by Stella Sky
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MELODY REEVES
I was worried as I always was when Cylo was not with me. He had a habit of doing this. First, he left me on that cliffside when he went to jump back in the water to get gold from his ship with a monster trying to kill him. Then he left me on the island of Kila alone as he fought his brother. Both times he had me terrified that he was going to die, and now I was worried again. He had been gone for three days.
“He will be fine. He and Baca are a good team. There is nothing to worry about,” Jix said as he whispered to me.
“I know I just can’t help it. That planet is very dangerous. I’ve seen what lives there,” I said.
There was a knock at the door. “Who goes there?” Jix shouted.
“It is Umbvo Corist,” the fisher Draqua said through the door.
Jix opened the door just a crack and said. “Umbvo, this will have to wait. The king is very busy for the next couple of days. I will call for you when he is ready to see you.”
“But it cannot wait. There is a problem with the fisheries on the south side of the island,” I heard him say.
“Show him to the throne room, Jix,” I said.
“What my queen?” he asked.
“Show him to the throne room. I’ll hear his problem and see if I can be of help,” I said.
“But…”
“Just do it,” I said. Minutes later, I was wrapped in long robes. I was not going to wear the island loincloth and tube top bikini with a sheer dress in my pregnant state. I sat in the throne room and listened to the fisherman’s problem. I offered up a solution, and Jix listened. He agreed with it. I put the solution into action, and before I knew it, I had seen four more Draqua and helped to resolve their problems. It felt good to be of service and to help instead of sitting on my butt all day. Then I realized something, thinking about all the time that I had stayed away from politics with my father. Here I was now actually doing exactly that: practicing politics. I laughed to myself. He would be proud of me.
The next day was another excruciating waiting game. Then a gust of wind hit my face. I looked up to see Cylo standing on the veranda.
“Cylo! Thank god! I’m so happy to see you!” I said as I walked to him and threw my arms around him.
“Mmm… it is good to see you,” he said hugging me.
“I thought you might be hurt. I’ve been so worried,” I said.
“I promised you that I would return, and I always do,” he said kissing me on the forehead. Then he moved into the chambers. “What happened?” I asked.
“A lot. Where is Jix?” he asked.
“He is standing guard outside the door today. I needed a little privacy this morning,” I said as he gave me a look like he was not happy that Jix was not in the same room with me. I was very aware of the dangers that anyone could fly onto the veranda, but I needed privacy! I was a pregnant woman!
“I will tell you everything, but let me get Jix,” he said. He returned with Jix, and they quietly spoke.
“We found Candris, and it is much worse than we thought. He was not only leading the opposition, but he was doing more than that,” Cylo said.
“What was he doing?” I asked.
“He was creating a mating program of sorts with Draqua. He was crossing them with other alien species to see what happened,” Cylo said.
“What? That is insane. How long was he doing this?” Jix asked.
“Years, judging by the fully grown Draqua we encountered that were mixed with Aeriwana,” Cylo said.
“Aeriwana! What?” Jix said.
“Yes, keep your voice down. There is a big problem. The Draqua we encountered mixed with Aeriwana had my powers of persuasion,” Cylo said.
“Mind control?” I asked.
“Yes, exactly, only this one used it on Baca,” Cylo said.
“Holy shit,” Jix said.
“Exactly,” Cylo said.
“So what now?” Jix asked.
“We have to keep an eye on it. These Draqua are too dangerous to be around. One was able to make Baca turn on me with a few words.”
“What? Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes, I am fine, and Baca is fine. We got away and killed that Draqua but I am sure there are more like it. We did not stick around to find out.”
“Anything else?” Jix asked.
“Yes. These Draqua could not shift. They looked like us, but they could not shift to full dragon or hybrid,” I said.
“That hardly makes them Draqua,” Jix said. “Where’s the dragon?”
“I know, but they look like us, which means they could walk among us. So keep an eye out for anyone that you have never seen shift,” Cylo said. “Until then we will have to figure out another way to deal with these Draqua from Tiok. For now, Candris is no more, and that should be plenty for now.
It was a heavy talk, and I had to admit that it had me very scared. The deep space politics was full of backstabbing and opportunists just like on Earth, but here there was magic, and it made it so much more dangerous. We tried to put the haunting notion of mind controlling Draqua that were out to kill us out of our minds as much as we could. We could not go living in fear forever. So we went on with our daily lives, and my new life as queen.
Months later, it was as if the battle never happened. The Draqua began to trust each other again, and they were a lively village. But I think what also gave them hope was the birth of a new generation of royalty.
“I am more happier than I ever thought I could be now that our son Teavin has been born,” Cylo said to me.
“I am too. I am so happy, and he makes me happy every day,” I said.
“And what about me? Do I not make you happy?” he asked.
“Yes, you do,” I said.
Cylo hugged me and kissed me. I was filled with happiness and hope. Now that I had our son, I was able to figure out a time to go back to Earth for a week. This was to keep my father from starting another search party. It was something that was needed, and it was one of the perks of being queen. But what was the best perk of all was the fact that I got to rearrange the household.
