by Zoey Draven
Housed, Lainey thought, with a bitter twist of her lips. More like kept imprisoned. No windows. One door that was locked from the outside. Only two guards that came and went at scheduled meal times.
Needless to say, they were all going a little crazy.
“I think he’s telling the truth,” Erin said quietly, her gaze going to the alien leader again. “I believe it when they said they were sending us home.”
“Why move us then?” Crystal asked, with a nervous dart of her gaze. “I thought the whole point of us being here was so that…that none of the males would…be awakened or whatever they call it.”
Because that was what Cecelia told them. That these Luxirians had something inside them that could potentially choose a life-long mate. Something dormant that came alive when they saw this mate for the first time.
If those stories were to be believed, then that was what had happened to Beks, Cecelia, and now Taylor. Not to mention Kate, the alien leader’s mate.
Cecelia had told them that was why the leader—called Vaxa’an—had housed them there. So other males wouldn’t be awakened, so the women would be free to go back to Earth without any attachment.
Load of bullshit, Lainey thought. She liked Cecelia, but it was a little hard to believe.
Erin answered Crystal’s question with a helpful, “I don’t know.”
Lainey was just about to open her mouth and say something she’d regret later when she caught sight of Bianca again…and managed to swallow the words down.
Her lips pressed together, as if it would keep them inside, before she spun on her heel and stalked towards Vaxa’an.
His head cocked to the side when he noticed her and straightened.
“Have you come to a decision, fem—”
Lainey cut him off with, “Why should we trust you? Because frankly, buddy, you’ve given us no reason to trust you.”
Vaxa’an frowned, seemingly in confusion, at ‘buddy’ but replied, “The events that have happened are unfortunate, female, but one of my Ambassadors is looking for the crystal at this very moment.”
His calm tone irritated her. “And what happens if it’s never found?”
His pupils contracted. “I do not know,” he said quietly.
Realization hit Lainey and she took a step away. Was it possible he was telling the truth about the crystal?
She cleared her throat and asked, “And why move us?”
Vaxa’an’s eyes drifted past her to the very curious group of women still standing in a circle and he raised his voice when he said, “The decision is yours. You do not have to move quarters. You may stay here until we locate the crystal or you can move to a dwelling in the Golden City. It is private, but it will afford you a view of Luxiria, fresh air. You may go outside onto the terraces, enjoy our suns, and our moon.”
Longing filled Lainey, her breath hitching.
Moonlight.
Vaxa’an continued softly, “It has recently been brought to my attention by your friend, Taylor, that you are unhappy and restless in these quarters. I thought a dwelling might make you…happier. More pleased.”
Lainey blinked and she turned to look over her shoulder at the other women.
She turned back around and asked, “And what about this Instinct we keep hearing about?”
Vaxa’an made a guttural sound in the back of his throat and said, “It is a risk, tev. But only two of my Ambassadors live on the same terrace where you will be housed and you will have Horex and Vixron,” gesturing to the same guards that had brought in their meals from the beginning, “stationed at your dwelling. No other males will see you.”
Lainey retreated back to the circle.
Moonlight, she couldn’t help but think and she wondered if the longing for it was written all over her features.
“Look, I’ll be honest, I’m willing to risk being some alien’s mate to get some fresh air and a damn window,” she told the small group. “I mean…we have to be vitamin-D deficient by now.”
A whisper of an amused smile crossed Erin’s features, but she turned to look at Crystal and Bianca. The diplomat of their group said softly, “I agree, but it should be a unanimous decision.”
Crystal’s eyes turned to look around the room and she blew out a sharp breath. “I’m from LA, okay? I’d kill for some sun right now. I say we move.”
“Bianca?” Lainey asked, eyeing the brunette, who was still looking down at the floor. “What do you say?”
Bianca shook her head. “This means we give in. No, we need to demand that they send us back home now. I’m sick of waiting!”
