Off Balance

by Aileen Erin

  She tilted her head to the side, and I knew she still wasn’t understanding. “But fourteen? Weren’t you dating?”

  I tried to think back. That was so long ago… “Yes. I was a little, but that was different.”

  “So, you still think of me as a little sister?”

  I looked at her in that sparkling jumpsuit. I’d been trying not to stare, but even exhausted, she was beautiful. I wanted to see her skin glow with my touch. I wanted to run my lips over every inch of her. I wanted… “I don’t feel remotely platonic toward you anymore.”

  She was quiet for a bit. “I can’t do this.”

  “Why?” I needed a clear answer so that I could convince her to give me—give us—a shot. She was the only one that ever made me feel like this, and I wanted her. If she let me, I would be her best friend, her husband, anything she needed. I would do it for her.

  “I can’t be what you need me to be.”

  “What is it that you think I need you to be?”

  “Queen.” She said the word like it was something to be afraid of.

  “We talked about that. You don’t have to be queen.”

  She gave me a blank stare.

  “Okay. Yes. I say that, but then I say that I can’t do the whole ruling thing without you. So, that’s confusing. So, maybe we should talk about what being queen means.”

  “Maybe.”

  Even if she left, she needed to know what being queen meant to the Aunare. To me. I couldn’t be afraid of telling her the truth just because I didn’t want to get my heart broken.

  I needed to find the right words to tell her what was coming and why I thought she’d be a great queen. The only queen. The person who could save everyone. I was pretty sure she’d call me a liar and probably say I had ulterior motives for wanting her to stay, for wanting to marry her, for loving her.

  She’d be wrong, and I hoped she’d listen to me and believe my words.

  “I know you’re afraid of marrying me and taking on this war, but war is brewing and I don’t just love you. I need you as my partner because I really don’t work without you.”

  She let out a huff. “You’re insane. You haven’t slept through the night once since I got back here.”

  “You don’t know how bad I was before. Trust me when I say a month of bad sleep is nothing.” She didn’t need to know about any of that, especially when she had it so much harder than I did. “You’re here now and it’s like everything is clicking into place. I can fight this war alone, but if I do, I don’t think we’d win. I need your help.”

  “Mine?” She shook her head slowly, back and forth, with her eyes growing wider by the passing second. “Jesmesha mentioned something about this, but I honestly don’t know what to believe. I don’t have any experience with war to be much help. It’s too much pressure.”

  “I know. It seems impossible and so much pressure. Believe me—I’m not immune to it, and I know that there’s really no walking away from my responsibility. I keep telling myself that if you wanted to walk away that I’d follow you, but I don’t know if I could. I don’t know if I could live with myself if I left them with my father ruling. And at the same time, I think I might if you did.”

  “You can’t walk away from your life and your people for me.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. “Here’s the truth. You see problems differently than I do. I’ve run war simulations for every possibility, and I always lose. The Aunare lose. And not only that, the Earthers will pay a huge price for their win.” I swallowed. This part she was going to hate. “You are the wild card. When I put you into the simulations, good things happen. Every time.”

  She crossed her arms, and I knew she wasn’t really hearing what I was saying. Not anymore. She was going to fight me on this.

  That was fine, as long as she didn’t run.

  “Your simulation can’t know what I’d do. I’m different than before.”

  She was contradicting herself. “You said in the hallway that you threw the ba’na at me because you’re the same person. Given the same problems, you’d make the same decisions. Which is a lie?”

  She opened and closed her mouth a few times, before finally speaking. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t like being predictable.”

  “Don’t take offense. It’s very good AI. Much better than what you’ve seen on Earth. It was something we started when you were a child. We’d plan out various strategies depending on what happened in the coming years. It was a game we played all the time. But for the last thirteen years, I’ve put through so many simulations—ones where we rush into war with SpaceTech and ones where we wait. Ones where my father hands over the kingdom and ones where I take it from him. No matter what steps I took, they always ended up with catastrophic lives lost, including my own. So, Rysden and I waited. We bided our time while setting up allies—not just with the Aunare but inside SpaceTech and across the universe—to see if something changed before our hand was forced.”

  She stood from her chair, backing away from me. “So, something changed and you think it has to do with me. But it’s wrong.”

  “I don’t think so.” I stood. “Your mother put the events of the last thirteen years into the AI simulation, and it estimated how you might think or act given the events you experienced since your last simulation. Then we started running the various scenarios. Sometimes, we still lose, but there are a few roads that lead to us winning. I need you.”

