Page 85 of The Pregnancy Pact

The doctor’s words came back to me.

It will wear off soon. You don’t have long. I know your mind will tell you otherwise. It will tell you, for a brief time, that you’re invincible. You are not. You don’t have long.

“You don’t have long, Lorelai,” I whispered to myself. “Stop thinking crazy thoughts. Focus. Focus.”

Perhaps it was a by-product of the tonic the doctor had given me. I was having difficulty reigning in my mind. Why am I here? I wondered as I turned, dashing between two gigantic warehouses, past one more, and out onto a broad main street. Where am I going? Where should I…

“Ellax. I have to warn him.”

That was it. That was why Doctor Natusha had sacrificed herself for me.

Sacrificed.

The one word was enough to stop me in my tracks, right there on the edge of the street. Transports were whizzing by. Asterions milled around, along with a few aliens of other species. Many cast me odd looks, which I ignored. Instead, I twisted to throw a glance over my shoulder, trying to get my bearings.

Should I go back? Try to help Doctor Natusha? Sirena is likely to have her killed for helping me escape.

My feet twisted that direction, then stopped.

No. That was her choice. She set me free. She knew what she was doing. If you go back, Sirena will have you killed. You’re on the run now, and she has no more bargaining chips. She’ll be desperate to conceal her crimes. You have to keep going. You have to get to Ellax. You have to stop this.

Right.

I couldn’t save the doctor, but I could honor her by finishing the job. The only problem was, I thought, as I stood there gazing around a foreign city on a foreign planet, I had absolutely no idea where I was or where to go.

Chapter 49

Lorelai

Back in the days before Earth’s Final War, travel between nations and even continents hadn’t been uncommon. I knew this from stories handed down by ancestors, from books, and from the few surviving movies I’d seen. Those times had been long before me, of course. I’d grown up only imagining what it must have been like to visit a country full of foreign people speaking foreign languages.

Initially, life with the aliens hadn’t changed my perception much. After all, they came to us. We didn’t go to them.

Now, my life had been thoroughly rocked and here I was, utterly lost and alone. No guide. No electronic helpers to point me in the right direction. No earthly idea where to go, but with a cruel reality pressing that the fate of many hung on my shoulders, including my own.

Oddly, my saving grace turned out to be that I was a foreigner on a foreign planet. Being human, I stuck out like a sore thumb in the midst of the silver-skinned, golden-eyed Asterions. And, being beaten, bloody, bruised, and with my clothing torn? I really stuck out.

I stood there briefly, my brain churning, adrenaline coursing madly through my veins, turning from side to side, trying desperately to figure out where to go, when I noticed the Asterions on the streets were bypassing me with very strange looks. A few transports slowed way, way down as they passed. It didn’t take more than a minute or two before I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder. I spun.

“May I…help you?”

A tall Asterion female stood there, dressed in a practical black pantsuit, a stagger on her hip. She appeared to be a guard or a policewoman. My eyes nearly watered with tears.

“Yes,” I said. “I am married to Ellax Pendorgrin, the Elder and Lead Advisor. I must get to him. Now. It’s a matter of life and death.”

She was so shocked to hear those words come out of my mouth that she literally took a step backwards.

“What?”

“I know it sounds crazy,” I said, “but it’s true. He went to a meeting off planet on the Interstellar Coalition’s space ship. He left me at our home. I was kidnapped by—by one of his fellow Council members.”

I was losing her. She was shaking her head. She must have figured I was insane. Or drunk.

“It’s true, you must believe me!” I insisted. “I have to get to Ellax, now!”

“I know who Ellax Pendorgrin is,” she replied, one hand resting on her stagger. “He has no wife. She passed away recently. The news was all over our planet. He certainly has no human wife.”

“It just happened,” I affirmed. “Look—”

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