“By all means,” Lainey said, stepping aside and gesturing to Vaxa’an, “go for it.”
Erin leveled her another look and then said to Bianca, “You know they have the power in this situation, B. We just have to stick it out. Anything is better than being back in those cages…on that other planet.”
Lainey swallowed hard. Yes, anything was better than that.
“We were s-supposed to leave soon,” Bianca said, her voice hitching. “Cecelia said we were leaving soon!”
“Well, we’re not. Obviously,” Lainey said, frustration fraying her nerves. For weeks, Bianca had done this, swinging from one emotional outburst to the other.
And maybe Lainey couldn’t empathize with her. Lainey didn’t have a daughter or a husband…or hell, a family. Maybe Bianca rubbed her the wrong way because Lainey was jealous of her, wanted what she had.
“Shut up, Lainey,” Bianca snapped, her eyes teary but angry. “I’m sick of hearing your sarcastic and bitter and mean remarks. I gave you the benefit of the doubt at first but you’ve shown me that you’re only pretty on the outside.”
Lainey would never admit to anyone how much that comment stung. Never in a million years.
But she straightened her spine and smiled—though it was more like a baring of her teeth—as she said, “What a coincidence. That’s what my mother always told me too.”
Her mother had often said, “It’s a good thing you’re beautiful, Lainey, because no one else in their right mind would love you otherwise.”
But Nadine had loved her. Nadine, who was the complete opposite of Lainey. Nadine who was sweet and shy and nice, who’d been like a sister to her, the family she’d never had.
Only Nadine had left too. Or at least the cancer in her body had taken her away.
“Okay, stop it,” Erin said, sighing, like they were two petulant children. “Bianca, don’t you think getting out of this room might help take your mind off things?”
“Nothing will take my mind off getting back to my family,” Bianca said, tears dripping down her cheeks, but determination shining in her eyes. Lainey’s throat felt tight as she looked at the mother.
“Being locked away in here isn’t doing any of us good,” Crystal pointed out.
“And I don’t want one of those aliens stealing me away from my life,” Bianca cried out. “N-no, I’m staying here. Right here.”
Erin blew out a long breath, her eyes connecting with Crystal’s and Lainey’s.
“I’m not,” Lainey said quietly, shaking her head, looking at the group. “He doesn’t know when they’ll find that missing fuel. If they ever do find it. It could be a day, it could be weeks until they figure out something else. And until then, I can’t be in this room any longer just because Bianca wants to stay.”
“Good. Leave. No one wants you here anyways,” Bianca said, before stalking over to the other side of the fire pit and sitting down among the cushions. The brunette drew her knees to her chest and Lainey saw her shoulders begin to shake.
Lainey’s jaw ticked, her heart squeezing in her chest.
“I’m going too,” Crystal said softly, looking at Erin, an apology written in her eyes. “These walls are driving me insane. I’m sorry.”
Erin would stay with Bianca. Lainey knew that as well as they all did. She was too kind-hearted, too soft-hearted not to.
Erin looked down at the floor.
&n
bsp; “Erin,” Lainey said softly, “you can’t help everyone, especially when they don’t want to be helped.”
“I can’t just leave her, Lainey,” Erin replied, meeting her gaze. Lainey’s heart squeezed again and she felt guilty for leaving someone she considered a friend behind. “She’s fragile. She can’t be left alone here.”
Lainey’s dislike for Bianca deepened. She couldn’t help it.
“She’ll come around,” Erin said, a small smile on her lips, trying to reassure the both of them. “You guys go for now. I’m sure we’ll see you soon.”
And if they didn’t?
Lainey didn’t voice that thought. She glanced over at Crystal, who went to embrace Erin. When Crystal stepped back, Lainey did the same, her heart pounding in her chest.
Erin squeezed her hand when they pulled away. “Be nice,” Erin said, with a small teasing smile.
“I’m always nice,” Lainey said, with a returned smile. “Others just don’t think so.”
