Star Kissed (20 page)

“That will be good,” she replied awkwardly.

“How close are they?” someone else asked.

Mandy swallowed hard, recalling the sick people dying in the bays next door.

“Very close,” she replied. “Very, very close.”

Excited murmurs went around the gathered group. Mandy hoped she wasn’t leading them astray. She glanced up. Kadi and one guard stuck close, though the children seemed too scared to talk to the royals like they did a slave.

Hichele was even paler, sticking close to Helen and looking as if she was afraid of being infected by the kids that crept closer. She raised the switch once when she thought no one was looking. The girl nearing her scrambled away.

Helen was impossible to read, wearing the same mask that Subakki and Kadi wore. She was involved in discussions with the doctors, who gathered around, though only one spoke to her.

“Your skin is pretty.”

One of the kids took Mandy’s arm, drawing her attention from her surroundings to the children. The girl pushed up her sleeve and peered through yellow eyes at Mandy’s skin. Another boy grew bolder and took her hand, staring at her fingernails with the same fascination Urik had for them. This boy, too, wore gloves.

Most were clear of the open signs of disease that the others in neighboring bays displayed. The girl studying her skin, however, had lesions on her arms. Mandy saddened at the idea that one, if not all, of the alien children were likely to die of the disease.

 One of the girls was trying to get her hair to stay up in a bun like Mandy’s. Mandy watched for a moment, entertained by the dark strands of hair that continued to elude her. Near puberty, the girl concentrated hard. She couldn’t cure them, but she could help them with their hair.

“I can show you,” Mandy offered. She motioned the girl forward.

The girl came and knelt at Mandy’s feet. Mandy tried not to grimace at the sight of the half-scale, half human scalp. The girl’s hair was in thick patches. Mandy gathered it carefully and reached up, plucking pins from her own hair to weave into the girl’s hair. It took some work, but she got the hair up and in place. The girl smiled, touching her new hair-do.

“Do mine!” Another girl said in excitement.

“Um, okay.” Mandy waved her over.

Two more girls crowded her. Mandy put up the second girl’s.

“Look, Mandy!” the first girl shouted.

Mandy looked up. The girl was standing before Kadi. She executed a perfect bow and then fled.

Mandy laughed. The girl returned to her, excited.

“I’m like you!”

“I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” Mandy said with a giggle.

The girl went around bowing to everyone and was soon joined by the second girl.

Mandy’s hair toppled to her shoulders. She ran out of pins after putting up the hair of five half-human girls. A collective sigh of regret went out from the remaining girls.

“Mandy,” Kadi called.

She met his gaze and saw him motion towards the door. Hichele was leading the party out, the Naki woman still tense and pale.

“Okay, I have to go,” Mandy said, standing.

“When are you coming back?” one of the girls cried.

“Um, well, whenever my … masters let me,” she replied. “I’ll bring more pins next time.”

The kids followed her to the door and stopped, as if forbidden from exiting. She understood why; if they were contagious, they couldn’t be out of their room. Mandy followed the group, winding her hair into a braid to keep it contained.

Helen glanced back from the head of the procession, catching Mandy’s eye. She smiled warmly.

Mandy couldn’t muster a smile in return. She wanted to hide under one of the beds and never come out. Faced with the sick children, she was no longer able to deny the possibility that she might never make it home. How was she able to live with knowing Akkadi had to sacrifice a cure just to send her back?

Helen had settled here with a husband she loved and had a family. Mandy rejected the idea of marrying Vekko, and Akkadi – the one person who made the world less scary – didn’t want her.

What happened if she never went home and remained here alone?

Chapter Eleven

“Mandy.”

The whisper jarred her. Her expectant gaze went to the nearest guard, who was half a dozen feet down the hallway. He didn’t acknowledge her. Puzzled, she glanced over her shoulder.

Urik’s large frame took up most of the hallway behind her. Mandy froze. He beckoned her to follow before moving out of sight down another corridor. She hesitated, uncertain what he wanted, then went.

Urik wore all black and was armed. She wondered how he was able to access the Naki controlled healing ward at all. His eyes went over her from head-to-toe.

