Valeria

By Kaitlin R. Branch

An inventor and a pilot find love in the clouds, if they can avoid evil, in this steampunk romance short story from the author of the Cinereal series

Sometimes, ya just gotta let your hair down.

Mache Harcming is an airfoil pilot having a bad day. Forced to make an emergency landing on an unmarked dirigible, he discovers a genius inventor, Valeria. She is beautiful, fascinating, and unlike any woman he has ever known before. She is also dangerous. Mache is certain if the CEO of her company, Elthgo Inc., discovers his presence aboard her aircraft, he will die.

But Valeria begs him to stay. And stay he does, hiding in the vents of the airship whenever the CEO visits. How can he refuse such a beautiful woman? More importantly, how long will the ruse last before he's found out?

WARNING: Brief torture scene.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lyrical Press
• Release date: Nov 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781616504199

Book preview

Also by Kaitlin R. Branch

Valeria

Pandora’s Ring

Sword’s Blessing

VALERIA

By KAITLIN R. BRANCH

LYRICAL PRESS

http://lyricalpress.com/

KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/

To my mother, my first reader, and my father, my first editor.

Acknowledgements

This being my first published book, there’s a lot of people that I need to thank, but I’ll try to only ramble on a little while.

Mom and Dad, I know that sometimes you wonder where in the world I got this whole obsession with writing from, but I think it’s pretty obvious, myself.  After all, you’re the ones who read me Lord of the Rings and Jurassic Park before bed time, took me dancing, singing, and generally stuffed about as much creativity into me as any kid could wish for.  Thanks.

Sarah, despite all that Mom and Dad did, this is still all your fault.  You know how much I love you for it.

Julie, thank you for introducing me to Steampunk, and letting me play sandbox in the world of your books.  Let’s try not to kill these two characters, ok?

Michael, my husband, the milk to my cookies, the peas to my carrots, and the Damien to my Eritta, thanks.  I love you.

Foreword

To adapt fairy tales is a long and varied tradition.  The best part is that it never really gets old.  We tell these stories over and over again for a reason.  They are familiar, comforting, even when given a fresh face.  Valeria is a part of this tradition, as an adaption of the classic fairy tale Rapunzel into the world of Steampunk.  I hope that you enjoy this adaption of the Grimm’s tale about love as much as I enjoyed writing it.

1

Mache Harcming decided that the land was God’s greatest creation. More varied than the sea, more colored than the sky, it was a patchwork culmination of everything beautiful about the world.

Unfortunately, it was going to kill him.

No! No, no, no. Not that sound. The bell continued alerting him with polite rings that his airfoil had gained critical momentum. He would soon be making good, squishy friends with the ground.

The boss’s gonna kill me, he moaned, refusing to acknowledge that unless he quickly came up with some way to fix the issue, he would not have a boss or a body to kill. The sleek silver craft didn’t reply other than dinging at him some more and Mache finally found the problem. One of the turning foils was jammed, shoving the nose down and refusing to budge.

Mache jiggled the controls. Nothing. He tried waggling the airfoil. Sometimes it was a bit of sand in the gears and the wind’s direction change would jimmy it out. He only gained downward momentum and Mache’s inner ears buzzed with the special sort of panic when one’s life flashed before his eyes.

Who the hell checked this thing out before he’d taken off, anyway?

Oh. Right. He had.

Goddamn glider, he grumbled and reached out, struggling to lay his hand on the device and budge it a little, just enough for it to respond to the controls again. The air began to whistle around him as his movements jiggled the craft into a steeper dive. He gulped, pressed on his flying goggles and leaned forward.

His finger barely brushed the edge. He grasped it briefly, then lost it. Growling, he ripped off his glove and tried again, gaining purchase this time.

With a whoop of triumph Mache pulled, let go and pulled again. If he could get it out of the dive he could probably use some creative flying to get himself to the ground safely without jamming it again. Maybe?

The offending edge of the airfoil cracked off. Mache stared at the piece of layered aluminum in his hand.

Shit.

They’d always told him the airfoil gliders were brittle, but to be broken by hand? What kind of operation was this? Maybe he needed a new job. Clearly, delivery services were going to get him killed.

Miraculously, the foil came out of its dive, leveling off. The pressure bell stopped ringing and Mache gulped as he saw how much closer the ground was now than when he’d started. He leaned back, smoothed his kid leather jacket, readjusted his goggles and took the controls.

Hell, he sighed. I guess I’ve had my brush with death for the day.

Still, how was he going to get anywhere? He had a chance of getting to the ground. It would be a better bet to do an air landing, though. Less clattering around, less scaring folks, less embarrassment. He looked up, scanning the skyline and the ground below.

Under him was the great, sprawling city of Stuttgart. At least he’d avoided crashing some rich lady’s tea party. He’d take blessings where he could find them. Around were the various short range gliders with less insulation than his cross-country one, and their base point dirigibles, complete with drop points and hang lines.

I’d rather you crash the damn thing in a river than make me pay the fees an emergency landing would cost. The boss’ verbatim response to a trainee’s question boomed through Mache’s mind and he winced. Okay, not one of those. The boss was right. The fees were exorbitant but people stuck in situations requiring an emergency landing, such as the one he was in