He cupped her cheek and kissed her softly before encasing her in his arms again and crushing her closer. Just when he thought there was no space between them, she found a spare molecule and eliminated it by returning the embrace with all her strength. His blood warmed, spreading the tingling heat through his veins until his whole core hummed with loving her.
Syrine made a mock retching noise, but he ignored it.
When Cara pulled back, she reached up and ruffled his hair. “With a little gel, you’d look like half the guys in school. You’re more human than me right now.”
“Which explains his asinine behavior,” Syrine retorted. “But don’t stop now. I’m sure you can mold him into the perfect companion.”
Cara’s fist tightened around his shirt, but she concealed her frustration, maintaining a blank expression as she turned to Syrine. “I don’t want to change Aelyx—I love him just the way he is.”
Syrine scoffed, her laugh so dry it tainted the air with the stink of loathing. “He doesn’t feel the same about you. Your kind disgusts him.” She raised her chin in contempt. “Did he tell you what we’ve done?”
“That’s enough!” He locked eyes with Syrine and delivered a stern warning. No more! She’s mine, and I won’t let you ruin her with your hate!
Ruin her? Syrine asked. Or ruin you? Afraid your sweet Elire won’t forgive you for what you’ve done?
Syrine had always been able to pinpoint Aelyx’s greatest fear, but this was the first time she’d ever tried to use it against him. Please don’t. He couldn’t hide his desperation. For the briefest of moments, Syrine’s resolve faltered, but in the end, her rage took control.
“You mean the water?” Cara said. “I already know about the contamination.”
Syrine turned and gave him a look of reproach. “Is there anything you haven’t told her? Thank the Mother I had the forethought to delete her site.”
“You shut down my blog?” Cara demanded.
Syrine ignored the question as a wicked grin curved her lips. “I’ll bet there are some things you didn’t share with our sweet Elire.” Then she practically sang, “Like the sh’alear.”
“What’s that?” Cara asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Syrine’s out of her mind with grief. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.” He grabbed Cara’s hand and tried to lead her away. “Come on. I’ll take you to your room so you can rest.”
“Don’t do that.” She jerked free. “Don’t lie to me again. I can tell something’s going on.”
“Lie to you again?” Syrine gave a teasing tsk-tsk-tsk. He pleaded with her, but she blocked his thoughts. “What’s he told you?”
Instead of answering, Cara faced him and waited for several agonizing beats, offering him a chance to confess. He remembered what she’d said that morning, though it seemed a lifetime ago: We have to trust each other, or we’re no better than strangers. He shook his head, silently begging her to let it go.
Cara finally turned back to Syrine. “He said the exchange was a trial,” she told her. “That your leaders want us to intermarry because you’re missing emotional depth or something. They want humans to colonize L’eihr.”
“Wanted,” Syrine corrected. “Past tense, but yes, that’s right. What he didn’t mention is that our generation detests the idea.” She paused to curl her lip and scan Cara from head to toe in obvious disdain. “As if we need your inferior genetic material. So we sabotaged the experiment. Aelyx planned everything. The whole time he’s been living with you, he’s been killing your crops to incite panic so he could keep you and your foul race away from L’eihr.”
Cara released a humorless laugh as if the words were too ludicrous to believe, but when she glanced at him he could only gape at her in shame.
Slowly, her brows rose. “Is that true?”
“It started that way,” he admitted, taking her hand again, “but then I began to care for you, and I realized we couldn’t be together if the alliance failed, so I uprooted my sh’alear.”
“Wait.” Cara held one hand forward. “What’s that?”
“The sh’alear is a parasitic tree,” Syrine told her. “It robs the soil of nutrients and destroys most fruit-bearing vegetation until it’s uprooted. Aelyx showed us how to smuggle the seedlings to Earth and how to plant them. He said it would fuel human paranoia.”
“That’s why you kept going into the woods,” Cara said to him. “When did you pull it up?”
This was the worst part—the most damning. “A few days ago,” he said.
