by Nya Rayne
Donté shushed her again. “I thought you would be happy I was here, but if you’re not, I can leave.” He moved as if to get up, and Phia grabbed him, holding him in place.
“Don’t you dare.”
Donté laughed as he settled back down beside her. He ran his hands through her hair as they laid in comfortable silence for what seemed like an eternity before Phia broke it. She didn’t think he was going to lie to her when she asked him what she needed to ask, but she wanted to see his eyes when he answered. “The Higher Highness, Donté, I saw…I think I saw you fighting with her. Did you kill her?”
“No,” he breathed with regret. “I wanted to. God knows I wanted to.” He sighed and brushed a few locks of hair from his face. “If it hadn’t been for you, I would have.”
“I was out of it. What are you talking about?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I saw her dying, Phia. I saw life leaving her eyes. I knew what I was doing and I knew how wrong it was, but I kept on squeezing, choking her. I wanted her to die for what she did to you and for what she did to all the men who came before me. And then, you said my name. You reached for me. Even doped up on all that crap she’d drugged you with, you still called to me. That was when reality set in. I knew if I killed her, they would never let me be with you. It wouldn’t matter how much she deserved it. In this society, I would be seen as a cold-blooded killer and the perfect example of why men needed to be kept in those damn Zoos.” He thumbed at her chin. “Her death at my hands wasn’t worth it.”
Pride swelled up inside of her, and she reached for him, planting her lips against his, once, twice, three times. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for proving them all wrong.”
“No,” he said. “Thank you. I wanted to kill her, Phia, and I would have. So, thank you for stopping me even if it was accidentally.”
She settled back down, her head nuzzled into the crook of his neck. “What happened to her?”
“Your mother had her locked away in one of the old asylums. She says it’s only temporary, but she promised me and the rest of the country that the Higher Hussy would see her day in court. She’s going to be tried for crimes against humanity.”
“Do you believe her?” Donté chortled and kissed the crown of her head. “For her sake, I hope it does. Commando Darius has an arrow with the Higher Highness’s name engraved on the side. He told your mother and the other baronesses if he didn’t think her punishment was strict enough, he’d exact his own.”
Phia would have liked to say something disapproving of Darius’s plans. Unfortunately, she couldn’t say with any certainty that she didn’t agree with him. “What happens now with you and Darius? I’m sure everyone must know the two of you are human?”
He let loose a sound caught between a snort and a grunt. “If the press and the rest of those horny, undersexed community sisters of yours have their way, we’d be auctioned off to the highest bidder at sundown.”
“What?”
“We can’t walk to the damn corner without being mobbed. I tried to go home to get a few things I thought you would need. The minute I stepped foot out of the hospital, I got mobbed. It was ridiculous. They ripped my damn shirt off.” He set up, brushed his hand through his hair and looked at her. “They’re animals. Darius went to get some fresh air and came back with scratches all over his neck and arms, one shoe, and half a shirt.”
She tried not to laugh, she really did, but just the idea of G.I. Darius being attacked by a gang of woman was entirely too funny. Although, the thought of women attacking Donté brought out the green-eyed monster in her, ready to claw out the eyes of the first woman who touched him. “So, you two are famous now?”
“If this is famous, I’ll take a long stint in the Zoo.” He glanced at the darkened window before turning his attention back to her. “Anyway, they had our faces updated into the general population database, took blood samples and fingerprints, and said until everything is figured out, and a final decision is made, we were to go about our lives as usual and try not to draw any attention to ourselves.”
“Really? So, the two of you are free as little birds now, huh?”
“Yes, and neither one of us has any desire to fly the coop. How’s that for a rutting mongrel?”
“Well, as long as you’re only rutting me, you can be my mongrel any day.”
“Wow, how could I ever turn down such an invitation?” Donté brushed his lips across her forehead and shifted on the hospital bed beside her as he continued with his update. “Once things start to die down, your mom wants Darius and me to head up the males’ assimilation into the general public. We’d have to travel to the facilities and deliver the news to the guys and then help them get used to the idea of having been lied to all their lives.”
“I bet Darius likes that. He’ll get a chance to recruit a few pissed off, rocked-up goons for his own private army.”
“He’s already tried to recruit me, so yeah, I think he’s going to have himself a ball. I’m sure he’ll get more than a few volunteers, too. Those damn Elites had themselves a regular assembly line.” Donté scratched his chin. “I looked through a few of the files at Lorraine’s office, and before I was halfway through, I saw seventeen guys I knew.” He frowned. “The things they did to them are irreversible, Phia. There’s no way of saving any of them.”
“I’m sorry.” She leaned into him in an attempt to console him.
“There was this guy I knew back at the Zoo. We called him Tossa, because everything he touched, he ended up throwing. He’d make us bet him our desserts he couldn’t get a wad of trash or rolled up shirt in a wastebasket. This one time, he threw a wad, it hit Jarvis clean between the eyes, bounced and hit Kail’s shoulder, and then rolled down his arm as if it was being controlled and dropped straight into the basket. It was absolutely amazing. The guy never missed, not once. Anyway, his name was Justice Nazeem.” Phia gasped, but he went on. “He found favor way before I did.” Donté closed his eyes as if to calm himself and continued. “I saw him the other day. He was on display like a doll or…or one of those teletron things. He was in this little glass box. Packaged and ready to be sold, the only thing missing a red bow.”
