As we laid there in the bloody paradise of our own making, I saw that Thane looked pensive and a little bit worried. Not exactly the look I thought he would have after what we had just shared.
"What's wrong?" I asked, stroking his arm softly as I spoke, his skin slippery under my touch because of the blood that coated his flesh.
"I think it's time you met my mother," he said. I saw the guys exchange looks with each other. I rolled my eyes; they were never going to stop.
"I'm sure I know at least some of your secrets at this point, but you should probably just tell me why you want to go visit your mom now, while we are fugitives from the Vepar government," I said in what I hoped sounded like a fierce voice.
Derrial laughed at my attempt. "Okay pet, tell us what secrets you think we’re trying to keep from you," he asked in a patronizing voice.
"What about the fact that you think that the Council's experiments are making the Vepars lose control and go crazy. That wouldn't be why you wanted to visit your mother now, would it?" I asked Thane in a heated voice.
All of the guys’ jaws dropped.
“I heard you on the spaceship. I'm not telling you how, just in case I need to listen again, but I know a lot more than you think I do now."
Thane got up, took a towel out of a cabinet nearby and started to wipe himself down. I was pretty sure that wasn't going to even come close to wiping off all the blood coating him. We probably needed to shower several times and maybe just destroy this room; I didn't think it could get clean.
Before anyone began to answer any of my questions, Corran walked over to the far wall, and opened up a drawer next to the bed. I admired the way his taut muscles moved under his skin. He pulled out a small rectangular device that looked similar to a cigarette lighter. He opened up the top and pressed a button.
I watched in amazement as beads of blood started to rise up in the air from where they had been plastered all over the sheets, floor, our bodies, and the walls. The blood droplets gathered and zoomed towards the machine, disappearing into it somehow even though it was way too small to hold all the carnage of the room. After just a few minutes, the room, our clothes, and everything else was perfectly clean, like I had just imagined the mess we had just made.
"Better close your mouth, kitten. You wouldn't want a Daygar to get in," advised Corran with a laugh.
"What the hell is a Daygar?" I asked. "We say flies usually when we’re talking about closing your mouth, is a Daygar similar to that,” I asked, confused.
The guys were all openly laughing at me at this point. "The Daygars are monsters that eat your tongue while you are sleeping. They're not real, but we tell children that in order to get them to behave,” answered Derrial.
I thought about Bruda’s similar tale about parents telling the children about the Khonsu to keep them in line. Clearly these people had a different idea of appropriate stories to tell their children than humans did.
"I'm going to be closely monitoring any stories we tell our children," I announced to all of them.
Immediately there was a soft look in all of their eyes, you would've thought that I had just given them one million dollars or something like that. "What?" I asked suspiciously.
"That's just the first time you've really talked about actually having children with us," said Corran softly.
I stared at him. "I thought that was a foregone conclusion considering I could possibly be pregnant already. Although, I guess there's no chance the child would be one of yours though, is there?” I asked, a wave of sadness and frustration welling over me.
It was bad enough to be forced to be pregnant. But then to not even know who the father was? What if he was a monster? What if I was growing a monster's baby? What would we do then?
"We can't worry about that right now. And there's always the chance that it could be one of ours. Our sperm was used in the experiments since I was in charge of them," Corran explained.
He must've seen the confused look on my face, because he answered before I could voice my question. "That whole God complex that us scientists have. If we were going to create new life, I wanted that life to be because of me," he said, not sounding a little bit embarrassed about it.
A thin tendril of hope rose up in me, even though I knew that I should tamp it down.
"But I'm sure everything was labeled. There’s no way that the Council would've allowed one of your sperm to be used in an experiment with me after everything that's happened," I said, my hopes dashing into pieces at those thoughts.
"That's probably true," said Corran. "But there's still a chance that it could be one of ours if you are even pregnant.”
I nodded. If I believed that enough, maybe it would come true...right?
"Now that Corran has managed to clean us all up, let's get out of here,” Thane commanded, breaking the suddenly heavy silence.
"To see your mother?" I asked.
Thane nodded. "I want you to meet her. But… I also want to check in on her. I usually visit her once a month when I'm on Veon. I know that they've taken a lot of the affected Vepar to her facility, so I want to check on the security precautions to make sure that she's safe."
