Queen Maker's Bride (Alien SciFi Romance) (Celestial Mates Book 6)

by C. J. Scarlett

  The students shuffled out to join their peers as they crossed the campus in a mass exodus to their next class, or lunch, or a nap in their dorm.

  “Professor Tekkin?” she asked, stepping up to him, hating the need to address him formally.

  “Miss Monroe?”

  “I was wondering what my role in this class might be, seeing as you didn’t introduce me—“

  “That is for you to decide, Miss Monroe. You’re here to learn how to do my job by doing. It’s not like your other classes where you take notes and think in the abstract about all your activism and philosophical standings. This is where the real world begins. It will not be kind to you, so why should I?” he said, swiping his arm across the board to make the words disappear and she tried not to stare at the way his muscles flexed and twitched to accommodate the movement. Awful people weren’t allowed to be hot, she kept telling herself this. “So if you want a place in this class, take it. I am life, Miss Monroe, and I won’t hand you a damn thing.”

  She swallowed, gripping tightly at the binder against her chest so hard she thought plastic might imbed itself in her hands. She hadn’t expected him to have such a point with his completely awfulness. That didn’t mean she liked him any better or the things he said, but at least it wasn’t an outright refusal to do his job. She could pretend he played the part of tough love mentor who was making her better.

  Though somehow, as she walked out, she was pretty sure it was just that he was an angry man.

  #

  “Yep, sounds like a douche,” Trish said from the screen where her face sat in a New York City apartment.

  While Alessia had gone on to fight for rights and pick fights with bigots backed by a college education and a fancy piece of paper with her name and degree on it, Trish had gone on to be the artistic one. She was a born actor. That much was clear when she auditioned for the play in junior year and spent all night a nervous wreck until she looked at the cast list the next morning and saw her name next to Annie Sullivan for the fall production of The Miracle Worker. Even Alessia had to admit she was phenomenal in it, even for a school play, despite all her teasing that Trish was some artiste now.

  It worked out for her, apparently, because she was accepted into Tish School for the Arts at NYU and everyone suddenly realized how serious she was about this career path. She graduated with several auditions waiting for her and agents throwing business cards at her for representation. It was kind of cool, being best friends with a theatre-world celebrity.

  “Stuff like this happens a lot,” Alessia said. “The bureaucracy of the college administration is never in the student’s favor. It’s all always about ego.”

  “Good thing you’re pursuing a PhD in working the rest of your life for said corrupt a-holes.”

  “I don’t have to become a professor.”

  “What else do you do with a Shifter Culture and Studies degree with Dr. slapped in front of your name? That’s like the kids who major in philosophy just to teach philosophy.”

  “I can do public work.”

  “For no money.”

  Trish had always been apprehensive of Trish’s choice in taking the devoted path of activist on behalf of the shifter population. Trish’s experiences in high school had made her wary of being too outspoken, even about standing up for herself. Alessia couldn’t blame her for that. That’s why she had a long hard think one night about her own privilege and the safety she had speaking out where others didn’t. Her parents asked how the hell she expected to pay rent and her student loans back spending her days holding up signs on a picket line and calling herself a Doctor for show.

  “Did you get that part in the Disney musical?’ Alessia asked.

  Trish paused, her lips pulling into a tight line, her face turning somewhat red, even through the grainy image of her on the Skype screen.

  “Trish?”

  “I didn’t get it.”

  “And it’s bothering you this much?”

  She was worrying on her lip with her whitened, perfect teeth. She’d always kept them above and beyond in cleanliness. People always said they could spot a wolf shifter by their gnarled, crooked, and stained teeth, even as a human. It wasn’t true, but that didn’t keep Trish from being incredibly paranoid every time she smiled for pictures and took two hours to decide on a headshot photo.

  “The audition just didn’t go well,” she shrugged and tapped a pen somewhere off screen. “I messed it up.”

  “Damn. That’s not like you. What happened?”

  That’s when Trish let out a long and frustrated sigh, expelling all sorts of breath that Alessia didn’t notice she was holding onto. She leaned back in her seat.

  “The director said he didn’t hire half-breeds and kicked me out.”

  “Trish!” She felt her skin vibrating in anger, seeing red in front of her eyes. “That’s illegal. He can’t discriminate based on race, religion, orientation, gender, or shifter status. It’s the law.”

  “No one cares anymore. The Bill of Protection will pass and anyone can do whatever the hell they want if they claim they’re protecting themselves and their families.”

  “And this is exactly why I followed through on this major and why I’m still here now. This is appalling.”

  “And you’re going to change it from your seat in a lecture or behind your desk in an office with your name on it?”

  Trish’s tone had become sharp, edged over on every side. Her eyes were hurt though, not matching the venom in her tone. Alessia clenched her jaw and tried not to rise to the bait. Trish wanted something. She could be angry at that. She could see, something in front of her face that was real rather than the abstract idea of a bigot.

  “Yes. I’m going to try. Just like I always have.”

