Page 15 of Zar

That surprised her and she definitely needed more information. “Me? So, if another woman touched you it would do nothing for you?”

He shook his head. “You are my ofelia. Another woman’s touch would do nothing. She might as well be touching my hand.”

Callie took a deep breath and let it out. She held out her hands palms up. “How about you keep your wings away from my body and I’ll keep my hands off your wings.”

His gaze heated and he smiled. “It will be difficult. You are very appealing to me, Callie.”

And there went her traitorous body again. The bitch. “Muster up the strength, buddy. We need to figure this out and we can’t do that if we keep getting…distracted.”

His lips twitched and he nodded. “You are right.” He pointed to her plate; his voice softened. “Please, eat. I will answer all your questions, but you look very pale. This has been a lot for you to absorb and I don’t like the idea of you passing out.”

Callie sat back down, knowing he was right. She did feel dizzy. All the excitement, the travel, finding out winged people existed. It was enough to put anyone a little off kilter. She picked up her fork where she’d dropped it earlier and dug into her vegetables. After he was seated and began to eat, Callie asked, “You said you are Zenarian. What is that?”

She didn’t want to discuss the ofelia thing. No way. Not happening. Normally she didn’t shy away from tough situations or difficult topics, but the whole soulmate thing was way over the top. It required some thinking on her part before she opened up the conversation again.

While they ate, Zar explained. “We came from a distant planet, Zenaria. Outside of Earth’s solar system. Our planet was invaded. The war between the Grasheem and my people lasted for many years. It was either leave or be annihilated. We are an advanced race, but the Grasheem outnumbered us. We had no choice but to seek out other planets that had a similar environment to ours. One that would sustain my people.”

“So, you’re aliens?” She found that super weird and really hard to believe. It made more sense that they were humans that hat somehow evolved.

He shrugged as he cut off a bite from his rare steak and ate. “That’s an earth-born term, but yes, we are foreign to Earth.”

“If you’re an advanced race then why not take over the planet? Why settle here within this…mountain. It’s a mountain, right?”

“We do not wish to interfere with the native people. Only coexist. We aren’t like the Grasheem, Callie.”

A peaceful race. She wished humans would get on board with that. “Okay, so do you all live here together and how many of you escaped?” An entire planet of winged creatures couldn’t possibly take up such a small area. Maybe there were other mountains with other Zenarians.

He placed his fork down and glanced up at her. The sadness in his eyes was clear to see. “There were originally eight hundred and fifty ships that departed from Zenaria on the day of our exodus. Three hundred and thirty aboard each ship. Only two completed the trip to Earth.”

“But that means…over two hundred thousand died on the journey,” she quickly surmised. “What happened?”

“We call it Zaxeis Sickness. It’s a disease with no cure. We did not anticipate that it would spread the way it did during the long journey. My family was aboard the Rybacia One and, as the royal family, all measures were taken to ensure the safety of the king and queen.”

That confused her. He had talked about her being his soulmate, but he has a queen already. Were Zenarians a society where the king had his own harem or multiple wives? “You have a queen?”

“No,” he quickly answered. “I’m speaking of my father and mother.”

‘But if you’re the king, then that means they died?”

He winced and Callie could see the memory was a painful one. She regretted bringing it up. “There was an uprising several years after we established on Earth. During the Time of Great Mourning many died, including my parents. That left me to rule our people, with my brothers at my side.”

So, maybe they were more like humans after all. “A civil war. What happened to cause that kind of discord among your people?”

“There is a faction led by Queen Lyria. She alone rules the Mordaines. She began the war between our people because she disagreed with the way women are treated in Zenarian society. She felt that leaving Zenaria also meant leaving the old ways behind.”

Callie looked down at her dress and quirked a brow at Zar. “A feminist, I take it.”

“I’m not familiar with that term, but she believes women have a right to choose their standing in our society. She does not follow Garra. She doesn’t believe in the concept of one finding their ofelia. Zenarians believe there are two halves of the same whole. For Queen Lyria that is an outdated notion.”

She kind of liked the woman. Of course, the whole blood-thirsty war she’d started sort of killed Callie’s girl crush. “So, to summarize. You are from a distant planet that was forced to leave by another race of aliens. You’ve come to Earth to start over and live a peaceful existence. The Mordaines disagreed and rebelled. I assume Queen Lyria occupies a different mountainous region?”

“Yes, she is to the west. You would call the region Montana. When she realized she would not win, she and her supporters fled and set up their own society.”

“It sounds like many lives could’ve been saved if they had simply done that to start with.”

Zar’s gaze hardened. “All the blame is not on her shoulders alone. My father, King Arlias, refused to meet with Lyria the many times she wanted to open communications with him. He ruled with an iron fist and all who opposed him faced his wrath.” He sighed. “His stubbornness to change and Lyria’s need for independence was a disastrous mix.”

Callie took a moment to digest all the information. She had either sustained a serious head injury when she’d tried to get away from Flare or this was all true. Zar wasn’t some mutation. If he was alien, then what else about him was different? There could be a so many things. Did he even have the same parts? Two arms, two legs, that much she could see.

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