EIGHTEEN

- sedona -

"I…I have something to confess," Xiomara announces suddenly, breaking through the short silence that had fallen over us as we all watch Kuvier prepare our dinner for the night.

Enikk stands apart from us, his eyes fixed on the group, clearly back to his stalkery staring, but this time focused on Amari. Thankfully, I don't think she's noticed yet. That girl is too fragile for him to push anything. She hasn't started crying since that first time in the ship, but there's something about her that just screams vulnerable. I know Enikk is a good guy, but I don't think he realizes what an upward hill he has to climb if he thinks he's going to catch her attention.

"What's up?" Sabrina asks, patting Xiomara's arm encouragingly.

We'd all been talking now for a few hours and I was warming to all of them, except maybe Krissy who was still sulking and only talked to barb insults.

When Xiomara speaks again, her voice is laced with the weariness of someone who has been through it all. "I've been...well, I've been in situations like this before."

Renata looks up, disbelief etched on her face. "What do you mean, situations like this? You've been stranded on frozen planets more than once?"

Xiomara meets our gazes, her eyes flickering with a mixture of resignation and resolve. "No, I mean that I was kidnapped by aliens when I was young and I've been living through it since."

"How young?" I can't help but ask the question. She looks like she's in her mid to late twenties at most.

"I don't know exactly, but the last thing I remember before being abducted was being on a field trip in a national forest with my teacher." She winces. "I never learned how to read if that gives any indication of my age at the time."

A gasp flows through all of us as we process what she says. She's been away from Earth far longer than she lived on Earth. What if I'd had to go through these past couple of weeks as a child? I shudder at the thought.

"Wow, so you've grown up with the mantis aliens?" Amari reasons, her voice full of horrified awe.

"Not permanently. I've been through multiple cycles of being sold, returned, and sold again." She gives a mirthless laugh. "The Xclixan—the mantises, have a great return policy."

We all hesitate as the weight of that confession hits us.

"God, Xiomara," Sabrina looks like she wants to hug her, but refrains. "I can only imagine what you've been through."

Her mouth quirks in a half-hearted attempt at a smile. "Well, this is the first time I've ever been marked for breeding, so it hasn't been as bad as it could've been."

"Wait, what do you mean ‘marked for breeding?'" I realize at that moment that Xiomara may be the resource we were looking for when we were trying to do recon on the ship.

"Galactically, human women are really special because of how many pregnancies we can carry in our lifetime," Xiomara explains, her tone matter-of-fact. "We call a great price on the breeding market for alien species that struggle with reproduction. Humanity also has some of the most unique and complex DNA. So if we were all put on the same order then they chose us all based on some genetic profile we share that they find valuable."

It's like the air got sucked out of the space.

"God, this is a lot," Meghan exclaims, raking her hands roughly through her auburn locks.

"Well, there's more." Xiomara flashes us an apologetic look. "They also scrambled our DNA," she continues, her voice gaining strength as she recounts what she knows. "Made us quicker, stronger, and able to learn and heal faster. It's probably why we are able to breathe the atmosphere here." She glances at me. "It's also why you've learned Kuvier's language more rapidly."

"That actually makes sense. I was shocked because I sucked at Spanish in high school." My joke falls flat in the face of everything.

"So, do you know how?" Krissy demands. "How did they get to us? I wasn't hiking through the middle of a forest. I was literally in a house, and I still wound up here." She blanches suddenly. "Do you think they took the other people that were with me, too?"

Xiomara gives her a soft look. "I don't know, hun. I've never heard of mass abductions, but you'd probably have been separated if things like that occurred anyway, so I can't give you an answer."

Renata ponders for a second before she speaks. "Anything else?"

Xiomara shifts uncomfortably. "I have a chip in my head, a translator, that helps me talk to the clients," she admits. "I got it a few clients ago, but I just thought you'd want to know. It's able to recognize lingual and vocal patterns to determine meaning and decipher foreign languages rapidly. It might work with the goat guys' language."

I feel myself getting excited, but try to hold it back. Renata beats me to speaking, though, and I'm glad for it.

"We should hop on that. We need to know more about them and their people, and to find out if they have anything at all that can help us to get home."

The girls all look to me, and I startle a bit realizing they want me to get the guys' attention. Even in the short time they've been awake, it seems everyone is well aware that there is an interesting dynamic between Kuvier and I.

"Kuvier." He'd moved from his spot cooking at some point and is just outside. His forehead is tilted close to Enikk's, and they appear to be in a very heated conversation. I almost feel bad interrupting, but he looks up as soon as I call his name, and he's heading towards me before anything else is said.

When he comes to stand next to me, I motion towards Xiomara. I tell him to talk to her in his language. I stumble over my words a bit, nervous to be on display before the other women, but he gets the gist. He seems confused but he looks at her and begins talking. He gets out a few sentences, with some words I recognize but many I don't. He goes quiet, but I encourage him to keep talking so that her chip has time to get a read.

"Oh!" Xiomara exclaims after about five or so minutes of him talking, cutting off his monologue. "I understood that last part." She looks at him and says in the grunts of his language, "Keep talking."

