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8. Vai

Well, that could have gone better.

Emma saw what I looked like and immediately dropped like a rock.

In school, they always told us finding your fated mate was an awe-inspiring and miraculous event.

They never said it was something that gave your intended nightmares.

And they certainly never said you would find your partner lying in bed straddling your Shadow who would wear a shit-eating grin on his face as he prepared to spear your fated mate and tear her from you for all time.

They never shared that particular lesson in school.

Or maybe I just missed that one.

I scooped Emma up off the ground and carried her toward my ship.

The underside eased down forming a ramp.

"Might I say, sir," Computer said. "You certainly have a way with the ladies—"

"Mute," I said.

The outside of the ship was misleading.

On the outside, it looked small and cramped but since we discovered the ability to warp space to suit our benefit, we could turn any space into one as big or small as we wished.

The universe had an almost infinite amount of space tucked away in little pockets that no one knew were there.

Space was not only bigger than anyone supposed, it was bigger than anyone could suppose.

"Prepare for takeoff," I said.

Computer didn't respond.

"Computer?"

When he didn't respond again, I realized what the problem was.

I rolled my eyes.

"Unmute. Computer? Are you there?"

"Oh, so you want to speak with me now?" he said prissily.

Personality in a computer system was a sign of malfunction, of bugs that needed addressing or else the entire system might fail.

"Can you take off, please?" I said politely. "We need to head to the fallback position."

Even Computer was taken aback by that piece of news.

It snapped him out of his childish hissy fit.

"Are you sure that's wise, sir?" he said. "Now you have the girl, your Shadow will follow for certain."

"Yes. And that's why we set the fallback position up in the first place."

"Very well. But don't say I didn't warn you. Activating systems now."

I felt the steady and powerful hum of the engines as they came online.

The landing struts pulled up and clicked into place.

The ship turned in midair and began to rise.

The cloaking system initiated.

We would flicker and disappear to anyone who could see us.

I entered one of the guest quarters and placed Emma on the bed.

I sat on the edge of the bed and ran a finger along her chin.

She really was beautiful.

The thought of what Iav might have done to her if I hadn't entered her room right when I had…

There was no "might" about it.

She would belong to him and that pulsing orb in my chest would no longer be alive.

It would be doused for good and there would be no reviving it.

The fact the human species had never come in contact with another alien species created a series of issues I hadn't considered.

We would have to work through them when she woke up.

Until then, I needed to prepare her environment so it was less of a shock.

"Computer," I said, "redecorate these quarters with aspects of Emma's room back on Earth."

"Analyzing," Computer said, for once not giving me any sass.

A beam of light shot out from either end of the room, scanning and reforming it, morphing it into a replica of her room.

Emma grumbled and blinked her eyes.

She opened them and saw me sitting beside her.

I wore my warmest smile but it didn't help much as she shot up and scuttled across the bed, kicking at the blankets and backing up against the wall.

Her eyes were wide as she peered at the room without really taking it in.

"You!" she said angrily. "I thought you were just a nightmare!"

"Afraid not."

"But… we're in my room. I thought…"

She frowned in an attempt to remember something.

"The police station… Stealing the police cruiser… Finding your spaceship… None of that happened?"

"Actually, it all happened."

"Then how are we back in my room? Is it over? Is that bad Shadow dude gone?"

"No. This isn't your room. It's a copy. I thought it would make you feel more comfortable on my ship."

She gulped and the blood drained from her face.

"Your… ship?"

"Computer, open the door."

The door hissed open, revealing the white surface of the ship's curved walls on the other side of the hallway.

The door hissed shut and Emma's eyes slid over to me.

She scanned my face.

There was a great deal of fear there, but more than that, more than a little courage.

The same as I had seen earlier when she took my hand.

She might be afraid but she wasn't going to let that stop her.

"Where are you taking me?" she said in a painfully soft voice.

"To our fallback position. When we get there, I can keep you safe. Every M'rora has to go through this when they come of age and go looking for their fated mate."

"Fated mate?"

I didn't know if humans had a similar term in their language and culture, if she would even understand what I was telling her.

"It's… when a pair come together," I said carefully. "They're destined to be together, to live out the rest of their lives as one."

If any more blood drained from her face, she would pass out.

Again.

When she didn't respond, I plowed on.

"The M'rora and Aror'm share a common ancestor. When we're born, our spirit is split in two. Half emerges in this galaxy, the other half in the Shadow Realm, a mirror image of our galaxy, a world that exists in the shadows. We don't fully understand why or even how it happens. Some say we were cursed.

"There's an old M'rora tale about our ancestors being torn apart by their demons. They had to cut them free the moment we were born for fear of going mad. But doing so didn't solve their problem. The creatures that emerged—the Shadow—still attempted to kill them. So, we blasted them into a lifeless universe to keep them separate. Things worked out fine until our Shadows appeared alongside us in our fight to claim our fated mates."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"You're my fated mate," I said plainly. "I scaled the Wailing Mountain to learn who you were and where I could find you."

Emma peered at me a moment before she gnawed on her fingernails.

"I… think I felt you there."

"You did?"

She nodded.

"I was laying in one morning and felt this icy cold wind over me. And I felt eyes on me… Someone watching me."

I nodded.

Some species felt the bond stronger than others, some didn't feel it at all.

"So, why didn't Iav take me when he could?" Emma said. "He didn't have to wait until we got to my room. He'd already drugged me and could have done what he wanted with me. I know I had no control over myself after that."

