Zuran: A Paranormal Sci-Fi Alien Romance: Albaterra Mates Book 6

by Ashley L. Hunt

  Chapter Twelve

  Phoebe

  The location Sevani had brought me to last night was admittedly terrifying at the time: alone in a nearly pitch-black room without a hint of understanding as to why—it was like the opening scene to a gory psychological thriller. In the light of day, however, it was far from terrifying; it was actually really impressive.

  Based on what we had been told last night, I expected to find myself in a basic infirmary. To my surprise, the set-up was much more like a hospital than an infirmary, outfitted with a number of A’li-uud technologies I’d never even known existed. The main hall was virtually identical to the colony medical center back in Ka-lik’et, a vast and expansive room with beds lining each wall in neat rows, but the number of beds was only about half and beside each was a table and a series of free-standing items similar to those one would expect to find in a human hospital. There were stands much like IV poles, though they were shaped differently and I wasn’t sure how an IV would hang off them properly. Carts laden with mysterious, unidentifiable tools were on every bed’s right side. There were also discs, circular silver discs, mounted to the walls above the carts. At the very center of the discs looked like a bulb or light source of some kind, but they were otherwise innocuous.

  “What are those?” I whispered to Antoinette as we and the rest of the team were touring the facility.

  She shook her head. “I have no idea,” she whispered back. “But we definitely could have used some of this stuff back in the colony.”

  I nodded my agreement, but I was still burning with curiosity over the discs. I cleared my throat to gather the attention of the nearest A’li-uud, a sharp-faced healer with his milky hair tied into a bun on top of his head. He looked at me critically.

  “Are you well?” he asked with a peaked brow.

  “Oh,” I faltered. “Yes. I was just wondering what those circles are on the wall.”

  He followed my point with his eyes. “Imaging holograms,” he answered.

  I stared at him blankly.

  “They show us what is inside a body,” he explained further. “Bones, tissues, and so on.”

  “Oh my god,” I breathed. “You’ve had x-rays the whole time?”

  He squinted at me almost suspiciously. “I am afraid I do not know what an x-ray is,” he said tightly, “but these are imaging holograms, I assure you.”

  The imaging holograms were not my only surprise. Just as Sevani had said, there were laboratories and examination rooms, but they were remarkably sophisticated in comparison to what I’d become accustomed to on Albaterra. I ran my hand over tables of steel-like material, opened cabinets laden with more tools I’d never seen before, tried out a simple tongue depressor made of strange Albaterran wood, took a closer look at the discs which I discovered were plentiful in every room, and even begun making a mental list of everything about which I needed to ask, “What does this do?” I learned the cases of pencil-thin cylinders were actually the A’li-uud equivalent to syringes, and I discovered an entire cabinet of the same rubbery fabric Zuran had brought me to dress Kharid’s wound.

  Zuran was the only member of our newly-established team who seemed disinterested in perusing our new facility. He walked around with us as we toured, but his eyes darted from one item to another so rapidly he hardly would’ve had time to process what he was seeing. It was clear his mind was elsewhere, so much so that, when one of the healers addressed him, he didn’t even hear him until the healer repeated the question. I couldn’t understand it, of course, as they spoke A’li-uud, but I couldn’t stop myself from watching him.

  After a night’s sleep, I still felt I needed to talk to Zuran. Kharid’s death was weighing heavily on me, and I didn’t want to allow it to continue to eat at me until I was no longer able to function properly. Especially given the task ahead of us, I needed to be present and aware. But, even as I peered into the cabinet with the rubber fabric, I flashed back to the image of Kharid on the floor with a gash in his chest as he met Zuran’s gaze and took his final breath.

