The Alien’s Seduction by Zoey Draven

Chapter Thirty-One

“Will you eat something?” Beks’ quiet voice came. “Please. You need to eat, Crystal. It’s been four days already and you’ve barely kept anything down. I’m worried.”

Crystal sighed and turned her gaze from the window to look at Beks.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I’ll try.”

Relief spread over her friend’s features and she set down the tray she was carrying, full of spiced meats and a hot goblet of tea.

Looking at the food made her feel a little nauseous. It was as if her body was punishing her, as if it was physically rebelling against her decision to leave Cruxan. As if her heart and her body knew what was right, yet her mind stubbornly clung to its decision.

She nibbled at some meat, forcing down whatever she could manage slowly. Crystal was all too aware of Beks’ watchful gaze as she did, as if the brunette was logging the amount of food she ate, trying to determine if it was enough.

Her eyes went back the living room window, her gaze going to the little house at the end of the terrace, tucked behind the towering trees of Kroratax. As if she simply watched the house long enough, it would make him reappear.

It was funny what heartbreak could make someone think.

But in her heart and her mind, she knew he wouldn’t come back. He respected her decision enough—he respected her enough—not to.

But Crystal hadn’t expected that realization to hurt so much.

On the first day, afterwards, once she’d realized that Cruxan had already left for Otala, that she would likely never see him again…she’d been in denial. Deep, deep denial. Beks had had a knowing worry on her face, while Crystal went about her day, though it was interspersed with deep, ugly, sobbing crying sessions that came and went like fickle rain.

The second day was when she’d lost her appetite. She hadn’t drawn that day because the night before, she’d flipped back through her drawings of Cruxan and it had…wrecked her. Absolutely wrecked her.

By the third day, she could barely get out of bed. She just wanted to sleep all day, but she couldn’t even sleep. And when she did manage to get more than an hour at a time, she dreamed of him.

Her dreams of Cruxan were vivid and happy. So happy that when she woke, she was struck again by the loss of him and it sent her spiraling. So, she avoided sleep if she could.

Her only reprieve was when she happened to dream of her mother. They were strange dreams, like lost memories of her that Crystal had forgotten over time. They made her feel sad whenever she woke, but not the debilitating grief she experienced after waking from a dream of Cruxan.

By the fourth day, that day, Crystal had all but shut down. She couldn’t stop replaying that night in her mind. She couldn’t stop herself from remembering the struck look on his face, the quiet, heartbreaking acceptance when he realized that she was choosing to leave him.

Crystal didn’t think she had any more tears left to cry, but she hadn’t been able to stop. Because she knew that there was so much that she’d wanted to tell him, so much that she hadn’t told him.

Beks settled in the fire pit area next to her, sighing. After a brief pause, her voice came gently, “Lihvan thinks you should return to the Golden City.”

Crystal knew that already.

“And what do you think?” she asked, her tone wooden.

Beks sighed. “I think that you’re still hoping he will come back here.”

He wasn’t coming back. She knew that too, but she couldn’t deny the pang of longing she felt at Beks’ words.

Crystal buried her face in her hands and took a deep, shuddering breath. She was moping. She was heartbroken.

But she’d done it to herself. She’d chosen this.

“I don’t want to go back to the Golden City,” she started, raising her face from her hands to look at her friend, “because Kroratax is closer to Otala…and being farther away from him makes me...it makes me want—”

She broke off when tears welled up in her eyes, but she straightened her spine and reached for another piece of meat from the tray, determined to eat it. She needed to stop doing this.

“Oh honey,” Beks whispered, sighing.

“This is ridiculous, isn’t it?” she asked softly, looking back out the window. “I was the one who ended it but I can’t let it go. I can’t let him go. I can’t leave either, though I know I should.”

Her voice was hoarse from all the crying and she reached for the hot tea with a trembling hand, taking a long sip from the bitter liquid.

“Why do I feel like I made a huge mistake?” she whispered, looking at Beks. “I thought it was the right decision, but if it is, why does it feel this way? Why does it feel this wrong?”

“I can’t pretend to know the weight of that decision, Crystal,” Beks said softly. “Even when I was on Earth, I never knew my father and I’d been estranged from my mother, for very, very good reasons, for years. Kate was my best friend and the only true family that I felt I had. And she was here. My family was already here.”

Crystal looked up at her, surprised.

Beks continued, “You have a sister that you love dearly, whose been there for you when you needed her, with children of her own on the way. I can’t imagine it’s an easy decision.”

