Chapter One
The memory of the dream made her angry when Crystal Lee woke that morning. Angryandfrightened, which only made her angrier. Angryandfrightenedandhelpless, which only made her sad.
She didn’t need to remember the wisps and remnants of the half-dreamt dream. She remembered the way she felt. That cloying memory and the panic when she sensed her ex-boyfriend’s presence in her consciousness, pressing and pressing into her mind like the way he’d pressed and pressed into her body. It had been five years since she’d last seen him. Five long years of trying to rebuild her life, her shattered self-esteem, her nonexistent confidence. She’d been young and stupid and because of that, she might always be haunted byhimin her dreams when she least expected it.
A price she would pay, always.
The regret squeezed her heart so tightly in that moment that Crystal struggled to breathe through it. She was sitting up in a bed mounded with furs, on the alien planet of Luxiria, in a domed house high on a mountain that felt as strange to her as the reality of her situation itself.
Scrambling for her tablet on the floor next to the platformed bed, Crystal dragged it into her lap, her fingers clenching around the metal cylindrical tube of the ‘pencil’ that a Luxirian had given her, so tight that her fingertips turned white.
Her sudden movements jostled Bianca, who was sleeping beside her. The dark-haired woman blinked over at her, gaze sleepy, but then her eyes shut again and she turned away from Crystal to face the wall of the room they shared.
“I’m sorry,” Crystal whispered to her turned back, feeling guilty she’d woken her.
Erin, the last member of their dwindling group of three that had started out at seven strong when the Luxirians had rescued them from the Pit, was sleeping on the floor next to Bianca. They took the floor in shifts, though there was a perfectly good, empty room on the opposite side of the house with a perfectly good, empty bed.
That had been Lainey’s room. Before she’d run away with her Luxirian male, an alien named Kirov. The last thing Crystal had heard was that they’d gone through something like a marriage ceremony, something called a ‘ravraxia’ or whatever the hell that was.
The fact of the matter was that one less woman would be traveling back to Earth with them, whenever the Luxirians got their shit together and found the crystal that was missing. That crystal had been their only fuel source home. One more woman—and dear, dear friend—chose to stay behind on this strange, alien planet…chose to stay behind with her alienmate.
Until then…they waited. Just like they’d been doing since being abducted from Earth by the other alien species. As if the knowledge of one alien species wasn’t enough…
Crystal pressed the pencil down onto the strange tablet that Kirov, Lainey’s male, had given her. Lainey must have told him that she liked to sketch and draw and she supposed that the tablet was the Luxirian version of paper and a pen.
She was grateful for the gift. Extremely grateful. Drawing had always been her escape. It focused her, centered her. Whenever she was upset, or sad, or angered…she drew. Whenever she was happy, or inspired, or determined…she drew. She would draw all day if her hand didn’t cramp up on her eventually. It was the only time she felt like herself. Her old self. Or perhaps the person that she wanted to be.
Crystal was working on a new project. A series of illustrations that had been in her imagination for many, many years. Illustrations she wanted to put into a children’s book one day—if she ever got the opportunity, if she ever got back home—of a little goblin named Krane and his adventures with a friend named Jron. Crystal and her sister, Lauren, had always spun strange tales during playtime when they were younger and for some reason, Crystal always returned to their goblin friends whenever she wanted to remember something good.
So, that morning, waking up from that dream, she sketched Krane running through the maze of his underground world, with his little slippers and his black tunic and his big ears. And it made her feel better, if only for a little while. It even made her smile when she finished the simple sketch.
Erin woke shortly after, briefly glancing at Bianca’s turned back, before regarding Crystal. “Good morning,” she whispered, her hair in disarray. Her face scrunched when she stretched a little, no doubt sore from sleeping on the ground. “I’m gonna go take a bath. I feel gross.”
It was already getting hot in the room, humid even. It was scorching in the Luxirian city, due to the two suns, which were steadily rising from the horizon, the heat rising with them.
Crystal nodded. She looked down at the finished sketch, turning the tablet back and forth in the light. Then she pushed up from the bed and stood. She felt the glimmer of sweat on the back of her neck as she said, “I’ll come with you.”
The ‘bathroom’ in the house was really more like a luxury suite with its own heated pool as the bath in the very center. Steam rose from the surface, always hot.
The two women undressed, pulling off the comfortable tunics they’d worn to bed. If Crystal thought it was strange before to bathe almost every day with another woman, well…she got over it quickly. Erin was like a sister to her now. They spent almost every single moment of the day together. And nothing bonded two people together like being abducted by aliens…
All the women had become like sisters to her, even Bianca who was prickly and quiet most of the time. A makeshift family that had been patched together slowly yet hurriedly over time. How long had it been since the Luxirians had rescued them from the Pit? How long ago had it been since they’d been taken from Earth?
She truly didn’t know. Not for certain. But what she was certain of was that it had felt like years ago.
“So, how long do you think it’ll be until Lainey’s knocked up?” Erin asked, her voice soft, yet teasing as they both waded into the large bathing pool.
Crystal marveled at Erin sometimes. Out of all the women, Erin had adjusted the best. It was just the way she was. She was laidback, yet calm and controlled. She took everything in stride. Nothing seemed to surprise her.
“I would be surprised if she wasn’t already,” Crystal commented back, feeling a pang in her chest as she said it. Envy, perhaps?
She didn’t want to dwell on it so she pushed that emotion from her chest.
“Luxirians do seem to be…potent,” Erin said, lathering the soap granules up in her palms before spreading them over her arms.
Crystal didn’t say anything in response. She didn’t know whattosay anymore. They’d talked about Luxirians many, many times. About their Instinct—a force inside them that chose a mate. They’d talked about the women, getting snagged up one-by-one, talked about how they all seemed blissfully happy with their new mates…even Lainey, who had been the most outspoken of all of them about the Luxirians.
There was a large window in the bathroom that overlooked the backside of the mountain. It wasn’t much of a view—not like the magnificently strange view of Luxiria from the front of the domed house—but it let in a beautiful amount of light that sparkled off the pool’s surface.