My heart melted at how worried he sounded. All of them were so layered. It felt like I was always discovering new things about them. Thane’s concern over his mother's safety was just another layer. It had been a very long time since she had been any form of a parent to him, but I could tell that she still meant so much to him.
"Let's go," I said.
Thane and Derrial spent a few minutes mapping out a route to the facility. It was obviously a risk going there since it was a risk going anywhere public right now. They didn't think that the Council would put resources toward scoping out the facility, but you never knew. It was apparently common knowledge among the higher ups where Thane’s mom was kept.
We would have to don disguises when we went into the building though, just in case the staff had been alerted to our “most wanted” status.
Finally, we were off. Zipping through the Vepar sky, I watched the myriad of colors underneath us, I once again marveled at how I'd ended up on this crazy planet.
The trip was short. Only an hour passed before we were there. We stopped about a mile away so that the ship’s sensors could detect the area for any of the Council or its army. When none appeared, except one in one of the facilities’ buildings upstairs who had gone crazy, we flew in closer and landed in a patch of woods outside the facility.
Corran disguised me as a blonde with two Vepar horns the color of ebony coming out of my head. The guys disguised themselves as well and we left the ship. There was no way that anyone would recognize us in these getups.
I wasn't sure what to expect as we got closer to the building. We were about to walk into what basically amounted to a Vepar insane asylum. I wasn't sure what insanity looked like here considering I was pretty sure Zeni had been insane and she had still been allowed to roam free. Their standards for what counted as crazy must have been a little different from Earth’s.
From the outside the facility looked similar to other Vepar dwellings I had seen, except it was a lot larger. In fact, it was almost as large as the Khonsu arena had been. Except this was in the familiar dome-shape of most of the Vepar dwellings.
It was perfectly white on the outside, a light dusting of silver sparkles peeking out from the pristine whiteness. It was impossible to tell what the front of the building was and what was the back since there were no visible doors or windows.
I followed the guys to the building. We stood there in front of the blank wall, which I assumed had to be the front, and we waited. After what felt like ten minutes, I jumped back in surprise when a holographic image of a beautiful Vepar woman appeared in front of us.
"Please state your name," she said in a perfectly calm voice. The tone of her voice was so calm that it evoked images of meadows and rippling streams just by listening to it. It was the perfect voice for a place like this whose inhabitants were probably the opposite of calm.
"Aeryn," Thane said, not giving a last name. Corran had hacked into the facilities database when Thane’s mother had been first admitted and inputted several aliases for them all into the system. They now had several names with security clearances to be used with their different disguises. I guess the guys had always believed in being prepared.
“I'm here to see, Lania,” Thane continued, cutting off my thoughts. The hologram nodded.
"Please wait," she stated before disappearing.
Lania, that was a pretty name. I wondered if she and Thane looked alike.
I was nervous when a door appeared in the previously smooth wall and we walked in. Even though by the sound of it, Thane’s mother wouldn’t talk to me very much, I still had an innate need for her to like me.
The inside of the facility was the same stark white as the outside. Apparently the Vepar had come to the same decision as facilities on Earth, that the mentally ill needed the serenity of white rather than the chaos of the other colors.
We went down a long hallway with no windows or doors. There was no sign of anyone else although I thought I could hear faint yells and screams from beyond the walls. I started to feel claustrophobic. Corran must've sensed my distress because he grabbed my hand in his and squeezed it reassuringly.
After a time, we came to another wall and stopped in front of it. The hologram appeared again.
"Lania is having a good day today. Please be advised that she continues to suffer from intense hallucinations and is prone to outbursts of anger that can lead to physical violence. Today she has been allowed to freely move around her room. Please make sure that you are not carrying any sharp objects or other items that could be used as weapons," the hologram told us.
Thane’s body had stiffened at the robotic way that the hologram spit out his mother's medical information, like she wasn't a living being, just another statistic in a computer. I felt a rush of pity that I knew Thane wouldn't appreciate. What had his life been like, having a mother who suffered from issues like that?
