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I woke up sometime in the middle of the night, several days later. The men hadn’t moved me from the side of the bed and I yawned. I sat up and not a single one of them moved. My heart started to pound. This was it.
Now was my chance. I climbed out of bed slowly and still, my Vakarran captors remained asleep. I picked up my discarded clothes and pulled them back on my body.
My heart pounded in my chest and I tiptoed to the door. My fingers gripped the handle and I turned it. It squeaked just a tiny bit and I froze, the ensuing silence echoing loud in my ears. The beat of the blood pumping through my veins was the only thing that I heard for a good long few minutes.
Slowly, after no one moved, I got the courage to continue. It wasn’t locked like I thought it would be.
The door swung open and I carefully slipped out, but not before I looked back, studying my Vakarrans who had given me an entirely new view of their species.
I had assumed all Vakarrans were bad. Cruel and evil like the news had portrayed, but now, I knew I had been wrong. These four were different.
I wondered if a mistake in the Celestial Mates system had been made when it matched me to Prince Radock. Some sort of glitch that paired me with a monster willing to hurt my sister just to get me back. It had to be.
There was no way Prince Radock was my fated mate. Not when you compared him to my Vakarrans. It wasn’t even a comparison.
I turned away then, taking a deep breath and walking away from the best thing that had happened to me in my life. I focused on what was important. My sister’s life was at stake. My happiness needed to take a backseat if I was going to save her.
I wandered down the hall, toward the cargo bay where the ship was that was supposed to take me to Prince Radock. I retraced my steps back, remembering where I needed to turn left and then down the spiral metal staircase. Once I reached my destination, I looked around. There wasn’t too much down there except for my ship that was supposed to take me to Prince Radock from the Celestial Mates Dating Agency. They’d apparently unloaded a lot of product on their trip to the Underground.
I climbed inside, noticing the door was still open. I sat down in the pilot’s chair and powered the vessel on with the fairly obvious green button at the helm. I paused for a long moment before I figured out the controls and entered the coordinates of Xavier, the station where Radock would be waiting for me. I shivered and bit my lip, listening as the various security checks powered on, one by one. The door shut beside me and the ship rose o
ff the ground.
The automated craft flew slowly toward the rear of the cargo bay and it opened, and all at once, my ship darted out of the Vakarran vessel into space.
It soared through the stars. I hoped that my Vakarrans would stay asleep for some time. The computer system of my spaceship indicated I’d arrive at Xavier in an hour or less. I needed my captors not to pursue me for that amount of time. I needed to get to my sister. I needed to save her.
I settled back and watched as the light of the stars zipped past me. I closed my eyes and drifted to sleep, hoping that I’d be at my destination when I woke. There was nothing more to do now than to wait.
* * *
“Approaching Xavier. Requesting landing permission now,” a robotic feminine voice echoed, and I opened my eyes. I smiled and stretched. I’d made it safely. Outside the window was a big, circular-shaped space station. Pretty lights blinked on and off. I didn’t quite know the purpose of this place, but it didn’t concern me.
The only thing that mattered was protecting my sister from harm.
A metal door rose, and my ship piloted itself into the landing bays on Xavier. My craft flew to an empty space and slowly lowered to the ground. Once inside, my vessel powered down and the door beside me opened.
Outside my ship, Prince Radock was waiting for me. He must have been waiting for word of my arrival.
In person, his eyes were so dark they were almost black. His pointed horns were larger than I had imagined, twisted just like a bull’s. His cherry red skin was like burgundy colored leather, rough and scaly. Just the look in his eyes unnerved me. The evil nature within him was obvious, from the way he stood there to the way his lips rose in a smirk upon seeing me. I rose from the pilot’s chair and swallowed my nerves. I had to be brave. I had to be courageous.
My sister’s life depended on it.
“Mya,” he said, and the sound of his voice was like a bucket of icy water dumped right over my head. I tried to hide my shiver, but his smirk grew in size the moment after. He’d seen my revulsion.
“Prince Radock,” I greeted him, forcing myself to take his hand when he offered, helping me to climb from the ship to meet him. The temperature of his skin was blazing hot, but it only made me feel cold inside. I needed to accept him, but only until I could make sure my sister was safe and as far out of his reach as I could get her.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” he murmured, and I plastered a smile on my face.
“Likewise. Is Lea here with you?” I asked, getting to the point as quickly as I could.
The resulting grin on his face was terrifying.
“She’s up in my apartment, waiting for us. She’s very excited to see you,” he answered, leading me away from my ship and my only chance of escape. I took a deep breath and followed him without a fight. I had to see this through, no matter what it took.
Prince Radock was not a kind man. I knew just from our limited interactions that he was cruel, that he’d probably take me against my will. He looked like he wouldn’t hesitate to strike me, and I shivered. I’d never felt like that with my Vakarrans, even when I first met them.
We walked in silence, winding our way through a few hallways until we came upon a nondescript steel door. Radock placed his palm on the scanner beside the door and it slid open. He pushed me roughly inside, I stumbled, and he didn’t reach to steady me, like Talor or any of my Vakarrans would have. Instead, the only sound was the door sliding shut behind us. It was so loud in the echoing silence, it might as well have slammed shut.
