by Jane, C. R.
“You look beautiful.” His attention fell to my low v-neck dress, the one he’d bought me once we arrived in New York for a meal. The trip itself was another testament to Vepar technology since Hawaii to New York had only taken thirty minutes. I blushed all over, the earlier fire from the beach surging through me once again, and I grew hot and bothered as I clenched my thighs. It didn’t take long for him to affect me, for any of them to affect me, just a simple look did the trick. Something had to be wrong with me to react to the Vepar so fast.
I looked down at the blue gown I wore, it was the color of the night sky with tiny sparkles all over it when the light caught it in the right direction.
I blushed when I looked up and he was still watching me with admiration.
“I’m sure this dress could make even you look handsome,” I told him, laughing at myself trying to downplay the fact that he and his friends were the most gorgeous males I had ever seen. Looking around at my surroundings, this place was the most posh and uppity place I had been to in my life. I’d never be able to afford to visit such a place, and if I stepped foot in here without Corran, I’d be marched out. I suspected that the way we had been treated while we were here, like we were royalty, had everything to do with being on the arm of a Vepar.
“I didn’t mean to upset you back by the ocean. I’ve got a few things on my mind,” he explained and reached over to take my hand in his. His thumb stroked the back of my wrist in slow, gentle circles. His hair, the color of mahogany, framed his strong face and his eyes reminding me of milky caramel. Despite being the quieter of the three Vepar, the one who analyzed things first and who seemed to calculate everything before he acted, Corran was incredibly handsome in his own way. But unlike the others, he didn’t seem to know it.
Despite all the logic in my mind and everything that had happened, I couldn’t help but fall under his spell each time we exchanged glances. What would it be like to really date someone who looked this perfect…Someone normal. Not an alien with so many secrets it gave him a Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality. I wanted to look past that, to believe Corran meant well.
“Feel like talking about it?”
He sighed heavily. “Some things are better left unsaid.”
I wasn’t sure if that was one of his riddles I had to decipher, or he was speaking directly this time.
He flinched and reached for his pocket, before pulling out a ringing cell. “Give me a moment.” He was on his feet and marching outside with the phone pressed to his ear before I could respond.
Glancing down at my half-eaten gnocchi, I pierced one with my fork and ate it, loving the buttery taste. Why hadn’t I tried these before?
Eating could only distract me for so long and I couldn’t prevent my thoughts from thinking about the complicated situation I had found myself in. For so long my life has been about living to get through the day and into the next. With these three Vepar, my life had become so much more in such a short time. The deep-seated emotion they awakened in me was enticing, and it makes me want to feel even more. The opportunity to taste any level of the type of intensity they brought into my life was becoming a necessity.
When someone flopped into Corran’s seat, I sat up, expecting him, ready to say that was fast, but it wasn’t his face I met.
Across from me sat the Devil, and I shuddered in my shoes.
He wore a black jacket, hair oily and slicked off his face, and he had regained that haunting gauntness in his cheeks of the monster who’d tortured me with whips.
I pushed back in an instant, my seat’s feet scraping the ground in a terrifying screech, drawing attention from those at nearby tables. My heart pounded in my chest, and I shook, unable to stop remembering the way this bastard had hurt me, took my blood, and threatened to come for me. And here he was, trying it in public.
Shit!
“Don’t go,” the Khonsu whispered, glancing toward the door where Corran had left moments earlier. I mentally counted the space between me and the exit. Fifteen, maybe sixteen steps.
I jolted to my feet, but he grasped my wrist before I could get anywhere, also standing, his grip as cold and solid as iron.
“Sit!” he growled beneath his breath, hauling me back to my seat with such force, I stumbled into it, almost sliding off.
Fear pressed down on my chest, squeezing my lungs as he held onto my wrist, not letting go.
I was never going to be left alone. I would always be hunted. I hated this. I loathed the constant terror.
“What do you want?” I snapped, wrestling to free my hand, but he didn’t budge.
“Tonight, you’re not my prey,” he murmured, his gaze flipping back and forth from the door to me, and I prayed Corran returned fast.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I have some information I think you would be interested in,” he replied, picking up Corran’s dinner knife and casually inspecting it as if it held interesting information.
“I can’t think of anything you could tell me that would interest me except why you’re stalking me.” My words came out brave, but inside I was trembling. I set my napkin purposely on my knife and slipped both off the table. I gripped the knife hard under the table determined that when he did try to take me, I would fight back.
“Little human, what have they told you about why the Vepar are on Earth?” he asked.
I studied him wondering why it mattered. “The Vepar are here because their planet is dying and it’s making their females sick.”
“Ever wondered why they seem to care so much about the health of human females?” he said with a sly grin. His question dug in deep to the issues that I had tried to push from my mind.
I said nothing and his grin widened. “The Vepar women are barren,” he stated in a matter of fact tone. “And even though the Vepar have long lives, so long that some would consider them immortal, their numbers are still dwindling without any hope of replacement.” My eyes widened. It had been something that I suspected ever since seeing the graphs in their basement room, but the way Corran had talked to me so earnestly had made me want to not question him. Corran seemed the most trustworthy of the three of them, but what if he was the best liar of them all?
