By the time Thorvid came back into my room, I sat with my hands clasped, wringing them around and around—stroking the finger that had once held my wedding band, as if I could wipe away even the memory of it.
In the doorway, Thorvid held up one finger to its mouth, telling me to be quiet. Without a word, the Poltien moved in and tapped some keys on the com in the mirror in front of me.
“That should do it. We’re off-camera now—but we’ll need to hurry. What number do you need to com?”
I reached past its shoulder and tapped in Becca’s number.
She answered in dark mode, suggesting she had been asleep. “Hello?”
“Becca, it’s me, Mia. You don’t have to say anything, just listen. I am okay, but my name got drawn in the Bride Lottery.”
“What?” The lights came up on Becca’s end, showing her sitting up in bed with a handheld device, staring at me with wide eyes. Her blonde hair stuck out in messy tufts. She scrambled for her glasses on the bedside table, putting them on to peer at me. “But I thought you couldn’t be—”
I interrupted her before she could say anything that would give me away to Thorvid. “I know. I’m not sure exactly what happened. Please, just know that everything is fine. I should be home in a day or so. Can you hold down the fort until then?”
Becca’s eyes darted to the left, toward the room where Josiah slept, but she didn’t say anything directly about him.
I guess she’s taken to heart all my dire warnings about Frank and what he would do to us if he found us.
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll take care of… everything.”
“Thank you. I will try to let you know when I’m headed back if I can—but I’m not certain exactly when that will be.”
“I understand.”
I heaved a shaky sigh of relief. At least now I could be sure that Becca would take care of Josiah until I could get back. Not that I would have expected anything else. In the two years I had known her, Becca had become my closest friend, a kind of substitute aunt for Josiah. I trusted her implicitly—so much that I had told her the truth about myself.
“If we don’t want this com to be tracked, you need to cut it off now,” Thorvid said, its tone gentle.
“I love you and I love—” I stopped myself before I said Josiah’s name.
“Love you, too. We’ll see you soon,” Becca said. “Take care of yourself.”
I ended the call with tears welling in my eyes. Once upon a time, I had thought there was nothing worse than being trapped, afraid for myself. Now, though, I was beginning to think it might be worse to be trapped and afraid for my child.
Thorvid hustled me down to the backstage area to line up for the Bride Pageant. As I stepped off the lift, an enormous, bright red Khanavai warrior brushed past me, and it was all I could do not to stop and stare at him in absolute wonder.
He was giant, muscular and broad, with skin the color of the dress Thorvid had tried to convince me to wear. Just the sight of him made me gasp, and I had to shake myself out of it. Come on, Mia. Your job is to be inconspicuous, not stare at gorgeous aliens.
I ducked my head and hurried to the end of the line of women waiting for their turn in the pageant, doing my best to blend in. But not before I saw the warrior pause and lift his head as if scenting the air like a large predator—a wolf or something.
Then he was gone, and a few minutes later, Natalie Ferguson was giving her answer to Vos’s question. And while part of me wished I had run, too, I wasn’t about to say so aloud.
When my turn came on the dais, I gave half-mumbled, almost incoherent answers. Doing everything I could to project the image of a boring, half-addled idiot that no man in his right mind would want to spend the time with.
It worked, too. By the next morning, all the Khanavai males had chosen the women they wanted as brides.
And I wasn’t one of them.
“Now we just have to get you ready to go home,” Thorvid said, its mouth twisting in disappointment.
I almost wanted to comfort the Poltien, but when I opened my mouth to say something, all my breath rushed out of me in a whoosh of relief, and I burst into tears.
I was going home.
I would have to run again, just in case Frank had seen me on TV.
But I could do that.
I knew how to run.
Sometimes, it felt like that was all I knew how to do.
But it didn’t matter.
I was going home to get my child.
Chapter Six
Eldron
The next day, I made my way to the luncheon room prepared to determine once and for all if Natalie Ferguson was my mate.
In the hallway outside, I met up with Tiziani Mencono. I nodded a greeting and dismissed him in a single glance. He was one of the yellow tribesmen of the Darinsk rainforests on Khanav Prime, and according to the research I had completed on him, he was a mere guardsman in the prince’s household on the southern continent.
If it came down to a physical fight between us, I would win. But if Natalie was his true mate, nothing would keep them apart.
When we entered the luncheon room, we discovered that Cav Adredoni, our third competitor for Natalie’s affection, had already entered.
Smart move, I conceded silently. In any traditional Khanavai setting, it would have allowed him to take control of the room by choosing an advantageous seat.
Of course, the human penchant for round tables thwarted that plan, forcing him to choose between a seat that gave him a full view of the doorway or a seat that would allow him to be first to greet Natalie when she entered. Adredoni
