The Bridal Hunt (10 page)

A
void answering...
yes
, but outright lie to me...
no
.

He's proven himself at least that much,
so in that way
, I trust him.

Plus… he’s a horrible, most terrible, horrendous liar anyways… he couldn’t get away with it even if he’d wanted to.

When he’d fibbed that first night, well sort of lied, like I said before, a lie by omission, the look on his face had been a dead giveaway.

Du
de looks constipated when he fibs… it’s even worse than when
I
try to outright lie.

I smiled a little at that, the corner of my mouth kicking up a notch.

We’re both kind of alike in that way.

We reached a pond, warm steam wafting up, fish swimming away in it happily.

We've been here before, many times, just he and I.

He calls it his 'happy place'.

He comes here when he wants to just think or when he's upset.

Hmmm...

Is he upset? Or does he just want to think?

Where's my happy place back home?

Do I even have one?

The library... maybe...

Going to the movies alone?

Water splashed
and I followed the motion.

It was one of the fish.

Looking down curiously, I still marveled at the creatures swimming about, completely unaffected by the hot water, their little multi-faceted scales and curly spines fascinating.

"Veck can't take Meanie home. Portal still closed. If portal opens..." He grunted and shook himself, then grimaced, a
look of pain crossing his face. "Meanie Veck's mate now. Meanie make home with Veck?" he asked sincerely, eyes shining bright with emotions.

Emotions
I'm not ready to deal with.

"Oh, Veck
, I don't..."

"Veck be good mate to Meanie," he said earnestly, playing with a few stray strands of my hair. "Make Meanie happy."

I placed my hand on top of his, stilling it.

He kept it in place and leaned down, nuzzling my face affectionately as he took in deep breaths, inhaling my scent.

"Veck have no other mate. Only Meanie. Meanie leave..."

I smiled ruefully and patted his hand.

"Ahhh... Don't worry, ya big lug. I'm obviously not going anywhere, right? So it's not like you have anything to worry about."

"Meanie need more things to make Meanie happy?" he asked curiously, so eager to please me.

He's been trying so hard to make me happy, bringing me things, taking me around everywhere, showing me his world, sharing himself with me.

He even took me hunting with him when I told him I was interested. Not something I plan to ever repeat, mind you, but it was definitely something I'll never forget.

He really is trying... I'm just having trouble with... with... everything.

I'm not going home, obviously, and he wouldn't let me, even if the option arose, I know that much for sure.

"If I really wanted to go back? Truly and really and I could, would you let me?" I glanced up at him, sitting down on the bank by the water.

He came up to me and sat directly behind me, pulling me up against his massive chest, wrapping his arms around me, resting his chin on top of my head.

"Veck goes where Meanie goes. Meanie goes, Veck goes."

"You couldn't do that!" I shouted, r
eaching around to whack him one. "Are you insane?! If you were ever found, you'd be dissected or stuffed in a cage or something! Treated like an animal or a science experiment or... or worse! People from my world aren't like you guys! Humans can be mean and cruel, Veck! They don't just kill to protect or for food! We've been known to do terrible things! Way worse than kidnapping women to marry them! We've spent years warring with each other, from things as stupid as the difference in a person’s skin color to countries fighting over whatever it is the other has that they want to possess! You couldn't go with me! I wouldn't
let
you!"

"Meanie no chose. Veck goes too," he grumbled, voice getting all grumbling and irritated.

"Like hell!"

The thought of someone doing something horrible like that to him made me nauseous, my gut churning violently at the idea.

Nobody deserves a fate like that.

Nobody.

Especially not someone like him.

He's sweet and caring and kind, a real friend to me when I've needed one most.

He pulled me back into him and nuzzled the top of my head, purring, just holding me close.

"Bad people at Meanie
’s home... And Meanie still wants to go back?" he asked quietly, gently stroking my back, snuggling me up against him.

His question gave me pause and it hit me kind of funny, shutting me up.

A long silence ensued and neither one of us seemed to mind, sitting on the bank in the waning light, him holding me as I sat there thinking, mulling everything over.

It bothered me much more than it should, his question.

I thought home would be the answer to everything, the cure all to it all
. That's how I've been looking at it, haven't I? The whole grasses greener take on things...

The shit storm started way before I was abducted though, didn't it?

It's kind of sad that if I really think about it, my life has been much more...
simple
... less...
stressful
... actually, believe it or not, mostly thanks to Veck, since I was thrust into the world of the snow beasties.

And I've been kind of...
happy
.
When I'm not stressing on my next plot to get home, that is.

And Meanie still wants to go back?
His words echoed in my head.

Do I?
I had to ask myself now,
do I really?

I bristled from within, prickly from the odd turn my thoughts have taken. I'm not particularly happy with my musings.

I'll have to think on it some more.

The real question is, will I change my mind?

I don't like the niggling feeling that settled over me tonight, fearing what my answer would be.

I never expected to give myself a big
, fat, resounding 'no', but there it is.

