by Gabby Dark
She frowned. “I know. But your brother is with your mama too. They’re happy together.”
“I wish I could be with them,” I replied.
“One day you will, but that will be a very long time from now. Right now, they’re going to watch over you.”
“Are you leaving because you’re fifteen?” I asked.
She nodded, tears brimming her eyes.
“You said they’d come get you when you turned fifteen. I don’t want anyone to hurt you either, auntie Gloria,” I said.
“That’s why I have to leave, but you can’t tell anyone. Okay?”
I nodded, then asked, “Who is my father?”
“His name is North. He’s a royal. You have royal blood, Freya.”
“Did he marry my mother?”
Aunt Gloria shook her head. “He already had a wife.”
I frowned. “Then why does he want to make me live with him now?”
“He’s a very important man, Freya. Don’t you get it? You’ll have so many opportunities available to you. One’s that I don’t have. One’s your mother never had as a maid. Who knows? You’ll probably be a queen one day and then you could free us all.”
“I don’t want to be a queen.”
She took my hands. “You can be anything you want.”
“Will I have to run away like you one day?”
She swallowed visibly. “No. You’re a royal, Freya, and you’ll be treated like one.”
Little did I know, Aunt Gloria was wrong.
Two men broke into the bedroom and ushered me out. That was the last time I saw my aunt.
* * *
I jolted upward out of my dream.
My gown was drenched in sweat. I breathed raggedly as I glanced around the dorm room at my surroundings. The flicker from the lamp on my bedside reminded me where I was. I wasn’t on Earth anymore. I was on Zunator. And I had just gained another memory.
I grabbed the crystal pendant which hung from a necklace around my neck. Meriuam had given it to me just days after the auction and I’d been wearing it for about a week now. It had been a whole week since I was given to Hvit’zark at auction, and I hadn’t heard from him or seen him since. I had learned just a bit about him from Meriuam. He was a rogue—a warrior who always strayed from formation. He was also feral—poisoned by claws buried in his flesh one too many times. He preferred hunting down beasts and sleeping outside like one. All rumors…but was some of it true?
When I swung my legs over the bed, a book fell off my lap and onto the floor. I picked it up and realized that I had sketched out a flower which reminded me of the hair bow I was wearing the day they took me from aunt Gloria.
My aunt had been wrong. Although I had North blood, I was treated like an unwanted runt. I was the illegitimate child of the governor. That didn’t stop my father from using me as a bargaining chip to gain more power. He sold me off to be wed to form an alliance. For the longest, I used to pray that my aunt would come back to rescue me like she promised. When I realized that wasn’t going to happen and that she had likely escaped the settlement to join the rebels to live a better life, I prayed and devised a plan to escape my fate.
I looked at my betrothal as a way out of my father’s reach and I was prepared to go through with it just to gain enough of my future husband’s trust in order to sway him to do my bidding. But when the aliens came to Earth, they beat me to it by destroying my father’s settlement and freeing the citizens from his rule.
Elated to have remembered something despite the pain it brought, I picked up the sketch book and began writing.
Chapter Six
Zark
* * *
Two months later…
I lifted my hair out of the creek when I felt a change in the atmosphere, almost like a shift in the wind. I grabbed hold of the hilt of the blade on my waist and looked around. Nothing made a sound, but I knew someone was here or nearby.
With my hair still dripping water down my back, I rose slowly. When the sounds of boots crushed the dry bits of straw as the person came closer, I turned toward the noise.
When one of the King’s other scouts revealed himself, I released my breath and return my knife to its sheath. The scout held up his hand and pulled down the wind cloth covering the lower half of his face. It was Duaqil.
I exhaled.
“Were you going to slaughter your own kind, Hvit’zark?” Duaqil challenged.
“I’ve seen the visitors from Xalxa 5 roaming about. I thought you were one of them.”
“You mean the Aurrakian ambassador and their Dravard horde commander?”.
“Yes. The Aurraks and whatever horde they’ve brought with them. Prince Anik says we are to make peace with them, but I don’t trust them.”
“They are just as weary of us as we are of them. They keep to themselves in their assigned huts. The King is still in talk with their commander.”
“I wonder what about. They’ve been here long enough.”
Duaqil shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out soon.”
“Why are you creeping around here outside the borders?”
“I should ask you the same thing. You’re a hard one to find,” he said, kneeling near the bank and filling his canteen with water.
“That is the point. What do you want?”
Duaqil took a healthy sip from his canteen before saying, “It’s not what I want, scout. The King has sent a message for you. He says it’s time to collect your mate. It’s been well over a month.”
“And what about her memories?”
“According to him, she has some of them.”
I picked up my sack and threw it over my shoulder. I walked off from the creek leaving Duaqil standing there.
“Where are you going?”
“Podhouse.”
Duaqil grabbed his things and hurried to catch up with me. “The King says you must claim her now or else you automatically forfeit your rights to her.”
