“So,” Maya said carefully. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?”
“Don’t play dumb.” Zara pointed her fork at me. “You’ve been moping around this ship like someone stole your puppy. We got you out. You’re safe. You’re free. Yet clearly you are not experiencing the emotions you expected to feel upon leaving the planet we crashed on.”
“I’m fine.” The lie tasted like bullshit. Probably sounded like it, too.
“Cleo.” Maya’s voice held the patience of someone who’d known me for years. Who could see through every defense I tried to build. “We’ve spent the past two days hearing about everything that happened in that valley. The sabotage. The repairs. The prophecy. And Rezor.”
My chest tightened at his name. “What about him?”
“You’re in love with him,” Zara said matter-of-factly. “You are fooling exactly no one. You get this look on your face every time someone says his name. This mix of longing and pain that’s honestly excruciating to watch.”
“Then don’t—” I started, but Maya cut me off.
“You told us about the mate bond. About how his marks glow for you.” She leaned forward, her expression earnest. “Cleo, you were lovers, and that’s a big deal for a Destran, so it is for a D’tran, also.”
“And then he kept us from seeing you,” Zara added. “And treated you like property instead of a partner.”
“Yes,” I said, grateful she understood. “Exactly.”
Zara rolled her eyes. “Did you not hear the sarcasm in my voice?” She frowned. “I thought I was getting better at those forms of humor.”
“You haven’t,” I said. “Also,what?”
She set down her fork. “From what you told us, and from empirical evidence based on our own observations, Rezor did not treat you like property, and he did let you go. Just not at exactly the moment you wanted him to. It sounds like he was scared and made a bad decision. But then when we came back, he let you go. No fight. No prophecy excuses. He stood there and watched you walk away.”
“Because he had to,” I said. “You brought an armada.”
“Two ships can hardly be classified as an armada,” Zara explained. “It’s defined as a large number of—”
“Okay, we got it, Zara.” Maya’s voice was firm now. “Cleo, he hadeverychoice. He could have hidden you. Could have claimed you were somewhere else. Could have started afight or negotiated or done any number of things to keep you there. But he didn’t. He let you go.”
“Hetoldyou to go,” Zara added. “Told you to take your time. Figure out what you want. That’s not taking away your choices. That’s giving them to you.”
I stared at my untouched food. “I hate it when you two do this.”
“Do what?” Zara leaned back in her chair. “Call you out when you’re not being rational because you’re scared?”
“I amnotscared.”
“You’re terrified,” Maya said flatly. “You’re terrified that choosing him means losing yourself. That loving him means being trapped like you were with your father.”
My throat tightened. I’d told them about my childhood long ago, during one of our many long conversations. About my father’s control. About feeling suffocated in his house, in his vision of who I should be.
“Yup. You nailed it, Maya. But here’s the thing,” Zara continued. “You’re not trapped here any more than you were back in that valley. You can choose him, or not. There’s a difference between being held somewhere and choosing to stay. Between being controlled and being loved by someone who’s scared of losing you.”
“He made a mistake,” Maya said gently. “But people make mistakes, Cleo. Especially when they’re in love and terrified and dealing with cultures and prophecies and a thousand cycles of tradition telling them to protect what’s theirs. You are his mate, and mate bonds don’t work like human relationships. They’re deeper. More primal. The instinct to protect can be overwhelming.”
“So I’m just supposed to accept that?” I mused. “Accept being protected whether I want it or not?”
“If you want to actually eat a meal, maybe,” Zara said. “It’s painful to watch you do that with your food, honestly. At least try not to mix them up so much. That brown color you’ve made is…” She shook her head as I tried not to grin. “Anyway, you could talk to him about it. Set boundaries. Figure out how to make it work. You know, like adults in a relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship,” I said. “We had six cycles of amazing sex and then he destroyed any trust between us.”
“And you’ve been miserable ever since.” Zara gestured at my plate without looking at it. “You’re not eating. You’re not sleeping. You’re sitting on this ship staring at nothing and looking like you had a frontal lobotomy. That doesn’t sound like someone who’s happy to be free. That sounds like someone who left part of themselves behind.”
The words hit too close. I pushed back from the table, standing abruptly. “I need some air.”
