10. ALICE

ALICE

The dinner was a painful affair; I was willing to admit that. Watching the other women flirt with Zayden irritated me and made me contemplate my decisions.

He was a very handsome man, apart from his alienness. And obviously powerful. The other blue alien who had approached him earlier had shown submission, not as much as the others, but he had bowed his head in reverence, had spoken in soft tones—too soft for me to hear.

The other women whispered with each other about him, talked about our captivity, of how our lives had changed and how to make the best of it now, which included gaining Zaydon's favor.

They excluded me from their conversations, much like a pack of hyaenas would exclude one from their group whom they sensed was different, didn't belong among them.

Here and there, I caught sight of surreptitious glances toward me, caught snippets of hushed whispers, wonder… first one of us… kicked her out… us… his harem… oh I wouldn't mind him… (snickering)

The word harem stuck with me. Was Zayden truly considering a harem now since I had refused him? Had that opened his eyes to other possibilities? Or had that been his plan all along?

I tried to sneak a glance at him every so often, but throughout the dinner, he kept engaged with one of the women or another in a quick exchange of pleasantries.

A slow, simmering fire had burned in my stomach all night long, making it nearly impossible to eat anything, even though the others fawned over the food.

Later, I found out that, besides our own suites, we were given a common room, where we could congregate at our leisure to discuss Zayden and dinner in even more detail. The moment I entered, though, a hush spread through the ranks, and even the two women, Carol and Phoebe, with whom I had enjoyed a tentative friendship while we were captives of the traders, turned their heads from me.

All of them were making it clear that I wasn't welcome in their midst, and I didn't understand why.

"Hello." I tried nonetheless, with a smile.

"Hey," Phoebe replied, while one of the others, Erin, poked her in the ribs.

"What's going on?" I asked, hoping to address the elephant in the room.

"You were with him, right?" Colette asked in her accented hard English.

I took a tentative step into the comfortably decorated room, which reminded me a little of the place where we had been held captive. This one, though, had actual couches and tables.

"Yes," I filled them in. "Our captors drugged me. I don't remember much about meeting him," I lied, sensing that telling them that he had wanted to make me his queen and I had refused wouldn't go over too well.

"Well, none of us have met him one-on-one yet," Carol asserted, looking me up and down.

"They drew our blood and forced us through all kinds of medical procedures. They said you were sick," Andrea, who had been in her last year of medical school before we were taken, stated, holding out her finger, where I couldn't see a trace of blood having been drawn.

"I'm sorry," I offered nevertheless. "I didn't know. Like I said, they drugged me, and I basically fell asleep."

"Asleep in Zayden's arms?" Someone snickered. I turned my head and caught Helga's stare.

I shrugged; there wasn't much else to say.

"So, is it true that he's going to make one of us his queen?" Phoebe prompted.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded miserably. I knew the others caught it and were drawing their own conclusions. Most would assume I hadn't found favor with Zayden, since it was obvious that he had bought me and talked to me first.

Was this how this was going to be? Would they turn on each other when Zayden showed favor on one of the women? Or… at that, my heart actually skipped a beat, what if he did like one of them? What would the women do then? Scratch her face? Cut her hair? The image of hyenas returned to me, making me wonder why we weren't coming together in our shared fate, instead of seeing each other as competition.

Well you wouldn't be in this competition if it weren't for your stupidity, I reminded myself for the hundredth time. But was that really true? Or had Zayden changed his mind once he realized there were others he could choose from?

"That's what I understand," I finally answered Phoebe's question with a heavy heart.

"Does that mean you're out?" Carol demanded directly.

I could have told her that she wasn't even in the competition because of her red hair, but I ground my teeth and kept my mouth shut. After all, if Zayden had changed his mind about me, who was to say he was still looking for golden hair?