by Regine Abel
“Hello, my daughter,” Thaddeus said, his voice gentle and controlled, but his emotions in complete turmoil.
To my shock, affection, awe, hope, and a disturbing fear of rejection raged within him. If he only knew that similar emotions, laced with hurt and a sense of abandonment, also burned within his daughter.
“It seems a little late to remember that,” she said in a curt tone.
“I’ve never forgotten,” he replied calmly. “Ask your questions, and then read what I have to say.”
Valena nervously clenched and unclenched her fists, before hesitantly placing palm on his face. Thaddeus’s expression melted with tenderness, which turned Valena inside out. She asked her questions in a trembling voice then remained silent for many seconds while her father revealed whatever feelings and thoughts he had of her. She began to tremble, her lips quivering as her eyes glistened. The same powerful emotion could be seen on her father’s face.
“Papa…” Valena choked out at last, dropping her hand to embrace him.
Thaddeus drew her into his arms, one hand gently fisting her hair at the nape, while she buried her face in his neck and bawled. Resting his cheek on top of her head, he closed his eyes with an expression which could have passed for pain.
My throat tightened with an emotion reflected by my brothers. Kamala pressed herself against my side, torn between happiness for Valena, envy, and sorrow at the love she never received form her sire. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple.
“You can all come,” I telepathically said to Eryon, still in the house with his daughter and grandchildren.
“On our way,” he replied.
The mood shifted as Amalia, holding the hands of Vahleryon and Zharina walked the short distance from the house to the landing pad, followed by Lhor holding the hands of Rhadames and Tharek. Closing the march, Eryon held Elisha—Valena’s daughter—in his arms, with her older brothers Threvus and Dhaxius walking on each of his sides.
The Exiled tensed as the children approached, ancient fears of Titans resurfacing. I probed the children’s emotions, especially Tharek, who still battled with his rabidly territorial instincts. He was exuding a tremendous amount of psionic power to suffuse himself with Kaa. His siblings, too, forwarded their appeasing waves towards him. Valena let go of her father and stood by his side, casting a timid look towards her mate and then towards her children.
Releasing his mother’s hand Vahleryon advanced towards my brothers, his siblings shadowing him. He stopped a few meters in front of them, just as Khel appeared on the verge of asking him to go no further. Tilting his head to the side, he examined each of the Korletheans as if he could read their souls.
“You came,” Vahleryon said at last.
“We did,” Febus replied. “Your words intrigued us. But we couldn’t tell if they were spontaneous or rehearsed.”
“Smaller words, my brother. He’s still a child,” I telepathically chastised him.
“He’s no child. He understands me well,” Febus replied, with disturbing conviction.
“I didn’t practice what I said,” Vahleryon said. “I just meant it.”
“Is that how you see yourself, then?” Febus asked. “As the Great General who will change the world?”
“No. That’s how you and Fate see me,” Vahl replied with a shrug.
The same stunned expression could be seen on all our faces.
“You do not think there’s an actual Great General?” Thaddeus asked.
Vahleryon scrunched his face in a way eerily similar to when his mother had that expression. “Yes, but it’s not one person. We are,” he added, looking at his siblings. “I am the Sword. Zhara is the Head, Rhad is the Heart, and Tharek is the Shield.” He looked to his right side at Valena’s children and smiled at them. “They are Strength, Courage, and Loyalty.”
“So, you wish us to serve all of you?” Leya asked with an unreadable expression, her cheek wound from the Enforcers’ attack having been completely mended by the Veredian healers.
Vahleryon frowned as if she had said something offensive. In fact, his emotions conveyed as much. “No. We do not want you to serve us. You are not slaves, and slavery is bad. We want friends who will help us to never become monsters.”
That struck a chord with my people. A few of them exchanged furtive glances. The boy was appeasing the last of their fears.
“Do you wish to hurt us right now?” Febus asked.
“Of course,” Vahl said as if it was an obvious answer. “You’re alphas on my territory.”
