Page 120 of Rebirth

All around me, the Vullan snap to attention. I can feel their collective thoughts. The warmth that spreads through them at my words.

On the ground, another woman snarls. “Monsters. All of them are monsters! And you’re one of them.” She glares at me, Mina, and the other Vullan in the clearing.

“I’m human, just like you,” I say.

“Bullshit.”

“Yes, I’ve changed a little, but in here,” I touch my heart, “I’m the same.” I turn to the others, some still pinned under Vullan arms. “All of you came here to attack the camp. You believe the Vullan are your enemies but you’re wrong. We need each other if we want to survive and rebuild in a new world.”

“You fool!” The woman who’d called me a monster stands, cowering a little as He’rox comes and towers behind me. I step back, my back brushing against his chest and just that simple contact grounds me. “You think something that looks so evil, so demonic is on our side?! Open your eyes before our entire world is gone and we have nothing left!”

Someone else stands. “If they’re so good, if they really came to save us, then why are they still here?!”

My ba’clan pulse. The definite sensation of a blade going through me hits me all at once, and I realize the wound is not my own. It isn’t even tangible. And my attention snaps to the Vullan around us.

They might not show it. They remain expressionless. But I can feel it. Feel how the words stab them worse than any weapon could.

“Why don’t they leave? They killed the other aliens but they’re still here! This is not their home! It’s ours!”

Again, the ba’clan pulse, that wound going deeper.

“If they’re so good they will listen to us, right?” someone else stands, nursing an arm that’s obviously broken. “Tell them to leave. We can rebuild on our own. We don’t need any aliens to help. They’ve done enough to destroy everything!”

Their words shoot through me too.

“What are you saying?”

My gaze snaps up as Adira walks toward us. At her back, Sam, Ga’Var, Fer’ro, Deja, and Fi’rox.

The woman’s lip curls as she sets sights on Adira and the others, her disgust, her hatred clear. “This world is ours. Let them go back to theirs. They don’t belong here.”

“Tell them to go back, or there’ll always be war here. We will never accept them,” her counterpart says.

“We will do no such thing.” The words tumble from my lips with such force the women startle. I stand at my full height, tentacles swaying behind me as I study the group. “The Vullan are going nowhere.”

I can almost feel when all of the Vullan look at me and I glance at Adira. She’s the one in charge here. She should be the one speaking, and yet, I can’t stop myself from continuing. Because something tells me that what I’m about to say, Sam, Adira, Deja, and Mina will all agree.

“This is their home,” I say. “They may have come from somewhere else, but this is their home. Will always be their home.” My gaze shifts to the Vullan in my midst and I almost feel their ba’clan respond, sizing me up. “They’re welcome to stay with us. Heck, we want them to stay with us.” I shift my focus to my Vullan. My He’rox, and tears well in my eyes. “Never before have I ever met a species so selfless. These males you see before you lost everything, and they still came to our world, to help pieces of shit like you.” I turn my gaze on the females and then on the other people cowering here. I probably should leash my anger, but I can’t. “They didn’t have to come and you know what, maybe they shouldn’t have. Maybe they should have let our world burn and allow us all to perish.”

My gaze flicks to the camp. To the billowing smoke as the remaining Vullan douse the fires these people set.

“You’re deluded,” I whisper, feeling the fury in my eyes as I cast my gaze on the people before me once more. “You think we’re better than them…” I almost laugh. “You have no idea what’s out there…do you? You think we could have survived this on our own…or maybe,” my gaze shifts across their faces, some of them averting their eyes once I focus on them, “maybe you’re happy they came here but now that they’ve helped us eradicate the threat, you want them gone.”

The moment some of them dip their heads, I know I’m right.

Disgust fills me. And anger, on behalf of the Vullan around me.

“They stay,” I say with finality. “This is their home now, as much as it is yours.”

This time, my gaze shifts to the Vullan and several of them perk their ears off their heads. The action makes me smile. “We will share this planet. We will live here. Make families. Friends. Grow. Populate.”

One of the Vullan growls, one that isn’t the least bit aggressive, and at the sound He’rox snarls and steps closer to me. My cheeks heat the moment I realize why.

The idea of them being welcomed. Them staying here. Mating with us. Making families. That’s what caused that sound.

Because…and I didn’t realize it till now…I haven’t seen a female Vullan. The only mates they could have would have to come from us.

The thought makes me smile even wider.

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