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That guy back there reminds me a little bit of that Hudson guy who I had sex with in the bathroom . . .

  Closing his eyes, he tried to block out the thoughts of the flight attendant. He didn’t need or want to hear her garbage, especially if it concerned Hudson. All he wanted was a little bit of peace.

  That guy in back is hot, but I’m not sure what the girl is to him. A sister?

  Grabbing his head, he seriously wondered where he could sign up to get a lobotomy.

  Chapter 12

  When the plane landed, Jovan looked out the window and saw Cohen waiting for them next to a black Ford Expedition. Glancing over at Liberty, he gave her a smile as her eyes opened.

  “We’ve landed?” she said groggily.

  “Yep.”

  They stood and made their way out of the plane and over to Cohen. Jovan guessed the temperature hovered around forty-five degrees even though it was sunny, and he rubbed his hands up and down his bare arms to warm up.

  “Hey, man,” Cohen said, offering a fist, but his eyes not leaving Liberty.

  Jovan gave it a tap, feeling the confusion Cohen had rolling through him. “Hey.”

  “What’s going on here?” Cohen asked.

  “This is Liberty,” Jovan said.

  Cohen stared at her a moment. “Nice to meet you, Liberty,” he said, sounding like it wasn’t nice to meet her at all. Then he turned to Jovan. “A few words alone?”

  The walked a few feet away. “Where have I seen that female before?” Cohen asked in a low voice.

  “The strip club last night.”

  Cohen nodded, pushing his sunglasses up on his nose. “What the fuck, Jovan? Did she crank your shaft so good that you had to bring her along?”

  Jovan smiled. “It’s a long story, but that,” he said, hooking his thumb over his shoulder, “is an SR44 female.”

  Cohen flipped his sunglasses to his head. “Very funny, like Bugs Bunny funny. This is serious shit, Jovan. We’ve got the FBI on our tails. We don’t have time to deal with your female drama. We’ve got to batten down the hatches and man the cannons.”

  Jovan smiled again. Cohen’s clichés really irritated some of their fellow Warriors, but Jovan found it amusing. In fact, he was pretty sure Cohen didn’t even realize he did it.

  “Okay, Captain Hook. I get that. And I’m not shitting you. That is an SR44 female who has been here for two weeks. After I left the club last night, I found her in the alley where she was being harassed by a couple of human males. I dusted them up at bit, and her and I both lit up.”

  Jovan noted that Cohen’s jaw was about to come unhinged.

  “You’re serious? Why didn’t Noah say anything?”

  “Serious as a bad case of herpes, my friend. Not that I would know, but the shit sounds awful . . . ”

  Jovan explained that when he had called Noah the previous night, Noah had been watching the FBI guy on camera and Jovan hadn’t gotten the chance to tell Noah of his find.

  “Why is she here? She had to come with others, didn’t she? Where are they?”

  Jovan shrugged. “I don’t have all the details. She says she wants to tell the story one time and one time only because it’s very painful for her.”

  Cohen nodded and looked over Jovan’s shoulder. “That doesn’t sound good,” he murmured.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Jovan said. “And get this . . . she says she was born into servitude.”

  Cohen’s eyes met his again. “Bullshit.”

  “Nope.”

  “I thought that crap died a long time ago.”

  “Me too, man. Me too.”

  They stared at each other for another moment, then Jovan said, “It’s cold, Cohen. My balls have crawled so far up I can almost feel them tickling my throat. Can we leave?”

  Cohen smiled, then looked over Jovan’s shoulder again. “Sure. We wouldn’t want you choking on your balls, would we?”

  Truly, it was very cold.

  The sun shone, but the air had a brittle feeling to it, and she remembered from her study of Earth that this season was called winter. A pang of homesickness hit her as she recalled the constant mild and comfortable temperatures of home.

  She looked around at the vast open land that was so different from SR44’s lush forests and golden buildings.

