Zern Read online

  ***

  The days passed by slowly until I was nearly ready to scream in boredom. The nurses did their best to keep me comfortable, and injected sedatives and muscle relaxers to ease the pain of my body.

  But no matter what they did, it didn’t ease the burden of my mind. Regan had asked me for help. She had bared her soul to me, made me vulnerable, and shared her body with mine. And yet, I had refused her. I wouldn’t even try.

  What kind of a horrible person was I to use her like that and then deny her the basic protections any real mate would want to offer the person they’d bonded with? Had I bonded with Regan? I knew that I wanted her safety above all else. I knew I wanted nothing to happen to her, and the idea of her beautiful body being defiled and her incredible spirit broken made me want to retch. I couldn’t live with myself knowing I had caused her harm and done nothing to fix it, but I was stuck. Wasn’t I?

  With another week at least left to lie in my bed, I began to consider the details of Regan’s plan of escape. She had wanted me to whisk her away by the dead of night and simply live with her on Earth, outside the Zones where I surely would be crucified at once upon sight. It seemed very risky.

  However, there were many troops who came back from Earth with rumors of camps that were full of pacifists; they were people who wanted nothing more than peace to be settled between the races. Humans and Verians lived life side by side, and advocated an end to the violence.

  It seemed unlikely that there was any substance to these rumors, but if they were true then it was, I had to admit, possible that I would be able to find one of these settlements and live there, peacefully, with Regan and our child for the rest of my days.

  But wouldn’t that mean becoming a traitor against my own people? If I wasn’t actively working to fight the humans and make the planet our own, wasn’t I destroying our cause with my inactivity? Would the Verian race be doomed to die out because of the horrific war tactics of the humans, and would I be condoning that by standing side by side with them on their planet?

  Then again, wasn’t living life on the planet Earth our end goal anyway? Why not just skip ahead a few steps? It would be nice to live on a planet where I could put my knowledge of botany to use and protect the woman I…

  I couldn’t bring myself to finish the thought. If it was truly feasible for us to live together on Earth, even if we couldn’t live on Helna. That was the easy part. The hardest part would be finding a way to abandon my post, regain the strength in my body, sneak Regan out of the prison, and commandeer a ship heading to Earth for my mate and child.

  The whole thought of it was giving me a headache.

  “Meal time, Yul!” my main nurse said lovingly. I couldn’t help but smile at her, at least on the inside, as my muscles were still giving me trouble. I was being fed as part of my physical therapy, and every bite was a laborious process. Every time my body felt a new pain, I couldn’t help but curse all humans for the state they’d allowed myself, and countless other Verian men, to come to. I was sure it was their fault, whether science proved the same or not, I had a feeling that it would come to light eventually. Perhaps when it did, a cure would be found, and full-bred Verian people would finally be able to populate the Earth.

  Still, it was the human-Verian hybrids that were the most impressive species of all. Part of me secretly wondered if this was a part of evolution’s plan: creating a perfect species. The hybrids were said to be highly intelligent, level-headed, and stronger than human and Verian combined. We only had knowledge of the hybrids up to toddler-age; however, but they were growing fast. My prison was solely responsible for the creation of the hybrid army getting ready to take over the planet Earth.

  And as proud as that made me, I still couldn’t reconcile the idea of banishing Regan to the breeding program. If it was true, and she was carrying my child, I would just have to rescue her. We would make a life together on Earth, for better or for worse. I would claim her as mine, and say goodbye to my planet once and for all.

  ***

  I had been in my miserable state for about seven long days, and still no sign of improvement. I sighed, furious with myself for believing that it would all be okay in a week, that Regan truly had become impregnated with my child and that the bond I shared with the child would empower me enough to break through the disease.

  Nobody could tell why I had become so glum that I refused meals, and soon there were specialists at my side, doctors for all kinds of purposes, both mental and physical. But still, I could not speak. Even if I could, I wouldn’t feel prone to tell them of my disappointments. If I was going to be stuck on Helna and suffer the thought of Regan being forced into the breeding program, then at the very least I would stay on my planet with my dignity intact. As much of it as I could muster in the current state, at any rate.

  I fell asleep in a dark funk once all of the poking and prodding had been finished, and woke up late in the night, thirstier than I had felt for months.

  I got up from the bed and walked through the hallways in a half-sleeping daze before I realized that I was walking. I could move.

  I rush of joy electrified me, and I ran from the hospital, still in my gown, all the way to the prison. It was sleeping time, and I ignored all of the Pelin guards who wanted to stop me for the latest gossip about my condition. I didn’t stop running until I reached the solitary units where I had last seen Regan.

  “I’m back! I’ll do it!” I exclaimed, just as I reached her cell. But when I looked inside, I had the distinct sensation of my lungs being crushed and all of the breath rushing out from within me. Regan was gone.

  My mind raced in fear as I considered all of the possibilities. She could have been taken back to Ward B. Without hesitating, I ran down the long corridors until I reached the quiet ward, and peered deep inside of Cell 3, where Regan had been placed originally. Nobody was inside. They had apparently all been assigned to their breeding partners.

