Chapter Nine #2
Where were they? Why hadn’t Davos come for me already? I had no idea, and I didn’t even know if there had been some kind of fight after they took me, because these assholes kept drugging me so much I barely knew up from down. I wasn’t even sure who any of them were.
They spoke to me in Earthan. They said they’d taken me for my own good. They said that my blood pressure had been way up at first and I was making myself ill. I was making myself ill! The arrogance of the bastards. So, they kept me doped up, and it seemed as if all I did now was sleep.
They had brought in some colonel to talk to me after a while.
He said he was a physician, but I wasn’t sure about that.
I’d been right about the voice speaking American English when I was first brought aboard, instead of the far more common Earthan language used all over the galaxy.
The colonel said that there were many Americans on board and he was one too—from New York, he said.
Davos called that city Atrillia, named after a deceased Tygerian hero.
They planned to use it as the new name for New York after they won this long, terrible war and took over governance of the planet, which looked more and more likely to be the inevitable outcome.
The Axis had greater numbers and superior fighting skills, and yet the Alliance managed to hang on and the interminable war kept dragging along.
I didn’t share all my thoughts with the colonel, because I didn’t care enough to converse with him, and I wished he would just leave me alone. I said very little to him, in fact, and finally, he gave up and left me alone.
This was an Alliance vessel, he’d told me anyway, a star cruiser, and equipped with new stealth technology that had originated with the Lucarians, a far distant group of planets that had contact with another galaxy.
The stealth technology had been “shared” with the Nilaniums by the Lucarians, or so they claimed.
Stolen from them, more likely. The Nilaniums were all thieves and pirates.
It was a Nilanium who had lured Davos here to this area near Leeria by saying he had important information for him.
I supposed the stealth technology the ship was equipped with was how they were eluding Davos, if he were coming after them, like I hoped he was. Like I prayed he was.
The one thing that kept running through my mind over and over on constant replay was what if Davos thought I was just too much trouble to bother with and not worth the effort.
A few months ago, I wouldn’t have questioned his love for me, but after all, I’d “forgotten” him soon after being told he was dead.
I knew the only reason he took me back was because of the baby.
And now he had the baby, so what more use did he have for me?
How the hell had I ever allowed myself to forget Davos?
I had to have been brainwashed or hypnotized for sure.
But I’d never told Davos how sorry I was for all of it.
For almost marrying Werros and letting him claim the baby as his.
I’d been all alone on an alien planet, and I hadn’t known how else to keep my baby safe.
But I felt as if I should have known—I should have felt somewhere deep inside myself that Davos was my husband and my lover the first moment I saw him again after his return.
What the fuck had been wrong with me? What had they done to me to make me forget him?
He’d never told me if his feelings had changed toward me since then, though he’d been cold and distant at times.
In fact, it was only when I was having the baby that he had shown me affection.
The most he had in a long time. Had he fallen out of love with me then?
Did he think now that maybe it was a good thing I was gone and not even bother to come after me?
I couldn’t blame him if he did. After all, he could hire people to take care of the baby.
People would fall all over themselves to be of service to the king.
And he was the young, handsome, brave king of Tygeria, a war hero who had miraculously returned from the dead.
He’d have no problem at all finding another spouse. People would be standing in line.
I knew he’d been furious when I ‘d seen him again, and he had looked at me like he hated me, but we hadn’t talked much more about it, once he got rid of Werros and my memories had slowly returned.
When I pictured him in my mind’s eye now it was as he had been that day I saw him on the bridge of the ship we’d been on—when I went to tell him about the bleeding. He’d been sitting at the helm, looking so carelessly beautiful and arrogant and in charge.
I loved him so much. I had been stubborn and resistant and a pain in the ass to him since the day we met, yet Davos had shown me mostly kindness.
And honesty. He’d always been honest about his feelings for me and about “the lieutenant” as he called me when he thought I was being resistant and unreasonable.
The lieutenant was his enemy, he’d told me so many times.
He said he’d get rid of him one day, and he had never lied to me.
It had been me who hid my feelings from him.
I didn’t want him to know at first that I’d fallen in love with him.
Desperately, totally in love. I’d hidden it so hard that I couldn’t even admit it to myself for the longest time.
Because of course I had. He was everything anyone could ever want.
And I had been deeply in love again since he’d returned and once my mind had cleared.
If I was being honest, I’d fallen for him on that first awful day when he took me after the Games.
I’d just been too stubborn to admit it. He had saved my life and even though he’d been so full of himself and so confident that he could make me agree to live with him as his nobyo, I’d been attracted to him right from the start.
I fought it and denied it and did everything I could to make it not be true, but it was no use.
But I’d never admitted all that to him once he came back to me and got rid of Werros—I’d never told him that I was so deeply sorry for whatever happened with us, and I’d never really told him how much I loved him and made him believe it. And now it was too late. I might never see him again.
A black tide of misery and regret threatened to swamp me then, and it was so tempting to just let it wash over me and sweep me away. I was so tired—I shut my eyes and silently fought against the impulse to just stop fighting and sink into it.
The door opened and listlessly I turned to see who was coming in. And when I did, at first I was so surprised I couldn’t speak.
It was Evoq! The high priest from Tygeria, along with one of his black-robed acolytes.
I recognized them both, though they were incredibly disguised.
Both were wearing Alliance uniforms and had transformed themselves.
Neither of them had the long red hair anymore and all the stripes under their skin were gone.
How was that possible? I could barely stir up enough emotion to feel shock.
But betrayal? Hell, yeah, I felt plenty of that.
If Evoq was really here—looking like he did and wearing an Alliance uniform—then that meant the bastard had been a spy and a fucking traitor all along!
Some of that at least must have shown on my face.
He gestured down at himself, saying, “I guess you must be surprised at the differences. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before.
We’ve been planning this rescue mission for you for a very long time.
Almost since you were first taken. I was recruited originally for my height, and then I had to bulk up a bit, have a little plastic surgery, dye my hair and voila!
Instant Tygerian. Well, almost instant.” He laughed like he expected me to be amused and join in with him.
I just kept staring at him, trying to take it all in. I was still too shocked to speak.
His hair now was cut as short as an Alliance Marine’s. He wore the uniform of one too, with epaulets on his shoulders, denoting that he was an officer. The man beside him was in a similar uniform. Both had sidearms.
“It’s good to see you up and around,” Evoq, or whatever his name was said, pretending to be friendly. I turned my head away.
“My real name is Colonel Morris. Alex Morris. And this is Second Lieutenant Bennett. How are you feeling today? Now that you’re away from that savage, I expect you’re feeling better.”
When I gave him only a cold, blank stare in return, he took a step forward, and I recoiled.
He had fooled all his many, many followers, but I’d always felt a bit wary of him.
I’d known something was off, but I’d blamed it on the fact that he was a priest, and I’d never been very religious.
But he had certainly fooled and betrayed a lot of people.
And he had taken me away from the one I loved.
He had taken me away from my baby! And for that, I wanted to kill him.
Slowly and painfully. I had to fight the urge to attack him then and there.
“Come on, Blake. Talk to me. I thought that by now you’d be glad to see a familiar face. Don’t you understand? You’re on your way home. You’ve been liberated.”
He reached for me, but the idea of being touched by the creature made my skin crawl. I recoiled and took a few steps back. “Get away from me. I hope that Davos eviscerates you when he catches up to us. I look forward to watching him do it.”