Kept by the Zandian (Zandian Brides 5)

“I wish to leave Romon-3 with you. I must leave Ocretia.” He gestures to his chest, where the insignia gleams. As we watch, he rips it from his vest and tosses it to the ground. “I renounce the Ocretion way of life. I am part Wark, and I wish to join their coalition.”

Every being is stunned at this development.

“Wark?” I lean forward to examine him better.

Then I see it. “Your eyes. They are not Ocretion.”

He tilts his head.

Taisha gasps. “Your eyes looked a little different at the river. But you were Ocretion. Now you’ve changed.” She steps forward. “How did you change?”

He lifts his chin. “It’s in my genes.”

“Explain.” Domm’s voice is brusque. “Because to me it sounds absurd. How can an Ocretion change into another being?”

Marshan touches his face. “I did not know I was not a full-blooded Ocretion. That my mother was Wark. All I knew was that I felt different, even though I looked like all the others, and that my father distrusted me.”

I’m spellbound. I’ve never heard of such a thing.

“Wark genes do not always express in a half-breed but stay dormant until puberty. Then they either die out by the time a young reaches maturity, or they take over. Usually they die out, if a being with Wark genes is raised as a different species. My father planned to turn me into a full Ocretion, as I am his only young, and he is incapable of siring more. He killed my mother and obtained an Ocretion female to raise me, hoping that my genes would not express.”

As much as I hate Ocretions, I feel some sympathy for his situation, especially because it seems—against all odds—that he’s not really Ocretion after all.

He continues. “But he was not successful. The planet rotation Taisha saved me from the river, I discovered there was something different about me—something I liked—and I desired to let that thing loose. Since then, each planet rotation, I feel the Wark presence more fully in my body. I need to escape before it’s noticed and I am killed.”

“I knew there was something about you. I felt it in my bones.” Taisha breathes the words. “It’s why you saved me.”

“It’s why you saved me.” He blinks at her, those intelligent eyes. “You could tell I was different, almost before I knew it myself.”

Then he holds up something. “Leylah said to show this to you when it was time. She told me to keep it inside an orange fruit, to make it shiny. To match, she said. I didn’t understand.”

“Leylah spoke to you?” Taisha trembles. “Whe

n?” Her eyes, still trained on Marshan on the screen, fill with tears.

“The planet rotation she died. The planet rotation you left. She found me alone and slid it into my hand.” He holds the item out to Taisha.

Taisha unfurls her fingers, a flower unfolding, to reveal a coin of her own. She lifts it to his, and we see the two coins. Identical.

“She had two.” Taisha whispers it. “I had no idea.”

“How did you know we would be here?” Domm demands. After all, the being is just a child.

Marshan shakes his head. “Leylah told me I would know when the time came. And I did.”

It’s the oddest thing, but as he speaks, his face seems to shimmer and change. A trick of the light? In the few minutes we’ve been talking to him, his jaw looks narrower. His skin a paler blue, instead of pure gray.

He winces. “Please—will you take me to the Wark?” He lifts his head and locks eyes with Domm. “Some planet rotation we will be your ally in this galaxy. But I have little time. My metamorphosis is happening fast once I recognized it and allowed it to proceed. I need to get there so they can help me control it. I will die without proper intervention. There is a ritual…”

“I have never heard of such.” Domm’s voice is full of wonder. Doubt. Confusion.

I feel all those things as well. “Can it possibly be true? Is it a trick?”

Then I look back at Taisha. Her face is full of confidence. “It’s not a trick.” She’s absolutely sure. “This is what Leylah meant. There’s no way he could have known about the orange unless she told him. And she would not have told him unless she meant to. She was not the kind who would give out information under any circumstances.”

“If she were tortured? He could be making this all up. It could be trick images.”

Domm’s voice changes, as if he believes Marshan already. “He seems even less Ocretion than before. Stars.”