  I grunted in dismay, doing my best to maintain my composure. If I let my emotions get carried away, then I would be able to do nothing to help Regan.

  “Yul! Should you be out of bed?”

  Narei approached me cautiously, and I stared at him wildly, searching my brain for the proper response. All I could think about was Regan.

  “I’m fine, Narei, I’m fine. Thank you.”

  Narei narrowed his eyes at me. It was rare that I called anybody by their first name without the proper suffix.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “The Pelin came into my quarters and woke me up. Said you were in the prison running around like a crazy person. I thought the disease was going to take you…”

  “Well, it didn’t. You should know me better than that by now,” I said, trying my best to smile at the young man. He nodded, relief on his face. “Do you know what happened to the females? Where have they gone?”

  “Well, most of them have been assigned. Today is…well, it’s mating day. The females down the hall are in the nursing ward. They’re all with child now. The rest are attempting to be fertilized as we speak.”

  “Most of them?” I asked. I knew Regan was the exception to the rule, but I wasn’t sure if I should let it be known that she was my primary concern. It might be better to simply allow the information to come to me naturally without inquiring as to her specific whereabouts. At least not until I was desperate.

  “Well, the girl in solitary has been gone for a few days already. There was interest in her from the lab. You know Karan…”

  That krocha! I knew that he would go after her the second he had the chance. Who knew what kind of horrific things he was doing to her?

  “Of course,” I said with a good-natured laugh, though on the inside I was seething.

  “It’s good to see you up and walking around, Yul Volaire,” Narei said smiling at me. “I’m going to go back to bed now. Those Pelin just can’t seem to mind their own business.”

  “No, they really don’t,” I said, laughing despite my irritation. Still, it
worked out for the best. If the Pelin hadn’t gotten involved, I would never have figured out where Regan had ended up.

  I waited until Narei was out of sight before I ran to my office and pulled out my spare uniform. At least she was still on the grounds as opposed to being utilized by Verian men who cared nothing for her. The idea filled me with a deep rage, and I wanted to burst into the lab right that second, in my hospital gown and everything.

  But that wouldn’t get me very far when it came to clearance at the lab. No, I was going to have to do this the smart way. If the Doyan knew that Karan had abducted a perfectly good female, suited to breeding, and utilized her for his own purposes, he could lose his position. It was treason in one of the highest forms. At least I would have leverage with him if worst came to worst.

  Still, I remembered the colorful bruises left on the females put in his care for too long, and another bout of fury began to rise in me. But I quelled it quickly. Instead of getting upset about it, I was just going to have to go to the lab and get her myself.

  Chapter 9

  Regan Lawrence

  “Now then, Yula, are you going to tell me how you got into this state?”

  I stared at Karan in a mixture of defiance and fear. Apparently, he had just gotten my test results back. It wouldn’t do him much good to try to experiment on creating his own hybrid if my womb was already occupied. Thank the stars for that much.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I finally said when it was clear that he wasn’t going to continue speaking.

  “You are with child. How did that happen?”

  “I must have gotten pregnant on Earth.”

  “What a waste!” Karan exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. He was angry, for sure, and I became very afraid. Everything he had been doing to me for the past few days had left bruises on my flesh, and I was sure he got some kind of sick pleasure out of hurting me. I was no different than a little bug being ripped apart by cruel children. We weren’t any different.

  “This is an outrage!” Karan said again, pushing his goggles back onto his face and glaring at me through them. I shuddered in revulsion. When I thought of the horrible Verian race on Earth, this man was more along the lines of what I pictured. Cruel, cold, and heartless, with steel eyes and an ego the size of his planet.

  “My body has nothing to do with you,” I reminded him, regretting the words as soon as they were out of my mouth.

  Karan growled out loud in frustration, lunging toward me with a scalpel.

  “Stop!” I cried as he pushed the hospital gown up off of my stomach. It had swollen to a small bump since Zaine had disappeared from the ward. There had been rumors that he was on death’s door. If all I had left of him was my child, then I would do anything to protect it with my life.

  “I can rid you of this menace,” Karan exclaimed, his face frighteningly sadistic. “I will destroy the life that isn’t meant to exist within you. That way the rest of my plan will go on unimpeded.”

  I swallowed hard, squirming away from his touch. Everything that happened in this lab had been cold, sterile, and invasive. My whole body felt like it was black and blue from this man’s cruelty alone. I had no idea what he was trying to learn from me, but for the most part, all I really knew was that he had some bizarre drive to claim me as his own and destroy the life I had made with Zaine so that he could replace it with his own spawn. The man was a lunatic.

  “Please,” I begged, my voice barely above a whisper. “It’s innocent.”

  “But you’re not,” Karan said. “You have life within you that does not belong here, and I am going to do my duty to eradicate it.”

  I cried out as the scalpel began to pierce my flesh.

  “You best drop that right now, Karan.”

  My heart leaped in a combination of joy and disbelief when the strong, masculine sound of Zaine’s voice filled the air. Karan and I exchanged disbelieving looks before Karan was shoved away from me. He landed hard with a clatter against the wheeled shelf of instruments he had beside us, and Zaine stepped into view, his handsome face creased with concern.

