“Your contract has no value for us. You’re my mate, and nothing will change that. Your opinion on the matter has no importance,” he stated, closing the distance between them and grabbing her by the arm.
Her whole body shuddered with disgust when she felt his cold, slimy touch and she tried to free herself.
“Let go of me, you have no right to touch me,” she protested, struggling.
“I have all the right. “Now, let’s go inside to wait for your accomplice,” he snarled, pulling her into the cabin.
Only a few men entered with them. The rest hid in the woods around the house. With a bad feeling, she yelled to Vrak.
“Vrak, run… get out…” but before she could finish her sentence, Zag covered her mouth and dragged her inside, taking her to the middle of the main room and making her kneel in front of him.
In a few seconds, he had her hands securely tied behind her back and a gun pressed against her head.
It only took Vrak a few minutes to reach the cabin. She knew he wouldn’t listen to her, but she wished he had.
He burst inside the cabin and stopped frozen when he saw her and the men surrounding her. As soon as he entered the cabin, the rest of the Sumirions walked in and surrounded him.
“Did you really think you could hide from us?” Zag mocked Vrak. “She’s mine and no one takes away what belongs to me,” he shouted at Vrak.
“She is not yours,” he stated with a cold tone.
“Of course, she is, and you will pay for trying to steal her from me,” he assured him, gesturing to one of the men standing behind Vrak.
The man moved to grab him, and he quickly kicked the man away.
Zag pressed the gun harder against her head. “Ask him to stop, or I’ll shoot him. I won’t kill him, at least, not yet, but I’ll make sure he’s in a lot of pain,” he whispered in her ear.
“Vrak, please,” she asked him, a lonely tear rolling down her cheek.
He stopped immediately, noticing what was going on.
“Stop right now, or I’ll kill her,” he threatened, pressing the gun even harder against her.
Vrak grunted but didn’t move a muscle when another of Zag’s men approached him. The man hit him hard in his abdomen making him pay for the other man’s wounds, before he cuffed his hands behind his back, making sure to rend him defenseless.
Aliyah cried out. “Leave him alone.”
Zag slapped her face with the back of his hand. “You don’t get to talk, my dear,” he warned. “Now, let’s go to Sumitera, and I’ll make sure to make you pay,” Zag added, pulling her up and dragging her out of the house.
His men followed him out, pushing Vrak.
They had a flying vehicle waiting for them a few yards away from the house, and a few moments later they were flying away from the Terrion, heading straight to Sumitera.
They kept the two lovers apart, and Aliyah was desperate, sure they were hurting Vrak, certain they would kill him because of her. She had to find a way to stop them, but she couldn’t think of anything.
It took them a few hours to reach their destiny, and when they left the vessel, she almost started crying when she saw Vrak. They had used him as a punching bag.
“Is this the kind of warriors you are? Sheer cowards that beat up a helpless man?” she ranted, struggling to free herself from Zag’s grip.
“Shut up. Your opinion means nothing to me,” Zag assured her, tightening his grip on her arm, careless of the pain he was causing her.
They were taken to a cave not far from where they had landed. The vegetation in this part of the planet was completely different from the what grew in Terrion. It was also covered in snow, but you could tell it was a lot wilder here.
The cave had a wide entrance, but it quickly narrowed into a passage that led into a huge chamber. By the look of it, Aliyah guessed someone had been using it as a shelter, though she couldn’t guess why. The place was as cold as the outside, but then again, the Sumirions didn’t seem to be affected by the temperature, judging by their clothes, or lack of them.
Once in the middle to the chamber, the men dragging Vrak tied him to a post, keeping his hands behind his back.
“What are your plans, now that you have us here?” she asked Zag, fearing they would torture Vrak before they killed him.
“They’re none of your business,” he snarled at her. “You’re in deep trouble as it is, so if I were you, I would worry more about my own skin.”
“Let him go. You already have what you wanted,” she asked him.
“No, you and your friend turned me into the laughing stock of the tribe. You’ve dishonored me, and you shall pay for that, both of you,” he assured her as he tied her to a post facing Vrak, with her hands over her head.