Cara shook her head and stared at him in silence. When she spoke again, the pain in her voice prickled his flesh. “So, up until three days ago, you were trying to make sure you’d never see me again?”
He didn’t have a response for that. How could he make her understand how conflicted he’d felt? How afraid he’d been that mankind would destroy his planet and his people? Just look at the way humans had transformed Syrine from a compassionate healer into a black hole of malice.
“But I killed my seedling,” he objected. “And Eron tried to do the same.”
“Getting him murdered in the process!” Syrine shouted.
“He knew it was the right choice, long before we found out—” The alliance would save mankind.
“Oh, gods,” Syrine said, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. “I forgot the best part! Without the alliance—and our technology—your planet’s as good as dead.”
Cara continued to shake her head absently. “They won’t help us unless the alliance goes through?” She glanced at him once again for a refusal he couldn’t provide.
“I didn’t know until a few days ago—I swear it on the Mother.” He couldn’t let her think for one second he’d plotted to destroy her people. As he explained how the growth particles had infected all of Earth’s major water sources, Cara’s chest rose and fell in shallow gasps.
“We’ve got ten years?” she whispered. “And L’eihr won’t help us?”
“But I fought to save the alliance as soon as I found out.”
“Oh, well, that makes it all right.” Cara freed her hands and backed away from him.
All his nightmares had ended in some variation of this—losing her once she learned the truth of what he’d done. But unlike the dreams, he wouldn’t stand frozen and watch her disappear from his life.
Giving her space, he held up his palms like a man in surrender. “Please listen. I was wrong, but as soon as I realized—”
“Stop.” She shut her eyes, sealing them tightly as if to block out reality. When she opened them again, tears spilled down her cheeks. “I sacrificed everything for you, and you were screwing over my whole planet the entire time.”
“Not the entire time.”
“Till three days ago!”
“But I love you. I showed you my feelings—you know they’re real.”
“And that’s why I can’t trust you.” She paused to drag her shirtsleeve beneath her nose. “Loving me didn’t stop you from lying or playing God. And now you expect me to fly away with you and leave everyone behind to die?”
“No! I’ll get the technology somehow, even if I have to steal it.”
“Damn right, you will. And then I’ll take it home with my brother.”
Syrine shoved him aside and held one finger in Cara’s face. “You won’t take a single grain of sand off L’eihr. I already told the Elders what Aelyx was planning.”
“Then I’m glad the experiment failed,” Cara spat, “because you’re monsters. All of you!”
Before his brain could register what was happening, Syrine slapped Cara across the face, hard enough to send her stumbling into his arms. He held her protectively, but she recoiled and pushed free.
Syrine gasped, staring at her palm in disbelief as she backed up a pace, while Cara advanced, blood surging into her cheeks, fingers flexing, muscles coiled and ready to strike back. She stilled her hand and stopped within an inch of Syrine’s nose.
“And you ca
lled my people barbarians,” Cara said. “You’re no better. At least humans can love.”
“Don’t talk to me about love,” Syrine whispered, her back against the wall. “I loved Eron all my life—even when he chose someone else. I never stopped.”
“I didn’t know Eron very well,” Cara said, “but I bet he wouldn’t want a whole planet to die for him.” She whipped her head around and locked eyes with Aelyx, her gaze cold and empty. “I’m going home. I never should’ve left.”
“Wait.” Lurching forward, he grabbed her shoulders. “I can make you understand. Just let me show you how I felt…how much I struggled with the choice.”
“No!” She closed her eyes.
“Just this once, and I’ll never ask you again.”
Cara pushed him away, screaming, “I don’t want your poison inside my head!” She turned on her heel and fled down the hall, her ponytail swinging to and fro.
Her words sent him stumbling back like a blow to the chest. Aelyx’s eyes welled until she blurred into a collage of red and beige, then she turned the corner and disappeared.
He had to fix this. But how? Stepha had promised a dozen lashes for bringing Cara aboard the ship, and the Elders would watch him too closely for him to steal the technology and escape.
