Copyright © 2023 by Ava Mona and Bethany-Kris. All rights reserved.
ONE
Betrayal is on the horizon.
I feel it drawing closer with every breath that I breathe. Only the betrayal will not be the end of me. No, it will end someone who matters so much more to me than myself. Yet, knowing what awaits my mother, even knowing I should be preparing to lose her and that she has contented herself with what is to come, I want to fight fate. I want to rage against it until it changes its course and stops threatening to turn my entire world upside down. I want to cry and beg and plead for fate not to take the one who was there from the moment I opened my eyes and received the name she had always decided would be her daughter’s name, because she knew I was coming to her. Vabila. She had been waiting for me to join my older brother Halun. To be a big sister to Bothaki. To be our family’s next Mina. To be the daughter that my father, the king, presented to our people just as proudly as he did his son.
Now, I’m going to lose her. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
“Come now, my daughter,” my mother says. It’s her voice that pulls me from my dark thoughts. “Why are you looking so forlorn?”
“Nothing,” I’m quick to say.
She arches a brow at me. “You were never a good liar, Ila. Talk to me.”
“How can you stand to talk to her?” I sharply question. “How can you stand to even look at her when you know what she will do?”
My mother sighs, and I know it’s because we’ve had this conversation many times.
“There is still a chance that Rachel will turn away from the fate she has chosen. Us being harsh towards her certainly won’t be what helps to sway her decision.”
“It’s a decision no female with any worth would make in the first place,” I snap.
“Sometimes there really is no decision. No choice,” she reminds me. “You have been afforded a life where you always had a choice in things. She has not. All she knows is what she’s been taught and commanded. You ought to have a little sympathy for her.”
“How can you say that to me when you know what she’ll take from me?” I ask low, the pain clear in my voice even to me.
My mother comes over to me and strokes the back of her hand down my cheek. Something she has done for as far back as I can remember; a way of telling me to take a moment, and to think with my heart and not my head. But my heart aches right now, even if I try my best to hide it whenever my mother is around. I don’t have much longer with her, and I don’t want every moment soured with sadness over what will come, but along with the betrayal on the horizon is my mother’s death. It haunts our every interaction, finds a way to come between us during each hug. Even putting my forehead to hers hurts in a way I cannot find words to explain.
My mother is mine. Even if she has been the queen my whole life, and my father’s wife, and the mother to my brothers, she has always, in our own way, been just mine. And now …
“Let us not waste this beautiful day speaking of such things,” my mother says as if to once again pull me from thoughts I should not be having.
“Beautiful.” I chuckle more for her than because I might feel any sort of happiness right now. I can’t. “Their Earth sun blazes down on us like an inferno the moment we step out of the tent and the air smells foul.”
“Well, really we can thank your brother for that.” She shakes her head. “An altar of skulls, really? What was he thinking?”
I smile. “Well, clearly the other Hallans like it, because they voted not to remove it.”
“We have the sour air you just mentioned as a result, so …”
“I guess it’s not so bad if you get closer to the water.”
My mother smirks. “The water, or is it that male who’s always with Frances that you think makes the air smell better?”
I roll my eyes. “Do not even mention that insufferable human.”
Godric. The male who I cannot seem to escape, as hard as I try to. The moment he enters a room, I can’t help but become aware—far too aware—of his presence. Even when he’s on the other side of that room it feels like he’s right beside me, body brushing against mine, and his voice at my ear even though I can clearly see him speaking from feet away. Every single time his eyes are on me, I can tell. They’re a brand searing my skin wherever they land. I hate it. I’m annoyed by it. No matter how much I try to ignore it, that feeling is always there. It seems like he is always there.
But no, my mother is utterly wrong. It’s not because Godric has made a camp for himself on the water that makes the beach a place where it’s a little bit easier to breathe than the main camp. It’s the water. One of the things I miss the most about Hallalah is being able to find water to touch or laze in at almost any moment. Some of the humans, only males, have begun to make small encampments away from the Hallans now that The New Order is mostly defeated, or only fighting on the offensive. A way to stake this planet they’re reclaiming, I guess. The females, however, all remain behind Hallan gates, and really, Hallan soldiers, where they’re safest.
