True Hope

By Severine Wolfe

Coming out of a self-imposed emotional freeze is a long and painful process.

For Casey Riggs, she wasn’t prone to looking back. It was too painful and full of betrayal by those she trusted most. She had worked very hard to pack the pain and fury into a box and stow it into a part of her mind she didn’t want to ever see again. When she’s kidnapped in the few weeks her father has left. He’s the only person in the world who never lied to her, never betrayed her, he’s all she has.

When she’s rescued from her attacker, she’s already shut down and refuses to cooperate in any way with her rescuers. The Accord medics are stymied and are ready to send her to a Rehab Planet for the rest of her natural life.
Luckily, someone makes another call, and she gets two weeks on a farm. Insert eyeroll here.

Emerys Maerlon is assigned to guard a Human female at his old friend’s farm as part of her therapy before she’s sent off to a rehab planet. The Elnollian is more than ready to get it over with and head home to find his mate. He’s ready. His race don’t do premarital sex. They have the utmost respect for themselves and for those they eventually take for a mate.

Through caring for something outside herself, Casey learns to begin unpacking her past and begins to discover the new world around her and her place in it. A place that may include a man with beads in his hair.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Severine Wolfe
• Release date: Apr 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005478667

Severine Wolfe

Severine Wolfe is a pen name. It's also a name I've used across the gaming world for nearly 20 years. I answer to, "Hey, Sev!" just as easily as my birth name.I am married and have four grown children and three grandchildren. I love to read and I read everything from treatises on philosophy to theories on the speed of light to the most bawdy of bodice rippers. My interests are varied but reading, knitting and gardening are my top three. Extreme knitting, not for the faint of heart.I've had stories running around my head for years and I'm just now letting them out to put themselves on the virtual page. I hope you enjoy the characters as much as I have over the years. You can contact me at [e-mail].

Book preview

True Hope

Shifting Alliances Book 8

By Severine Wolfe

True Hope

Copyright © 2021 by Severine Wolfe

First E-Book Published April 2021

Cover design by Melody Simmons at https://bookcoverscre8tive.com/

Proofread by Stephanie Taylor Flores

ISBN:

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission from the author.

All characters, places, and events in this book are fictitious or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is strictly coincidental.

License Statement

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Coming out of a self-imposed emotional freeze is a long and painful process.

For Casey Riggs, she wasn’t prone to looking back. It was too painful and full of betrayal by those she trusted most. She had worked very hard to pack the pain and fury into a box and stow it into a part of her mind she didn’t want to ever see again. When she’s kidnapped in the few weeks her father has left. He’s the only person in the world who never lied to her, never betrayed her, he’s all she has.

When she’s rescued from her attacker, she’s already shut down and refuses to cooperate in any way with her rescuers. The Accord medics are stymied and are ready to send her to a Rehab Planet for the rest of her natural life.

Luckily, someone makes another call, and she gets two weeks on a farm. Insert eyeroll here.

Emerys Maerlon is assigned to guard a Human female at his old friend’s farm as part of her therapy before she’s sent off to a rehab planet. The Elnollian is more than ready to get it over with and head home to find his mate. He’s ready. His race don’t do premarital sex. They have the utmost respect for themselves and for those they eventually take for a mate.

Through caring for something outside herself, Casey learns to begin unpacking her past and begins to discover the new world around her and her place in it. A place that may include a man with beads in his hair.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to The Man, who suffers me well.

ONE

Tasha leaned into the viewer, as if that would magically give her the information the people in the room were searching for. Unfortunately, all she got was the niggling feeling she knew the woman she was looking at, but she was damned if she could figure out how. There was no context at all. She finally sat back and just shook her head, watching the woman as she was undergoing questioning by a Security Expert.

I don't know who she is, other than who she says she is, she paused, watching the woman very carefully. She's not lying but… Again, her head shook back forth. She's not truthful either. She shrugged and looked at the Alliance scientists surrounding her.

She's been here nearly two years and we have no information on her other than what we got off the ship she was rescued from and that was all jumbled by some mad scientists, Rylis who was now Commandant of The Center sighed and closed his eyes, obviously fed up with the woman on the viewer screen.

Jumbled how? Tasha figured she might be able to determine if the woman was hiding something. It wasn't protective and then it was protective, from what her body was telling Tasha. It was awfully hard to determine because she had no true baseline to draw from.

Rylis threw something new up on the first viewer. Here is her intake interview. They all sat back as the recording started.

Please state your name? A voice off camera requested. It was a female voice, a kind one as well. The Accord Security Forces had gone out of the way to make the women comfortable, considering what they'd suffered at the hands of the people who were sent to merely observe them.

The woman being recorded was proud looking, Tasha could tell she was trying hard not to be a victim, even though she truly was. She looked determined to be more than she had experienced.

My name is Casey Riggs, she said with flat affect, which Tasha had now witnessed too many times to be surprised by. Hell, there were still some women at The Center who continued to carry that with them. I'm twenty-seven years old and I was taken from the Stanford campus while I was working on my PhD in chemistry.

The recording stopped and Rylis looked at Tasha. I'm sure you recognize the tone.

Tasha nodded, she did indeed. Name, rank, and serial number. She wondered if the woman was military, but she didn't really have that bearing that most women in the military had. Perhaps she'd been at one of the academies? Her lips thinned. She'd only come into The Center for a checkup as she and Hadok were about ready to try for another child. He was at the park across from The Center with their daughter, Maggie, right now while she tried to help the human women she could. This woman on the recording, this Casey Riggs, had never called her, never asked for her help. She was one of the few that Tasha had never spoken with, here at The Center or on a video call.

It's strange… she said and then put a finger to her lips and her brows drew down toward her nose.

