There was no hint of a lie in his golden irises.
I could read the emotions on a person’s face as well as anyone else, but when it came to an alien race, did I really have the skills to judge whether or not he was lying?
I didn’t think he was.
But how was I to know?
What I did know was I didn’t want to be taken to this distant alien world.
I didn’t want to be forcefully married to someone I didn’t even know.
If they were willing to pull out a weapon in a crowded coffee shop, it didn’t bode well for the kind of relationship I could look forward to with them.
Especially with an alien race, I reminded myself.
Aliens.
I could have laughed.
I let him lead me from the park and further out of the city.
And the entire way, behind my back, was that throbbing light.
The one he referred to as “the bond.”
Once that little fuzzy yellow circle reached me, I would lose all chance of escape.
It reminded me of a life and death version of Pac Man.
My mind was still buzzing.
I’d seen and heard too much to fully process.
I needed to take a nice long nap, or even better, a week’s worth of sleep, to understand what was taking place here.
We hustled through the streets, taking one corner after another.
Locals went about their lives, shopping, conversing…
And stopped cold then they saw Kayal marching through their streets.
His skin was green, his torso muscle-bound and bulging, his horns twisted and smooth to the appearance as if they’d been polished to a high shine.
Kayal’s appearance was shocking, but his disguise hadn’t been a total fabrication.
It was based on his actual features.
Minus the horns, of course.
The same intense golden eyes, the same sharp cheekbones and broad chin, and hair that dashed his shoulders.
Only now, his hair was shock white and not the gentle brown it’d first been.
His appearance was both terrifying and intriguing in the same breath.
By the gasps, the frozen expressions, and the hasty hurrying of children back into the safety of the shops, I thought their reactions were completely justified.
A couple of the younger children burst into tears.
I couldn’t blame them.
If I had full control of my senses, I might have done the same thing.
We came to a demolition yard.
Cars were stacked on top of each other like packs of misused cards, ready to be disposed of.
A huge machine with a claw-like arm snatched the rooftop of a vehicle and carried it with ease to the car crusher.
An overweight man wearing a hard hat stepped from a Portakabin and shouted:
“Hey! You can’t be here!”
He paused in waving his arms when his eyes came to my escort.
He stared, his eyes unable to peel themselves from his devilish appearance.
It was becoming a regular reaction.
We weaved between one man-made metal mountain after another until we came to a clearing around the back.
Kayal slowed and released my hand.
I wondered what we were supposed to be doing here.
Buy a used car and drive to his distant world?
This didn’t look like the place for making a good escape to me.
“Um… Now what?” I said.
“Now, we get somewhere safe. Computer. Open the hatch—”
Smack!
Something struck Kayal on the shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him to the ground.
He rolled over and glared back in the direction the shot had come from.
He braced his weight on his arms to spring back up onto his feet but his left arm couldn’t bear the weight.
Kayal hissed through his teeth.
I’d seen him take dozens of bullets and he didn’t have a scratch on him.
But this hadn’t been any regular shot.
The bolt of intense light that’d struck him was unlike any I had seen before.
It left a jagged scar across my eyes.
It’d been about a yard long and not only struck Kayal but passed right through him.
He groaned as he struggled to get up.
“Kayal?” I screamed.
As if that wasn’t enough of a surprise, a doorway opened in the air to my right, revealing what appeared to be an invisible ship on the other side.
This clearing wasn’t empty at all.
It was home to a cloaked spaceship.
I bent down to help Kayal up.
“Ava…” Kayal said. “What are you doing?”
“You’re my only hope of getting through this alive. I can’t let you die now.”
A hint of something in his eyes made my breath hitch in my throat.
Surprise?
Yes, but it was more than that.
Respect?
He grunted as he got to his feet, using me as a crutch to lean part of his weight on.
It was only a fraction of the total weight of his body.
He would have crushed me otherwise.
I turned him toward the ship.
We reached the front steps of that lolling tongue, so much like a monster’s gullet that I tried to block it from my mind.
“Wait!”
Kayal’s twin—no, what did he refer to him as?—the M’rora.
He stood on the outer edge of the clearing, a powerful rifle clutched in his hands.
It was aimed directly at us.
“Don’t go with him!”
Unlike Kayal, he still wore his disguise.
I wondered what he looked like under there.
Identical to Kayal?
Probably.
After all, if they were some sort of cosmic twins, how could he look any different?
“You’ll regret stepping onto that ship if you leave!”
I paused and turned to look back at him.
“He’s going to kidnap you and take you hostage!” the M’rora said.
It was exactly what I expected him to say.
And yet, I felt a tingling on the tips of my fingers.
“I don’t want to be forced to marry you.”
“Then don’t. But you can’t go with him either.”
The expression on his face wasn’t what I was expecting at all.
It looked sincere.
But he still held that rifle close.
What would he do if I didn’t listen to him? I wondered.
“With the M’rora, you have a choice. With the Shadow, you have none. Come with me. I will protect you.”
I glanced at Kayal.
His face was curled with pain, a light film
