by C. R. Jane
“She was captured by the Khonsu when I was nine. They tortured her until she lost her mind. She’s been in the facility ever since we rescued her.”
I sat there shocked, not knowing what to say.
“I should have brought it up before we got there,” said Thane. “But as I’m sure you can imagine, it’s hard to talk about. Dad brought me up with Corran and Derrial’s parents helping out.”
“I’m so sorry, honey,” I said, tapping Corran to let me down. He reluctantly did so and I walked over to Thane, wrapping my arms around him.
“It happened a long time ago,” Thane said gruffly, but he pulled me towards him tighter and buried his head in my neck.
I had a million questions but I didn’t want to pressure him to tell me anything he didn’t want to. He would tell me eventually, and I could accept that.
Corran walked over and grabbed me after a few minutes, bringing me back to his chair to sit in his lap again. Derrial and Thane both snorted, and it lifted the somber mood that had descended on the ship.
“Where are we off to now?” I asked as Corran started kissing down my neck again. I laughed and snuggled in deeper to him.
“Dinner,” said Derrial. “We figured that it was time to show you Vepar food. So far you’ve gotten trial food and cell food. Not the greatest stuff.”
I had always been an adventurous eater so I was excited about the prospect of trying something new.
“Can I eat everything that you eat?” I ask, thinking that their altered forms hid how different they actually were to humans.
Corran frowned. “You should be able to eat most things, but I haven’t tested everything so we’ll just have you try things that I know for sure are alright.”
Thane snorted again. “I think she’ll be okay no matter what, lover boy.”
Corran pulled me in closer to him. “We’re not taking that chance.”
“Um guys,” I asked Thane and Derrial. “What is going on with Corran?”
Thane and Derrial both looked at each other with amused looks on their faces.
“Have you ever heard of blue balls, kitten?” Derrial asked.
“Um...yes?” I asked, confused.
“He has the equivalent of Vepar blue balls, right now,” Derrial said with a smirk as Corran growled into my neck.
“What does that mean?”
“You’ve just fed on the two of us recently, right?” asked Thane. I nodded.
“Well he’s starting to feel a blood craving. His body is pushing him to be with his mate. You.”
“Oh,” I said, startled. I craned my neck so Corran had access to it more. “Go ahead,” I asked.
Corran growled again, but this one sounded more like a moan.
“I think you better wait until you can do everything,” said Derrial with a chuckle.
“Everything?”
“Sex, pet,” said Thane. “Exchanging blood with your mate is practically a sacred act. You don’t just go biting each other. It’s almost always shared with sex unless the circumstances demand otherwise.”
“Like when we escaped from the house on Earth,” I said, shivering just remembering how terrible it was.
“Exactly.”
“You said mate,” I said slowly to the guys. “You’ve said that before, that we have a bond. What will happen if I don’t win?”
All three of the guys growled. “That won’t happen,” said Derrial darkly.
I said nothing, just continued to look out at Veon through the window.
The mood had lightened a little bit by the time we landed by the lavender sea that I had seen earlier. Thane and Corran both held my hands while Derrial walked behind me as we headed towards a glittering gold structure that was right on the shore.
“This is gorgeous,” I said, letting go of Thane’s hand and reaching my hand out to touch the outside of the structure. It literally looked like it was built out of gold.
“This is one of our nicest restaurants,” said Derrial, letting out a laugh when an entrance opened right where I had been reaching out to touch and I almost fell through.
“Welcome to Lankardia,” said a as usual, beautiful Vepar woman dressed all in black. “We’re delighted to have you here this evening,” she said, beckoning us forward. I walked inside, gaping like a fish, and wishing that I had worn a more glamorous outfit.
While all the other Vepar structures I had been too had been relatively the same with the exception of the flower colored ones in the capital city, this one could only be described as opulent.
The walls inside were the same sparkling gold material as the outside. There were crystal orbs hanging from the ceiling. Tables seemed to be floating in the air covered by glittering white tablecloths. It was incredible.
“You can close your mouth now,” whispered Corran, nuzzling against me as he had been doing all evening.
“It’s just all so incredible,” I said in an awed voice. I noticed that the other Vepar in the room were staring at us as we walked by. “I wish they would stop staring,” I muttered.
“I don’t,” said Derrial in a proud voice. “We purposely picked this place. It’s where all the elite of Veon dine. We wanted to show off our mate.”
My heart fluttered at that word again...mate. And at the fact that they were proud to be seen with me.
We were led to a different room that only had one table and privacy from the rest of the patrons. The back wall of the room was made up of a glass balcony that overlooked the lavender sea. It was perfection.
The hostess sat us at our table and left, leaving one last longing glance at the three guys who hadn’t paid her any attention. The jealous bitch inside of me was glad about that.
We talked for a little while about little facts about Veon until a male Vepar with black hair and black horns came into the room. “Good evening everyone. Welcome to Lankardia. My name is Rodolphus and I’ll be your server for the evening. The chef has arranged a special tasting menu for you tonight if that is agreeable to you.”
The men nodded, all of them looking pleased.
