The next two few days passed in a blur of waking up, breakfast, exercise, lunch and dinner with more activities like training to fight. Each meal consisted of vegetables, grains and fruit with small portions of protein. No dessert or breads, and most of the dishes were minimally cooked, so raw foods evidently were a thing here. I understood now why the Vepar insisted on healthy eating back on Earth. They believed in clean living.
The second test had commenced and a different girl went out each night, dressed gloriously for a date with the Vepar. I’d watched a few of them get ready, waiting for my turn, making themselves perfect, revealing a lot of skin, and even practicing their dainty laugh. It made me want to hurl. Thank god they weren’t going to win… or I hoped they wouldn’t, and then I could put all this crap behind me. If I attended this mating ritual as a real contender, unsure who the men would pick, I’d be so high strung and stressed.
To clear the constant thoughts hammering into me, I sat crossed legged on the lawn in the small yard filled with benches and gorgeous flower laden trees with the dual suns burning brightly overhead. There was a tranquility and peacefulness to Veon. Unlike Earth, most here rarely complained about their jobs and loved whatever it was they did. This place felt safe, though I also heard the maids talking about more attacks outside the city. How guards patrolling the perimeter were becoming more effective against the Khonsu.
A shadow fell over me, and I flinched, glancing up, squinting to see Zeni staring down at me, her hands gripping the loose orange dress she wore. It flowed to her ankles and with her hair loose and dangling over her shoulder, she was beautiful. Then again, who wasn’t gorgeous on Veon?
“I have something to show you,” she murmured and offered me her hand to stand up. I shouldn’t have accepted, but if I did end up becoming the Vepars’ mate, I didn’t want enemies but friends.
I accepted her offer and stood. The wind brushed past, pushing the hair out of her face. Her smile was bright today, and she almost bounced on her toes as we walked as if she was excited.
She looped her arm around mine like we were BFFs and strolled across the lawn, around the side of the house and through an opening in the gate.
“I’ve been thinking about you lately,” she began, while I glanced back remembering being told we weren’t to leave the house or grounds. But I was also curious what she had to show me. In reality, I was bored on my own. No books were written in english and the big monitor TV inside the communal room only showed news. The room was empty for a reason.
“It must be so hard being away from home, from those you love, and your family. I bet you had a boy or two who was interested in you too.”
I cut her a hard stare, and I saw right through her words. She played on my emotions, and sure, it worked a little because I missed things from Earth, mostly my freedom and mocha vanilla coffee, but what was she going to show me?
“Where are we going?”
“It won’t be long.” We strolled down a back alley flanked by towering fences backing onto numerous mansions. No one was around and Zeni sped up her walk.
“When I was young, my parents sent me to Journey, our nearest moon, to the best boarding school in our universe. While there, I missed them everyday and hated how everything seemed so foreign. So I understand what you’re going through.”
“Not sure you do.” Ever since losing my parents, I struggled to feel comfortable on Earth again and always felt like an outsider.
When she looked at me, something shifted behind her expression… doubt, but that was quickly chased away by her fake smile.
“What happened between you and Derrial, Corran, and Thane?” I asked. Yeah a low blow, but I wasn’t liking the way she mocked me as if she understood my life. I’d lost so much and barely kept it together most days.
She didn’t even warrant looking my way or responding, but pointed to something in the distance to a warehouse. “That’s where we’re going.” There was no heat in her voice, and her heart thumped steadily, but her smile sat crooked on her face.
Guilt skated over my mind because maybe here she was trying to do something nice in her own way and I brought up a hurtful past. Though she also threatened me in the cell… But she healed my bite marks in the first test and she didn’t need to. My arm didn’t drop off.
“I once read a quote that said, yesterday is gone. It’s a little something I try to tell myself everyday when I think of everything I’ve lost.”
“So, you’re happy to move on from the past because you can’t do anything about it? That’s very defeatist,” she retorted.
“Not really. I don’t want to live with regret and always wishing I did something differently. I can only change my future.” As the words fell from my mouth, I wondered how much I truly followed this path since my parents were always on my mind, and I still drowned in the sorrow of what my supposed best friend, Cherry, did to me.