“To the water, then?” my mother asks.
“Although I’m not thrilled about the trek there, yes.”
“I will get us the things we need so we can stay there for our midday meal.”
“I will inform the royal guards where we’re going.”
Because no, my father would not let us come without them. He couldn’t come since the king cannot leave Hallalah, but he made sure to send an entire contingent with my mother and I, and ten royal guards among them. They are very hesitant to act against their queen, though, when she tells them she wants to go somewhere alone.
We both leave the tent and go our separate ways. I’m sure the forsaken sun here is already making my mother as hot as it is me although we’ve barely been under its rays for more than a few seconds. I go towards where I see the royal guards laughing at something they all look at in the center of the circle they currently sit in.
“Show us again!” one of them shouts in the human language.
I stop short, both at the voice that begins speaking, and at the male raising from the center of the circle.
“And The New Order will rise from the ashes of what the wars and degradation have burned away,” Godric says loudly. His hair is in a strange style as he clearly impersonates the bastard I’ve seen so many pictures of here.
The leader of The New Order. A male we still have yet to find and kill.
“We will lie to the women to make ourselves feel better as insecure men,” he continues. “And we will tell the men that they are God’s gift to this wretched planet because we don’t know how else to make up for having such small cocks.”
“Ah, so you admit it?” I call out.
Godric’s eyes snap to mine. Not even seeking me out. They come right to mine, and the light brown of them strikes through me yet again. As if it’s the first time I’m seeing him all over again, my gaze travels up and down his body. He stands taller than any other human male here, and when he’s not impersonating evil males, his hair, a yellow color I’ve never seen the likes of until I came to Earth, is usually brushed back, the ends of it kissing the base of his neck. His face is angled with sharp cheekbones and a firm jaw. He has broad shoulders, muscles all along his stomach that I have seen far too many times since the humans and Hallan males have begun training together, and long legs.
“What do you think I’ve admitted?” he shouts back.
“That your cock is small?”
Any other male would be offended, or angry, but Godric just smirks at me.
“Do you care to find out?”
“My eyesight is not nearly good enough to be able to see something so small from all the way over here.”
The royal guards burst into laughter and Godric’s smirk turns into a smile.
“Allow me to come closer, then.”
He leaves the circle, and the laughing guards, behind to walk over to me. I am very aware of all the eyes on us as he comes closer, but then he fills my vision, and I can only focus on him. He gets so close that he invades my personal space, but I refuse to move back or to give him even an inch. Instead, I meet his eyes. Me being Hallan lets us be eye to eye when he would be looking down at any human female.
“Were you looking for me, Princess?” he asks.
Princess. He’s called me that since his first time meeting me, when he found out what I am back on Hallalah and to the Hallans here. But he always says it in his tongue even though I know he knows how to say it in mine. I hate that the few times he’s called me by my name, I have longed for him to call me Princess again. I hate that I’ve longed for anything from him at all.
I scoff. “Why would I be looking for you?”
More importantly, I ask myself why I’m so disappointed that he’s here, but I know why. If he’s here, then it means he won’t be at the beach when my mother and I go there. He must be here for an affair with Frances or to train with the Hallans.
“Because you always seem to find me,” he points out. “Whenever I’m here, you always end up not too far away from where I am.”
“Only because I want to know how annoyed I’ll be when I leave my tent.”
“I do so love the way you try to cut me with your words,” he says.
I grin. “I could always cut you with something much sharper. A dagger, spear, sword. Take your pick.”
“Your nails,” he chooses. “Leaving scores down my skin while I—”
I throw my head back with loud laughter. “There is not a thing you could do, human, that could have my nails on your skin, let alone digging into it.”
“Oh, but don’t you want to find out, Princess?”
“Why waste my time?”