It made me think of my own mother and the fact that she was still missing. Soft was what I thought of when I thought of my mother. Her voice, her mannerisms, the feeling of her skin. Everything about her had been soft and loving. I wondered if years of torture under the Khonsu had knocked that out of her. If she was alive, would she be joining Thane’s mother at a place like this?
I shivered just thinking about it. After Thane nodded his understanding and the rest of us all nodded as well, a door appeared in the wall. It slid open, and we walked into another white room. There was a white metal bed in one corner of the room. It looked like it had been wrapped in some kind of padding. I supposed so that she wouldn't be able to hurt herself on it. The room was empty of any furnishings besides a large screen that was embedded into one of the walls. On the screen played a slideshow of various images that I recognized as different places around Veon. Soft smooth music played from hidden speakers in the walls. And there, sitting on a white pillow on the floor in front of the screen, was who I assumed was Thane's mother.
She turned to look at us as we came in and her face lit up with a stunning smile. She was gorgeous, as were all the Vepar, but she had a certain look about her that was different from the other Vepar that I’d seen. There were deep lines around her eyes and her forehead unlike other Vepars. She also had a certain sadness in her stunning blue eyes, the same blue eyes that I stared into whenever I gazed at Thane’s face.
"Visitors," she said delightedly in a raspy voice that sounded more like it was a result of screaming than how her natural tone was. "I don't have visitors often," she said self-consciously, running a hand through her hair. "Don't mind the mess. I told Thane to pick up his toys, but you know how little boys are," she continued.
No one had mentioned to me that Thane’s mother was so far gone that she wouldn't recognize him. I watched the devastation flicker in Thane's eyes and saw how it turned into resignation. I suspected that he always held out hope that his visits would go differently than this and that she would actually recognize him.
"Little boys are mischievous," Thane told her softly. He approached her slowly, as if he were approaching a wild animal. He crouched down in front of her. She watched him; eyes wide. "How are you today, Lania. My name is Aeryn," he said in that same calm, gentle voice that sounded more like Corran than it did him.
"It's been an excellent day. I tended my flowers, I picked some food from the garden, Thane and I skipped rocks on the pond out back. My husband should be here soon. I'm sure you and him will get along wonderfully," she said.
Thane nodded. He continued to ask her questions, inquiring after her health and trying to get her to tell him how she was being treated at the facility. It was hard to do since she was stuck in an alternate reality. Not once did she ask him why he was visiting her. I wondered why that was.
After a while, she took her attention off of Thane and looked at us.
"And who have you brought with you?" she asked, giving me a big smile as she spoke. Thane stood up and walked over to my side. “Mot- I mean Lania, I'd like you to meet my mate, Ella," he said, wrapping his arm around my waist and walking me towards his mother. She stood up off her pillow and held out her hand. "It's so wonderful to meet you, Ella. My, you are a lovely girl. Just the kind of girl I could see my Thane marrying someday."
It took me a moment to remember that I looked nothing like myself, and a pang of sadness hit me that I may never get the chance to have Thane introduce me as myself.
I clasped her hand in both of mine. "Lania, it's a pleasure to meet you. Your Thane sounds like a lovely boy."
That must've been the right thing to say, because Lania launched into a million stories about Thane as a young boy. I listened in rapt fascination, hoping that they were real stories and I was getting more clues into my mysterious mate’s past. I knew he would never tell me these stories himself.
She was in the middle of a story about when Thane had tried to capture a Khonsu by himself at five years old, then she suddenly stopped talking. She began staring off into the distance as if she could see something else in the room other than us.
With a high-pitched scream, she began to thrash and moan. Her words were garbled and nonsensical, and she leapt at Thane with her hands outstretched like claws as if she was going to tear him apart with her bare hands.
"Lania," Thane said soothingly as he grabbed her, holding her hands to her sides as she thrashed and screamed in his arms. Tears streamed down my face as I watched Thane. His hands were trembling, and there was pure agony on his face as he held down his mother. The door behind us suddenly opened and a stream of Vepar clad in white doctor’s coats rushed into the room. One of the staff, a Vepar male close to the same size as Thane, with dirty blonde hair and two small, lime green horns on his head, pulled a syringe filled needle out of his pocket as he approached Lania.