“This is Akkadi’s way of protecting you?” he growled. “Turning you into a slave?”

“He’s charming like that,” Mandy replied drily. “What are you doing here?”

“Checking up on you. You need me to run interference for you?”

“No, I’m good. Still looking for a way home.”

Urik frowned. “Come on back. I’ll take you to the star gate.”

“Yeah but do you have the energy to open it?” she challenged, crossing her arms.

“Not yet.”

His enigmatic answer piqued her interest. He mirrored her stance.

“Don’t mess with me, Urik. Can you get me home, if I can get you energy shards?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Her heart somersaulted. “The kids or vaccine or people wouldn’t suffer?”

“My end state is different than Akkadi’s.”

“What is it?”

“Does it matter, if you get home?”

Mandy stared at him. If she found a way to take the energy marbles from Hichele, was she taking away Akkadi’s ability to help the humans? Hichele had forty of them. Wasn’t that enough?

“Mandy?” Kadi called.

“If you find a way to get your hands on shards, contact me,” Urik instructed in a low voice. “Helen knows how.”

Mandy blinked.

“Go.”

She retreated into the hallway. Kadi was a few feet away.

“Sorry. Got distracted,” she mumbled.

He started down the hallway towards the direction the group was headed. Mandy had a headache from trying to figure out what was going on. How could Akkadi claim there wasn’t enough energy to both send her home and save lives while Urik claimed there was?

Akkadi also lied to her about opening the star gate to begin with then took her as a consort without any real intention of sleeping with her. What else was he hiding? Rather, what was he
thinking
?

Yet it was hard to write him off completely. He had saved her on the planet, healed her at night and wanted her protected.

He sole goal appeared to be saving the humans. She was tired of his flip-flopping moods, but there was no way for her to view his expenditure of resources and time in a negative light when she thought of the diseased planet he was trying to protect.

The man was too complex for her.

Mandy barely registered he surroundings. They returned to the rooftop, Kadi and Subakki went to their ship while she joined the guard waiting at the bottom of the elevator on Helen’s ship.

The visit to her planet left her rattled, disturbed. She thought first of Cesar and telling him what she’d learned. He, too, needed to know what was happening to the people.

The journey back to the station was quick and smooth. She didn’t even notice they moved until the guards descended in the lift to the station bay once more. Barely able to hold still, Mandy waited for Helen and Hichele to lead them away from the space bays with the floor markings Mandy couldn’t interpret.

When she exited the elevator, her eyes went to the floor. She knew these markings: they were on Helen’s deck. Mandy waited for the guards to exit the lift before starting back, somewhat certain she could find her way to the slave quarters from here.

“Helen says to come,” one guard told her.

Mandy grated her teeth. She was in no mood to deal with Hichele for the rest of the day. Her head spun from all she’d seen and learned; she needed a box of space Twinkies, some Kleenexes and a nap.

But she went with the guard.

She didn’t make it back to the slave quarters until hours later. Instead, she spent the day following Helen and Hichele, being whacked by the crop when Helen wasn’t around and generally hating on everyone who dared distract the two women by talking.

By the end of her day, she was ready to explode. Mandy was finally dismissed and returned to the only place that was hers. Her mood grew worse to see Cesar wasn’t there to talk to. She slung herself onto her bed and close her eyes, releasing a deep sigh.

It was the worst day ever. The one where she realized she really might not ever make it home. Rather, the one where she realized that Akkadi was … right. Unless Urik was right. In which case then everything Akkadi said was wrong, which she knew wasn’t entirely the case.

Mandy clutched a pillow. Knowing what she did now about the disease, she wanted to see Akkadi upon his return even less. Something told her he wasn’t going to back down from the talk he wanted them to have.

Rolling onto her back, she stared at the ceiling. The thought of him made her body fevered. He didn’t want her, and she didn’t want to stay with anyone else, if she had to stay at all.

“Mandy.” By Wren’s excited tone, she had some sort of gossip.

Mandy didn’t move, too depressed to bother. Wren sat on her bed.

“Vekko wants you. I heard he made a deal with Akkadi for you before they left for Kini.”

“Great,” Mandy muttered. It was the final slap in the face from the cold alien prince.

