BREATHING ROOM
ELENA – RYTHAR’S FORTRESS IN THE GREEN REACH
I can still feel Rythar’s hand at my waist, even though he dropped me on my own two feet and vanished, sealing me in.
For the first time since New Terra, I’m finally alone. I let the anger rush out in one ragged exhale. I press my hand against the wall, testing the surface.
I have a chance to settle, but my muscles refuse. Every nerve in my arms and legs is still braced for a hit that never landed. My throat is sore from screams.
Not that they did any good.
What shakes me isn’t that he overpowered me.
Of course he did. He’s enormous. What’s got me rattled is that he stopped.
On New Terra, punishment was swift. Rythar has more power over me than anyone on New Terra ever did.
And he put me in a room instead of using it.
It’s like my rejection of him as a mate, my opinion, matters so little that it doesn’t even warrant punishment.
My knuckles tingle, skin prickling with the urge to shatter the silence.
To make something happen and take back control.
Following my orders from New Terra hasn’t worked out so well.
My planet’s gone, my friends are scattered, my ring is gone, and some alien AI Stone gave me to a warlord as his mate.
The orders Rythar scraped from our data chips were garbled.
There’s no way anyone on New Terra ordered us to locate fertile males and produce fertile offspring with just anything.
I joined the evacuation cohort program three years ago to keep humans from going extinct.
From now on, if I follow an order, it’s because it serves humanity. Nothing else gets my obedience.
The ghost of Rythar’s strong arms on my body lingers as a warning. He can maim and kill without blinking. He showed me that in the jungle. But when I refused him in front of his warriors, he picked me up and stuffed me in this room. I expected much worse.
Is he thinking of something worse to do?
I press my forehead against the wall, just to feel the cold and remind myself that this body is mine, not his. No matter what he’s planning. No matter how scary he is, I’ll hold my ground.
But I don’t have anything here to fight with.
For years, I used my skills to protect myself.
On New Terra, I could fix a dying generator, stabilize a compound fracture, jury-rig a medscanner.
Even besides being a fertile female, I was valuable.
They needed me. They protected me because losing me meant losing a resource.
Here, skill isn’t going to matter. Rythar doesn’t need my help to run his jungle, doesn’t need a nurse, doesn’t need a tech.
I wrap my hand around my opposite wrist, grounding myself in the ache. It’s a trick that Maya taught me. Focus pain on the outside to stop it from eating you alive on the inside.
I circle the shadow of the ring with my thumb, the skin where the Stone changed me.
It’s a permanent reminder of what the Stone stole from me.
Now that I’m alone in this room, I can still feel the dim connection to Rythar.
It’s just a shadow of what it was. At least the mating urge is gone.
I’m not going to betray humanity and jump some hot alien’s bones.
What if we got rescued, somehow, by humans?
And they found me here, mated to an alien?
Dim as it is, what’s left of the connection twitches in anticipation as Rythar paces the corridor outside.
Whatever he’s doing out there, it isn’t calming either of us down.
I reach for Sophia, but she’s gone. I lost the connection to her when I rejected Rythar. Rythar warned me that the Stone’s gifts were all or nothing. Now the part of me that was tethered to Sophia is gone. I’m alone.
Grandmother would say, “A ring is a promise.” But the one the Stone gave me is more like a chain.
Pairing me to an alien. On New Terra, assigned fertility pairings lasted just long enough to see if a child would come.
No one expected permanence. Everything was designed to further the human race. This pairing is for Xytheos. For life.
The latch clicks. There’s a pause. Too long. My entire body braces, every muscle contracting again. The door sighs open, cool air washing in. The scent that follows is Rythar’s scent—that spice, the green, and male desire.
He’s silent and rigid as he enters. Like he’s just short of snapping. He looks at me the way a handler might study an animal.
I stay exactly where I am.
There’s a question in his face, but I refuse to acknowledge it. I lock my arms in front of me, plant my feet. Chin up, face stony.
I am not going to make this easy.
It’s easy for him. In two strides, he lifts me with grim efficiency. His arm clamps around my back, the other under my knees. I don’t fight this time. There is nothing to be gained by a repeat performance. Instead, I count the thuds of our pulses as they race against each other.