With those words, I slip past him, walking towards the royal guards I came out here to see to begin with. This is exactly why I detest him. Always distracting me. Always in the way. Always making comments that have my body heating up. I don’t have time for such things. I’m here to ensure there’s peace between the humans and Hallans, and that The New Order gets defeated. Bantering with Godric isn’t something I can give any time or attention to.
“My mother and I are going to the beach,” I tell the guards.
As one, they all begin to stand, but I put my hand up, stilling them as I continue. “Alone. We will give a warcry if anything happens.”
They all bow their heads at the same time. “Loyi.”
Before I even turn around, I know I’ll find Godric’s eyes on me. I’ve felt them on me the entire time. On my ass. They travel up my body far too slowly with me facing him now, then meet my eyes once again. I narrow my black eyes on him, and he smiles.
“Make sure this one stays away from the beach,” I tell the guards.
They laugh, but I also know they’ll do as I say.
“Now you’ve just made it my mission to get to you, Princess!” Godric shouts as I walk away.
Why does the thought of him showing up at the beach make me so excited? Only because I know he’d take more than a few hits from the guards to get there. Yes … that’s why.
When I find my mother, I have to pause to try to gain an ounce of composure. She’s talking with Rachel … again. The very female who will kill my mother. She smiles with Jozay now, thinking we don’t know her true cause in all the kind things she does for my mother and the other females here. To gain our trust, only to use it to trick us later on. My mother takes the basket Rachel offers her, probably with our midday meal in it. Will that be how she kills her? I have foreseen that Rachel will end my mother’s life, but not the exact way. How cruel fate can be. To show me so much and so little all at once. My mother says she has seen her end as well, but not the specifics and only signs to know that it’s fast approaching. That the female standing before her will hasten it.
My mother’s words drift through my mind again; that we must be a friend to Rachel if there is any chance of turning her away from the dark decision she has made. Only that allows me to put a smile on my face as I begin to walk towards them yet again.
“Hello, Rachel,” I say.
“Vabila.” She smiles at me. “How are you?”
“I am well. Will you be joining us on our outing?”
“No, no. I just added some fruit to the basket I saw they were making for your mother. It’s freshly picked.”
“Oh, you go outside the camp to pick fruit?”
Rachel’s eyes fly wide at the question, and she stammers out, “I-I don’t go far. I know I n-need the safety of the camp.”
Does she think we’ll toss her out if we thought she would be fine beyond the camp gates on her own? Surely that would affect whatever plan she has, if we were beyond her reach. I wish I thought my mother would allow me to put her as far away from us as possible. To tell the royal guards exactly who she is and let them imprison her. But I know she won’t. I know because I have asked.
“You are safe here, Rachel,” my mother says, placing her hand to Rachel’s arm.
At my mother’s kind touch, Rachel’s eyes well up. She nods and quickly walks away. I wish I felt that was guilt instead of shame. I wish I thought it was enough to change fate.
“Let us leave now,” my mother tells me. “So, we can enjoy the sun for at least a few hours. It gets dark so quickly here.”
I nod, swallowing around the emotions thick in my throat, and place my hand into the one my mother extends towards me.
It’s a short walk to the beach, but still, I’m grateful for the moment my feet sink into damp sand, providing some relief from the heat. It’s cooler here and the water takes away some of my worries. There are more Hallans here than humans. I’ve found that the humans don’t value the water as much as we do. They don’t seem to value very much at all. Only those with Frances seem to even value the very ones who give them life, those that their species could not survive without. The other males have been … accepting of the changes because they have no choice. The New Order isn’t here to protect them, anymore, and the actions that were acceptable, even encouraged, under them earns the males harsh and sometimes deadly punishments under Opposition and Hallan laws. I must admit that I like going to the very public punishments.
“I think this spot is best,” my mother says.
Right by the rocks. A place to still be with our people, but to also have some type of privacy.
“I agree.”
We sit in the sand and my mother places the basket to her side, not between us. She moves closer to me and then leans her head back, eyes closed while the sun shines down on her. My eyes move over her face, trying to memorize every bit of it. The tiny wrinkles from a lifetime spent laughing. Her lips slightly curved up at the corners, ready to smile and spread her kindness to everyone she comes across. Her hair, pinned up in an intricate style even though we were only coming to the beach. She loves her hair styles.
