Out of the Ashes (Maji 1)

“Okay,” he finally said, coming to a stop before me. “Two days ago, spacecrafts belonging to Earth’s Officials were in range of us, and Mikoh was just confirming the course they took with coordinates brought them away from Ealra.”

“Earth’s Officials?” I repeated. “They were in range?”

“Before they changed course, yes.”

I frowned. “How did you know they were Earth’s Officials, though?”

“We tagged their vessels when they took off from Earth.”

A flashback of the night I snuck close to the WBO surged through my mind. When the compound lit up next to the WBO, before I focused on the Ebony, I had noticed a bunch of smaller crafts take off from the surface.

“The crafts,” I murmured. “The smaller crafts I saw take off from the surface before the watchmen found me. The ones you gave the coordinates to for the unnamed planet. Those were the WBO’s officials? They truly abandoned us?”

“Yes.” Kol nodded. “We told them why we were there, and they said they would fully surrender Earth’s females to us if we gave them credits and coordinates.”

I didn’t know why I felt hurt, but I did.

“The cowardly bastards,” I spat.

Kol nodded slowly, his eyes watching me carefully.

“Did you tell them that the Earth would implode quicker than we thought?” I questioned.

Kol nodded again. “It’s why they wanted credits to get to—”

I narrowed my eyes at him when he cut himself off.

“To get to where?” I questioned. “The unnamed planet?”

“Before I tell you, remember how humans have treated you all your life, okay?”

As if I could forget.

“Okay,” I said, my teeth grinding together.

“You mentioned once that your human royals lived off the planet, but you didn’t know which planet or galaxy they fled to.”

I nodded.

“Well, we know where they went.” Kol dropped his gaze. “I hid this information from you before our mating. The name of the planet they fled to is called Terra, and it is the planet I referred to as the unnamed planet.”

Kol’s father traded with the species on the unnamed planet. I processed this for a moment then gasped.

“The species your father trades with are… human?”

Kol nodded, his eyes watching me carefully.

“The royal humans?” I asked, gobsmacked.

“Yes,” Kol said. “As leader of our people, he met with your human King, and they devised a trading agreement and a truce between our species.”

I couldn’t speak.

“We have known for a long time of the existence of humans on Terra, but part of the trading agreement between the Kings was that it be kept a secret until humans could grow and defend themselves and their new planet because they would be vulnerable to attacks otherwise. Maji and Vaneer are the only species to know that humans have relocated from Earth to Terra.”

Still, I could not speak.

“We keep track of planets within our galaxy and in the bordering galaxies, and Terra is inside our galaxy, only seven hundred million miles away from Ealra. Your humans don’t have the space travel 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 looked at him. “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?”

Kol 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 that humans can survive on. You can breathe the air on either just as you once did on Earth. Before humans, no intelligent life lived there.”

“Almighty,” I rasped. “They have a new home, and no one ever knew.”

“Your royal humans,” Kol began, “are on Terra at least eleven of your Earth years. Their numbers are greater than that of Maji but fewer than the humans on Earth… but they are rebuilding your race. 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.

Thoughts were running through my mind a mile a minute.

“I… I wasn’t sure you would stay with us,” 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 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. The Maji were still withholding vital information from me.

“You lied to me,” I said, my voice husky. “Again.”

“Forgive me,” Kol pleaded.

I didn’t answer him.

“My people really have a new planet?” I asked, my voice sounding distant to my ears.

“Yes,” Kol said tentatively. “Only humans with enough credits were able to gain admittance. They have a toll in operation around the planet. The only humans there 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 second. Humans could never be equal. There would always be people who looked down on others.

“We Maji have done many missions over the decades and obtained a lot of credits. We gave your officials many of these credits in exchange for approaching and taking willing humans females with us back to Ealra. They didn’t stick around once they got the credits and the coordinates… that’s when you saw them taking off. They set course for Terra. It will take them at least three months to reach the planet. Their crafts don’t have the warp power that the Ebony does.”

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 get 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 human presence, I was observing them, waiting for them 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 too.

“You need us humans a lot more than we need you… don’t you?”

Kol chewed on his inner cheek then he nodded in response.

“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,” he instantly replied.

His res

ponse 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 royal humans’ 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 chances 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 I knew that 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.

It seemed cruel to me to mess with Kol’s emotions and use my bond with him as a bargaining chip, but I couldn’t be a part of something wrapped in layers of lies. I just couldn’t do it. He needed to understand how serious lying was, especially when it involved something as huge as my race not going extinct.

I wasn’t sure how long I had been lost in thought, but Kol’s voice suddenly sounded in our room, and it took my focus.

“Crew, human females,” he began, his deep and shiver-inducing voice surrounded the room. “Welcome to Ealra.”

“Nova?”

I lowered my hand from brushing my hair and smiled at Surkah as she entered my room… alone.

“Hey… where is Mikoh?” I asked, shocked that he wasn’t three steps behind her like he always was.