“We keep track of planets within our star system. Terra is one of those planets, it only one-hundred and seven million lengths away from Ealra and it is the only other inhabited planet in the habitable zone in this system. You can see it at night-time with the naked eye. Your humans on Terra don’t have the warp drive power that we have, so it takes them considerably longer to get to where they are going, but they’re close to us, considering how quick we can reach them, so we keep an eye on them.”
“I can’t believe this,” I eventually whispered.
Kol tensed. “I am being truthful.”
“I don’t mean you’re lying. I just mean it’s hard to believe that they’re on a new planet and left us on Earth to die.”
Kol relaxed.
“Terra is the name of their new planet?”
My husband nodded. “Yes, it is twice the size of Earth, but virtually identical with its elements and natural gases. Terra and Ealra are two planets in many light years where humans and Maji can survive. You can breathe the air on either just as you once did on Earth. Before humans, no intelligent life lived there. It is closer to our daystar, so its orbital period is only fourteen moon cycles which is closer to an Earth year in length. The environment is much harsher and more dangerous than Earth, but humans can handle it.”
“Almighty,” I rasped. “They have a brand-new healthy home, and no one ever knew.”
“Your royal humans,” Kol began, “have been on Terra at least eleven of your Earth years. Their numbers are greater than that of Maji but fewer than the humans on Earth. Our scans of the surface gave us numbers in the range of nine to ten thousand… but they are rebuilding your race. Since your females go into heat monthly, you breed far quicker than Maji.”
I stared at Kol, my mouth agape.
“Why didn’t you tell me any this?” I whispered, wrapping my arms around my midsection. “You had so many opportunities.”
Thoughts were running through my mind at a mile a minute.
“I … I wasn’t sure you would stay with me,” he admitted, his shoulders slumping. “You were so sure you were being kidnapped and used, and when you met Sera, you demanded to leave. I feared you would refuse to mate with me if you knew, and that you would jump at the opportunity to go and be with your own people if you knew about their plans to rebuild your race. We had not bonded. I didn’t want you to leave me. I … I was scared you would.”
My heart slammed against my chest, and my ears felt like they were burning. This was the break I had been looking for since I woke up on the Ebony. Things had certainly changed since I plotted ways to escape the craft, but in a way, they hadn’t because the Maji were still withholding vital information from me.
“You lied to me,” I said, my voice husky. “Again.”
“Forgive me, shiva.”
I didn’t answer him.
“My people really have a new planet?” I asked, my voice sounding distant to my ears. “One that’s not dying?”
“Yes,” Kol said tentatively. “Only humans with enough credits are able to gain admittance. They have a toll in operation around the planet. The humans who did not pay the toll were taken as workers to join the workforce for building their new world. Your human royals have done away with slavery; they’re trying to establish a peaceful equality between all humans.”
I didn’t believe that shit for a fucking second. Humans could never be equal. There would always be people who looked down on others. Always. Our royals came into global power when the continent of North America erupted into civil war in the year 2020. The monarchy of England succeeded in a task they began in the sixteenth century. They colonised the entire planet and ruled with an iron fist until they lost total control and fled.
“We Maji have done many missions over the last fifteen or so decades and obtained a lot of credits. We gave your officials many of them in exchange for approaching human females and taking the willing ones who agreed to our terms back to Ealra. They didn’t stick around once they got the credits, crafts and coordinates. They stocked the crafts to the brim with food and water and set off. That’s when you saw them taking off from the Earth’s surface on the night that I found you. They’ve used up their warp power to reach the outskirts of our star system, now they must cross Ara to reach Terra on just their engine power, this will take them only three moon cycles to achieve because the engines in the crafts we gave them were powerful.”
I felt the blood rush to my head as a pounding took up residence in my temples.
“The other w-women aboard,” I stammered. “Were they aware of this?”
Kol was silent for a moment then he said, “Yes, it was part of the briefing we gave them, but they either didn’t want to go to Terra or had no credits to gain access to the planet even if they somehow made it there. All aboard took their chances with us because they didn’t believe humans could ever be equal. They still feared other humans … like you did.”
Did.
He assumed because I had talked to a few human women during breakfast in the mess hall over the past few days that I wasn’t terrified of them. For someone who stared at me all the time, he didn’t exactly see me. Every time I was in a woman’s presence, I was observing her, waiting for her to attack me, to do something to me. I knew Kol thought it was foolish, but I couldn’t just change my way of thinking because he wanted me to.
“You need us humans a lot more than we need you … don’t you?”
“Yes, Nova. We need you humans to survive more than you need us.”
“I feel sick,” I told him. “I want to lie down for a while.”
Panic flashed in his violet eyes.
“Let me carry you to the be—”
“No,” I cut him off. “I can walk to the bed just fine on my own, thank you.”
He didn’t speak.
“I want to be on my own, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind.”
His response didn’t surprise me, but I also wasn’t going to deal with it. I shook my head, turned, and walked over to the huge bed we shared.
“Go oversee the landing of the Ebony,” I told him as I climbed onto the bed, lay on my back, and closed my eyes. “I just want to think about everything you’ve said. I need this alone time. Give me a moment to have my thoughts to myself. Please.”
I felt his worry and indecisiveness, but when I heard the door open and close, I knew he’d granted my wish.
He lied to me.
Kol knew my people had a new planet, a new plan of order, new hope that we could be a whole race again … and he kept that from me. Part of me was angry because of that, but another part of me understood. Kol had wanted me to be his mate at that point, and he feared that if he told me, I’d want to leave him. I knew with certainty that if I knew about Terra and our royals’ intentions of rebuilding our race on a new world when I encountered Sera, then I would have demanded to go to Terra where I’d take any chance at survival. I had no bond with Kol when I’d met the augmented woman, and I’d have hightailed it towards Terra without a backwards glance just to get away from her.
And Kol knew that.
I hated that he kept Terra and the lost human faction from me, and I was already going through what I wanted to say to him in my head to make it clear to him that lying was not going to work for me in our relationship. If he wasn’t going to level with me one hundred percent, then things weren’t going to work between us. Period. Since we were already mated, I knew the threat to leave him would prompt him into heeding my warning.