I had never been so angry. Not when they stalked me, not when they kidnapped me from Earth, not anything else they had done had left me feeling this level of rage.
We had actually left him. My father who I had thought was dead. The man who I had mourned for, who I had missed with every breath in my body.
They had left him there.
I had left him there, and my heart felt broken.
How could I get over this?
They had locked me in a room on the spaceship again. I had learned this was their way of dealing with me when they weren’t sure what to do, just lock me out of sight where I couldn’t cause trouble.
I guess at least they hadn’t knocked me out this time. Although I’m sure they were regretting that since I had spent the last hour screaming and crying against the door, trying to convince them to turn the ship around so that we could go and save him.
As usual, my cries fell on deaf ears.
Corran had tried to reason with me. He tried to tell me it was too dangerous and that we could go back when it was safe. He tried to tell me that my life was too important for them to risk it by trying to save those humans, by trying to save my father.
My resentment grew with every word that he spoke. What had happened to them that they held such little compassion inside of them? How could we have just left them all there? How did they even live with themselves right now?
I had screamed that question at them through the door and Thane had yelled back that he was feeling great about himself in the moment seeing as how he had just “saved my ass” from the Khonsu hunt.
When my voice grew too hoarse to function, I sank to the ground and sobbed. I was so done with feeling like I had no control over my life. When was that going to change? How could I change that?
How could this even count as any semblance of a relationship when they were the ones who made all the decisions. I had no voice in anything. They always did what they thought was best.
I’ll admit that at times I had found their bossy ways to be attractive. But this...leaving my father...it was on a whole other level.
I didn’t know how I could forgive them for this.
I felt exhausted, more exhausted than I could remember ever feeling. Right then it was too much. Finding my father after all these years. Being hunted by an alien race whose end goal was to rape me. Thinking that I was about to be raped before Thane revealed himself, and then having to have sex in front of the Khonsu.
It was too much.
Before I had met Derrial, Thane, and Corran, I had just been a regular girl, a nobody. Sure I was poor and basically a doormat for everyone around me, but at least I knew what to expect out of life.
Now everything was up in the air. It seemed that just when I found the answer to one thing, another problem would pop right up, more often than not worse than the problem before it.
And I hadn’t even let myself think about the fact that I could be pregnant right now, scientifically knocked up with an alien baby. I mean how was this my life?
The image of Bruda passed through my mind at that moment. I thought about the fact that she had literally been a sex slave for the Vepar Council for years, yet she still somehow managed to keep her spirit alive.
Just thinking about everything she had been through made me feel guilty at my current freak out. Despite the fact that I had been through a lot, I hadn’t been through that.
I resolved right then and there that I was going to find a way to go back to my father. I wasn’t going to leave him with the Khonsu. I could be a hero in my own story for once.
And what if my mother was still alive? I hadn’t seen her in the cell, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t there. I hadn’t seen any females in that cell so maybe she was being held somewhere else.
Just the thought of feeling my parents’ arms around me again gave me a strength that I didn’t know that I still possessed.
I dragged myself off the ground and walked into the bathroom. Washing my face, I stared at myself in the mirror.
I had scratches and cuts all over my body from the Hunt. Corran hadn’t had a chance to use his little machine to fix me up yet. I almost didn’t want him to heal me. I wanted to make sure that I never forgot what had happened, that I never forgot this sense of resolve that I had.
Faint voices caught my attention. Looking around the room for where they were coming from, I walked over to the wall where I saw a small speaker. The guys’ voices were coming through it. Evidently, they had forgotten to turn it off with the craziness of what had happened. There was no way that they would have intentionally left it on. They did their best to keep me out of everything.
I guess they weren’t going to get what they wanted this time.
Corran was talking frantically to the other two. "What if she finds out we knew?" he asked, his voice soft like it pained him.
What if I find out they knew what?
Thane answered him sternly, "She’s never going to find out. There would be no coming back from that," he explained.
"It would be better for us to be upfront about it,” argued Corran. "We should just explain our reasoning, how we've changed since then," he continued. "I'm sure she would understand if we just explain."
