Page 20 of Zalis
He was going to say no. Gemma just knew it. Rescuing his sister-in-law was one thing. Everyone would applaud.Such a great guy. Wow.
But that same sister-in-law announcing that she was going to move in? Hell no.
Gemma looked to Emry to gauge her reaction, but it was impossible to determine. Her twin’s face was as familiar as her own. She knew all the looks, the subtle tells that betrayed what she was thinking. Gemma could read Emry like a book.
Or at least she used to be able to. Now Emry was like a foreign language edition of a favorite book: familiar but fundamentally different.
Ren broke the silence and said, “I am unsure if the warlord will allow it. The other abductees are being returned to their homes.”
Not thrilled but polite enough not to crush Gemma’s plans. He’d let the warlord do that.
“I don’t care,” Gemma said. “Emry wants to stick with you, and I’m not leaving her side. I’m about to be codependent as fuck.”
Ren gave her a solemn look, as if taking the measure of her seriousness. “Understood.”
After Emry and Ren left, Gemma sat alone in her room. This didn’t feel like a victory. It felt like barely surviving.
She wouldn’t go back to Earth. She didn’t care what she had to do, what promises she had to make or break, she wouldn’t go.
GEMMA
“The female cannot stay,” the warlord said. He had black hair sprinkled generously with silver. One horn stood tall, the other shorn in a clean cut, and he was clearly not having it.
“What? No!” Emmarae and Gemma exclaimed at the same time.
Gemma wouldn’t go back to Earth. She refused.
“If the female is to remain, she must be matched.”
“What? No! Gemma will just be sent somewhere else,” Emry protested.
“It is possible her match is here.”
Gemma doubted that. It’d be a stroke of unfathomable luck if she were randomly matched with someone on the same ship, and she had terrible luck.
“But we just found her! She was stolen,” Emry said. “Taken against her will. They were going to sell her. She needs time to recover from her trauma. I need time! I can’t lose her again.” Emry gasped, fighting back sobs.
Gemma took Emmarae’s hand and squeezed. She had a plan, both terrible and impulsive. She could leave it up to chance and be stuck with some rando, or she could take some control back.
“What if I pick someone? Can I pick the guy, or does it have to be random?” she asked.
A moment elapsed as the warlord considered this. “If a male would volunteer to be your mate, yes.”
“Zalis. I pick Zalis.”
ZALIS
“I pick Zalis,” Gemma announced.
A freeze rushed over him, as if he plunged into a pool of icy water.
The warlord, the warlord’s mate, and others whom Zalis did not recognize waited in the hangar when he and his crewmates arrived. A crowd was never a good sign. The mission had been successful, but judging from the warlord’s serious expression, congratulations were not forthcoming. The warlord would expect a debriefing, but he seldom met returning squads in the hangar.
He did not like it. The crowd was too large, and they were allwatchinghim.
This was worse than plunging into icy water. That was being submerged and held down until his lungs burned.
“Me?” he managed to ask with what little breath he had available.
