Chapter 2 #2
I glanced down at my braid, confused, before realizing what he’d been staring at. It was the yellowish-brown silk ribbon with green specks he’d sent me thirteen years ago as part of his very first gift to me. He’d spent his allowance to have it custom made to match the color of my eyes.
I grinned and nodded proudly. “It is.”
“I can’t believe you still have it!” he exclaimed, both stunned and happy.
“Of course I do!” I replied, slightly offended. “I have kept every single one of the gifts you ever sent me. Well, except the ones I stuffed my face with.”
He snorted and smiled back before reaching for something below his collar.
It was my turn to stare wide-eyed as he pulled the delicate gold chain around his neck revealing the medallion I designed and had custom made for his sixteenth birthday.
It was a stylized symbol merging the Veredian phoenix and the Braxian all-seeing eye.
He had added a hoop to it to wear it as a necklace.
“It never leaves me,” he said in a soft voice. “This way, you’re always with me.”
Tears pricked my eyes, and my throat constricted. “You don’t know how badly I want to hug you right now,” I said with a slightly shaky voice.
His smile broadened. “It can’t be more than I personally do. But soon, I’ll finally get to give you that teddy bear hug you’ve been asking for. Just so you know, I’ve been practicing with a body pillow.”
I burst out laughing, my overactive imagination trying to picture that mountain of muscle delicately hugging a body pillow with my face painted on it.
“Now I’m even more impatient to try it first-hand. How long until you get here?” I asked.
He scrunched his face and glanced at the top right corner of his screen, likely to look at some sort of journey tracker.
“Sadly, much longer than I wished. We still have a little over fourteen hours to go,” he said dejectedly. “We should reach Veredia around lunchtime tomorrow.”
“Perfect!” I exclaimed, surprising him. “Lunchtime means my father won’t have any excuse to keep me from being present at your arrival. We have a bunch of drills and training with the Sentinels, but as he’s very picky about discipline, he always makes sure we get to go to lunch on time.”
The way he beamed at me gave me all kinds of warm fuzzies.
“Perfect indeed,” he replied, the deep sound of his voice gliding over my skin like a gentle caress. “How much abuse should I expect from your fathers,” he added with a playfully fearful expression.
I dramatically rolled my eyes and loudly groaned, making him chuckle.
“That bad?” he asked, more amused than concerned.
“Possibly. Papa won’t be a problem. He’s very protective, but not overbearingly possessive. Dad, though, will likely be a pain in the neck. I wouldn’t put it past him to use his position as General of the Sentinels to make your life particularly difficult,” I said with a guilty expression.
He smiled. “I expected no less. After all, you are their only daughter.”
I rolled my eyes even more. “That’s not a justification. It’s actually insulting.”
“So I realized,” he replied in a sympathetic tone that piqued my curiosity.
“You realized it how?”
He gave me a quick rundown of the conversation he had with his younger sister before his departure from Venus Hive, eleven days ago.
I pursed my lips as I reflected on his words.
“You know, I spent all this time worrying about how obnoxious my father might be with you. But I realize now that I should also worry about my brothers. Rhadames, won’t be a problem.
He’s exactly like our Papa, his sire. Vahleryon and Tharek will probably be a completely different story.
They truly are our Dad’s sons, as possessive and overly protective. ”
“Don’t let that trouble you, Zhara. Whatever they want to throw my way, I can take it. Anyone who survived the barbaric training of a Braxian Warrior can handle anything else. I look forward to that challenge,” he said with a hint of cockiness that I found incredibly sexy.
“Careful what you wish for,” I warned.
“I’m staring at what I wished for. And I have no regrets,” he replied gently.
I melted some more as I feasted my eyes on his stunning face.
For the next forty-five minutes, we continued chatting, making plans for all the things we would do and see together once he got here.
With much reluctance, we finally ended the communication.
I would have to get up early in the morning to prepare for another of those epic simulation missions we had started doing over the past year.
To my pleasant surprise, I didn’t toss and turn restlessly all night as I expected due to nerves and impatience. Instead, I easily slipped into a wondrous dream while holding two huge pillows between my arms picturing it was my Gavin.
Fuming, I clasped my bracer around my wrist under the half-amused, half sympathetic stare of my younger brother Tharek.