This is how I will remember her. No matter what comes, this is how.
“Well, hello, Princess.”
My head whips around at a voice I know all too well but wish I didn’t. I smile to hide the shock at seeing him though. The smile comes easy when I see what he had to go through to get to me. His right cheek is cut with blood dripping down from it. His bottom lip is busted, and he leans to the left side so much that I’m sure his ribs will showcase a bruise tomorrow. But still … here he is, having gotten past the royal guards to find his way to the beach. To find his way to me.
“Don’t I get a reward for making it here?” he asks.
“You want a reward when I told you not to come at all?”
“Of course. A kiss will do.”
My mother giggles beside me and I turn to glare at her.
“Well, he did make it here,” she teases.
“You beat the guards, not me,” I say as I stand. “If you want a kiss, you’ll have to win it from me.”
“What game would you like to play?”
Oh, the excitement that lights up his eyes. I tilt my head, considering.
“A race,” I state. “From here to the field. If you win, I’ll kiss you. If I win …” I look him up and down. “You walk back to the camp naked.”
“Deal,” he agrees immediately.
“Vabila,” my mother warns because she knows.
“A deal is a deal.” I smile at her.
Godric and I go to the rock, both setting one hand to it so neither is ahead of the other. My mother shakes her head, I’m sure at me, as she rises. She calls out in our tongue to the Hallans on the beach, telling them about the race and what the stakes are. They all laugh, at Godric, because they know, too. A Hallan steps to the point my mother’s told them we’ll race to.
“First one here,” he calls out.
“What do humans say?” my mother asks. “To begin a race here?”
“Ready, set, go,” Godric answers.
My mother nods, gives me a warning look, but with a smile she loudly says, “Ready. Set. Go.”
We take off and I let him rush ahead of me for just a little while. Allowing him to think he’ll win for just a few seconds. But when he has the nerve, the audacity, to look at me over his shoulder, smirk in place, I decide he needs to know why my mother laughed. Why all the Hallans laughed. I pump my arms and legs to rush to come up alongside him. I hear him curse as I pass him, and the grunt that leaves him when he tries to catch up. But he won’t, because what everyone else knows but him is that I’m the fastest runner on Hallalah. Faster than my brothers, or any of the males and females on our planet. And clearly, Godric sees that now, as I pass the Hallan standing at the start of the fields much faster than him. I count two full seconds before he passes the Hallan.
“What the hell was that?” he pants out.
I shrug. “That was me winning.”
He wags his finger, trying to catch his breath. “You … you …”
“I won, so strip.”
“Vabila, you mustn’t,” my mother says as she joins us at the finish line.
“We made a deal,” I point out.
But Godric straightens, takes a deep breath, and begins to bring his shirt over his head. He pauses, though, and looks at my mother.
“Can I at least ask that the queen not see me this way?”
My mother quietly chuckles and begins to turn away. “I’ll be walking ahead.”
“Thank you,” Godric states.
Then, he resumes undressing. Shirt off, and yes, there is the beginning of a bruise forming there, but the muscles quickly draw my eyes away from that. Next, his pants are pushed down and with none of the undergarments I know these humans prefer to wear on, his cock is plain to see as he steps out of his pants. It’s hard and large between his thighs.
My eyes snap to his. He smiles.
“Not so small then, huh?”
“Does racing make you excited, Godric?”
“Racing you? Yes.”
I ignore the way those words do treacherous things to my body. I turn away from the sight of his smirk and his cock and try my hardest not to see them in my mind as I begin to walk away from him. And I damn sure do not at all give any consideration to the desire rushing through me. It’s only because of the physical. I know that. Because the rest of Godric only irritates me to no end.
“Well, then,” I say without turning to look at Godric again. “Follow me back to camp, loser.”
I hear him laugh behind me. How can a laugh do such inexplicable things to me, especially when it’s from a male I despise?