“Donté, I’m sorry. I’m…I…” Maybe in a year or two, maybe ten, she’d tell him she’d considered buying Nazeem the same day she’d bought him. Or maybe not.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s just really sad they could do that to another human being.” He sighed. “Anyway, if I do this thing for your mother, it will be so the other guys don’t get the shock of their lives when they happen across someone they knew inside and find out they’re now androids.”
Phia pushed away from him, her eyes sorrowful. “I think you should do it, Donté. I think you should.”
He shrugged. “I’m sort of leaning in that direction. If I don’t, I think Darius will end up proving the Higher Hussy right.” He grinned down at her. “Besides, it’s not like I have anything pressing to do for the next seven or eight months.”
His smile melted her heart and caused bolts of electricity of ripple through her. Considering the shape she was in, there wasn’t a chance in hell of them acting on it, so she changed the subject. “So, my mom is being nice to you now?”
“I guess. There was a press conference right after you were brought to the hospital, and she actually—no lie—and totally straight-faced, called me her loving son-in-law.” He chuckled. “I think it has more to do with the cameras, and less to do with me.”
“She called you her son-in-law? Really?”
“Sure did. Now everyone wants to know when the wedding is. They’re saying it’ll be the first real wedding in forty or so years.”
Phia was quiet, though she found it increasingly hard not to grin. “What did you tell them?”
“Me? Hell, I haven’t spoken to any reporters. Your mother told them it’ll be in next year. April.”
She pushed up as much as she could. “Are you joking?”
“Nope, t
hat’s what the Wicked Witch said.” Donté grinned at her and pulled her back down to him. “Since she thinks she’s in such control, how about we let her go ahead with the plans, but you and I can, if you want, do that elope thing Darius has been mumbling about.”
“Elope?”
“What’s with you today?” he teased. “Did the Higher Hussy do something to your ears?” He laughed and continued. “Lorraine and Darius have been talking about doing it ever since we rescued you. She’s really good friends with a church head down in Miami, who is more than willing to do it without having to go through all of the red tape.”
“Donté,” Phia said quietly. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
“Since you bought me and all, I really didn’t think it was necessary to ask you.” It was said in such a serious tone that Phia’s heart sank. She didn’t want him to want to marry her because he still believed he belonged to her by their society’s standards. She wanted him to want to spend the rest of his life with her, because he couldn’t see his life without her. She moved, intending to separate herself from him, but he held her close.
He kissed her forehead, each of her closed eyelids and the tip of her nose. “If it takes me asking you to get you to say, ‘yes, I will marry you,’ then I’m asking you to marry me. But under one condition, we don’t do anything your mother’s way. We do it our way.”
Phia tried to find the words to answer him, but the joy running through her made everything coming from her throat sound like gibberish. So, she settled for kissing him silly as she nodded her head in agreement. She would marry this man in the middle of the ocean, in a barren wasteland, or on the back of a tram if she had to, but she would marry him.
As her heart monitor started beeping erratically, Donté pulled back with reluctance. “Whenever you want to, Phia, we’ll do it.”
She settled into him with a light nod of her head. It was happening. Everything she’d ever dreamed of was happening. No more wishing, hoping, or fantasizing. No more lonely nights and long, empty days. No more desperate pleas to unseen gods. No more loneliness. No more aching.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you more,” he said.
Phia was quiet for a long moment as she tried to come to terms with the elation she was feeling. In addition to her new-found happiness, she found it hard to believe it was really over. Could they really have brought an end to the Zoos and forced slavery so quickly? She wanted to believe it was over, but a part of her felt watchful as if instead of this being the end, it was just the beginning of a much longer and more arduous journey.
“Phia?”
“Hmm?”
“When you get out of here, do we have to go back to the Carolinas?”
She looked up at him a soft smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “I suppose not, especially not with women trying to attack you. What did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking I like Florida,” he said. “I didn’t get to see much of it, but it seems less confining and more vivid. Does that make any sense?”
Phia giggled. “Yes it does.” She ran a gentle hand along his cheek. “I think a home with a beach for a backyard would be wonderful.”
Donté rolled Phia onto her back. He placed his hand over her lower abdomen and grinned. “I was also thinking Florida would be the perfect place to raise our son.”
Phia stared down at his smiling face and asked slowly, “Our what?” She couldn’t have heard him right. “Our what?”
About the Author
Nya Rayne resides in North Carolina with her rambunctious German shepherd, and has been in love with fiction since she picked up her first copy of V.C. Andrews at the age of 11. She holds two degrees: Business Marketing and Psychology. She is a powerful advocate for reading and writing. When she’s not writing or working her way through a novel by one of her favorite novelists, she’s rescuing dogs and volunteering at her local SPCA.
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Blog: www.discoveringnyarayne.blogspot.com
Twitter: @nyarayne