Freeing Luka: The Clecanian Series Book 2 Victoria Aveline (story read aloud TXT) 📖

The long, curving wall held hundreds of tacked-on papers and pictures. Alice squinted at the text on the papers, wishing she’d paid more attention in class today. Tremantian writing was beautiful. Unlike many western languages on Earth, this writing didn’t read left to right or right to left but rather up to down. The letters curved delicately and attached to the letter below, producing a flowing script. It reminded her of an East Asian written language she’d seen once.

As she continued to study the papers, however, she found that not all of the writing looked the same. Some contained the Tremantian symbols she was learning, but others were vastly different. She raised her brows. How many languages can Luka read?

Not wanting to feel impressed by any more of his talents at the moment, she began studying the pictures. The romantic in her gave an unwelcome swoon as soon as she realized what she was looking at. Mated couples.

Hundreds of pictures of mated couples of all kinds were scattered around the pages of text dotting the wall. She frowned and walked along the room, surveying the happy, glowing faces of past Clecanians.

One picture made her steps falter. A tall, blonde beauty stood regally in a red Grecian-style dress. A large man stood next to her, dressed in what Alice assumed was Clecanian formal wear. Blue mating marks were visible on their intertwined hands. They were a gorgeous couple, but what made Alice pause was the look on the man’s face. While the woman beamed toward the camera, the man gazed down at his mate. The love and pure joy in his eyes made Alice somehow feel both full with empathetic joy and hollow.

She stiffened when she heard the soft sound of a door closing. The warmth that spread over her back told her Luka was behind her well before he spoke.

“Do you like this picture?” he rumbled, sending chills through her.

Did she like it? It made her heart ache. “Why do you have all of these pictures?” she asked instead. “Come to think of it, why do you have so many pieces of paper? Isn’t this a technologically advanced planet?” She gestured to the room at large. “Shouldn’t all these books and pictures be digital?”

“They’ve been loaded to many databases, but I’ve always found physical pages to be easier to organize in my mind. I enjoy the feel and smell, as well.” He moved to stand next to her, hands clasped behind his back, nodding toward the image of the happy couple. “They’re all pictures of Clecanian mates from the past. Whenever I find an account of a mating, I gather their story along with their picture and put it on this wall.”

She glanced at his handsome profile. “For research?”

“My field is modern reproduction, not mating,” he said after a moment.

“Then why do you have these everywhere?”

His jaw clenched and his brows drew together as though he was wondering why himself. After a long pause, he turned to her, peering down into her eyes. “I suppose,” he began slowly, “I like to have a reminder of what could be. I liked to imagine a world in which coupled Clecanians could go back to being happy together. Their stories push me to work harder.”

Crap. He is a goddamned closet romantic! She could barely handle her sexual attraction to Luka as it was, but now he revealed that he had a romantic side? She could practically feel her ovaries yelling at her to say, “We can be happy together!”

“So, what’s their story?” she grumbled, forcing her gaze away from Luka’s intense stare and pointing to the picture of the handsome couple. She could feel Luka looking down at her for a moment longer. Their stance felt like the unhappy mirror of the man and woman in the photo.

“They were mated for eighty years, a long time in those days, before our medical advances. He was a gardener, growing plants for use in our medicines. She was a soldier. At the time, Clecania was at war with the Tagion species. During a particularly brutal battle, she was injured and had to be hospitalized. He saw her while delivering plants and recognized her as a potential mate. She recognized him as well but didn’t want to abandon her fellow soldiers, so she refused to be near him, knowing if she was, her mating marks would appear, and she’d never want to leave.”

“You can choose like that?” Alice asked, enthralled.

Luka shrugged. “It’s been known to happen. Mating is an instinct, but we still are who we are. We still have goals and ambitions.”

“What happened next?”

“She returned to the front lines. He stayed in Sauven, another city near here. He couldn’t communicate with her often, but he’d sneak into her home to feel close to her. Every time he did, he’d bring a flower or plant.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a small smile. “She said when she finally returned home, she felt like she’d walked into a forest.”

Alice’s chest swelled and her throat grew tight. Luka had given her plants every day too. She took a few calming breaths, and something he’d said jumped out at her. “She said it was like a forest? Was this paper written by her?” Alice reached out to gently graze the yellowed page with her hand.

He gave her a lopsided smile then pointed to the man in the picture. “His name was Atheon.” His finger moved to the woman. “And her name was Illukia.” Raising his eyebrows at Alice, he added, “I was named after her.”

Alice gasped, glancing from Luka to the picture. “Those are your ancestors?”

“My grandparents. I never met them, but my father told us endless stories about them when we were children.” He grinned back toward the picture.

Out of all the pictures