Author's Note: So now I'm back home, writing this as my (real-life) husband sleeps in bed next to me. See, THAT's dedication. As always, I own nothing except my characters.
To bknbu - Glad you're enjoying the story! I too have a feeling that Keith will go postal.
To Emie Mac - Aidan is in "don't panic" mode so he doesn't lose his head. If the captain freaks out, the entire team freaks out. But inside, he's really worried.
To Sally On - In agreement, our friends on Pollux are definitely cursed. Though I think our friends on Earth are as well.
To Wade Wells - You'd better get that K/A fic out soon so I can read it! As for Sven & Len, well, I don't think we've heard the last from those two...
Title Song: "New Divide" by Linkin Park
Jeff felt like he was in a walking coma. All he could focus on was how Christiane had told him no, that she didn't want to marry him just yet. Now she might be gone forever, and he never got the chance to settle down with her. He'd never have the chance to make a life together with her. If she didn't come home, he didn't see how he could go on with his life.
He was so deep into his thoughts that he didn't hear the rush of footsteps approaching him. "Jeff!" he heard her cry out, but he could barely acknowledge her call. "Jeff, we just heard the news! Oh my God! How are you holding up?"
It was a stupid question, and later on, he berated himself for the way he answered her. But in the thick of the moment, he couldn't understand how she could even think of asking him such a stupid question. "Really, Lisa? Really? How in seven hells do you think I feel right now?"
Lisa paused, turning red and trying to collect herself. "Oh. I'm sorry I asked, Jeff. I just wanted to check on you." She bit her lip, trying not to take his verbal assault personally, and she turned and walked away from him.
"Keith? Are you going to say something? Anything?"
He heard the words coming from Blue Lion, but he didn't know who had spoken them. It could have been Allura, but it just as easily could have been Larmina. He was in such shock right now, he couldn't differentiate his girlfriend from her niece.
He flew Black Lion at its top speeds back to Arus, despite the fact that he knew Allura would never be able to catch up. Yeah, that's just another way I'm a miserable failure, he thought bitterly. I couldn't protect Christiane, and now I'm treating Allura like she doesn't matter. Nice going, Kogane. Way to ruin every relationship with every woman you'll ever care about.
"Keith, it's me. Allura. Answer me. And slow down, will you? Blue's not as fast as Black."
"I'm sorry." He gritted his teeth together. "I...can't."
Larmina looked over at Allura from the backseat. "What does he mean, he can't?" she questioned her aunt. "Man, this is not the way Keith acts at all. I wonder, what's wrong with him? And who's this chick that's got him so upset?"
Allura shook her head. "I don't know. I've never, ever - in all the years I've known him - ever heard him mention a Christiane."
Larmina shrugged. "Do you think she was somebody who helped him when he was on the run for all those years, trying to find Black Lion?"
"I don't know. Maybe." She thought about all of the men she'd met, known, and loved in the time Keith was gone. None of them had ever been Keith, though one of them had come very close. She would be foolish to believe that he hadn't loved a woman or two in the time he was gone. With a typical detachment, she refused to let that thought bother her.
Keith heard their conversation over the intercom, but he said nothing. They didn't know, and he wasn't about to tell them. The emotions running through his veins threatened to break him. Worse still, there was a little voice running around in his head taunting him with the words You got what you deserved.
Daniel sat quietly in the back of Red Lion as he and Lance lifted off from Planet Brann. Pidge had sounded worried when he contacted them, so the two Voltron Force members made a hasty exit, much to their disappointment. They hadn't expected to like the fire planet so much.
"Anadora was really sweet, huh?" Lance asked the cadet as Red cleared the planet's wavy-hot atmosphere. "I never thought I would find an older, red-skinned woman to be so attractive, but man, she was really something, huh. Could make a man of my caliber change his ways."
Daniel snickered from the backseat.
"Hey! You don't think I could change my womaniz - um, charming with the ladies - way?"
"Well, you do have a certain, uh, reputation to uphold."
"Blast it. I knew that was gonna come back to bite me in the rear end."
Daniel snickered in the backseat while Lance flew, a smile on his face. As much as the cadet could be impulsive, annoying, and immature, he could also be fun to hang out and joke with. He could see traces of himself in Daniel when he was that age at the Academy. There was definitely potential in the cadet, it just needed to mature a little more before it could come out.
He changed the topic. "So, what do you think Pidge wants from us? He sounded pretty concerned when he contacted us."
Daniel shrugged. "Could be anything. All he told us was to get back to the castle. I don't think it's an invasion, though."
Lance shook his head. "Me neither. I think that if Arus was under attack, he'd tell us that. Hey, you wanna contact him again? Let him know we're on our way, then see if we can wrestle the information from him?"
"Lance, you are the master."
"I always have been."
The pilot opened the communication channel between the castle and Red Lion. As he twisted his torso slightly in his seat, he could feel Anadora's ring in his pocket. He had no idea what he was going to do with it, other than not give it to Allura. She had Keith to buy her jewelry now; she didn't need any from him.
While he hailed the castle, Daniel piped up from the backseat, "Hey Lance, have you given any thought to that ring Queen Anadora gave you?"
"Nope. Not yet." He knew there was a reason for him to have the ring in his possession, though. He just didn't know what it was yet.
