Seduced by Two Warriors (9 page)

Gia
laughed and hugged Marianne back, and then she and Fallon exchanged an amused
glance. “I’m from Boston.”

“And
I’m from Manhattan,” said Fallon, giving Marianne a hug as well. “Central Park
South, to be exact.”

“Oh
my God, I always wanted to visit those places. I can’t believe we might—”

Her
words were cut short by another shriek, and then a stunning dark-haired woman
with big blue eyes ran out of the house. Gia glanced toward Fallon. “That must
be Callie.”

After
she hugged both Gia and Fallon as well, the four went inside. Gia glanced over
her shoulder to see Thane and Rune grinning at her, following at a distance
with Cord and Arlo. She gave Rune and Thane a smile, then walked inside the
home with her new best friends.

Chapter
Nine

Gia
could barely take it all in. The home inside was just as magnificent as
outside, but she had no time to explore because she first had to meet Jakara,
Vaughn, River, and Marianne’s aunt and uncle, Blake and Betsy Williams.

There
was food and drink, and as she sat down at a large table between Thane and
Rune, she tried to follow all the conversations. The seven of them had been
living here since shortly before Thane and Rune arrived on Sera to work in the
same department branch she now did. Blake and Betsy had been inside Atkins
Prison on Voyeur Moon, and they’d been the couple these men had helped rescue.

She’d
already heard the story of how they were attorneys, and up until their
imprisonment, had first worked for the Regum on Sera, and then worked for the
Addonians, helping to keep political prisoners from being sent to the Zoo. When
Marianne was discovered by an Addonian ship on Earth, bearing a letter the
Tyranns had sent her, trying to trick her into coming to this system to be
reunited with her aunt and uncle, the
Addonians
had brought
her to
Jakara
, Vaughn, and River.

And
now she lived here, and she was with Vaughn and River. If Marianne didn’t look
like a woman totally in love with the two handsome alien men, Gia would eat the
entire table. Marianne beamed every time she looked at Vaughn or River, and
when she talked about how afraid she’d been after they’d gone to Voyeur Moon
with Thane, Rune, and the others to rescue her aunt and uncle, Gia got goosebumps
even though the house was warm.

She
could hear the desperation and fear in Marianne’s voice, and understood it all
too well. She may not have gone straight to the holding cells or the Zoo, which
was the real intent of the fake letter, but she understood the pain of losing a
loved one. She knew what it meant to feel completely alone on an alien planet,
and to know you could never return home.

Marianne’s
parents had died when she was thirteen, and her aunt and uncle had then taken
her in. And when Gia heard her talk about her fiancé, Jacob, and how he’d been
overseas in Europe when the first invasions occurred and she’d lost all contact
with him, she had to wipe away tears. When Marianne told them how she’d later
found out Jacob had died in the mines on Addo, Gia hugged herself.

Fallon
then told the story of how her husband, Jim, had been killed while flying a
Navy fighter plane in the war against the invasions. She’d only been married
six months. And Callie’s family had all been taken in the invasions before she
was. She later learned they’d all died on either Voyeur
Moon,
or in the mines on Addo when the Tyranns still controlled them.

Each
of these women had lost their families and their men at the hands of the
Tyranns. And now they’d found love again with these alien men, and were able to
help them in their quest to stop the Tyranns. When Marianne asked Gia if she’d
be willing to share her story of her time on Voyeur Moon, Rune spoke before she
could.

“She
doesn’t like to talk about it.
Too painful still.”

“No,
it’s all right.” She gave him a reassuring look. “I think I can now, thanks to
you and Thane.”

He
beamed at her, his face full of pride, but she caught the undercurrent of
concern in his eyes.
“All right.
But if it’s too much,
they can hear the story another time.”

“Okay.
Agreed.”
As she talked, she pretended it was someone
else’s story, and that she was merely repeating it. At one point, she clasped
Thane’s hand on her right and Rune’s on her left, much the same way she’d done
while telling this story to them at her new job. When she finished, no one
spoke for several long moments. Gia could hear a clock tick somewhere in the
house, and the constant sound of the waves outside was the only other
background noise.

Finally,
Callie cleared her throat. “I was taken to the holding cells by Jakara’s former
Section Chief Logan, and a man named Walton who became a Section Warden in the
Zoo after he betrayed Jakara. He used to be Jakara’s friend. But they were
watching Jakara and others like him. Those Tyranns who opposed what the extreme
faction were turning Voyeur Moon into. Jakara had been warned. Walton actually
came to the home where Jakara had kept me hidden and told him to be careful.”

Gia
swallowed hard. “I didn’t realize you’d been there, too.”

She
shook her head.
“For a very short time, and I wasn’t chosen
by strangers like you were.
Jakara and Eldon, a Regum and an old family
friend of Jakara’s father, disguised themselves and came to the holding cells.
It was very risky for both because if they’d been recognized, they would have
been imprisoned. I didn’t even know who he was. He was wearing a hood.”

She
stopped and leaned into Jakara’s body, next to her. “I thought they were men
coming to take me away. But then I found myself on Sera with them, and we
started a whole new life. When the Addonians began to organize, Jakara was
right there, helping them become more than simply a dream. We moved to Addo
shortly after the Addonians kicked the Tyranns off this planet.” She glanced
around the table. “All of you are part of this now. I’m so proud to know there
are people in other worlds still willing to risk it all for justice and
freedom. Thank you.”

Gia
had to remove her hand from Thane’s so she could wipe away more tears. The
group went back to eating their meal and talking about other things, but Gia
kept her thoughts on everything the other women had been through. This was far
bigger than she’d ever realized. The men were fighting for a way of life, and
for the preservation of their own world. And their women were helping them,
despite the fact it had been their planet torn to shreds.

