The Seven Foot Cupid

By Edward Hoornaert

Ember Dayle prides herself on handling anything her newly colonized planet can throw at her. After an injury, she’s determined to prove herself again. She gets her chance when ordered to explore a mysterious cave on a wilderness mountain. Until that’s done, the last thing she needs is the distraction of a man.

Tyler, an explorer from her town’s fierce rival, is sent to explore the same cave. Like Ember, he’s been in an accident...but he was the only survivor. When he meets Ember, he’s drawn not only to her beauty and toughness, but by her ability to deal openly with her accident.

Booker is a naïve Apprentice Cupid for a secret group hoping to make the colonists healthier, and smarter by helping people with strong genes fall in love. His first assignment: Ember and Tyler. His strategy: lock them in an abandoned cabin together. With nothing else to pass the time, maybe they’ll find love.

He doesn’t realize he’s locked them in with the fiercest, most intelligent native beast ever discovered. Can love help them survive?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edward Hoornaert
• Release date: Mar 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005537159

Edward Hoornaert

Edward Hoornaert is not only a science fiction and romance writer, he's also a certifiable Harlequin Hero, having inspired NYT best-selling author Vicki Lewis Thompson to write Mr. Valentine, which was dedicated to him. From this comes his online alter ego, "Mr. Valentine."These days, Hoornaert mostly writes science fiction—either sf romances, or sf with elements of romance. After living at 26 different addresses in his first 27 years, the rolling stone slowed in the Canadian Rockies and finally came to rest in Tucson, Arizona. Amongst other things, he has been a teacher, technical writer, and symphonic oboist. He married his high school sweetheart a week after graduation and is still in love ... which is probably why he can write romance.

Book preview

The Seven-Foot Cupid

Edward Hoornaert

http://eahoornaert.com/

Copyright March 2021 by Edward Hoornaert

All rights reserved

This novel is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places and incidents are either

the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover design by Danielle Fine

Edited by Danielle Fine

ISBN: 9781005537159

Dedication

.

This book is dedicated to:

The members of the Saguaro RWA who've been such help to me over the years. I came up with the idea for this trilogy at one of the meetings, so thanks!

And to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. I used to think I'd have 'made it' as a writer if I got into SFWA. I got in ten or fifteen years ago, but somehow the goalposts keep moving on me.

And to all the excellent, highly professional technical writers I've worked with over the years. RTFM, everyone.

Chapter One – Falling Face-First into Darkness

Ember Dayle scooted on her bum closer to the hole. Then closer still, until her feet hung over black nothingness. She sat there a few seconds, building up the courage to move closer. The hole in the ground was round—a perfect three-foot circle. That meant it was man-made. Which meant it was trouble.

She hadn’t cursed in eighteen years, not since she caught her high school boyfriend in bed with her sister Teegan. The horrible words she’d screamed at Teegan—some of which had shocked even their father—had so appalled Ember she’d washed her mouth out with soap.

Actually, it was just mouthwash. Teegan had been the seducer, not the seducee. She wasn’t worth suffering the vile taste of soap.

That day had been a turning point. Her relationship with Teegan had never recovered, and aside from an infrequent damnation or black holy hell, Ember had never cursed.

Until today. Sitting utterly alone on a windy mountainside redolent with cinnamon grass and demon bush, she loosed a torrent of swear words.

After being off work for six months, she needed something simple and straightforward on her first assignment back on the job. Not this. She wasn’t a quitter—or at least she hadn’t been before her accident—so why was she even thinking of failure?

Blaming her face, which had been reconstructed to look like someone who resembled her, had become one of her coping mechanisms, so she straightened and slapped her cheek lightly. If you fall off a horse, she said to the face, climb right back on. Otherwise, you never will.

In her ear, her communications cricket piped up. You’ve never seen an Earth horse except in the zoo, Ember. Not even the tinny little speaker could disguise the concern in her sister’s contralto. Are you okay?

I’m fine. In her mind’s eye, Ember could see the furrows of a frown between Rayna’s eyebrows. She was a good kid who’d never slept with any of Ember’s boyfriends. I’m just following protocol—observe before exploring. And what I observe is that the hole in the cave’s ceiling is perfectly round.

No shit? That’s unnatural. Creepy. Even dangerous.

Not necessarily. Sure, someone must’ve been planning no good when they drilled the hole, but there’s no sign of anyone now.