I shook my head. Why was I even deigning to listen to anything that this creature was saying? A creature who had cruelly tortured me for no reason other than I existed.
“Trying to convince yourself that I’m lying?” he asked with a chuckle. “Your three males are three of the most powerful Vepar in their society. To get in that position, don’t you think there has to be something a little bit more special to make them stand out in a race that prides itself on superiority?”
My trembling grew. I didn’t know what was coming next, but I knew I was going to hate it.
“They’re going to breed you,” he whispered to me. “Corran discovered how to make a Vepar embryo be accepted into a human female. Thanks to you.”
“Thanks to me?” I said, my voice sounding horrified even to me. “Your blood had the magic touch,” he said with a shrug. “There’s a whole list of you with the same special chromosome that will allow for you to birth little Vepar.”
“You mean hybrids, right? Half human, half Vepar?” I asked, thinking that it wouldn’t be so bad if the three of them loved me and we wanted to have children someday.
He laughed. It was a dark laugh filled with glee over my ignorance. “No, little human. They plan on knocking you out and putting in embryos just like you humans do with surrogates. Then they’re going to keep you hooked on machines like true breeders until the birth of the Vepars. And then, when you’ve done your job and continued their race, you’re going to die.”
I stared at him, dread threatening to choke me. My mind was having trouble trying to fathom how what he was saying could even be real. An image came to my mind of me strapped with a pregnant belly on a gurney in a tank with tubes coming out of me. I wanted to throw up.
A shadow fell over our table, and I jumped in my seat,
so on edge, I was ready to scream.
Corran towered over us, and relief crashed through me. But before I could take another breath, he grabbed the Khonsu by the throat and hurled him across the room. Our table lifted from the alien’s feet kicking in resistance and flew sideways.
And then, panic broke out.
Screams. People running toward the exit, fear gripping their expressions. Chairs and food flying across the room from where the two aliens fought. And this wasn’t just punches and fists, but a battle between two animals. They charged for one another, headbutting, throwing one another against the walls.
Each time Corran fell, I curled over, hugged myself, the idea of him in pain feeling like a blade to my heart.
Every inch of me trembled, and I sat in my chair, frozen with the chaos erupting in the restaurant.
Get out, my mind yelled. I finally leaped to my feet, my muscles high on pure adrenaline. I felt nothing but the urgency to escape drumming through my veins. The grip of panic pushed me, my brain synapses fired away scenario after scenario on how I could die here tonight, but it also came with the idea that this might be my chance to escape.
I felt horrible leaving Corran this way, drowning in a scuffle of grunts and snarls, of blood and aggression, but what could I do? I didn’t even have a phone to call the other two Vepar for backup.
So, I ran. It was something I was good at.
I pushed past the overturned tables and chairs, pushing myself into the bottleneck of people squeezing out the door. Cries of terror surrounded me, and my heart beat faster and harder listening to everyone panic.
I burst out onto the sidewalk with the horde, and I swung right, away from the direction of the shuttle. While I had no idea where I was going, I just knew I had to run. I shoved past people, my mind racing with the need to find a place to hide.
“Ella?” A female’s voice cried out, but I didn’t look back, I didn’t dare.
When someone grabbed my arm, I flinched around, hands fisted, ready to fight. But when I saw Cherry standing there, holding onto me, wearing a strapless dress, her hair curled, and dark makeup around her cerulean eyes, I let out a light cry.
My mouth gaped open at bumping into her.
“Shit, girl, where the hell have you been, and what are you wearing?”
My throat thickened, and despite our past, I leaped into her arms, not caring about anything as it felt incredible to see a familiar face, to feel some connection to the life I thought I’d lost.
She pushed me off her. “What’s going on? I’ve called you for days, and when I went to visit you, the landlord said he’d kicked you out and was selling your stuff to pay for your unpaid rent.” Gripping her hips, she glared at me, waiting for an explanation.
My heart sunk through me, but I didn’t have time for this. “Listen, can we go to your place now? I have so much to tell you, but I’m in danger.”
He brow pinched. “I’m here with friends. But you can make it up to me tomorrow by taking me out to brunch.”
I shook my head and glanced up the sidewalk behind her where the mass of people hovered near the restaurant. “Please, Cherry. For me, do this for me. I never ask you for anything.”
She rolled her eyes. It seemed she hadn’t changed much. In that moment I finally realized how stupid I had been to ever consider her my real friend.
“Forget it,” I snapped and whipped around to run.
Instead, I crashed into a wall of stone muscle. And when I looked up into Corren’s bloody and furious face, I winced.
Oh, fuck.
“Who’s this guy?” Cherry purred behind me, and was she really flirting?
But I couldn't move. My feet were glued to the sidewalk with dread.
“I told you you’re ours!” And he leaned over, snatching me up before tossing me over his shoulder as if I were a sack.
I screamed and slapped my hands across his back, but people just stared at us, doing nothing.