Derrial laughed. "When has she ever been reasonable?" he asked sarcastically.
I bristled at his tone. I felt like I'd been very reasonable about everything considering the circumstances. They were the ones that were completely unreasonable about everything.
Now I was even more suspicious about what they were talking about.
"It's not like we knew for sure that her parents had been taken, at least not at first," Derrial continued.
I sank to my knees. My heart felt like it was being squeezed to death. Were they talking about what I thought they were talking about? Had they known this entire time where my parents were?
And they had done nothing.
Just let them go through who knows what with the Khonsu?
Thane was right, there really was no coming back from this.
"That's the least of our concerns right now," Thane finally said after a lengthy pause when all of them seemed to be thinking.
“You’re worried that the procedure was successful?" Derrial asked.
They were talking about me getting pregnant in the lab, and my heart shuddered.
“You’re not?” Thane barked.
"Corran, what do you think the chances are that they were able to get it figured out? Is there a way to tell,” Derrial asked, ignoring Thane’s question.
"Not this early," Corran replied. “It will take at least two weeks for the hCG to be strong enough to be detected," he explained.
"Do you really think that they were able to work it out, how to do the implementation successfully without you?" Thane pressed.
"My team was very capable, and they had all of my work. So they should have been able to do it."
He sighed.
"I had hoped that it would have dissuaded them when they found out that I had taken the compound before I left. But now I'm not sure that any of them would even have cared."
This was so much to deal with. Not only could I be pregnant, but I also apparently could still die because of said pregnancy. And my parents had been captured by the Khonsu and had been here the entire time. Once again, how was this my life?
"We need to give her the compound just in case," said Derrial sternly.
“The compound had to be administered at the time of the implementation," Corran added. “It would be too late for that. But she should be fine with our blood sustaining her. That acts the same as the compound because we’re her mates."
“Then we have a fucking problem since our blood is no longer compatible with hers,” roared Thane. He was so loud that the walls shook.
“What the hell do you mean?” said Derrial. “How is that possible?”
“Up on the mountain, when I was saving her…”
“You mean when you were fucking her brains out in front of the Khonsu?” interrupted Derrial dryly, making me blush at the memory because it was a pretty apt description.
“Fuck you,” Thane snapped, annoyed. “This is serious. I bit her while we were having sex...and it made me really sick.”
“What do you mean it made you sick?” asked Corran, I’m sure his brain already thinking of a million scientific reasons why that would have happened.
“I mean it made my throat burn, like it was eating my insides. I had to cough it up before I could even continue.”
As furious as I was at the guys, it felt like I had lost something important knowing that our blood bond had been severed.
“Corran, how does that happen?” asked Derrial. “I’ve never heard of that occurring.”
“Kella,” Corran answered, scornfully.
“What does Kella have to do with anything?” asked Thane.
“Kella was heading up another team. The Council said that he was working on different farm techniques when I asked. I didn’t bother to inquire further because I was busy with my own stuff and I’ve never been particularly impressed with anything Kella has ever done. But this had to be something he was working on…” Corran explained, the end of his sentence trailing off.
“Blood transfer is an integral part of the Vepar’s life," said Derrial. “Why would he be working on something that disrupts that?"
“What's that phrase that Ella always uses, oh yes, that's the million-dollar question," Corran said.
"How long do we have to give her our blood before she starts suffering?” Thane asked, sounding a little bit frantic.
There was a silence, and then a roar and bang as one of them smashed something against a wall. Evidently the answer wasn't good.
I noted that they hadn't talked about what they would do with the baby if I was pregnant, and they hadn't talked about any preventative pills. Maybe they didn't have that in the Vepar culture because of their fertility issues. I had a sense that even bringing something like that up would cause issues that I didn't want to get into at the moment.
I did need to know the differences between caring for a Vepar fetus and a human fetus though. I couldn't help but think of what happened to poor Bella in those Twilight books when she got pregnant with a vampire baby. What if this Vepar baby implanted its little horns into my uterus or something, or maybe it required blood to grow. I didn’t even know if Vepar fetuses required a shorter or longer pregnancy than human babies.
