She nodded again, and I was once more glad that I had landed myself next to her. "Stories of the mating hunt are told to all Vepar children growing up. It’s a story that our parents tell us to try and keep us in line. “Be nice to your brother, Bruda, wouldn't want to have to send you to the Vepar for the hunt," my parents would tell us. “The stories could never compare to the real thing though," she said looking around us in disgust. "Obviously everything that I've heard is rumor. But how I've been told that it works is that sometime soon, sometime this week at least, the Khonsu men who are looking for mates will gather in an arena and we will be brought in to be inspected. They examine our looks, the strength of our teeth, use their technology to look at our fertility probability… Basically take stock of our assets," she explained.
My terror at this point was so thick that it was hard to breathe. They would know I was human. What if their technology could pick out what was special about my blood? What if I was already pregnant, what would they do? Horror like I'd never felt before swept through me.
"You're not fainting on me, are you? You’ve got to stay strong," Bruda ordered.
I took a deep breath, unwilling to tell her exactly why I was so afraid. A few more deep breaths seemed to calm me down.
"Continue," I said, proud of myself for keeping my voice calm.
“After they've showcased us to the hunters, they take us into the woods on their mountain.”
"Their mountain?" I asked perplexed.
She nodded. "The Khonsu have a mountain that they consider sacred. All of their important rituals are done within their woods or at the peak of the mountain. It's called Velati.”
She turned me around and I saw where the giant mountain was located in the distance.
"And what happens on that mountain?" I asked, dread trickling down my spine because I knew what she was going to say next.
"There, we are hunted," she said matter-of-factly. "Each Khonsu male who is participating in the hunt would've located their favorite based on the exhibition in the arena. They let us out into the woods under the guise that there’s a chance we could escape. But obviously that never happens,” she said with a whisper. “Once the Khonsu male catches their desired mate, the woman is then taken to the top of the mountain. And there she is raped on their sacred stone or in the woods or wherever they please." Bruda delivered this news in a voice void of any emotion.
My body felt like it was going to collapse. Raped. There had actually been quite a few times in my life where I had been touched without my permission, and there had definitely been situations that could've led to rape if I hadn’t been saved. I thought of the prison guard in the hallway where Thane had saved me.
Who was going to save me this time though? A wave of loneliness passed over me. I had just gotten to the point where I had felt safe for the first time in my life, and then it had been ripped away.
A thought hit me just then. What if the guys were dead? What if they had been found out after I had been captured?
"I'd been expecting that when I learned it was called a ‘mating hunt’” I said softly, trying to distract myself from the terrifying images that had filled my mind of the guys each being tortured and killed in various ways.
At that moment Bruda reached over and squeezed my hand, an act of solidarity and compassion that brought tears to my eyes.
"And then after the hunt, is there a marriage ceremony?" I asked with a faint laugh.
"According to what I've heard, by performing the...” she hesitated before continuing. "By performing the ritual, on their sacred mountain, that acts as the marriage ceremony."
I looked around and examined all of the women in the corral, all women that at least to me didn't look like they were Khonsu.
"Why don't they take their own women for their mates?" I asked.
“I've heard through gossip that the Khonsu women have the same fertility problems as the Vepar women. Unlike the Vepar, the Khonsu have no problem going outside of their race. From what I've heard, the Khonsu gene is dominant to all but the Vepar and any characteristics of other species are thus not carried over during the mating process. The child is born a Khonsu then for all intents and purposes."
I was immediately outraged upon hearing that. "If the Vepar genes are so strong, why was it so important to them then to take over Earth where the humans there have similar characteristics to them? Why couldn't they just go with another species and let the Vepar genes dominate whatever child was born?" I asked, furious at the idea that Earth could've been taken over for no reason.
Bruda was already shaking her head before I had finished ranting.
"Unfortunately, the Vepar genes do not work that way. The Vepar can only mate with compatible bloodlines, and your Earth is the only planet that's been found to have beings that are compatible to us.” She cocked her head, staring at me intently. "That is the reason that you are here, is it not? Even on Earth you were the only one found to be compatible."
I looked at her suspiciously. How would she know that? I knew it was common knowledge for the Council and Corran’s scientists, but I didn't think that the regular Vepar population would've heard about me.
She sighed. It was starting to get dark, and the last rays of Veon’s two suns cast her in a haunting orange glow. "As I'm sure you're aware now, the Council’s become corrupt. Your men were gone for too long. After they were gone, the Council decided that although they could not mate, they could still play."
I inhaled a shaky breath. The pain she had endured was so tangible, I could taste it on my tongue. Bruda had suffered immensely.
Her voice faded to a whisper, and I had to lean in closer to her to be able to hear her as she continued to haltingly speak.
"I was stolen from my parents and used as a slave for their pleasure."
"How did you end up here?"I asked gently, thinking that she was a beautiful woman. Whatever horrors she had been through had not affected her beauty.