ONE
Betrayal is on the horizon.
I feel it drawing closer with every breath that I breathe. Only the betrayal will not be the end of me. No, it will end someone who matters so much more to me than myself. Yet, knowing what awaits my mother, even knowing I should be preparing to lose her and that she has contented herself with what is to come, I want to fight fate. I want to rage against it until it changes its course and stops threatening to turn my entire world upside down. I want to cry and beg and plead for fate not to take the one who was there from the moment I opened my eyes and received the name she had always decided would be her daughter’s name, because she knew I was coming to her. Vabila. She had been waiting for me to join my older brother Halun. To be a big sister to Bothaki. To be our family’s next Mina. To be the daughter that my father, the king, presented to our people just as proudly as he did his son.
Now, I’m going to lose her. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
“Come now, my daughter,” my mother says. It’s her voice that pulls me from my dark thoughts. “Why are you looking so forlorn?”
“Nothing,” I’m quick to say.
She arches a brow at me. “You were never a good liar, Ila. Talk to me.”
“How can you stand to talk to her?” I sharply question. “How can you stand to even look at her when you know what she will do?”
My mother sighs, and I know it’s because we’ve had this conversation many times.
“There is still a chance that Rachel will turn away from the fate she has chosen. Us being harsh towards her certainly won’t be what helps to sway her decision.”
“It’s a decision no female with any worth would make in the first place,” I snap.
“Sometimes there really is no decision. No choice,” she reminds me. “You have been afforded a life where you always had a choice in things. She has not. All she knows is what she’s been taught and commanded. You ought to have a little sympathy for her.”
“How can you say that to me when you know what she’ll take from me?” I ask low, the pain clear in my voice even to me.
My mother comes over to me and strokes the back of her hand down my cheek. Something she has done for as far back as I can remember; a way of telling me to take a moment, and to think with my heart and not my head. But my heart aches right now, even if I try my best to hide it whenever my mother is around. I don’t have much longer with her, and I don’t want every moment soured with sadness over what will come, but along with the betrayal on the horizon is my mother’s death. It haunts our every interaction, finds a way to come between us during each hug. Even putting my forehead to hers hurts in a way I cannot find words to explain.
My mother is mine. Even if she has been the queen my whole life, and my father’s wife, and the mother to my brothers, she has always, in our own way, been just mine. And now …
“Let us not waste this beautiful day speaking of such things,” my mother says as if to once again pull me from thoughts I should not be having.
“Beautiful.” I chuckle more for her than because I might feel any sort of happiness right now. I can’t. “Their Earth sun blazes down on us like an inferno the moment we step out of the tent and the air smells foul.”
“Well, really we can thank your brother for that.” She shakes her head. “An altar of skulls, really? What was he thinking?”
I smile. “Well, clearly the other Hallans like it, because they voted not to remove it.”
“We have the sour air you just mentioned as a result, so …”
“I guess it’s not so bad if you get closer to the water.”
My mother smirks. “The water, or is it that male who’s always with Frances that you think makes the air smell better?”
I roll my eyes. “Do not even mention that insufferable human.”
Godric. The male who I cannot seem to escape, as hard as I try to. The moment he enters a room, I can’t help but become aware—far too aware—of his presence. Even when he’s on the other side of that room it feels like he’s right beside me, body brushing against mine, and his voice at my ear even though I can clearly see him speaking from feet away. Every single time his eyes are on me, I can tell. They’re a brand searing my skin wherever they land. I hate it. I’m annoyed by it. No matter how much I try to ignore it, that feeling is always there. It seems like he is always there.
But no, my mother is utterly wrong. It’s not because Godric has made a camp for himself on the water that makes the beach a place where it’s a little bit easier to breathe than the main camp. It’s the water. One of the things I miss the most about Hallalah is being able to find water to touch or laze in at almost any moment. Some of the humans, only males, have begun to make small encampments away from the Hallans now that The New Order is mostly defeated, or only fighting on the offensive. A way to stake this planet they’re reclaiming, I guess. The females, however, all remain behind Hallan gates, and really, Hallan soldiers, where they’re safest.
