Claimed by the Zandian (Zandian Brides 6)

Chapter 8

Zina

“I wish I’d never met him.”

“Who?” Abbi hands me a portion of mandarin orange segment in sweet cream.

“Tarek.” I sigh.

“What happened?” Abbi takes a bite of her fruit. “Mirelle, Cambry, over here!” She waves to a tall blonde and a red-haired human in a camo flight suits. “Come join us.” She turns to me. “Hold that thought just a sec, okay? I want to hear all about it.”

The cafe area is crowded with humans, many of whom are toting halflings. My breath catches in my throat when an especially cute little toddler with the tiniest purple horns and a sweet smile comes up and hands me a leaf from the nearby Barri tree.

“Thank you,” I tell him, entranced with his sweet tiny hands.

His mother, a tall brunette human with a satchel over her shoulder, comes running up. “This is Braxton,” she says. “The son of my mates Andre and Laun.” She smiles. “I’m Kara. you’re Zina?”

“Everyone knows who I am?” I look around.

“We all know everything,” she proclaims with a grand gesture, then laughs. “Zandia is small. Word gets around. Welcome. It’s great to have you. Another human. So glad you’re here.”

She locks eyes with me, and under her smile and her love for her son, under that fancy satchel and her casual appropriation of this planet, I can see a worn being with a difficult past. She’s got lines at the corners of her eyes, and I see something in her stance, a wariness, that I feel in my bones. Some parts of slavery are not easy to shed if you’ve lived it all your life.

“Thank you.” Words aren’t enough, so I turn to her child. “He’s so adorable.” My heart tugs with desire for what she has.

She smiles. Touches my hand. “You can have your own.” Her face is earnest. “Zandia is full of opportunities.”

“We’ll see.” I have an appointment with a doctor in a few planet rotations, where he’ll check my implants and see if he can reverse the sterility. But that’s not something I wish to discuss here and now.

Her glance strays to my leg but she doesn’t ask. “If I can do anything, just ask.” I think she really means it.

After she leaves, I want to tell Abbi about Tarek, but Mirelle and Cambry join us. At first, I’m disappointed, but the two women turn out to be fun and vivacious, and I like them until Mirelle says, “So, you’re interested in navigation? If you end up turning it into a career, I’d love to have you on my ship. We’re fighter pilots.” She gestures to herself and Cambry.

My eyes widen. “Oh, you are?” I suddenly feel very inferior and fraudulent. “That’s wonderful.” I assess her anew and see things I missed the first time: her phenomenal muscle tone; she’s lean but built like a goddess warrior. Her alert eyes, how she constantly scans the area, whether she’s talking or not. Her stance, like she’s constantly leaning forward into the wind, ready to leap at something.

“It is!” She’s enthusiastic, bubbling over with energy.

Cambry, the redhead, looks at me a little more coolly. “My brother, Tal, is

a candidate for navigation training. He’s hoping Tarek will choose him.”

Now I feel horrible. Tarek’s giving me attention when there are candidates who are actually qualified standing in line for time with him. “Wow, you have a brother?” I murmur. “I haven’t seen any human males around here.”

“Oh, there are quite a few. Before we took back Zandia, Captain Rok hijacked an entire Ocretion death-pod to save Lily, the queen’s sister. All the beings on the death pod—mostly humans, but some other species as well—were sort of conscripted into the Zandian army. That’s how Tal and I learned to fly.”

“She had a training session with Tarek,” Abbi offers, over a mouthful of oranges.

I sink lower in my seat.

“It went well, right, Zina?”

“Oh, if he’s training you, wow.” Mirelle sits down. “He only takes the best of the best. My congratulations.”

Cambry leans in. “How’d you do on the initial assessment?”

I’m suddenly not hungry. I put down my fork. “Ah, I’m not sure of the final result.” I’m very sure. Negative 50 is stuck in my mind like a boulder.

“So, was Tarek a jerk?” Abbi takes another bite of her food. “Why do you wish you’d never met him?