Cissy
and Tasha spent the night in guest suites in the Royal House. Jessica had not been subtle in the least as
she went over all the amenities that came with living just two levels below her
grand home in the cliff.
“A
kitchen open 27 hours a day every day, ready to whip up whatever your heart’s
desire,” she gushed. “They’ve gotten
really good at preparing Earther food, which our colony on Haven supplies. Vax himself taught them how to cook the best
dishes, a kind of Kalquorian-Earther fusion that will make you fat and happy.”
Imdiko
Vax was one of Lindsey’s clanmates, a celebrated chef who owned three
restaurants on Kalquor. To hear Lindsey
and Jessica tell it, one needed reservations months in advance to hope to eat
in one of his establishments.
“Look in
the entertainment room,” Jessica went on, tugging the twins all over the guest
suite. “The latest in vid
technology. You’d swear you’re in the
middle of every program you watch. And
just listen to that sound system!”
She
instructed the entertainment to play some rimnastin, a newer form of music that
had grown out of the heavy thunder of Kalquorian lemanthev crossed with the
dance-friendly Plasian sleshirin and incorporated Earther sonic guitars and
keyboards. It was music Cissy herself
had grown partial to. Her head bobbed in
time with the thudding beat.
The
bathing facility was no less impressive with its shower built big enough for an
entire Kalquorian clan to use at once (or a football team, as Cissy whispered
to Tasha), a sauna, a whirlpool, and a bathing pool the size of a small
pond. The bedrooms were even more
immense, with balconies that looked over the ocean and sleeping mats every bit
as large as the bathing pool.
The
opulence was mind boggling, and Cissy wondered if she’d made a mistake in
planning to live in the Matara Complex, where women from Earth stayed as they
courted likely clans for lifemates.
She’d never been one for fancy things, but she thought she might be able
to get used to such luxury.
However,
she and Tasha both found the suite far too big after their cousins left for the
night. The huge space felt like a
mausoleum, echoing and devoid of life no matter how loud the women cranked up
the rimnastin music.
After a
somewhat restless night during which Cissy felt she was drowning in the immense
sleeping mat, she found Tasha as eager to quit the grand suite of rooms for the
smaller apartments of the complex that had been built to host Earther women
looking for clans. They had their storage
bins by the door when Lindsey and Jessica arrived at sunrise.
“Overkill,
huh?” Lindsey laughed as she handed them each a covered mug of coffee. “Now you see why my clan lives in a much more
modest setting.”
No release date set.
I am looking forward to reading this book.
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