Taking a deep breath, Kelly stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She'd been awake for quite a few hours now, and the exhaustion coupled with the atmosphere in the Space Marshal's office was beginning to get to her. The tension was so thick she could probably karate-chop her way through it.
It was awful to think about Christiane on a starship somewhere, being held captive by Wade and Lotor. Hadn't that poor girl suffered enough tragedy in her life? She knew that, in the Albegas hangar, four pilots stood ready on stand-by, and three of them felt incredibly guilty about their friend being kidnapped right under their noses. She did, too - she had been there, and cursed herself for not realizing what was happening as it was happening.
Yet that was not the worst of it. Not for Kelly.
Of course the situation was bad, Kelly wouldn't ever deny that. But what was worse was the Space Marshal's admission. That she was in love with two men at the same time. That she had cheated on one with the other. And that the one she had cheated with had cheated on his own wife in the process. It was unacceptable.
It's a completely different situation, she tried to tell herself, staring back at her hazelnut eyes in the mirror. What she had with Sven and what I had with Mo are two completely different things.
When Kelly first met Modoch, he was what everyone referred to as "the gentle giant." She was taken with him, not just because of his good looks and formidable size, but because of his laid-back, easy-going personality. The fact that he was a loyal member of the Vehicle Team was merely an added bonus.
Kelly had loved Modoch with her entire being - heart, body, soul - and on some level, she still loved him more than Taye. She had moved in with him once she was sure they were a solid item, and she never regretted it...until the day she found him in their bed, locked in a compromising position with the female bartender from their favorite dive bar.
She could come up with a million excuses for his behavior, but the biggest was Wade and the fact that he had disbanded both Voltrons. Without the Vehicle Team and the Explorer, Modoch was frustrated, angry, sad, and dissatisfied with his life. It wasn't that he didn't love his girlfriend. He did. But without Voltron, he didn't have that outlet that he needed to alleviate his aggravations in life, and he chose the bartender as a poor substitute.
He lost Kelly Asimov because of it.
Now, looking into her own eyes, Kelly was slightly disappointed in her friend. How could Lenora cheat on Jon? That man loved her more than his own life. That man had saved her from Wade, he'd hidden her in his own homes across the country - and in Paris - to keep her alive. And what had she done in return? She ended up in the bed of her old Academy boyfriend and one-time fiancé, the only thing keeping her from leaving him being the old boyfriend's child.
She knew it wasn't the same thing, but it didn't make her feel any better. To her, cheating was cheating. There were no excuses, no explanations, no good reasons. True, she hadn't walked the proverbial mile in the Space Marshal's high heels, but the First Officer didn't think she could justify the scenario even if she had.
Well, I'd better get back in her office. I promised I wouldn't leave, and I won't.
As she left the restroom to return to the Space Marshal's office, she couldn't shake off the feeling of dread in her system. The dread that felt like the warning of a new divide in the Alliance and their friendship. She wished that Lenora had kept that secret to herself.
Her wrists were unimaginably sore. If she closed her eyes and went to the part of her body that was the most uncomfortable, it was her wrists, the discomfort coming from the handcuffing to the cross and the sagging of her body weight. Though, in a close second, her back was stiff from standing for so long. Her split lip, scabbed over, was not so bad. It probably looked worse than it felt.
Lotor had left some hours earlier, but she knew he would be back. She knew much of what he was going to do. He wanted her as his slave. His personal slave, serving in his harem to please him until he got tired of her. Even if she hadn't been a seer and learned that information from his touch, it was written in his kiss anyway. He was desperate - desperate for love, desperate for vengeance, desperate for acceptance. In some ways, she felt sorry for him. But she could not forgive him for what he was about to do to her.
"Christiane."
The door opened again, and she squinted at the light piercing the darkness of the room. His cat eyes glowed again, and she heard the crack of some implement he was holding in his hands. A flogger.
"What is it, my lord?" she answered wearily, her eyes pleading with him not to whip her. She had endured so much in her twenty-eight years; she didn't know if she had enough strength left in her body to silently suffer through a torture session with the Drule king. She'd barely made it through the blow he dealt to her face.
"You are a perfect specimen." He licked his lips. "I can see why your Captain Aki is so taken with you. You are to be the crown jewel in my harem, Christiane Kogane. My bride will be Princess Allura, of course, but you will be my main mistress and the head of my harem." He touched the side of her face again, but this time she could not see what he was going to do. He was wracked with confusion as to how he wanted to proceed with his captive.
"My lord," she asked, "why would you want a mistress in addition to your bride and queen?"
He grabbed her hair and pulled her chin up to face him. "Because I can." He leaned in to kiss her scabbed lips, and then she knew. She knew what he wanted, and she knew what he was going to do to her.
The question was whether or not she would survive through it.
Still kissing her, he unchained her from the cross and lifted her up, throwing her over his back. He was not ill-made, she had to admit, which made the idea of his torture slightly more palatable. Yet what he was about to do was still unforgivable.
He carried her off to his own chambers, where she knew he would bed her and use her, much like the long line of other young captured women who had come before her. But she knew he wouldn't kill her; he needed her to be alive if he was to use her as his bargaining chip. All she needed to do was get through the act, and then she would make it off this ship and somehow get towards safety.
She just didn't know if she could get through the act.