“To the water, then?” my mother asks.
“Although I’m not thrilled about the trek there, yes.”
“I will get us the things we need so we can stay there for our midday meal.”
“I will inform the royal guards where we’re going.”
Because no, my father would not let us come without them. He couldn’t come since the king cannot leave Hallalah, but he made sure to send an entire contingent with my mother and I, and ten royal guards among them. They are very hesitant to act against their queen, though, when she tells them she wants to go somewhere alone.
We both leave the tent and go our separate ways. I’m sure the forsaken sun here is already making my mother as hot as it is me although we’ve barely been under its rays for more than a few seconds. I go towards where I see the royal guards laughing at something they all look at in the center of the circle they currently sit in.
“Show us again!” one of them shouts in the human language.
I stop short, both at the voice that begins speaking, and at the male raising from the center of the circle.
“And The New Order will rise from the ashes of what the wars and degradation have burned away,” Godric says loudly. His hair is in a strange style as he clearly impersonates the bastard I’ve seen so many pictures of here.
The leader of The New Order. A male we still have yet to find and kill.
“We will lie to the women to make ourselves feel better as insecure men,” he continues. “And we will tell the men that they are God’s gift to this wretched planet because we don’t know how else to make up for having such small cocks.”
“Ah, so you admit it?” I call out.
Godric’s eyes snap to mine. Not even seeking me out. They come right to mine, and the light brown of them strikes through me yet again. As if it’s the first time I’m seeing him all over again, my gaze travels up and down his body. He stands taller than any other human male here, and when he’s not impersonating evil males, his hair, a yellow color I’ve never seen the likes of until I came to Earth, is usually brushed back, the ends of it kissing the base of his neck. His face is angled with sharp cheekbones and a firm jaw. He has broad shoulders, muscles all along his stomach that I have seen far too many times since the humans and Hallan males have begun training together, and long legs.
“What do you think I’ve admitted?” he shouts back.
“That your cock is small?”
Any other male would be offended, or angry, but Godric just smirks at me.
“Do you care to find out?”
“My eyesight is not nearly good enough to be able to see something so small from all the way over here.”
The royal guards burst into laughter and Godric’s smirk turns into a smile.
“Allow me to come closer, then.”
He leaves the circle, and the laughing guards, behind to walk over to me. I am very aware of all the eyes on us as he comes closer, but then he fills my vision, and I can only focus on him. He gets so close that he invades my personal space, but I refuse to move back or to give him even an inch. Instead, I meet his eyes. Me being Hallan lets us be eye to eye when he would be looking down at any human female.
“Were you looking for me, Princess?” he asks.
Princess. He’s called me that since his first time meeting me, when he found out what I am back on Hallalah and to the Hallans here. But he always says it in his tongue even though I know he knows how to say it in mine. I hate that the few times he’s called me by my name, I have longed for him to call me Princess again. I hate that I’ve longed for anything from him at all.
I scoff. “Why would I be looking for you?”
More importantly, I ask myself why I’m so disappointed that he’s here, but I know why. If he’s here, then it means he won’t be at the beach when my mother and I go there. He must be here for an affair with Frances or to train with the Hallans.
“Because you always seem to find me,” he points out. “Whenever I’m here, you always end up not too far away from where I am.”
“Only because I want to know how annoyed I’ll be when I leave my tent.”
“I do so love the way you try to cut me with your words,” he says.
I grin. “I could always cut you with something much sharper. A dagger, spear, sword. Take your pick.”
“Your nails,” he chooses. “Leaving scores down my skin while I—”
I throw my head back with loud laughter. “There is not a thing you could do, human, that could have my nails on your skin, let alone digging into it.”
“Oh, but don’t you want to find out, Princess?”
“Why waste my time?”
