Close Liaisons (The Krinar Chronicles 1)

Jessie’s eyes now resembled big brown saucers. “He told you his name? What is it?”

“Korum.”

“Of course, Korum the K, makes perfect sense.” Jessie’s sense of humor often kicked in at the strangest times. They both snickered at the ridiculousness of that statement.

“Did you know immediately that he was a K? How did he look?” Recovering, Jessie continued with her questions.

“I did.” Mia thought back to that first moment she saw him. How did she know? Was it his eyes? Or something instinctual in her that knew a predator when she saw one? “I think it maybe had to do with the way he moved. It’s difficult to describe. It’s definitely inhuman. He looked a lot like the Ks you’d see on TV – he was tall, good-looking in that particular way that they have, and had strange-looking eyes – they looked almost yellow.”

“Wow, I can’t believe it.” Jessie was pacing the room in circles. “How did he talk to you? What did he sound like?”

Mia let out a sigh. “Next time I get ambushed in the park by an extraterrestrial, I will be sure to have a recording device handy.”

“Oh come on, like you wouldn’t be curious if you were in my shoes.”

True, Jessie did have a point. Sighing again, Mia relayed the whole encounter to her roommate in full detail, leaving out only that brief moment when his hand brushed against hers. For some odd reason, that touch – and her reaction to it – seemed private.

“So you told him ‘bye,’ and he said he will see you later? Oh my God, do you know what that means?” Far from satisfying Jessie, the detailed story seemed to send her into excitement overdrive. She was now almost bouncing off the walls.

“No, what?” Mia felt weary and drained. It reminded her of the feeling after an interview or an exam, when all she wanted was to give her poor overworked brain a chance to unwind. Maybe she shouldn’t have told Jessie about the encounter until tomorrow, when she’d had a chance to relax a bit.

“He wants to see you again!”

“What? Why?” Mia’s tiredness suddenly vanished as adrenaline surged through her again. “It’s just a figure of speech! I’m sure he meant nothing by that – English is not even his first language! Why would he want to see me again?”

“Well, you did say he thought you were pretty –”

“No, I said that he said he was there to meet ‘a pretty curly-haired girl.’ He was just mocking me. I’m sure that was just his way of toying with me . . . He was probably just bored standing there, so he decided to come by and talk to me. Why would a K be interested in me?” Mia cast a disparaging glance in the mirror at her two-year-old Uggs, worn jeans, and a too-big sweater she got on sale at Century 21.

“Mia, I told you, you’re constantly underestimating your appeal.” Jessie sounded earnest, the way she always did when trying to boost Mia’s self-confidence. “You look very cute, with that big mass of curly hair. Plus, you have really pretty eyes – very unusual, to have blue eyes with hair as dark as yours –”

“Oh, please, Jessie.” Mia rolled said eyes. “I’m sure cute doesn’t cut it if you’re a gorgeous K. Besides, you’re my friend – you have to say nice stuff to me.”

As far as Mia was concerned, Jessie was the pretty one in the room. With her curvy athletic build, long black hair, and smooth golden skin, Jessie was every guy’s fantasy – particularly if they happened to like Asian girls. A former high school cheerleader, her roommate of the last three years also had the outgoing personality to match her looks. How the two of them had become such good friends will always remain a mystery to Mia, as her own social skills at the age of eighteen had been all but nonexistent.

Thinking back to that time, Mia remembered how lost and overwhelmed she’d felt arriving in the big city after spending all her life in a small town in Florida. New York University was the best school she’d been accepted to, and her financial aid package ended up being generous, making her parents very happy. However, Mia herself had been far from excited about going to a big-city school with no real campus. Getting caught up in the competitive college application process, she’d applied to most of the top fifteen schools, only to face numerous rejections and inadequate financial aid offers. NYU had seemed like the best alternative all around. Local Florida schools had not even been considered by Mia’s parents at the time, as the rumor had been that the Ks might set up a Center in Florida and her parents wanted her far away from there if that happened. It hadn’t happened – Arizona and New Mexico ended up being the preferred K locales in the United States. However, by then it was too late. Mia had started her second semester at NYU, met Jessie, and slowly began to fall in love with New York City and everything it had to offer.

