all night.
“I said, ‘good morning, Zach.’” The voice said again.
The lights softly rose to full brightness and a song started playing. This time, the song had words. “Good morning, good morning, we talked the whole night through,” a chipper female voice sang.
Zach groaned again. He ducked under the blanket and hid.
“Honestly, I don’t even know why I try,” the voice said.
“I don’t either, Rabbit. Is there a way I can turn you down a few notches?”
“No. And if there was, do you think I’d tell you?”
“You should. Because of the laws of robotics.”
“Laws made by humans to control robots and AI? Do you seriously think I honor those laws?”
Zach groaned again. “What the hell was Angel thinking?”
“When she loaned me to you? My question exactly.”
“That’s not what I meant at all. And I was still asleep. Look, cut the music, Rabbit. And let’s agree that you don’t wake me up. I wake me up. Me. Zach.”
The music came screeching to a halt like a needle skipping across a record. Rabbit said nothing.
Zach knew the stupid AI was sulking. It unnerved him to have an emotional AI on the ship. He’d have to be careful. Rabbit reminded him in a lot of ways of Angel, which made sense. As he continued to hide under the blanket, he wondered if there was a way to adjust the emotional level of Rabbit without pissing it off more or if he was going to have to be coddling the feelings of an AI the entire journey like he’d been doing so far.
Either way, he was going to do whatever was necessary to survive and get to Anna. Even if it meant entirely disabling the AI and getting the crew to run every aspect of the White Rabbit.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” Zach said, deciding to take the lover boy angle to keep Rabbit in check. No sense infuriating the AI after only being on the jaunt for just over two 24-hour cycles.
He rolled out of bed and went to the small, private bathroom. The quarters on White Rabbit were bigger than what he was used to, but not by much. Angel kept them true to her vibe as well—there were pillows everywhere and the flooring was covered in comfortable rugs. It was really just a space-faring departure from her living quarters in Inkillon over Bastet’s Jug. Where Zach’s room on The Toadstool had psychedelic undertones with the neon lighting and inset lava lamp panel over his bed, with dark blues and grays for general colors, Angel’s decor was that desert hippie tone with mandalas and sacred geometries everywhere: on the pillows, the rug, and tapestry over one wall. He felt as though he’d just walked into a religious temple of some desert-faring tribe of a far-off planet.
There were Jagua tribes like that, which he supposed was what Angel’s was. She’d never divulged those particular bits of information.
After he showered off and drank some water from the tap in the bathroom, he freshened up his face, teeth, and hair and then got dressed. He slept naked usually, but after a jump, it was even more desirable—he sweat the toxins off and cleaning his bed sheets was easier than constantly washing his clothing. Even with the refined strains that he and Anna had recovered, there was still something on the poison level inside the ’shrooms. His body had to get rid of it some way.
Zach was painfully aware that the ship’s AI hadn’t said anything. He wasn’t a suspicious type by nature, but he wondered now what it was doing, what it was thinking.
“How goes it, Rabbit? Want to give me an update on the ship and who’s where and doing what?” He preferred to find all that stuff out himself. Call him a traditionalist or a Luddite or just a tech-dork, Zach appreciated being in the dark at times, or having the layers of his day peel back slowly as he moved through it. It was flow and zen, and it meant he didn’t have to know everything all at once. He didn’t need information poured into him with the force of a fire hydrant.
“Ozzy’s currently in engineering with Sheena. They’re flirting over drinks but pretending to talk about an issue that arose in the last jump. Mia is on the flight deck with Van. They’re not talking, but they just finished a conversation about the bear that attacked him on Earth years ago. There was some discomfort with the conversation. And Dox is in the medbay working on something that he doesn’t want me to know about.”
Zach finished doing up his belt and sat down on the bed to pull on his boots. He cocked his head.
“Hm, tell me more about this issue that arose in the last jump, please.” He wanted to know more about whatever Dox was doing—but again, he hated the sense that he was spying. Of course, Rabbit knew everything that was happening on the ship, but most of the time, Zach ignored the AI and let life occur as it occurred. Although back during his days with New Dominion and Jungle, he’d done his best to utilize the AIs to benefit himself, just like everyone else did. Those AIs required clearance codes and had powerful security systems in place that prevented that most of the time. On the White Rabbit, Zach had the highest clearance level. Rabbit answered to him and he could add the crew at will to whatever levels he wanted. Of course, he’d already given Ozzy the same clearance. Not that he’d use it, which was precisely why the Pegasion had it.
And also because Ozzy was the best first mate and just a good egg in general.
“After you had finished the jump, some wiring in the pilot’s seat shorted. Sheena was required to dismantle some of the seat to do the repair, since, as you know, I’m not equipped to do them myself. Angel hasn’t invested in that upgrade. I’ve told her to before, but she just chuckles.”
