Chapter 1
Delphie
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Tamira asks, knife poised in her hand. It’s been sharpened to a razor edge by her new alien husband, Fen, who’s also become a close friend.
I jerk a nod. “Do it. It’ll be easier to take care of.” Plus, it’s what my brothers always did before they left for military service, and I feel like I’m going into battle.
She shakes her head, her wavy, rainbow-dyed hair sweeping her shoulders. “Not the cut. Are you sure you want to leave? You can still search for Lena from here. You don’t need to be stuck with Nik. I think he’s the worst brother out of all of them.”
She’s totally right. Jara Nik is a grumpy asshole. But he’s the only person who seems motivated to find Lena, the last of us humans who is still missing. All the others—my friends who are now queens and their alien mates—are confident that she’s fine because their goddess assured them she’s safe. But physical safety and emotional safety are two different things. Just because someone’s alive and uninjured doesn’t mean that they aren’t being hurt, and those are the hurts that are hard to heal.
I’m still obsessed with finding Lena, and if Nik is the one offering help and resources, I can suck it up and work with a grumpy asshole. Or go to war with him if need be.
“I’m kind of excited to see another new planet,” I confess. I’ve seen three now, not counting Earth, and Usuri will be the fourth.
Tamira wrinkles her nose and tips my chin so she can start shaving away the two-months’ growth from my scalp. “Fen says it’s awful. Just rocks and ice.”
“And volcanoes,” I add, careful to keep my head still so she doesn’t take off my ear by accident. With each deliberate sweep of her knife, tight black coils sprinkle down on my shoulders and lap.
She snorts. “That doesn’t make it sound better.”
“Hawaii has volcanoes,” I point out, watching the hair fall. It’s grown out a lot in the few months since I was abducted from Earth.
“Usuri is not a tropical island. It’s a shitty mining planet full of antisocial dudes who just like to fight all day. It’s like... Alaska.” She pauses the shave to shudder like Alaska is a nightmare, but honestly, I’d like to go there too. I want to see everywhere.
“I’m not going to move there! I’m just going to visit.” I don’t say the part about how I’m not about staying with her and Fen and being the third wheel to a honeymooning couple. Been there, done that with our friends Jaya and Kyaal, now scarred for life.
“What are you going to do after you find Lena? Have you decided?” Tamira’s question sounds like the practiced chatter of an experienced hairdresser, but I know she cares about the answer.
“Not yet. I’ll figure it out once I get there. It’s kind of a mindfuck thinking that I can go anywhere in the universe. I don’t even have to stay in this solar system.”
“You can go back home if you want,” she says quietly. “To Earth.”
I’ve thought about it. I love my family—what’s left of it now that both my parents and grandparents are gone. But something has always tugged on me to wander. Maybe it’s from growing up as a military brat, moving every few years and spending deployments with my grandparents, but staying in one place has never suited me. “Maybe someday. Still gotta find my alien boyfriend and get some of that strange dick everyone keeps raving about.”
Tamira laughs. “It’s not fair you didn’t get a king, though,” she says when she sobers up from the giggles, and I can tell she feels a little sorry for me. She shouldn’t be. Truly, I’m not jealous of her or any of my friends who’ve gotten carried off and locked up by hot, muscular alien husbands. I’m happy for them and their endless orgasms.
Okay, maybe I’m a teeny-tiny bit envious. Not about the locking-up part. Just the orgasms part. And the undying devotion part. I’m feeling a little bit left out now that everyone is paired off.
“Don’t pity me. I get to choose where I live instead of getting stuck somewhere for a dude,” I crack. “You’re lucky you got the pleasure planet instead of Jaya’s desert-with-giant-spiders bullshit.”
“She likes it.”
“Yeah, but she’s nuts. I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are. You’re going to Usuri on purpose. WithNik.” Tamira pauses mid-shave to point the tip of the knife at me. “If he’s a dick to you, come back, okay? You don’t have to stay with us if you don’t want to, but we’ll always have room for you. And I know Jaya feels the same way.”
I almost nod, but the knife is back against my skin, so instead I just say, “I know.”
Her fingers move gently over my scalp as she continues around my head with her precise strokes. With every little lockthat falls in my lap, I picture the stress and trauma of the last couple months falling away with it. This hair grew in our cell on the Frathik ship, in the palace on Irra after we were rescued, in the bright hallways of the Xaszian techno ship. It grew on the pleasure boats of Olethia while I searched for Tamira, scanning every face for her features.
Turned out she was right in front of me, living in the same floating palace, gobbling all the intergalactic snacks and alien dick she could handle because Fen was keeping her as his sneaky link. I’d be offended that the two of them—some of my best friends, now—kept it from me except that they are so stupid-happy together, I can’t even be mad.
I hope, when I find Lena, she’ll be just as carefree and happy. She’s a weird one, and we weren’t close while we were on the Frathik ship together, but I want her to be okay. Everyone deserves to be free.
Tamira finishes shaving my head and uses a hot towel to clean away the oil and stray hairs. I check my gleaming brown scalp in the mirror. She did a good job. I look pretty badass bald.
I buzzed it off for the first time because I was planning a world tour after my grandparents passed—the cheap kind with a backpack and hostel stays—and figured low maintenance was the way to go. I was right. Even though I didn’t get to board a plane on Earth, it was definitely the best choice for being abducted by aliens and getting carted across the galaxy. And it’s definitely the right choice for a shitty mining planet that’s going to have dubious facilities.