“I understand how you feel, but we’ve offered you compensation for your trouble,” Vrak said, in a cold tone. “After all, you hadn’t met her yet. There was no bond between you.” Despite the way he looked, he sounded as if he was unharmed.
“No!” Zag ranted. “You will not treat me as a sucker. I found the other female, and it was my right to keep her, but I was forced to give her back because she was with child,” he continued, clearly furious. “I accepted and in return, I would get another human female – her. I’m not going to allow you to take her away from me.”
“The contract establishes that I have the power to reject the man chosen for me,” she pointed out.
He turned to look at her and once more slapped her in the face. “I already told you the contract has no meaning to me.”
Furious at the way he was treating Aliyah, Vrak tugged at his restraints, trying to free himself. “Stop that. If you hurt her again, I’ll make you regret the day you were born,” Vrak threatened the other man.
Zag laughed, oozing scorn, as he crossed the distance between them and punched Vrak’s abdomen a few times. “You’re in no position to threaten me,” he snarled.
“Zag…” one of the other men called him up.
“What?”
“We would like to have a word with you.”
“Can’t you see I’m busy? We can talk later,” Zag dismissed the man’s request.
“When you asked us to help you retrieve your bride, you never mentioned she wanted to cancel the contract,” the man murmured, in a low tone, but it was loud enough for the rest of the people to hear. “She’s not one of our females, she doesn’t know our rules, nor does she owe you anything for you to force her to accept you,” the man added, not very pleased with the situation.
“She agreed to marry me, that’s why she’s here in the first place,” Zag stated, furious.
“But she claims her contract gives her a way out of it.”
“I don’t care about any contract. She was brought here to marry me, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen,” Zag insisted.
“You should consult the tribe’s elders about this,” the man insisted.
“There’s nothing to consult,” he assured, stubbornly. “If you don’t agree with my decisions, then I guess it’s time for you to leave. Thank you for your help.”
The other man pursed his lips and shook his head before he left the cave, followed by a few other men. But at least four of them stayed with Zag, making it still very hard for Vrak to confront them in case he managed to free himself.
“You should listen to your friend. It might be your last chance at accepting my deal,” Vrak warned him, and his warning only got him another round of punches.
“Shut up. You’re not getting out of this alive. Your deals mean nothing to me,” Zag snarled at him, hitting him one last time, relishing in Vrak’s grunts.
“Why are you doing this? I’m sure there must be a way to solve this without expanding things out of proportion,” she asked, feeling every punch as if she was the one being beaten up.
“There’s no other way,” Zag replied, crossing the cave to stand next to her.
“Wouldn’t you rather have a pleasing wife than one you’ll have to keep locked up? Because if you proceed with this insanity, I’ll use any chance I have to escape,” she assured him. “That won’t look good in front of the rest of the tribe.” She could tell she was getting to him. His expression became darker by the word that came out of her mouth. “If you let him go, I’ll be the best wife you ever dreamed of,” she promised him.
“Aliyah, I won’t let you do that,” Vrak assured her, from the other side of the cave.
She ignored his words. “All you have to do is take him out of Sumirion and forbid his entrance,” she insisted.
Zag let out loud, bitter laughter. “You’re not going to save your lover’s life,” he assured her, grabbing her chin and squeezing it hard, ripping a painful grunt from her lips. “If I have to chain you to the bed, so be it. As a matter of fact, I love the idea. I won’t have to pretend I’m a good husband and follow the tribe’s stupid rules. I’ll treat you as what you are – a slut I bought for my pleasure,” he spat, oozing his hatred in every single word, as he released her.
“I don’t think the elders would approve of that,” she insisted, based on what she had heard from the men that had left.
“At this point, I couldn’t care less about what the elders approve or not. I don’t need the tribe to live. I’m their best hunter, and they would be the ones at a loss if I decided to leave,” he bragged.
His words caused a bit of a commotion amongst his friends, but they didn’t dare to question him.
“You’re making a huge mistake, Zag. Let us go, before this gets out of hand,” Vrak warned him, but he didn’t pay him any attention.
Instead, he strode to the other side of the cave and picked up something from a table. “It’s time for my dear mate to pay for her sins,” he announced, with a dark tone that sent shivers down Aliyah’s spine.