by Maia Starr
My breaths left me in perfectly timed plumes of air, exhaling with each thrust. I looked up at her: shimmering eyes and wet blonde hair. And from the corner of my eye, I could see we weren’t alone; a drunken onlooker up outside the bar was peering in on us.
I thought he might walk by, chuckle to himself later about getting a peep show—but we were being watched. I could feel it. My eyes darted around the room, and sure enough, the stranger was there to ensure we couldn’t enjoy our private moment: our last moment before I gave her to the Voth. My leader.
A burning sensation ran through my body as I realized if he knew who we were he could easily report back to Sylas and have us both punished: killed.
The stranger caught my gaze and fell back into the shadows of our elaborate city with its winding tunnels and dark corridors.
Everything I had worked so hard for—gone.
“Stop, stop, stop,” I whispered to Reina, pulling out of her and still holding her up against the wall.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
She pressed her hands against the sides of my face and tried to pull me back down for a kiss.
“Don’t you see what you’ve done?” I said lowly.
I waited for her to extend her legs and then set her gently down on the ground. An intense rain began to pour from out of nowhere: creating puddles beneath us almost immediately.
“Look at the effect you’ve had on me already. My mind has never felt clearer. Reina, all the Vithohn want is to have you here.”
Her nostrils flared: her face nervous. “Find Sylas someone else,” she enunciated. “Someone willing.”
Part of me was relieved to hear her say that. To say that she didn’t desire him. The other part of me spiraled into a full-blown panic.
“I must remember my place,” I said: shifting uncomfortably.
Reina looked up at me with a face full of betrayal and then slapped me. The physical force of it didn’t hurt, but her expression cut me to my core.
“Haven’t we been over this?” she yelled. “How can you hand me off to him like I’m something to trade around?”
“Oh, come on! Do you think I like this?” I screamed, shaking her by the shoulders and nearly spitting into her face with the intensity of my words. “Do you think I like this? Imagining you with him? Don’t you think I want to leave with you? But I must remember my place, Reina. You were never mine to begin with!”
A fierce silence hung between us: the rain pelting down harder and seeming to drag her face down with its cold.
“I was banished,” I said.
“Oh, boo-hoo!” she yelled, pushing me back. “Get over yourself! You want to display some twisted loyalty to Sylas in order to get your powers back? Fine! You want to have your people respect you as a Voth? More than you want to be with me?”
“Of course not,” I said, raising a hand to her. “I owe them a lot. That’s all.”
“So what is it?” she demanded. “What’s this big guilt you feel? What exactly did you do to make them hate you so much? To banish one of their strongest men?”
I set my jaw, staring down at her in silence, trying to shield my eyes from the rain and watching as she stood, immovable, letting the water wash down her eyelashes and spill across her cheeks.
“No answer, huh?” she said, tapping her foot and crossing her arms. “What’s wrong? Too ashamed to say?” She scoffed. “I guess I was mistaken, thinking that we were actually sharing our lives with one another. But you know what? I must have been pretty damn stupid because the truth is that I don’t know the first thing about you.”
She stared at me expectantly and then shook her head when I refused to answer: to reveal myself to her. She breathed heavily through her nose and looked away from me.
“All I know is that if you felt even a shred of what I feel for you, then you could never do this.”
“Felt?” I repeated.
I was furious then: holding back with all my strength not to smash my fists against the brick wall.
“I’ll run, Oron,” she said as though she was swearing. “I’ll run the minute he goes to sleep. And if they drag me back, I’ll keep running. Every chance I get. The only way I will ever stop is if I’m free or they kill me. One or the other. But I am not staying here, Oron.”
I stared at her in a blind rage: frustrated, broken, and infuriated. I grabbed her by the waist and threw her over my shoulder.
I began marching her back to Sylas’ tower.
‘You are staying, like it or not,” I wanted to say to her.
In truth, I didn’t know if her speech made me love her even more or if it broke my heart. At least if she were here, I could still see her.
Reina kicked and screamed against me, crying. I felt a deep pressure on my chest as though it could crack and smash apart with the tiniest breath.
I inhaled, hoping to make the feeling go away.
I knew that I was disappointing her: breaking her heart. I began to wonder what it was about Bolmore that made me loyal to it.
The longer we walked, the louder her cries became, the more willing I was to abandon my life here.
But something kept me going forward: walking Reina back to Sylas like a loyal dog.
Her safety. If we left, Sylas would come after us with a vengeance. And if he did that, I couldn’t be certain that I could protect her.
I set her down in front of Sylas’ door: gripping her wrist in case she took off, as she liked to do.
We stood in front of the door, and suddenly I felt as though my whole body were floating.
I felt my heart pump up, beating so loudly I wondered if our voyeur from back at the bar would be able to hear my nerves. I wondered if he could sense the sickness filling my stomach as I stared at the door in front of me.
Reina stood behind me, waiting for me to open the door. But I couldn’t do it.
I was a coward, in every way possible. I was too afraid to leave with her: too afraid to betray my Voth, but terrified that if I brought her back she might love another.