Crystal sensed a ‘but’ in her tone. Beks pressed her lips together.

“Just say it,” Crystal whispered.

“But,” Beks said slowly, “your sister also has a family of her own. A husband she loves. And I’m not saying that you’re not a part of that family, of course you are. I just…don’t you also want those things? A husband? Children?”

More fucking tears.

She was so tired of crying, but Crystal’s shoulders shook with it and Beks reached out to try to comfort her as much as she could.

“You’ve been through so much, honey,” Beks whispered. “And I don’t think that your sister would want you to be this miserable either. She wouldn’t want you to give up your entire future because you’re trying to make up for a mistake you made a long time ago. If I had a sister, I wouldn’t want her to do that. I would want her to do what makes her happy.”

It was her next words that absolutely killed her though.

“And from what I’ve seen…Cruxan makes you very happy,” the brunette said gently. Her lips quirked a little. “Maybe not right now, admittedly. But he did, didn’t he?”

Another quiet sob tore from her throat and she nodded as she cried more and more.

“I-I’m sorry I’m such a goddamn mess right now,” she said, once her breath evened out.

“I don’t think you’re a mess,” Beks soothed. “I just think you love him and you’re realizing just how much now that he’s gone.”

Beks pulled something from the cushion next to her. When Crystal looked down, it was her tablet, which she’d tucked away in a chest because she couldn’t bear to look at it.

“I found this. Hiding it won’t make it go away,” Beks said gently. “It won’t make him go away.”

Crystal took the tablet from her, looking down at the smooth surface. The last time she’d used it, it had been to draw Cruxan at the hot spring. She’d been so ridiculously happy then…until a single moment had changed everything. It had all happened so fast.

One moment she’d been kissing him.

And the next…she had been breaking their hearts.

“Do you think he’s okay?” Crystal asked softly.

Beks replied, “I think he’s about as okay as you are.”

Crystal pressed her lips together to stem her tears.

“What should I do?” she whispered.

Beks blew out a breath. “I think that you should finish that food and that tea. Then you should go take a bath, put on some fresh clothes, maybe go outside to get some air.”

Crystal looked down at herself. When had she last bathed?

“And while you’re outside, you should ask yourself two things. One being: do you love him? And the other: can you live without him? Don’t think about your sister, don’t think about home. Think about you. And him.”

Crystal’s breath hitched and she looked up at Beks in surprise.

“And if the answer to the first question is yes and the answer to the second question is no…then I think you know what to do.”

Beks stood from the cushions surrounding the fire pit and Crystal stared up at her, momentarily stunned.

“Love is simple,” Beks murmured. “It’s us that makes it so complicated. Now suck it up, girlie. You have an important decision to make.”

After eating,after a bath and a fresh change of clothes, Crystal went outside for fresh air. She felt the cool wind on her cheeks and she closed her eyes as it fluttered through her freshly washed hair.

And, with her eyes closed, she silently asked herself the two questions that Beks suggested.

Do I love him?

The answer was surprisingly easy.

“Yes,” she whispered, a tear leaking from behind her closed lids, despite her thinking she was done with the tears. Her love for him surprised her. It had come on quickly, like a violent storm.

Can I live without him?

Her breath hitched.

If this was what it was like living without him, then she had her answer. It was destroying her, emotionally and physically.

“No.”

Her shoulders slumped and she opened her eyes. In that moment, she had brief clarity. An answer so simple and yet so very not simple at the same time.

Because life was never simple. It was ugly, but wonderful.

Then Crystal remembered something.

The night their father left, Crystal’s mother had come into the room that she’d shared with Lauren.

Lauren was four years older at the ripe old age of twelve and looking back, Crystal knew that she’d understood what was happening far more than Crystal had. Lauren had been quiet that night, abnormally so.

Their mother had come in. She’d seemed tired, sad.

Crystal had asked her what was wrong and she’d replied with, “I just missed you two.”

“You just saw us at dinner,” Crystal had pointed out.

“And I can’t miss you between dinner and now?”

“I suppose you can,” Crystal had replied after thinking about it. “Can you tell us a story before we go to bed?”

“Hmmm,” her mother had looked over at Lauren, who was still quiet. “How about you two tell me a story tonight instead? How does that sound?”

“A story about what?” Lauren finally asked.

“I don’t know,” Mom said. “What did you play today, out in the woods?”

Crystal grew excited. “We came up with a new story today. It’s about goblins.”

“Then tell me about these goblins,” her mother requested. “What did they do today?”

