Chapter 1
Chapter One
ROWAN
On shaky legs, I disembarked from the first alien spacecraft I recall flying in and took my first step onto soil of a city where I was once held captive inside a cage yet had no memory of.
I gazed up at a crystal palace, the crown jewel of Huren.
It stretched so high, the structure seemed to touch the clouds.
I wondered if it could, minus the wavy shield of the dome that kept everyone safe inside.
My gaze trailed down the fairytale edifice to the smaller white complexes skirting its base. The girls likened it to the lost city of Atlantis. Now that I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I suppose it does, that is, if we were on Earth and not another planet.
Arched double doors marked the grand entrance fit for a king, or a Sia, as the Valosians called the rulers of their clans. A palace where I had been held captive inside a cage two stories underground along with nine other women and several Valosians. At least, that’s what they had told me.
All I remembered before this silver and blue world was going to sleep in the house I shared with my twin sister and waking up on an island surrounded by women who were strangers and silver men I had mistaken for the Sidhe, fairy folk from Irish folklore.
It was an honest mistake given their pointed ears and shimmering scales that changed colors with their moods and environment.
These men, with their muscular physiques and long, silvery white hair, weren’t magical beings from the bedtime stories my father told my sister and I, but aliens living on another world.
Except they weren’t the aliens here since this was their planet.
We were the aliens, visitors abducted from Earth by little gray men and brought here.
Several days had passed since the Valosians took the city of Huren back in an epic battle.
Gia and I had chosen to wait on the island with the other eight girls still waking up and recovering from the green liquid the gray aliens called Gretolics had pumped into our bodies to keep us in a state of suspended animation.
“You okay, Ro?” Gia’s fingers landed lightly on my arm.
I turned to look into the concerned gaze of my new friend. We had woken up on the island at about the same time and had been inseparable ever since. She was the social one of the two of us where I remained silent, quietly wallowing in separation anxiety over my twin.
“I’m good. Just need a minute to adjust to our new surroundings.”
“If you’re sure, I’d like to follow the girls to the medic bay,” Gia said as we watched the girls be carried out of the invisible bubble craft by a steady stream of Valosians eager to offer assistance. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m sure.” I put on a brave front to cover my rising anxiety. “Go ahead without me.”
Gia left me where I stood just outside the wavy distortion of the invisible craft.
It had been like traveling inside a high-tech soap bubble; the hull and even the floor of the craft were invisible.
I’d stared down in awe of the churning sea we had crossed and then at the thick vegetation of a silver and blue jungle.
Without realizing, I searched the sea of silvery faces milling about for the one I shouldn’t seek. He was what they called a bedmate to another. They were suited to each other, both techies, both extremely smart with IQs that far exceeded mine.
Bedmate or not, there he stood, off in the distance, as promised.
His eyes fixed on me. He said we would see each other again and there he was.
Of its own accord, my hand lifted in greeting.
The Huren tech returned the gesture, flashing his silver palm and gifting me with a rare smile before striding forward.
I still couldn’t put my finger on what it was about him that put me at ease. Maybe how he was always so focused and quiet. Gentle and careful in his movements as if he knew how lost I felt inside without my sister and didn’t want to frighten me.
His very presence was like a Valium for my anxiousness.
I had no reason to trust him any more than I did anyone else.
He was a stranger on an even stranger land, but I found myself eased in his company.
Grief stricken, my melancholy over being separated from my sister for the first time in my life always lessened when he was near.
“Greetings, Rowan.” Zikkar tipped his chin at me. “Welcome to the city of Huren.”
“Thanks.” I’m so glad to see you, I wanted so badly to say. My face flushed and I knew my cheeks were twin rosettes. The curse of having pale skin and strawberry-blonde hair, every emotion expressed itself in shades of red.
“May I escort you to the palace? A room has been readied for you,” Zikkar offered in his kind and gentle way.
“Where’s Rose?” I blurted, hating the jealousy that always sank me whenever I thought of the two of them together.
