“I hope that smile means it's a man you're dreaming about.” Nyx's voice mused from beside my ear.

I opened my eyes, and looked over at her. “It was, but it was Bjorn.”

She made a disgusted face, and I laughed. “I mean, if that's what you're into,” she offered, with a wiggle of the eyebrows.

“Get your mind out of the gutter. I was just reminiscing about him and Terran. I miss them both.”

“As I'm sure they miss you,” she replied, before laying back, staring at the peak of our tent. “Just don't be getting so homesick that you want to go back to Sera.”

“To live?”

“Uggh...you asking me for clarification means you're thinking about it.”

“No,” I retorted. “I don't want to live in Sera. What if we were to visit again someday? Would you go with me?”

“If I could spend the entire time in the tavern? Maybe,” she answered. “You know...you better think long and hard about doing that, if you wanted to. Your father's treachery has few limits.”

I frowned. There was much to be desired when it came to my relationship with my father, but Nyx flat out abhorred him. Still, I didn't find her to be exaggerating when it came to her words. It was hard to admit I didn't know what he was capable of. For all I knew, the Seran Army could have been looking for me, much like I'd been told they'd been looking for Cerin.

“What do you think our plans will be, after making it to Whispermere?” Nyx pondered.

“I don't know. I guess that depends on my mother's plans for me.”

“Your mother,” Nyx murmured, before a huff.

“What?”

“I just think it's weird that you called her that.”

“Why? She birthed me. That's what she is.”

Nyx shrugged, her shoulder bumping into mine. “In that same sense, Queen Achlys is my mother, but I couldn't stand the bitch.” Disgust lined my best friend's voice.

“She's the one who—”

“Yes,” she retorted quickly. “She personally picked out the ten males each year for the Reaping.” Nyx spoke of an annual event held in her underground home city of Quellden, where the female Alderi celebrated their coming-of-age by sexually dominating a handful of males. While most cultures considered both genders to be equals, the Alderi were a race where only females could be in power, and males were thrown into servitude.

“It made me sick,” Nyx continued, after a moment. “She picked Jemia'h as one of the males, thinking she was gifting me something. I grew up with the kid. I considered him a friend, as much as I was berated for it. And there he was, being raped repeatedly by my peers, and all I could do was watch.”

I stayed quiet, waiting for her to continue. Nyx had told me about the Reaping, that she sometimes nastily referred to as the Raping, because in her words, “Well, that's what it was.” Never before had she been this detailed. Perhaps all this talk about parentage was bringing those bad memories of hers to the surface.

“So, I did the only thing I could think of to do, and I stood there. Let all the other girls go before me. Achlys thought I was just waiting for everyone else to finish so I could be the center of attention, because she was demented like that, and thought I was, too. There I was, the only one left, and those poor ten juveniles on the floor in chains, all watching me to see who I was going to victimize. And my mother is standing outside of the arena, reminding me that she picked Jemia'h for just such an occasion, like I was fucking blind and didn't see him laying there shaking.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“I turned to her and said I felt sick. She told me maybe a little sex would make me feel better. I thought about telling her I didn't want to have sex in front of my mother, but many of the girls there were my blood. I ended up saying I didn't want to do it. I didn't tell her that I found sex horrific if the men weren't into it, because I knew such heresy could get me killed. So I found a safer way to say it, and told her I wanted to take sex from men on my own time. That's when she insisted, and all the other girls started their ceaseless chatter.”

I swallowed. It was an intensely uncomfortable story to hear. I couldn't imagine growing up in such a culture. Now that Nyx was talking about her own mother, I felt like any issues with mine should be non-existent.

“In the end, I finally decided to fake my way through it. Out of the ten guys there, Jemia'h was the only one I knew. I knew he had a crush on me, and I thought he was cute. In a fucked up way, I thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad, because we did feel something for one another. But...” she trailed off, her voice breaking at a point. “It's not like he consented. I knew he had a crush on me. He didn't walk up to me on his own free will and tell me he wanted me, you know?”

“Yeah,” I replied, softly. After a few moments, when she said nothing else, I asked, “Did you end up sleeping with him?”

“Well...eventually. I just straddled him for so long that the audience got bored, and Achlys was grumbling a bunch of different words, many of them some rendition of disappointment. I said something stupid to Jemia'h...something like, 'I really do like you,' which sounded so childish, but he seemed to appreciate it. Then he told me he liked me, too, and then awkwardly told me to go ahead and do what I needed to. So...” She hesitated. “I did. And then I apologized. And I kissed him on the cheek, because I cared for him. And the audience found that to be a show of weakness, so I lost most of my high regard and any friends that I'd managed to make, and Jemia'h was tossed into the crawler pit, for fear he was weakening the women.”

I stiffened. I wasn't sure what the crawler pit was, but I knew it sounded awful. I also knew that whatever it had contained had killed Jemia'h.

“So...yeah. You can share blood with someone, and not be family,” Nyx finally continued, completing the circle of conversation. “Don't forget, Kai...you're an adult. Whatever your mother has planned for you doesn't matter. I mean, if it sounds good, by all means, go for it. But it took you long enough to escape your failure of a father. I don't want to see you run to a mother who has convenient reasons for missing out on the first twenty-one years of your life just to become enslaved in her plans for you. Make your own.”

I nodded slowly, as if Nyx could see it; we both had our eyes on the roof of our tent. The morning sun tried hard to shine through the canvas, but only succeeded in poking light through the tiny holes in the crisscrossed pattern of the fabric.

“Like you,” I said, after a moment.

“Hmm?” She must've been lost in thought, and had forgotten what I might be referring to.

“You made your own plans and escaped the underground. And now you live a relatively normal life.”

Nyx chuckled. “Relatively normal,” she repeated, finding it amusing. “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“A compliment, coming from me. To you, probably an insult.”

She huffed in amusement.

“Seriously, Nyx...thanks for telling me about that. The whole story.”

There was a short silence. Then, “I've always been afraid to. I've fought with self-hatred over the years for the way I handled it. Wondered what I could have done differently. I've even wondered if I'd just went ahead and gone through with it right away, if Jemia'h would still be alive. He'd be traumatized, but alive. But then I think...could I have lived with myself? It would have been me who assaulted him, which might have been worse because it wasn't me who ended up killing him.” She paused, before a long, frustrated exhale. “I don't know. I could go back and forth with myself all day over that. I just appreciate you listening.”

“I appreciate you telling me. And as sex crazy as you are, it's nice to know you have limits and boundaries.”

“I can't imagine anything worse than being intimate with someone who isn't into it. That's what makes it so fun, you know? Being wanted. Being attracted to someone and finding out that they have the hots for you, too.”

“And then moving on to the next,” I teased.

Nyx chuckled again. “Well, that's the best part. You don't know what you're missing.”