Hotbloods 6: Allies

“Nice job, guys—you found party mode!” Angie whistled, dumping her boxes on the floor. “Now, who wants to give us a hand with these?”

Within half an hour, the observatory was covered in streamers and glowing strings of lights, with the lanterns casting a romantic glow on the room and everyone within. Angie had wanted to put up the naughty lights, but Bashrik had yanked them down when Angie wasn’t looking and stuffed them in a hidden cupboard with the rest of the unused decorations. Meanwhile, Lauren and Xiphio had gone off to make the party food, with Stone insisting he go with them, since it was part of his tradition. I saw Xiphio grimace at the prospect of his love rival tagging along, but Lauren didn’t seem to mind. She was happy to have them both with her, and so was I. Maybe it would help her figure out which one she liked most, though she didn’t appear to be in any rush to decide.

“Would you care to dance?” Navan asked, moving over to where I stood peering out of the gauzy curtain at the expanse of space beyond.

I turned and smiled up at him. “Might as well make the most of the music, until the others come back,” I murmured. He slipped his arms around my waist, and my arms looped around his neck. We swayed from side to side, gazing into one another’s eyes, the soft music playing out the rhythm to our moving bodies. I was still worried about why he’d hidden from me, but I was determined not to let it get the better of me—not now, when we were supposed to be celebrating.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too,” I whispered back, smiling. “I guess you came around to the idea of a party, then?”

“I like this part of it,” he admitted, dipping his head to kiss me. His hands moved up my spine, making my skin tingle deliciously.

I was just melting into the moment when Lauren and her suitors returned, carrying trays of mouth-watering food. Well, most of it looked mouth-watering, though there were a few dishes that I really didn’t feel like trying. There were bowls of blood gazpacho for the coldbloods; fish for Xiphio, which seemed a little strange considering he looked quite fish-like; breads, oils, and heavily spiced dips for us humans; and some sort of roasted insects, about the size of a small chicken, for the ambaka.

“Pull up a cushion and get yerselves in a circle,” Stone instructed brightly, setting his insect dish down on the ground and commandeering his own spot on the floor.

Everyone else gathered around, with Lauren sitting between Stone and Xiphio, and Angie and Bashrik sitting together, while Navan and I did the same, setting our plates in front of us. Only Ronad had no romantic interest to sit beside, but he didn’t seem bothered in the slightest, lifting up his bowl of blood gazpacho and inhaling the scent with a satisfied sigh.

“Ah, and can’t forget summat te drink!” Stone announced. He hopped up and ran over to the bar, pulling out a bottle of something and racking up eight glasses on a bar tray. He carried it over with deft hands, placing it in the center of the circle.

“What do we do with it?” Bashrik asked.

Stone grinned. “Drink it, o’ course!”

“I guessed as much,” Bashrik replied cheerfully. “But does it mean something?”

“Now you’re gettin’ it, my man!” Stone said in a congratulatory tone, clapping Bashrik on the back. “We go around the circle, and when it’s yer turn to tell a tale of your life, ye pour, and ye drink once you’re done!”

“I think I’ll take some of that red juice in the bar, please,” I said.

“O’ course, Ri!” He jumped up and ran to the bar again, bringing back a smaller bottle of red liquid. He passed it to me and I sniffed it, still a little dubious after my experience with Kirin and her zombie mix. “Don’t worry. There’s not a drop o’ booze in that. If there is, ye can boot me out the airlock.”

“Thank you, Stone.”

“Nay problem, pal.”

The party game sounded simple enough, though I was nervous about telling a story. I didn’t know what kind of tale we were supposed to tell, though I figured we’d find out soon enough. Undoubtedly, as the one who’d suggested we do this, Stone would be the first one to speak. I glanced around the circle as we all took some food and started to eat, at Stone’s instruction. It still stunned me that this eclectic mix had all come together, to work as one team, but I couldn’t help feeling Mort’s absence. He’d have said something funny to get us all in the right mood.

He needed to go. He’d only have gotten in the way, and you can’t afford to have dead weight going into this attack on the rebels, I told myself, brushing away my sadness with anger. After all, he’d brought it upon himself.

As I’d expected, Stone was the first to start the story-sharing, pouring himself a large glass of the liquid from the central bottle. It was bright blue, with a fruity scent that reminded me of the blue-raspberry gum I’d had as a kid. He told a sad tale about walking in the mountains with a girl he’d known. She’d been his first love, a childhood crush that should have lasted a lifetime. Tears pricked my eyes as I heard him describe the ambaka who’d stolen his heart. The Stone in the story didn’t sound much like the Stone sitting before us, but life had been hard on him—of course it had changed him along the way. He ended his story by assuring us that it had merely been a chapter in what he hoped to be a long proverbial book, and that he knew his heart could open again. He didn’t elaborate, but Angie and I shot each other a look. Meanwhile, Lauren looked anywhere else but at Stone or us, her cheeks pink.

As he downed his tumbler of blue drink, he urged Lauren to speak next. She told a simple tale of sitting in Brisha’s library one solitary evening, reading through tomes of bygone kings and queens. It had made her wonder about her own life, and how she would be remembered in thousands of years’ time. She wasn’t sure she would be remembered, but she explained that it had made her determined to live a worthy life, full of adventure and excitement, learning all she could about the universe and its unique spread of cultures. More than that, she’d sensed it had been the turning point of her new existence—it was the moment she’d known she couldn’t go back to the girl she’d once been. She downed her drink, passing the figurative baton to Xiphio.

He told a tale about searching for a rare purple pearl beneath the waters of Almaghura, which he wanted to use to impress a merevin girl he’d met. The romance didn’t last, and he claimed he was still looking for that rare pearl, casting a meaningful glance in Lauren’s direction. I tried very hard not to laugh out loud, knowing it would sound cruel. Even for a merevin, that story was cheesy as hell.

Bashrik followed, telling the story of how he got roped into designing Queen Gianne’s palace. His father had been responsible for getting him the position, though Bashrik had felt as though he was in way over his head, given that it was his first real architecture job. In a conspiratorial whisper, he told us all how he had designed an entire floor that had no entrance, and it had never been used. A whole floor, wasted.