Zern Read online

  ***

  When I woke up the next morning, I was freezing cold. I realized that I’d fallen asleep still naked, with Zaine’s seed still inside of me. It was an embarrassing realization, and I had the sudden fear that, against all odds, I was pregnant.

  But that would be impossible. There would be many things that might lead to a pregnancy by a Verian man, and one ill-planned fling would not be enough for me to bear Zaine’s child, whether it was what we wanted or not. No, there was no way I was pregnant. Not like this.

  The day continued on, drab and slow, until I heard a huge commotion deep within the prison. The others were back, though where they had gone, I couldn’t guess. It had been silent the night before when Zaine had shared my bed, but now I could imagine the disdained expression on his face as the cells were once again filled up with the clamoring humans in Ward B.

  It was a while before meal time, and I figured that was probably a good thing. If Zaine was going to serve me, I would have to figure out just how I was going to respond to him. I simply couldn’t bring myself to love a Verian man. Not after it was the Verians who had been responsible for the death of the man I had wanted to marry in the first place. None of this would have been happening if not for them. Logically, I should hate every single bone in their bodies. I should definitely not be sleeping with and fantasizing about them. Definitely not.

  I stood in the cell and walked to the little shower area in the corner. It was nearly impossible to reach the showers and toilets in the cell with the other women, and by the time you got there, you wished you hadn’t. Here, though, I had all of the water I needed to myself, and showered in peace, washing away all evidence of my tryst with Zaine. I simply should not allow my feelings to develop any further. I wouldn’t be able to tolerate it.

  I swallowed hard as I washed myself, letting my hand drop experimentally on my belly. It was a little more swollen than I remembered it, but there was also the possibility that I was simply feeling paranoid after the night before. It was common knowledge that sex could lead to pregnancy, even sex with Verian men.

  But these types of pregnancies often led to complications. Many women who had been raped on Earth by various savage Verian warriors had found themselves with child, and were left with a whole slew of complications. Most of the women died, and if they didn’t, the children they bore did. What was going to happen to me?

  “Yula, it is meal time.”

  I froze in embarrassment and dread at the sound of Zaine’s voice, and ventured out of the shower. There were no towels to speak of (in orientation, they had referred to them as vectors of disease), so I was left wet and naked in front of Zaine as he let himself into the cell and sat the plate down on the small table beside my bed.

  “Zaine,” I whispered, walking toward my cot, feeling far more embarrassed than I would have if we hadn’t just had sex the night before. “What will happen to me if I get pregnant?”

  Zaine pretended not to hear me and refused to look me in the eye. “Today is a specialty, reserved for the return of women after their check in with the lab. Even my kind are not so cruel as to allow despair to fester in the hearts of humanity for long.”

  “I don’t care about the food!” I exclaimed. “I need to know what’s going to happen to me. I’m worried.”

  Zaine turned to me, his eyebrows drawn in anger.

  “We cannot speak of such things here,” he hissed. “We are not alone in this building, do you understand? There is nothing good that will come of your lack of self-control; don’t you see that yet? If you cannot follow my lead, then you are going to have to deal with all of this on your own. I can assign you a different guard.”

  “No!” I shouted, surprising us both. “I don’t want a different guard. I just…I’m scared.”

  “Yula,” Zaine said, sitting heavily on the bed and sighing. “I can’t change what is to happen to you. Your fate was sealed the moment you left your Zone and you were caught. I wish there was more I could do, but I simply don’t have the means.”

  “You could help me escape,” I said suddenly. “You could get me back to Earth.”

  “And then what?” Zaine asked, his eyes hard. “Leave you there and return to my life here as if it never happened? As if we…”

  He cut himself off and cursed in his native tongue, and despite myself, I felt my heart melting. So he did care about me? All of this was just far too confusing.

  “This isn’t just some campy little Earth tale. There are ways we just need to live at this point. Nowhere is safe. Nowhere is there a sanctuary that would offer refuge to people like us.”

  I grimaced. “What about Earth?”

  Zaine scoffed and shook his head. “Oh, human. Earth would have us executed for showing our faces.”

  “Not everywhere,” I said. “Just in the Zones. What if we made our own Zones! Lived in peace there together…raised a family…”

  The words sounded hollow coming out of my mouth. Neither of us believed it was possible. but the idea of going back home was just too tempting.

  “It is true that Earth offers abundant resources. With Verian technology in place, it would be the most suitable habitat for our people. We could enrich the soil, rebuild the planet back to its natural glory. Humans were far too careless with Earth and let it fall to ruin. Or nearly. It is so unlike the planet Helna, where resources were simply depleted because of natural disasters…droughts…floods; we didn’t put ourselves in this position. But humans did.”

  “You can change it?” I asked, puzzled. “If it would work on Earth, why wouldn’t it work on Helna?”

  Zaine sighed. “Earth is different. Helna is made almost purely of rock. Once the soil was depleted of nutrients and washed away by the floods, that was that. Only a few natural wonders are left on the planet, but the Verians can make a small clump of fertile soil feed an army of men.”

  “So no matter where we went on Earth, you could take care of us?” I asked, hope once again rekindled in my breast.”