"Is that necessary?" Thane asked brokenly.
"Her episodes have been getting worse as of late. The only way to calm her down is to knock her out," he answered stiffly.
I hated seeing them administer the injection. It reminded me of all the times that a syringe had been used on me.
The medicine worked instantly, and soon she went limp in Thane’s arms. He helped the staff move her back to bed and tenderly pulled the blankets up to her chin. The staff left as quickly as they had come in. Alone again, Thane patted his mother's shoulder gently, pressing a kiss to her forehead softly. "Sweet dreams, mama," he whispered, and his pain was so tangible it was like I could see his heart breaking.
I wanted to give Thane a hug, but I could tell it wouldn’t be welcome at the moment. Thane liked to grieve privately, and he probably hated that we were in the room to watch him right now.
“Should we go?” asked Derrial calmly, as if nothing had happened.
Thane nodded and stepped away from his mother, taking one last look back at her as we left the room. I finally couldn't help myself, and I grabbed his hand in both of mine. I brought them to my lips to give them a gentle kiss in an attempt to provide some comfort.
His sad eyes looked at me, and I watched as they briefly warmed at my touch.
We had just taken a few steps down the hall when a door to the left of us opened. A Vepar with a yellow stump on his salt-and-pepper flecked hair walked out of the room accompanied by a staff member. Looking closer at him, I realized that it looked like his horn had been sawed off.
When he saw us, immediate recognition lit across his features. I didn’t know how this was possible since we were disguised. From the stiffening shoulders of my mates, it was clear that they recognized him as well. Derrial suddenly grabbed me around the waist, as if we were going to have to run at any moment.
"Still using the same disguises, are we?" the Vepar sneered at us. I looked at him in shock. How would he have seen these disguises before? He didn't look at me, he only had eyes for the guys.
"Nice to see you all walking around free, while I’m stuck in this hellhole," he spat at us. We had all stopped in the hallway, facing each other. The staff member was looking back and forth between us confused.
The Vepar finally glanced at me. "And who do we have here? Is this the human bitch that you betrayed me for? It’s a nice Vepar mask she has on. I would love to see what she really looks like," he snarled.
My eyes widened and I rubbed a hand across my face, making sure that my disguise was still in place and you couldn’t see it pulling away from my skin or something.
Derrial started to pull me down the hallway, away from the altercation taking place.
"I did everything I was supposed to for you," he yelled angrily. "Did you find her and decide that you wanted to keep her from the Council? Is that why I’m stuck in here?" he asked.
I stopped and pulled away from Derrial, who had still been trying to urge me forward. What was this man talking about?
He saw my confusion and began to laugh, an eerily crazed laugh that fit in with this place perfectly.
"You must be something special." He leered at me. "The other girls we harvested for the Council didn't make any of these assholes so much as blink."
At that statement, the staff member gripped his arm firmly. "That's enough now," he barked, beginning to drag him away from all of us.
"Did you ever find out what the Council was doing with all those human women, or do you still not care?" he cackled. "Because I did," he said, beginning to laugh uproariously. The laugh echoed down the hallway until he was out of sight, leaving us alone.
I stood still for a moment, struggling to put together everything he had just said with what I had been told and learned before this. I finally looked at them. "Were you the ones that brought women like Bruda to the Council to be their slaves?" I asked, horror freezing my insides.
"I don't think we should talk about that here," Thane said warily. “There’s more to this than you can understand right now.”
Derrial tried to grab me again to lead me out of the facility, but my feet refused to move. It was like I had been encased in ice.
It was bad enough when I had thought that they had known about the existence of my parents and possibly other human beings on this planet. But to find out that they'd actually been the ones harvesting humans to bring them back to Veon for the Council’s use. And that the Council had then used the human women as sex slaves...
Everything just kept getting worse. It had been awful to think that I was the special human that they had brought back for the first time to try and solve the Vepar’s fertility issues. But I was just one person. The idea of them stealing human women on a mass scale...it was just incomprehensible.
They were monsters. There was no way around it.
I felt something break inside of me at that moment. It was like something snapped, and I was left with an emptiness in its wake that felt irreparable.
