Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
And just like that a single phrase I thought I knew the meaning of all my life changes.
When she arrives, she will change everything.
I always thought the Mina meant my mate would change everything for me. But now, I begin to wonder if she meant my mate, her planet, her kind, could change everything for Hallalah.
TWELVE
“Vabila?” I inquire, careful to say the woman’s name the way I heard Bothaki say it. Everyone else we meet on the way to the bathing hall greets her as Mina.
A few paces ahead of me, she glances back and smiles indulgently at my call of her name but never breaks in stride. “Yes?”
She’s a good head taller than me, but compared to the gray-skinned males who mill about the ship, her stature is smaller than theirs. Unlike her brothers with black markings that highlight their arms and chest, hers are a more delicate version focused on her arms and shoulders. Instead of disappearing down her smock, the markings continue up her nape into her hairline. Going around like Bothaki’s does as if to shape a crown. I can’t get over—or past—the way every male she passes tips his chin down in greeting to her, murmuring mina under their breath whether she acknowledges them back or not. The actions, expectations, are done with respect and reverence each and every time.
And then, each one smiles kindly as they pass me.
“Selina, what is it?”
All at once, Vabila’s walk comes to a stop in the long corridor with ceilings so tall I have to tilt my head all the way back to appreciate the illuminated mirrored panels overhead. I, too, stop, trying to absorb the sudden change in scenery and my circumstance, never mind what it all means.
I don’t know how to say I need a moment. A single second to breathe and think. And there are too many questions I still want to ask to start with just one.
“Could we just …”
Vabila’s expectant gaze softens as my unasked question doesn’t quite finish. She clears her throat, and Hallan males I didn’t even know were posted just a few steps away behind gleaming metal posts turn and make themselves scarce through doorways that slide open when they step forward. Her black eyes disappear momentarily with a blink, but the next time she levels her stare on me, I can feel how power and serenity looks back from her.
As unsure as I am about it, I’m also settled and unexplainably comforted by the strange wash of stillness that comes over her.
“He’s going to return irritated, you know?” she asks me softly. Once the corridor is empty and only our illuminated and refracted reflections stare back from up above. “Mad because his brother won’t let him stay as he thinks he should for you, and feeling more unworthy than he already does.”
Her words make my head cock to the side. “Bothaki?”
“Bo,” she confirms simply. “And Halun, he’ll only make a little mess of things here, but nothing that can’t be worked out. We have time. And it will take a lot of that. Not that you and I have very much of it at the moment, mind.”
I blink, now, more unsure than ever because she can’t be—
“There will be a time, Selina,” Vabila says, pointing at my throat where I had not yet been able to swallow the terror of my father’s laboratory, “when you forget that lump exists, and all the uncertainty keeping you frozen in this moment will seem like it was for nothing. There will be a time, I promise, so let me bathe you and get you closer to it.”
“Are you reading my mind, or some—”
Vabila’s sudden chirpy laugh at my almost defensive question doesn’t offend me at all. I can’t help but smile at the ridiculousness of it all, anyway.
“Mina know,” she tells me. “It’s not about your mind.”
Then, her smile turns a bit devilish.
“Well, but for Bo … it is.”
My cheeks flush at her insinuation.
“A little,” she adds, winking.
I gape, speechless at her frankness, the audacity of it all, and the way that I like and appreciate it. There has never been a time in my life—except for maybe once, a long time ago for a brief moment—where someone spoke so freely and genuinely to me, never mind a woman. But before I can even register the fact that I don’t know how to respond and Vabila left me with more questions now than answers, she spins on her heel and continues down the corridor. I rush to follow.
“You will have a lot to learn, and sometimes it might feel like you never will, but give yourself grace and patience,” she tells me as we finally come to the very end of the hall. “But you come from a very different place and people who have spent a great deal of time telling you what is right and wrong. Be ready to accept they had a motive for doing so.”