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That, and the amusement that Kaelum, my spoiled hybrid half-brother, had taken away something Crux wanted for himself. It had been the finest gift any member of my family had ever given me.
Finally, I followed him out to look over the humans.
They were not much worse for wear after the healer had seen to them, despite weeks of space travel and an attack by the Zathki. It was my experience that while soft and breakable, humans had something many Thorzi lacked: they were adaptable, and somehow thrived under even the harshest of conditions.
Crux had let me help bring them aboard, but he hadn’t allowed me around them during the trip. Probably afraid that I would take to them, and perhaps impregnate one. For my part, I could have imagined nothing less appealing. They had been miserable and frightened when they’d first been taken, and even more so after the Zathki attack.
What kind of pitiful bully tormented an already frightened people? Forced his attention on them?
As though to answer my question, Crux sneered at the tallest of the lot, dressed in red and looking ready for battle.
“Not so ready to fight now, are you?” he asked, his lip curled up.
I thought perhaps she would leap at him, as she bared her teeth like an angry zintar, dull though they might be. It would be a mistake to underestimate that one, I thought, and Crux had already done it.
The little sobbing yellow haired one was cowed, but that one? She was a danger.
I glanced around the others, taking in the threat level.
Crux had dismissed the possibility that they might pose any risk, no doubt. He saw only soft, curved skin and small stature, and he forgot that our ancestors had once thought the aleri flower beautiful, before it had eaten the first of us. He forgot me, standing by his side, who could gut him with ease.
Who sometimes thought that if I truly loved my people, I would do it.
My eyes met bright green ones, watching me with curiosity. The first human Crux had taken this time, with long blond hair, falling across his face in a curtain. At least, I thought “he” was correct. Human pronouns were confusing. They did not have warriors, they had “he”s and “she”s and “they”s, and it seemed that any of them could be the human equivalent of a warrior.
I did not think this small, delicate creature was that. He reminded me minutely of my mo—of the queen, with his wide eyes and the way he hunched in on himself to look smaller. That was where the resemblance ended, however. Though his hair was as light as hers, it was less white and more the absolute gold of Lyr’s own rays.
He didn’t need the sacred light of Lyr to burn his skin; it had already marked him as its own, with hair that shone so bright under the artificial lights of the antechamber.
Crux was hissing out threats and demands and whatever nonsense Crux was always on about, but suddenly, I didn’t hear it. All I could hear was the heartbeat of a single human, see those crystalline green eyes, that shining gold hair, and those lush pink lips.
For the first time since I had realized that nothing would ever earn me Crux’s love, or even respect, I felt the strangest stirring in my gut. Looking at this tiny golden human, I found that I... wanted.
I wanted something for myself.
CHAPTER3
BEAU
Ree had stepped in front of all of us, and she was pissed the fuck off.
Wasn’t like she didn’t have reason. One of the new guys—slightly smaller, but even those smaller alien dudes still made up a big wall of muscle—had taken Lucas away. He’d seemed nice enough at first—saving us and all, making sure we were taken care of by their doctor and given interpreter implants if we wanted them—but then he’d claimed Lucas like he was some sort of prize to be won in battle.
On that first ship, there’d been talk of labs, and now that we were on the planet, we were terrified they were going to split us up further. Isolate us and run experiments and... fuck a duck, I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted a nap. Maybe to sleep until this was all over.
So far, on the first ship, we’d all been stuffed in the same room. On the second, the new guys had been happy to let us hang out where we wanted, which ended up being together, huddled in a single room of our own volition, every bit as scared as we’d been before, because, well, we could’ve died in an extraterrestrial space battle.
Seemed like a good enough reason for us to curl up in the fetal position and kiss our asses goodbye.
Now, we’d been taken on a floating stone disk from the ship’s landing pad. We flew over treetops that sported green leaves, but also ones that were blue and yellow, and down the side of a cliff, across structures that looked surprisingly like a city, and down some more. Out. Over. With nothing to keep us from leaning out over the edge of the disk and plummeting to our deaths except good old common sense and the aliens watching our every move.
The stone disk took us to a metal structure held apart from the rest of the city, where I couldn’t help feeling we’d be just as isolated as we’d been in a metal bucket flying past the stars. At least the air here was breathable? Could’ve been worse.
The new metal building was reminiscent of their ships, and when the aliens led us inside, everything was shiny and silver and sterile in a way that the outdoors weren’t. The city we’d flown over had looked like it was carved out of a cliff face, all built up of stone. If you’d have asked me, I’d say all that out there was a jungle, a society built up within it.
Here, it was like the frigid set of a space opera, designed entirely to leech out any color and make damn sure we knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore.
This was the lab.