  Without having to say it, she called that time, when Trish was backed into a corner with a knife, ready to make her bleed, and Alessia had been dumb enough to step in. It had been her one great moment of action, of taking on something bigger than herself for a cause that was so much bigger than herself. It was an image, a time she constantly clung to. She wrote about in her entrance essays and often recalled when she doubted what she was doing.

  Trish backed down. Her face dropped, the snapping of her gaze and tone disappeared in an instant.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I knew getting dumped from auditions like that was a possibility but now with all this crap on the news… it’s just getting to me a little bit more. It’s like even if I were to try to tell someone about this, no one would care, you know?”

  “Well, I’ll make them care.”

  Trish smiled at the childishness but looked grateful. They talked the rest of the night about things that were infinitely less depressing.

  Chapter 3

  The day between her classes with Dr. Tekkin were a nice relief. She had two classes, both seminars, which meant most the hours spent in them meant everyone was gathered around a table like King Arthur’s knights, debating freedom and justice, and all sorts of other righteous things.

  “The Bill of Protection completely goes against everything outlined in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence,” said a man in the class whose name was Erik. He had fire in his eyes that Alessia often found hard to meet, blinking her gaze away, pretending she had makeup in her eye that she desperately needed to banish. “Shifter rights are human rights.”

  “Not when lawmakers can make the argument that ‘all men are created equal’ refers only to Nons,” Alessia said. “This is why we need to focus on getting more pro-shifter candidates in the Supreme Court where the debate on the meaning of the Constitution can take a national stage.”

  “Congress knows that, which is why they cockblock our every attempt to do that,” he said.

  “Eloquent way of putting it.”

  The first class was meant to be an introduction, like everything else. But a half hour of discussing the syllabus turned into a full hour of Alessia and Erik going back and forth about how best to ta
ke on the bias in the branches of the government.

  “You know you’re both on the same side, right?” said the only other boy in the class, after a while. “Stop yelling at each other.”

  It didn’t stop Alessia from staring down Erik the rest of the class after they were finally forced to let others do the talking. She alternated between crossing her arms and taking feverish, angry notes when others spoke. She couldn’t bring herself to pull her gaze into his eyes, however. They were still a little too intense and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of watching her break eye contact first. Others talked about less fiery topics, discussed the need to bring more shifter involvement and activities to campuses and schools for younger kids.

  When Alessia left, she was in a bad mood. She was surrounded by assholes no matter what day of the week it was. Maybe Erik and Tekkin could get together and talk about how they both loved to hear themselves talk and pretend that they were right about virtually everything they said. They could have a group wank over how impressed they were with themselves and their opinions.

  She ate in silence in one of the school canteens, ripping into her sandwich with her teeth and gnashing it down. She wasn’t even so hungry so much as she wanted to punch the nearest breakable object, preferably Erik’s head.

  The next day brought nothing but the same when she walked into Tekkin’s class and took her seat. She managed to get herself a syllabus from his desk when she marched into office hours, took it, and walked out without a word. Today’s topic began the lecture on the history of the Civil Rights movement in America and how shifters had been both included and barred from the topic and the discussion therein. She knew plenty about this; she’d given a presentation on it in her undergrad classes, years ago.

  “Welcome back to those of you that decided to continue with this class. Welcome period to those of you who are new,” Dr. Tekkin said, walking into the room.

  He was dressed much the same as last time. The difference now was that the white t-shirt was replaced with an AC/DC one, torn in some places, and he wore a leather jacket over his clothes, shaking it off as he got to the podium. He tossed it on a chair and took out stacks of papers and binders from his bag, He dropped them on the wobbly desk next to his podium and put them in separate piles.

  “Take one of each, we’ll be using them today,” he said, turning back around and beginning to write on the board.

  Alessia got up and took each one, looking at the headings: December March, Equal Pay Act, and Is It Enough? She knew all these topics; she’d written about them before. She stood there, mouth opening and closing and debating saying something to him, but she turned away. She’d wait and see, bide her time from her spot in the corner. The less he knew about her plans, the better. This was a way of attacking, plans for a siege. She’d let him continue to think she was some idly child looking at making a difference with hashtags and filtered Instagram photos.

  “The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s United States is largely associated with the topic of race relations. It was, after all, a movement predominantly geared towards the treatment of blacks in America,” he said, writing some dates on the board. “To a lesser extent, gay rights, women’s rights, and even shifter rights were brought to the attention of the masses, but not in any real numbers that mattered.”

  “Actually, sir,” Alessia said before she could stop herself; so much for playing it low and quiet. “It was during this time that the first shifter actor appeared on screen in a Non role and the first time a shifter was elected to public office—Carson City, Utah, Mayor Greta White.”

  “I’m talking about large, bombastic movements here, Miss Monroe; try not to confuse the class,” he said, turning back to the board.

  “Well, not everything has to be a massive protest or a show,” she said. “Some of the greatest strides towards anything happened quietly and slowly. Just look at Harriet Beecher Stowe and her effect on the—”

  “it is easy for those in privileged positions to take the slow and easy route,” he said. “Those miniscule steps towards what some might label as ‘progress’ have served no real purpose as of right now, have they? We have shifter actors, shifter lawmakers, but shifter rights seem to be disappearing every day. Now, back to the lecture.”

