Riley's Paradox, page 1
part #9 of Hearts of ICARUS Series
Riley’s Paradox
by
Laura Jo Phillips
Copyright © 2019 by Kathleen Honsinger
Cover art/design Copyright © 2019 by Kathleen Honsinger
All rights reserved.
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facebook.com/laurajophillipsauthor
Other Books by Laura Jo Phillips
The Dracons’ Woman
Book One of the Soul-Linked Saga
The Lobos’ HeartSong
Book Two of the Soul-Linked Saga
The Katres’ Summer
Book Three of the Soul-Linked Saga
The Bearens’ Hope
Book Four of the Soul-Linked Saga
The Gryphon’s Dream
Book Five of the Soul-Linked Saga
The Vulpiran’s Honor
Book Six of the Soul-Linked Saga
The Falcorans’ Faith
Book Seven of the Soul-Linked Saga
The Tigrens’ Glory
Book Eight of the Soul-Linked Saga
Quest for the Moon Orb
The Orbs of Rathira, Book One
Quest for the Sun Orb
The Orbs of Rathira, Book Two
Quest for the Heart Orb
The Orbs of Rathira, Book Three
Secrets Kept
Mixed Blood, Book One
(Available under the name Kathleen Honsinger)
Secrets Told
Mixed Blood, Book Two
Nica’s Legacy
Hearts of ICARUS, Book One
Tani’s Destiny
Hearts of ICARUS, Book Two
Rayne’s Return
Hearts of ICARUS, Book Three
Salene’s Secrets
Hearts of ICARUS, Book Four
Vari’s Choices
Hearts of ICARUS, Book Five
Ria’s Visions
Hearts of ICARUS, Book Six
Bean’s Heart
Hearts of ICARUS, Book Seven
Rikki’s Star
Hearts of ICARUS, Book Eight
Jenna’s Cowboys
Daughter of the Everstar
Books by Harvey Phillips and Paul Honsinger
To Honor You Call Us
Man of War, Book One
For Honor We Stand
Man of War, Book Two
Brothers In Valor
Man of War, Book Three
CONTENTS
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
Epilogue
Riley’s Paradox
Chapter 1
3 months earlier
Riley Bearen slid one finger slowly across the small screen of her hand terminal, then stared at the image of herself and her younger sisters, Rose and Rikki. The picture was just over a year old, taken on the last day they’d been together before returning to their respective schools after summer break. Looking at it made her both happy and sad at the same time, conflicting emotions that no longer troubled her as they once had.
She slid her finger across the screen again and stared down at her parents. This time she barely noticed the image since her katrenca began to growl at the front of her mind. Three hours of pacing and hissing was bad enough. When she got to the point of growling, Riley knew it was time to make a decision.
“Calm down Fluffy,” she murmured softly as she tapped the view screen twice. Her katrenca hissed back at her, but she ignored it. No sense in making things worse.
The image of her parents on the small screen vanished, replaced by the time. It was still a little early, but waiting on the boarding ramp where she could distract herself watching people was better than dealing with her katrenca’s growing tension.
At least I killed a little time, she thought as she returned her hand terminal to the holster at her hip. She got up, checked the bathroom, the dresser drawers, and the closet to be sure she hadn’t missed anything while packing. Satisfied, she picked up her carryall, slipped the strap over her shoulder, and turned toward the bed with a resigned sigh. One temperamental feline down, one to go.
“Percy, it’s time to get up.”
A small lump under the rumpled blankets near the foot of the bed shifted just a tiny bit, then went still. Riley frowned. “Come on Percy. You promised that if I let you sleep another hour, you’d get up without an argument.”
“I’m not arguing,” a deep male voice said irritably as the lump shifted again. The projected voice seemed to come from right in front of Riley’s face rather than from the bed, which had been one of the most difficult traits of the Lonyx for her to get used to.
“Percy, get your scruffy butt out of that bed right now or I’m leaving without you.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Percy groused. “And I am not scruffy.” Riley rolled her eyes as she watched the lump under the covers begin to creep slowly toward the head of the bed. The movement stopped. “What is scruffy?”
“It means neat and well groomed.”
“Oh.” The lump moved two inches, then stopped again. “Why is it that I don’t believe you?”
“I have no idea,” Riley said innocently. The lump resumed moving. Slowly. “Can’t you move any faster than that?”
The lump stopped. Again. “I shall never understand why you ask questions you already know the answers to, Riley.”
“In this instance, it’s a rhetorical question intended to encourage you to move faster.”
“Why did you not say that to begin with?”
“Perrrcy,” she warned.
“Fine,” he huffed. “Yes, I can move faster. I just don’t want to.”
Closing her eyes, Riley silently counted to ten. When she opened them she was not at all surprised to see that the lump under the covers hadn’t moved. She hitched the strap of her bag up higher on her shoulder.