“Stop looking at us like that,” Derrial groaned, rubbing his heart like I had mortally wounded him.
“You make me sick,” I spat at them. “How can you even deign to call me your mate when I’m human. What made me different than all of those poor people that you sentenced to a life of unending torment?”
“Just let us…” started Corran.
“There’s nothing you can say to make this better,” I screeched, probably causing a scene to whoever was listening behind closed doors. I expected the facility’s security staff to arrive at any moment, but I didn’t care.
“We’ve changed, you have to admit that,” Thane answered desperately.
I began to back away from them, not sure where I was going to go. I knew I wasn’t safe to be away from them, but in this moment...I wasn’t sure how I could stay.
Just then an alarm started blaring, practically bursting my eardrums with how loud it rang. The guys looked around, immediately trying to analyze where the danger was coming from.
Derrial grabbed me, this time not letting me go as he began to drag me down the hallway. I didn’t fight him this time, I wasn’t a fool.
I noticed that Thane hadn’t moved from where he was standing. He looked torn.
“What are you doing? We need to go!” barked Derrial.
“My mother,” he said. And that was all he needed to say. Whatever this alarm was, it sounded serious.
“Fuck,” said Derrial. “Let’s go.” He turned around and started to move back in the direction we’d come from. He was walking so fast that I couldn’t keep up, so he had to hoist me into his arms as the guys started to run.
His touch made my skin crawl, but what could I do?
We had just reached the wall where I thought his mom’s room lay beyond, when a sudden trampling of hurried footsteps came from the left of us.
I looked up and immediately felt Derrial shudder with panic beneath me.
“Grab her,” he barked, but Thane was already blasting through the wall to escape. Evidently, we didn’t have enough time for him to try and activate the door.
Derrial must have decided he needed to get me out of there because he turned to run back outside.
But it was too late.
Vepar after Vepar came streaming towards us. But they weren’t regular Vepar. Something was wrong with them. The sounds coming out of their mouths didn’t resemble any language I had ever heard.
They lurched like they’d lost control of their functioning body and now it just moved like someone controlled them. Faces pale, clothes torn, limbs inflicted with wounds and bloody cuts. What happened to these people?
An unsuspecting nurse headed out of a nearby room when three of the Vepar lunged at her, dragging her to the ground. She screamed, and Thane charged. He hurled a fist into one man, then lunged for the two other attackers. He flipped one off the men in an incredible wrestling match to the ground. Shoving the last man off the nurse, he dragged the woman back to her feet by the back of her uniform, the poor thing crying, blood pouring from her bites and scratches. She darted back into the office.
I whimpered and recoiled into Derrial. My heart shuddered as I watched them scratch and bite her. They were like zombies.
Please don’t let it be zombies. I can’t handle that on top of everything else.
Derrial pushed me behind him. “Corran take the few at our rear,” he commanded, his voice tense and strained. “I’ll take the rest with Thane.”
“Pet,” he said to me without looking back. “Please stay low and hidden.”
Then he burst forward at the onslaught of Vepars.
Behind me, Corran had fought and knocked to the ground a man with a single punch, while two others lunged onto his back.
I cried out and trembled insanely. But instinct punched me in the gut, and I scanned the hallway, finding only a metal table on wheels for a weapon. I ran and grabbed the damn table and shoved it toward one of the demons, driving it right into the hip of a man about to pile on top of Corran as well.
He groaned with shock and stumbled over his own feet, hitting the ground hard.
Corran kicked a man in front of him, while I grabbed the arm of the woman clinging to his back like a monkey, her mouth gaping open, readying to bite him. Drool seeped from her mouth and I gagged, but I wrenched her backward.
“Get off him,” I cried.
Corran whipped around, his expression startled, but he flashed me a grin. “Thanks.” A fast kiss on my lips, and he threw himself back against the three encroaching Vepar. If I wasn’t so terrified, I might swoon.
Someone slapped a hand to my shoulder.
I flinched around, my heart racing, and shoved the hand off me.
A young man with stubby white horns and a square head snarled, lips peeled over sharp canines. His shirt had been half torn and hung off low on one shoulder. His flesh was dotted in bite marks.