Corran hadn't said anything about any of it in our discussions.
I didn't know if I was pregnant, or if the doctor had a change of heart in the end. I needed to stop worrying for now though. I guess I would cross all of those bridges when I came to them, if I survived to that point that is.
"If they've created something that breaks the blood bond, surely they have something to fix it,” Derrial muttered. I was sure his mind already came up with possible solutions. They took turns being the leader, but I had noticed that Derrial took the lead more often than not.
"I wonder…" said Corran.
"Wonder what?" Thane snarled, obviously annoyed with Corran’s analytical mind at the moment.
"I wonder if Kella’s experiments have anything to do with the rumors that we've heard," Corran expounded slowly.
"The rumors that an unusual amount of our people have seemed to be going crazy lately?" Derrial asked.
"Yes. We've never really studied everything that the blood bond provides our people. I wonder if the blood bond experiments and the fertility issues are somehow connected."
"I don't care about any of that. I'm only concerned about the fact that our mate might die because of it. Do you think you can come up with something that fixes it?" Thane asked. "If she is pregnant, there's no way for us to reverse it. You know this."
Despite how furious I was, I felt a twinge of sympathy for how upset Thane seemed to be.
"I'm sure I can figure it out, but again, I would assume that they have an antidote for the blood bond issues already created. We just need to get to Kella’s lab."
"We’re heading to his lab then," Derrial said. “Thane, come with me. We’ll need to look at what routes we need to avoid to the capital city. Corran, go check on Ella and see if you can calm her.”
I couldn’t hear anything after that, signaling the end of their conversation.
I sat there, unable to really move with everything I just learned. Vepar pregnancies weren’t reversible. The guys had possibly known that my parents had been here all along. If I was pregnant, I was definitely going to die without the blood bond being fixed. Some of the Vepar were going crazy.
There was so much that they kept from me. I hated this feeling that we were always unequal in our power.
We were now heading to the capital city, where I assumed the lab was. That meant it would be who knows how long until we would have a chance to save my father. I couldn't let that happen. If I did die, then no one would ever save him. It was the least I could do to take care of him. And I still needed to find my Mom.
I wandered back into the bedroom and sat on the bed, thinking of a plan as I did so. I had no idea how to fly a ship, but I was pretty sure that there were smaller emergency cruisers located on all of Corran’s spaceships, if we were on one of Corran’s spaceships to begin with.
I would assume that they would have coordinates already plugged in for places they had been, like the Khonsu settlement. Zeni had offered me a spaceship to return to Earth. That meant that Vepar ships could basically fly themselves since she would have known I had no experience.
I would just have to watch them as we flew to see if I could figure it out.
Just then footsteps sounded outside the door. A second later, a door opened up in the wall and Corran walked inside.
He looked a bit hesitant. "How are you feeling?" he asked gently.
I had to make this look real, that I wasn't actually that mad at them. But I couldn't be too calm, or they would get suspicious.
"I guess I did need this time to think," I told Corran. "I'm still upset, but I somewhat understand. I wouldn't hesitate to save one of you if it were between your life and someone else's."
Corran’s face visibly brightened. It was as if I had taken a huge weight off his shoulders. He came to sit next to me on the bed. "That's exactly it! We can’t stand for anything else to happen to you, Ella." He reached out and softly stroked the side of my face. A tinge of pleasure flashed down my spine. He leaned in to kiss me, and it took everything I had to let him. The fury I felt against them was so hot that I could practically taste it on my tongue. The last thing I wanted to do was kiss him.
He must've sensed my hesitance, because he softly brushed his lips across my mouth before pulling away. "It would kill me if anything happened to you," he said softly.
I ignored the look in his eyes. I knew he meant every word. But what they all needed to understand was that true love didn't come with stipulations. From the beginning, everything had been based on what they wanted and that was the only way the relationship worked. That wasn’t love.
My stomach chose that moment to growl. Corran looked excited at the fact that I had a problem he could fix. "Let's go get you some food," he said eagerly.
