Chapter 3

Zara

There isn’t an inch of my body that doesn’t hurt.I’ve lost track of how much time I’ve spent slung over this mammoth beast. The two moons have risen and set at least once. Of that much I’m aware. Or at least I think they have. It’s kind of hard to judge how much time has passed. We’ve been traveling through the dense forest high up in the hills and very little light has managed to sift through the openings between the leaves and branches.

What I do know is during my conscious moments throughout this whole ordeal, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. A dangerous pastime, my sister would have said. It’s hard to believe six months ago I left Earth with dreams of a better place. A place with charming, idyllic cottages and a narrow, winding stream that bisected lush green lands where plants and flowers of all kinds grew. A maniacal laugh bubbles up my throat, but on its heels is the vomit that constantly churns from the upside-down ride.

Up until this dick head kidnapped me, life wasn’t terrible. Certainly not what I’d envisioned on the two-month flight to Tavikh, but having five kick-ass friends and sexy eye-candy isn’t such a bad gig. I mean, I’ve replaced the cottage with a hide tent I sleep in alone since my last roommate went and got herself hitched—mated. And the lush green lands are, in truth, fields of yellow grass—or bari as the Tavikhi call it—that resemble cotton balls on a skewer. The blue nenuphar flowers are pretty, at least. As are the red flowers of the trendafili bush, even if the prickly leaves hurt like hell when brushed against.

I picture the river running along one side of the village where we get all our water and where we bathe. At least, we’ll be able to do so again now that the water is warming up and isn’t colder than a witch’s tit. Because I refuse to believe I’ve seen the last of the Tavikhi village. There’s no way my friends—Remi especially—are going to just let these dip fuckers steal me away.

With all the blood settled inside my brain, I feel myself once again drifting out of consciousness. I don’t fight the darkness this time. Within the dark is where Amelia resides. Realistically, I know she’s dead and not holding conversations with me, but the part of me that misses her every single day embraces my madness. If having conversations with my dead sister helps me cope, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.

“I don’t think we ever imagined one of us would get kidnapped by some asshole when we dreamed of leaving Earth, did we?” I ask Amelia.

Her laughter, a sound I swore I’d never forget as long as I lived, rings out. “Of course it had to be you that got snatched, didn’t it? You were never one to do the easy things in life, were you Zar?”

“Easy is for pussies.” I snort and flinch against my pain.

During my rebellious stage, I liked to push Clifton and Priscilla’s buttons. One of those buttons was my incessant need to be as vulgar as possible when I talked. They hated it when I swore. Which, of course, means my conversations were riddled with fucks and shits and various other creative swear words I came up with.

“You have to be careful,” Amelia warns. “I know how much you want to fight back, but for my sake, please don’t.”

I rear away from her image. Of course I’ve fought back. Maybe it’s earned me a few smacks across the face—okay, maybe more than a few—and having both my wrists and ankles bound. But man, kicking the bald Casper-the-ghost lookalike straight in the balls had been so worth it, just for his expression alone. I hope he can still taste them. “You want me to just roll over and let this asshole off easy? To do nothing while they take me away from my friends? My family? You want me to give up? Why? Because that’s what you did?”

The second the hateful words are said, I want to call them back. Especially when she flinches. If she wasn’t a complete figment of my addled and delusional mind, I’d even say she paled.

“Fuck, Lia, I’m sorry. That was a cunty thing to say.”

Amelia shakes her head. “You always were stronger than me.”

“That’s not true.” I reach for her hand, but considering this entire conversation is only in my head and she’s not corporeal, mine goes through nothing but the ether.

“It is and we both know it.” Her sorrow bleeds into me. “If I’d been stronger I wouldn’t have left you alone to deal with Clifton and Priscilla. I would have stayed. For you. But I couldn’t take the pain anymore.”

“Of course you couldn’t. Not after what Blaine did to you.” Even knowing I can’t touch her, I move my hand until it’s lying beside hers. If I hold still long enough, I can imagine the heat from her fingertips. “I don’t blame you, you know.”

Amelia turns her gaze to me. “How did you find out?” she asks quietly.

“I overhead the bitch Sylvia talking about something she called ‘the scandal’.” My voice cracks. “After that I started snooping in Clifton’s office and found the payments. Every year, on the anniversary of your death, the same number of credits was transferred into his account. It took me five months to track down Veronica and another three to wear her down before she told me.”

My sister sighs. “Is she doing all right?”