“Their names are Krane and Jron,” Lauren supplied, perking a little from her quiet state.

“Krane declared his love for the goblin princess today in front of the entire kingdom,” Crystal added. “We will have the wedding tomorrow. We’re making flower crowns.”

“That’s a very short time to plan a wedding,” their mother noted, smiling softly. “But maybe goblin weddings are easier. And how did this Krane confess his love, huh?”

“It was embarrassing,” Crystal said, making a face. “Wasn’t it, Lauren?”

Lauren made the face back. “It was romantic, not embarrassing. But you’re too young to understand.”

“He screamed it out in front of everyone,” Crystal told their mother. “He’s a thief, you know. He’s not allowed to marry the princess.”

“But he didn’t care because he loves her,” Lauren argued. “And she loves him.”

“Mom,” Crystal said, a whining edge to her voice. “Tell her it’s embarrassing. She just thinks it’s romantic because she likes that boy at school now.”

“I do not!”

“It’s not embarrassing, love,” their mother told her softly, stroking her hand through her hair. “You should want someone who will make a fool of themselves for you.”

“Why?” she asked, making another face.

Their mother sighed and smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Mom?” Lauren prompted when she didn’t say anything.

“What I wish for both of you girls,” their mother began, “is that you find someone who supports you, who respects you, and who will cherish you for the rest of their lives. Because you deserve that, do you understand? You deserve that kind of love.”

Crystal and Lauren looked at each other. Lauren went quiet again and Crystal had the strangest sense that their mother wasn’t talking about Krane at all.

Crystal distinctly remembered their mother crying right then. Not much, but she remembered tears running down her face.

Then, their mother had wiped them away, took in a deep breath, and said, “Now, tell me about this goblin wedding. Will there be cake?”

Crystal stared out at the trees of Kroratax, surfacing from the old memory, a little hazy with age, but her mother’s words were sharp and crisp, as if she’d just spoken them yesterday.

Then she couldn’t help but remember the phone call the night before her mother had died. During that phone call, her mother had pleaded with her to wake up. She’d told her that Leo wasn’t the man she wanted for her, that it wasn’t the love that she deserved, that it wasn’t love at all.

But what Crystal hadn’t been able to voice on the phone that night was that she’d thought her mother was wrong. Her self-worth had been so low, her self-esteem absolutely destroyed that she’d actually believed she didn’t deserve anything more.

It was me, she thought, her breath escaping her. It wasn’t because of Leo.

It wasn’t because of Leo that she’d turned her back on her family. It was because of who she’d become. And yes, perhaps, it had been at his hands, because of his abuse, but it was Crystal that had shut her family out purposefully. Because her mother was ashamed of who’d she’d become. Because Lauren could hardly stand to look at her. Because Crystal could hardly stand to look at herself. Because Crystal didn’t have the strength and the confidence to stand up to her abuser and simply walk away.

Crystal wrapped her arms around her body.

She stared into the dark forests of Kroratax before lifting her face to the misty sky.

Beks said love was simple. The emotion itself was, in its most pure form. It was everything else—all the doubts, all the worries, all the circumstances surrounding it—that made it complicated.

But what about all the good it could bring? Crystal had focused on the bad for so long that she’d never stopped to think about the opposite.

And it could bring happiness. She knew that for certain. She’d felt it. It could bring safety and comfort and pleasure and family, all the things that she desired above all else.

A hovercraft approached, coming from the outpost’s center. For a moment, her heartbeat shot into her throat, a longing so intense building in her that she was momentarily stunned by it.

But it was Lihvan, coming from the command center, coming home to his own pregnant, happy mate.

He studied her when he landed the hovercraft a short distance from his dwelling and then jumped down, approaching her.

“Are you well, female?” he asked.

Do I love him? Can I live without him?

Yes. No.

She looked up at Lihvan once he stopped in front of her. She did know what she needed to do.

“Will you have someone take me to Otala?”

Lihvan stilled. She thought he had every reason to dislike her, for breaking his friend’s heart, for rejecting him so callously.

“Why?” he asked, his tone gruff. And maybe a large part of him did dislike her. Hell, Crystal hadn’t liked herself the last four days. But Crystal didn’t let that dissuade her.

“I love him,” she said simply. “I made a mistake. Will you help me?”

He studied her. Whatever he thought, he kept hidden behind a guarded expression.

But finally, he inclined his head and relief burst through her, so sharp and clear that her legs trembled.

“I will take you there myself.”