I kept walking. “Now is not a good time. I have a mission to complete.”
“He sent me to cover all of your posts and complete the most immediate mission.”
I halted and turned around. “What did you say?”
“He’s freed you from your immediate obligations until further notice so you can have time to breed with your mate.”
I frowned. “I don’t need freeing from anything. I can handle my missions on my own.”
“You can defy him, Hvit’zark, but I won’t. His orders for me were clear. I saw your human walking through the market with her nurse just last evening. She has red hair, yes? And green eyes? If you don’t want your human, give her to me. I would be happy to bury my cock in a female as ripe as her and fill her with my fertile seed. She would beg—”
My anger escalated and before my better judgment kicked in. I grabbed Duaqil by the throat and slammed his back up against a tree. His ǔre dimmed the moment I cut off the blood flow from his jugular vein. After realizing that I may have acted out too violently, I let go of his neck.
Duaqil croaked and spat on the ground. “For the love of all the gods, Hvit’zark!”
“Stay away from my posts and my mate or I will tear your head from your body,” I warned him before walking off.
He yelled after me about my intentions and his given orders, but I didn’t care to listen to a word of it.
Chapter Seven
Freya
* * *
“Freya!”
Meriuam knocked on the door of my bedroom. I immediately dropped my book on the beside table to go answer it.
She held a small sack in her hand.
“Meriuam, you’re back early. I thought you said—”
“He’s here,” she said, with a blank expression on her face. “Your warrior is here for you.”
My heart jumped in my chest and something seized me, squeezing the air right out of my lungs. I clutched my chest and leaned against the wall as a vision of me as a girl with my aunt Gloria telling me that people were
coming for me. Panic had already taken hold of me before I could catch my breath.
“It’s okay,” Meriuam said, easing her arm over my shoulder. “I’ll come to check on you in a day or so.”
“I’m fine. Really I am,” I said. “I’ve been at the dorm so long and with the kids at the orphan that I thought he forgot about me.”
“There’s no way anyone could have forgotten about you, Freya. You’re the nicest person I’ve met.”
I smiled. “Maybe he won’t like me after all. I’ll be happy to return to help at the orphanage. Do you think your king would allow it?”
“No one knows for sure what the King will do. But, I know the children would like that, however, you have something else to worry about now. The children will be fine. Don’t you want to start a new life with new memories?”
I nodded. “I think so, but is he really feral like I’ve heard?”
Meriuam looked down at the floor for a moment and then said, “You can hear rumors, but you can’t really know them. Now go, get your stuff. He’s waiting.”
After gathering my stuff and placing them in a chest for them to be transported later to Hvit’zark’s podhouse, wherever that was, I came out into the courtyard where he was waiting. As I walked through the narrow corridor, other women were watching. I recognized most of them. Like me, they were either waiting for their warrior to come back for them or had temporarily been assigned a different duty for some reason or another.
At the end of the hall, two girls were standing near a water sculpture, studying Hvit’zark as he paced the space. One even walked blatantly in his path as if trying to get his attention. They scowled when Hvit’zark turned and acknowledged my presence. I decided to ignore the other girls since that didn’t take much effort. My heart was already pounding erratically the closer and closer I got to Hvit’zark.
Nothing had changed about him. Among the male guards in the room, he commanded the most attention. He wore a different type of loin cloth this time. It was thinner. His thighs were big as tree trunks and every inch of muscle rippled beneath his flesh. His hair was slightly-dampened, and some strands were matted against his upper chest. In his hands, he held a rope, much like the ones the other warriors had carried their mates off in at the auction. Meriuam had told me that the practice of taking a woman off with a rope wasn’t seen as an insult but rather a gesture of acceptance. She said it stemmed from their distant past as part of an old Zunatorian mating ritual.
I lowered my gaze to the ground just before coming to a halt about two feet in front of him. By that time, the whole courtyard had gone quiet, observing the union between us.
He brought his hand up to my face and I shrunk back just a bit. He placed a finger under my chin and tipped my face upward. His stormy gray eyes studied me with such emotion, yet his battle-hardened face remained stoic. The auras beneath his skin reminded me of summer lightning, bright and intense.
He stepped back from me and walked a circle around me. His breath fanned across my neck, sending strong currents of desire through my body. I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling this way. He picked up a lock of my hair and brought it to his nose while inhaling deeply.
“You will go with me…” His voice was deep and husky.
I couldn’t tell whether his words were a question posed to me or a command, but I answered anyway. “Yes.”
He walked back in front of me, took my hands and meticulously tied the rope around my wrists. His fingers brushed my skin as he worked, slowly weaving the ends of the rope in and out until it was knotted securely.
He turned around and began walking towards the door. I swallowed and cringed when I saw the old scars on his back. He had gone through so much and he had the physical scars to prove it.
As he guided me through the market, along the walkways, and through a field, he turned around a few times to peer at me. He walked with purpose and almost everyone who saw him moved from his path.