"Because the bond is much stronger when a fated mate gives herself of her own volition—even if he does drug her to do it."

"And what would have happened after that?"

I paused, unsure how much I should tell her.

"Nothing good."

"What?"

That steely resolve had come over her again.

She was tougher than I thought.

"What would have happened to me?" she said. "If he caught me? He would have had sex with me?"

"Yes. And then he would take you back to the Shadow Realm."

"The Shadow Realm? That doesn't sound good…"

"It's not. It's like our universe but inverted. Darkness is light and light is darkness. And the darkness there is darker than anything we have in our galaxy. It's a malleable thing that can be harnessed.

"After he mates with you, he will share you with the rest of his species in a mating ceremony. They will each take their turn, one after another. You will be impregnated and then forced to give birth. The moment you do, they will breed you again. And again. Until your body can take no more and you die. Maybe it will be from exhaustion or your heart will give out. Or you will take your own life and—"

"Okay, okay. I get the picture."

She looked green about the gills.

It actually got a lot worse than that.

Long before they destroyed her body, they destroyed her spirit, and bit by bit, she fell apart, losing every part of herself until there was nothing left.

Still, they would mate with her, chipping away until she was nothing more than an empty husk of what she once was.

Then it was only a matter of time before her mind broke.

"If you're an alien, how come I can understand what you're saying?" Emma said.

"We developed a universal language translator and have it surgically implanted at birth."

Emma folded her arms and turned her head to one side, refusing to look me in the eye.

Computer presented me with a list of her readouts that appeared on my visual console in my eyes.

"Your heart rate is elevated and you're grinding your teeth," I said. "According to the readouts, you're stressed out about something."

"You think?" Emma snapped. "I was quite happy until you and your ‘Shadow' showed up!"

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience we may have caused—"

"Inconvenience?" she spat. "Inconvenience? Getting cut up on the freeway is inconvenient. Having the neighbor's dog shit on the sidewalk outside your front door is inconvenient. Having a couple of aliens show up and one drug you and try to mate with you is a damn disaster!"

"It is what it is," I said.

"How do I escape this nightmare?"

"No matter where you go or what you do, Iav will find you. He will find you and do what I told you he would. There is no escape, no way out."

"There must be a way to stop him," Emma said. "There's always something you can do to beat the bad guy. They always have an Achilles Heel. Can't we lock him up somewhere and stop him from chasing me?"

"It's almost impossible to kill a Shadow," I said. "Believe me, we've tried every manner over the eons."

Emma hugged her knees close to herself.

She looked so small, so fragile.

"So what happens now?"

"We hide."

"We hide? That's your grand plan? I thought he can sense me wherever I go?"

"He can. But some places are harder to reach than others."

"I can't hide forever. I have a life."

"We don't need to hide forever. The mating cycle for our species is three days. If we don't mate in that time, the bond will fade and you'll be free to return home."

There were other options and I considered sharing them with her.

She gazed into space, still absorbing the truth about her situation.

I wouldn't burden her with the other options yet.

We still had time.

"Three days?" Emma said, peering at me over her knees. "And we've already had one, right?"

"That is correct."

"So, it's two days left. I can do that. So where are we heading?"

"To the Rift Minefield."

"The what?"

"It's a remnant from the Shadow Wars. With the Shadow stealing so many of our fated mates, we needed to act fast. There are ripples in the fabric of space that allow passage between our universes. We installed a minefield at the border so neither side can pass through easily."

"Is it safe?"

No, it wasn't, but there was no reason to tell her that.

"It is if you've been there before," I said.

I stood up.

"Get some sleep. We should be there within the next few hours."

I turned and left her in peace.

I paused at the doorway to peer back at her.

She sat peering out the large window that looked out on the infinite blanket of blinking stars.

That throbbing in my chest beat a slow, syncopated rhythm that doubled in speed when I looked upon her diminutive frame.

The curves of her dress tightened about her waist and ass as she raised her head to peer out at her new vista.

I saw myself in the reflection of the glass and realized she wasn't really looking at the multitude of stars, but at me.

Caught staring at her, I turned and left.

I didn't get half a dozen yards before Computer spoke in my ear.

"I couldn't help but overhear your conversation with the girl earlier."

"Emma. Her name is Emma. And will you quit snooping?"

"It's not snooping when I've been programmed to listen to every conversation that happens on the ship, sir," Computer said sniffily.

"So what did you overhear?"

"It's what I didn't overhear that most concerns me. I couldn't help but notice you didn't tell her about the best way to end your Shadow's pursuit. If she were to mate with you, he would lose interest immediately."

"Yes, well. There's no need to tell her everything about the situation right now."

"There are only two days left in the mating cycle, sir."

"Don't you think I know that?" I snapped.

"Of course, sir. I only wanted to point out… Never mind. I guess I overstepped my bounds."

I stomped around the corner and disappeared deeper inside the ship.

Computer was right.

I hadn't mentioned it to Emma.

I couldn't.

She'd already been through so much.

What would it sound like if I were to tell her there was a way to end this whole nightmare, a way for her to keep the wolf from her door, and the solution was not to sleep with my Shadow but to sleep with me?

She would never trust another thing I said.

But that might not be necessary.

If we could hide out in the Rift Minefield long enough, we could prevent Iav from ever getting near Emma.

I could smell her scent on me as I passed through the ship.

Or maybe she was now inside me and there was no letting go.

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