Cheating Fate (Veredian Chronicles #8)

Chapter 1

Gavin

Iglanced around my room while absent-mindedly closing the lid of my last suitcase. A mix of excitement, fear, and a bit of sadness bubbled within me. Once I boarded the ship on my way to the Western Quadrant, the Ancestors only knew how much time would pass by before I came back home.

Over the years, I often mocked my mother and little sister for the insane amount of things they would bring with them whenever we went on a short trip to Braxia. For the first time, I was the one who needed to rein myself in, not bringing absolutely everything I owned with me.

For sixteen years—sixteen long years—I waited to finally meet my Zhara in person.

Initially, we had both just been too young to even consider or be allowed to go on a journey halfway across the galaxy to be together.

Afterwards, life simply got in the way, although I suspected our respective parents gave Fate a hefty nudge to put those hurdles in our path.

It still boggled my mind how she and I first met.

That night, my five-year-old self believed she was just a beautiful dream.

We talked and played in what I thought to be a fantasy world.

But the vividness of those dreams in the morning made me question whether they truly were merely illusions or reality, as she systematically claimed.

As Zhara said she was only three years old, the ‘maturity’ of our conversations further reinforced my belief that she was just a figment of my imagination.

My own baby sister, Naya, was the same age and acted in a far more childish manner.

It took a couple of months for me to finally accept that Zhara was real.

She would tell me about her homeworld, Xelix Prime.

One day, I asked my father about some of the things she had mentioned about that planet, thinking he would tell me they were wrong, only for him to confirm their accuracy.

I still remembered his shocked expression that I would know the type of specific cultural facts about a world a boy my age never should have heard of.

That night, after I finally conceded that she was real, Zhara smugly told me that I was hers, and that we would marry once we came of age.

It both flattered my ego and made me laugh.

She was beautiful with her exotic appearance.

I’d never seen someone like her with silver-gray skin, oversized yellow irises with green specks, insanely long dark-brown hair almost black, chevron-shaped ridges on her forehead that marked her as a Xelixian, and beautiful dark spots on the sides of her neck, arms, and legs typical of her Veredian heritage.

I played along at first, thinking she would outgrow that funny virtual infatuation.

But once again, I realized she was serious.

Soon, I became addicted to spending time with her.

Every day, I would count the hours until we could go to bed so that I could talk with her again.

She explained that communicating mentally with me was far too difficult when we were awake.

Naturally, when I finally mentioned her to my parents, they didn’t call me crazy, but it didn’t take a genius to see they thought she was just some kind of imaginary friend. It wasn’t until Uncle Ghan came to visit us with Aunt Lee and Aunt Mercy during a mission that they finally believed me.

Zhara had informed me of their imminent arrival.

I put together a special gift for her to hand to Uncle Ghan.

Although my mother indulged me by letting me buy the present with my allowance, she never thought they were actually coming.

To this day, I couldn’t help a smug smile every time I remembered the look on my parents’ faces when William announced that First Officer Ghan Delphin, Admiral Lee, and Ravena Vrok were at the reception of the HQ requesting an audience with my father.

I slid the suitcase off my bed to put it on top of the hover cart that already carried the previous three I had filled.

As I did one final tour of my immense bedroom, with its even bigger walk-in closet and private complete hygiene room, the years that followed since then flashed through my mind’s eye.

This long-distance romance with a Veredian-Xelixian hybrid had made my parents extremely uneasy.

Their concerns had been fair. After all, what responsible parent wouldn’t freak out upon discovering that some alien female was psychically communicating with their young child in his sleep?

If not for Zhara being a blood relative of Ravena Mercy Vrok—the Braxian Queen—they probably would have tried to block any further contact between us until I was older.

Despite Mercy vouching for the safety of our blossoming relationship, I understood my parents' dismay at the fact that I’d pledged myself to Zhara since childhood.

I never touched or looked at another female, even through the very challenging years of puberty.

As a Braxian-human hybrid, I had inherited my father’s people’s high libido.

And yet, even though I lived on the biggest and most luxurious pleasure barge in the known galaxy, not once did I stray.