  “Yula…”

  But before he had the chance to come toward me, Karan was already retaliating, showing an impressive amount of gusto for a man as small and sickly-seeming as he was.

  But Zaine was beyond prepared for this, and stopped him with a quick shove backward. Karan flew into the shelves against the back wall, his face creased in pain.

  “What are you doing here?” Karan gasped, struggling to get up from the floor and salvage the broken instruments surrounding him. “Get out of here at once! Security!”

  “They aren’t going to do any good,” Zaine cautioned. But Karan didn’t care, and soon, two big burly Verians strode into the room and took one look at the situation before they advanced upon Zaine.

  It was shocking how quickly he moved, and one of the security guards was already bleeding on the floor by the time the second had reached Karan and helped him to his feet. Zaine glared at the men, and the security guard stepped in front of Karan protectively.

  Zaine growled in fury and charged at them, throwing a lightning fast punch that knocked the brawny man backward against Karan.

  “Leave this female alone! I am reporting you to the Doyan for treason!”

  “Nonsense,” Karan laughed, despite the blood dripping from his mouth. He struggled to get out from under the limp body of his security guard and failed. “This female is already with child. There is no harm in examining her for the good of the people.”

  Zaine shook his head and came toward me, and I couldn’t help but swoon at the sight of him. It was almost too good to be true. I would have gotten up to greet him if I hadn’t been injected with more drugs than I could count. I could barely move.

  Zaine seemed to anticipate this though, and lifted me with ease against his broad chest.

  “Are you sure you should be doing this?” I asked. “You were just…”

  I trailed off, unable to finish my sentence. He had just been on the verge of death. It seemed impossible to admit that I had almost believed that I would never see him again.

  “I’ll be fine,” Zaine assured me, smiling soothingly. I allowed myself to relax against him as he moved forward, carrying me through the lab and out into the cool night air.

  “Where are we going?” I asked suddenly. “I don’t want to go back to prison. Please…”

  “We aren’t going to go back to the prison,” Zaine said with a heavy sigh. “I’ve realized how foolish it was of me to think that you should just live your life out here as part of the breeding program. I can’t allow it. I love you.”

  I was shocked to hear the words from him. Zaine, who seemed to have so much trouble speaking about his emotions. The Verians, who were cold and calculating to the point of seeming almost emotionless. The word love coming from his lips seemed foreign and unnatural. And yet, it also seemed right.

  “Then what are we doing?” I asked, not fully allowing myself to believe that he was simply going to whisk me away right that moment. There had to be some kind of plan. Unless the illness had simply ruined his ability to function mentally. Had he had some type of breakdown?

  “I’m going to get you out of here,” Zaine said. “I should never have allowed you to be here for so long. I will make it up to you though. I am a man of my word.”

  “Zaine…”

  But he was done speaking, and we walked through the cold desert night until we reached the loading docks, where the ship we had been abducted in was resting peacefully.

  “Are you sure about this, Zaine?” I asked, my heart palpitating with a mixture of excitement and fear. “Won’t they come after us?”

  “They might come after the ship, sure,” Zaine said, sitting me down in the seat beside the command center and taking the commander’s seat himself. “But they don’t have the resources for a manhunt. It’s just not that important to them anyway.”

  “Are you sure?” I was having
a hard time taking all of this in. It was happening so fast.

  “Trust me,” Zaine said, flashing a broad smile at me and powering up the engine of the craft. “If anything, they’re going to talk about how I had a psychotic break after regaining the strength to stand and abducted a female from the lab. They will probably consider both of us to be lost causes.”

  “But where will we live?” I stammered. “Earth is so…unforgiving. Are you sure it’s where you want to be?”

  “I want to be where you are,” Zaine said. “And we can’t stay on Helna much longer. It just isn’t practical. The resources are dwindling, and you will constantly be expected to submit to breeding. And I won’t have my children utilized in a war where they will be raised to believe that they are simple casualties.”

  “So…we’re going to Earth,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

  Zaine turned his silver eyes onto me, and I saw that, for the first time since I had met him, he looked sincerely happy.

  “We are going to Earth, Yula.”

  ***

  The trip back to Earth was surreal and went by much more quickly now that I was no longer locked up in a cell. I had spent the past few months of my life as a prisoner, and once the drugs in my system wore off, I occupied my time by walking slowly throughout the ship as Zaine navigated us through space. It all seemed too difficult to believe. I half expected to wake up at any moment and realize that all of this had just been a very good dream to cope with the loss of Zaine and my home planet.

  But after about a night and a half of travel, Zaine’s masculine voice cut through the silence.

  “We will soon be arriving on Earth,” he said. “But remember, it is dangerous here, particularly when landing. We must remain calm no matter what happens. Understood?”

  I nodded, only half registering the weight of Zaine’s words. The humans were very on top of things, sure, but it was unlikely that we would be capable of stopping every single ship that wanted to enter into our atmosphere. It just didn’t seem possible that we would run into that kind of issue if we weren’t trying to fire.