My feet slipped backward.
My stomach clenched.
Hands raised; grubby fingers reached for me as he rushed forward.
I screamed, backing away.
Corran whirled toward me in an instant, grabbed the attacker by the throat, and hurled him into a wall.
I stared in awe, in complete and utter amazement at his strength.
More of the infected or whatever they were, staggered down the hallway, and I looked left and right, unsure where to go, where it’d be safe.
I reached for a nearby door, pushing on the handle, but it was locked. I snapped around, my heart in my throat. No other doors to try, so I slid down near the metal table, my back to the wall, and tucked my knees against my chest. I tried to curl myself tight, too scared to move. A scream bubbled on my throat. After everything, I didn’t want us to die here. Not like this.
The fights grew vicious, and I remained low, watching every blow... every bite and punch. I lost concept of time, but when I saw Derrial fall, I couldn’t help but run to him. I didn’t even register what was going on around me. All I could see was Derrial lying on the ground motionless, blood seeping from his body.
I sank to my knees beside him. My hands immediately went to his chest in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding. Not that that ever worked... even in the movies. But I still had to try.
"It's okay, it's okay," I said desperately. Derrial opened his eyes and took a deep, rattling breath. Even with my nonexistent medical knowledge, I knew that rattling wasn't a good thing.
I looked around desperately for Corran. Surely, he would have his device with him to help heal these injuries. He was in the middle of a fight with two rabid Vepar however, and it didn't look like he was winning. Looking around next for Thane, his situation was even more dire. He was on his knees, bloody slashes all over his body as he tried to fend off at least five of the crazed Vepar who were attacking him from all angles.
Looking down at a dying Derrial, I realized we weren't going to make it.
Derrial slid his trembling hand to mine and took it in a weak grasp. "I'm so sorry, Ella," he wheezed out.
I didn't know what he was saying sorry for, was it for kidnapping me in the first place or transporting humans to Veon for years… Did it really matter? At that moment, honestly, I didn't care.
Maybe that made me a terrible person that I could forgive all of that but seeing the being that I'd fallen irreversibly in love with dying in my arms...that made forgiveness a lot more possible.
"I'm so sorry for all of it,” he repeated, his eyes glistening. "At least now you will be free."
This wasn't happening. This wasn't real life. After everything we'd been through, this was really the end.
I heard a pained grunt and my eyes flashed over to Thane. Piles of Vepar surrounded him, but he was on his hands and knees on the floor, covered in blood. My eyes flashed over to Corran, still expecting somehow that one of them was going to be able to save the day. Corran was passed out on the ground, the two Vepar he had been battling on the ground alongside him.
I stood up and ran over to Corran’s body. He was still breathing, but barely. I started patting him down, looking for the device. I couldn't find it.
"Where is it?" I cried out in an anguished voice.
His eyes fluttered open. "I left it on the ship. I don't know why I did that. This is my fault," he rasped. "All my fault."
"Shhh," I soothingly told him, stroking his face and brushing his lips with a gentle kiss. The ship was too far away for me to make it there and back in time, if I could even find the device in the first place. We were out of time.
I was aware that there were still some crazed Vepar stumbling in the hallway around me, but at the moment, I didn't care if they killed me. What was my life going to be like anyway alone on this forsaken planet without these three men?
I wished at that moment it was possible for me to be in three places at once. I wanted to touch Thane one more time.
“I love you, kitten," I heard him call out softly. My crying intensified.
I was trying to be strong, but the tears were falling so rapidly that they were soaking Corran’s shirt.
Looking at his face, I realized that I wasn’t even going to get to look at them as they really were because they were still wearing their disguises. We were all going to die looking like other people.
I began to hear a loud buzzing sound.
It grew louder and louder until the whole building began to shake. What was that? Had the Council arrived to blow the building up?
The buzzing seemed to really affect the surviving crazed Vepar still milling around. They sank to the ground, screaming in agony with their hands over their ears.
I didn't understand what was going on. The buzzing was loud, but not loud enough to cause physical pain. They were acting like they were being tortured.
The buzzing finally stopped. There was an intense silence, it almost sounded louder than the buzzing had been. It was funny how that worked.