With those words, I slip past him, walking towards the royal guards I came out here to see to begin with. This is exactly why I detest him. Always distracting me. Always in the way. Always making comments that have my body heating up. I don’t have time for such things. I’m here to ensure there’s peace between the humans and Hallans, and that The New Order gets defeated. Bantering with Godric isn’t something I can give any time or attention to.
“My mother and I are going to the beach,” I tell the guards.
As one, they all begin to stand, but I put my hand up, stilling them as I continue. “Alone. We will give a warcry if anything happens.”
They all bow their heads at the same time. “Loyi.”
Before I even turn around, I know I’ll find Godric’s eyes on me. I’ve felt them on me the entire time. On my ass. They travel up my body far too slowly with me facing him now, then meet my eyes once again. I narrow my black eyes on him, and he smiles.
“Make sure this one stays away from the beach,” I tell the guards.
They laugh, but I also know they’ll do as I say.
“Now you’ve just made it my mission to get to you, Princess!” Godric shouts as I walk away.
Why does the thought of him showing up at the beach make me so excited? Only because I know he’d take more than a few hits from the guards to get there. Yes … that’s why.
When I find my mother, I have to pause to try to gain an ounce of composure. She’s talking with Rachel … again. The very female who will kill my mother. She smiles with Jozay now, thinking we don’t know her true cause in all the kind things she does for my mother and the other females here. To gain our trust, only to use it to trick us later on. My mother takes the basket Rachel offers her, probably with our midday meal in it. Will that be how she kills her? I have foreseen that Rachel will end my mother’s life, but not the exact way. How cruel fate can be. To show me so much and so little all at once. My mother says she has seen her end as well, but not the specifics and only signs to know that it’s fast approaching. That the female standing before her will hasten it.
My mother’s words drift through my mind again; that we must be a friend to Rachel if there is any chance of turning her away from the dark decision she has made. Only that allows me to put a smile on my face as I begin to walk towards them yet again.
“Hello, Rachel,” I say.
“Vabila.” She smiles at me. “How are you?”
“I am well. Will you be joining us on our outing?”
“No, no. I just added some fruit to the basket I saw they were making for your mother. It’s freshly picked.”
“Oh, you go outside the camp to pick fruit?”
Rachel’s eyes fly wide at the question, and she stammers out, “I-I don’t go far. I know I n-need the safety of the camp.”
Does she think we’ll toss her out if we thought she would be fine beyond the camp gates on her own? Surely that would affect whatever plan she has, if we were beyond her reach. I wish I thought my mother would allow me to put her as far away from us as possible. To tell the royal guards exactly who she is and let them imprison her. But I know she won’t. I know because I have asked.
“You are safe here, Rachel,” my mother says, placing her hand to Rachel’s arm.
At my mother’s kind touch, Rachel’s eyes well up. She nods and quickly walks away. I wish I felt that was guilt instead of shame. I wish I thought it was enough to change fate.
“Let us leave now,” my mother tells me. “So, we can enjoy the sun for at least a few hours. It gets dark so quickly here.”
I nod, swallowing around the emotions thick in my throat, and place my hand into the one my mother extends towards me.
It’s a short walk to the beach, but still, I’m grateful for the moment my feet sink into damp sand, providing some relief from the heat. It’s cooler here and the water takes away some of my worries. There are more Hallans here than humans. I’ve found that the humans don’t value the water as much as we do. They don’t seem to value very much at all. Only those with Frances seem to even value the very ones who give them life, those that their species could not survive without. The other males have been … accepting of the changes because they have no choice. The New Order isn’t here to protect them, anymore, and the actions that were acceptable, even encouraged, under them earns the males harsh and sometimes deadly punishments under Opposition and Hallan laws. I must admit that I like going to the very public punishments.
“I think this spot is best,” my mother says.
Right by the rocks. A place to still be with our people, but to also have some type of privacy.
“I agree.”
We sit in the sand and my mother places the basket to her side, not between us. She moves closer to me and then leans her head back, eyes closed while the sun shines down on her. My eyes move over her face, trying to memorize every bit of it. The tiny wrinkles from a lifetime spent laughing. Her lips slightly curved up at the corners, ready to smile and spread her kindness to everyone she comes across. Her hair, pinned up in an intricate style even though we were only coming to the beach. She loves her hair styles.