Other females simply didn’t appeal to me.

For a while, my parents feared Zhara might be mind-controlling me. But Braxians were immune to negative psionic powers. Then they wondered if maybe I was gay. That gave me a solid chuckle. After all, how could a straight male living on Venus Hive possibly remain celibate?

As the son of the owner of the biggest network of entertainment space stations in both the Eastern and Western Quadrants, I had females throwing themselves at my feet around the clock.

I wasn’t ugly by any means—which Braxians usually were by galactic standards—but I had no illusion that my irresistible charm prompted such interest. Too many of them only wanted me for my family’s wealth, power, and influence. It made turning them down easier.

As I opened each drawer and cupboard in my private bathroom to make sure I hadn’t left anything important behind, another wave of nerves knotted my stomach.

I had never left this quadrant or gone so far away from home.

Granted, I had been on Braxia—my father’s homeworld—on more than one occasion, sometimes for a few months in a row.

But even there, I stayed with family. Aside from my Grappa Krygor—who was the leader of one of the most influential clans of Braxia—I also had Aunt Mercy, who had married Magnar Ravik, the previous ruler of the planet.

Then again, I went to Sarenia for Siona’s wedding to Prince Zerien. But my parents were there with me.

This time, I would have no one… Except for Uncle Ghan.

Parting from my mother would be the hardest. As her firstborn child, I had always been my mother’s favorite—not that she didn’t adore my other two siblings.

The youngest, Naya, was naturally our father’s favorite.

My brother, Cullen, was the weird nerd that no one truly understood. But he was my favorite.

Although he was still growing into his personality, I saw in him a miniature version of our father with the same phenomenal analytic mind, business acumen, almost supernatural ability to read people, their desires, and what made them tick.

His dry sense of humor cracked me up, especially when his jokes flew miles above the heads of the people he threw them at.

He would get this shit-eating grin while waiting for understanding to hit them when they least expected it.

As I returned inside my bedroom, confident I had everything I needed, my heart nearly leapt out of my chest when the door burst open.

Naya barged into my room in a whirlwind of long black hair.

She all but launched herself at my bed, landing in a sitting position at the edge with a little bounce.

She leveled her obsidian eyes, so identical to our father’s, on me with a mischievous smile splattered all over her beautiful face.

“What the fuck, Naya! What have I told you about storming in like this unannounced?” I asked in a severe tone.

As usual, she shrugged, unrepentant and totally unimpressed.

“Lock your door if you don’t want people barging in,” she retorted in a singsong voice, before gesturing at my suitcases with her chin. “All packed, I see. You just can’t wait to abandon us, can you?”

I made a face at her. “I’m not abandoning you. But yeah, I am eager to reach Veredia,” I said wistfully. “It’s a ridiculously long journey, though. In truth, a part of me wished Zhara would have asked her young brother Rhadames to use his powers to just teleport me to their planet.”

It was wishful thinking. Although he truly had an insane range, it didn’t go as far as the Eastern Quadrant. So he couldn’t actually have teleported me to her.

“Geez! Are you in that much of a hurry to get laid?” she asked with a dramatic expression.

“NAYA!!” I shouted, shocked and outraged.

“What?!” my sister asked with an exaggerated air of innocence. “It’s a fair question to ask. I mean, you’re a twenty-one-year-old virgin. So your impatience makes sense. But does your gear even work at this point? It has to be rusted beyond salvation.”

I growled and took a menacing step towards her, which only made her take on that legendary pesky expression she knew drove me bonkers.

“You keep this up, and I’ll give you the most memorable spanking of your life,” I snarled.

She opened her eyes wide and pressed her palm to her chest in a stunned expression laced with wonder. “Wow, Gavin! I had no idea you were the kinky type. But I’m your sister. Keep that for your Titan girlfriend.”

I recoiled as the brat burst out laughing at my horrified reaction.

“What the fuck, Naya! You’re way too young to be talking about this kind of stuff,” I said, bewildered.

She rolled her eyes at me in a way that screamed she found my IQ seriously lacking.