Strange how?" Rylis asked, sitting forward again.

Tasha looked over at him. I feel like I should know who she is, but nothing is coming to me. It's like I know her, and I don't all at the same time.

Rylis just stared at her. Is this a common thing with humans?

Tasha chuckled and shook her head. It's almost a joke, like trying to remember an actor who had been in dozens of movies and TV shows, but you never can remember his name. She saw his blank look. Entertainment recordings, she clarified.

Would you be willing to speak with her? Rylis asked her.

Tasha looked at the time, but she nodded. Can someone grab my mate and baby from the park across the street? Explain that I won't be long. I'm not sure what you think I can do for her.

Rylis just smiled and one of his Security Forces guards left the room. Rylis rose. I'll escort you to the interrogation room and you can join our Officer Emerys.

Tasha followed. The more she thought about the woman, the more confused she got. She really felt as if she ought to know her, but nothing was coming to mind, no clue, no context, just… nothing. She followed Rylis into the lift and they went up a couple of floors and down a hall. There was another Security Forces Guard outside the door who nodded at Rylis and Tasha.

He's expecting you, sir, the young man said, and Tasha felt ridiculous for feeling about him that way. He appeared to be around her own age, but he had not seen and experienced the things that made her feel far older than her chronological age.

Rylis opened the door and she saw a head full of braid with beads at the ends. The dark, almost black hair was not in corn rows. No, it was as if he had just hundreds of thin braids instead of loose hair. She was fascinated, as she'd not seen this before, but she was always out on her farm being a farmer's wife.

Please excuse the interruption, Emerys, Rylis said and sent Casey Riggs a kind smile. Miss Riggs, would you mind if Tasha sits in on this interview? I need to speak to your guard, and we've got a small amount of time and then she will return to you.

Casey blankly nodded. Not looking at Rylis at all. Tasha watched her carefully. Her expressions were pinched, and she looked exhausted. She looked over at Rylis who just nodded to the seat next to the braided guy, Emerys. She inwardly shrugged and sat down and watched as Rylis waved the female Security Forces Guard out the door. It was a fairly good blind, as the single human women were never to be alone in the presence of a male unless she gave express, verbal permission.

Tasha stuck her hand across the table towards Casey. I'm Tasha, from Seattle.

You're the one who made them find us all, Casey returned, not introducing herself.

Tasha continued to hold her hand out. Can I get your name?

A sigh and a roll of the eyes, which niggled some memory in Tasha's brain. Casey Riggs, she said and only barely shook Tasha's hand. She wasn't hostile, but she wasn't cooperative, either.

Tasha tilted her head in a non-threatening gesture. Have we met before? I just have the feeling that we have.

She carefully watched the micro expressions that crossed Casey Riggs' face. There was anger, distaste and… mourning?

I don't think so, unless it was at Stanford. Again, delivered with flat affect.

Tasha shook her head. Never even visited the campus. She threw a huge smile out, again non-threatening. It'll come to me. She looked at Emerys who nodded back.

Can you please relate the circumstances of your abduction?

Another eye roll and a sigh. Everything in this woman's demeanor screamed leave me the hell alone.

I was walking back to my apartment, just off campus, from a night lecture, and I passed out and woke up in outer space.

Tasha watched as Emerys stiffened. It wasn't overt, but from where she was seated, she could see his shoulders tense and his jaw tighten. He didn't like what he had just heard. However, it was not for the fact that Casey Riggs was obstructing their properly identifying her so they could begin to help her. Tasha worried that she'd been here for two years and basically been ignored… forgotten.

Tasha sucked in a breath, indicating that she was prepared to talk and Emerys ceded control of the interrogation to her with a nod.

Casey, where, in your studies were you when you were abducted? She watched as the woman visibly relaxed, so, this was safe territory.

I was working on polishing my dissertation for my PhD in chemistry.

What were you hoping to do with your degree? Tasha kept her tone light, conversational. Just two strangers exchanging small talk.

Brown eyes looked at her through suspicious slants, but then she blinked and shrugged. I was hoping to teach.

Tasha smiled and nodded. She chuckled. I wanted to help lawyers prove other people were lying. She shrugged. Fate had other designs.

And you're not mad about that? Casey asked in disbelief.

That was easy to answer. Not at all. I have a husband I adore and a daughter both of us would die for. I may not appreciate how I got there, but I like my destination.

Because you have no other choice, Casey said, her body tensing up, as if preparing for a fight. You can't go home so you just accept what you can't change.

Isn't that the lesson of the Serenity Prayer? Tasha threw back at her.

Casey sat back in her chair and shook her head at Tasha like she was a stupid cow who couldn't possibly understand her struggle.

Tasha took a hard tack away from her hostility. Did you like California?

The woman's head snapped up and Casey stared at her a moment before she nodded but shrugged. So, she hadn't. The small crease in her glabellar fold practically screamed that at everyone watching.

Why didn't you like California? She asked.

I didn't say that! Protest. So, she would stand up for herself.

Your body did.

That got her a glare. Casey said nothing, sitting back in her chair, arms crossed, very closed off. Tasha took note.

Were you raped?

The woman sat up, tense, her arms straight, tense down at her sides. You have no idea what happened to me, she said in an angry whisper.

I don't know. I was horribly raped and beaten. Drugged, raped, beaten, yeah, I went through that. I'd be hard put to find a woman among us who wasn't. I mean, wasn't that the entire purpose of our abduction?

Casey jumped out of her seat, backing away from Tasha. And you married one of them and let them fuck a baby into you!

Emerys stood as Casey jumped up. Tasha remained seated and tried to put an unconcerned aura about her. She looked up at Casey, who stood at the back wall, her eyes wild, ready to