Blue Dawn
Blue Dawn
Norah-Jean Perkin
Blue Dawn
is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 1999
by Norah-Jean Perkin
ISBN 1-58124-406-1
Electronic version
published May 1999
The Fiction Works
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Corvallis, OR 97333
http://www.fictionworks.com
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Photo by LAF’s Professional Photography
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Norah-Jean Perkin has been writing romances for several years.
A former newspaper reporter and magazine editor, she lives in a small city in southern Ontario with her husband and three children.
She is a three-time Golden Heart finalist.
Far away in the distant galaxy of Oridian, light from the five moons of the planet Zura shone through the window of a small, bare room high in the Zalian mountains. The moonlight glinted off the balding pate of an aging seer seated at a low table, his eyes closed.
Across the room a man and a woman stood waiting for the old man to emerge from his trance to begin the ordained foretelling. Only the boy showed signs of impatience, twisting his fingers and shifting his weight from foot to foot. Each time a stern look from his father stilled his motions.
Finally the seer began to breathe more rapidly.
His eyes fluttered open once, twice, then the black orbs widened and fixed on the three dark crystals spread in a triangle before him. The crystals glowed with amber light, a light that flared and sparked and died only to flare again, casting eerie shadows around the room and across the faces of the watchers. After the wildly changing dance of light, they settled into a steady golden glow.
Only then did the seer speak, his eyes focused on the crystals, their reflection shining in his pupils. “The light is clear and strong for you, O
Barak of Zalia, son of Royl and Vzaro, a sign of the strength and clarity of your destiny,” he intoned.
“You must begin to train now, at both the military and language academies, because you are destined to be the supreme commander of the joint counter-insurgency forces employed against the south.”
The light of the crystals flared downward and the seer fell silent. Royl nodded solemnly to his wife Vzaro. Given the circumstances, their youngest son’s destiny was better than they had dared hope.
Royl glanced at Barak. He noted the grin the boy could not suppress. For once Royl did not chastise his son for the inappropriate show of emotion.
Suddenly the crystals flared again, this time with a strangely cool blue flame that seemed to leap towards the ceiling of the small room. Royl noted the minute change of expression on the seer’s face, and a sliver of fear pierced his calm.
The seer spoke once more. “Barak will find success in his ordained career, and shall live a long and healthy life. He will find his mate on . . .”
The seer faltered, his gaze flickering to the boy then back to the flaring crystals. “He will find his mate on the third planet of the star known as Sun, a place called Earth. Her name is Alina Kazimiera Stanislawski.”
Royl clamped his lips together to keep the groan of dismay from escaping. Though Vzaro made no sound, he could see the horror in her eyes.
He glanced at the boy again. Barak continued to watch the flaring crystals with fascination. He alone seemed unaware of the dreadful import of the seer’s last words.
“H
e will find his mate on the third planet of the
star known as Sun, a place called Earth. Her name is
Alina Kazimiera Stanislawski.”
Squelching a shudder, Allie Stanislawski dug her fingers into the quivering grey gunk in the small jar. She grimaced, then began smearing the beauty preparation over her face. She had trouble believing this stuff would actually perform the wonders the ads proclaimed, but at forty dollars for four ounces, it had better do
something.
She smoothed the clay across her cheeks and over her chin and forehead, avoiding her eyes and mouth. “Not that it matters, anyway,” she muttered, glaring at the mud-covered apparition in her bathroom mirror. After dumping Cody last week, she was swearing off men, forever.
Particularly the tall, dark exciting ones who thought love was some kind of recreational sport involving a cast of hundreds.
Allie swallowed and blinked back the tears she refused to let get the better of her. Sniffing, she smoothed the last bit of the clay mask under her chin, then adjusted the lime-green towel covering her wet hair. The towel clashed with the baby blue terry housecoat wrapped around her, but who was here to see it besides Sharkey?
She smiled woefully at the runt cat fighting with the fluffy, raccoon-shaped slipper encasing her left foot. She’d picked Sharkey up from the pound at the beginning of June. Now, only ten days later—and unlike a man—he loved her faithfully. Or at least as long as she fed him.
The doorbell chimed just as she bent over to disentangle the little gray cat from her slipper.
Grumbling, she straightened, and glanced at her watch on the counter. It was nine thirty, late for callers on a week night. She certainly wasn’t expecting anyone. Not dressed like this. Worse, how had that someone got in without buzzing her from the lobby? The west side of Chicago wasn’t exactly danger city, but what good was a security system if it didn’t keep people out?