Chapter 8

I was preparing food with everyone else
, skinning a weird, pig like animal when Veck came lumbering up to me, his hands behind his back.

He grinned at me, making me laugh at the mischief twinkling in his eyes.

"What are you up to?" I asked trying to hide a smile, blowing a wayward strand of hair out of my face, pausing in my work.

He brushed the hair back from my face, placing a flower in the corner of my ear.

"Hoping it will fall in and spice up the meat?" I joked, wiggling my head to make sure it wasn't going to fall off.

"Pretty flower for pretty mate," he said pleased with himself, making me flush as he drew everyone's attention, rocking back on his heels as he watched me work.

I shook my head at him and held up my bloody hands.

"Real pretty right now, huh?"

He winked, "Meanie's Veck's blood thirsty mate."

I burst out laughing and threw one of the bloody cloths I used to wipe my hands off on at him, laughing when he dodged it and darted backwards.

"Get outta here!" I shouted, making him laugh harder.

I smiled as I finished, a grin playing at my lips, amused by another one of his teasing antics.

"He really likes you," one of the women giggled next to me. She was one of the women who'd taken up with her mate and really made a go of it, taken to life here, grabbing at it with both hands.

Despite everything, she seems really happy and I envy that.

Could I ever be content like that? Living like this? Accepting life here with Veck? Accepting him?

Haven't you already?
I had to ask myself.

****

It turns out there are a lot of other women here, who've been here for years.

I just barely started talking to any of them, learning small things here and there.

Blame it on my standoffishness or just plain old call me shy, but either way, they started seeking me, mwah, out for company and conversation, shock-a-rooney, and that's how it all started.

Yesterday and today, they've really opened up and just let loose, playing fifty questions about what our world is like now, asking me whatever crosses their minds, some of their questions a little odd, but entertaining.

Their stories weren't making much sense at first, when they'd started talking about really old 'way back when' things from Earth, but today, I finally gathered up the balls to ask them...

"How old are you guys?" I blurted out to the woman in front of me, who couldn't possibly be in her eighties.

She laughed and explained, "Time goes by slower on this plane, Earth's years passing by faster than ours."

"Oh," I said not knowing what to really say to that.

It goes slower here... how much slower?

If I ever did make it back, how much time would have passed between then and now? How different would it be?

The thought had my gut tumbling.

"Mama. Mina," Bia beamed as he walked up to us, another basket of materials for us to make
more
baskets with in his hands.

Basket weaving,
I thought glumly,
Oh, joy...

"Bia,
sweetheart," Dorothy, Bia's mother said, "You do know that Mina is with
Veck
. Don't you, dear?"

I glanced between mother and son, trying to figure out the byplay going on between them.

"Mmm, hmm," he said smiling at me, offering to carry my basket of supplies over to where I'd been working earlier.

"What was that all about?" I asked him curiously, once we were away from everyone else.

"Nothing." He shrugged, his eyes not meeting mine, forging on ahead, the wind ruffling the hair of his furry, snowy white coat, reminding me once more of just how different we both are, what he
is
.

Even though I tend to forget more and more, the longer I'm here.

They're all somewhat human, to an extent, yet not quite...

Different, but the same.

Isn't there like a name for crap like that?

When
people go along like this...

Like a syndrome or something when kidnap victims fall in with their kidnappers...
or do I even qualify in that respect?

Yeah, if I ran off again, they’d haul my ass back, but they didn’t harm me when they did it the first time and I don’t think they would if they had to a second time.

Since the first few nights, I can honestly say no one has treated me badly or done anything untoward to me... even when I was plotting to get the hell outta here... openly… (Like I’ve said before- I’m not stealthy- more like ‘painfully obvious’). No one's ever hurt me, insulted me or threatened me either.

And not to the other girls, that I can tell.

Oh, yeah… and Kirch’s ‘eating me’ threat was empty, I found out for sure later. …Hey, I had to ask, just to be doubly sure, you know?

The whole ‘no one messing with me thing’ makes me wonder how much of it, exactly, has to do with my pseudo mate, as it were.

Hmmm… how much of i
t has to do with the threat of Veck pulverizing them into a bloody pulp... so much as just plain ol' respect… I'll never know...

"No,
really though," I tried, tuning back in to Bia, my smile faltering when I was met with a long silence.

I glanced up at him.

"You being nice to me has nothing to do with Veck, does it?"

"I don't want to be closer to Veck."

He snorted, skillfully evading, deliberately avoiding answering what I’d asked him in the first place.

Seems that way to me…

And he didn't answer my question!

My stomach churned a little nervously.

"Is there another reason, Bia? An ulterior motive?"

"You worry too much, Mina."

I grimaced inwardly, not liking his half assed answers.

Is there another reason?

Is there?

The thought further sickened me.

Bia's become a good friend... at least... I
thought
he had.

I don't want to think badly of him, but he
has
been acting a little funny lately.