Erin shook her head in amusement and Lainey watched as Crystal went to say goodbye to Bianca.
Erin saw her watching the two and said, “She didn’t mean what she said, Lainey. You know that, right?”
Lainey looked at Bianca and said quietly, “No, for once I think she said exactly what she felt.”
With that, Lainey approached the brunette and Crystal gave them space to talk. Lainey crouched in front of her, knowing that what she was going to say would be brief.
“I know we don’t like each other very much,” Lainey said softly, so softly no one else could hear except for Bianca, “and I agree, I’ve given you no reason to like me. But Erin is a good person. Perhaps the best, most selfless person I’ve ever met. Don’t punish her because you’re afraid. This room is affecting her too.”
Lainey stood and Bianca stared up at her, her expression caught between anger, sadness, and guilt. No fond farewells, but Lainey had a feeling they’d be seeing one another soon anyways.
With that, Lainey nodded and stepped back, reaching out to squeeze Erin’s forearm as she passed her on her way to Vaxa’an.
“Crystal and I will leave,” Lainey told him, tilting her chin up.
Judging from the look in his eyes, he’d heard their little discussion and he regarded her in a way that made her feel like a lab rat.
She cleared her throat, refraining from tapping her fingers on her thighs to a silent melody, an old nervous habit. “Erin and Bianca will stay. For now.”
Vaxa’an’s gaze slid past her and Crystal to the other two women. He jerked his head in a sharp nod and said, “Horex will stay behind as their guard. Vixron will accompany you to your new dwelling immediately.”
The guard whose name she now knew as Vixron stepped forward. She’d seen him more times than she could count and had never thought to ask his name.
“Alrighty then,” Lainey said, looking up at him, before sliding her gaze to Crystal, who stood slightly behind her, not quite meeting the eyes of the Luxirians. “We’re ready to go.”
Chapter Three
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Lainey breathed once Vixron landed a freaking hovercraft onto a wide stone terrace at the top of a mountain city.
So this was Luxiria…
Lainey and Crystal stumbled off of the hovercraft, declining help from the hulking Luxirian acting as their bodyguard and raced to the long, stretching balcony of the terrace, their bellies pressing into the hard, warm stone.
Luxiria was…darkly beautiful. Lainey hadn’t expected that. In her mind, she’d imagined a stark landscape or perhaps a jungle of thick trees, humid, suffocating air, a forest filled with odd sounds from strange monsters and creatures with four or five or six eyes and a thousand legs. Then again, she only ever had Star Trek and Star Wars to fuel her imagination for what an extraterrestrial planet would look like.
But Luxiria wasn’t like anything she’d imagined.
It was striking. Black sand billowed out from the mountain they were high upon, flowing over and covering the land as far as Lainey could see. In the seemingly never-ending distance, she saw tall, jagged black mountains, impressively majestic.
Lainey had been to Scotland once, had remembered the striking landscape of the highlands, of Glencoe, beautifully melancholic and haunting, like her favorite concerto.
But Luxiria’s landscape was like Glencoe on steroids. And she found that she could look at a view like it forever.
Next to her, Crystal said softly, “You know, for some reason, it never seemed real before right now.” When Lainey managed to peel her eyes away from the scene to look at her, the blonde shrugged and said, “None of it seemed real. But how can I deny this?”
The abduction. Alien life. Being on another planet, so great a distance from Earth that Lainey didn’t know how to quantify it with numbers she knew.
That was what Crystal was talking about.
Lainey knew the feeling. Because she was experiencing something very, very similar.
Another thing that registered was the heat. The moment they’d stepped foot outside the building that had housed them for a few weeks, thick heat had settled over them.
It didn’t bother Lainey. While she was sweating bullets underneath the two suns, high overhead in the sky, anything felt better than the cool, circulated, sterile air of that goddamn room. She felt the heat on her skin and the suns on her face, felt a hot breeze blow strands of her red hair across her eyes…and she was happy for the first time in a long time. She was free, unshackled, in open air.