“With her spirit mate, Wynnter. Working on developing a long-range weapon to protect the city.”
I blinked stupidly into the perfect features of his intelligent face. “Right. I knew that.” I had seen the evidence of her mating in the softly glowing shawra in the center of her chest when she had come to the island to wait during the battle for the city.
“They bonded just before the battle with the Gretolics.” Zikkar explained matter-of-factly what I already knew. I detected no grief from a broken heart. “You look surprised.”
“Well,” I nervously tucked an errant strand of hair behind my ear, and Zikkar’s eyes immediately went to the rounded tip. I suspected he found my appearance as intriguing as I found his. “I just thought the two of you were an item.”
“I’m unclear of your meaning.”
I grinned, having forgotten the translators we had plugged in our ears couldn’t decipher between literal meanings and slang. “I meant, I thought you two were together.”
“Not since she awakened Wynnter. Rose was not fated to be mine. Her spirit was destined for another, so I stepped aside.”
“I’m so sorry, Z.” The lightness of my heart contradicted my empathy.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. Rose and I remain friends, and she is with the male the Spirits meant for her to be bonded with.”
“That’s big of you.” Zikkar wrinkled his brow, so I added, “Generous. It’s generous of you to not be angry or bitter that she chose another.”
Zikkar shrugged and extended his elbow for me to take. “Rose was not meant to be mine,” he logically explained, guiding me along the path leading to the palace. “There is a spirit mate for each of us; sometimes we must be patient and wait for the one who speaks to our hearts.”
“You really believe all this soulmate business?”
“Don’t you?”
I wanted to open my mouth and deny what he wholeheartedly believed, but the proof was all around me. Couples with softly glowing designs paraded by, hand in hand. The truth of their bond etched over their hearts.
“I guess I can't argue with what's right in front of me,” I admitted. “It's just...back on Earth, we don't have definitive proof like your matching shawras. A lot of relationships end in heartbreak.”
Zikkar's expression softened with understanding.
“I can only imagine how difficult and uncertain matters of the heart must be without the guidance of the Spirits. But perhaps that makes the connections you forge even more meaningful, choosing to give your heart without the certainty we are afforded.”
“Maybe you're right,” I said, pondering his words and thinking back on my few failed relationships. “But there’s something truly special about sharing a piece of your soul with another.”
I’d heard the mated girls explain to the others how they could feel an echo of their mate within them.
That their matching shawras were some kind of portal where their souls would coalesce during sex.
It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard, and if my sister, Breena, were here, we would have a good, hard laugh at the hopeless romantics.
But she wasn’t here, and the hopeless romantics were as serious as they came.
“Are you unwell?”
Zikkar’s too perfect face was suddenly inches away from mine. I’d stopped in my tracks, just stood there before the grand doors of the palace, frozen in place and unable to take another step.
“I…I don’t…want to.” I backed away slowly.
“It’s too much.” I had no words to explain my trepidation about going inside.
Just knowing I’d been kept unconscious and caged two stories below ground made me nervous.
I had no memory of the little gray aliens who had abducted me from my bed, and I wanted to keep it that way. “Better if I don’t remember.”
“I understand,” Zikkar empathized with my vagueness, an understanding and patient smile curving his sculpted lips. Lips I wanted to press to mine, to know the feel of, the taste of, but I was too afraid to act.
I wasn’t of his world. If I grew attached and he found his spirit mate in another, I don’t think I would be as graceful about it as he had been with Rose, and where would that leave me? More alone than I was now.
“Maybe I could sleep inside one of these smaller buildings.”
“My hut is just this way,” Zikkar said, gesturing with a wave of his hand. “There’s an empty hut nearby if you’d like it, and if you need something, I am within shouting distance.”
Close, but not too close. How did he always seem to know exactly what I needed? My fingers caressed a circle over my breastbone, warmth welling within me. “Sounds perfect.”