“Can I start you out with drinks? We have anything you could want available.”
“We’d like four of the house wines,” said Derrial.
“Of course. I’ll have that right out,” said Rodolphus, leaving the room.
“If he gives her one more look I’m going to cut his head off,” said Corran mildly, scooting his chair so close to me that our sides were practically glued together.
“He didn’t do anything!” I scoffed, shooting him a glare.
“He couldn’t keep his eyes off of you,” said Thane with a menacing glare.
“It was probably because I’m the token human in the restaurant. I’m sure that he hasn’t seen very much of my kind.”
“Doubtful,” growled Derrial.
Rodolphus returned to the room with four glasses filled with a smoky blue drink. “Our house wine,” he said, looking right at me and this time giving me a wink. I held onto Corran’s hand for dear life as he was twitching like he was going to jump across the table and gut him.
There was a deadly silence in the room and Rodolphus finally caught on. He looked at the three angry Vepar warily and left without saying another word.
I took a sip of the wine before they could say anything. To my surprise, it was sweet. More like fruit juice than any wine I had ever tasted. I took another big sip.
“I’d be careful with that if I were you,” Corran said with a smile on his face. “That has five times the alcohol content as Earth wines.”
I gulped the sip I had in my mouth and then set the drink down carefully. I could barely handle a glass of Earth wine without starting to feel tipsy. I would need to be very slow in enjoying this.
Rodolphus seemed to have learned his lesson because the next time he came in carrying our first course, he didn’t even look at me.
After he left, I eyed the dish he had set down. It was a dish covered in flowers. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to
eat that.
“Here, like this,” said Derrial, scooping up a handful of the flowers and beginning to squeeze them into the bowl that was in front of him. To my surprise a honey colored liquid began to fall from the flowers until the flowers completely disappeared in Derrial’s hands.
I gasped and then quickly scooped up some flowers and started to squeeze just like Derrial had. To my delight, I was able to get the same liquid to appear. I tentatively took a sip and moaned as the flavors exploded across my tongue. The liquid had a nutty, rich flavor like nothing I had tasted before. It was officially my favorite food.
“What did he call this? Lankardia’s specialty?” I said with a mouth full of the dish.
Corran snickered next to me. “It’s actually the Veon national flower. It’s called a Vetri. It’s delicious properties were discovered by a group of Vepar who got lost while camping and had to try and eat plants to survive.”
“I could eat fifteen bowls of this!”
“I wouldn’t do that, kitten. The flower has certain properties if consumed too much. Certain hallucinogenic properties.”
I put my spoon down immediately remembering how awful it had been after the Khonsu had injected me with its venom.
“There’s no problem eating the bowl,” said Corran gently, pushing the bowl towards me. “It takes several bowls to even start the effect.”
I nodded, but took small sips after that. Evidently Vepar food packed a punch in all of its forms.
Speaking of dangerous things. I needed to ask about Zeni. I had to know or I was going to go crazy. I took a deep breath, trying to draw in some courage.
“So…about Zeni,” I began.
The men all immediately set down their spoons and looked at me tensely. Rodolphus chose that moment to come in. He was immediately sent away with curses. Poor thing. He probably was going to quit after tonight.
“What do you want to know?” asked Derrial tersely.
“So it’s been pretty clear that she at one point was someone important to you...what happened to stop that?”
Corran sighed next to me, clutching my hand even tighter that he had been holding all evening as if he needed comfort for what was about to come.
“We grew up with Zeni. She was younger than us and had a crush on us for years and we never noticed her. Zeni would tag along with us whenever we went out with friends but we never thought of her as anything more. We all dated a lot back then. Zeni would always bother everyone to find out how our dates went. She was our little stalker. We went on a five year mission to explore nearby planets when the fertility issues started to become a problem. When we came back, Zeni was all grown up and she caught our eye.”
I looked down at that comment. The inferiority over how beautiful Zeni was compared to me hitting me all over again.
“Hey,” said Derrial, reaching over to grab my chin. “Stop that. You’re the most gorgeous woman that we’ve ever seen,” he said. I scoffed as I looked into his eyes. But I couldn’t see any sign that he didn’t believe that. They were delusional.
“Keep going,” I said with a sigh.
Corran eyed me before he continued talking. “Zeni wanted all of us and for a time we were fine with that. But pieces of her personality that we hadn’t seen before started to come out. There were strange things that happened to some of our exes and our female colleagues began to be changed to different departments. She was always checking up on us randomly as if she thought she would catch us with another female at any moment. It finally became too much and we all decided this wasn’t going to work for us…” Corran’s voice trailed off.
“And that’s when she told us she was pregnant,” said Thane.
I gasped. They had a child with her?
“Oh don’t worry,” Thane said sarcastically. “That viper was lying. She had fake tests and everything since she knew that we would be doubtful because of the issues going on. She fooled us for months, even going so far as to gain weight so it looked like she was getting a bump. We decided to try and stick it out for the sake of the child, thinking that we would get a paternity test and only the real father would have to be stuck to her. She finally faked one thing too many and Corran began to get suspicious, going to visit the doctor she said she was going to. Imagine our surprise when it turned out that the doctor was in on the plan and had been giving her special pills so that her labs made it look like she was pregnant whenever Corran made her run tests. The doctor was quick to tell us everything when the three of us confronted her. We broke up with Zeni immediately. She’s been on the warpath ever since trying to get us back.”
