The Vori's Secret

by S. J. Sanders

  Martins’s head dropped and he drew in a shaky breath, held it, and nodded.

  “Yeah, it was a longshot. Thank you.”

  Jenn reached forward and touched his shoulder. “Hey. Good luck, Martins. I really hope you find your sister. Don’t give up hope.”

  His head lifted and he pinned her with a hard gaze, his full lips pressed into a thin line.

  “I won’t. Thank you, Miss Stacey.”

  He stood up from his crouch and walked away. Jenn didn’t allow her eyes to follow, but listened to his boots move and the various bangs of latches being checked. The engine gunned up. She didn’t hear it but felt it as a dull vibration that seemed to encompass the entire ship. She suddenly had an idea of what Martins meant by likening the ship to a freight train. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes as the ship lifted from the landing pad and sped out of its docking spot into space.

  Chapter 26

  Jenn stared up at the stars from her mother’s patio chair. Nothing felt right since she returned weeks ago. Even the stars she grew up staring at, and the constellations she learned as a child, seemed unfamiliar and wrong. Her eyes teared up. As much as she loved seeing her family again, it wasn’t home, just as she’d suspected.

  Not that her family hadn’t tried. Brothers who’d been smart-mouth teens when she left were all grown men, two of them with families of their own. Not one of them had been too busy for her, and her mother had cried on and off the entire first day she was back, when she wasn’t plying Jenn with all her favorite foods. Jenn felt ashamed that it wasn’t enough for her. She knew that they were aware that something was off, but how could she tell them that she wanted to leave them for an alien male on a distant world?

  Not just any alien male. Eyuul. Her would-have-been mate if she’d only taken the chance on him before it was too late. He had been right about something, though. She’d needed the time to see her family and really evaluate her heart.

  Now she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than to be with him again.

  “Jenn, what are you doing out here?”

  She looked over at her mother and swallowed back her grief. She’d missed her mother; there was no denying that. Even tired after a day of work, her mother’s graying black hair was still in the same neat, tight curls she’d always worn for as long as Jenn could remember.

  “Hey, Momma. Nothing’s wrong. Why do you ask?”

  “Don’t be spinning tales to me and pretending like everything is all right like you did that therapist. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  Her mother shook her head and sat in the other chair, groaning lightly.

  “Feels good getting off my feet. Still, I don’t know what I’ll do when it comes time to retire. You get so used to a thing that the idea of something different makes you feel lost... you know.”

  Jenn blinked and felt the tears slip unbidden down her cheeks. “Yeah, Momma, I know.”

  “You miss it, don’t you?”

  Jenn refused to give words to just how much she missed her life on Vora. “I missed you too though.”

  Her mother’s warm laughter slipped over her.

  “Jenn, you’ll always have me, but you will regret it if you don’t fight for your happiness. No bit of distance will change anything in what you have here. Besides,” her mother said, shifting more comfortably into the chair, “your brothers have been going on and on about getting a galactic comm system. I suspect if you went to Vora, it would give them the perfect reason they’re looking for.”

  Jenn bit her bottom lip and stared at her mother’s proud profile. “You won’t mind if I’m gone? I won’t be here for the holidays. It won’t be like it was when I was living in the next city and could just drop in whenever you need me to.”

  “I know, but after so many years of not knowing what happened to you, I feel blessed just knowing you’ll be out there somewhere where you will be protected and loved. Your daddy and I, in the end, didn’t get much time, but that kind of love is worth holding onto with both hands for as long as you can. If you have that, then that’s all I need. Anything else, your brothers can pick up the slack. They’ve been good for it since you’ve been gone, being the kind of responsible young men I always knew they could be. I will miss you, but I’ll be so happy for you too. And I am proud of you Jenn, for everything you risked and gave up doing what you did to help all the women out there. You sacrificed enough. Now is your time.”

  Jenn leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her mother’s cheek.

  “Thank you, Momma.”

