Alien (21 page)

The three lay quietly for a few moments, enjoying the
silence that followed. Content to just hold one another, none of them spoke for
several minutes.

“Sweetheart?” Rodin said softly, his voice low enough not to
wake her in case she had fallen asleep.

“Yes?” The word came out on a yawn.

“When we have a son, I would like to name him Zane,” Rodin
said in a near whisper. “Since he was your family, it seems fitting that we
name our boy after him.”

She was unable to speak for a moment, tears clogging her
throat. Turning in the arms that held her, she leaned up and kissed Rodin with
every ounce of love that she had in her body.

“That would be perfect,” she answered, happy tears slowly
trailing from her eyes.

“We love you, Andi,” Tamin said. “Both of us.”

“I love you both too,” she answered.

There was no mistaking the bond all three of them felt. What
had started out as an arranged marriage to another had led her to these
wonderful men. Never in her life would she regret her decision to sign up for
the Bridal Pact. She had come here to live and that is what she had promised
Zane she would do. With that thought in her mind, Andi drifted off into the
best night of sleep she had ever had, her body sore but satisfied and her heart
overflowing with love.

Jaid Black

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all my loyal fans who have waited
so im/patiently for Kari’s story.

Thank you for not giving up on me.

Three
Moon-risings Outside Khan-Gori Airspace

Zyrus
Galaxy, Seventh Dimension

6049
Y.Y. (Yessat Years)

“It’s okay,” Kari Gy’at Li
murmured. Her warm, silver-blue gaze studied the young princess’s tight
features. Kari felt sure Dari had come so close to confiding in her, but when
the princess had opened her mouth to speak…

Nothing. Only silence and a haunted
stare.

The girl wasn’t just scared—she was
terrified. Whatever it was that Princess Dari Q’ana Tal knew, whatever secret
she had been harboring since she’d fled to the matriarchal planet of Galis, it
was more burden than any one person should bear alone.

Kari sighed. She understood the
toll of living with secrets all too well. Dari’s stoic features served as a
mirror, reflecting back to Kari her own need for self-preservation at all
costs. For years she had pretended to be someone she wasn’t, a fact none but
her adopted sisters knew. The cost of staying alive in this once-foreign world
had come at the price of forsaking who she really was.

Forgetting, however, was another
animal altogether. It simply wasn’t possible. She could pretend, she could keep
the memories locked away in the farthest recesses of her mind as best she
could, but they never really left her. Nor did she want them to.

“My real name isn’t Kari,” she
softly admitted. “And I wasn’t born to the Gy’at Lis.” The princess slowly
craned her neck, her glowing blue eyes wide, as she stared at her with rapt
interest. Kari told herself she was about to spill her heart out to her
traveling companion merely to break the ice and hopefully win her confidence.
Maybe if she shared one of her secrets with Dari, the princess would realize
she could trust her with one of her own. Tit for tat, a secret for a secret. It
was a fair exchange. “Surely you can tell just by looking at me that I’m not
even from Galis.”

As the admission left her lips, she
gave up the self-imposed charade. This was more than an attempt at manipulation
and she knew it. She was going to tell Dari who she was and where she was from
because she actually wanted to. They could very well be butchered after their gastrolight
cruiser landed on Khan-Gor. She didn’t want to go to her death still
pretending.

“You are jesting,” Dari weakly
returned. “For a certainty you speak in riddles and—”

“Do I sound like a Galian? Do I
even look like one?”

The princess was quiet for a
protracted moment. “Nay.” Dari visibly swallowed as she trained her gaze on her
lap. “You have the look of—” Her voice, a smoky feminine sound that slightly
reverberated when she spoke, lowered to a mumble. “’Tis not important.”

Kari’s wine-red eyebrows drew
together. “What do you mean? Who do I have the look of?”

“’Tis naught but the musings of a
weary mind.”

“But—”

“Leastways,” Dari interrupted,
abruptly surging to her feet. “I should check on Bazi.”

Kari sighed as she watched the
princess hurry away. The sleeping male child Dari had fled Arak with and
brought to Galis had been looked in on less than five
Nuba
-minutes past.
Indeed, ever since the three of them had made a hasty departure from Kari’s
adopted home, narrowly escaping capture from the warriors who would stop at
nothing to reclaim their runaway princess, Dari had conveniently needed to
check on Bazi every time the two women got close to confiding in each other.

She absently looked through the gastrolight
cruiser’s transparent front window, her gaze raking over the ice-coated planet
of Khan-Gor. She wasn’t altogether certain why the urge to tell the princess
everything was so strong. At first she had believed it to be out of a sense of
camaraderie, a desire to grow closer to the young royal now that they were all
the other had. Yet there was more to it, something she couldn’t quite put her
finger on.