Kuvier reels back at first, but hesitantly starts talking again, looking between me and Xiomara. She cocks her head towards him, listening intently. She lets out a chuckle and looks at the rest of us.

"He said he's confused by us ‘Sky People,' and that it's a good thing ‘his' Sedona is worth it." Heat crawls up my neck and over my ears at being called ‘his' in front of the other women.

Krissy looks at me with a quirked eyebrow, but before she can open her mouth and say something sly, Renata jumps in. "Ask him where the rest of his people are, or is it just him and Enikk?"

Xiomara thinks on the question a second, seemingly forming the words, before she asks the question in Kuvier's language. Kuvier frowns at the question and makes eye contact with Enikk who's creeped forward slightly in interest, before he answers, his tone halted.

"He says that he will take us to meet his people when the worst of the storm has passed." Xiomara looks at us. "But, I feel like there's more to it than that."

Kuvier butts in and speaks to Xiomara. She nods and his face breaks into a breathtaking smile as he turns on me. He speaks directly to me, looking in my eyes, and I hear that word ‘khesi' again.

Xiomara's breath catches and she looks at me with shock. "He, um, he has declared that you're his…mate essentially. You were gifted to him by what I'm assuming is their deity? The ‘Great Mother.'"

My breathing picks up in time with my racing heart. Khesi wasn't just a term of endearment. It was a claiming. Kuvier speaks again, his words at Xiomara, but his gaze trained on me.

"He's making promises to care for you, and love you, and—oh god." She covers her face in embarrassment but finishes the translation, "He promises to fill you with many, um, kits."

My whole body catches on fire as Krissy snickers and the other women fight hard to hide their reaction. Samra pats my arm and gives me a reassuring smile. I like her already.

"Well, if you had to have any alien in love with you," Renata says with a shrug. "Kuvier's a good dude, for a goat-cat hybrid."

Our awkward moment is interrupted when Enikk suddenly approaches the fire, his eyes fixated on Xiomara. Kuvier steps in front of him, speaking rapidly.

"‘Enikk, stop this. You will scare her. You have not given time to sway her heart,'" Xiomara translates automatically. "Enikk says, ‘You have declared your intentions for your female, I wish nothing but the same. Move out of my way or I will make you move.' Oh god, is he about to declare he loves me?"

The air feels tense as we huddle around the fire. Kuvier stands between Enikk and us, his chest rumbling with a deep, vicious growl.

Xiomara winces as they continue speaking. "They're going to go at it. They're just exchanging taunting words." Someone needs to stop this.

"Stop!" I shout, stepping forward instinctively, but Renata grabs my arm, holding me back.

"They're going to kill each other," she mutters, her eyes wide with fear.

Kuvier and Enikk begin circling each other, their eyes locked in a deadly stare. Enikk is shouting something, his voice raw with emotion, and Kuvier's response is a low, menacing growl.

"Enikk gave Kuvier one more chance to move and Kuvier essentially told him to shove his chances," Xiomara relays to us.

"Kuvier, please," I beg, hoping he'll listen to me, but he's too focused on Enikk, his body coiled like a spring ready to snap.

Amari is trembling, tears streaming down her face. "Make them stop," she whispers, her voice barely audible. Enikk freezes, his eyes snapping to Amari, who has barely said anything since waking up.

Oh god, I think desperately. Why did he have to pick the most fearful of all of us to fixate on? Sure enough, Enikk declares something with gusto in his language. We all look to Xiomara expectantly.

" Dios mío ," she mutters. "He's declaring that Amari is his fated mate. He's basically repeating similar promises."

Amari's eyes widen in shock, and she shakes her head. "No, that can't be. I don't even know him."

Enikk speaks again, his tone calmer now, and Xiomara translates. "He's saying it's a bond, like a connection that can't be broken. He felt it the moment he saw her."

Amari's face crumples, and she starts to cry. "I don't understand any of this," she sobs. "I just want to go home."

I feel a pang of sympathy for her, and Enikk, honestly. The guy looks absolutely broken at her tears. But, this is too much for any of us to process, especially someone as young as Amari. She can't be older than twenty, and she's already been kidnapped by aliens, fought said aliens to the death, and crash landed on a strange planet. Now, some intense alien is claiming ownership over her? Not everyone is as insane as me and finds comfort in being someone else's responsibility. This has to be overwhelming for her.

"Enikk, you need to give her space," I say, my voice firm but gentle as Xiomara translates to him. "She's scared and confused. This is all new to us."

Enikk's expression softens and he backs away slowly, giving Amari some much-needed distance. Kuvier watches him closely, ready to intervene if necessary, but the immediate threat of violence seems to have passed.

I turn to Amari and put a comforting arm around her. "We'll figure this out," I promise her. She doesn't answer, but instead rests her head against my shoulder, tears still silently rolling down her cheeks and her eyes closing from pure exhaustion.

Kuvier steps closer to me, his eyes searching mine for reassurance. I shoot him a small smile, hoping it's enough to convey that I understand, even if I don't have all the answers. There's a lot to unpack about what was conveyed tonight, but now was not the time for us to unpack it.

With seven women relying on me, my focus has to be on getting us all through this first night.