I nodded, allowing him to take my hand as he led me out of the room and down to the mess hall. He grabbed a tray from a cabinet, pressed a few buttons on his admittedly useful invention that allowed for basically whatever food you wanted to appear, and then loaded up the tray.
He led me out to the hallway again, and my heart leaped. Was he taking me to the Bridge?
It was just my luck that Thane and Derrial were busy planning the best route to avoid the Council’s army that was on the lookout for us and get to the Capital...because that meant that Corran needed to watch over the ship’s controls.
We walked into the Bridge, and I was relieved to see that it looked similar to the past ships that I had been on with them. This had to be one of Corran’s fleet.
I watched him as he fiddled with the controls, absentmindedly putting food in my mouth just because I knew I would need energy for what lay ahead.
"You're having to press a lot of buttons over there," I told him. "I was under the impression that these things practically flew themselves," I continued disingenuously.
Corran laughed, a rosy hue appearing on his cheeks. I had caught him doing something. "They can fly by themselves, but there's something about the thrill of doing it myself. I only put it on what you humans call “cruise control” when I'm out of the room."
"So how does that work? I've been in Earth’s planes’ cockpits before, but this looks nothing like that,” I asked him.
I felt a little bad. I was praying on Corran’s love for all things tech. Corran had from the beginning loved to show me how his creations worked. Evidently, showing me how to fly the ship wasn't any different.
He began to show me exactly how everything worked. If I managed to get away, I know he would be kicking himself. I put my emotions to the side. I would think about my complicated relationship with all of them later.
Corran had just finished explaining how to input in the coordinates when the entrance to the Bridge opened and Thane and Derrial walked in.
They looked as nervous as Corran had looked when he had first come to talk to me.
"On a scale of 1 to 100 how mad are you right now, pet?" asked Derrial, peering at me intently.
Try a billion, I thought to myself.
"I'm still angry, but I understand more why you felt the need to get me out of there as fast as possible," I said, shooting Corran a look. "I would have a problem with all of you being in danger as well," I explained.
And it was the truth.
A part of me understood their need to keep me safe. The problem I had with them was their inability to consult with me about anything and all the secrets that they continually hid from me. They had known how devastating it was for me to think all these years that I had lost my parents. Now to know that they had been here all along, and that the guys had potentially known that they were with the Khonsu...It just was incomprehensible that they would have kept that from me. Maybe in the beginning before there were any real feelings between us, I could see them keeping it quiet. But they claimed I was supposed to be their mate now.
How could they have continued to keep my parents’ existence from me?
"Ella?" asked Thane suspiciously.
Shit. Going off into lala land wasn't how I needed to be acting right now. I smiled weakly. "Sorry, it's just all been a lot. I can't believe that my parents are alive," I said, the threat of emotion tickling my throat.
Corran moved over to me and softly touched my back, trying to comfort me. "We promise as soon as we get settled, and can come up with a plan, we will go back for your father," he said meaningfully.
It was funny, but I didn't believe a single word that was coming out of his mouth, even though I think he meant them. Something would always inevitably come up that would make them feel the need to try to keep me safe rather than do what I wanted.
Continuing with my plan, I kissed Corran softly on the cheek. "Thank you. That means so much to me," I told him.
"What's the plan?" I asked. "Where are we going to right now?" I said pretending that I was unaware of anything.
I watched as the guys exchanged wary glances. "We haven't talked very much about what happened back in the lab," Corran began.
“You mean the fact that I'm possibly pregnant with an unknown Vepar embryo?" I asked sarcastically.
He nodded somberly. "As a safeguard, to protect my experiments, I had taken one of the key compounds with me whenever I left the lab. The compound was integral to the success of the viability of both the embryo and the host."
I interrupted him. “Can’t I just start taking it once I find out if I’m even pregnant," I said.
Corran shook his head. “It's too late already. It had to be administered at the time of implantation,” Corran explained seriously.
I let the fear that I'd been trying to block from my mind briefly show through on my face.
Thane stepped forward. "But it will be okay," he said quickly. "Because we've all blood bonded with you, if we just continue to share blood with you, everything will be alright," he said, trying to comfort me.
