You’re lying. Korum wanted to scream, to deny what he just heard, but he couldn’t. It made too much sense. The girl he met in New York wouldn’t have accepted everything with such ease, wouldn’t have invited him into her bed after knowing him for just a day. She would’ve been frightened and mistrustful, and he would’ve had to earn her trust and affection all o
ver again. And instead, she seemed to love him with hardly any effort on his part.
Except she didn’t. Not really. Her feelings for him weren’t real. None of it was real. Her behavior, her apparent attachment to him – it was all a result of Saret’s procedure.
“Does she still have her memories?” Korum buried the agony deep inside, where it couldn’t cloud his thinking. “Or did you erase them anyway?”
Saret grinned, visibly delighted by the question. “No, the memories are gone. It just seems like they’re there because she’s absorbing everything like a sponge, learning at an incredible rate. Pretty soon, she’ll be more acclimated to our world than she was before – if she’s not already.”
“Can you undo it?” Korum knew it was futile, but he had to ask.
“What, the softening or the memory loss?”
“Both. Either.”
Saret’s grin widened. “I can’t. And even if I could, I wouldn’t. You might have her now, but you’ll never truly have her. You’ll never know if anything she feels for you is genuine – or if she would’ve felt the same about any other man who spent time with her upon her awakening.”
Korum looked at the man he’d once considered a friend. Memories of their childhood, happy and carefree, flashed through his mind, leaving the bitter taste of regret in their wake. “Why?” he asked quietly.
“Why do I hate you?” Saret lifted his eyebrows. “Or why did I do all of this?”
Korum just continued looking at him.
“The answer is the same to both,” Saret said, his grin fading. “I was tired of always being in your shadow. No matter how much I achieved, how high I climbed, I was always just Korum’s buddy. Korum the inventor, Korum the designer, Korum who brought us here to Earth. Your ambition knew no bounds – and neither did my hatred of you.”
“Yet you supported me,” Korum said, the pain of the betrayal somehow distant, not fully reaching him yet. “You were always on my side on the Council. You helped me get us here, to Earth.”
“I did,” Saret agreed. “Because I knew it was foolish to do anything else. Even the Elders dance to your tune these days, don’t they?”
Korum didn’t justify that with a response. Instead, he gave Saret a look of contempt. “So all your grandiose plans for humans, your supposed desire for world peace, it was all out of petty jealousy?”
“No,” Saret said, his eyes narrowing. “I saw a way to shape history, and I took a chance. What could be a greater achievement than peace for an entire planet? Do you think any of your gadgets could compare to that?”
“An achievement that would’ve involved the deaths of fifty thousand Krinar.”
“Yes,” Saret said, and he had the gall to look regretful for a moment. “That would’ve been unfortunate. Unavoidable, but unfortunate.”
“Unfortunate?” Korum could hardly believe his ears. “What is wrong with you, Saret? How did you get to be this way?”
Now Saret was beginning to look angry. “What is wrong with me? You ask me that while you’re standing there, with Loris’s blood still fresh on your hands? You think something is wrong with me because I wanted to better the lives of billions by killing a few thousand? How many Krinar have you killed in the Arena, Korum? Twenty, thirty? And what about humans? You think I don’t know that you enjoy killing, just like the rest of our fucked-up race?”
Korum stared at him, trying to understand this man he’d known his whole life. “You’re wrong,” he said quietly. “I don’t enjoy killing. I didn’t want to kill Loris yesterday – and I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t interfered. I like the fights themselves, not the end result of them. And that’s how our fucked-up race is, as you should know, since you’re the mind expert here. We love danger and violence – we crave it – but we don’t have to be murderers.”
“And yet we are,” Saret said. “You can fool yourself all you want, but that’s what we ultimately are. We came to Earth and thousands of humans died during the Great Panic as a result. And what you want to do now will result in more deaths. She won’t forgive you for that, you know.”
“Won’t your procedure take care of that?” Korum said, his mouth curving into a bitter smile. “Isn’t she going to love me now no matter what?”
Saret shook his head. “No. With enough provocation, her love will turn to hate. You just wait and see.”
Chapter 18
Mia woke up with a scream, her heart racing and her skin covered with cold sweat.
In her dream, Korum’s body had been a mangled, mutilated corpse, swimming in a river of blood. She had tried to save him from that river, to pull him ashore, but it had been futile. The current had been too strong, tearing him out of her hands and carrying him away, down to the waterfalls, where the water was as dark as dried blood.
Sitting up straight, Mia tried to get her breathing under control. It was just a bad dream. Korum had won the fight. He was safe.
Safe – and fully recovered, if yesterday’s celebration was anything to go by.