Did you scan for life forms?

Of course. I followed all the protocols.

"Yeah, I shouldn’t have bothered asking you that question, Rayna said. Tell you what—I’ll come with you. Wait twenty minutes and we’ll explore this thing together."

And risk her sister, the baby of the family at twenty-six? No way. The rules say to risk only one person at a time.

Guidelines, not rules.

Stay with the transport ship, Ember said. That’s an order.

Grr. A few hours into her first mission in six months and she’s already as bossy as ever.

"I am not bossy." Ember regretted falling for the bait, but it stiffened her resolve, which was probably what her sneaky sister intended.

That silence, Rayna said, was the sound of me sticking out my tongue.

Ember grinned and felt a bit better. Grow up, kid. Some of us have a mystery to explore.

She unclipped the multi-comm from her belt and adjusted it with a quick, sure touch. Audio recording is now on, she said into the comm. This is Ember Dayle, senior encroachment officer and team lead, examining skylight AQ-49.

She spoke the date, spatial coordinates, and her assignment number. Then she videoed the hole from several angles.

The hole cuts through… She paused to take measurements with the comm unit’s lidar, which illuminated the rock with laser light and measured the reflection with a sensor. Just twenty-eight inches of basalt.

That was paper thin. Fear of falling if the ground crumbled threatened to overcome her, but she managed to beat it back. She had to go on. Had to find out what this hole was all about.

This spot was fifty miles from the nearest habitation. Someone had wanted no witnesses when they snuck through this illegal skylight, which gave access to a long, tunnel-like cave leading to the heart of her homeland. After a moment, she filled her lungs then stepped closer to the lip.

Although I can’t see it, lidar says the floor of the tube lies forty-two feet down, as expected. I’ll transmit the data I’ve gathered before I go down. She put the comm unit on automatic and clipped it to her belt.

To test the firmness of the rocks, she jumped in place—though not very high. The ground didn’t shake, didn’t swallow her. So far so good.

She dropped rucksacks filled with supplies down the hole, one at a time. She shined a flashlight down to check that they’d landed safely. Again, so far so good.

She pulled a metal anchor-claw from her rucksack. A coil of thin Strongstrand was attached to the claw, which she spiked into the ground and stomped on to make sure it’d hold her weight. She did the same for a second coil and claw. After she attached the cables to her vest and set the depth, built-in motors would lower her to the tube’s floor slowly and gently. Or at least they were supposed to.

The breeze picked up. When it wafted across the hole, it was like blowing across an open bottle, making the skylight groan as though laughing at her pitiful little precautions. Disliking being mocked, she took out another claw, carefully measured out just enough cable, and stomped the claw into the ground.

Rayna would be anxious all over again if she knew she’d anchored three claws. It was probably overkill, but she was nervous. The claw slipped in a little too easily, as though it had found a fissure in the rock. When she tested it, however, it stayed put.

Nothing to fear, she whispered as she scooted on her bum to the hole. Just a job to do.

Nonetheless, the stranger’s face scrunched into a mask of anxiety. Ember slapped her cheek lightly and scooted farther until her legs dangled into the hole. Just a hole. Not going to fall.

You still okay, sis? asked Rayna via the cricket.

I’m fine. Ember vowed to keep her thoughts to herself. Just fine. Going down soon.

The next steps were to attach the hooks at the end of the three Strongstrands to her vest and then set the vest’s motors to uncoil thirty-nine feet of cable—enough to allow her to reach the floor, but not enough to crash into it. She was about to rewind the long cable in her vest—

—when the ground cracked underneath her and tilted, as though trying to dump her to her death. She felt the jolt all the way to her jaw. She looked back in terror.

The third claw, the one she’d added to be extra safe, had split the thin layer of basalt. She now sat precariously on a lip of rock that slanted down at a ten-degree angle.

Calm, be calm. Only ten degrees. It’ll be easy to crawl up.

If the lip of rock didn’t break off completely and if she didn’t panic. She couldn’t fall. Not again. She turned, moving slowly.

Not slowly enough. The ground shifted again. The cowardly face screamed.

But the basalt didn’t quite break and Ember didn’t quite fall. The previously flat ground now slanted into the skylight at a precarious twenty-degree angle.