I couldn’t help but wonder what he had in store for me. He had already made it clear to his King that he had wanted no part in the auction. But here we were...driven by fate or something else entirely.
Chapter Eight
Zark
* * *
The female smelled of more than just serenity and freedom. Her scent was sweet and intoxicating and made me think of things other than my abandoned posts.
By the way she looked around in the dark at my podhouse and surroundings, I could tell she was confused. Someone had forgotten to warn her that I lived further from the other villages.
I unraveled the ropes from her wrists and she dropped her arms down by her side. I reached behind her and pushed the door open, but she didn’t make any moves to turn around or walk inside.
“Do you know much English?” she asked, innocently.
I felt a grin twitching at my lips as she waited for my answer. I wrapped my hands around her waist and slowly backed her inside the home. I didn’t miss the small gasp that escaped her mouth the moment I made contact with her. We were so close, I could hear her heart racing.
I set her down in the center of the room right under the light. I almost couldn’t look away from her exquisite body through the revealing thin piece of silk that clung to all of her curves.
“This is my home. You will stay here. Eat here. Sleep here. Bathe here. You will not leave here unless you’re with me.”
She turned her small mouth down into a frown. “I wasn’t aware that I would be imprisoned.”
Her voice was smooth and melodic.
“Prisoners wear collars,” I told her, locking the door behind us.
She said nothing, but she did turn about to look around. She never moved from the spot I placed her in.
“You have lots of collars hanging over there,” she whispered, staring at my inventory near the closet.
“Because I drag convicts into prison.”
She swallowed visibly and continued looking around. Her attention fell on the pot of soup I left on the stove and the bag of bread sitting on the table. If the room hadn’t been so quiet, I might have missed the low rumble in her belly. She was hungry.
“Would you like something to eat?”
She nodded. “I guess so.”
I washed my hands in the basin and then went to turn off the heat.
“At the auction, you told the king you weren’t yet fit for a mate. When you’re done breeding me, what will you do with me?” she asked.
My mouth watered at the mention of breeding. I turned around and watched as she shifted around uncomfortably on the small rug. I noted the way her chest rose and fell and at the way her cherry-tinted nipples pushed against the silk. I licked my lips, trying to imagine the taste of her. That sweet, intoxicating scent drifted under my nose again. I inhaled deeply.
“After you’re done with me, after breeding, what happens?” she repeated.
“I never said I would breed you.” I scooped some soup into a bowl and set it down on the place mat on the table.
“Then why did you bring me here?”
“Because I don’t want any other warrior to have you,” I told her.
“Oh…” Her lips parted the same time her eyes widened. “You should know that I’ve never been with any man like this.”
“I’m not a man.”
“But you still carry human genes,” she replied.
“Is that something you remember?” I asked.
“Yes, they told us in training that your ancestors were humans who came to Zuna a long time ago and mated with the alien species here. You’re a tribrid.”
“I see that you’ve been listening, but that’s not what I meant. How do you know that you’ve never been with anyone?”
Her cheeks reddened. I’d never seen a human woman blush before.
“Because Meriuam told me. I was examined.”
My gaze dropped to her body again, imagining what she looked like in the flesh. I was already letting my guard down, becoming weak, craving something that co
uld change my whole life.
“Sit down.” I gestured to the chair.
She moved gracefully as she came to take the seat I was holding out for her. Her sweet scent drifted up to me once again.
“Will you eat dinner too?” she asked, taking a cloth napkin from the table and folding it across her lap.
“I’m not hungry. I’ll have supper later. There’s more soup on the burner, if you like. You do remember how the podhouse operates, yes?”
“Yes. I learned at the dorms. I was there waiting for you for almost two months, remember?”
“My memory is fine,” I replied.
She shot me a look of indifference, so I presumed she caught on to my sarcasm.
I grabbed my bow and arrow from the adjacent wall and tied a canteen around my waist.
“Are you leaving?” she asked.
“I’ll be back.”
“But—”
“We need food for two now. I’m going hunting. Don’t worry. I won’t go far.”
Her pinched expression told me exactly how she felt, but my departure was for her sake, not mine. If didn’t get out of there at once, she’d lose more than her memory. I didn’t know how long I could stop myself from ripping the silk tunic from her body and having my way with her.
I destroyed everything I touched. I would not destroy her.
Chapter Nine
Freya
* * *
I woke up confused. After looking around and seeing Zark’s collection of prison collars on the wall, my panic subsided. I didn’t even remember falling asleep. I must have been so tired. When Zark left last evening, I ate the soup and cleaned up the dishes I used. The last thing I remembered was lying at the foot of the bed waiting for him to come back. He never came back…or maybe he did.
The leftover pot of soup had been removed from the stove, so someone had come in here while I was asleep. Why didn’t I wake up? Certainly, a huge full-grown man like Zark would have made a sound.
