Page 28 of The Interdimensional Lord's Earthly Delight
Trixie’s petting hand stilled. “When he abducted you?”
She shook her head, dislodging Trixie’s touch. “I was taken before eitherof you.” She let out a shuddering breath. “I’ve been gone from Earth for more than three years.”
The cushions at her curled feet sank. “Oh, Shel,” Rayna murmured, rubbing her back. “I didn’t know it was so long. Is that why you decided not to take the memory wipe and return?”
“Partly.” She wanted to push Rayna away; she didn’t deserve the other women’s sympathy. “The transgalactic council’srelocation specialists would’ve had to create an elaborate excuse for me. Or a new life. Not that there was much of a life for me to go back to. My ex got everything in the divorce—the house, the professional contacts in DC, our friends. And I gave it up willingly just to get away. I figured I’d make something else, something better. And then…” She slammed her hand down on the couch—to little effecton the luxurious cushions—and pushed herself half upright.
“Then Blackworm,” Trixie finished for her.
She nodded. “His mercenaries had already taken several women before me. I woke up in the back of something like a cargo container, bouncing around. We’d all been stunned, drugged, just scared, I don’t know. Everyone looked like a zombie monster and I was so confused. I didn’t know who to trust.”
Rayna swallowed audibly. “By the time he got to us, he’d refined his snatch and grab technique. I had maybe half a second of panic and then, pop, into stasis.”
In some ways, would that’ve been better? More helpless, but more blameless too.
“They kept us in the dark, but they’d throw us pouches of watery food occasionally. And there was an incineration latrine that wasn’t meant to keep up withso many…” She averted her face. “They’d open the container randomly, sometimes to feed us, but sometimes…to take one of us. And we’d never know which it was. Run to the front to grab the food—there was never enough—or run to the back to avoid being grabbed ourselves.”
“I hate him so much,” Trixie hissed. “I mean, I hated him before, but now…”
With effort, Lishelle raised her gaze. “Then youcan hate me too.”
“No,” Rayna soothed.
But Lishelle shook her head hard, the curls she was growing out for the wedding lashing at her shoulders. “I was the last one left. Out of all those Black Hole Brides”—her lips drew back in a remembered helpless snarl—“I was the best at guessing: grab the food or get grabbed. All my studies, graduate school, invitations to think tanks and one presidentialadvisory council… None of that mattered. I was just strong enough and fast enough to get to the back of the bus, out of the way, when Blackworm wanted another sacrifice.”
“No,” Rayna said firmly. “You are not allowed to feel guilty about saving yourself.”
Lishelle arched one eyebrow at her. “Would you like to debate the ethics of that?”
“No,” Trixie repeated. “Because all that reading andtalking doesn’t know the truth, what it was like. We did what we had to do.”
“Apparently I had to sleep with our jailer.” Lishelle groaned and let her head thump to the back of the couch.
“Okay, yeah, that’s awkward.” Trixie blew out a hard breath and swiped one hand over her head, ruffling the blonde waves. “But if heispartly a god who made hundreds of women fall for him even when he wasmortal, that’s not your fault either.”
Lishelle forced out a laugh. “I just wanted a date for the wedding.”
Her friends hugged her from either side, and after a tense moment, the stiffness melted from her muscles. She’d told them the horrible secret, the horrible things she’d done to save herself. And they weren’t judging her. Or at least not as harshly as she judged herself. “What do I do now?”she whispered. “How do I go on?”
“This is our new life,” Trixie said fiercely. “The universe is vast, and we told ourselves we could do and be anything we wanted with this new chance. Maybe that’s not totally true, maybe the past stays with us, at least a little, but still, we’re going to make this chance count.”
Lishelle eyed her wearily under half-closed lashes. “And how many chances do weget?”
“As many as there are stars in the sky,” Trixie said with conviction.
“As many blessings as there are Thorkon gods,” Rayna added.
They cuddled together, taking turns speaking haltingly of their experiences in a way they hadn’t in all the time since their release. In some ways, Lishelle thought, facing Blackworm again was making them face the trauma they’d wanted to forget. But now thatRayna was marrying her duke, and Trixie was shacked up with her spaceship captain, they could look back at what had happened through a distancing lens, as if peering down the wrong end of binoculars so what was close seemed farther away. Their time as helplessly imprisoned Black Hole Brides was at an end. The only thing holding them back now was their own nightmares.
Well, holdingherback. Herfriends seemed to have moved on happily.
With the sturdy, studly help of a couple sexy aliens…
Oh, so not goingthereagain.
When Raz and Nor arrived—Nor carrying two large buckets of what he said Cook claimed was chocolate ice cream that needed to be taste-tested, even though Lishelle was pretty sure he was just trying to distract them—she sidled away from the little group clustering at thegalley kitchen counter.
“Shel,” Rayna said. “Come tell us what you think.”