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We stopped in the hallway, which seemed to become a habit of ours, and I placed my palm on his rock-hard chest. "Jokes aside, I need to know, would you have treated us any differently?"
"Silla."
I saw the pain reflected in his eyes and swallowed, not liking the answer, but I had asked for it, hadn't I?
He pulled me against his chest. "It has been like this since the beginning of time, the stronger species will conquer the weaker one."
I closed my eyes and leaned into his chest while tears ran down my face. Not because I was upset, but because I understood. It was the same way every race on Earth had evolved; the stronger had conquered the weaker. The Roman Empire had usurped most of Europe, and some of Asia and Africa. It had brought changes to the other countries, changes forged by tears and brutality, but it had also forced the weaker countries to build up defenses against the Roman Empire. It had forced technology forward while stepping over the backs of millions of corpses. It had been like this throughout history, I had just never stood on the receiving end, nor had anybody my age ever considered this kind of brutality unleashed on them. Things like that happened to others, or in the past. I remembered pages from my history books, "…and then the conqueror and the conquered lived in harmony." Now I smirked, realizing nothing could be further from the truth and wondered had the teachers and adults not sheltered us from the true brutality of war would we have pushed for stronger military? In the end though, I concluded not even the strongest militaryon Earth—and there had been a few—had been able to stop the Cryons.
"Are you alright?"
I nodded and wiped at the tears I didn't want him to see. This wasn't his fault. He was a warrior. I don't think he would ever understand what it meant to be conquered, he would probably rather die.
A noble notion, but not one that ran in my blood. Maybe it ran in Ashley's I mused, remembering the human lieutenant. She seemed bloodthirsty and crazy enough to die for a cause.
I figured I would rather just pick up the pieces and see what I could put back together. And with Garth's status we might be able to save as many humans as possible.
I pushed thoughts of others who weren't as lucky as me away, because there wasn't much I could do for them right now, but I swore I would do what I could to change that, even if it was only for a few.
Two guards were already stationed at the doors that slid to the sides at our approach and I was rendered speechless at the splendor inside.
The center of the large room was dominated by a beautiful, hexagon fountain, from which deep aqua water spewed into the air, giving off an exotic fragrance that somehow made me think of the greenand red flowers I had seen in the images of Garth's home planet. I had no idea what they smelled like, but for some reason, I imagined them to smell just like that.
To the right was a door leading into what humans called a powder room. To the left stood a large dining set, that would easily seat twelve people.
"We can always use one of the palace's dining rooms if we entertain more guests," Garth explained, having noticed where my eyes had traveled.
Straight ahead of us was a large, mounted screen above a fireplace and to the left and right of it doors led to a long balcony. In front of it stood a seating arrangement that could have easily sat twenty.
To the right was a small, secluded corner office similar to Garth's on theVyper.
I noticed another set of doors to my left and gave Garth a questioning look. He nodded for me to go ahead and explore.
The doors opened to a bedroom as large as my previous apartment with a bed similar to the one on his ship.
The wall across from the bed held a large picture of the same landscape of Garth's planet that I had admired before.
"Here, let me show you." He stepped up next to me, so close I could smell his amber scent. Our skinbarely brushed, but it brought shivers to mine and my clit pulsed in response.
"Like this." He demonstrated how to change the screen and to bring up a slew of small icons.
"This one is to change the image." He lightly tapped and a multitude of images appeared. Curious, I tapped on one showing an underwater scene and instantly the image changed to a moving one, so real I would have sworn I stood by a window staring into an aquarium, or on a submarine and staring into the depths of the ocean. Only the fish were of course very different from what I would have seen on Earth, just like the plants, slowly dancing in the current.
A wreck came into sight, but not of a boat—a spaceship—so real, I sucked in my breath.
Garth turned his head to smile at me. "You like this?"
Mutely I nodded, staring as the images kept changing, as if I was actually diving through the ocean.
"I'll put it on for you later. Let me show you this." He tapped again, back to one icon I recognized and had used before.
"If you want to watch a movie."
I had tried to before on theVyper, but the aliens made it too surreal for me. I hoped that one day I would be ableto relax and watch something of my choosing. Not yet though.
Garth had explained that the actors weren't real, but made from artificial intelligence. One only had to tell the computer what kind of movie they wanted to watch; let's say a princess who fell in love with a knight who rescued her from a dragon, but her father wouldn't let her marry a lowly knight. Even though the computer had no idea what a knight was, it recognized princess, and had created a movie just as I had asked for. Except the knight had worn the uniform of a soldier and the horse had been some kind of alien version of a horse. The dragon, though, had been pretty real. What made it even more surreal though was the holovid quality that projected the entirefilmas if it was taking place right in front of me. The dimensions could be changed from Barbie heights to real life.
Just as I had thought Daryus had been in the same room with me during Garth's and his holocomm, themovieplayed out in front of me and I wasn't brave enough to face a fire-breathing dragon, no matter if he was real or not.