Veronica had been Amelia’s best friend. After Lia died, Veronica disappeared. One day she was there and the next…gone. Just like my sister. It was almost like neither of them had ever existed. I’d almost drained my allowance dry paying for information on her whereabouts. I’m honestly surprised I found her at all.

“Not really.” I can still picture her dirt-marred cheeks and the sour-smelling, patched uniform she’d been wearing. It had been the hopelessness in her eyes I’ll never forget, though. “Her family cast her out. Sent her to the bottom tier. The sanitation sector.”

My sister sighs sadly. “That doesn’t surprise me. Blaine belonged to a powerful family. There’s no way they were going to let me, or anyone else, sully their precious son’s name. I’m sure they paid a lot of credits to make Veronica go away. Her parents aren’t any better than ours.”

My only sin had been trusting the wrong person. Blaine Ashford’s sin had been rape. And yet I had to leave my goddamn planet for another. Talk about some bullshit. I send another mental middle finger back to all those pretentious fucks on Earth and I wish for each and every single one of them to get a horrible case of gonorrhea.

A hard jarring movement sends shooting pain through me and almost pulls me back into consciousness, but I’m not ready to stop talking to Amelia, so I keep my eyes tightly shut and push all other thoughts away except her initial request.

“Why do you want me to stop fighting back?”

“Because he’s coming,” she replies cryptically.

“Who’s coming?”

I’m jarred again and Amelia’s form flickers.

“No, you can’t go yet.” It’s a demand. “ Who’s coming?”

She flickers again and I cry out. It doesn’t do any good. I’m jerked so hard, she’s ripped from my mind. My eyes pop open right before I hit the ground. I’m not sure what hurts more, my head where the bastard yanked my hair or my ass from landing on it. “Goddamn it, you fucking shithead.”

Casper jumps off his beast and lands easily on his feet. He stares down at me with those creepy demon eyes and evil smirk. I clench my fists and tense my muscles, prepared to junk punch him, but Amelia’s words echo inside my head. Instead I slam my hands onto the dirt between my legs and scream out my frustration. Yellow-orange dust explodes up and hits me right in the face. I sputter and cough it out and the asshole and all his cronies—who’ve also dismounted—laugh.

“Fuck off.” I gingerly climb to my feet—a task made difficult by the tether around my ankles—and glare at our surroundings, not sure why we’ve stopped.

While I was unconscious we’ve moved to a place in the forest where the trees have thinned out. In fact, it appears as though we’re on flat land. And the grass has shifted shades. It’s not so much yellow anymore, but more of an orange. Through a break in the trees, there’s a large lake spread out to the left and my mouth waters at the thought of quenching my thirst. Aside from a couple brief stops to drink and relieve themselves, they’ve been riding hard, no doubt to put as much distance between us and the Tavikhi as they can.

Since we’ve stopped, I assume they feel confident no one will catch up to us. The ten males set up camp while my least favorite guy pushes me toward them. I stumble on my weakened legs and barely keep myself from falling flat on my face. I can’t tell if this is the same jerk who showed up at the village three months ago or not. With their snow-white skin, bald heads, and red demon-eyes, all these assholes look the same to me. Except the one with the egg-shaped head. His noggin looks like it had been shat out by some chicken. I snort at the image.

My captor demands something that’s pure gibberish to my ears with a jab of his finger toward the fire that’s barely caught flame.

“I don’t know what you’re saying.”

He repeats what’s clearly a command with a none too gentle shove. The other ten dudes stop what they’re doing and stare.

If my hands were untied, I’d slam them against my hips. I settle for tossing them over my head. “Can’t you get it through your thick skull? I don’t understand you. How many times do I have to say it before you figure it out, you dumbass?”

He moves so fast, I don’t have time to dodge the blow. My head whips to the side and I lose my footing. A snapping sound hits my ears before the pain registers. “Mother fucker .”

I curl into a fetal position and cradle my bound wrists against my chest as the tears fall and spots dance behind my closed lids. For people who want women, they sure don’t know how to treat us.

“No wonder all your women fucked off if you kept slapping them around, you giant cock-wad.” The words come out garbled between my clenched teeth. “If you weren’t such a chicken shit and had to tie me up, I’d have gotten the hell out of here too. Your company leaves a lot to be desired.”

Harsh voices and a sharp nudge to my back is the last straw.

I’m sorry, Amelia. I really did try. Hopefully, I’ll see you soon .With that I release an inhuman scream, ignore the excruciating pain, scramble to my feet, and charge head-first into the cocksucker who I’m pretty sure just broke my arm.