Now I had to make a choice.
I turned and looked at Reina: looked into her eyes.
She looked up at me, and I realized she already knew my decision: it was why she’d stopped struggling when I brought her here: why she stopped crying.
I had been on a mission to find her, and then I realized the one I had been searching for wasn’t for Sylas.
“Let’s go,” I said.
She was mine.
Chapter Twelve
Reina
We ran.
The four of us: Oron, Lele, Jareth, and myself. Running, for hours.
We came across an old farmland that was, surprisingly, still run by an elderly couple. Still producing food and living off the land like they used to. The farmhouse looked literally untouched by the Vithohn.
It was so inviting, it almost felt like a trap.
I’d knocked on the door with Lele, leaving the boys behind in case the owners were easily spooked by aliens. I begged to be let in: told them we were running.
They graciously accepted us into their homes, even when I said we were traveling with a Vithohn and a Yaclion.
Their home was drab and cool-toned; sad blue flowered wallpaper in their living room that looked like it had been up for decades. Part of the paper was peeling in the top right corner of the room, a giant strip just tempting others to pull it down and finish the job.
There was only electricity in the back end of the home: just the kitchen and two bedrooms.
We sat in the living room on a dusty ribbed couch, talking to the couple and drinking the water they’d provided us from their well.
“You can stay here as long as you like,” came the friendly reassurance of John, the elderly homeowner. He looked to be about eighty or so: a tall man with a spindly frame. He had a long face and kind blue eyes. He was the kind of man you knew used to be handsome in his day.
“We don’t mean to be an inconvenience,” I said, looking back a
nd forth from the man and his wife.
“It’s no bother,” Laura said: the stout woman with salt and pepper hair and oval brown eyes.
“We’re just happy to have the company,” her husband agreed.
I could see Jareth’s eyes going a mile a minute, surveying the house for its usefulness, or perhaps wondering what all of the human knick-knacks were about.
“How long have you been living here?” I asked.
“Since before the war,” Laura said, and her husband nodded in agreement.
“I inherited this farmland from my father and his father before him and so forth,” John waved us off as though he and his wife had told the story—their choreographed verbal dance—hundreds of times.
“When the aliens came back, he said: ‘Damn it, Laura, I’m not leavin’! I’ve lived here, and I’ll die here!’” the woman explained in her best impression of her husband. “Of course, he was one of the first ones to go crawling under the table when they set foot on the land.”
“Oh, don’t tell them that, dear,” John said, almost absently as he batted her shoulder.
“No,” Laura said with a sweet laugh. “I’m just teasing. He didn’t hide. He grabbed his rifle.”
“But they didn’t come after you?” Lele asked, interjecting suddenly as the rest of us just listened.
“They did,” Laura nodded slowly, as if remembering.
“So…” I breathed. “What happened?”
The couple exchanged a significant look between the two of them but said nothing. I swallowed uncomfortably at the expression and looked at Oron, who was staring down at the floor, lost in thought.
“Well, we ran off for a while,” Laura finally offered. “We went into hiding with some others. Stayed underground for a while.”
“Underground, as in…?” I asked.
“Under, ground,” John enunciated with a laugh. “Someone dug a big hole down in the woods.”
“You’re kidding,” I said and tried to imagine it: a group of humans dug out underground—their own personal mud hotel.
I looked back over to Oron. He was unbearably silent. I grabbed his hand and tilted my head down to try and catch his eyes, but he wouldn’t look up.
“I’ve heard of this, yes,” Jareth added. “Humans who have gone through the raid and preserved themselves in a series of deep tunnels.”
“You’d be surprised what people are willing to do when it comes it comes to survival,” John said, pointing toward Jareth, who looked absolutely fascinated.
“I am not surprised,” Jareth said in a simple, straight-to-the-point tone. “Humans are surprisingly durable.”
“Oh my,” Laura laughed into her hands, looking mildly entertained by our little friend. “I’ve never heard it put like that. But, yes, I suppose we are.”
“We don’t let Jareth out very often, I’m afraid,” Lele said plainly, showing her palms to the kind couple. “I apologize.”
“No need,” Laura said, shaking her head.
“Well, humans are impatient, too,” John continued: his eyes far off, like he was still down in that pit waiting to come back to his farm. “After a few weeks, people started getting antsy. Started wandering off from the forest. After a while, I said, Laura, we’re going home.”
“And we did,” Laura finished.
“And we did,” he repeated, wrapping an arm around her. “I threw her over my shoulder and marched us right back to the farm.”
His sentence made me think of Oron and how he’d thrown me over his shoulder: the many times he’d done so, in fact. It made me think of how safe he made me feel, even now: even the last time he manhandled me. I knew he needed to make a point and to be the boss—to tell me I was going back to the tower and that was that. But I never doubted that he would leave with me.
Thought, obviously he doubted it, because he’d been quiet ever since.
I couldn’t imagine what it felt like to betray your entire crew.
“And they’ve never come back to bother you?” I asked the couple, speaking of the Vithohn.