“Okay, Percy. Keep in mind that check-out is at noon today, local time. After that, I’m afraid you’ll have no choice but to leave whether you want to or not.”
“You’re leaving me here?” Percy asked in surprise.
“I’m your friend, Percy, not your mother. I have a transport to catch, as you well know, so I’m leaving this room in twenty seconds. If you want to join me, that’s fine. If not, stay where you are. Your choice.”
“Look who got up in the wrong corner of the nest this morning.”
Careful not to reveal her amusement, she said, “It’s a bed, not a nest, and you now have eleven seconds remaining.”
“Grouch,” Percy muttered as he moved quickly toward the edge of the blanket and poked his head out. His round, smoky blue eyes blinked innocently up at her, but Riley wasn’t fooled.
At first glance Percy looked very much like a sweet, harmless, six week old kitten with longish gray fur that stood up every which way all over his body, including the top of his head. While she secretly thought that he was ridiculously cute, she knew there was nothing sweet or harmless about the Lonyx. Riley had to constantly warn people not to try to pet him when he rode around on her shoulder, which never failed to amaze her.
She didn’t understand why the glistening fangs, hissing growls, and extended claws he presented whenever someone reached toward him didn’t warn people off. Or why the bony, barbed wings on his back, and the three inch stinger at the end of his exceptionally long tail, didn’t clue people in to the fact that he wasn’t what he appeared to be at first glance.
For some reason, people rarely noticed those things. They just saw the big round eyes, and the fur sticking up around his face, and their inner aww overrode all common sense.
Once Percy was clear of the blankets, Riley held her hand out, palm up. He spread his little wings and launched himself off of the bed and into the air. A moment later he landed lightly on four tiny paws, his poisonous claws carefully retracted so that they didn’t touch her skin.
“Good morning, Riley,” he said with an apologetic purr.
“Good morning, Percy,” she replied before moving her hand to her left shoulder. Percy stepped off of her palm, turned around, then plopped himself down on her shoulder so that his prehensile tail hung to the small of her back, and his front legs stuck straight out in front of him.
“Why are you so tense this morning?”
Riley wondered, not for the first time, how he always sensed her true emotions despite the shield her Tigren Uncles, High Druids of the Klanaren, had given her. Neither her parents nor her sisters had ever been able to penetrate it, but to Percy it seemed not to exist at all.
She walked to the door and pulled it open, then turned to make one last visual check of the room. “I’m sorry for being short with you this morning.”
“Your apology is accepted,” Percy said. “I’m sorry for refusing to get up when I said I would, and for trying your patience. I’d still like to know what’s troubling you.”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted quietly after closing the door to the room they’d shared for the past week. “I woke up a few hours earlier than usual, and I’ve been feeling anxious ever since. I guess it’s a combination of things.”
“What things?”
Riley began walking up the long, gently curving corridor toward the elevators. “Well, aside from having met you, I haven’t had a particularly good summer. I miss my family. I can’t wait to get off this blasted skyport and back onto solid land. And I’m looking forward to getting back to my little apartment at school where I can relax and regain some sense of normalcy.”
Percy felt Riley’s uncertainty as she applied reasons for her feelings that even she didn’t quite believe. He knew those reasons were all valid, but they weren’t the true cause of her current tension. He also sensed that it was the best answer she could offer, so he let it go and changed the subject.
“How much time do we have before the transport leaves?”
“About forty minutes.”
“It shouldn’t take us more than ten minutes to get there,” he said in surprise. “Why are you in such a hurry?”
“I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Chances?” Percy asked, hiding his amusement at what he knew was coming.
“What if the transport leaves early? What if my hand terminal has the wrong time for this sector? What if we get held up on the concourse for some reason and can’t reach the docking gate before the transport leaves?”
Percy looked up at her, careful not to reveal how close he was to laughing. “What if none of those things happen?”
“What if they do?” she countered. “Besides, getting there a little early isn’t going to hurt anything. But if we’re late we’ll miss this transport. Then we’ll be stuck here for another week, and I’ll be late getting back to school. I don’t want to do either, so we need to be on that transport when it leaves.”
Percy couldn’t argue with that. He’d had more than his share of ships, transports, skyports, and space himself. “I’m looking forward to being on a planet again,” he said wistfully. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a sky. Or a sun. Or fresh air.”
Riley bit back a sudden grin. “You can see air?”
“No, I can’t,” he replied, surprised. “Can you?”
“You have no sense of humor, Percy.”
“You’ve mentioned that several times over the course of our somewhat brief acquaintance. I don’t understand why you continually repeat yourself. My memory is not faulty, though yours certainly is despite your arguments to the contrary.”