  She glared at him after that, not even bothering to pretend to take notes. She could feel the eyes of the students on her. In her periphery she’d seen their heads bouncing back and forth mechanically as they exchanged their arguments. Considering he had yet to introduce that he even had a teaching fellow, they probably thought she was some older, adult student with an attitude.

  She tapped the end of her pen on the edge of her notebook as he rambled on up at the front of the classroom. She bit her lip, watching him color the strides towards progress over the decades as barely consequential blips on a cosmic timeline. He was so pessimistic she almost wanted to scream. How could anyone be so angry all the time? She understood the problems of the shifter culture, she’d lived them and took four years’ worth of courses on them. But this was a man refusing to see hope.

  “That will be it for this week,” Tekkin said when he was done. “Check your calendars, your first essay is due at the end of next week.”

  “Actually, professor, I was wondering if I might have a chance to talk to the class?” she said, feeling herself sweat as she stood, not waiting for his permission. “My name is Alessia Monroe and I’m your teaching fellow for this semester. I’m a PhD candidate in Shifter Culture and Studies. I’m going to hold office hours every week at three p.m. on Tuesdays in the Starbucks on campus. They can be whatever you need them to be—discussion sessions, question and answer, whatever. I hope to see you all there.”

  With that, the students nodded and left the room. She did the same thing, not giving Tekkin the chance to say a word to her as her heels clicked with power against the floor, taking her out the door. She let out her held breath and tried to ignore the obvious pit stains forming under her arms. She actually did that. She hadn’t been planning on it. In fact, she really had no idea how to be a student teacher, but she hoped the look on his face when she stood to interrupt him was reward enough, even if not a single kid showed up to meet her at Starbucks.

  Which, she would now spend her Tuesday afternoons in Starbucks. She’d have to budget that into her time and her wallet since her orders there easily stacked up to almost a hundred dollars a month on their coffee.

  Maybe this semester wouldn’t be so bad after all, however.

  #

  “Get it, girl,” Trish said that night when she told her over that video chat. “Score one for the home team.”

  “It would be an even bigger slap in the face if these kids actually showed up to my meetings but so far I’m not complaining,” she said.

  “Next, we key his car and slash his tires.”

  Alessia rolled her eyes. She was curled up on the couch in sweatpants, tea in her hand, the TV buzzing in the background with the sounds of whatever sitcom was on at eight p.m. on a Friday. Trish had a day full of callbacks and managed to not get tossed out of a single one by some bigoted director, at least to Alessia’s knowledge. Somehow she was pretty sure that even if it did happen again at this point, Trish wouldn’t tell her.

  So they kept their conversation blissful while Alessia felt like she was on cloud nine. That feeling dissipated, however, when she opened her email to check it habitually for the third time in that hour, as she was always prone to do. There, waiting for her in her inbox, was an email from Professor Tekkin, telling her to meet him after class on Monday and nothing else. No greeting, no goodbye, no trace of friendliness, and it wasn’t a request. She gulped. That was one way a good mood could be ruined. But she kept quiet about it to Trish.

  Chapter 4

  The weekend passed far too quickly; she wanted it to go as slow as possible. She dreaded this meeting with Tekkin on Monday. She did her best to make it last by reverting to her undergraduate habits: bar hopping. She’d gott
en more sophisticated with it. She went to bars off campus, away from the sea of early twenty-somethings and fake IDs. She no longer got giant pitches of some concoction that was pure sugar and alcohol. She ordered red wine at every bar and sat alone in the corner, watching everyone out with their work friends or on a date.

  She spent all of Saturday trying to nap, trying to read books, looking up recipes on the internet, trying to keep her mind busy and make the clock move faster. As soon as the clock struck six o’clock, she set out to the bar to make time move even faster as the buzz of alcohol set in her system and went for a swim in her veins. So far off campus she didn’t expect to see anyone she knew, but you couldn’t always get what you wanted.

  “You would be the type to order a glass of wine at a bar,” said a familiar, narcistic voice.

  Erik from her seminar stood there. He was dressed with much more care than he presented in class. Her shirt was ironed and buttoned up to the collar, a faded flannel that was shaped well at all the edges. His deep brown hair was still damp from the obvious shower he’d taken earlier and he put off a scent of aftershave that she didn’t exactly hate. On his wrist was an expensive-looking watch, the hand wearing it tucked into the pocket of his dark jeans that gave way to well-cared-for shoes on his feet.

  “You here on a date?” she asked, running her eyes over him one more time to make sure she got all the assets to his look right. It would probably be the only time she saw him looking so well put together.

  “Meeting some friends at a club downtown,” he said. “You’re clearly having a roaring time here.”

  He nodded to her half-full wine glass and the empty next to it that hadn’t yet been taken away. She blushed, despite herself. She wasn’t ashamed. She could order whatever the hell she wanted from a bar. Her face must have said that because next he said, “You’re not exactly the picture of fun and excitement looking like that. Wine is a couch and Netflix drink, not something to be seen with unless you’re at Martha’s Vineyard.”