But
none of the men here had been directly responsible for the invasion and
destruction of Earth. Even Jakara had only been following orders, but in secret
he’d opposed what the Tyranns were becoming. What they had become by the time
he’d made his fateful decision to keep Callie for his own.

He
was supposed to have taken her to the holding cells, just like the alien who
had snatched Gia from the streets of Boston had done. He was a Special
Retrieval Commander, just as Jakara had once been. If not for Jakara, Callie
would have suffered the same fate as Gia.

Would
she have caught a lucky break and escaped, too? Most of the women didn’t. Gia
knew that. She’d been one of the fortunate ones, and she realized now more than
before how important it was that she get her story out to the people on Sera
and Addo. They needed to know what was really happening on Voyeur Moon.

She
was deep in thought, and at first didn’t hear Callie’s question to Thane and
Rune. But when all conversation stopped and she realized everyone was watching
her, she frowned and asked Callie to repeat what she’d just said.

“You
didn’t tell her.” It wasn’t a question. Callie’s tone and her face accused
Thane and Rune.

“We
were waiting until we arrived,” said Rune, quietly. “We thought it best that
Vaughn and River explain the mission, since they’re the ones who planned it.”

She
glanced from him to Thane and back again, panic rising like hot bile in her
throat. “What mission?”

“It’s
already in place,” said Thane, his eyes alive with excitement. “And you have
nothing to worry about. This will work.”

“
What mission
?” She didn’t care how
bitchy she sounded right now. What the fuck was going on? She glanced around
and realized she was the only one at this table who didn’t know.

She
started to rise, but Thane grabbed her arm. “It’s all right. Please, sit down
and we’ll explain.”

“You
should have done that
before
we came
here.”

“You
have enough on your plate. We didn’t want you to worry. We wanted you to enjoy
this place.”

He
looked so contrite she backed off, but only a little. “Then explain now. Please.”

Thane
glanced toward Vaughn and River. Vaughn leaned forward. “The Regum and
Addonians have joined forces for this, and it was the rescue of Blake and Betsy
that inspired it. When we met with the Regum who control Sera’s army and
explained how we pulled it off, we began to talk about how we might rescue
everyone in prison on Voyeur Moon. And that includes the men and women in the
Zoo, and the women in the holding cells.”

She
swallowed hard. “That would take a lot of manpower.”

He
nodded. “Yes, it would. But we have that, if combined with the army the Regum
controls.”

“Then
why haven’t you done this before?”

River
shook his head. “You have no idea how difficult it’s been convincing the Regum
this is the only way. There is no possibility of a peaceful solution. We’ve
tried that. It isn’t going to work. You, Fallon, Marianne, and Callie are
living proof of that. Each of your stories mirrors what has been going on for over
two years. Taken in chronological order, they demonstrate the depths of
depravity to which the Tyranns have sunk in that time. They don’t want a
peaceful solution to this. They don’t want a solution at all. They won’t stop
until Earth is a dead rock, floating in space.”

Gia
hugged herself again.

“And
then they’ll move onto another planet,” said Jakara. “They’re taking in money
hand over fist because of this. Did you know that? The people who come to watch
the shows at the Zoo pay handsomely for admission to one. And those who take
women from the holding cells pay a fee as well. And…” He cut his gaze toward
Thane and Rune for a second. “Forgive me, but the Tyranns don’t refund the fee
if the men bring the woman back for any reason. This is big business for them.
They won’t stop at one planet now that they realize how easy it is.”

“And
that’s not the worst part,” said Vaughn. “It’s not only your people affected,
or others when they find another planet to conquer. It’s our own. They’ve
turned what we were all rebelling against into something evil and twisted. We
wanted the Regum to relax their laws so we could live a life with love, and sex
that was enjoyable, and not be told what to think or how to feel. But none of
us wanted
this
. We didn’t want to
invade other planets and turn their women into sex slaves. That was never our
intention.”

“The
extreme faction of Tyranns grew so strong, so quickly,” said Jakara. “Most of
us didn’t realize how bad things had become until we were knee deep in the
middle of it. We faced not only losing our jobs, but death, if we protested. I
was called a traitor on both sides. By the people I had identified with all my
life,
and then again by the Regum. Others like me suffered
the same conflicting fate. We were caught in the middle, with no one to back
us. We no longer wanted to support what they were turning Voyeur Moon into, but
we couldn’t go back to a life on either Addo or Sera.”

“That’s
why the Addonians were formed,” said River.
“To bridge that
gap.
To try this time to bring about a solution that didn’t involve
kidnapping people from other planets, or turning our own people into men and
women who promoted slavery and gang-rapes. And we’ve achieved that now.
 
Or at least, we’ve made huge inroads into
achieving it. This mission will work. And once it does, we will rid our worlds
of this faction of Tyranns forever.”

“And
then we plan to help Earth rebuild,” said Vaughn, looking directly at Gia. “If
you so choose, you can go home again one day.” His voice was so quiet. When he
finished his sentence, no one spoke. Again, she could hear a clock tick over
the pounding of the surf outside.

Gia
swallowed hard again. She didn’t dare glance at either Thane or Rune right now.
Did she want to go home again? It was all she’d dreamed about for two years.
But now that she was here, and finally understood what they were doing on these
two planets—on Sera and Addo—really understood it for the first time, she also
realized she had a very difficult choice to face.

Because
if this mission succeeded the way they all hoped it would, her planet would be
restored. It was her home. But it wasn’t home to Thane and Rune, and it never
would be. Their work here wouldn’t end with this mission. And she couldn’t ask
them to leave it, any more than they’d expect her to choose to stay here with
them, over returning to Earth.

And
that was assuming they came back from this mission alive, and still wanted her
with them when they did.