Yes, that’s right, I kicked the harem out. Michelle and Sarah. I kicked them out of the palace almost immediately upon getting married. Baca found a new home for them with the warriors, and I was told the women were very happy. I did not care what they did as long as they were not in the palace and were away from me and Cylo. He just laughed the first time I asked him what kind of power I had as queen because he knew what I was going to do with that power.
But even though we had endured some hardship, I knew that I did not regret any of it. I had asked for an adventure, and I got the adventure of a lifetime. It was the best thing that could have ever happened to me, being abducted by an alien that happened to be a dragon shifter. My life was never the same after that moment, and I was no longer the daughter of President Reeves; I was the queen of Kelon.
The ominous presence of the opposition was still out there and would need to be faced again, but that would come in time. We did not want to live in fear of it and let it tear the planet of Kelon apart. For now, my husband kept an eye on it, and I kept an eye on our son. One day he would be dealing with the problems of the Draqua. It was something that every royal house of Draqua would face, but none were quite like what I went through and loved.
The End
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Zaine-Verian Mates
(Verian Mates)
By Stella Sky
Chapter 1
Regan Lawrence
“Next! Regan Lawrence.”
I cringed at the sound of my name being called and walked up to the desk.
“Regan Lawrence? Female. Age 26. Location: Zone Seven.”
I listened as my statistics were cited at me and nodded, pushing the
auburn hair away from my face. It was hot today.
The frowning attendant handed me my basket of rations and I smiled mechanically as I took it. I had learned as a child not to try to interact with the attendants. Ever since the war between the Verians and Earth had started, when I was just three, you were expected to take what you needed and nothing more, then return home.
“Harbord Griswald. Female. Age 24. Location: Zone Three.”
The voice of the attendant grew distant as I walked the path to the shuttle, where everybody from Zone Seven was being ushered. I took my seat, the same as always, and waited for the driver to bring the last few people onto the bus.
Finally, my seat mate and the other six people who had still been in line returned, and the engine turned. We jerked forward and I kept my eyes peeled to the window. The shuttle had a tendency to give me motion sickness. The jerkiness of the sudden stopping and starting as we attempted to navigate the debris-filled terrain between zones always made me mildly nauseated at best, and borderline sick at worst.
“When do you think the war will be over?” my seat mate, a young man named Trevor, asked out loud.
It was the question on everybody’s minds, but nobody asked it except the very young. I glanced at Trevor and back at the window before answering him.
“It will be over when one side wins.”
Trevor’s restless fidgeting stilled and I heard the soft escape of breath from his lips. I knew how he felt. We all felt it. But we would just have to go on living the way we were living until it was over.
***
It was a relief when we finally rounded the smooth curve that indicated we were near Zone Seven again. I was anxious to get off the bumbling, rumbling bus and back into my house, where nothing was bound to nauseate me except maybe the smell of my neighbor’s failed attempts at cooking.
The shuttle dropped us off at the entrance and we walked inside, each of us heading to our own homes. Some of us had bikes parked by the fence, while others chose to walk. I was one of the latter.
Things had changed on Earth since the war started, but not by much. We weren’t allowed to drive cars or overindulge in resources, so the military had set up the shuttles and rations bases. The Zones were divided based on necessity, and they were considered relatively safe places for us to go about our daily lives. The only difference was that in the Zones, debris from space was unlikely to destroy our homes. A shield was erected over each Zone to protect us.
“Welcome back, group two!” the loudspeaker announced. Everybody applauded our safe return, and I couldn’t help but smile at the custom. Things had gotten very dangerous out there, and about a year ago we had lost a whole shuttle of people who had gone out to retrieve their rations. It was a very sad occasion. The man I had been destined to marry had been on that bus.
The group dispersed once safely settled into Zone Seven, and I found myself wandering slowly to my little apartment, not in any particular hurry. I don’t know what was different that day, but for some reason I wanted to take in the feeling of walking through the camp, to really relish in it. I wrote poetry sometimes, in secret, and thought that maybe I would be able to explore the feelings that the rose in me as I observed the groups of people going about their lives as if a war wasn’t raging just beyond the walls of our protective sphere.
“Give it back!”
I furrowed my brow and whipped around, annoyed at the shrill voice of one of the children. Although we were under great protections, life existed mostly as normal within the zones, but children were definitely not supposed to yell unless there was real danger.
“No way,” an older boy said, taunting the young girl that had shouted. “It’s mine now. You shouldn’t have left it lying around.”
“Come on, Alex, please; just give it back!”
I found myself watching the exchange between the young girl, probably no older than six, and three boys whose ages must have ranged between seven and twelve.
“You know the rules. If you leave it on the ground, it means you don’t want it anymore, right?”
“That’s not fair!” the girl exclaimed. “I had to-”
“It doesn’t matter! It’s mine!”
