AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It means I’m a wuss. A complete coward.” I blinked fast, glancing through the window in time to see the ship darting through the hole in the top of the dome. We approached a broad, light blue landmass that didn’t appear to be water. Only a few low hills broke the endless, smooth surface.
“You do not need to be brave.” Adone pressed a fist to his chest. “I will be brave for both of us.”
That was sweet of him, but they said I had to compete, or I’d die. I dug deep inside me for that wisp of courage I’d tapped when I escaped the compound.
“I’ll try not to let you down,” I said.
“You will not.”
He couldn’t know that. He didn’t know me. “It took eight years for me to get up the nerve to run, years spent hiding in the library, wearing my hair like the younger girls did, and hunching forward to hide my growing breasts.”
“Why did you need to hide?”
“If someone realized I was old enough to marry, they’d match me with whoever they pleased. My parents wouldn’t fight them; they’d gift me to him.”
He growled. “Once we have completed the game, I will travel to this Eerth and kill them for you.”
My laugh snorted out, but I sobered as our ship slowed. We’d land, and what would happen after that? I doubted we could hide in the ship. Curling my shoulders forward and talking in a little girl voice was not going to save me from this.
“Why are you being nice to me?” I asked. “I’m surprised you don’t want to kill me yourself. Just get me out of your hair.”
Touching his head, he huffed. “Never.”
“Other than in romance novels, I thought aliens were mean and did horrible things to human captives.” That’s what I’d read, though not from the books in the library. Those were strictly controlled and boring. No, the alien romances I read were snuck in by some of the brave women in the commune. We passed them around in secret.
“I will never be mean,” he said.
I tilted my head. “Why?”
“Because I was stolen when I was a sprit and tortured. I know what it is like to have someone bigger than you causing you pain. I could never do that.”
His words hit me like heavy weights. My heart pinched tight. “Sprit means child?” I said in a deadened voice.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We both have much to forget, do we not?”
“We do.”
He held out his hand. “Then let us start from here? I am Adone.”
Liking how he was handling this; I placed my hand in his much bigger one. It dwarfed mine. It wasn’t hard to smile, not with Adone. “I’m Summer. Nice to meet you.”
“This day is the beginning of us.”
Us? We’d see. I wasn’t committing to anything yet.
The ship jarred when it hit the surface of the planet, and when it came to a complete stop, the hatch opened. Hot, dry air poured in.
An arrow shot through the opening, impaling itself in the side of the hull by my head.
