Page 56 of You're Not My King!

Vo’ak kissed my forehead in encouragement, as if sensing my hesitation. “I am here,” he assured me again, and it still baffled me how those simple words made me feel so protected and safe. Like I could spill my deepest, darkest secrets and he’d just cuddle me and tell me everything was okay now.

And it kinda was, wasn’t it? So far, at least.

“He… he would hurt me, if I got too mouthy or disobeyed him. That’s where the scars came from.” The admission itself wasn’t the most exposing part, it was that once the floodgates opened, I couldn’t stop the flow. Maybe it was because Vo’ak—though listening intently, and clearly enraged on my behalf—didn’t understand everything, and was less likely to judge. Or maybe I felt like he deserved the same transparency as he’d shown me. Either way, I didn’t reel it in. I didn’t sugarcoat or skim any details. I broke my own promise, and guess what?

I didn’t spontaneously combust.

“The first few times, it was a slap across the face,” I said with a faint shrug. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. But then it progressed to fists, a belt, a fucking spatula, whatever he could get his hands on. He said he was just ‘correcting my behavior,’ punishing me for being ungrateful. I should’ve left the first time I woke up in the ER, bones broken, wishing for death, but… I dunno. Guess I was scared? I had no one.

“My family, they… they don’t talk to me anymore, and I don’t blame them. I treated them like shit, lied and stole, put them in too many dangerous situations just to feed my addiction, and they gave up on me. It’s my fault I’m isolated, my fault everyone ditched. Like a damned idiot, I chose Zack and drugs over everything else. I’d sat there and let him ruin my life, so what other fucking choice did I have but to stay?”

I couldn’t pinpoint the moment when tears had started to drip down my cheeks, or when my voice began to crack, but the spot on Vo’ak’s chest where I burrowed close was wet, and my throat felt too dry. Vo’ak was releasing soothing rumbles to calm me, his big, gentle hands never idle. He stayed silent otherwise, offering a sturdy shelter as words spewed from my mouth with hardly a pause to breathe.

Why does he have to be everything I’ve ever wanted?

“You know the dumbest part? My reasoning at the time for sticking around and giving him chance after chance was that he hadn’t raped me. He hardly touched me like that at all, and in my eyes, that meant he was redeemable, right?” I shook my head, blowing out a self-deprecating scoff. “So fucking brainwashed. Being constantly drugged kept me stupid, but it helped in other ways. I could pass out and forget, numb the pain. It was a vicious cycle of him being the cause of my suffering, but me needing to stay with him or I’d no longer have the cure.

“When he died, I was lost. It took the last spark left in me to pick up the pieces instead of ending it all. I latched on to the only shred of good I had known, and got to building this… this front, so I’d have a shot at never feeling that helpless again.” My bottom lip wobbled and I clung to Vo’ak until my knuckles bloomed white. “But even after all that, I still struggle to ignore the bullshit that he drilled into me, to pretend I’m okay when I’m not. That’s why I so badly want to go home, to fix things, because without that happy place, if I end up trusting someone like that again, I won’t be strong enough to pull myself up when they inevitably leave me behind.”

There. I’d said it out loud, and all I could do was sob and shake as if I’d uncorked a wine bottle filled to the brim with a whole year’s worth of sucking it up and coping. It went on and on, my tear ducts wringing themselves dry. Vo’ak maneuvered me so I was straddling him, supposedly displeased by the hairsbreadth gap between us. He tucked my face into the crook of his neck and fixed his arms around me, enveloping me completely as he rocked us ever so gently.

I didn’t know how long we sat there, minutes or hours, but we still hadn’t budged long after my tears had stopped and tiredness had been given the chance to swoop in. Who’d have guessed that crying all those tears would leave me so drained? Vo’ak finger-combed my hair—probably a matted mess by now—and urged me to raise my face. I hesitated, knowing I’d be in no pretty state, but he was insistent.

He smiled kindly, those large hands of his cupping my cheeks as he bent forward to press a lingering kiss to my forehead—which was somehow more intimate than any we’d shared. “Thank you.”

My brow furrowed. “For what?”

“For trust. I wish I understand more, but…” He brushed his thumbs through the residual wetness under my eyes, and the way he looked at me, so reverent and honest, proved just how important I was to him—and how insignificant the rest of the world could be. “Never doubt my affection for you. No force would have me leave you, my Roo-bin. I will be at your side. Always.”

I believed him.

But could that ever be enough?

Vo’ak had left with Zae’l and Ok’tna as soon as the moons rose four hours ago. He’d kissed me slow and deep, cupped my cheek, and promised, “I will return soon, my hoo-man. Never fear.”

Those words had been ringing in my head ever since, keeping me company, giving me something to look forward to, but they were especially loud as I stood at a hidden entrance to the forest, knapsack over my shoulder, gearing myself up to take the only shot I had at escaping.

Nie’tr was distracted, and Fiona was busy mixing up her potion orders. No one was watching me, not like they had in the beginning. The clan would greet me as I passed, often asking me how I fared, but I was no longer an oddity, a new toy worth gawping at. I was a part of the tribe, a member of their family, so they had no reason to spy. They… trusted me, and that was exactly what I’d been waiting and aiming for.

So, why wasn’t I taking the chance?

Over the last few weeks, I’d been gathering everything I might need into a bag—the small knife Vo’ak had given me to defend myself, a water skin, a wonky homemade map, some of that weight-gaining bamboo—and I’d stuffed it under the bed just in case. I was prepared. All I had to do was run, to find my way to the water’s edge, eat the berries, and never look back. I only had a few minutes—if that—before Nie’tr would come to his senses and be back at my side, but even so, I hesitated.

Of course I did.

After the other night, when I’d broken down and given Vo’ak a play by play of my life before falling asleep in his arms, how could I not be conflicted? In fact, the scales tipped more in favor of staying, so why the hell was I still even entertaining another idea?

My family hated me, I had no friends, I probably didn’t have a job anymore because I’d ‘left’ without notice, and yeah, I was sure that the one person mourning my loss was my therapist—only ’cause he wasn’t getting paid. It was laughable, I’d never made this much effort with anything before, never nursed a plan for so long without giving up.I was stubborn about it, that was for sure.

There was a tightness in my chest as I studied the gap between the trees that I could so easily slip through, and spared a thought for all the relationships I’d formed here. Fiona. The other humans. Nie’tr, Puka, even Zae’l, the old grump. With each new person I’d talked to, I felt a kinship, like I’d known them forever, and any interaction with Vo’ak brought a surge of complicated feelings. The way he’d kissed me goodbye and fucked me nice and slow the night before had made me feel like the most precious thing in all the universe. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I’d never felt that way before, so content to be lost in another’s worship, but how could I be sure it wouldn’t go up in flames?

The unknown scared me. Earth was familiar, and I couldn’t shake that broken voice in my head telling me that going back, doing all I could to be welcomed into my family’s circle again, was the only way to fix everything. I would be free of all the shit Zack had forced me to believe because everything would return to how it was before him. I didn’t know if I could say the same for U’suhk, and that terrified me.

What if I took the gamble, took another reckless chance, and it fell apart? What choices would I have then? I couldn’t predict my future here, and to some, that was the beauty of it, an exciting anecdote of life, but for me, it caused a persistent state of panic that something else was bound to go wrong and then I’d have nothing.

Why take that risk?

My chance was right there, I just had to reach out and claim it. Returning to Earth meant I could heal, right? Live a life that was straightforward and familiar, with no attachments to break apart more than they already had.

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