Their odd, familiar exchange reemerged again, and this time John admitted, “Once.”
“But you got to stay here,” I concluded.
“Yes,” he nodded and rubbed the top of Laura’s wrinkled hand with his. “And we’ve been here ever since.”
How nice, I thought. That they got to spend their entire lives together—to live a full life in two different worlds. One of the human governments and the other post-apocalyptical, after the Vithohn came. Two different versions of the same life, spent entirely together.
“I’m sorry you had to go through all that,” Oron finally said. His voice was smaller than I had ever heard it before: remorseful. “I can’t imagine.”
“Ah, well,” the old man shifted awkwardly, clearly not wanting to talk about it. “I won’t hold it against you.”
“And why’s that?” Oron asked genuinely, his brows cupping in a U-shape.
“I’ve made my peace with it,” John said.
“We believe one day there will be peace between everyone. The humans, the Vithohn.”
Oron raised his brows and looked back down again, muttering, “Wouldn’t that be something.”
“Statistically, there are not enough humans in the world to make that happen,” Jareth piped up, counting quietly on his elongated fingers.
There was a dreary silence in the air after that until the old couple began to laugh, both at the same time.
“Well, aren’t you a little slice of sunshine,” Laura said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, embarrassed.
“Sounds to me like Jareth has seen what a woman’s touch can do to the mind of a Vithohn,” Laura continued, shaking her head
John raised a finger. “To any man.”
“Yes, yes,” Laura nodded, patting his hand. “To any man.”
“Precisely,” Jareth continued, squirming on the couch. “In order for the Vithohn to be calmed, they must be with a female partner. To my knowledge, there are only seven thousand humans remaining on the Earth, give or take. And not all of them are female. That is not enough to combat the thousands of Vithohn who now inhabit this planet.”
The room went silent after that until Laura decided it was time to make a big dinner for everybody. She made boiled rabbit and a side of potatoes, which made me laugh when I saw Oron’s less-than-favorable reaction to the food.
Despite the outwardly large appearance of the farmhouse, there were only three bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs, so Oron and I shared a bed. The room was old, with wooden walls and nearly ancient paintings of tractors and horses on them.
I marveled at everything in the house, realizing that this was what it must have been like back before the war. This was what real bathrooms were like: what decorating would have been like.
It gave me a strange feeling: to miss something I never had.
“I can’t sleep,” I said as I rolled over onto Oron’s chest.
“Neither can I.”
“We haven’t really had much of a chance to talk about all this,” I said quietly, twirling a finger along his muscular chest.
“What’s to say,” he whispered with a shrug.
“What made you leave, Oron?” I asked.
“I told you: I love you. There is no one I would rather spend my time with. I’ve never felt anything like that. I want to give you everything. I know I can’t—not yet, but, one day I will.”
“Everything will be better soon,” I agreed, closing my eyes and laying down on him.
“There’s something we’re not being told,” Oron said, unnerved. “I feel unsettled. Jareth feels it, too.”
“Jareth is unsettled by everything,” I giggled. “He says my smell makes his tongue tingle.”
“He’s unconventional, but he’s also brilliant. I wouldn’t be so quick to question poor Jareth,” he mocked and then his face went surprised, like he just realized something. “Come to think of it…” He kissed me: one quick peck
after another before announcing, “You make my tongue tingle, too!”
We made love in the bed and I pretended like this was our house: our farm. And we would raise children here, and I would grow potatoes just to keep our inside joke going. I pretended that I’d bought the paintings on the wall from a famous artist on the other side of the world and how Oron insisted I have them.
I thought about us having breakfast together and spending lazy afternoons having sex out by the lake just south of the property. And then I climaxed, pressing my fingertips into Oron and listening to his whispered orgasm.
He looked up at me, sweating and sliding his hands down my torso as he usually did.
And at that moment, I wanted to live in that dusty old farmhouse forever.
Chapter Thirteen
Oron
I made myself busy at the farm, helping out with their spring crops and living like simpletons. It wasn’t like the grand Bolmore city I was used to: no restaurants or bars or tournaments to occupy my time. Just time spent with Reina, living like humans.
It wasn’t much, but it was home. It was my home with Reina—the girl I’d left everything for.
We stayed on the farm for weeks in safety: harmony. And then one day Lele spotted fire in the forests that surrounded the farmlands, and I knew the Vithohn had come for us—for my chosen one.
They were looking for me: to punish or kill.
Jareth gathered our things, and I felt a familiar scramble to run. Always running.
Lele, Jareth, and I all waited by the door for Reina and the others, ready to run at any moment. We had to get out: get back to Reina’s village before the Vithohn caught up to us.
“We have to get out of here,” I said, grabbing Reina by the shoulder after finding her in the kitchen talking with the elder woman of the house. “All of us,” I said, looking between the two of them.
“We’re not leaving,” Laura said.
“What?” came Reina’s outcry as she fiercely shook her head.
“No,” Laura continued, grabbing the back of a chair to support her. “We’re not leaving.”