  And it was awkward to not have anyone to wait on. On the plane, before she fell asleep, she found herself looking around for something to do, but reminded herself that she wasn’t in servitude anymore. It was the strangest feeling having another serve her. She struggled to recall her memories, and she couldn’t remember a time where someone waited on her, except her moha, her mother, and that was at a very young age. When she was young enough to stoke the fires or serve the food, she was tasked to help her mother do it.

  She remembered when she had become old enough to serve in the house, she had laid out the rugs wrong while she helped to set up a party. Her sire had not said anything, yet her mother had given her a tongue-lashing.

  “You must pay attention to what you are doing, child!” her mother said in their native tongue. “We are here to serve, and we must do so with perfection! No go and study how the rugs must be arranged for the royal entrance to lavish events.”

  Liberty recalled how upset she had been, and how she had sworn that she would be more careful in the future.

  And she had been. Her life had been devoted to doing her duties, and doing them well. That had been her life, her existence, her home.

  This is your home now, she thought. There is no other.

  She would simply have to acclimate.

  Jovan and the other male came toward her. The other male stood about the same stature and height as Jovan, which could simply be called large. He pushed his dark hair off his forehead, then jammed his hands into pockets of clothing that looked very warm.

  “Hey, Liberty,” he said. “I’m Cohen. You ready to make like the wind and blow out of here?”

  What?

  “Come on, Liberty,” Jovan said, taking her elbow. “Let’s get you into the car and out of the cold.”

  She nodded and let herself be led over to the black vehicle, then settled into the soft black leather of the back seat.

  As they drove, warm air streamed out of the vents, and it felt wonderful. She leaned her head back and watched the small city turn to desert.

  “So, Jovan says you’re an SR44 female,” Cohen said, looking at her in the rearview mirror.

  “Yes, Warrior.”

  “You can call me Cohen.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Um . . . okay. Yeah.”

  “Liberty,” Jovan said, turning in his seat to look at her, “you can call him Cohen. It’s the same rules with him as it is with me, okay? With all the Warriors you are going to meet. Forget the formalities.”

  She shut her eyes. It was a difficult transition from being in servitude to being an equal. On SR44, there were only four people in her small life that she didn’t address with deference: her moha, and three others who served under the same royalty as she did.

  Someone flipped on the radio, and music wafted around the car. The grating male voice told of love in an elevator.

  Love. In her life on SR44, there would never have been opportunity for love because of her stature. She was the physical property of another being, although her sire had been quite kind to her.

  Although her new life was terribly scary, and she didn’t understand much of what was going on, she reminded herself that this new life had the ability to present her with opportunities she never really thought about. Her entire destiny had been set on the course of her existence. Now, that course was hers to create, and it was a little daunting and quite frightening. But with this new life came the opportunity to find love. She had never experienced it and really hadn’t witnessed it. The royal family she served had been a powerful couple, but she didn’t believe they were in love. For the sire to practice the custom of servitude was a good indication of such as far as she was concerned.


  An hour later, she felt the smooth road turn bumpy, and she opened her eyes. The car came to stop at a gate, and it slid open. The same thing happened at a second gate. The drove a minute longer, and there stood a dome-shaped structure.

  She got out of the car and followed Jovan and Cohen up the stairs where Cohen punched in a code on a keypad. The large door gave way, and they went down a flight of stairs where Cohen repeated his actions. The door swung open and she followed them in.

  Her nerves hummed, her stomach felt a little ill. As the two large men walked into what looked like a kitchen area, she followed directly behind them. She couldn’t see the people who belonged to the voices that were greeting them beyond the large wall that their shoulders made up.

  The voices were friendly, and she heard both male and female. Jovan stepped aside, and she met the eyes of the people in the room. When they saw her, the silence became almost deafening.

  Glancing over them, she was surprised to see females, as well as a child. One of the females had brown, wavy hair that fell to her shoulders, the other had waves of red hair that fell to her waist, while the other female, who was blonde, held a baby in her arms. All looked very kind, but confused.

