Series: Zandian Brides Series by Renee Rose
Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 57939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 290(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 290(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
The words sit between us and grow in the silence until they reverberate in my skull.
I have to make a choice.
I open my mouth. “I’m telling you everything I can.”
Chapter Eleven
Sia
After everything I tell Daven, I share how much I want to see my friends, and he rewards me with a visit.
I’m dying to see Flora and Katia alone for the first time since we’ve been brought to Zandia. I need to find out what they know and what they’ve said–or not said–to their masters.
But when I see my friends, those thoughts take second priority over hugging them.
I rush into Flora’s arms and grab Katia into the embrace. “Oh thank the stars, you’re all right!” We’re all laughing and crying.
“You look so good, both of you!” Flora grabs me and examines me, touches the gossamer gown. “So pretty. Your face especially is so light and happy. Oh, Sia.”
“Well.” I nod. “Daven, my, ah, master–he’s taking good care of me, I guess.” My face feels hot.
“Good care?” Her blue eyes widen. “Sia! Are you…have you…did you and he do the mate?”
“I think they did!” Katia points. “Look at how pink she’s getting.”
I laugh and blush further. “Well, it’s not called doing the mate. And not exactly. But he’s…” and I launch into a description of exactly what Daven has done. It’s a little weird to discuss it, but it’s also fun to have something so phenomenal to share. So different from the things we shared when we were lab animals for the Ocretions.
“Oh, Sia, that’s amazing.” I detect a touch of yearning in Katia’s tone. “My master is very cold. He’s so handsome, but he looks away from me all the time. He’s barely touched me once, and that was just to help me when I stumbled.” She forces a smile. “It’s still so much better than our old life, so I don’t even care. It’s not a problem. It’s completely fine. Really, I don’t care.”
“Oh, Katia. I’m sure he’ll eventually.…” Although who can be confident about that? “I hope, at least, that he does.”
She shrugs and looks away. “It’s fine.”
“How about you, Flora?” I ask, remembering how gruff her master seemed.
She shrugs. “Axe hates humans, so there hasn’t been any mating of any kind. Yet.”
“Yet?” I laugh at Flora’s smirk. “Do you want there to be?”
She shrugs. “He is quite fine. You know, muscles and smooth skin, and all that. And he wants me. He just hasn’t admitted to himself yet that he does.”
“Mmm, I can’t wait to hear how this develops.”
“But we have more important things to discuss than breeding,” Flora says.
Right. The thing we should have talked about first. Here I am, frivolously speaking of sex and attraction when there are far more pressing things that can affect us humans.
“Have you two,” I take a breath, “talked about, you know?” I tip my head. “The…chip.” My heart pounds, and I touch my head.
They both say no, immediately, on top of each other.
Flora shakes her head. “No. You know I never will. We can’t. I’m the one who made you swear not to.”
Katia agrees. “It’s too dangerous. You know what could happen.”
My voice is shaky with relief. “Good. Me neither. If the Ocretions ever find us, we could be fried, like Mandy. We need to be so careful.”
“Right,” Flora says.
“I know. Poor Mandy.” Katia frowns.
We all shudder, remembering. Mandy was a test subject too, and they practiced on her, making her crack, just to show us what they could do if someone disobeyed. When they pushed the master button on the auto remote to kill her chip–not just disable it but to destroy it–her whole body went still, then the light went out of her eyes. She fell to the floor, a little smoke coming from the soles of her feet, and they took her away. We never saw her again.
‘That,’ our master declared, ‘Is what we can and will do if we find out that you violated the silence protocol.’
“But I think here on Zandia, it’s safe. There’s really nowhere else in the galaxies we could be this safe,” I say.
“No.” Flora appears alarmed. “It’s not safe.”
“We’re so far away, though.” I tap my foot, over and over. “I remember hearing them talk about the technology. I know the remote activation can’t reach this many clicks away. We must be hundreds of thousands of clicks from them here.”
Katia purses her lips. “Are you sure?”
Flora grabs my arm. “We can’t be sure. What if they came in a craft looking, just trying to sync up with our chips wherever we are in the galaxy? And when they locate us, they upload all our info and then kill us?”
“It seems like a low chance,” I try to reassure her. “They’d have to actually land on the planet. And the Zandians would never allow that.”