“Are you not pleased?”

“I guess.”

Wren leaned into her line of sight, her yellow eyes large and eerie.

Only here would that not freak me out,
Mandy said to herself.

“No, Mandy, you don’t understand. Not as a consort but as his mate!”

“I really would prefer to go home,” Mandy complained.

“Maybe you can take him home with you. The Naki colonize many planets.”

Mandy visualized how that might play out. Showing up at her apartment and explaining to her boyfriend she not only got sent ten thousand years into the future but married an alien and brought him back. Would her boyfriend mind adding Vekko to the lease? Oh, and what would an alien do in her time anyway for a job?

He could model, she admitted. Akkadi and his cousins were sexy enough but their temperaments …

“I’m not sure he would fit in,” she replied. “My world is very different.”

“You should ask him,” Wren said.

“Okay,” Mandy said, more interested in quieting the woman intruding on her moment of peace and quiet.

Wren appeared pleased. “I heard something else.” Her laugh sounded like a weird warble, drawing Mandy’s gaze.

“What?” Mandy asked, despite her irritation.

“Hichele is with child.”

“No surprise. She seems pretty determined to land her a man here.”

“It’s not her betrothed’s.”

Mandy sat up. “Really?”

“It’s what I heard when I was in the healer’s ward.” Wren grinned.

“That bitch deserves to get thrown off the station!” Mandy said. It was the first piece of good news she’d heard all day. “Whose is it?”

Wren shrugged. “I didn’t hear much.”

“How sure are you? Is this one of your rumors that isn’t true?”

“I heard it from one of the healers. He was talking to a member of Hichele’s family. I think they mean to hush it up,” Wren said. “It’s as good as any rumor.”

“So what happens now? Does she get ejected into space or anything?”

Wren laughed.

Mandy pretended to pout.

“The Naki-prince she’s promised to can still take her as his mate and adopt the child, if he wishes to, like the Naki queen did the children of her sister. But only if the child is not diseased.”

“Well, I don’t want the baby to be hurt,” Mandy said, thoughts on the children she saw earlier. “I knew she was trouble.”

“The slaves who traveled with her tell awful stories of how she treats them,” Wren said, smile fading. “It is permitted on their planet to beat them.”

No shit.
Mandy rubbed her forearms absently. She had started to have some modicum of respect for Hichele upon seeing the Naki woman so affected by the sight of the kids. Until she raised a crop to those trying to get close to her.

Mandy had no idea what to think of any of the Nakis. Hichele was a psycho-whore, Akkadi didn’t know what he wanted, and Helen was trying to manipulate everyone for a goal Mandy didn’t understand.

Urik’s offer was more tempting by the minute. If she hadn’t suspected he was after something besides energy, she would find out where the energy marbles went and grab them.

“I went to Earth and saw all the sick kids today,” Mandy said. “I don’t understand why there’s no cure.”

“The plague claimed all my siblings,” Wren said. “I was the only to survive. The Naki have built healing wards all across the galaxy for the ill.”

“They seem so unlikely to care. I don’t know what to think.”

“It is not about caring. It is about duty. Their king has declared this is it, and so they obey.”

“I suppose,” Mandy murmured. Akkadi’s duties were nothing to scoff at, but she couldn’t get over their rabid devotion to a race of people they refused to acknowledge was theirs, too. “Thanks for telling me Hichele is a whore. You made my day.”

“She’s slept with all the Naki princes.”

“Even Akkadi?”

“Yes.”

Bitch.
What did Akkadi see in Hichele that he didn’t see in Mandy? She couldn’t imagine why he would sleep with someone like Hichele and not her. Except that she was human – but so was he.

“This place is messed up,” Mandy said and lay back on her bed.

“Helen wishes to see you.” The guard’s sudden whisper made her jump.

“I’ll never get used to that,” she snapped and rose. “I gotta go, Wren. Thanks for the info.” She was dismissed because it was time for bed. She wondered what made Helen summon her now.

Wren smiled. Mandy went to the door. To her surprise, no guard awaited her, as if they somehow knew she was able to find her way around the station well enough to find Helen’s quarters.