  I didn’t get my chance to approach him alone for several days, though. Everyone was walking around the hospital in groups, probably to soothe rattled nerves and also to numb the unease that came from being dropped in the middle of nowhere to perform a potentially life-threatening job. I had personally taken to spending time with Antoinette. Without Edie, I realized I needed more socialization than I thought, and Toni proved to be a good friend. Though everyone was allotted their own individual room, Toni and I took to hanging out and even sleeping in one another’s rooms, if only to eliminate the sense of isolation that permeated the entire hospital. On the fourth morning since our arrival, however, Antoinette was still soundly sleeping in my dorm, and I was wide awake. I padded out into the large hall of patient beds, expecting to find it empty. Instead, I saw Zuran.

  He was reclining on one of the beds, his feet kicked up and his arms crossed behind his head. His eyes were closed, but his chest was rising and falling quickly as if he was either awake or vividly dreaming. I hesitated, uncertain if I should approach him.

  Then, without warning, his eyes popped open and fell directly on me. It was as if he’d known I was there all along. I blushed at once and worried he’d think I was just standing there staring at him while he slept like an awkward Peeping Tom, but the smirk I had come to associate with him lit his mouth.

  “Come,” he said, patting the mattress. “Join me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Zuran

  I felt her stare before I even opened my eyes. I knew it was her without even looking, because my entire body became warm, and my nerves began to tingle. When I gestured for her to join me, her mouth fell open slightly. It was a delightful vision.

  “I didn't mean to disturb you,” she said uncertainly. “Sorry.”

  “You have not disturbed me. I have been awake for hours.” I patted the bed again and jerked my head a bit. “Sit.”

  She hesitated, but then she began to make her way across the room to me. When she reached the bed, she eased herself down gingerly. It did not go unnoticed by me that she avoided making contact. Nevertheless, to have her in such close proximity was electric. The hairs on the back of my neck stood, and I crossed my arms over my chest to avoid reaching for her.

  She did not say anything for a long while, nor did I. I wanted her to be the one to initiate conversation. It was evident she was growing uncomfortable with the silence from the way her mouth continuously opened and closed as if she was about to speak before deciding against it. Finally, she broke through the quiet.

  “Why are you sitting out here alone?”

  “Would it be different if I were to sit in my room alone?” I challenged.

  Phoebe tipped her head to the side, considering my question. “I guess not,” she said. “I'd just think you'd be more comfortable in your room.”

  “My room is small. I prefer open spaces.” It was perhaps the greatest challenge I had encountered since being here. I was accustomed to having the whole of the desert at my disposal, and being confined indoors was practically intolerable for me.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  I crooked a brow at her and inquired, “Was my explanation of open spaces not enough?”

  “That's not what I mean,” she said quickly. “I mean, why are you part of this team?”

  Had anyone else asked me that question, I would have had a snarky reply prepared. Coming from her, however, I answered genuinely. “I have wondered the same thing,” I admitted. “Unfortunately, I will not know the answer to that until the Council arrives.”

  She nodded in understanding, but I knew she actually didn't understand at all. How could she, when even I was unable to understand? She shifted on the mattress, and for a moment I thought she was going to leave. Then, she turned her face to me but kept her eyes averted.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” she said timidly.

  I waited, expecting her to go into further detail, but she did n
ot. She merely sat there with her hands twisted in her lap and her eyes fixed firmly on the blankets beneath her. I felt a strong desire to brush a lock of hair from her face and urge her to explain, but I restrained myself. Instead, I closed my eyes and asked, “About what?”

  “About Kharid.”

  My heart paused in my chest. A sickly knot fell into the depths of my belly, making me feel both ill and extremely heavy at the same time. I had put my Elder’s death out of my mind. I had thought about Venan, of course, but I had managed to distance thoughts of him from memories of Kharid’s killing. Focusing solely on Venan and his immediate predicament was like a protection for me against the emotions I did not want to feel and, whatever reason the Council had for choosing me to be a part of this team dedicated to eradicating the mysterious Novai disease, I would still keep my sights set on freeing and exonerating my brother. Hearing Kharid’s name now, from Phoebe’s lips, no less, sent a jolt of unwelcome pain through me that distracted the purpose I had set for myself and instead invited raw, purposeless grief.

