Your One & Only(17)
Althea felt herself going through the motions of the Pairing. Hassan-318 kissed her, and his fingers slid up her arm. His kisses were warm and hesitant. She tried to focus, to keep her thoughts pleasant. He did have warm, tan skin, and lovely dark eyes with lashes so black they looked painted on.
Althea couldn’t remember if she’d Paired with Hassan-318 before, but she remembered what Hassans liked. She pressed against him. One of her sisters had clearly taken the time to teach Hassan-318 a few things. He touched her the way Altheas liked to be touched, and he knew enough to be slow. He slipped from his robe and she untied hers, letting it fall to the pillows at their feet. She kissed him and then slowly pulled back. His hands roamed down her sides, and she let her own linger on his shoulders. They fell back on the pillows and nestled there, facing each other. Then he braced himself on an elbow and looked at her.
“Should I do something different?” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Your mind is somewhere else. It’s pretty obvious.”
“Oh.” Althea lay back and gazed at the stars through the tent’s skylight. “Sorry.”
“What happened with the Carsons tonight, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “But listen, it doesn’t have to ruin our whole night. We can still Pair if you want. No sense in everyone being miserable.”
He tilted his head at her. “Nah, it’s okay. Sometimes I don’t mind an early night.”
Althea sighed and nestled closer to Hassan. It would have been nice to let the Pairing take her mind off everything, but it would only work for a few moments, and it wasn’t fair to Hassan that she was so distracted. She didn’t even know why she hadn’t picked the Carson like she was supposed to. Part of her blamed the Council meeting for putting all those thoughts in her head about things that happened ages ago.
Althea and Hassan lay together while he talked about his apprenticeship in the greenhouses and the new hybrid seedlings. She didn’t mind letting him chatter while her head rested on his shoulder. After a long while, they dressed and Hassan lifted the flap of the tent. The insects outside had grown louder. Althea breathed in, relieved to be out of the heavy, scented air of the Pairing tent.
“Althea, Hassan!” Nyla-313 emerged from her own tent nearby and pranced toward them, her half-tied gray robe falling from one shoulder. She grabbed Althea’s hand. “I’m glad I caught you. Come with us, we’re exploring!”
Now that the Pairing Ceremony was done, small groups were forming and heading to the dorms or back to the Commons to spend the rest of the evening enjoying the celebrations. Althea was tired, though, and didn’t want to have to explain herself to her sisters tonight.
“I’d rather go home,” she said. She turned to Hassan-318. “You can go with them if you like.”
“Oh, come on,” Nyla said. “Come with us. You can’t go sulk in the dorms for the rest of the night.” Nyla pulled Althea aside. “If this is because of that Carson business, I tried to soften that a bit for you.” Althea wasn’t sure what Nyla meant until Carson-312 emerged from the same tent as Nyla, fastening the leather belts around his robe. Althea hadn’t seen what happened at the rest of the Pairing because she’d rushed off with Hassan, hoping to avoid the glares of the Carsons and her sisters. Now Althea understood. Nyla, trying to ease the sting of Carson-312’s rejection, had paired with him, while her sisters had all Paired with the other Hassans. Althea suddenly felt even worse. Why couldn’t she have just dealt with it and paired with Carson-312? It was all so stupid.
“Come hang out with us,” Nyla said. “It might make things better. Carson-312 says Copan sent a shipment of Somnium last week and he knows where to find it.” She leaned in to whisper. “He specifically said he wanted you to come. You can’t very well reject him twice in the same night.”
Althea wasn’t interested in Somnium. She never liked the way it made her feel, the strange thoughts it put in her head that felt like they’d come from somewhere else. She saw her sisters heading back to the dorms. They were alone. After what Althea had done, their own Pairings might have been as beside the point as hers. It’d be better if she faced them tonight, but if she went with Nyla, maybe later she could tell them how she’d made a special effort to be nice to Carson-312, soothing his ego and any lingering resentment.
Althea nodded to Nyla-313, her decision made. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Four
JACK
Jack hated the nights of Pairing Ceremonies. He could always feel the silence descending on the town, even from inside the labs, and he knew everyone around him was celebrating.
At these times, when the clones working in the labs had left, all he had were his books. Tonight he was reading The Call of the Wild again. His mother had first given it to him because the author had his name, and he’d loved reading about the dog racing through a strange, frozen terrain, so different from the lush jungle Jack had always known. The story stirred something in him. It was violent, and Buck suffered awfully from cold and hunger and the brutality of the other dogs, but he was also wild, powerful, and free. Jack wished he could be more like that instead of stuck inside a sterile, polished lab. He imagined racing headlong through the trees, quick and alive, the walls of Vispera far behind him.