Whatever it takes, he decided. It didn’t matter what he had to do—the end would justify the means. He’d find a way to save Earth or die trying.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Cara swore she’d never travel at light speed again. Never ever ever. Not even if astronauts discovered a chocolate and peanut butter planet and claimed it for the US of A.
Oh, God, she shouldn’t have thought about food! Ripples of nausea turned her stomach as her mouth flooded with saliva. Clutching the steely rim of her toilet with one hand, she rose onto her knees, tugged her hair aside, and hurled for the third time that morning.
She moaned to herself. Outer space sucked. Why hadn’t the L’eihrs warned her this would happen? Oh, yeah, because everyone aboard the SS Buzzkill hated her with the fire of a thousand supernovas. Except for Aelyx, who’d holed up inside his own room, which explained why their paths hadn’t crossed.
With a groan, she curled up against her bathroom wall, too weak to even wipe her mouth. She’d never felt so miserable, not even when she’d caught the swine flu in kindergarten and wound up in the hospital with secondary pneumonia. Of course, she hadn’t lost the love of her life at age six.
Childish as it felt, she wanted her mother. Mom would know all the right things to say to make her feel better, but Cara’s parents were galaxies away, and she didn’t even know if they were safe. If she weren’t so dehydrated, she’d break down and cry again, but she knew the tears wouldn’t come, and crying without tears felt too much like dry heaving.
A light knock sounded from the door to her quarters in the next room, but she didn’t budge. Whoever it was could come back later, maybe collect her dead body and ship it back to Earth. A loud hiss told Cara someone had opened the door, and she prayed to God it wasn’t Aelyx. The last thing she wanted was for him to find her on the bathroom floor with dried puke in her hair. But when the medic poked her head through the doorway, disappointment tugged at Cara’s heartstrings. Part of her had hoped it was Aelyx. She missed him so much it hurt.
“Sacred Mother,” the girl said, twisting Cara’s heart with another reminder of him. “You look awful.”
“Can’t. Stop. Yakking.”
She gave a sympathetic smile and nodded. “Speed sickness. Why didn’t you come to the clinic?”
“Because I couldn’t take the toilet with me.” It sounded better than, I’m a wussy coward who was scared of running into Aelyx in the hall. She’d had all her meals brought to the room for the same reason, not that she’d been able to keep most of them down.
“Well.” The girl blinked her mile-long lashes and set her bag on the floor. “I’m glad someone asked me to check on you.”
There was only one person on this godforsaken spacecraft who cared if she lived or died, and as much as she hated it, she still cared for him, too. “Is he sick like me?”
“Sicker than I’ve ever seen him.” The medic crouched down and rooted around inside her bag until she found a hypodermic needle and a glass vial filled with clear liquid. “But not like you.” She tapped one finger against her temple. “He suffers here.” After scanning Cara’s face a moment, the girl pressed two fingers over her heart. “And here.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Despite all his lies, she hated the idea of Aelyx hurting. It’d been so tempting to let him use Silent Speech to explain away what he’d done. There was no point denying that she ached to be with him. But she couldn’t trust Aelyx, and without that, they had nothing worth saving.
“Do you understand why you’re so sick?” The girl filled her needle with clear solution and motioned for Cara’s arm. As she injected the medicine, she explained, “It’s all in your mind.”
Sucking in a sharp breath, Cara clenched her teeth as the icy liquid swept through her veins.
“Your brain doesn’t believe your body is capable of light speed,” the girl continued as she massaged Cara’s arm, pushing the medication toward her heart. “How can your mind understand something you’ve never experienced? So it assumes you’re hallucinating—that you’ve poisoned yourself—and it induces vomiting to rid your body of the perceived toxins.” She pulled what looked like a metal thermos from her bag, unscrewed it, and handed it over. “L’eihrs are no different, Cah-ra. Our brains are resistant to change. How can we understand what we’ve never experienced and adapt without making mistakes?”