  “I trust you are perceptive enough to realize nothing can be done for him now,” I said through gritted teeth. I did not intend to be rude, but I wanted to quash any misconceptions she might have had about my willingness to discuss the events of that dreadful day.

  “No, I know,” she replied. I heard a note of sadness in her voice, layered beneath regret. I looked at her and was startled to see a measure of pain in her emerald eyes. “I just—I thought—” She shook her head, ungroomed waves of blonde sweeping across her round cheeks. “You were there with me, on the floor, trying to save him. And he was your Elder.”

  “You are a colonist of the kingdom of Dhal’at,” I said. “He was your Elder too.”

  She nodded, though it was evident by the slight pucker on her mouth that truth had not occurred to her before. “Yeah, I guess he was,” she agreed.

  I did not respond. There was nothing to say, and I did not want to encourage this topic of conversation. I closed my eyes once more and leaned my head back against my wrists, attempting to think of anything but Kharid. To my dismay, though, she was not done trying to wrangle me.

  “I just thought we should talk about it,” she told me ruefully. “It’s been bothering me.”

  “It is a waste of energy to be bothered by that which we cannot change,” I remarked without looking at her or moving from my lounging position.

  There was a beat of silence, and I was curious enough to finally reopen my eyes. She was staring at me, her orbs boring into me like needles, prying into the deepest parts of my mind. It was as if I could feel her rooting through my brain, searching for something I did not know, and I wanted to shake her loose. If I could have, I would have reached into my head and pulled her out. That was the one place I never allowed anyone to go.

  “You hate me, don’t you?” she whispered.

  Her words stunned me into speechlessness, a rare feat. I was unable to answer her, to turn away from her delving gaze, to even shake my head in response. Nothing. I was frozen beneath her stare, and she was looking at me with such horror and heartache that I felt it beginning to manifest within myself.

  “You hate me because I didn’t save him.”

  “Of course I do not hate you,” I forced myself to say. My reply sounded strange because my tongue tripped over the syllables, but I needed to get that terrible expression off her face at once. “You did what you could. As you said, I was there with you, and I was not able to save him either. If I were to hate you for his death, I would have to hate myself equally.”

  She blinked, and a droplet of moisture rolled from the inner corner of her eye to the apple of her cheek, down, down, down until it reached her jaw and dangled over her collarbone. “Don’t you?” she asked. “Don’t you hate yourself for letting him die?”

  Never before had I been asked such an introspective question. It unnerved me. Perhaps I did hate myself for letting him die, but, if so, I was careful to bury those feelings away where I would never happen upon them again, and I certainly was not going to bring them to the surface to appease this human’s pain, beautiful or not.

  “No,” was my flippant reply. “I believe you have me confused with my brother.”

  Phoebe’s mouth became a perfect circle. “So, that A’li-uud was your brother,” she breathed. It sounded as if she was talking more to herself than to me.

  “Yes. My twin.”

  “How is he handling everything?” The second she asked the question, she clapped her hand over her mouth and her eyes widened to saucers. “Oh, god, I’m so sorry. That was so stupid of me to ask. Of course, he must be struggling.”

  Yet again, I realized this human was likely the most compassionate being in existence. “You need not apologize. It is kind of you to inquire about him. But I can only give you my estimation, as he was being removed from Dhal’at as I was being brought here.”

  She wrinkled her brow, forming two disapproving ridges over her eyes, and exclaimed, “They didn’t take him away for what happened to Kharid, did they?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed. I lowered my arms from behind my head and straightened up to press my back flush against the wall. “He will stand trial for Kharid’s death. Until then, he is imprisoned at P’otes-tat Ulti.”

  “Where?” she asked blankly.

  “It is the Elder City,” I explained. “P’otes-tat Ulti is where the Council holds forums and trials.”

  She shook her head, once again sending her tresses flying about her face. “Why did they take him? It was an accident! I saw it, you saw it, all the nurses saw it—they can’t possibly think it was intentional.”