This is how I will remember her. No matter what comes, this is how.
“Well, hello, Princess.”
My head whips around at a voice I know all too well but wish I didn’t. I smile to hide the shock at seeing him though. The smile comes easy when I see what he had to go through to get to me. His right cheek is cut with blood dripping down from it. His bottom lip is busted, and he leans to the left side so much that I’m sure his ribs will showcase a bruise tomorrow. But still … here he is, having gotten past the royal guards to find his way to the beach. To find his way to me.
“Don’t I get a reward for making it here?” he asks.
“You want a reward when I told you not to come at all?”
“Of course. A kiss will do.”
My mother giggles beside me and I turn to glare at her.
“Well, he did make it here,” she teases.
“You beat the guards, not me,” I say as I stand. “If you want a kiss, you’ll have to win it from me.”
“What game would you like to play?”
Oh, the excitement that lights up his eyes. I tilt my head, considering.
“A race,” I state. “From here to the field. If you win, I’ll kiss you. If I win …” I look him up and down. “You walk back to the camp naked.”
“Deal,” he agrees immediately.
“Vabila,” my mother warns because she knows.
“A deal is a deal.” I smile at her.
Godric and I go to the rock, both setting one hand to it so neither is ahead of the other. My mother shakes her head, I’m sure at me, as she rises. She calls out in our tongue to the Hallans on the beach, telling them about the race and what the stakes are. They all laugh, at Godric, because they know, too. A Hallan steps to the point my mother’s told them we’ll race to.
“First one here,” he calls out.
“What do humans say?” my mother asks. “To begin a race here?”
“Ready, set, go,” Godric answers.
My mother nods, gives me a warning look, but with a smile she loudly says, “Ready. Set. Go.”
We take off and I let him rush ahead of me for just a little while. Allowing him to think he’ll win for just a few seconds. But when he has the nerve, the audacity, to look at me over his shoulder, smirk in place, I decide he needs to know why my mother laughed. Why all the Hallans laughed. I pump my arms and legs to rush to come up alongside him. I hear him curse as I pass him, and the grunt that leaves him when he tries to catch up. But he won’t, because what everyone else knows but him is that I’m the fastest runner on Hallalah. Faster than my brothers, or any of the males and females on our planet. And clearly, Godric sees that now, as I pass the Hallan standing at the start of the fields much faster than him. I count two full seconds before he passes the Hallan.
“What the hell was that?” he pants out.
I shrug. “That was me winning.”
He wags his finger, trying to catch his breath. “You … you …”
“I won, so strip.”
“Vabila, you mustn’t,” my mother says as she joins us at the finish line.
“We made a deal,” I point out.
But Godric straightens, takes a deep breath, and begins to bring his shirt over his head. He pauses, though, and looks at my mother.
“Can I at least ask that the queen not see me this way?”
My mother quietly chuckles and begins to turn away. “I’ll be walking ahead.”
“Thank you,” Godric states.
Then, he resumes undressing. Shirt off, and yes, there is the beginning of a bruise forming there, but the muscles quickly draw my eyes away from that. Next, his pants are pushed down and with none of the undergarments I know these humans prefer to wear on, his cock is plain to see as he steps out of his pants. It’s hard and large between his thighs.
My eyes snap to his. He smiles.
“Not so small then, huh?”
“Does racing make you excited, Godric?”
“Racing you? Yes.”
I ignore the way those words do treacherous things to my body. I turn away from the sight of his smirk and his cock and try my hardest not to see them in my mind as I begin to walk away from him. And I damn sure do not at all give any consideration to the desire rushing through me. It’s only because of the physical. I know that. Because the rest of Godric only irritates me to no end.
“Well, then,” I say without turning to look at Godric again. “Follow me back to camp, loser.”
I hear him laugh behind me. How can a laugh do such inexplicable things to me, especially when it’s from a male I despise?