Zeni shrugged, not saying anything but hurrying her steps until we reached the side door of the steel gray building. She punched in a code into the security system on the wall, and the door slid open.
She grabbed my hand and dragged me inside, laughing. “You’re going to love this.”
We ran through an open space, our shoes thumping on the hard floor like gunshots, and we headed straight for a small spaceship. Black and slick, it was about the size of Corran’s first ship back on Earth.
Once we arrived, Zeni hit the controllers near the door and it slid upward before a set of stairs unfurled before us. She rushed inside and looked back at me, her face beaming with joy.
“Come on in.”
“What’s going on?” Nerves danced over my skin.
“Get in here, stop being so scared. I’m not going to kidnap you.” She laughed hysterically, except I wouldn’t put it past her.
Reluctantly I stepped inside, curious and needing to know what made her so excited and if I’d feel the same way once I found out.
Black interiors and the lights across the front dash threw light across the small ship that contained a small bed and table in the back but loads of buttons which I assumed were all about revealing stored items.
Zeni was in the driver’s seat, swiveling around to face me, her horns throwing shadows on the walls that looked demonic. “What do you think?”
I shrugged, unsure what she referred to. “It’s a nice spaceship.”
She jumped to her feet. “Well this small cruiser is yours. I called in a lot of favors to make it happen. Isn’t that exciting?”
“What? How can this be mine?”
She snatched my hand and dragged me to the front, pushing me into the driver’s seat, and I flopped down.
“It’s all programmed and it practically flies itself.”
I stared at her blankly, trying to work out what was really going on? Was this a friendly thing to do in Veon? Give people spaceships?
“You have no clue, do you?”
I shook my head.
“Ella, you’re so slow sometimes. This ship can take you back home to your planet, Earth. You can leave right now and no one will stop you as I’ve got a few guards ready to turn a blind eye.”
Her words swirled in my mind, over and over, still not sinking in. “I can leave now?”
“Yes!” she boomed and danced over to me, taking my hand. “Isn’t that exciting? You can be home in under one human month, and put everything here behind you.”
My brain numbed for a moment, and my heart should have leapt at the chance, yet something in my chest sank through me. A sorrow for leaving behind what I’d found.
“What do you think?” she was jumping up and down in front of me like an excited child.
“I...I need to think about it.”
“Well, you only have a short window to make that decision. And you don’t want to miss this one time opportunity.” She paced toward the rear and back again, letting me think.
Thoughts shot through my head like a ping pong ball. How I’d dreamed of nothing more than going home, how it might give me a chance to put distance and hide from the Vepar once and for all… but did I really want that? We had the blood bond, but maybe such distance between us would break it. I could find another job.
But they wouldn’t let me go. They’d return and hunt me down… and what about the Khonsu roaming on Earth? What if they found me.. Who would come to my rescue?
Trying to organize the chaos of my life seemed useless because every time I thought of never seeing Corran’s smile again, feeling Thane against me, smelling Derrial’s sexy scent, I felt sick to my stomach and tears pricked my eyes. Uncertainty spreads across my mind like running ink.
The feelings roaming inside me told me everything, even if my brain screamed the opposite, telling me to accept the offer, to head home. But then what?
Freaking hell. This should be an easy decision, yet I slumped in my seat, my chest aching. Had I really fallen this deep for the Vepar? And if I left now, they’d be forced to select one of those five females as their mate. Then they’d hate me, and my heart would be ripped to shreds to imagine them with another woman.
Struggling to breath from the sheer stress pressing down on my chest, I got to my feet, needing to follow my instinct. Right now, it was yelling at me to get out of the ship as fast as possible.
“Zeni, thank you for the chance, but I’ll pass.”
Her mouth gaped open. “Are you crazy? I’m giving you a free ride home and you want to stay here where most people want to see you imprisoned and everyone else would love to see you experimented on so we understand why you don’t have horns or a tail.”
I shuddered at either of those options, noting that she didn’t seem to know about the fertility procedures yet. “You don’t need to understand why, but I am doing this for me.” Without waiting for her response, I climbed out of the cruiser and walked away, my knees knocking together, my throat choking with tears falling down my face.
I just walked away from returning to Earth.
Hell!
What was I thinking?