Cara’s hand froze in midair as she reached for the cup. She had a feeling they weren’t talking about motion sickness anymore. So, if she understood the subtext correctly, the medic was suggesting she cut Aelyx some slack for wrecking the alliance because he’d never been in love before? That was the lamest excuse she’d ever heard.
“Well,” she said, regaining use of her arm, “if L’eihrs are so evolved, they should be able to figure it out.”
“We can.” She nodded for Cara to drink. “But it takes time. And patience.”
Cara studied the girl over the top of her cup as she finished the sweet liquid—electrolyte supplements, no doubt—in three eager gulps. Why did this L’eihr give a fig about her relationship with Aelyx? Out of the hundreds of crew members aboard this transport, why was she the only one to offer comfort and gentle smiles? “What’s your name?” she asked the medic.
The girl screwed the lid on her container, peeking through a fringe of dark lashes that seemed suddenly familiar. “Elyx’a,” she said, pronouncing it e-licks-ah. “But call me Elle.”
Cara’s heart raced. “By any chance, does that mean daughter of Elyx?”
Face expressionless, the girl nodded.
“You’re his sister,” Cara whispered. Aelyx had never mentioned brothers or sisters. Just add that to the long list of secrets he’d kept from her.
“Genetically, yes,” Elle said. “From what I understand of human culture, you’d consider us more friends than brother and sister.” She stood and extended her hand to help Cara to her feet. “But I care for him.”
Propping one palm against the wall for support, Cara gripped the girl’s hand and pushed to standing, waiting for nausea to catapult her stomach into her throat. But to her surprise, nothing happened. Her stomach stayed right where it belonged.
Elle wrapped a supportive arm around Cara’s shoulder and guided her into the main chamber, a gray room the approximate size of a postage stamp, vacant with the exception of two metallic bunk beds. Cara remembered how comfortable Aelyx had felt in his boring gray room back home. It finally made sense.
“He’s different,” Elle continued. “More empathetic than most of the clones. I think that’s the real reason the Elders chose him for the exchange, not because of his language skills.”
Cara quirked a skeptical brow, recalling how cold and unfeeling Aely
x had seemed when they’d first met. “He’s the best you’ve got?”
“No,” Elle whispered, turning her gaze to the floor. “That was Eron. I suspect they’ll clone him again.”
“I’m so sorry.” Cara squeezed the girl’s hand and sat on the edge of her bed. “Were you two close?”
Nodding, she stood on tiptoe to pull a clean uniform off the top bunk. “He was my l’ihan.” She dropped the clothing into Cara’s lap and explained, “The Way wants us to emulate the human method of reproduction.”
“To make babies the old-fashioned way?”
She nodded again. “And for the first time, they’ve allowed us to choose our own mates.”
“Oh, no.” Cara studied Aelyx’s sister—really paid attention for once—taking in the redness that rimmed her silvery eyes, the dark circles beneath her lashes, the smiles that never reached beyond her lips. Though she’d done a stellar job of hiding it, this girl was grieving the loss of her…“L’ihan means husband?”
“No, more like betrothed. The literal translation is future.”
Dipping her head in shame, Cara clutched the clean clothes to her chest as if to hide behind them. “You must hate me.”
“Quite the opposite.” Using one finger, she tipped Cara’s chin up until their eyes met. “I hope you’ll stay.” She gestured to the uniform and added, “Get dressed. We’ll meet the other transport soon, and then the three of you will appear before The Way.”
“The three of who?”
“You, Aelyx, and Syrine.” Elle glanced around the tiny room until she found her bag. “You’ll have a few minutes with your brother while Aelyx receives his reckoning. It won’t take long. Our leaders will summon you then.”
“His reckoning?” Cara didn’t like the sound of that.
“Yes. He needs to account for disobeying the Elders by bringing you here.”
The iphet, then. That horrible electric lash. Cara told herself she couldn’t wait to get away from these sadistic bastards, but in reality, she had to grip the mattress to keep from bolting out the door to Aelyx’s room.
He lied to you for months, she reminded herself. You can’t trust him, and he’s not your problem anymore.
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