  “You do not understand me, human,” Zaine exclaimed. “There is nothing I can do for you. We are bound and stuck here. This is my place. And now it is yours as well.”

  Zaine stood up and glared at me, and I felt suddenly foolish for allowing myself to get caught up in such a fanciful daydream.

  “Whether it is our place or not,” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice even. “What will happen to our child?”

  “If you are pregnant, I will know it within a week,” Zaine said quietly. “And we will deal with the issue at hand then. Until then, you will say nothing about it to anybody, even to yourself. Do not utter a word. There is no telling when there may be eyes and ears who may overhear your concerns. If that happens, then there is absolutely nothing that we can do about it. So for the love of Mai, keep your mouth shut. Is that clear?”

  I swallowed hard, a hard lump forming in my throat. Of course, Zaine wouldn’t help me to escape from the prison. He had brought me here himself. Whether I bore his child or not, I was still just another human, and he was still just another Verian, and we were still stuck in this hopeless timeline where the war between our people was still raging and would not cease until one side or the other was completely wiped out. I had to accept that.

  “I won’t say anything,” I promised, unable to look Zaine in the eye. He sighed, and I was suddenly being held close to his body in a tight, comforting embrace.

  “Enjoy your meal, Yula. And dine well. You may be eating for two now.”

  And with that, he disappeared from the cell, leaving me alone with nothing but the food on my plate and the potential of his child inside of me.

  ***

  That night, I lay on my cot wondering what Daniel would think of the mess I had gotten myself into. Would he understand that I had simply done it for the sake of desperate loneliness? For a longing to be close to someone who seemed to care about me? Would he forgive me?

  More importantly, would I be able to forgive myself for this unprecedented
weakness toward the enemies of the human race? Zaine and his people would stop at nothing to make humankind grovel before them and beg for mercy. If they had their way, the only people left would be the Verian race. What good did it do me to allow myself to be drawn into these small moments of warmth between myself and Zaine when they were clearly meaningless in the grand scheme of things?

  We were, quite literally, from two different worlds. We would never really understand each other. Neither of us would bend to the ways of the other. Didn’t that mean that the whole relationship was doomed from the start? Why had I been so weak?

  That weakness was going to be inexplicably damning. Once Zaine lost interest, I would probably be the first to go. Who knew what they would do to me? And what would happen to the child that might be growing inside of me as a result of our ill-planned tryst? Just because I liked the guy didn’t mean I was willing to be killed to safely birth his spawn into the world. And what would they do with my child even if it survived? It would be used to colonize and control its own people. I just couldn’t fathom it. It seemed so horribly wrong.

  All I really knew was that I had betrayed my kind for a fling with a man who was likely to lose interest with me. A man who, although powerful and commanding, refused to use his advantage to give me the one thing I truly needed: an escape.

  It would be too much of a sacrifice for him to risk his own hide to let me be free again. There really wasn’t a point in asking someone like Zaine, whose entire life was dedicated to imprisoning women and creating some kind of weird Verian servants out of them, to help aid in my freedom. Freedom just wasn’t the kind of thing captured women from Earth were fated for, and I was just going to have to allow myself to accept that.

  Frankly, after Daniel had died, I could bring myself to accept the idea of becoming a slave to the people who had killed him. After all, it had been all my fault that he’d been on that shuttle to begin with. It had been doomed from the start. I deserved whatever horrible things I had coming to me.

  What I was having a hard time wrapping my head around was the fate of my potential child. Sure, I couldn’t know for sure that I was pregnant. Not yet. But if I was, and I could rely on my intuition to be truthful, then there was something in me that was already fiercely protective of the baby growing within me. I wanted to make sure it had a loving home to grow up in; I didn’t want it to be raised with hundreds of other Verian-human hybrids who may or may not be loved. I had gathered enough evidence by now to believe that most of the humans were captive for breeding purposes. It was a thought that had been on my mind from day one.

  Now, I had to wonder. Had Zaine slept with me because it was what he wanted to do out of his own feelings for me, or was he simply hoping to breed?

  I had far more questions than answers, and the future was looking bleak. I couldn’t simply lie down and take the horrible fate that was being dished out to me. Not if there was an innocent child involved in all of this. My child. I would just have to find a way to figure out up from down so that, no matter what happened, my baby would have the best chance at life possible.

  Whether that meant leaving Zaine and the planet Helna or not.

  Chapter 8

  Zaine Volaire

  I walked away from Regan’s cell, hoping not to betray how badly I was shaking. I had done something unpardonably stupid. I had emptied my seed inside of this human at the risk of impregnating her. Not only that, but I had broken one of the sternest rules of them all: do not develop feelings for the enemy. What kind of a man was I? I was nothing but a hypocrite and a traitor.

  “Yul Volaire, do you think Gretchai and I can take our breaks early today?”

  I was torn out of my thoughts by the young Narei, who had been the only man I had entrusted with feeding Regan while she was in the infirmary. Now the sight of him made me sick to my stomach. I was a traitor. What right did I have to issue him commands of any kind?