Please don’t let me fall please don’t let me fall please don’t—

Her heart might burst from pounding so hard, but otherwise she was okay. For now. Rayna, the rocks—

But as though the hole were alive, it interrupted. You up there. Go the hell away, damn it. The words were clear and distinct, though the cave lent them a sepulchral echo, like a grave welcoming a new tenant.

Startled, Ember jerked. The sudden movement broke the lip of rock.

She screeched, flailed, panicked. And fell face-first into darkness.

Just like last time.

Chapter Two – The Prehistoric Cabin

Tyler Estrella didn’t know how many tens of thousands of years this volcano had been extinct, but he sincerely hoped it stayed extinct—because he was inside it. Or at least inside one of the tunnels that had carried lava from the caldera to the sea.

He couldn’t see much of his surroundings—too dark—but what he could see was like a fairy’s dusk. With his flashlight off, the only light came from the annoying new skylight and the bioluminescent lichens clinging to the walls and ceiling. By itself, each of the lichens was vanishingly dim, but hundreds of thousands of them gave the tube a lovely, dim ambience as he ate his sandwich—two pieces of pumpkin-grass bread with slices of spiced onion-brute lunchmeat.

The meat was canned, of course. These were field rations.

He was four-thousand feet up Mount Addoray, the most massive volcano in the known galaxy. Not the tallest—an extremely gentle slope led up to a summit only about nine-thousand feet high—but its lava had spread to create the largest landmass on this planet. Passion Island.

Humanity’s home.

Tyler’s home.

When this mountain was young enough to still have fire in its belly, runny lava had flowed right here as a huge, hot river. Contact with the air had cooled the top and sides into a rocky pipe. Through countless eruptions, the river flowed in the pipe until the last burst of lava emptied over the lowlands, leaving behind this hundred-mile-long tunnel called Haventube.

Unlike caves formed by water dissolving limestone, Haventube had no confusing, dangerous side branches. Its width was a steady one-hundred-twenty feet. Its floor was flat. The roof was a gentle arch forty feet high. Few animals, none of them dangerous, lived there.

All in all, it was a decent place to live, in a pinch.

A similar but smaller lava tube on Earth’s moon had housed its first colony. And eighty years ago, Haventube had solved the problem of immediate housing for a million colonists as they came out of cold sleep after the one-way trip from Earth.

Tyler jerked at a sudden noise. A dull thud. Then another. The unexpected sounds startled him so much he dropped his sandwich.

By the time he reached the skylight, three lumps sat on the cave’s floor. They were partly covered by a rainfall of dirt, but he recognized rucksacks. All holidays end, as the saying went. That didn’t mean he had to like losing his blessed privacy.

He shaded his eyes to stare up at the intruder’s boots and legs dangling into the skylight. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called, You up there. Go the hell away, damn it.

The intruder jerked and yelped. Good.

But then a woman gave a bloodcurdling battle cry and launched herself at him. A hailstorm of dirt and falling rocks distracted him from defending himself. The attacker—this had to be an attack, right?—slammed into his shoulders, driving him backward to the cave’s floor.

His head hit hard stone. The world swam. The light overhead flared, narrowed, split into two. Then three.

Someone groaned. Was it him?

By the time the skylight resolved into a single source bigger than the mysterious round hole that had drawn him here, he realized he was shaking.

Correction. He was being shaken by…someone. But who?

Oh yeah. The woman who’d fallen on top of him.

I’m awake, I’m awake. He blinked. Sort of. Stop shaking me.

She didn’t—and she wasn’t, he realized, trying to revive him. She was just trembling violently. He hoped there was nothing more serious than getting shaken up by the fall. When he tried to take a deep breath, she weighed too heavily on his chest. At least get off me.

She didn’t. Maybe she couldn’t? Even though he’d cushioned her landing at considerable expense, she seemed to have gotten the worst of the tumble from the world of sunshine.

And maybe she’d fallen, rather than attacked him. Addoray was peaceful, an idyllic Garden of Eden with no wars or criminal gangs roaming the wilds beyond the settlement walls.

Her chest pinned his right arm, but he moved his left around her shoulders and touched her with the wary gentleness he would’ve used on an unfamiliar dog. The touch seemed to soothe her, so he stroked her back cautiously.