The wall down the hallway opened up and a group of male and female Vepar dressed in battle gear came running in from the outside. Was this the Council's army? I looked around for a weapon that I could use against them, but the group was upon us before I could grab anything.
I took a deep breath, prepared for whatever came next and the inevitability of my enslavement or death.
I was shocked when a familiar face made his way from the back of the group. It was Lanton, Thane’s father. I had never been so happy to see someone.
"Ella," he said, looking relieved. That relief immediately disappeared as soon as he saw the carnage around us and the fact that his son was one of the fallen. Pulling a device out of his pocket that looked achingly similar to Corran’s healing device, he ran over to Thane and started running it over him. Within a minute Thane’s cuts were sealing up, and his breathing was improving. Once Thane had opened his eyes, looking so much better than before, Lanton next ran to Derrial. "Shit," he muttered to himself. “It might be too late."
Thane’s father started running the device all over Derrial frantically. "Come on, son," he barked frantically.
I was distracted by Thane sitting up. A wave of relief so potent that it almost succeeded in knocking me to the ground rushed over me. I looked down at Corran. We didn't have much time left with him though. What if he and Derrial didn’t make it?
Thane walked over to me, and I had never been so intensely grateful for Corran's brilliant mind that had created such amazing technology. Thane looked almost completely healed.
Thane gathered me in his arms, burying his face into my neck. "I love you," he whispered fiercely. That emptiness that had built inside of me since the earlier revelations, and which had only gotten larger in the aftermath of seeing their broken bodies… it started to fill.
I heard a sigh and my attention leaped back to where Lanton had been furiously working over Derrial’s broken body. To my relief, Derrial’s breathing had started to steady as well, the rattling sound disappearing, although he hadn't woken up yet. Lanton kept moving the machine over him for another minute before he stood up and made his way quickly to Corran.
Corran's eyes blinked open, but his gaze was hazy. "It's okay, son," Lanton said soothingly to him as he started to run the machine over Corran’s body.
At that moment I was so grateful for the men’s bond that had extended to their parents as well.
Corran recovered before Derrial even opened his eyes. We had been so close to losing him. It was going to be a long time before I would be able to let any of them out of my sight.
While Lanton had been saving my men's life, the rest of the Vepar that he had brought with him had disposed of the remaining infected Vepar. Derrial, Thane, and Corran had taken care of a lot of them, but the sheer number of them had made it impossible for warriors even of their caliber to win.
Everyone still standing looked around the hallway with a little bit of shock. The amount of infected Vepar they had been holding in this facility was almost unbelievable. It didn’t surprise any of us that they had been able to escape and get past the staff.
Thane put a hand on his father's shoulder and bowed his head in respect. "Thank you, father," he said, his voice choked with emotion. "That was almost the end for us."
Lanton seemed equally choked up. Coming so close to death definitely brought everything into perspective, even for two gruff and powerful men like Thane and his father.
"But how did you know to come here?" Thane asked after a moment, looking puzzled.
"I knew you would try to see your mother when I heard about all of the crazed Vepar that the Council had started to put into this facility. A large group of them tried to invade the Council building this morning," Lanton continued. "As soon as I heard that, and none of you had checked in with any of us, I knew I needed to make sure you were all right for myself."
He pulled Thane in for a tight hug. "I don't know what I would do if I lost you," he said, his voice swelling with emotion. “I’ve never recovered from what happened to your mother. But losing you would be my final breaking point.”
Thane looked up suddenly. “We need to check on her,” he said worriedly.
“I already sent in some of my men to make sure she was safe. She didn’t even know anything was happening.”
Thane nodded, looking relieved.
“Let’s get out of here,” Lanton said, looking around in disgust at the carnage around us.
“We need to bring her with us,” said Thane, moving to walk to his mother’s room.
“I’ll be taking her with me. You aren’t really in a position to be moving her around with you right now,” Lanton said.
That made sense to me, but by the look on Thane’s face, what Lanton had just said surprised him.
“You’re taking her with you?” he asked, sounding concerned. “Are you going to be alright seeing her every day?”
Lanton cleared his throat, resolve shining from his face.