"I'm sensing a but...," I told him, annoyed at how long it was taking them to get the information out that I already knew.
The guys exchanged another glance. They had been around each other for so long that they could have whole conversations without even saying anything. Or maybe there was a telekinetic aspect to it all that they hadn't bothered telling me about. I wouldn't put it past them.
"Something's wrong with our blood bond," Thane answered reluctantly. "We're on our way to another of the Council’s labs to try and see if they have the fix for it."
“And if they don't have the fix?" I said, trying to calm the hysteria I felt every time I thought about it.
"Then I'll figure it out," Corran said resolutely.
“Right,” I said with a nod knowing how important it was to Corran that I believed him. “I think I'm going to go lay down," I told them. "How long until we get to our destination?" I asked.
Corran looked at some of his controls. "Another three hours I believe," he said.
Veon was a lot bigger than Earth, I thought to myself. It had seemed like we were able to travel extremely long distances within just a few minutes on Earth. I would have to ask Corran how all of that worked. Just not right now.
"You want one of us to go with you?" Derrial asked, even though I could tell that he was itching to get back to his planning.
"I'll be fine," I said with a smile that hopefully looked convincing. Everything depended on me being alone obviously. They all nodded, and I forced myself to kiss them on the cheek before leaving the room.
My next stop was the medical room. I needed to find whatever Corran had used to knock me out the last time we were on one of his ships. I would need at least a little bit of a head start to get out of here, and that would depend on all three of them being out for the count.
I walked along the corridor of the ship as calmly as possible. I knew that there were various cameras all over the ship, I just didn't know where they were located. Hopefully they wouldn't be paying attention to my whereabouts since they had so much to do. I kept myself at a steady pace just in case they were. If they saw me walking naturally, maybe they would think I was just going to grab a headache tablet or more food or something since I wasn't in my bedroom yet.
I got to the medical room and walked in. I felt a wave of desperation as I looked at the rows of silver cabinets. There was no way I was going to be able to tell which of the medicines here worked to knock you out. What if I picked the wrong one and I accidentally killed them?
Something shiny on the counter to my left caught my attention. There were two syringes full of shimmery liquid laid out on a tray. I knew the medicine that Corran had used on me had looked like that. I’d gotten a good look right before he knocked me out. Had they pulled the syringes out just in case they needed me to "cooperate" again.
Just the thought made me even more furious. They were willing to do anything required to get me to do what they wanted; I knew this already.
It wasn’t a far stretch to think that these syringes had most likely been meant for me.
But I still felt like I needed some way to confirm. I wasn't comfortable giving them something when I wasn't positive what it was.
Maybe I could just hit them over the top of the head with a pan, I thought to myself, beginning to giggle a little crazily. Just then voices sounded in the hallway. It was Thane and Derrial, apparently walking to wherever they were monitoring the position of the Council’s forces.
"At least we didn’t have to knock her out again," said Derrial mildly. Thane laughed. The sound of it made me want to kick him in the nuts.
"Corran had the syringes ready just in case," said Derrial casually, like he was talking about the weather rather than drugging his mate.
That comment made up my mind for me. I didn't care if these were the right syringes, I was so upset that maybe I didn't care at that moment if the syringes were filled with something dangerous.
No, I didn't mean that.
But what they had just said cleared the way for me to use this medicine on them. As far as I was concerned, if it wasn't the right one, it was their fault.
I carefully emptied both syringes into a cup and took them back to the room where I had first been held.
My next order of business was figuring out if there were, in fact, the smaller safety ships on this ship. If not, I was going to have to knock them all out and take the ship back to the Khonsu’s city.
I made my way down the various corridors of the ship. It was a lot larger than it appeared from the outside and I wondered if that was another invention of Corran. After 30 minutes of searching, I was starting to get nervous. What if I didn't find where they were kept in time and we traveled all the way back to the Capitol?