  Her mother’s eyes twinkled, and she let out a chuckle. “You still aren’t getting out of comming me on the holidays. So don’t you forget.”

  “I won’t.” Jenn laughed, her heart lightening as if a great weight were taken off. “I guess I better go into Seattle and see to settling things with the Mate Index Authority.”

  Her mother nodded, a pleased smile on her face.

  “You do that and tell your brothers before they fall through that old door the way they’re all pressed against it.”

  THE SECRETARY SAT AT a perfectly polished desk flipping through her palm comm unit. She didn’t even see Jenn walk through the door. That was fine; Jenn refused to be put off yet again by another person saying that the Mate Index didn’t work like that. If she wanted to be an intergalactic mate, she had to sign up and submit to the regular bidding process. Jenn wasn’t tolerating that shit.

  She didn’t even say a word as she breezed by the secretary. The young woman’s mouth gaped open and she stumbled to her feet.

  “Wait, Miss, you can’t go in there. Do you have an appointment? Wait!”

  Ignoring the flurry of words trailing after her and the tip-tap of the high heels chasing close behind, Jenn barged through a door, allowing it to slam open. A middle-aged man blinked up at her in surprise and sat back in his seat, his hand raising to stem the tide of apologies from the secretary.

  “Miss Thomas, it is fine. Please return to your duties. I will handle this.” He pinned her with a blasé smile and steepled his fingers in front of him. “How can I help you, Miss...?”

  “Stacey, Jennifer Stacey. And yeah, you most certainly can help me. I’ve been given the runaround by this company for days now. No doubt you’ve heard of me. I testified against the Agraak and escaped Agraadax myself. I went through all that and now that I’m trying to return to Vora to be with the male I want to be with, I am getting railroaded by everyone I talk to.”

  “And what is it, exactly, you would like me to do for you? If you want to be a bride; it is simply a matter of registering.” His smile was polite but it was the oily expression of an official. One who would take every penny you have and make it sound good as something for your benefit.

  “Ah, I see. You’re a slick one. Registering is the last thing I want; I have a mate who is waiting for me on Vora. So, let me just get right to the point. The Intergalactic Council is looking for evidence of wrongdoing on part of the Mate Index, and with all this bullshit going on I’ve recorded a comm with my brother’s finger on it. All I have to do is touch my comm here and it is sent.”

  Now she had his attention. He sat up again in his chair, a frown pulling at his brow. “Let’s not get hasty. What is it you want?”

  “Let me buy out a standard Mate Index contract with a fully licensed visa to leave Earth for Vora on a chartered outbound starship.”

  “You are a woman of significant renown. The rates that the Mate Index could acquire for you as a mate...”

  “Is none of my concern.”

  “But our losses...”

  “I don’t give a fuck. It will be the regular rate and you will issue the transaction now, or else the Agraak won’t be the only one having their dirty little secrets aired out.”

  “This is extortion,” he stammered, and she gave him a wicked smile.

  “So glad you recognize it, considering that’s something the Mate Index Distribution Program is particularly good at. Now get on with it
.”

  A dull flush rising in his cheeks, he opened a comm, linking directly to hers. Immediately her personal details transferred to the document fixed with a holographic seal. Jenn watched as he added his signature and personal holographic stamp and applied the visa. The comm document flashed green.

  He eyed her plaintively. “You will now sign a nondisclosure agreement like all brides.”

  “Gladly,” Jenn grinned applying her own thumbprint signature to his comm. “It was a pleasure doing business with you.”

  Turning on her heel, Jenn walked straight past the secretary who glared daggers at her and skipped down the stairs to the car waiting at the bottom. Her brother leaned forward and opened her door. She slid in with a grin.

  “I’ll be damned. They totally bought your bluff!” Daniel snickered.

  “Lucky for us they didn’t know that I don’t have any sort of direct line to the Intergalactic Council, or even a galactic level comm system set up yet. Did you arrange transport?”

