Mastered by the Zandians (Zandian Brides 3)

It’s exhilarating.

And lonely.

I’ve been used to working as a team. Not just at home, with Lanz and Domm, but at work, too—with Kianna and Amber. Being alone again, although it’s good to be the sole person in charge of my destiny, feels sort of sad.

But there isn’t time to ponder this, because I need all my senses to navigate the asteroid clusters that will be coming up, and to dodge and flip my course to avoid the areas where pirates lurk. I used to be so good at this. Mother Earth, I hope I haven’t lost my touch.

My eyes are gritty and my body aches, but there she is—Jesel looms in my screen, brown and green. I catch my breath as I play the controls, setting the landing coordinates from memory, selecting the baked earth spot near my father’s camp.

This time the asteroids surrounding the planet are thicker than usual; it must be the cosmic flux currents that brought more debris, and it’s nearly beyond the capabilities of my equipment to keep up.

I told Domm and Lanz how I can feel the obstacles, and I can, but there are too many, and not enough spaces for my craft to fit in between them as they whirl and fly in their intricate orbits.

“Veck,” I breathe to myself. I’ve picked up a few things on Zandia, and cursing is one of them. I have not, however, acquired the ability to be in two places at once, and my craft is battered by a fierce swarm of rocks.

I hear the insidious hiss of the hull breach.

“Veck, veck, veck,” I whisper, but it’s more like a chant, as my fingers fly over the controls. I have just enough time to get to Jesel before my air runs out. Even with that enhanced hull, it wasn’t enough to avoid these piercing jagged space stones.

To my horror, another crash. My craft shutters—that was the landing gear. I barely make it down, and the ship crashes hard into the earth, alarms sounding like voices, a symphony of broken parts, and then the lights flash out on my console just as the steps sigh down.

My legs are cramped as I stand, but when I open the door and stand at the top of the stairs, the scent of the scorched earth and the Pakka bushes flows at me, mixed with exhaust and fuel and hot metal from my craft, and I tear up. I’m so eager to get to my father’s house that I nearly sob, but I take the time to survey my surroundings for danger. Make sure there’s no humans lurking from Kaffa’s camp. No threats of any kind.

My craft creaks and smokes, groans as crushed metal gives way and settles in agonized screams of torn steel and titanium. My heart rips with it, but my mind is focused on the humans here. Because after all of this, after all of it—I’m back.

When I see it’s clear, I race across the field, where my father is already coming from his hut, a look of shock on his face. When he sees me, his eyes widen and he goes still. For a second I think he’s seen a ghost.

“Father.” My voice shakes and I run to his arms, grabbing him tightly. When did he get so small and wrinkled? He’s so old now.

“Mirelle.” There are tears in his eyes and his arms are strong around me, even if he looked frail. He smells the same, like home.

I rest my head on his shoulder, blinding myself in his shirt and squeeze him, unable to let go. “Father. I missed you so much.” I pull back to look at him, the wrinkles around his eyes. His skin looks papery on his hands, and brown age spots dot his forearms. I grab him again, as if trying to force vitality into his body, his soul, transfer some of my energy to him.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again in this lifetime.” He touches my face. “My daughter. You’re here.”

He glances to my craft. “It’s different! How?” A beat. “You took damage. Are you all right?” He touches my shoulders, my face. “Are you injured?”

I shake my head. “No. I’ll tell you everything. Are you all right?” I look around. Something feels off. I can’t stop saying it. “Are you all right?” I look at him with the same amazement he must feel, seeing me. “Father. You’re here. I’m here.” It’s insane, unbelievable, really, that the two of us are face to face. Across all the odds of the universe, the obstacles in the path, here we are. I don’t know if it’s real or a dream.

He squeezes my arm. “I’m here, child.” But his eyes are sad. “Where did you go?”

“I’ll tell you everything. It’s so long.”

I follow him into our home, my chest clenching at the way it smells, of burnt karka meat and dirt and unwashed clothes; the smell of my childhood. I can practically see Iselle bending over the rough wooden table, biting her lip, holding her pencil. Learning to cipher in some new language.

It’s so familiar, and yet so foreign. I’ve returned a different person.

The hut, the furnishings are so meager. I grew up in such abject poverty, and yet hadn’t realized it.

And just like that, time flattens out and I’m exhausted. I made it here. I escaped Zandia, made my way across a dangerous galaxy in a craft that’s like paper, and I’m here. And yet I no longer feel I belong.

He gives me water. He’s cooked a stew; the same stew we always eat. Time falls away and comes around me like a tide, enveloping me in my past, sending long-gone moments back in front of me in eddies and whirlpools. My mind can’t keep up and I blink, put a hand to my forehead.

Ever solicitous, my father frowns. “We can talk later. Do you want to rest? Your room is here, still.” He gestures to a curtained off partition. My bedding, my old things. My mind reels.

Every cell in my body wants to scream in protest. There’s something so wrong about coming back to my old room, my old bed, when I only recently graduated to having mates. A home as an adult. A family of my own, of sorts. Even if I knew I’

d miss them, it’s only now that I feel it. And it hurts in my heart.