"Just what it implies. They let us loose, and then go hunt us. And whoever catches you is your new mate," she said in a haunted voice.
True terror surged through me. "It sounds so barbaric. Why wouldn't they just mate with their own kind?" I asked.
"Now what fun would that be?" she asked sarcastically. "They wouldn’t be the Khonsu if even their mating rituals didn't involve fear and destruction."
I saw a flash of blonde hair, or at least I thought I did. And I looked hopefully to see if it was Derrial. But whatever I'd seen had disappeared.
"Why are you here? Did you venture too far from the Vepar cities?" I asked.
A look of rage briefly passed over her face before she smoothed it out. "I'm here because many of the Vepars are just as bad as the Khonsu, if not worse."
A wave of pity passed over me. It was obvious that this poor woman had a dark story.
“I'm Ella," I offered with a small smile. I was grateful that this Vepar woman wasn't treating me as the rest had and was taking the time to at least explain things to me. I knew if Zeni were here, she would probably be throwing me up against the electrical fence at my audacity to ask any questions.
"My name is Bruda," she answered with her own small smile.
"Bruda," I repeated, thinking that the tough sounding name perfectly fit this Vepar who resembled a warrior Princess.
"Do you know when the hunt is supposed to start?" I asked, still desperately looking around for help.
It was interesting to watch the women around us. Some of the others were Vepars, but most were definitely of different alien races. They all were distinctly feminine, but also distinctly alien looking.
A woman off to my right was a dark, inky blue color. She had tubes coming out of her head instead of hair. The tubes were held back in some kind of elaborate headband. Her eyes were completely black, no white showing, and I jumped when they briefly turned to me, before losing interest quickly.
I was guessing it would be helpful in this situation that I resembled a form that the Vepar could take.
There were three gorgeous women off to my left, who were all a bottle green color. I gasped in amazement when I realized that there was a tube connecting the three of them. Literally, they were all one entity. It was like our conjoined twins back on earth, except in this case they had three distinct bodies.
Bruda must've seen me staring, because she made a small coughing sound to get my attention. They’re from the Dacasi," she explained.
“Many of the women there are born into groups of threes like that.”
"What do they do about dating, having sex, or anything else?" I asked.
She laughed. "Women on that planet who are born to a pairing like that, which is almost all of them really, all marry the same man. That takes care of all of those issues."
For a second, I wondered if my guys felt like that, like they were connected for life, since they were all dating me. What a strange life I had ended up having.
"Do they not have different species on your earth?" she asked.
We had gotten off topic, I needed to know about a million more things about this “hunt” before it started, but it was probably good for both of us to have some sort of distraction right now. It wouldn't hurt for me to answer a few questions.
"There are a lot of different species on Earth," I explained. "But before the Vepar invaded, we weren't aware that there were any other species from different planets on Earth."
Her eyes widened. "Really, there weren't any? So you thought…"
"So we thought we were all alone in the universe?" I asked self-deprecatingly. "Yes. As stupid as that sounds, we did think we were alone on the planet. That obviously has changed now."
She shivered. "Surely your leaders must have known. I can't imagine living in such a state of ignorance."
"We really didn't know any other way," I told her honestly. Thinking of the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss.’ I think I missed being able to be ignorant.
"I really don't think that our leaders knew either. But maybe I'm wrong about that. Our leaders are a bit lock lipped about state secrets to the common people.”
She nodded.
"Bruda, I would love to answer whatever questions you have about Earth and the humans, but I need to know about this situation we’re in before I can do that."