Chapter 24

Evie

“I can walk,” I said with some annoyance, but Aramon ignored that, as usual, and picked me up so he could carry me from our bedroom to the mess hall. The asshole was grinning from ear to ear, well aware that there was no feeling behind that little bite. It was impossible to stay mad at him for anything because he was so incredibly sweet and concerned all the time. Honestly, I was pretty sure it was harder for him than for me to deal with the recovery process.

Pelarios had done a lot of damage to my body, especially my hip, which had been shattered. Dravion was an excellent doctor, though, and he had done his very best to restore the bone. The process had required several pins and plates to hold everything together. I kept joking that I was now a cyborg, but that only made Harper—a fellow human woman on the ship—laugh. Aramon would simply stare at me in utter bafflement whenever I used that word. Apparently, there was no such thing as a cyborg, and the word didn’t translate. Too bad, I’d been holding out hope that some of the action heroes my dad used to love could be real.

After the disastrous events on Ov’Korad, I’d been whisked onto the Varakartoom and had been unconscious for two whole days while the doctor fixed me. Because of that, I’d missed the outcome of the negotiations with the delegates—which was probably a blessing. Kalzudaud and his mate, Caitlyn, had held down the fort, pulling the remaining delegates into a united front in the aftermath of the bomb. I’d been told that, once Pelarios was defeated, the young princess they had discovered at his camp, Imala, had insisted on being taken to the retreat and had done an admirable job of hammering out the final details.

Aramon was convinced that Kalzudaud and Caitlyn knew I was human and that they’d always been dealing with an impostor, but Imala had kept up the pretense. She had told the delegates that a traitor, Pelarios, had killed the true Evadne in the desert and that she had witnessed this. I was almost sorry I’d missed the sixteen-year-old princess wrangle those delegates into signing the treaty, but she had done it marvelously. Her clever lie had also freed me from all my ties to the Xurtal Kingdom. I was free to be Evie without an ounce of guilt because the Kingdom was safe and my promise to Evadne was fulfilled.

“Thinking of Imala again?” Aramon murmured in my ear, a hint of laughter in his voice. I couldn’t help it; that young princess had reminded me so much of Evadne, yet not at all at the same time. I was pretty sure Imala would make one hell of a queen one day—a better queen for Xurtal than the king who currently ruled it.

She’d sent me a missive after the dust had settled, along with a fee for my services rendered. A very high fee. I was shocked to realize that the gift of that money—enough to start a new life somewhere lovely several times over—forced me to confront the truth: I had never earned a salary, not a single dime. As Evadne’s double, I had simply been enlisted to do the work, but they had never paid me for it, let alone given me a choice.

“We are NEVER going to Xurtal,” Aramon said. It was something he repeated often. I knew why: he was so mad on my behalf that he feared what he’d do if he got there. I’d caught many a stray thought about leveling their desert cities and burning their forests. It always cheered me up—my protector, ready to end worlds on my behalf.

“Yeah,” I said to him. “I keep thinking about what to do with all that money... I’ve never had money to spend before.” It seemed strange to buy things with money when everything I needed had always been provided. But those things were clothes that made me look like Evadne and food to keep me in shape—never things I’d picked for myself.

Aramon had already introduced me to online catalogs and helped me pick out clothes I liked for myself. They’d been delivered right to the Varakartoom’s hangar bay and carried up by a very excited Tasseloris, who happened to take the delivery. Today, I wore a yellow dress that swished around my thighs and felt comfy over the soft gray leggings I had paired it with. Evadne would never have worn yellow—too gaudy—but I loved it. It was cheerful.

“You’ll figure it out,” Aramon assured me calmly. That calm was deceptive; he was never truly calm. There was simply too much energy in his system. “You’ve got all the time in the universe,” he added. “Now, are you ready for your surprise?” When I nodded, he swept through the door into the mess hall, and we came to an abrupt halt.

The previous mess hall had been all gray and utilitarian, with its metal tables bolted to the floor and metal chairs that could magnetically lock to the deck. I’d been in there plenty of times while pretending to be Evadne, and I’d always felt like I was walking into a freezer while I was in there. It was not an inviting place, but none of the mercenaries had seemed to care.

The transformation was baffling, and I didn’t quite understand why it had been done. It wasn’t like I was particularly fond of the location. But the company that greeted us with a cheerful “surprise!” was just as much of a surprise. My eyes didn’t know what to look at first, and I felt a little unsteady—off my footing. Literally, because Aramon was cradling me bridal-style in his arms.

The tables were replaced with beautiful wooden trestle tables, thick, sturdy, and, though clearly not new, imbued with a lush, warm vibe. The chairs were similar, but all their legs still had metal tips so they could be magnetically locked to the deck when needed. Very clever. One wall had been repainted in a warm green, and the huge viewscreen that normally displayed statistics about the ship’s current condition was showing beautiful landscapes—landscapes that might actually be of Earth, but it had been so long since I’d last seen the planet that I couldn’t be sure.

In front of the counter where the ship’s chef always placed the food he cooked, both of the Varakartoom’s women stood: Mandy and Harper, whom I’d met and talked with a few times during the handful of days I’d been recuperating. They were both wearing pretty dresses and smiling warmly. The third woman with them confused me for a moment; she did not look like royalty in a simple shift dress. That was Caitlyn, the mate of Kalzudaud, King of Daudiras.

“It’s a party. Smile, my love,” Aramon whispered in my ear. He lowered my feet to the floor slowly, but he did not let go of my waist until I was well and truly steady on my feet. Then he backed away with silent steps, though one hand reached out at the last moment to nudge my shoulder forward.