  The males were large as Jovan and Cohen were, and all eyes were on her. When she realized that she was standing in the room with the Six Saviors, she felt she should drop to her knees in deference. As nervous as she was, her knees felt as though they might give out whether she wanted to fall to them or not. Her whole body began to shake and she stared down at the floor, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Jovan,” the Warrior with the wavy, brown hair and red shirt said quietly, “what the hell is going on here?”

  “This,” Jovan said, indicating in her direction, “is Liberty.”

  The male shut his eyes, pinched his nose with his forefinger and thumb, and shook his head. “Jovan, I don’t even know what to say. I mean, shits at critical levels around here and you’re just making . . .”

  “Noah,” Jovan said, “Liberty is an SR44 female.”

  Liberty glanced up to see what the reaction would be.

  The male called Noah opened his eyes, shock crossing his face, and no one said a word.

  Chapter 13

  A moment later, all hell broke loose as Jovan’s words finally registered. Everyone started asking questions, and he could see it was making Liberty uncomfortable as she tried to track the words being directed at her.

  “Hey,” he said above the din. “Let’s all sit down, and we can hear Liberty’s story, okay?”

  They nodded, and he took Liberty’s hand, noting that he couldn’t feel any emotion coming off her, and followed everyone to the dining room. The large oak table could seat twenty, so there was plenty of room for everyone to grab a chair.

  Neptune, Abby’s fat, black cat announced himself with a loud howl. He immediately went over to Liberty and sniffed at her feet. Deciding he liked what he smelled, he jumped into her lap and curled up.

  “This feline is quite large,” Liberty said, stroking Neptune’s back while he purred loudly.

  “Your being kind,” Jovan said. “He’s just plain fat.”

  Once everyone was seated, Noah asked, “How are you certain this is an SR44 female?”

  “I watched her light up last night. That’s why I called you, but you were too busy with the FBI stuff. I figured I’d tell you when I got here.”

  Noah turned to Liberty. “Liberty, my name is Noah, and I’m in charge around here.” He then went around the table and introduced everyone else.

  “Why are you here? How long have you been here? Are there others?” Noah asked.

  Liberty nodded and fixed her eyes at a spot on the table, her hand moving methodically over Neptune. “Yes, Warrior, there are others, and I have existed here on Earth for approximately two weeks where I worked in a place where females disrobed their fabrics for money. I lived in an abandoned building, which I shared with a man who used a barb to shoot liquid into his arm. He called me his angel, as he knew that human’s eyes don’t glow. He said that I was of such beauty, both my eyes and my human form, therefore I must be his angel.”

  She turned to Jovan. “May I have something to drink? Perhaps some of that whiskey I consumed on the plane?”

  Jovan smiled and the others around the table laughed.

  “You’ve already corrupted her,” Rayner said to Jovan.

  “I’ll grab some bottles and glasses,” Hudson said, standing. “Rayner, give me a hand. Don’t say another word until we get back,” Hudson said with a wink to Liberty.

  They returned minutes later, and Hudson poured Liberty a glass. “Jovan?” he said, indicating the bottle.

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  Jovan watched Liberty take a sip of the amber liquid, and the subsequent shiver it caused. There was silence as everyone who wanted a cocktail poured and sipped.

  After another swallow, she said, “I shall like to continue my tale now, if that is satisfying to all of you.”

  There were rumbles of agreement around the table.

  Liberty took a deep breath and began talking.

  Chapter 14

  After the Six Saviors left for Earth, a calm overtook SR44 as certainty reined that the Six Saviors would be able to make quick work of catching the Colonists and would return in short time. The Colony was again secured so there wouldn’t be any more escapes.

  Liberty hadn’t been born yet.

  One hundred and fifty years after the Six Saviors left, Liberty came into the world, a child of servitude.

  “I was born of royalty,” she stated.

