Page 5 of Falling for the Orc Alien

“I... I need some time to think about this,” I stammered, my emotions spiraling out of control. “Please, just give me some space.”

“Of course,” he said softly, sensing my distress. “But remember, we’re connected now. I’m always here for you, even if you don’t realize it yet.”

“Listen, um. Zoran–”

“Zorak.” He smiled more serenely than any Orkarian I’d ever seen, but to be fair, I’d only seen Orkarians on gladiator holo-shows.

“Zorak,” I said, my voice firm and resolute. “I can’t just accept this... this bond with you, not when we hardly know each other! Last night was an anomaly, a mistake that I never thought I would make.”

Zorak’s expression shifted from understanding to hurt. “The mate mark is incredibly rare. This bond is something most beings only dream of experiencing! You don’t understand the significance of what we now share–”

“Stop it!” I shouted, cutting him off. “I don’t care about rare or destiny or whatever this is. I’m not going to throw away everything I’ve built for myself just because of some fluke encounter with a stranger!”

His eyes darkened, but he didn’t argue further. Instead, he merely nodded, his voice tight with restrained emotion. “Very well. If that’s what you truly want, I won’t force you to accept our bond. But it will always be there, whether you acknowledge it or not.”

With those final words, he turned and left me alone in the room, my heart racing with conflicting emotions. I knew deep down that I couldn’t let this sudden upheaval control my life. It was time to return to T’rra and leave this chaotic experience behind.

I raced up the path to our lodgings, straining against the desire to collapse onto the smooth stones by the side of the road in despair until exhaustion took hold. Instead, I forced myself forward. Zoe had to believe me. She was my closest confidant and my only true friend. She had promised it would be the experience of a lifetime, and now I was in deep with someone I didn’t know.

At last I arrived at our lodgings and burst through the door. Zoe looked up from where she sat beside the fire with an expression of shock. “Vanessa? What’s wrong?” she asked.

My response was breathless and frantic, barely intelligible between panting. “We need to leave. Now. Right now. Let’s go!”

Zoe hesitated, her eyes searching mine for answers. “What happened? You can’t just run away without an explanation,” she said carefully, as if trying not to startle a wild animal.

I placed all of my strength into finding some composure, enough to at least form words and give her an explanation.

“Zoe, there’s something going on here that I can’t explain. Last night I encountered a stranger, and he seemed great at first, but then it got weird.” I showed her my arm and the strange marking that I hadn’t been able to scrub off. “He said that this mark is incredibly rare and that it binds us together. That we’re mates or something.”

My voice trailed off as Zoe’s mouth dropped open in shock. She looked at me incredulously before shaking her head in disbelief.

“Mates? That doesn’t even make sense! How could you be mates with someone you don’t know?”

“I don’t know!” I replied, my voice cracking with emotion. “All I know is that he says we’re intertwined now, whether we want to be or not.”

Zoe was quiet for a moment as she processed this unexpected news. Finally, she nodded slowly. “All right then, if you feel like this is the right thing to do then we should leave as soon as possible. We’ll figure out what all of this means once we’re away from here.”

Relieved to have Zoe’s support, I agreed and quickly began packing my things. Even though I was desperate to get away from Xyron, there was still a small part of me that felt guilty for leaving without knowing why this had happened to me in the first place. What did it mean? Was fate really trying to tell me something?

Together, we packed our suitcases as quickly as possible and made our way to the spaceport, eager to put this tumultuous chapter behind us.

My heart was heavy with the weight of my decision. Though I knew it was the right choice for me, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret for the bond I had so hastily rejected and the possibilities I would never come to know. But there was no turning back now. It was time to return to the life I had always known, and forget the chaos that Zorak had brought into my world.

The spaceport teemed with life, a cacophony of voices and the hum of various spacecraft filling my ears. I clutched my bag to my chest as Zoe hurried ahead of me, her eyes scanning the departure board for our gate number. My heart raced, a mixture of anxiety and relief at the prospect of leaving this planet behind.

“Vanessa, our shuttle leaves in twenty minutes,” Zoe called over her shoulder, motioning for me to follow her quickly through the bustling crowd.

“Coming!” I replied, straining to keep up with her brisk pace.

Suddenly, a wave of intense sadness washed over me, so strong that it brought me to a halt. I closed my eyes, trying to shake off the unexpected emotion. What was happening to me?

“Vanessa? Are you okay?” Zoe asked, concern lacing her voice as she noticed my distress.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. I blinked open my eyes to meet her gaze. “I just felt... something. And it wasn’t mine.”

“Like an emotion?” she questioned, her brow furrowed in confusion.

“Exactly. But it didn’t belong to me.” I hesitated, reluctant to share my suspicion. “Do you think it’s possible that I caught some strange alien virus here?”

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