She bore no weapons, wore no uniform. Not an attacker, then. His knee was raised, and her legs rested on either side, mimicking a lover’s intimacy. If he ignored the back of his skull, which drummed a rhythm of pain, her body felt surprisingly good. He couldn’t remember when holding a woman had felt quite this…interesting.

Make love not war, he whispered into her dark hair.

She didn’t seem to have heard, and that was good. The sentiment was unworthy, considering her condition. She still trembled, though not as violently as minutes ago. He squelched inappropriate thoughts and shook her shoulder carefully.

She mumbled something. That was progress of a sort.

She shifted her head. More progress.

If you can, please get up. His mouth was so close to her cheek that it was the most natural thing in the world, at least in his dazed condition, to let loosen his inhibitions and feather it with the lightest of kisses that were intended to be reassuring, like stroking her back.

As soon as his lips touched her, she jerked her head up. She stared at him with eyes so wide the whites showed all around her pupils. She exploded into action, shoving hard against his chest and belly to clamber to her feet.

Oof, he said.

She loomed over him, her posture rigid, hands clenched. Light from above cast harsh shadows over her face, so she appeared more a subterranean nightmare than a human being.

Her dusty rappel vest was sky blue trimmed with red—the colors of an Eastcott encro. Eastcott was the rival of his settlement, Westerlin. The very names of the settlements proclaimed their rivalry, which had its roots in the prehistory that had been life on Earth. Since Eastcott— named after one of the five spaceship captains who’d ferried colonists to planet Addoray—had the word east in its name, the founders of his homeland had invented a name containing west.

The competition between the two settlements ran deep, and was becoming downright fierce. But had it exploded into warfare while he hid away from the world? Easties were quarrelsome and generally obnoxious, but not openly hostile.

He rose to a sitting position and felt the back of his head gingerly. His hand came away a little bloody. Considering how freely head wounds bled, the injury was minor.

He chose his words and tone of voice carefully. Are you injured, ma’am?

Her fists shot open and she patted every square inch of her face, which was unmarked except where his lips had cleaned away dirt. Under the bulky rappel vest, her chest rose in a heavy sigh. She moved like an achy old woman and put her hands on her hips.

Ma’am, eh? Her voice matched her posture: aggressive, in a wobbly sort of way. You from Westerlin, bud?

My name’s not Bud, it’s Tyler. Tyler Estrella. He braced himself before continuing. Maybe you’ve heard of me.

Should I have?

He smiled, relieved. Not at all.

He grabbed his fallen flashlight and rose to full height. For several reasons, he was glad he towered over her. At six foot five, he towered over most men, let alone women trying to intimidate him.

I’m relieved you’re okay. He meant it, even though his seclusion had ended. You are okay, right? You’re still trembling.

She hid her hand behind her back so he couldn’t see it shake. The compassion in his voice seemed to have taken the edge off her belligerence. The cricket fell out of my ear, but other than that, I’m fine. Just…shaken up.

His heart went out to this woman. Her cheeks and forehead were smudged with dirt and her hair was so covered in dust and dirt he couldn’t tell its color. Nonetheless, there was something appealing about her. Maybe it was her courage in trying to appear unfazed by a terrifying fall. Or perhaps it was her vulnerability, which made him want to wrap his arms around her and whisper that he had everything under control. It didn’t hurt that she was around his age, attractive, and female.

But the hard glint of her eyes as she glanced up warned him not to even think about offering sympathy.

He kept his voice professional and impersonal. You’re an encro, right? So I’ll bet this isn’t the first time you’ve fallen.

A person doesn’t have to have fallen before to find it scary. It’s an instinctual fear. With her finger, she touched her cheeks and nose as though checking for injuries. The finger trembled. Now you, bud. Why’d you drill the skylight?

I didn’t.

Then what are you doing down here?

Same as you, I imagine. Inspecting the tube for signs of trouble or beast incursions in preparation for sealing the skylight.

She looked up at him in surprise, and the quick movement made her wince. You’re an encro?

Encroachment Officers oversaw the interactions between colonists and planet Addoray’s native creatures. Their primary goal wasn’t to preserve the indigenous environment, though Tyler tried his utmost. Instead, they kept the indigenous environment from interfering with humanity’s spread across the planet.

Most of Tyler’s assignments were less exotic than this one. Usually, he helped farmers deal with weeds and pests—but other assignments involved exploration or lethal poisons. The job was ninety percent boring, ten