The boys laughed and ran off, and I watched in surprise and amazement as the young girl chased the boys down, tackled the biggest from behind, and grabbed her small bundle away from him, then took off running just as the sirens for lock down began to blare.
“Gracie! Stop!”
But the boy shouting, who bore an uncanny likeness to the girl (he was probably her brother), couldn’t go after her. The sirens meant that there was an enemy spotted nearby and everybody had to return to safety.
“I’ll go after her,” I said to the boy, surprising both of us as I thrust my basket of rations to the ground and took off after the little girl. She was heading to the danger zone. If I didn’t catch her soon, it would be too late.
The soldiers were running from their posts as guards and heading to the frontlines, climbing the walls and pointing their guns out into the sky, ignoring the citizens below them. We were supposed to know our places by then. We should have been running toward safety.
Gracie crossed into the danger zone easily with nobody there to tell her to go back home, and I ran as hard as I could to catch up with the little girl, whose wide eyes were wild with fear and confusion.
“Go home!” I kneeling down and looking into the little girl’s eyes. “You’re in danger here. There’s been a sighting!”
Gracie gasped, her eyes suddenly locked onto the sky above my head. A feeling of dread gripped me as the little girl scrambled away and ran back in the direction she had come from.
“Keep running until you’re home!” I exclaimed, trying to stand up from the spot where I was crouched on the ground. But it was already too late. My limbs were powerless.
Confusion, and then dread, gripped me, and I knew that I had made a grave mistake. They had gotten me.
I squeezed my eyes closed, hot tears leaking down my face. I knew that I should have immediately returned home, especially after hearing the siren, but if I hadn’t followed Gracie, it would have been a small child abducted and taken away from her home. That would be a tragedy for her family and the community as a whole. No, I wouldn’t regret it. It was better that I had been abducted over a small child.
Still, as my body grew weightless and was carried closer and closer to the ship, I couldn’t help but shiver. I could see Zone Seven growing smaller, until finally, it disappeared behind heavy silver doors with a loud clank.
In that instant, I had the sinking feeling that I would never see home again.
***
“Into the cell with the others!”
I bit back the bile rising in my throat as the stout, Pelin man, covered from head to toe with long auburn hair, nudged me back with a long, prodding cane.
It was more than a cane though, I knew; it was a powerful weapon.
The cell was overcrowded with terrified women, their eyes wide with terror at the sight of the Pelin guard.
“We will be back on the planet Helna in approximately six Earth hours. I expect nothing but your utmost compliance. The prison guard is a Verian. As you can imagine, he does not tolerate any less. You’ve been warned.”
“Fuck,” one of the women whispered as I was shoved into the cell. “We’re being abducted by the Verians?!”
I landed hard on the ice-cold floor of the cell, and none of the other women made a move to help me up.
“I recommend all of you stay quiet, or suffer the consequences.”
The Pelin guard disappeared, and I got shakily to my feet to watch him go.
He was a small, ugly man, proud even though it was widely known that the Verians were bloodthirsty enemies of Earth, and the Pelins did their bidding. Apparently, their own planet had long ago been compromised by the warrior race, and now all that was left for the Pelin to do was accept their fate as the slaves to the Verians.
“Hey,” a w
oman’s voice hissed. “I know you. Regan, right? You’re that girl.”
I cringed. Why was it that even as I was being abducted, people could pick me out of a crowd? Wasn’t it bad enough as it was without being tied to my past?
“I don’t know you,” I said pointedly.
“Well, that’s just too bad. We’re from the same Zone.”
I sighed, turning to face her. “What do you want?”
She grinned. “Why don’t you tell us all a story then? Maybe ease up a bit of the tension we’re all feeling right now.”
I frowned. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m not a storyteller.”
“That’s not the way my dad would have it told,” the woman insisted. As I studied her, I realized she was actually more girl than woman. Just barely a teenager. She had probably been caught necking outside the zone with one of the soldiers. I knew her type a mile away.
“Your dad doesn’t know anything about me,” I mumbled.
But now, all the women had stopped their chattering, and I could feel their gazes heavy upon me.
“Is that right?” she asked, a soft, mocking laugh escaping her lips. “Well, some things never change.”
The conversation seemed to leave everybody around us scandalized, but nobody dared to voice the question on their minds. That left me with a question of my own. Sure, I had made some mistakes, but just what the hell was everybody talking about?
Fortunately, there was only one other woman from our zone in the cell with us, and she stayed quiet, watching the exchange with dark, serious eyes.
Before the subject was pursued any further, one of the Pelin guards made a round, passing in front of the cell. The women were suddenly animated and frantic, begging the small man to let us out of the cell. Promising things they never could have delivered.
I was relieved to have the attention taken off of me, but well into the night, I could feel the steady gazes of the two women from my zone upon me. In a way, I was glad to be leaving my reputation behind. I just hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with that cocky teenager much longer. I wasn’t known for my patience. And that would be the last lesson anybody needed to learn about me.