Riley decided not to engage in that conversation again and continued with the previous one instead. “I’ve heard of planets so polluted that you really can see the air.”
Percy’s ears flattened a little. “I do hope this school planet of yours isn’t one of those.”
“It’s not. It doesn’t have the lavender skies and blue grass of Jasan, but it’s a pretty enough planet. There are lots of really tall trees on campus, and a forest not too far away that I think you’ll enjoy.” Riley bypassed the elevators, opened the stairwell door, and started climbing.
“Hey,” Percy said suddenly, his tail swishing against her back. “What about breakfast?”
“What about it?”
“When do we eat it?”
“After we board the transport.”
“But I’m hungry now.”
Riley stopped mid-step, slowly turned her head and looked down into Percy’s eyes. Unlike other humanoids Percy had interacted with, Riley rarely exhibited strong emotion, maintaining an outward appearance of relaxed calm at all times. He wasn’t sure why, but he always sensed the true emotions beneath her facade, and knew that they rarely came close to anything resembling calm.
The emotion he now felt coming from her wasn’t quite anger, but it was close enough that a thick ring of black now rimmed the turquoise iris of her eyes. An apex predator himself, Percy didn’t need the black ring to tell him he’d drawn the unwelcome attention of the predator that lurked within his friend. A predator darker and more dangerous than he was by far, despite his many defenses.
He wasn’t afraid of Riley’s predator, but he saw no reason to provoke it by issuing an unintentional challenge with a direct stare, either. For that reason, he allowed his eyes to lose focus and drift slightly upward and to the right. Then he held his breath.
“Percy, listen to me very carefully because this is the last time I’m going to say this,” Riley growled. “If you attempt to flame and/or eat anyone or anything for any reason other than those we’ve repeatedly discussed, then you and I will part ways.”
Careful not to drop his eyes or turn away, Percy dipped his chin slightly in a gesture of compliance that didn’t quite cross the line into submission. Why her katrenca didn’t demand that from him he didn’t know, but he was grateful for it.
Riley was his friend and he respected both her and the creature that stalked within her, who she referred to as Fluffy. The predator’s hair-trigger temper aside, he would not, could not, submit to anyone ever again, no matter the consequences.
Using his peripheral vision, he watched cautiously as the black ring in Riley’s eyes thinned to a narrow line. He slowly released the breath he’d been holding. He did not, however, relax his posture just yet.
“I’m serious, Percy,” Riley said, still upset, but no longer growling. “You’re my friend, and I care about you very much. But I can’t give you any more chances. Not on this.”
The black vanished, and a very relieved Percy scrambled to respond in a way that she would find normal for him. At times like this, when her predator held back enough that the turquoise didn’t become completely black, Riley didn’t always realize how close to the surface Fluffy had risen. Given how much it upset her when she was aware, Percy saw no reason to tell her about brief instances like this.
“It’s not like I tried to flame anyone sentient,” he muttered, hoping she hadn’t noticed how still and tense he’d been for those few seconds. Riley continued to stare at him. “All right, all right,” he said, feigning annoyance. “Just don’t forget to feed me once we’re onboard. I don’t like being hungry.”
“I understand,” Riley said with a soft sigh. “I promise, I have no intention of making you go hungry.”
“I know that,” Percy said, feeling a little guilty now. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”
Riley nodded but said nothing more. After climbing one more flight of stairs, she opened the door onto Arrivals and Departures and joined the multitude of people already rushing to and from the ships, shuttles, and transports docked with the skyport.
The docking level was oval shaped and approximately one and a half miles in circumference. A wide pedestrian concourse ran all the way around the outside edge of the level, providing access to the docking hatches spaced along the exterior wall.
Once a ship was docked, it connected to a hatch which opened into the skyport. Each hatch was about twenty feet above the concourse floor, with its own boarding ramp providing easy access for passengers. The area at the center of the concourse held ticket counters, luggage retrieval stations, restrooms, waiting lounges, and a wide variety of gift shops and food vendors.
Riley knew the skyport well enough that she didn’t have to stop and think about where she was or where she was going. She glanced up at one of the gigantic display screens scattered liberally around the concourse and saw that she still had more than enough time to reach their transport. But, even though she was only a few minutes’ walk from her destination, she couldn’t seem to make herself slow down. She felt rushed and tense, almost as though something was nipping at her heels.
Her katrenca, always at the front of her mind these days, had started to settle down for the first time since she’d awakened three hours earlier than usual. Now, Fluffy leapt to her feet with a long drawn out hiss of caution, startling Riley so thoroughly that she nearly stopped in her tracks. Other than a slight falter, she continued walking while her eyes searched for a place to stop. She spotted a row of benches up ahead which were mostly unoccupied and headed for the vacant one at the far end. Slipping the strap of her carryall off her shoulder, she set it on the bench and opened it.