“I know you’re mad, but everything will be fine,” he said in a gentle voice devoid of his usual snark or taunting. “You’ll be back in a week.”
“I shouldn’t be leaving today, right before they know he’s scheduled to arrive,” I snapped back. “This is fucking bullshit!”
Far from appeasing me, the apologetic look he gave me only pissed me off further.
“You know how protective we are of you,” Tharek said in a reasonable tone.
“Fuck that!” I said, while slamming shut my suitcase, before lifting my head to angrily look at him. “That’s not protective, it’s controlling. I’m not his damn property!”
My brother frowned and gave me a disapproving look with his dark purple eyes, so identical to his sire’s.
“No one is saying or thinking that,” he countered.
“What you’re all saying is that me not having a cock means I’m too stupid to think for myself,” I replied angrily.
“That’s not true!” he exclaimed, offended.
“IT IS!” I shouted before closing my eyes and taking a deep breath to rein in the fury boiling within me.
“They never would have done this to you, Rhad, or Vahl. So why in Gharah’s name is it okay to do it to me except for the fact that I’m a female?
I’ve waited sixteen years to meet him because everyone has systematically prevented it from happening sooner.
Today was finally our time. We’ve earned it. And then this?!”
He had the decency to look a little guilty, not that it did anything to appease my anger.
Yes, it had always been planned that I would be going on an away mission for a few days.
But I wasn’t due until the next rotation in ten days from now.
This last-minute switcheroo had been deliberate and malicious.
It angered me all the more that my father had kept me in blissful ignorance until this morning to keep the peace for as long as possible.
“Like you said, you’ve already waited sixteen years,” he replied in a soothing voice. “What’s one more week at this point?”
“It’s the principle!” I snapped, looking at him as if it was self-evident. “It shouldn’t be needed in the first place. And you and I both know that at the end of that mission, they will try to come up with something else to get in our way.”
“It’s not going to be that bad, Zha,” Tharek argued in that same reasonable voice. “We only want to assess him first.”
“By what fucking right?!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands in the air with exasperation. “Why do you feel entitled to decide before me whether he’s worthy of me? And what happens if Gavin doesn’t meet the expectations of your little tests? Are you all going to try to forbid us from being together?”
He didn’t seem to have an answer. A part of me felt horrible for lashing out at him when this was ultimately Dad’s decision.
Despite looking like he was in his early twenties, Tharek had just turned fifteen.
All of us Titans easily passed for people at least six to eight years older than we actually were.
That didn’t stop him from being far more mature than most other species at the same age.
A vigorous knock on the door spared him from having to respond. The muffled sound of our dad’s voice resonated outside.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes, Dad,” Tharek responded when I clenched my teeth and yanked my suitcase down from my bed, which it had been lying on.
Taking Tharek’s answer as a permission to come in, our father opened the door, his dark purple eyes zeroing in on me. The mix of amusement and guilt on his face upon seeing my expression made me even angrier. Without a word, I stormed past him, partially knocking into him on my way out.
“Where are you going?” he called out after me.
Without looking over my shoulder at him, I continued to march with determined steps towards the staircase to the ground floor of our three-story mansion.
After moving from Xelix Prime to the new planet Veredia, my parents had recreated a very similar version of my father’s original house on his homeworld.
“I’m going where I’ve been ordered to go by our dear General, who saw fit to abuse his authority to harass me,” I snarled.
“Careful, young lady,” he growled menacingly.
I stopped at the top of the stairs and jerked my head towards him.
“Or what?” I hissed. “You’re going to ground me? Spank me? Lock me up somewhere? Because apparently I’m just some dumb child you need to control.”
“Watch your tone, Zharina. That is no way to speak to your father,” he said sternly.
“You’re not my father!” I spat.
Despite my anger, I flinched inwardly even as the words came out of my mouth.
Seeing him recoil, and the deep hurt both in his eyes and plastered all over his face struck me hard.
Tharek gasped and stared at me with shock and disbelief.
But it was my Papa’s voice that reclaimed my attention.
In my need to get away from Dad, I had not noticed Papa and Mom standing in the small seating area across from the staircase, which created a little hub between the multiple bedrooms of the upper floor.
“ZHARINA!” Papa exclaimed.