  In fact, I had scoffed at his relationship with Gretchai, a sweet, simple, and, more importantly, legal relationship. They had blossomed over the course of the week and had become fast friends. It looked as if they had found a mate in each other immediately. Only their union would never be biologically blessed. Narei’s seed would be used to further the Verian agenda, and they would soon have children being born and bred to take over Earth. That was the harsh reality.

  “Of course, Yul Yokan, take your time,” I said dismissively, walking briskly toward the safety of my office. It would be nice to be alone for a few moments without either Narei or Gretchai to interrupt my thought process.

  “Really? Thank you!”

  I didn’t acknowledge Narei after the exchange, and he jogged down the hall calling for Yul Rebof. It felt nice being able to do something kind for a change. It wasn’t underhanded and secret, like my dealings with Regan. Regan, whom I knew might be carrying my child right that moment.

  Before I reached the door to my office though, something strange happened. My arm became frozen. I cried out in anguish as I attempted to move my body forward, but pain filled every inch of me.

  “Yul Volaire!”

  Suddenly Narei was by my side, holding me up and yelling for help. I growled in pain as I tried to stand myself up, but every attempt was futile and sent jolts of agony throughout my body.

  Suddenly, about twelve little Pelin men were beneath me, lifting me above their heads with the same ease and poise that they carried the plates during the prison meal times. I tried to shout out in protest, beg to be left to my own devices, but before the words could escape my lips, the pain became too much for me, and I blacked out.

  ***

  “Yul Volaire, can you hear me?”

  I struggled to open my eyes, and they focused blearily on the visage of Doyan Vera.

  “Can you speak?”

  I attempted to do as she wished and grunted in pain. My body was paralyzed, and Vera turned to face Karan, whose scientific curiosity far overrode his concern for my safety.

  “I am of the opinion that Yul Volaire is suffering acute symptoms of the mystery disease,” Karan said. “Have you been noticing more weakness in your limbs as of late, Yul?”

  I glared at Karan but managed to nod through the pain. Karan’s eyes lit up.

  “It’s just as I thought,” he said to the Doyan. To me, “Would you say that you have been under an excessive amount of stress lately?”

  Well, I would say so, I thought bitterly. Ever since Regan had come into my life, every day had been a new test in stress.

  I nodded simply, thoughts of Regan causing my entire body to tense up in another painful spasm.

  “Ah, see! Even the mention of stress exacerbates the symptoms!”

  The Doyan nodded. “Intriguing. How long does it usually last? We need him back on the grounds. The females are getting ready for breeding.”

  “Well, it doesn’t happen often on Helna. Usually just to troops on the grounds. The more stress they are under, the worse the symptoms get. But they go back to the typicals – weakness, dizziness, shortness of breath – once their bodies have been rid of the source of stress. That, or…”

  “Or?” Doyan Vera asked impatiently.

  “Well, they would have to have spawned a child to regain their strength. The connection with the child is a unique bond, as you well know. He would be in much better shape than he had been before the illness struck the planet.”

  “But Zaine hasn’t bred,” the Doyan said Or they simply don’t,” Karan said, his gleeful eyes glittering upon me as if my disease was somehow a gift to the scientific community. It made me want to sit up and strangle him. And I would have, if I’d had the strength.

  “What do you mean, they don’t?” Vera asked, narrowing her eyes at Karan. “We need Zaine to keep the breeding grounds safe. You know how important it is for the females to be under constant guard by a capable man. We are running low! All the hybrids are still infants at this point!”

  “Yes,” Karan said, delight dripping from his voice. �
�Very strong infants too, I might add. You’d be amazed at how-”

  “I’m sure,” Vera said, cutting him off coldly. “But Zaine is the only man capable of running the prison. If we lose him, then…”

  “No fear, Doyan. There was a breakthrough recently. We can treat Yul Volaire for the stressful symptoms he has been dealing with, of course, but the breakthrough really involves a more in-depth observation of his life. Personal details and such. By eradicating the source of stress for good, we can be sure to help him recover much more quickly.”

  A grunt of rage escaped my lips as my body experienced another excruciating contraction, and the Doyan exchanged worried looks with Karan, who seemed more bothered by the fact that he had been interrupted. I knew what he wanted. He wanted to get his hands on Regan. To find out where she had been stashed and take her in as one of his off-the-books human test subjects. I couldn’t let that happen. I needed my strength to return to me.

  But the only way that would happen was if, as Regan had suspected, she truly was pregnant with my child. And it would be far too long before I found out whether that was the case or not.

  Doyan Vera and Karan stayed in the room a little longer before they were ushered out by an elderly Verian nurse. I was relieved to be rid of their voices, and did my best to move to greet the woman who had been sent to care for me.

  “Peace to you, Yul Volaire. You will only injure yourself further by being rash. Please, don’t think it a crime to take the time you need to heal. We all need it sometimes.”

  I wished I could answer her, but my voice was caught in my throat. Every muscle in my body was tense. This was beyond nightmarish. I wanted out. I needed to see Regan.

  But the harder I tried to move, the worse the pain became, until I finally had no choice but to surrender to the healer’s words and lay back against the bed. For now, I was useless. Motionless. Alone. And I had no idea how much longer this would last.