If only I’d had that option six years ago.
But I hadn’t. And now, I didn’t have any choice but to try to get through this quickly and get back home. “I am absolutely certain.”
Those were my goals: minimize my time in front of the cameras, don’t cause any scenes, don’t do anything to get me noticed.
With the exception of the cameras, I’d had the same goals for the last two years. Only this time, it was life or death.
Just get through this and get back home.
“Yes, I’m sure. Please,” I finally said. “A simple black evening gown. Nothing fancy. Nothing that will garner too much attention.”
With a sigh, Thorvid nodded and headed toward the door. “I’ll be back in a little while to help you get ready,” it said. As it reached the door, though, it paused and turned back.
“Whatever you’re so afraid of, you don’t have to be. You’re safe on Station 21. I promise.”
As the door shut behind the Poltien, a single tear shivered on my eyelashes and fell down to my cheek, tracing a path partway down before I dashed it away angrily with the back of my hand.
I might be safe, but Josiah wasn’t.
And if anything happened to him while I was gone, I didn’t think I would be able to survive it.
Chapter Four
Eldron
Skipping out on the grooms’ events probably wasn’t the best way to maintain my cover.
Still, it wouldn’t necessarily hurt me. After all, the Games Director knew why I was really here—and it wasn’t to find a bride, no matter how much I might secretly want to do exactly that.
While all the other grooms were watching the Bride Pageant, I was prowling around backstage, checking to see if I could figure out any ways the Alveron Horde could have infiltrated the games.
Part of the problem was that I didn’t know what I was looking for, only that I had a deep conviction that the Horde was planning something nefarious.
Of course, the Horde was physiologically so different from us—and from humans—that it was unlikely they’d be able to pose as either Khanavai or human.
At least, that was what we assumed.
To the best of my knowledge—and I had top-secret clearance, so my knowledge was among the best—no one had ever seen a member of the Horde alive.
For that matter, we were not certain that the husks we recovered from downed Hordeships were the driving intelligences of the attacks. By the time we got to the ships and pried them open, all that was left inside were shells, like ones from the bugs that humans called locusts. Paper-thin remains that crumbled at the slightest touch.
Our scientists had speculated that the Horde was controlled by a single intelligence, like the queen of a hive. If that was the case, then presumably that single intelligence could be outsmarted. We simply hadn’t figured out how yet.
The best we had managed to do was drive the Horde back.
We hadn’t even shared all of this information with our human allies. For that matter, relatively few Khanavai knew it. And if we could find a way to defeat the Horde once and for all, no one would ever need to know.
In the meantime, the long quiet spell since the last Horde incursion was making those of us who studied them for a living very nervous.
Regardless, though, there aren’t any Hordeships or giant bug aliens backstage at the Bride Games.
Just crowds of human females, I suddenly realized, many of them staring up at me with wide eyes. The effect of all those human gazes on me was unnerving.
Even the scent of them was overwhelming. I caught bits of fragrance ranging from a hint of Lorishi shellfruit to the smell of rain in the Darinsk forests, to the rank scent of Klarvi sour mash.
I have to get out of here. As I turned to make my way to the lift, however, I caught a whiff of something entirely different—something enticing and sweet.
My heart leaped in my chest and a deep, possessive part of me growled, mine.
Maybe I could find a mate here, after all.
I froze, trying to find it again in a sea of smells. Slowly, I turned in a circle, my head tilted back in an ancient, predatorial stance while I teased out all the smells around me. The human females standing closest to me began backing away as if recognizing a hunter in the midst of prey.
The tantalizing scent was gone.
I ached to follow it—as the old saying went, the cock follows where the nose leads. But I couldn’t figure out where the scent had come from.
My cock had nothing to follow.
For another second, I searched the crowds, hoping to see something that would spark a recognition in me.
Nothing.
Rather, there were dozens of attractive human females. But not one of them called out to my soul.
Maybe it had been my imagination. An effect of wishful thinking on an overactive imagination.
With a sigh, I headed back to the lift.
Moments later, as I made my way into the stands where I could at least pretend to be interested in the pageant going on below, everyone’s screen went blank for a moment. When they switched back on, they all showed Vos standing in front of an image of an Earther cityscape. “Warriors and women,” he began, “Earthers and Khanavai, we have an exciting new development in this year’s Bride Games. Apparently, one of our contestants has run. That’s right—for the first time in all the years we’ve been holding the lottery, a bride has, as the Earthers sometimes say, gone on the lam.”
A gasp went up at the announcement and the grooms in the stands began whispering to one another.
That’s interesting. I wonder how a human woman will fare on Earth trying to get away from Khanavai-level technology.
As I settled into
