Chapter 21
Lena blinked her eyes open as consciousness returned to her.
She was in a bed, but not the enormous one in the escort room or the floating one in Screl’s. Definitely not one of the lifeless ones in the Sovereign’s palace. The mattress was firm, a bunk in a small space that was clearly just meant for sleeping.
Panic flooded her as she glanced around the room, but it was empty. She was alone.
She got out of bed, surprised to be in a clean t-shirt and underwear.
Her pants and jacket sat neatly folded on a small table, and she finished dressing, then walked to where she expected a door to be, placing her palms on the cold metal.
Running her hands along the wall, she felt around for any sort of lever, button, indentation, anything, but it was one seamless surface as usual.
A whoosh of air blew Lena’s hair back, and she gasped, certain it was Screl coming to claim her. That strange entitlement he held over her, one that disturbed her but aroused her despite everything. But no, it wasn’t Screl.
“Dronzal!”
Lena threw her arms around the Thren’s neck, the tears already falling, and though Dronzal stiffened, she didn’t push away.
“Are you feeling well?” Dronzal asked, clearly confused by the outburst of emotion.
It was nice to be around someone neutral, someone she didn’t have such complicated feelings about.
“Where are we?” Lena asked as she released Dronzal, a flush burning her cheeks.
“We are on a shuttle. I am in charge of you until you return to Henios.”
“Henios? We’re going to the station?”
A war ignited within her, conflicting emotions forcing her to sit back down on the bed. Screl had really let her go… just like that? After all his blustering?
This was a good thing. This was what she wanted. She wanted to go home. But it was impossible to deny the hollowness in her chest, like her heart had been taken out and replaced with a cold, metal organ tasked with sustaining life but stealing any joy.
“Yes, Lena, we are going to the station. Screl had to stay on Botune, otherwise I am certain he would have taken you himself.”
Dronzal seemed strangely cold, her words short and tense as she refused to make eye contact.
“Will he be okay? His father seemed… upset.”
God, why did she even care?
“I do not know. The Sovereign will punish him as he sees fit.” Dronzal finally looked her way with narrowed eyes.
“You have been granted a great gift. Many Threns spend their entire lives hoping to find their fated, and yet are unsuccessful. A bond with ones fated is the strongest partnership in the galaxy.”
Lena scoffed, taken aback by the chastisement. Despite the emptiness filling her, she knew she had done nothing wrong.
“He did it without my permission. He kidnapped me, forced me into the joining without explaining what it meant. That’s the only reason he cares about me, because he thinks he has some weird claim over me.”
Dronzal sighed, nodding.
“I understand. The commander was wrong for not explaining the full repercussions of joining. But I do not think you should throw away something that will make you truly happy. And I know for a fact that he cares for you beyond what the bond tells him to do.”
Lena mulled the words, crossing her arms over her chest as if that would maintain the facade of anger that was quickly dissipating into despair.
It had been too easy to forget what Screl had done to her as they had lain in his bed, swam in the bucolic pool on one of Botune’s floating isles. Easy to forget the way he’d hurt others and hurt her, purposefully frightened and threatened her. But deep down, there was something else there.
Perhaps it was this bond with her fated, or perhaps it was a scared and confused person, someone who had once again let someone in, only to be hurt like every other time.
“He’s an adult, not some petulant child. He can’t just take what he wants because he thinks he can get away with it.”
Dronzal nodded.
“No, he is not a child.”
A sharp jolt of pain lanced through Lena, piercing her straight through her chrome heart.
But it didn’t go away, just pulsed as if in time with her heartbeat, rhythmically waxing and waning.
It was difficult to suck in a breath, and she keeled over, gripping her knees and trying to get through the wave of agony.
Dronzal stepped to her, placing a gentle hand on her hunched shoulder.
“The pain will be difficult, but it is bearable. Fated have been separated in the past.”
“I really have to live like this? Forever?” Lena said through gritted teeth, trying to focus on breathing and not the excruciating pain.
“You should become more accustomed to it. Perhaps the station doctor will have some medicine for you. I can give you a muscle relaxer which should abate some of the symptoms for now.”
Not the answer she wanted to hear. Deep-seated fury blossomed to life, an existential anger toward whatever cosmic being had cursed her in this way.
The rest of her fucking life.
How would she survive like this for the rest of her life?
“Yes, please,” she finally winced, and Dronzal wrapped a tentacle around her neck, the pain lessening ever so slightly.
At least she could breathe again.
Lena sucked in recycled air, trying to take steady breaths and not inflame the agony further.
“When will we get to Henios?” she asked, numbness taking over where intense pain had been a moment ago.
“It will be a few hours. You should rest while you can. I am certain the station leaders will wish to speak with you when we arrive.”
Station management did, in fact, want to talk to her, a series of meetings which lasted hours even though all Lena did was repeat herself over and over again.
The pain relief from Dronzal had waned slowly, an unrelenting ache creeping back into her bones as she silently begged the cosmos to release her from this purgatory.
No, she hadn’t asked to be kidnapped. No, she didn’t know where Screl was or if he’d be returning to the space station. No, she didn’t want to press charges, even if he did.
The matter of the joining had been on the tip of her tongue, but she decided that wasn’t information they needed to know. At least not now, not when it would earn her more interrogations.
When they finally released her, she was greeted by Dronzal in the corridor, who apparently had undergone her own questioning.
“Are you going back to Botune?” Lena asked, shaking slightly as the pain in her chest returned in full force.
Dronzal shook her head.
“I will stay here per Commander Screl’s orders.”
Lena groaned, a mixture of pain and exasperation.
“Is he really trying to keep tabs on me?”
“He wants you to be safe.”
She rolled her eyes this time, stumbling slightly as she lost her balance. The pain was close to unbearable as Dronzal steadied her.
“Would you like me to take you to the med bay?” she asked, and Lena nodded, a knot tightening her throat and making it difficult to speak.
Before she knew what was happening, Dronzal had scooped her up, and though she should have been embarrassed, she felt nothing but gratitude for the Thren’s strength.
Unsurprisingly, the human doctor knew little of the physiology of Thren bonding, and after dozens of tests, he gave Lena a prescription for pain meds.
Hardly better care than what she’d get on Earth.
The medicine certainly dulled the pain, at least the physical kind, but a deep sense of resignation infiltrated every muscle, as if her body and mind had just… given up.
After an apathetic goodbye to Dronzal, Lena made her way to her room, finding it just as she’d left it, the sheets still jumbled from where Screl had pinned her to the bed.
She slumped onto the mattress, staring at the chrome ceiling, electricity pulsing through her though she wished she could just close her eyes and forget everything.
Even as the physical pain had waned, the sense of loss clenched her chest, tears threatening to restart at any second.
Screl had changed her irrevocably, and she hated him for that. She loathed him and yet felt no remorse about having met him.
A sick part of her wanted to get on Dronzal’s shuttle and hurry back, even if it was just to feel those arms around her once more, the tentacles brushing through her hair.
He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t care about you. He sent you on your way, and where is he now? If he cared, he would be here. If he loved you, he wouldn’t let you be in pain. He’s probably out finding new escorts to fuck, new people to bring to his bed now that you’re gone.
Stubborn tears refused to fall, but she felt them in her face and chest, tension raking across every inch of her skin.
The bottle of sleeping pills still sat on her side table where she’d left them, and she grabbed for it, dry swallowing double the proper dosage before curling up under the covers and trying to sleep.