“Me, too,” Tharek said timidly, giving his brother an apologetic look.
His siblings laughed, and Vahl ruffled his hair. My brothers smiled nervously, uncertain how to respond to that.
“But are we going to hurt them?” Vahleryon asked the Shadow.
“No,” Tharek said with his high-pitched, baby voice, shaking his head vigorously. “Because we’re not animals. We have Kaa.”
My chest warmed with affection when he turned to me, seeking my approval. I winked at Tharek who puffed his little chest. My brothers stared at us in awe, the last of their reservations shattered.
Thaddeus, Febus, and Killian exchanged a look and an almost imperceptible nod.
“Well then, on behalf of my brothers and sisters who have left Korlethea, we would love to stay and be your friends, if you would have us,” Febus said.
Vahleryon beamed at him, his normally overly serious face for such a young boy taking on the timid vulnerability one would otherwise expect at his age. “We would love for you to stay!” Vahl exclaimed before suddenly sobering and casting a sheepish look at his sire. “Well, if Daddy says it’s okay.”
We all burst out laughing.
The ice finally broken, my brothers and sisters took turns introducing themselves to the children while Valena presented her mate and offspring to her father. As I mingled with my people, getting my mate to make their acquaintance, a wave of joy and hope crashed over me. My head jerked to the right to see my aunt, standing a few meters from the bunker’s entrance, looking at me with eyes filled with love.
“You have followed all the right paths and led us to our destiny, my son. You truly are the Hands of Fate.”
* * *
In the days after Valena and a handful of other mind-reading Veredians confirmed the Exiled had no ill intentions towards their people and offspring, many moving reunions took place between the Korlethean fathers and their daughters, and some of them with the soulmates they had been forced to part with.
This created additional headaches for Kamala as her Sisters refused to part from their sires during their own exodus towards Veredia. It required some major reshuffling on the transport vessels. Although she tackled the task with a stoic façade, her emotions led me to believe she was cussing up a storm inside. Having seen her lead the battle on the Tempest, I now knew beyond any doubt that she wasn’t made for this administrative side of her new role. However, while I wasn’t privy to any such conversations, I suspected my mate had been talking with Aleina about passing on some of those responsibilities to someone else, especially now that she had Varrek’s list—if it proved to be real. I would have offered to help, but it would have required me to meddle in Veredian affairs that had to do with security.
Despite having been cleared by the mind-readers, it would be a long time, if not years, before any of us would be allowed to access certain information or positions—if ever. Even after seven years of close alliance, the Veredians had no insights on the advanced defense systems and technology of the Xelixians, and vice-versa. As sovereign empires, it was logical for them to keep their national security zealously protected as should they ever have a fall out, both would be vulnerable.
To our great surprise, we discovered that, just like my aunt had done, each of the Korlethean ships had carried dozens of crates filled with germinating vryer root seeds. While intended for the Xelixians, Killian convinced Khel to bring most of them to Veredia whose climate�
�fairly similar to Korlethea’s—was better suited to the culture of the roots. This, in turn, forced the hand of our home world into entering a vryer trading agreement with Xelix Prime, with the express understanding that the root would only be used for medical purposes, and its handling be strictly controlled by governmental entities.
Following Kamala’s message to the Galactic Council containing the recording of her com with Hoseas, the Council ordered the Quorum to allow observers from the Galactic Alliance to stay on Korlethea. They would investigate the claims of persecution and violations of our people’s rights. After an initial refusal, the Quorum was eventually forced to cave or be expelled from the Alliance, with all the political and economic fallouts that came with it. With Guldar seeking the first opportunity to strike at the Empire, my people couldn’t afford to be shunned and slapped with embargos.