Maybe it was simply the fact that
the princess reminded her of Geris, her real sister’s lifelong best friend. The
resemblance between them was uncanny. Were it not for the fact it was next to
impossible…

She shook her head slightly, as if
attempting to erase that ludicrous thought from her mind Etch-a-Sketch style.
The strikingly beautiful Dari possessed Geris’ dark mahogany coloring and her
regal, statuesque bearing—hell, the princess even wore her hair like Geris had
in a veil of long, black microbraids that hung to her waist—but the
similarities ended once you gazed into her eyes. Dari’s glowing blue orbs were
a reminder of the alien civilization Kari’d been whisked away to so many years
ago, whereas Geris’ earthy brown eyes had bespoken of home.

“What is your true name?” Dari
whispered, startling Kari. She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t realized
her companion had returned. “From whence do you come?”

Kari took a deep breath and slowly
expelled it. A soft smile tugged at her lips as her gaze found Dari’s. Finally—
finally
—the
princess was dropping her shield, or at least lowering it enough to let her in
a bit. They had another three days of travel before the spaceship would breach
Khan-Gor, the legendary Planet of the Predators. The only certainty they had
now was each other.

She needed to know Dari’s secret
before that third day arrived or she couldn’t protect them from whatever evil
the princess feared dwelled there. The only way to gain her confidence was to
give her hers first. Trust didn’t come easy for either one of them—a shared
trait that was undoubtedly responsible for keeping them both alive this long.

The irony was not lost on her. The
same steel-willed resolve that had permitted survival would ultimately destroy
them if they didn’t let it go. Kari had understood this for several days; she
realized Dari now did as well. Revealing her past to anyone but the Gy’at Lis
had been unthinkable up to this point, yet now here she sat, yearning to tell
the princess who she was and where she was from.

“My name is Kara,” she breathed out
for the first time in more years than she could remember. It felt so good to
taste her real name on her tongue as it escaped from between her parted lips.
“Kara Summers.”

Orlando,
Florida - First Dimension

July
4, 1999 A.D. (Anno Domini)

“What the hell am I doing here?”

Kara Summers muttered the question
to herself as she glanced around the amusement park she had unenthusiastically
agreed to attend today. Seated at a picnic table next to a hotdog stand, she
plopped her chin on her palm and contemplated why she’d allowed Jonathon to
drag her here in the first place. Or more to the point, she thought glumly, why
was she dating a grown man with no kids who considered
this
a good time?

Disney World. Her lips pinched
together in a frown. If this was the happiest place on earth, humanity was
fucked.

Kara decided the fault could be
placed at the feet of her older sister, Kyra, for this debacle. She had, after
all, talked her into going out with Jonathon in the first place. , Kyra had
described Jonathon, a fellow accountant at her sister’s firm, as settled, ready
for a commitment, and financially solid.

In other words, boring.

“That Spaceship Earth ride was
totally rad!” Jonathon enthused. Kara blinked. She hadn’t heard him approach
over the sound of her self-pity. He plopped a paper bowl down in front of her
that contained a hotdog, French fries, and several ketchup packets. The
lemonade came next. “Let’s try the Pirates of the Caribbean ride after we eat.”

Let’s try a suicide pact and
hang ourselves.

“Well…” Her irritation slowly gave
way to guilt. Feeling like the bitch her last boyfriend had called her, she
forced a semi-smile to her lips. Jonathon was a good guy. He simply wasn’t
turning out to be the guy for her. Fortunately, she could tell he wasn’t
getting “the vibe” either so it wasn’t as if ending things would break his
heart. Jonathon was no doubt simply trying to make the best of things until
they returned to New York City tomorrow. It wouldn’t kill her to do the same.
“Sure. Sounds like fun.”

She supposed the suicide pact could
wait. Besides, being a natural redhead with skin the color of porcelain, she’d
probably sizzle like a vampire before hanging herself became an issue. Disney
World in July. What had she been thinking? Colonizing the planet Mercury would
have been less painful.

Kara opened a ketchup packet and
squirted out the contents onto her fries. “Spaceship Earth was pretty
interesting, if a little farfetched.”

“Agreed.” Jonathon pushed his
glasses further up the bridge of his nose with one finger. “As if we’ll ever be
able to talk to people in real-time while seeing them simultaneously. Utterly
absurd.”

“Maybe a few generations from now,
but we won’t be alive to see it.”

“Exactly.” He bit off a large piece
of hotdog and talked while chewing it. Kara winced. “It would be cool if we did
though.”

She glanced down to her plate and
eyed her hotdog. She had a phobia about seeing food bits in people’s mouths.
Better to stare at her hotdog than to dry-heave. “Totally.”

They ate in silence for the next
several minutes. The quiet gave Kara time to contemplate what her next course
of action should be. Should she state the obvious and tell him that she’d like
to be his friend, but wasn’t interested in more? Or just forgo the conversation
altogether and let their lack of mutual attraction speak for itself?

“I need to admit something to you,
Kara, and it isn’t easy.”

