Page 38 of Bred By Sor'en

He sighs. “Nothing, it is just a great show of trust. Usually, only close friends or family touch one another. What you offered… it simply shocked them. You have won our people over already. You will be most treasured here. I would not be surprised if the unbalanced fools do not throw their wears at your feet.”

That sobers me, and him too.

That blaster is edging ever closer to my temple as he carries me through the grassy circle opening lined with flower fields. The trigger finger starts to shake.

The next few zentics pass in a somber kind of excitement. We are, in fact, offered everything under the planet's dim sun, a cart now following us around loaded to the brim with more items than I've ever owned before. It's not until we approach the next vendor cart, this one selling candied flowers, the female manning it excitedly watching to see how much I like it that the overwhelming, tightening of my chest finally takes over. I take a polite nibble, however much Sor’en deemed safe for me to consume. It's great, sugary and rich, like how the replicator cake was at the education pods when they rented one for our graduation. Nobody was smiling that day either. I’d only gotten a bite of mine before the Strilgid had slapped it from my hands with one of his hind insectoid legs. I’d barely reacted. He’d never liked me, but it got worse after I walked in on him molting. Glamorith explained that a Strilgid molts up to six times in their lives. It’s triggered by great changes within them, or their environment. It's only done in the presence of their queen or mate. I had seen something very private, very vulnerable. Something I wasn’t supposed to all because I was sneaking around. He never let me forget it.

I hand the rest of the candied flower to Sor’en for him to finish off, even the new lightheadedness I feel isn’t enough to ward off the encroaching anxiety. It’s coming on like a space storm, like the dying of an ancient star.

My eyes land on the cart of stuff I don't deserve as a few males approach Sor’en about Lyr’lumara stuff. He eyes me apprehensively as we’re separated, so I offer him a smile that’sweakening by the second and motion to the cart. Assuring him I'm right here.

It’s another lie.

Because am I? Was I ever?

My pulse picks up so high in my chest it whooshes in my ears, almost drowning out a soft voice when it calls out my species. “Human!”

I glance over, almost unsteady on my feet, to see Lyr’ael walking toward me, something gripped in her hand.

I try to smile at her, but I don’t think I manage it. My attention darts around the opening, eyeing the space that’s getting tighter by the second. I’m backed up to a narrow passage between vendors into an open field.

Into anywhere away from here.

My breathing is labored by the time she reaches me in their signature unhurried way. As if a light job is incredibly rude. “The others and I made something for you after your vigil. I thought now was as good of time as any to catch you.”

I nod, a chill slinking over my spine. Not because of her, but because the guilt is so heavy in my gut I might vomit. I can feel it offsetting my gut, my face feeling hot as my mouth fills with silva. They’re all going to hate me.

I’m going to show them everything they’re afraid of.

The wider space will never accept them if even their botanists mate runs. They won't let me back. I’m sure of it. I cast a panicked glance at Sor’en, finding him still in the group carefully studying the stem of a red flower.

Lyr’ael doesn’t hesitate to step behind me and out of sight, opening up her palm past my face. My mind goes blank as I stare at it. “We know how much your Nysharil tooth means so to you, so we harvested a Xyrelith tooth as well. I hope you like it. The females and I…”

I lose track of her words, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear I’d been punched in the gut. I don’t stop her, don’t have the capacity to eventryas she undoes the clasp, slipping the new tooth onto my noose. It rests heavily as she slides it across the chain and I hate that it touches Mom's. That they aren’t separate. I thank her numbly without hearing my own voice past my pounding heart as she gives me a balanced blessing.

Every inch of me is tense.

Ready.

I try to remember what the surface of Lunareth looked like when Sofaxi showed it to me, the valleys and hills, lush green utopia. Something deep and wicked reaches inside my chest, taking a fistful of my lungs. I can’t picture it, all I see are flowers.

Pretty flowers that light up and sway in the floral breeze.

Black and white.

A spool with some kind of pale woven quilt that seems harder than fabric should be is carried past. Towering, imposing, quiet… kind, Xyrelith males holding either side of wide display cutting off my view of Sor’en. My only remaining tether to logic.

And I bolt.

twenty-one

Hue

Before I can stop it, think better of it, or think at all really, I’m running full tilt between the vendors, my feet pounding the soft grass so hard it jars my knees. Panic's grip tightening on me in every way that counts. The kind of panic that blanks out your thoughts and surroundings, where your body hits autopilot and your actual mind is nothing more than a stowaway. A strangled noise rips through my throat as I search for anything tight, anything small. Anywhere tohide. I find nothing but the quiet city behind me and the field of flowers around me. Suddenly, all the things I loved about it are painful and overwhelming. Taunting, ignorant and downright cruel.

My body doesn’t care, the weight around my neck drags me forward as I bolt toward the tree line in the distance. I barely notice the sharp prick of pain that hits me as I bolt past a shimmering wall that hadn’t been there until seconds before Islammed through it. I cry out, stumbling but recovering quickly as I make it to the heavy woods. Where there was soft pale teal grass before the ground under my feet is rough prodding my sensitive soles. The dome. I’m out of the dome.

Good.