Page 10 of Ahelno
I just wanted to hole up somewhere and sleep. Maybe then I could wake from this nightmare.
CHAPTER 8
Weeks later, I lay in the dark, face turned towards the wall. I could hear servants talking outside.
“Lazy thing. She’s never getting out of that bed.”
“I cannot believe we are forced to care for her.”
“She acts like she is too good for us and for our Prince. As if he did anything she did not ask for.”
“I know I would let him rut me anytime he wanted.”
“Why would he mate with an offworlder when he has his pick of females here? Even if she does look like a fabled Lumanela.”
“I have no desire to clean her room today. We shall skip it. She will not tell anyone anyway.”
“Translator, off,” I said. I couldn’t bear to hear any more. The chatter was the same even when the servants did clean my room, as if I couldn’t understand them.
I curled myself up into a tighter ball and prayed for relief that would never come.
CHAPTER 9
More weeks passed, or so they said. I wasn’t keeping track.
Every night, I relived the nightmare of my rape. Every morning I woke up and wished I were back on Earth. I teared up as I thought about my parents. I’d give anything to hug my mom or dad again. My mom would cry with me, make me soup, and tuck me into bed. Make an appointment with a therapist, if I were being honest, and I probably needed that. More than anything, I wanted my mom to squeeze me tight and tell me everything was going to be ok.
But it wasn’t ok. I was never going back to Earth. I was stuck on this planet forever, with aliens who hated me. They loved their Prince and didn’t believe he had done anything wrong. I was the evil Lumanela who bewitched him with her terrible beauty and caused him to be put in prison, taking over his estates for her own financial gain.
When I first arrived at the estate, they had offered me his room. A familiar spicy musk hit me as soon as I entered the room, and I hysterically declared I needed another room. Any other room. I could tell they were offended, and I simply Did. Not. Care. I think that was the moment I finally broke.
I had never felt so alone, or so lonely. I just knew that Ididn’t want to be here anymore. As I sank further into my despair, I found I didn’t want tobeanymore.
I eyed the side table where they’d left my lunch. I stopped eating weeks ago, but they put something like an IV into my arm, so I didn’t starve to death. Someone kept bringing me meals anyway, out of obligation, I supposed. I had no desire to eat anything. It all looked and smelled strange, and one time I was pretty sure the contents of the bowl were moving. Gross.
The tray usually carried an elongated spoon with a circular handle or a two-pronged long fork. Today was a fork day. I picked it up and examined it. It felt like metal, although it was green. The tips of the tines were surprisingly sharp.
In my heart, I knew I was done. I couldn’t face a lifetime of the heartache, the nightmares, the isolation, the desolation. I was never going to see my friends or family again. I’d never play another piano concerto or dance in a musical production. I hadn’t heard any music in the days I’d been here. Did they evenhavemusic? I dismissed the random thought and focused on the fork. I sat up and paused as a wave of dizziness accompanied the sudden position change.
I had never contemplated suicide before, but of late it occupied my thoughts constantly. On Earth, I was a happy person. A student of music and dance, I was heading to New York with my best friend after graduation to try out for Broadway. I even had my first audition lined up. Everyone just knew that someone with my talent, my looks, and my personality was destined to star in a revival of Les Mis or A Chorus Line. I would start as a backup dancer or understudy and work my way into a starring role in no time. My whole life, people gravitated towards me, and I loved entertainingthem. I loved talking to them, hugging them. I was an overly affectionate extrovert who loved to perform and loved to make people happy. I wasn’t meant to be alone.
Here, I felt like a husk, an empty, hollow shell that would never laugh or sing or dance again. It was overwhelming, like a heavy darkness surrounded me all the time, and I would never find my way back to the light.
Decision made, I ripped out the IV and took the fork into the “sanitizing room,” as the Ptexari called it. Sliding down the wall of the shower, I sat and held out my arm. Steeling myself to the pain (I hated needles), I dragged the tine across the skin of the underside of my forearm. It stung, and I pricked my skin, but it wasn’t deep enough. An alarm sounded outside my door. I took a deep breath and pressed the tine in deeper. I grunted as I slid the tine from my wrist all the way to my elbow. The blood started flowing quickly. I dropped the fork and closed my eyes. I supposed it would go faster if I slit the other arm as well, but I was shaking and didn’t think I could hold the fork steady enough for a second cut. Hoping it was enough, I waited to bleed out and die.
The door to my bedroom flew open, and I could hear the alarm from outside blaring louder. A large male Ptexari grabbed me by the arms and pulled me up.
“Let me go!” I screamed at him. He hauled me over his shoulder and raced out of the room. “Idiot Lumanela,” he grumbled. He carried me to a medical room where other Ptexari strapped me to a table. I screamed and cursed at them, but they stuck a needle in me while a medic quickly bound my arm, and everything went blurry, then black.
CHAPTER 10
Dakleth
I felt a despair unlike any I had ever known. The feeling of despondency had grown steadily worse since my arrival, and I recognized it was not just my own. All my life, I had been a male of action. I rarely thought to explore my feelings. I accepted new situations, adjusted accordingly, and moved on. Even here at the prison camp, I remained active. I did not fight the orders of the guards. This was my reality. If they ordered me to move a rock from one side of a field to the other, and then back again, serving no purpose, I complied. This was the punishment I deserved. I would endure.
But the emotions swirling through the pit of my being belonged to my mate. I could feel her through the bond. I had not been sure if it would form, given the circumstances of our mating, but it had. I felt her loneliness and hurt. I longed to be with her, but there was nothing I could do. I would not see her for eight years. I had to trust that my father would care for her during my absence. In the meantime, I rubbed my hearts and tried to send her reassurance through the bond. Unfortunately, it did not seem to have any effect.
CHAPTER 11