  “Yep. They’re just waiting for you to arrive with your visa and credits for charter.”

  “The agreed-upon amount?”

  “They were a bit pained by your demand but decided that for a courageous female such as yourself they would be honored to carry you for that price.”

  “Excellent. Let’s get out of here.”

  “EYUUL, GET UP. YOU can’t just lie down and die in our mother’s nest,” Vadal snapped. Eyuul closed his eyes, willing his brother to go crawl into his own pit he called a nest and leave him alone.

  “I am quite content where I am at. Thank you, Vadal. Now kindly feed yourself to a shoyla.”

  Even with his eyes closed, he could feel his older brother hovering over him with distinct disapproval. Cracking an eye open, he sighed. Not only was his brother hovering but he had his arms crossed in that irritating way that meant he wasn’t going to give up.

  “I am not leaving,” Vadal stated.

  Eyuul attempted to retreat beneath the cushions of his nest but felt a sharp tug on his tail seconds before his brother pulled him out with more strength than he would have expected. His head bumped the ledge of his nest as his brother pulled him out into the hall and deposited him in a heap on the cold stone.

  “Quit moping about like a nestling.”

  “I am being intense and broody, tragically pining for the return of my mate... not moping.”

  His brother rolled his eyes. “Fine, you are very tragic. Now get up. Reggie asked me to drag your sorry carcass out, so there is nothing you can say to prevent me from doing just that.”

  “Credits. I will give you all the credits I have.”

  “Too late to try that,” Vadal declared with a smile, tightening his grip on Eyuul’s tail. “Not only did you give all your credits to Jenn, but you outright ignored any comms Reggie has sent you. So, she sent me, and I won’t be so easy to ignore.”

  Eyuul groaned and let his head fall back helplessly, wincing as it struck the stone floor. “Why even bother? It is not like there is anything for me without my mate here. She gave her evidence a full lunar cycle ago and hasn’t returned. She isn’t coming. As I am to pass my life alone, I should be allowed to at least suffer in peace.”

  “Peace is for when you are dead,” Shaagra added as he peered down the corridor from the matriarch’s common room. “By the Mother’s nest, you are melodramatic lately.”

  “You as well? What are you doing here, Shaagra?” Eyuul didn’t even bother disguising his groan of disgust.

  “I am the muscle just in case you give Vadal a hard time.”

  Even upside-down and flat on his back, Eyuul had no trouble making out Shaagra’s smug smile.

  “Come on. Reggie has a surprise for you, and she refuses to let anyone else tell you.”

  “You can tell Reggie that I don’t want a surprise. Now you may leave.”

  “By the Mother, when did you get so difficult?” Shaagra gave an accusing look to Vadal. “I thought you were the more taciturn among your brothers. Eyuul has always been far more jovial... Have you been giving him lessons? I don’t think Jenn will thank you for turning him into a sour old nixai bramble.”

  “Jenn isn’t here, so what does it matter?” Eyuul muttered. Both males eyed him stubbornly until finally he threw his hands up in defeat. “Fine! Let’s see what surprise Reggie has for me. Then will you allow me to return to my miserable existence?”

  “Certainly,” both males said in unison as they smirked at him. Eyuul wondered just what they knew that he did not, but turned away with a huff, making his way from the matriarch’s nest down to Vadal’s nest, preceded by his brother and Shaagra.

  Upon entering the nest, a familiar scent teased his nose, and his tongue flicked out to capture it, drawing it deep within and savoring it. In one of Reggie’s human chairs he could see the reddish coils brushing over the top edge.

  His breath stilled in his lungs. He couldn’t bear to hope lest it be some cruel trick. His heart couldn’t stand that sort of sorrow, to have his mate ripped away from him again.

  Reggie glanced up and the small smile playing on her lips widened. The figure facing away from him stilled and then slowly stood and turned.

  “Jenn,” he whispered.

