Saving Verakko: The Clecanian Series Book 3 Victoria Aveline (best book club books .TXT) 📖

Verakko’s brows furrowed in thought as he looked at her. He gave his head a small shake and replaced the water canteen in the pack.

Lily was burning to know what he’d been wondering just then, but she clamped her mouth shut.

Verakko peered into the sky, and to her shock, a dark, translucent second lid slid down over his bright green eyes. Without thinking, she grabbed his face and wrenched it down to her own. “You have a second lid! How cool. You have no idea how many times I wished I had something like this. You go on a three-week trip into the Australian outback and lose your sunglasses the first day—trust me, constant squinting messes with your sanity, not to mention the wrinkles I must’ve accumulated. It’s like you have built-in sunglasses! This would’ve come in so handy if only for the flies. My God, they’re terrible there. You wouldn’t eve—”

A low, rattling vibration, more melodic than the growl he’d directed at her before, sounded from his chest, and she jumped away.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I just got excited. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that. What was that sound?”

“It was nothing.” Verakko straightened, clearing his throat.

Lily stared at the spot on his chest where the sound had come from, then back to his face. She held back a wide smile at what she found.

Verakko, the sour, proud, strong alien, appeared…ruffled.

“As I was saying.” His gaze darted, and a deeper cerulean tinted his high cheeks. He glanced around again. “What was I saying?”

Lily bit her lip to keep from grinning. “Do you mean, what were you saying before you started blushing?”

His blush deepened. “I am not blushing,” he said, then stomped away. Something in the trees caught his attention, and he stopped again. He motioned triumphantly toward the tree line. “Ah! I was going to ask when you were planning to stop. There’s a guren tree here.”

“We can stop now.”

Without looking at her, he nodded and made his way over to the tree. Lily studied his six-and-a-half-foot frame as he plucked the guren nuts from limbs higher than she could reach while jumping, and smiled again.

What was that sound, and how can I get him to make it again?

Chapter 7

“Confusing female. Grabbing my face,” Verakko griped under his breath as he hauled the last load of firewood to the small camp they’d set up.

Lily sat under a beautiful sprawling tree heavily laden with delicate yellow flowers. The small blossoms floated down around her as she focused on cracking nuts open against a smooth rock. She looked like some kind of forest goddess come to life. Verakko scowled. And he couldn’t have her. Couldn’t even try.

He dropped the wood pile, and she started at the loud cracks of dry wood hitting dry wood. For a moment, she stared up at him quizzically then returned to her task.

Verakko settled himself with another long stick and began carving a new spear tip. The one he’d started on yesterday hadn’t made it through Lily’s first dead-of-night moan. He’d be prepared for the sound tonight, though.

“Do you know what these flowers are?” She asked, examining one of the small yellow blossoms.

He scraped a large flake of wood from his spear and ground his teeth in frustration. “No.”

“Hmm. Too bad. It’d be nice if it could be made into a medicine or tea.” She returned to shucking the nuts.

The need to explain why his knowledge was so lacking bubbled in him. “They don’t grow in the desert where I’m from.”

“Tell me about your hometown,” she said, never taking her eyes from her work.

“Mithrandir? What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“Well,” he began, leaning back against the soft bark of a tree, “it’s a desert city. Fairly large. Surrounded by black sand as far as the eye can see. The old city is situated in the Well, an enormous pit formed by my ancestors centuries ago. But most people have moved into the new city, and now the old city is used primarily for recreation. There are shops and restaurants and spas.”

“Spas?” Lily interrupted, her head snapping up.

Why was she so excited? “What are spas where you’re from?”

“People go there for beauty treatments. Hair, massages, facials. Things like that. Are those the kind of spas you have?”

He gave a tight nod. “I didn’t take you for the type to frequent such establishments.”

“Just because I don’t complain about being dirty and gross doesn’t mean I like looking this way.” Her chest puffed a little, and her eyes returned to the ever-shrinking pile of un-shucked nuts. “I’ll have you know, I was a hairstylist back home. I worked at a spa, and I loved it.”

“You could work at one again now.”

Lily paused and grew thoughtful. “I’d like to. I wonder how long it’d take to work through beauty school again. I can’t imagine the products are the same. Or the hair, for that matter.” She studied Verakko’s hair, and he quelled the urge to smooth it. “What steps did they take to put those streaks in your hair?”

“I haven’t colored my hair. I only get it cut on occasion.” His comment seemed to irk her, and she returned to shucking the last few nuts.

“Do hairstylists get paid well in your city?”

Was Mithrandir his city anymore? He loved his town, and his people, but he loved them as an outsider would. He fit in much better in Tremanta, where technology and innovation were revered, rather than luxury and tradition. Verakko supposed he’d have to give up those things now. If he managed to have a child with Ziritha, he’d need to remain in Mithrandir indefinitely. “Yes. A trip to the spas and the basins is a regular occurrence and held dear among my