“Come on,” Harper said with a grin. “We’ve got cake, chocolate, and real coffee. Also, a wide selection of teas, because you probably have never had coffee.” The woman took over where Aramon had left me—not that he’d truly left. I could feel him hovering in the back of my mind. He was eager but, at the same time, worried and struggling to keep walking out of the mess hall when I wasn’t comfortable yet. Resolved to make this easier on him, I made myself smile, but that smile quickly turned real when Harper flung her arm around my shoulder and hugged me to her side. “Welcome aboard, Evelyn. We’re so excited to have you!”

The next four hours were eye-opening, educational, and just plain fun. Once I’d gotten over the shock and my surprising shyness, it became easy to talk with each of these three women. Caitlyn had never met Mandy or Harper either; she was a little older and highly educated as a doctor, with credentials from Aderia. Her life and mine were like two sides of a coin—both rescued young by an alien species after being abducted but so very different at the same time.

Aramon was right: she and her mate had known immediately that I was not Evadne, but they understood the importance of this treaty, so they had kept silent. Now that Caitlyn knew my story, she was even happier that they had chosen to support me rather than distrust me. Caitlyn was here now because she had insisted to her mate on letting me know that I had friends. I had never had friends who were truly mine before; they had always been Evadne’s, and I was merely pretending to be her when interacting with them.

Now I knew why Aramon had been buzzing with so much energy this morning. He’d set all this up and somehow managed to keep it a secret. The transformed mess hall was part of how they wanted to make me feel at home. But that was as much a gift for Harper and Mandy as it was for me. “It was about time,” Mandy said at one point, laughing, her hand clutching her flat belly as she held on to a tasty pastry dripping with chocolate. “I’ve been poking Asmoded about fixing up the mess hall for weeks now.”

I had received new contacts while undergoing surgery, and they had done wonders for how most of the ship looked. However, the mess hall remained a dark and gloomy place. I couldn’t talk about these contacts, which helped guide me through the ship without the aid of a computer or a guide. It was supposed to be a huge secret, and Caitlyn could not know, but that didn’t change the festive mood.

By the time I ran out of energy, we’d talked about so many things so freely. I felt like I knew these three women better than I’d ever known any of Evadne’s friends. Everything was shared freely and warmly, and they were so supportive when I wasn’t sure if I liked something or not. I had definitely discovered that I LOVED chocolate, though, and we were very lucky that the ship’s chef had started stocking up on the stuff as soon as Mandy became a permanent resident on the ship.

“Party’s over, ladies,” Aramon suddenly announced from just inside the door. I hadn’t heard him arrive, but I’d sensed his presence growing stronger at the back of my mind. He wasn’t invading my privacy, but I knew he’d been keeping tabs on whether I was happy and not in pain.

“Aw, already?” Harper pouted with a laugh. She was the most outgoing of the other three, with a ready smile and a million questions. “I still want to pick your brain over Xurtal court intrigue! There has to be a fantastic story there.” She aimed that at me, and I felt the beginnings of another smile as I thought about it. Yeah, I could probably dish out a lot of fun details about Xurtal court life. It might be cathartic to discuss them with someone as interested as Harper.

Mandy patted Harper’s hand. “Aramon is right. We promised to have Caitlyn back in time with her mate. You are departing for Daudiras soon, correct?” When Caitlyn nodded regally, I grinned because she managed to look so queenly while being so down-to-earth at the same time. “And I think you are flagging, aren’t you?” Now she curled her fingers around mine, giving them a gentle squeeze and a warm, friendly look full of understanding.

Yeah, I was. I was exhausted from being upright this much for the first time after my injuries, but I wanted this moment to last as long as possible. It felt so free, so fun, like I’d found my own little place with them, just like I fit with Aramon. When I nodded, I sensed that my mate hurried over, and his palm landed between my shoulder blades—warm and steadying. I leaned into that touch, only then becoming aware of the soft throbbing in my hip.

“I’m sorry to go!” Caitlyn said. “But we’ll stay in touch, yes? We need to do this again soon!” She departed first, dipping to hug me before gliding from the room. She picked up a Tarkan escort at the door, clad in a leather weapon skirt and wearing a purple sash with a gold emblem on his bulging biceps. Once she was gone, Aramon had me say goodbye to the other two, and then he swept me in his arms. This time, I did not protest that I could walk; I was all too happy to lean against his chest and soak up the safety he offered.

“Thank you, Aramon. I didn’t know I’d like that or needed that,” I murmured. Mandy and Harper had made me feel so welcome, which took away the worry that I wouldn’t manage to fit in aboard the ship. I’d never lived on a ship before, but I really wanted to try it, because I had decided that I wanted to see as much of the quadrant as Aramon had.

“Any time, princess,” he said, the door opening to our little set of quarters. We’d gotten our own private room, and it was the first time Solear and Aramon didn’t share a space, but both males seemed to have adjusted—though I had a feeling that sometimes Solear came in and slept on the couch just to be close. I had decided that wasn’t going to bother me; he gave us privacy when we wanted it. I tried to look at it as though I’d gotten a brother as well as a mate. Already, Solear tended to get more protective of my personal space than Aramon did, and that made me feel safe. The scared little girl who had never gotten to heal—she was getting better.

“I love you, Aramon,” I said to my mate as he carried me straight through our tiny living room into the bedroom. Solear was not there, but I saw evidence that they’d shared a few drinks and played Keflo together. He lowered me gently to the bed, his face split wide in a happy grin. He didn’t say it back—not with words—but my head filled with it, flooding with all the intense feelings he had for me: love, lust, protectiveness, so much tenderness, and an unending desire to make me happy.

Yeah, that scared girl I used to be? She was gone. Now it was time to unfurl my wings, find out who I wanted to be, and fly . And who better to have at my side to do that than a pilot?