We were all quiet. That was a lot to take in. I was tempted to tell them about her offering me her ship to leave the planet but I was afraid they would go off the handle after everything they had just told me. I decided to tell them later, when they were calmer.
“Can we please not talk about her anymore,” said Corran in a frustrated voice, pulling me into his lap. “This is supposed to be a date...not to mention your second trial. I think we should start the festivities now.”
“Festivities?” I asked in a breathless voice as Corran’s hands started to stroke farther down my body.
“Yes,” he said, his voice almost a whisper as he picked me up and laid me down on the table. “And festivities usually start with dessert first.”
I looked at Thane and Derrial to see how they were reacting, but they seemed content to let Corran take the lead.
Cupping my jaw, he angled me for his kiss. I was immediately consumed by him. His intoxicating taste seeped into my mouth, his tongue dueling with mine. Sliding my fingers through his hair, I luxuriated in the soft feel of it, painfully aware of the other two’s heated gazes on me.
Corran’s body devoured me. I felt wholly protected in his arms. Cherished. I moaned into his kiss as the sparks of lust fueled through me, scratching my nails along his skin. As if sensing my complete desperation, he pulled back slightly, flashing me a sexy, knowing smile. His eyes glazed over with desire, staring down at my chest, my hardened nipples clearly visible through my dress. His smirk transformed into deep wanting, his eyes turning a darker shade of gold, more like caramel than anything else, his lips parted on a needy breath.
His need for me was thrilling. To see him standing before me, wanting me like this. I lost my breath. Staring up into his face, watching him take in my highlighted form, I quivered in need.
“Corran . . . touch me . . . ” I gasped out.
Gripping the bottom of my dress, he lifted it, surprising me. I tensed, waiting to be touched. “Please,” I begged.
Just as Corran was about to touch me, a speaker came on. “A reminder to the contestant that erotic touching is not allowed in Trial 2. Further action will result in disqualification.”
Corran immediately stopped touching me and bowed his head. “I’m going to die,” he said dramatically. Thane stood up and slapped him on the back.
“Better luck next time, buddy,” he teased, sounding so human at the moment that it made me giggle.
“Laugh now. But when I finally get my hands on you...” said Corran threateningly.
I laughed, excited for the prospect of a pent up Corran being unleashed.
As I sat back down I noticed all three Vepar adjusting themselves. Maybe they would all get a case of “Vepar blue balls,” I think smugly, loving how much they wanted me.
There was a knock on the door and a timid looking Rodolphus popped his head in. “Are you ready for the next course?” he asked.
“Come in,” Corran confirmed, in a very unwelcoming voice.
Corran was a bit sullen and touchy the rest of the night, but it was still the most fun I had experienced with them.
Plate after plate was brought to the table, filled with the most exotic looking food that I had ever seen. I was passed from lap to lap as they all wanted to feed me. I had never thought that I would like that but it was kind of fun to feed each other. It also helped me be brave with some of the more interes
ting looking items like a plate full of sauteed Danter eyes. It wasn’t one of my favorite dishes.
When we were finally done eating, I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to walk out of the restaurant I was so full.
“We need to get you back,” Derrial admitted, regretfully. “We’ve already kept you out hours longer than the others.”
“Don’t mention the others,” I said, a bit drunkenly.
“There’s my jealous girl again.” Thane wrapped his arms around my waist and walked out on the balcony.
“We should have a house here,” I said sleepily, too tipsy to monitor my words.
“You can have whatever you want,” he replied.
Corran and Derrial strolled out just as our ship landed on the shore below us. Thane helped me down the stairs since I wasn’t moving very steadily and we climbed on the ship.
I stayed cuddled up in Thane’s arms for the trip back to the mansion, feeling better about our relationship than I ever had before.
“Tonight was perfect,” I whispered as I hugged each of them in front of the mansion. “One of the best nights of my life.”
Corran pulled me in for a kiss that left me breathless. The tension was bubbling at the surface for us. I wanted him badly and I didn’t know how much longer we could hold out. I was just contemplating how we could possibly sneak him in when lights all of a sudden shone down on us. They were bright, like spotlights, and they blinded me for a minute.
“What the hell is going on?” Thane looked like he was going to break the neck of whoever was responsible for this. To my surprise, three members of the Council appeared.
“Say your goodbye’s boys, this one is disqualified,” one of them said, grinning.
The three of them stood in front of me protectively. “On what grounds? Corran stopped before anything happened tonight,” Derrial said.
“One of the Councilmembers stepped forward with a device that started projecting a holographic image. I gasped in horror, feeling very sober all of a sudden. It was a picture of me sitting in Zeni’s ship.
“She tried to escape earlier and was stopped by one of the other contestants. Her attempt counts as a forfeiture.”