"She’s still my wife," he said in a gravelly voice. "I can still picture her as she was, every memory that we shared runs on a loop in my head. I guess I’ve just been a coward since everything happened. It just felt too hard to see her as she is now when I can remember so clearly how it was in the past. But I still love her, I’ll love her until my dying breath. And maybe someday she'll come back to me."
He cleared his throat. "Until then I'll keep her safe." He clapped Thane on the shoulder and walked away. Thane looked like he was holding back tears. He had shown more emotion today than I had seen from him ever.
I suddenly felt exhausted. I knew it would probably take a very long time before the images from today left my own head. I just hoped that we would get the chance to replace them with the good memories that Lanton at least had of him and his wife.
A pair of arms encircled my waist, and I whirled around, knowing who they belonged to immediately. Derrial was up. He looked tired but healed. I wrapped my arms around his neck and began to sob. It seemed like all I did nowadays was cry.
“Shhh, it’s alright, pet,” he whispered in my ear. The sound of his voice only made me cry harder.
“You almost dieeeed,” I whimpered. “You all almost did.”
He didn’t say anything, just continued to hold me in his strong grip.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said after a few minutes. I pulled away, trying to wipe his shirt discreetly as I was sure there was a bucket of snot and tears covering his shoulder after the cryfest I had just engaged in.
Derrial surprised me by picking me up in his arms.
“Are you sure you’re strong enough to hold me?” I asked, trying to get out of his grasp.
He looked offended at my question. “I feel better than ever,” he said. I looked over his shoulder at Corran. “Have I told you how much I love your big, beautiful brain?” I asked him.
The guys threw back their heads and laughed at me. The sound of their laughter was a balm for my soul.
“What?” I asked, pretending to be affronted.
“You like my brain, do you?” Corran asked with a smirk that set off way more fireworks inside of me than was appropriate in this situation. “Are you sure there isn’t something else on my body you like better?”
"I happen to find your brain the sexiest part of you," I replied haughtily, my cheeks flushing under their teasing. The fact that they could tease me at all, however, had my soul soaring.
I pressed a firm kiss against Derrial’s cheek, and they laughed again.
"Looks like we need to have more near-death experiences so that kitten can retract her claws for a minute or two," joked Thane. I stuck my tongue out at him but squeezed Derrial tighter. I didn't want to experience anything like what we had experienced today ever again.
"Let them joke," Derrial whispered in my ear. “It's the only way that we’ll get past the fact that we almost lost you forever." I pulled back away from him.
"Haven't you heard that it's always the living that are left behind when someone dies?" I asked him, stroking his face gently. "You would've been rolling around in heaven while I was left behind to mourn you,"
“The Vepar don't believe in heaven. And even if we did, the three of us are never going to make it there. We’d be fighting our way out of hell to get back to you," he swore softly.
I didn't say anything to that. I had already come to the conclusion that they were monsters.
And maybe it was wrong to love a monster, but they were my monsters, and I was never going to feel guilty about that ever again.
We finally followed Lanton’s men outside of the facility, and I had never been more grateful to be in the fresh air as I was right now.
Derrial set me down long enough for me to give Lanton a huge hug, although he didn’t stray more than an arm’s length away from me. "I'm forever in your debt," I told Lanton, starting to cry again, which was getting really frustrating.
Lanton held my face between his hands and looked at me fondly. "I would do anything for my children," he said. "And now that includes you."
I didn't have any response to that, so I just threw my arms around him, I was sure, shocking the gruff Vepar. I would find some way to show my appreciation to him, even if it took the rest of my life.
After Thane, Corran, and Derrial all gave their thanks and said goodbye to Lanton, we walked back to Corran’s ship. As we stepped inside, I couldn't help but feel like I had lived an entire life between the last time I had been on the ship and now. And even though we had made it through, I didn't let my guard down until we were up in the air pulling away from the facility. I never wanted to see that place again.
If our lives kept up this way, there wouldn't be any place on Veon that wouldn't give me terrible memories when I visited it.
"So where do we go now?" I asked my mates as we sat in the Bridge, all exhaustively pondering what we had just been through.
Corran looked back at me as he fiddled with the controls. "Let's go home."