It was funny how everything turned out. Only five years ago, most people thought they were the only intelligent beings in the universe. Sure, there had always been crackpots claiming UFO sightings, and there had even been things like SETI – serious, government-funded efforts to explore the possibility of extraterrestrial life. But people had no way of knowing whether any kind of life – even single-celled organisms – actually existed on other planets. As a result, most had believed that humans were special and unique, that homo sapiens were the pinnacle of evolutionary development. Now it all seemed so silly, like when people in the Middle Ages thought that the Earth was flat and that the moon and the stars revolved around it. When the Krinar arrived early in the second decade of the twenty-first century, they upended everything that scientists thought they knew about life and its origins.

“I’m telling you, Mia, I think he must’ve liked you!” Jessie’s insistent voice interrupted her musings.

Sighing, Mia turned her attention back to her roommate. “I highly doubt it. Besides, what would he want from me even if he did? We’re two different species. The thought of him liking me is just plain scary . . . What would he want from me, my blood?”

“Well, we don’t know that for a fact. That’s just a rumor. Officially, it’s never been announced that the Ks drink blood.” Jessie sounded hopeful for some weird reason. Maybe Mia’s social life was so bad in her roommate’s eyes that she was eager to have Mia date someone, anyone – same species optional.

“It’s a rumor that many people believe. I’m sure there’s a reason for that. They’re vampires, Jessie. Perhaps not the Draculas of legend, but everyone knows they’re predators. That’s why they’ve set up their Centers in isolated areas . . . so they can do whatever they want there with none the wiser.”

“All right, all right.” Her excitement waning, Jessie sat down on her bed. “You’re right, it would be very scary if he actually did intend to see you again. It’s just fun to pretend sometimes that they’re simply gorgeous humans from outer space, and not a completely different mystery species.”

“I know. He was unbelievably good-looking.” The two girls exchanged understanding glances. “If only he were human . . .”

“You’re too picky, Mia. I’ve always told you that.” Shaking her head in mock reproach, Jessie used her most serious tone of voice. Mia looked at her in disbelief, and they both burst out laughing.

* * *

That night, Mia slept restlessly, her mind replaying the encounter over and over. As soon as she would drift off to sleep, she would see those mocking amber eyes and feel that electrifying touch on her skin. To her embarrassment, her unconscious mind took things even further, and Mia dreamed of him touching her hand. In her dream, his touch would send shivers through her entire body, warming her from within – then he would slide his hand up her arm, cupping her shoulder, and bring her toward him, mesmerizing her with his gaze as he leaned in for the kiss. Her heart racing, Mia would close her eyes and lean toward him, feeling his soft lips touch hers, sending waves of warm sensations throughout her body.

Waking up, Mia felt her heart pounding in her chest and heat pooling slowly between her legs. It was 5 a.m. and she’d barely slept for the last five hours. Dammit, why was a brief encounter with an alien having such an effect on her? Maybe Jessie was right, and she needed to get out more, meet some more guys. Over the past three years, under Jessie’s tutelage, Mia had shed a lot of her former shyness and awkwardness. For her high school graduation, her parents got her laser eye surgery, and her post-braces smile was nice and even. She now felt comfortable going to a party where she knew at least a few people, and she could even go out dancing after having a sufficient number of shots. But for some reason, the dating world still eluded her. The few dates she’d been on in recent months had been disappointing, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had actually kissed a guy. Maybe it was that nice kid from biology last year? For some reason, Mia had never clicked with any of the men she’d met, and it was becoming embarrassing to admit that she was still a virgin at twenty-one years of age.