03 Solar Flare - Spark Series Read Online Free PDF Page B

wheel chair…even the memories still made her
faintly nauseous.
    She accepted her com back without comment and
collected her tablet. “Thanks for servicing the transport. I’ll see
you around.”
    “Brandy.” Azor’s voice was calm, but there
was concern as well as command. “Don’t let it stop you from
calling.”
    She didn’t turn around. There were times when
talking just wasn’t smart.
     
    She was still thinking about it as she pulled
into the club that night. She’d never been to Yazzor’s before, but
the club’s reputation was respectable. She parked the transport and
stared at the exterior’s glossy, red glass finish, but she didn’t
really see it.
    She’d hated Azor on sight. He’d been so cold,
so curt, and he had a way of smiling without humor that made her
want to claw him.
    He’d been rude and into everything. She’d
felt swarmed, pursued as his men had combed the brewery. She’d
sworn he’d known she was hiding something even then, but then
again, he’d come off that way for a long time, even after the ugly
trial that had destroyed her sister’s reputation and nearly ruined
hers as well.
    Xera had escaped to the GE, but Brandy had
stayed home and tried to live down the scandal. It had taken years,
and even now she was considered no catch. Any respectable mother on
Polaris would look askance at a son who brought her home. No matter
how much money she had, theirs was a conservative planet. It would
take a special man to marry her.
    Even her childhood friend M’acht had backed
out of their brief, choppy relationship. Rebel though he was, he
wasn’t up to taking her on for the rest of his life. Hence her
search for a potential suitor. Sometimes a girl had to get
aggressive with these things.
    Brandy stepped out of the transport. She was
dressed in trendy, but respectable black pants and a burnt orange
silk halter-top that covered what it should. She wore a
conservative jacket to lend a formal air to the occasion. One
couldn’t be too careful with first meetings.
    The club was noisy with gyrating dancers. She
had little use for the pastime and wished her date had chosen a
quiet restaurant as she’d suggested. It would have been easier to
talk.
    She looked over the dancers and blinked. At
first glance there seemed to be an unusual number of aliens in
attendance, but a moment’s study revealed it was shape-changing
Kiuyians she saw. Many of them had played with their form, wearing
the heads of birds or predators as a form of disguise. Some had
decked their skins in scales, feathers and fur, as if they were
engaged in a masked ball. She saw one huge specimen with the black
head of a dog and long, blunt nails of polished ebony. He wore no
shirt, just a wide beaded collar of gold and jade beads. His black
chest rippled with muscle. His eyes, when he glanced her way, were
telltale Kiuyian green.
    She knew a Kiuyian could not hold an assumed
form forever. When they lost consciousness or slept, they assumed
their original form. It was a survival trick, one they’d developed
on their long lost world. It was also something they did for fun.
Regardless, it gave the place an air of anonymity that made her
vaguely uncomfortable.
    She frowned, not because she had anything
against Kiuyians, but because it was an odd choice of place to
stage a meeting. Her date hadn’t mentioned a Kiuyian heritage, and
she’d asked. She always asked.
    She’d been married once. Her husband had been
the boy next door, and Kiuyian. She’d been twenty-three, convinced
that time was slipping by. He’d wanted to get back at his bigoted
father. They’d run off and gotten married, but it had been a
disaster. Maybe his father’s attitude had unconsciously poisoned
him, for he’d finally admitted he was only attracted to Kiuyian
women. They’d dragged the affair out for over two months, sought
counseling, but it was useless. He wanted out. She let him go.
    It had taken years to drag her name out of
the gutter, for people