  “It matters not whether it was intentional for the moment.” The memory of Venan, his numb demeanor and his easy submission to the guards, lit a flame in my gut, and I surged with fresh anger. “Until a decision is made in or against his favor, Venan is considered a threat to society and has thus been removed.”

  Phoebe covered her face with her hands, her small fingers pressing into her eyelids. For some reason, I felt soothed by her disbelief. I felt as if I was not alone in this dreadful time, and I instantly understood why she had sought to speak with me about everything that had transpired. There was consolation in sympathy.

  Suddenly, she raised her head and stared at me with dawning insight. “Maybe that’s why you’re here,” she uttered. “To keep you out of society, too. To keep an eye on you.”

  Everything I had been feeling, or trying not to feel, came to a head at that very moment. I was riddled with rage, sorrow, rebellion, angst, as Phoebe’s theory spun itself into a blur in my mind. The Council had removed me from Ka-lik’et, from Dhal’atian society, either because they felt I too was a danger or because they thought I would fall back into my stealthy, slippery past and free Venan from his wrongful imprisonment.

  I hoped, for the Elders’ sake, Phoebe was wrong, because if I discovered they had indeed placed me here in unofficial confinement, I would quickly become the very thing they feared.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Phoebe

  Sitting next to Zuran on the narrow hospital bed, I felt calmer. The riled waves constantly washing the inside of my belly had stilled, and the fog weighing over me lifted. He may not have been as understanding of my feelings regarding Kharid’s death as I would’ve hoped, but he was there. He was next to me. And he was talking.

  Learning about what had happened to his brother, though, was unsettling. For obvious reasons, an Elder being killed was a big deal, but it had been an accident, and, judging from Zuran’s insinuation, his twin had been absolutely dedicated to Kharid and Dhal’at. To think he was now sitting in a dank cell awaiting a trial for a crime he would never have committed was disheartening. I hoped A’li-uud justice was more accurate and precise than the human court systems.

  When I suggested the possibility that Zuran had been brought here to the hospital and made a part of the team to be extracted from society like his brother had been, his face darkened
. His phantom eyes grew distant in thought, and his slim mouth crooked with the unpleasant idea. Combined with his angular cheekbones and pointed chin and rigid jawline, he looked fearsome in his anger. I was a little afraid to speak to him again until he cooled, but the minutes passed without a word exchanged between us and I began to feel uncomfortable. Perhaps he wanted me to leave him alone now.

  “Maybe I should go get dressed,” I mumbled timidly, plucking at my pink pajama top and eyeing the matching pants.

  It took a few seconds for him to register what I’d said. I saw his eyes refocus, the muscles around his mouth loosen, and his jaw relent. When he looked at me, the fearsomeness of his appearance had faded into softened resolve.

  “I would much prefer if you stayed,” he said.

  There was no sarcasm in his tone, nor was there sultry suggestiveness, but it almost sounded like a purr. A shiver fluttered from the nape of my neck to the tip of my tailbone. I tried to hide it by idly reaching around myself to scratch my spine. His lips flashed a smirk as he watched me, and I righted myself.

  “Okay,” I agreed. Butterflies were flitting around in my stomach where nerves of guilt and regret had previously been. I felt like I was in junior high again and my crush had just passed me a note. It was silly, but I relished it anyway.

  Zuran stretched. My agreement to continue keeping him company seemed to have rectified his mood; mischief once again dominated his stare, and the smirk on his mouth had yet to fade. As he extended his toned arms high above his head and arched his back, I noticed, not for the first time, just how sculpted his abdomen was. It was like looking at a sculpture, hard and detailed and too perfect to be real. The pads of my fingers buzzed with a desire to touch the smooth ridges that left such deep shadows in his torso.

  I was still staring when he finished, and my face blazed with embarrassment. I’d been caught. He grinned broadly as I quickly averted my gaze.