  His female smiled at him, tears streaming down her cheeks as she stumbled around the furniture and rushed toward him. He barely came to in time to open his arms and catch ahold of her as she barreled into him, burying his face tight into her neck. He pulled back and brushed the coiled locks of hair out of her face as his crown coils twined around them.

  “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

  Jenn choked on a cry and shook her head. “Nothing could keep me away. I just had to deal with officials who needed appropriate convincing.”

  “You wish to be my mate?”

  “A thousand times, yes!”

  They collapsed against each other, falling into the lengths of Eyuul’s coils, their lips locked together. Eyuul heard Reggie sniffle in the background, her voice choked up as she whispered, “Now that’s the perfect ending for a love story on Vora.”

  Epilogue

  The feast was over. The crowd that had come to celebrate their mating had been daunting, but finally they were alone. It had taken them four months since Jenn’s return before Eyuul would permit her to mate with him. For a matriarchal society, Eyuul certainly drew a firm line on how far she’d call the shots. Jenn didn’t mind.

  He’d been industrious during that time too, although she hadn’t realized how much until she followed him into the nest that he’d selected and painstakingly remodeled for her comfort. Smaller than Vadal’s nest, it was cozy to Jenn and utterly perfect for them. She could see the hand of Eyuul everywhere as he adjusted color schemes to her preferred pallet of rose and gold and replaced old broken carvings with images of a woman with a Vori coiled around her in adoration.

  Jenn rested her hand against her heart as a rush of sentimentality overwhelmed her. The care he put into their nest said all that needed to be said.

  Almost shyly, he led her through the nest, down the short corridor to the nest proper. Thick cushions were piled within invitingly, each one new and rich in color with delicate weaves and needlework. Even the new sconces on the wall gleamed and a warm, inviting scent perfumed the air. It took her a minute to realize that the smell was coming from Eyuul as he coiled before her watching her every movement with eager eyes.

  “Do this nest and I meet with your approval?”

  The words seemed almost ritualistic with how solemnly he uttered them.

  “It’s beautiful. I never imagined our home would be so perfect. Of course, you realize I would have been just as happy in the shelter in the mountains.”

  “Now you tell me. If you prefer the mountain, I suppose I can offer this to one of my cousins...”

  Jenn slapped her hand over his mouth, but that didn’t stop his eyes from sparkling merrily over the edge of her palm.

  “Don’t you dare! This is our
nest. No one else gets to enjoy it.” She let her hand slide free and pressed a kiss to his mouth, sighing with pleasure as she took in the room once more. “It really is perfect, Eyuul. Thank you.”

  The end of his tail brushed her shoulder as he looked down at her.

  “This is a reflection of you in my heart. Everything here I made and purchased because it reminded me of you. A male makes his nest with the hope of honoring the female who resides within it.” His lips quirked with sudden humor. “And I wish to see the glory of your beauty stretched across these cushions.”

  Jenn chuckled, her fingers teasing his crown coils as she slanted a flirtatious look at him. “I do believe that can be arranged.”

  “That is my fervent wish for this night.”

  She searched his face and saw only love reflected back at her. This was exactly the kind of guy she’d always looked for without knowing what she wanted. No one had measured up, not because they were human, but because no one looked at her the way he did. Nor had she, until now, found a guy who made her want to look at him the way she looked at Eyuul. She knew she was looking into the very hearts of the male destined to be her mate, and from the smile on his lips, she knew that he found likewise within her.

  Jenn smiled up at him. This was their moment, and she wanted it to set the tone for the rest of her lives. She’d gladly take whatever time they were given to have this as long as she could.

  She understood then exactly what her mother had meant. She hoped her family got that comm system installed soon because she couldn’t wait to tell her just how right she was.

  This moment, and every moment after, was worth everything.

  Twining her arms around his neck, Jenn arched against Eyuul until they were belly to belly. His breath flew out of his lungs on a rattling snarl at the contact and his pupils rounded out into oblong ovals. Tilting her face so that their lips were only a breath apart, she whispered her need, “Be my mate.”