Thanks to the ‘protection’ of the Alliance observers, more Korletheans chose to join us in exile, including Eryon’s former mate and their twin sons. Eryon had mated Rhaella at the age of twenty. They weren’t soulmates but were Attuned. With the prophecy claiming he would be enslaved for twenty-four years, they had agreed at the time of their union that once he was captured, Rhaella would dissolve their marriage to be free to seek happiness elsewhere. During those years, she was blessed to find her soulmate, an Enforcer, only to lose him two decades later in a battle against Guldan pirates. The moment Eryon introduced her to his daughter, Amalia told him that he was too young to be alone forever, and that her mother would have wanted him to find happiness. While Eryon hadn’t acted on it, the affection between him and Rhaella remained. It was my hope that, in time, they would find solace together.
To my complete shock, and utter delight, Febus confirmed that Chana Bremhin—President Frebhin’s former assistant—had been apprehended by the Enforcers. After fleeing Xelix Prime, she’d sought refuge on Korlethea. It turned out, Daleus had nothing to do with her spying on the Xelixians, her actions having been dictated by Omniate Piatus, her sire. It had been a severe blow for Daleus to find out his closest ally had not only been using him to advance his own agenda but was now to be executed for treason.
Chana had been the result of Piatus’s fling with a Xelixian female during a brief diplomatic visit to Xelix Prime before Korlethea had all but closed itself off to the rest of the galaxy. Realizing his daughter’s Xelixian appearance would make her the perfect mole, he remotely funded her education, filling her head with promises of a heroic future on Korlethea once she had served the Empire on Xelix Prime—a promise he never intended to keep. Piatus ended up receiving the punishment he had planned for me: getting his eyes gouged before being banished to the Scorched Lands. His daughter’s fate still hung in the balance, with the Xelixian secret service demanding she be expatriated back to Xelix Prime to face justice, and Korlethea wishing to exact their own punishment. In the end, seeing the damage her betrayal had caused the Xelixians, I believed the Quorum—what was left of it—would eventually relent and hand her over to them.
Two weeks after our arrival on Xelix Prime, with most of the Veredians having left the planet, Khel and Ghan finally announced their decision. While they had both initially intended on resigning their positions, after much pleading and negotiating, President Frebhin had found an acceptable solution for all parties concerned. It would keep the General and his First Officer full members of the Xelixian army, and therefore bound to keep its secrets and technology safe. With Kamala’s—and Aleina’s—blessing, Khel would establish a Xelixian military base on Veredia, which would be limited to barracks, training grounds, and conference centers. A fleet of the First Division would remain under his command to pursue the work they had already been doing as Peacekeepers in the Western Quadrant.
As for my brothers and me, we put our expertise to the service of the Veredians while they completed the relocation of their people to their new home world. It wasn’t just a way for us to earn the right to stay on Veredia, or even to simply do the right thing, but the clients on Gruuk’s list had bought the daughters sired by us, Korletheans. My brothers definitely wanted to let them know how we felt about that and the years of slavery all of us had endured. By the time the last ship departed Xelix Prime, we had compiled detailed files on each of the clients, with their daily routines, and the best ways to hack their security systems and break into their premises. In some cases, we had even captured images of their Veredian captives.
When our ships set out to rescue the women, Veredians, Korletheans, Xelixians, and Braxians flew together in the most improbable of alliances.
CHAPTER 22
Kamala
The past month had been both an excruciating, never-ending logistics nightmare, and a wonderful period of healing, bonding, and reunification.
I couldn’t deny the pangs of jealousy and envy at the happiness of my Sisters reunited with their fathers, and yet, I genuinely rejoiced for them. Aleina and I would probably never fully get over the pain of our sire’s rejection, but we had Minh’s fatherly love. Even though I wasn’t his mate’s daughter—unlike Aleina—Minh had claimed me as his. And then, we both had the love of wonderful men; her with Ghan, and me with my Xevius.
Upon first hearing of the Exiled coming to join us, I’d been worried things wouldn’t work out, but they had been a blessing. Our children were thriving like never before. The psionic training Xevius and Eryon had devised, further improved by the Korlethean scholars who had come on the civilian ships, were ingenious. The Titans’ incredibly powerful—and often deadly—abilities became more contained and better controlled. Their aggressive behavior plummeted now that all of them were finally able to receive as much individual attention and training from so many Korletheans as Amalia’s children had, thanks to Eryon living in the same house as them.