Corran’s large hands held down my legs, one hand on my ass, and he hiked it back toward the ship.
Cherry stared at me in shock.
“I’ve been kidnapped, help!” I yelled at her. But she simply stared after me, a shocked and jealous look on her face. The last thing I saw before we turned the corner was her making a call on her phone.
What the fuck!
15
I slouched in my room in the dark, staring out the window at the night sky. I was back at the manor again. Corran hadn’t said a word after he’d dragged me kicking and screaming to the roof of a nearby building where his plane was waiting for us. I didn’t bother explaining why I’d ran or try to make any excuses. The Khonsu’s words had spread through my mind like poison, and once again I found myself thinking of the Vepar as the enemy rather than the lovers I had begun to think of them as.
We landed and Corran had grabbed my arm roughly before practically dragging me into the house and up the stairs to my room. He threw me onto the bed and turned to leave the room.
“So, I’m a prisoner again?” I asked, my feelings irrationally hurt at his treatment of me even though I never should have expected anything else.
“You ran, again. That doesn’t earn you any privileges.”
“So everything that’s happened wasn’t real?” I asked, my voice clogged with the tears that I was desperately trying to keep at bay.
His eyes closed for a second as if my question pained him, but when they opened again, they were as cold as ever.
“Just stay put,” he said exasperatedly, storming out and slamming the door behind him. Surprisingly, I didn’t hear the lock engage. After his footsteps faded, signaling he’d gone down the stairs, I walked to the door to check it. Sure enough, it wasn’t locked.
Feeling slightly mollified, I went back to my bed and laid down, the intensity of the day suddenly catching up to me and making me realize how exhausted I felt. Every inch of me ached.
And that’s what I had been doing for the last few hours.
As I laid on the bed, my mind continued to obsess over what the Khonsu had said. I had to know for myself if it was true. Asking the Vepar obviously wasn’t going to work since they had already told me the story, they wanted me to believe. No, if I was going to find out, I was going to have to do it myself. And I was pretty sure that the answers to my questions lay in that secret room.
I waited until the middle of the night. I still wasn’t sure about Vepar sleeping habits, but I knew that they at least slept for a few hours based on my experience with Derrial in the D.C. hotel room.
Once the clock struck two a.m., I carefully tiptoed to the door and slowly opened it, pausing every couple of inches to listen. When the house remained quiet, I opened the door all the way and slipped out into the hallway. My heartbeat felt unnaturally loud as I crept through the hallways. The journey seemed to take forever since my entire body was on hyper alert sure that one of the Vepar was going to appear at any moment.
I finally made it into the library, and I fumbled with the bookshelf where the hidden door was located for a few minutes, trying to figure out how to open it since it had already been opened last time. My hand finally slipped across a book towards the bottom of the bookshelf that when pulled, released the door. The door creaked as it slid open and my heart stopped as I listened, nervously expecting to hear the sound of feet coming down the hallway.
Five minutes passed and then ten and I finally got the nerve to continue. I slipped down the stairs, the lights automatically coming on as I entered the room.
Everything looked as it did the other day. The holograms still glowed from where they were suspended in the air above the tables. There were still creepy creatures on the side wall. Yes, everything looked the same, but I was sure that somewhere in here was the answer to my questions.
I ran my hand over all the surfaces thinking that there had to be some hidden button that would show me something. When that didn’t work, I searched every nook and cranny in the room to try and find another hidden pas
sageway.
After thirty minutes of searching, I wandered over to the table with the birth and death graphs, frustrated at the fact that I hadn’t been able to find anything and would have to leave soon so that they didn’t find me. I waved my hand in frustration at the hologram...and to my surprise, the screen changed.
No longer was I staring at changing graphs. Instead I studied what looked to be a medical file.
My medical file in fact, and my stomach dropped. It listed everything about me on the screen. Where I’d gone to school, who was my first kiss, my blood type. I waved the screen again and to my horror a mockup appeared of a chamber that looked similar to the images that had filled my head when the Khonsu had been talking.
The chamber rotated in the air, all the specifications listed in a paragraph below. It was labeled as an “incubator.” But I knew that it wasn’t going to be hatching eggs...it was going to be growing Vepar.
My stomach ached with each passing second.
I kept scrolling through the various screens. There was more information about my chromosomes. Pictures of Vepar embryos. And on the last screen was a list of names labeled, “Probable Subjects.” I was the very last name on the list.
It was one thing to hear about such a scenario, but to actually see evidence of a plan to make human women into Vepar surrogates was almost more than I could comprehend. And here I let myself have feelings for these aliens, and I was nothing more than a lab experiment.
Stumbling backwards away from the hologram screen, barely able to take breath into my lungs, I spun to get out of the room.
Much to my horror, Thane was standing in the doorway, a menacing look capturing his expression. Narrowing eyes and a pinched nose, he grunted. And with his curled shoulders, he was beyond pissed.
Dread squeezed around my chest, and I could barely take a breath.
“Find something interesting, pet?” he growled.