I guess I could hijack the ship after they got off to find the fix for the blood bond. I didn't want to wait that long though. That meant I would be traveling the entire distance back to the Khonsu city by myself. I wasn't sure I was ready for that. Somehow it didn't seem so bad to only have to retrace our steps halfway.
I finally got to an entrance that looked more industrial than the others. I felt around the outside, trying to figure out how Corran operated the entrance. When he walked through, they seemed to just appear, but other times when Thane and Derrial passed through the entrances, it had opened like a regular door.
I waved my hand in front of the door just in case it had a motion sensor, probably looking like a lunatic. When that didn't work, I then started to feel around the edge of the door, hoping there was some kind of invisible button or something I had to press that would open it. I had gotten all the way around the other side of the door when it suddenly opened.
Lo and behold, two, small, one-to-two person-sized ships were sitting there.
Perfect, I whispered to myself.
I retraced my steps back to the mess hall. I had Corran’s machine create a small meal for all of us. I included some of the guys’ favorites. Then I incorporated the liquid from the syringes, hoping that they were tasteless and that they worked when taken orally.
Taking the tray, I walked to the Bridge, butterflies filling my stomach. I couldn't believe I was about to do this. I almost talked myself out of it several times. It was only the memory of Thane and Derrial talking so casually about knocking me out that kept my feet moving forward.
I walked into the Bridge. Thane and Derrial hadn’t come back yet. Corran looked at me in surprise as I walked in, his face flushed with pleasure as he saw my loaded tray.
"What's all of this?" he asked, walking towards me and taking the tray from me so that he could set it down on the table.
"I just wanted to do something nice for you. You guys are always taking care of me," I responded, the words feeling dirty as they left my mouth.
Corran brushed another of his gentle kisses across my lips. "Thank you," he said.
He put his hand to his ear, speaking into the communicator that they all seemed to have. "Come eat," he said, his voice definitely not as sweet as when he was talking to me.
A few minutes later, Thane and Derrial walked into the room. Their faces held the same pleasure as Corran’s had as they saw the food spread out. "Did you do this?” Thane asked.
"Just wanted to say thank you," I repeated, forcing a smile on my face. I wasn’t sure why this was making them so happy. Maybe I hadn’t done as many nice things for them as I should have.
Our lives were always so up in the air, that I couldn’t remember a time since our stay together on Earth where I had actually had time to do something like bring them dinner.
If we ever got back together after this, I was probably going to have to make a lot of dinners to make up for what I was about to do. But then again, I wasn't sure if there was anything they could do to make up for what they had done to me.
I nibbled on my food, trying not to stare at them too closely as I waited for the medicine to kick in. It happened to Corran first, I assumed because he was the smallest of the three. He began to look drowsy, his eyes opening and closing slowly as he tried to fight it. He looked over at me questioningly, but before he could say anything he passed out.
Thane was next, following Corran into slumber just a couple of seconds later.
Derrial was the last one. He stood up in his chair to walk towards me, a look of betrayal written across his face. I got up as well and started to back away from him. He only lasted a couple of steps until he sank to his knees and passed out.
It was time to go.
I was sure I didn't have a lot of time. I sprinted down the corridor, running as fast as I could until I got to the room where the ships were kept. I jumped into the closest one. Looking around at the controls, I tried to figure out where everything was located. Despite its size, it still had most of the same controls that Corran had showed me earlier.
I went through in my head what Corran had shown me and then started pressing buttons. Once I got the ship turned on and it seemed like I had inputted for the ship to return to the last destination inputted, I turned my attention to opening up the main door of the spacecraft to let my smaller ship out.
I looked around in a panic, trying to see which button looked correct. I just knew that they would wake up at any time now and run in to stop me.
Finally, I saw a green button on the left side of the ship that wasn't a part of any of the controls that Corran had shown me earlier.
Taking a deep breath and sending a silent prayer that it wasn’t a blaster or something, I pressed it.
A few seconds later the doors of the main ship opened. Pressing the control I knew moved the ship forward, I flew out away from Corran’s spacecraft.
I never in a million years dreamed that I would be flying in an alien spacecraft on an alien planet.
It was as terrifying as it was invigorating.