Her head shot up. One wine-red
eyebrow arched quizzically. Was he about to do the hard part for her and tell
her she wasn’t the woman for him? Good lord she hoped so. “Okay.”

“It’s just…” He cleared his throat
and fumbled with a napkin. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Hurt me. Please. “Go on.”

Jonathon’s mouth worked up and
down, but no words were coming out of it.
Just say it already! Then we can
officially be “just friends” and maybe halfway enjoy this dumbass place.
“I…uhhh…I…”

She feigned patience she wasn’t feeling. “Whatever it is,
just say—”

“I’m gay.”

Silence. Her mouth dropped open.
She
wasn’t the woman for him? Damn. Apparently there was no woman for him.

Kara blinked. She prided herself on
her remarkable gaydar, but she hadn’t seen that one coming. He didn’t work out
at the gym and had zero fashion sense. He ate with his mouth open for shit’s
sake. “Are you sure?” she said dumbly.

“I’m sorry, but yes.”

She couldn’t have been happier if
she actively tried to be. Her smile was radiant. Relieved and radiant. “There’s
no need to be sorry!”

“There isn’t?”

“No way.” Her expression grew
serious as concern took over. “But why are you in the closet?”

“My family,” he sighed.

“Ah.” Her silver-blue gaze filled
with compassion. “I understand, Jonathon, but they’ll come around eventually.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Then they don’t deserve to have
you in their lives,” she said firmly. Kara splayed her hands. “You only go around
once. You deserve to be happy while you’re doing it.”

Jonathon showed his first hint of a
smile. “Thank you.”

Kara nodded. “If you need the
support of a friend, I’ll be happy to stand by your side while you tell them.”

“I appreciate that, but I think this
is something I need to do alone.”

“I understand, but the offer still
stands if you change your mind.”

His smile was genuine. “Thank you.”

From that point on their
conversation no longer felt stilted. It actually became fun. They talked about
everything from politics, to who they thought would win today’s Wimbledon (Kara
was rooting for Steffi Graf), to the new Harry Potter book releasing in a few
days.

“Come on,” Kara said, standing.
“Let’s grab two Mickey Mouse ice-cream bars and eat them on the way to that
Pirates of the Caribbean ride.”

“I’m hungry for one of those
chocolate-covered frozen bananas.”

Kara grinned. She couldn’t resist
teasing him. “I bet you are.”

Jonathon laughed.

* * * * *

Climbing into the wooden boat with
another twenty or so tourists, Kara found herself feeling grateful for the
respite a water ride would provide from such a hot day. As the boat lurched
forward, one of several children on board stood up and shouted, “Whoop whoop!”

“Sit down!” his mother chastised,
tugging at his shirt. She held a toddler in her lap. “You’ll get us kicked off
the ride.”

Kara doubted such was possible
since their boat had already taken off, but the threat worked. The wide-eyed
boy looked around for any signs of a Disney worker prepared to yank him off the
ride. He settled into his seat.

The next several minutes were,
well, boring, but the cool air-conditioning more than made up for the very
unconvincing animatronic pirates. The boat lurched upward, beginning its ascent
up a track.

“There’s a small fall at the end of
this ride,” Jonathon whispered. “It’s fun.”

“You’ve been on this before?”

“What can I say? I’m a kid at
heart.”

She half snorted and half laughed.
“Nothing wrong with that.”

The boat reached the apex,
signaling the approach of a rapid descent. It was no log ride, but she conceded
a little bit of fast movement down the hill would serve to pep things up a bit.

“All right!” the little kid who
couldn’t seem to sit still yelled out. “Here we go, Mommy!”

Kara’s eyes widened as the little
boy surged to his feet at the worst possible moment. Her stomach leapt into her
throat when she realized his mother was too busy caring for the toddler to
notice her older son. Time seemed to pass in slow motion as the boat raced down
the hill, the boy still standing.

Kara leapt out of her seat, grabbed
the child by the back of the shirt and pulled him down. He fell to the floor of
the boat, stunned but okay. Kara cried out as she tried to regain her footing,
her heart pounding in her chest. Jonathon’s eyes widened in horror as he
reached out a helping hand a moment too late. She screamed as her body lost its
battle with gravity and plummeted into the cold, deep water.

A sharp pain splintered through
Kara’s head as she hit the bottom of the tank. Desperate, frightened, and
knowing she’d be crushed if she didn’t breach the surface and get out of the
water before the next boat came barreling down the track, her arms and legs
instinctively flailed.

A bright light blindsided Kara,
rendering her disoriented. Unable to distinguish up from down, she could do
nothing but hold her breath while she awaited the next boat’s impact.

I’m a dead woman. No one can
survive this.

Her body felt as if it were moving
faster than a tsunami, which she knew wasn’t possible. Dizzy and terrified, she
hysterically decided this must be how people get to Heaven…or to Hell. She
continued to hold her breath as her body whizzed through space and time. She
hoped she awoke to the sight of angels rather than demons.

The happiest place on earth, my ass.