But the work they had done tracking down our Sisters had been beyond phenomenal. We couldn’t have tackled it so thoroughly with the exodus, and it would have taken a few more weeks before we could have launched the rescues. Instead, we were now en route to Axios, to the mansion of Sunam Topahek, one of the wealthiest mercenaries on that renegade planet. To think we’d been there, three years ago—acting on a tip Mercy had anonymously sent us under the codename Raven—on a mission to save enslaved Xelixians and Veredians. We’d nearly lost Aleina then, not even knowing that her sisters were being held prisoner a handful of clicks from there.
But that man was not the bounty hunter the twins had been sold to. While attempting to track him down, based on the information on the list, Xevius had discovered that he’d been murdered shortly after Gruuk’s death. As Sunam had only bought two Veredians and four had been detected during scans of his mansion, we had every reason to believe the extra ones were the twins.
It made sense since Galicia and Gerana were gifted with psychometry. Galicia could track all the places an object had been, no matter how far back in time, while Gerana could do the same but with people. Combined, their powers allowed them to see who used an object, how, where, and when; essentially, a bounty hunter’s or law enforcer’s wet dream. For a smuggler and collector like Sunam, they would mean endless wealth.
With nineteen hours left to the thirty-six-hour trip to Axios, I finally got to relax a bit with my gorgeous mate, lying on the silver sand of Alarith’s beach, and looking up at the majestic floating mountains of Aelyons in the distance. Upon my request, Xevius had uploaded various locations of Korlethea into our holodeck. While the simulations library on his personal chaser hadn’t been as extensive as his agent one, his brothers had generously shared many of their own with him. With Aleina insisting on leading this mission to recover her sisters, I gladly slipped back into my First Officer role.
A handful of Veredians had remained on Xelix Prime, all of them older females who had mated with Xelixians but, with their reproductive years behind them, they hadn’t birthed hybrids requiring them to leave. Janissa, an Elder Scholar, had volunteered to take over Aleina’s ambassador role on Xelix Prime. While my sister did
n’t intend on resuming the persona of Admiral Lee, I’d been buzzing in her ears about reclaiming the role of military leader of our forces. With luck, this raid would remind her of how much she’d love it.
Xevius’s hand roamed over my flat stomach as I lay naked next to him, the soft sand an oddly comfortable cushion beneath me. Lying on his side, elbow sticking in the sand, and his head resting on his palm, he looked at me with tenderness. We’d made love twice already. While I wanted to savor this moment of gentle intimacy a bit longer, I wouldn’t object to a third round a few minutes from now.
And yet, something troubled me about the emotions I perceived from him. My mate was disappointed and confused, as if he couldn’t quite understand something. I’d gotten that same impression on quite a few occasions this week. He was waiting for something…
“What?” I asked as last. “What has been troubling you?”
“Nothing, my love,” he replied softly.
“Xevius…” I said in a stern voice.
He gave me an apologetic smile and sighed. “You would probably rather not hear about it.”
I refrained the instinctive urge to roll my eyes, but my wretchedly expressive face no doubt still expressed how I felt. “Prophecy stuff?” I asked, my voice further giving me away.
To their utter dismay, the exiled Korletheans discovered that we, Veredians, had no interest whatsoever in their prophecies and visions. We hadn’t freed ourselves from one master only to become slaves to the fear of the future. While they were welcomed to indulge each other’s addiction to foresight, they’d been sternly warned that manipulating the future in a way that could harm, endanger, or negatively impact others in an attempt to force an outcome more to their liking, was strictly forbidden. Anyone caught doing so would face a severe punishment, not excluding the possibility of banishment. My mate died because of such foolishness. We wouldn’t allow that kind of nonsense on our world.