  “Who was your sire?” Rayner asked

  “My sire is the same as yours, Noah.”

  All eyes turned to Noah, who looked like he had just been kicked a good one in the nuts.

  “Servitude?” he practically yelled, and Liberty jumped, sending Neptune to the floor. With another howl, he left the room. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Noah,” Abby said quietly, putting a hand on his arm, “stop it.” She then turned to Liberty. “What exactly does being born into servitude mean, Liberty?”

  Liberty explained that when the royal sire of the home joined with one of the servants, as Noah’s father had done with Liberty’s mother, it bounded the servant to the royalty, and the servant would forever remain the property of the royal sire. If a child was produced, the royal sire then had the option of keeping that child to serve in his household or selling the child to another member of his family.

  “Oh my God,” Abby said in horror. “That’s like slavery here on Earth!”

  “Truly, my sire was kind,” Liberty said. “He allowed me to stay with my moha, and when I was old enough, I began serving in the house as well.”

  “Did he touch you? Did you join with him?” Noah bit out as Abby ran her hand over his forearm.

  “No, he did not,” Liberty said, taking another sip of whiskey, her eyes on the table. “Although, of course, if he had wished to join with me, I would have done so.”

  Noah put his head in his hands, and Jovan wondered if the guy was relieved or going to be sick.

  “What happened next, Liberty?” Hudson asked.

  Two hundred years after the Saviors left, Noah’s father declared that it was time to mourn the Saviors, and at that point the world accepted the loss and went into bereavement.

  All households hung a colored flag—orange, red, green, blue, yellow, and purple—the color of each of the Six Saviors. The flags hung for ten human years, as was customary on SR44 when a family suffered the loss of a loved one. The world of SR44 had suffered the loss of their Saviors.

  During the mourning, Liberty noticed that Noah’s father seemed to lose his mental facilities. Poor decisions were made regarding household procedures, and she heard the arguments when all members of the Royal Congress met to discuss the military.

  Noah’s father believed that the military should be scaled back to something close to zero as th
ey had been preparing for a war for thousands of years that never came.

  “Many thought that his thinking was due to the fact that he believed he lost his somah, his son, to a war. Although it wasn’t a war on our homeland, but a war nonetheless. The general consensus was that he didn’t want others to experience the loss he had.”

  That bad feeling in Jovan’s gut got a little worse, and he felt the contents of his intestines begin to liquefy.

  A large disagreement occurred within the Royal Congress, but eventually all had listened to Noah’s father, and the military was scaled back over a number of years.

  Jovan’s father was also a member of the Royal Congress, and Jovan couldn’t believe they would allow the military to be scaled down. They had always believed in being battle-ready, even though the existence of peace had stretched for centuries.

  “From that point on, it seemed as though the mood of our planet changed. Our pride seemed to slowly seep away, and crime increased. More of our people were sent to The Colony. It was a troubling time, but no one could pinpoint the cause, except it seemed to start when the Six Saviors, you all,” she said, motioning to the males at the table, but not meeting their eyes, “were declared lost to us, as well as the decline of the military.”

  Jovan thought of The Colony. One of SR44’s moons that didn’t see much light from SR44’s sun, it was a dark place made up of nothing but black and gray sand and rocks. It was the place that the worst offenders of their race were sent, and there they earned the title of Colonist. It was a place where the inhabitants’ soul and colored form turned black, a place where evil itself resided.

  He had done some training on The Colony and remembered the sheer torture it had been in comparison to the magnificent colors of the SR44 inhabitants and the high golden buildings of the cities. He, along with Noah, had had serious problems getting back into the swing of normal SR44 life, commonly known on Earth as Post Traumatic Syndrome. After being among the grays and blacks for so long during training on The Colony, the bright colors of SR44 had caused sensory overload. Not to mention the sheer amount of beings on SR44. Jovan had felt like crawling into a hole and never coming out for a long time as his senses adjusted to the bright beauty and hustle and bustle of life of SR44.