Still grumbling, Allie shook Sharkey off her foot and clumped over to the door of the huge, bare apartment in a renovated warehouse she’d moved into only two weeks earlier. Light from a street lamp that had just snapped on in the waning of the mid-June twilight streamed through the bank of windows along one wall, casting long shadows in the darkened room.
Allie made a face, then knelt down to peer through the peephole. Had the last tenant been confined to a wheelchair? The waist level installation certainly made trying to view callers a nuisance.
The mud above her eyebrow cracked and pieces fell onto her eyelashes as she squinted through the tiny hole. She blinked and brushed at her eye, then focused again.
Damn!
She couldn’t be certain, but it appeared she was looking at a pair of legs covered in dark denim. She strained to look downwards, but was unable to see beyond another few inches. She scrunched down lower and looked upwards.
Her gaze locked on a higher portion of the caller, then started to focus. More denim, and a stitched fly pulled tightly over a bulge that . . .
Allie snapped upright, her face burning under the drying mud. Either a dwarf had lived here before or someone with a perverted approach to identifying callers.
The doorbell chimed again.
“All right, all right,” muttered Allie. She undid the lock and the deadbolt, then slipped open the door as far as the chain would allow.
She looked up—up into the most hypnotic male eyes she’d ever seen. Eyes that glowed like molten lead, their silvery light repeated in the strange streaks in the man’s collar-length hair. Eyes that burned into her an unshakable impression of strength, danger and excitement, an impression that caught the breath in her throat and sent a shiver down her spine.
For an excruciatingly long moment she seemed unable to do anything but stare into those eyes.
Her heart thundered in her chest; her lips parted but no sound came out.
Slowly an awareness of the man to whom the eyes belonged penetrated her consciousness. And what a man! He towered above her five foot four inches, a vision of dark masculinity filling the hallway. But in the dim lighting, she was unable to focus on much beyond his build and his compelling eyes.
Allie tried to drag her eyes away, but could not.
She cleared her throat, but couldn’t formulate a coherent thought, much less a word, for the thrum of excitement building in her veins.
“Perhaps I have made a mistake. I was looking for Alina Kazimiera Stanislawski.”
The deep, calm voice flowed over Allie like honey on bread—heavy, and sweet, and alluring.
Until she noted the growing chill in the metallic eyes.
With a jolt, the spell seizing her senses broke.
“Oh, ah, yes. I mean no,” Allie stammered. She remembered the mud on her face, the lime green towel, the slippers.
Oh no, not the slippers!
She tried to compose herself, wishing all the time she could disappear off the face of the earth.
“Uh, no, you haven’t made a mistake.”
The male god frowned. The metallic eyes cooled to icy silver. “Then you
are
Alina Kazimiera Stanislawski?”
“Yes.” In the face of his disapproval, Allie’s embarrassment turned to irritation. “Allie,” she added a trifle belligerently.
The stranger stared at her, his gaze growing cooler still. After a moment he appeared to have reached a reluctant conclusion. He straightened.
“Well then, Alina Kazimiera Stanislawski, I will introduce myself.” He paused, his eyes glowing again with a strange silver intensity. “I am Barak of Zura, a planet in the Oridian galaxy far from your Milky Way.”
He cleared his throat and raised his chin, but his gaze never left her face. “I have come for you, Alina. You are my destiny.”
Allie fought the hypnotic pull of his gaze. “You have come for me . . .” she repeated.
“W
hat?
” She snapped upright as the meaning of the man’s words flashed across her brain.
Open-mouthed she stared at him. And to think she’d thought . . .
“Oh, give me a break,” she sputtered. She slammed the door, locked it and rammed the deadbolt in place. She backed away from the door, appalled to realize her heart was racing and she was shaking all over. From shock, from fear, from anger—she wasn’t sure which. She kept backing up until her legs hit the couch against the opposite wall. She sat down, scooping Sharkey to her chest, and stroking him despite his struggles.
She waited one minute, two minutes, three minutes, all the time forcing herself to take deep, calming breaths. Finally, still holding Sharkey, she rose and crept to the door. Careful not to make any noise, she knelt before the peephole and looked out.
She sighed. Her knees wobbled beneath her.
He was gone. Thank God, he was gone.
“I’m telling you Kate, you should have seen this guy.”
Allie deposited her mug of coffee on the only empty space on her newspaper-strewn desk. She turned to her co-worker and best friend at
The
Streeter
, a tabloid upstart that had been fighting for attention for the past two years against the formidable likes of the
Chicago Sun-Times
and
The Tribune
.