And it felt like music.
“Ready to go check out our new digs?” Crystal asked after they’d been standing there for longer than Lainey realized.
She looked over her shoulder, saw Vixron standing near the entrance to a domed…house? Or at least what Lainey assumed was a house.
The terrace was quiet, deserted. Five houses in total lined that particular terrace, but Lainey had seen that the entire city—which Vaxa’an had called the Golden City—had been lined with terraces, carved out of the mountain.
“Yeah,” Lainey said, turning her back on the spine-tingling view to approach the place they’d be staying at for who knew how long. “Let’s go.”
Passing through an arched metal door, the two women examined their temporary home. And already, Lainey knew it was a tremendous upgrade. Not only because it was spacious, but because it was flooded with ample natural light pouring in from the large windows.
Inside the ‘living room’ was the same fire pit set-up they’d had in the other room, a place they’d often gathered at meal times. And despite the heat, there was a fire flickering in the very center, as if someone had come to prepare the house for them.
Vibrant rugs were spread out over the floor, in varying patterns and colors to protect their bare feet from the stone. Lainey approached the back of the house, to a labyrinth of a hallway, that revealed two rooms that had been outfitted as bedrooms, complete with actual beds—two in each room—instead of padded mats on the floor. They were piled high with furs and plush cushions and Lainey wanted to sink into one, but continued exploring instead.
The last door revealed the holy grail of bathrooms.
Behind her, Crystal said, “Oh my God.”
Because the bathroom was huge. In its very center was a large, sunken in pool, with steam rising from its surface. The largest bathtub in history.
“I know what I’m doing tonight,” Lainey muttered, her eyes wide.
That was when the guilt hit her. Hard.
“Erin should be here,” Lainey said. Only at the last moment, did she add, “Bianca too.”
“She’ll come around,” Crystal said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
When they returned to the living room, Vixron was still at his place by the front door, legs spread apart in a wide stance, arms straight at his side.
He was watching Lainey warily and her lips almost twitched. Admittedly, she hadn’t been the best behaved under his watch and had
ripped him a new asshole a time or two once she’d discovered he understood and spoke English.
Even still, she straightened her spine and sniffed, “This will do, Vixy. I suppose.”
Vixron’s lips pressed together. “I will inform the Prime Leader of your satisfaction when I see him next.”
“So,” Crystal said quietly. “What now?”
Lainey sighed, her eyes straying back out the window, at the impressive view of Luxiria.
She was itching to go back onto the terrace, but already, her skin was turning red and blotchy from the intensity of the two suns. Being a redhead, nine times out of ten, meant fair skin. Fair skin never agreed with the sun. She’d always been jealous how easily Nadine had tanned during the summertime, when Lainey had to cover herself with large brimmed sun hats and the highest SPF money could buy.
“We wait,” Lainey said, shrugging her shoulders and going to stand at one of the larger windows. There was a ledge right at its base and Lainey couldn’t help but notice that it was the length of a 76-key keyboard. “Like we always have.”
Her eyes found the jagged peaks of the mountain and she traced their outline with reverence.
Crystal sighed, “I’m going to take a bath. Might as well swim in there while I’m at it.”
Lainey heard her retreat down the hallway they’d just come from.
As she looked at the view, her hands rested on the wide ledge. She placed her fingers in the starting position, imagining black and white keys in place of stone. And she began to silently play Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 20 in C sharp minor.
“I have sent Cruxan back to his outpost,” Vaxa’an told Kirov later that night in the war room, the moment he stepped inside after receiving summons.
The door closed behind him. Kirov frowned. “Why?”
“He received news from some of his guards stationed there. That they heard about a Luxirian crystal arriving with a relief batch of warriors earlier this morning.”
“He thinks one of them has the crystal?” Kirov questioned, but he already knew. “But how? We’d already questioned all the warriors on duty here multiple times.”