  “You think I’m somehow going to do what? Save the Aunare? That’s a lot of pressure. More pressure than being queen. I don’t have control over—”

  “I know. I know you don’t believe me or even believe in yourself. And that’s my fault.” I stepped closer to her. “I have a lot of regrets, but letting your father leave you on Earth is my biggest. If you’d stayed with me, you would’ve grown up understanding your destiny. You would be better prepared. But we’re out of time.” I took her left hand, gently. “You came close to dying again today.”

  “Maybe, but I’m pretty good at surviving. Although I’m not sure what I did in there.”

  “You can relearn that. The information is clearly still there in your subconscious. If you give me a chance, I can show you what it means. I can’t promise that the weight of the responsibility won’t be heavy, but I can promise that I’ll be sharing the burden. We’re better when we’re a team. Just give me a chance to prove that to you.”

  “This is insane.” But the way she said it, I knew I was getting through to her.

  “It’s really not. You always knew who you were. You didn’t remember me or that you were betrothed to me, but you remembered whose daughter you were. You knew there was going to be pressure when you found your way home.”

  “How is this my home when everyone hates me?”

  “Who cares if they hate you?”

  She was quiet for a second. “I guess I worked so hard to stay alive, I need something more—a better reason to risk my life than because it’s what I’m supposed to do. Especially when I’ve worked so unbelievably hard to stay alive all these years. Why did I do all of that just to risk my life for people who want me dead?”

  “You’re not going to die in this war.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I do. In some of the simulations, I die, but you always live.”

  Her skin grew bright and her frequency shifted and I knew I’d said the wrong thing. This was my best chance, and I’d just lost her.

  A little crease formed between her brows and I wanted to kiss it away. “You can’t die.”

  I smiled at her. “I’m not immortal.”

  “And if I fight? If I stay? What are your chances of making it through?”

  I studied her face, and I saw heartbreak on it. “You’d do it to try to keep me alive?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I almost always live. Not always, but almost.”

  She started the Aunare calming breath as she looked around the room, until she finally looked
at me again. “I guess I really better get this hand fixed then, huh? Not going to be much of a help to you with it—”

  I couldn’t help myself. I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her up so that I could kiss her properly. None of these barely there kisses. No. I was done with those.

  I loved this woman. She was so strong and brave and kind, and no matter how many times she told me it wasn’t going to work or that she didn’t want me I could see the way she literally lit from within whenever I was near. She was mortified by it, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t because I loved her so much and it told me that she felt it, too. No matter what her words were. She loved me, too.

  She’d accept becoming a queen for a people she wasn’t sure she liked and fight for a home she wasn’t sure was hers all because she loved me back.

  She might not have said the words, but she may as well have. She’d say them.

  My hands were in her hair and I knew it was too much too soon, so I pulled back. Not far, just enough to look into her eyes.

  She was breathing as hard as me, and then she grabbed a fistful of my shirt and pulled me down. Her mouth opened and I didn’t hesitate to pick her up. My control was good, but not endless. She wrapped her legs around me and I walked to the wall. The need was too strong and I wanted her more than I wanted my next breath.

  I gripped her thighs and she let out a moan and the last little shred of control I was hanging on to broke.

  A throat cleared to my right and Amihanna pulled back from me so fast, her head cracked against the wall.

  I laughed. “Are you okay?”

  Her eyes were tightly closed and her skin was bright and there was this beautiful flush across her cheeks and I knew I could stare at her forever.

  The throat cleared again, and I turned to the side to see Mae’ani fanning herself. “Apologies, but I think you forgot I was here. Or that you were in my healing room. I wasn’t sure if—”

  “No. It’s…I’m sorry.” I looked back at Amihanna, who had tucked her forehead against my chest. “Don’t be embarrassed,” I whispered to her. “It’s all right.”

  I stepped back enough to let her down and waited until she looked up at me.

  She looked at the pod. “Will you stay? I’m scared to—”

  “I would love to stay with you forever. Okay?”

  A smile came quick before she could smother it. “Okay.”

  Amihanna turned to Mae’ani. “You’ll leave it open?”

  “I can. It’ll take longer, but yes. Of course. The healing won’t work if you’re distressed.” Mae’ani was a professional. There was no judgement in her voice, and I was grateful for that.

  “Okay. I can do this.” She blew out a breath. “Seems like a lot of trouble for a stupid hand, though.”

  “Yes, but you need that stupid hand to work. Especially if someone else comes after you.”

  “Right.” She stepped in front of the pod and shook out her shoulders. It was something she used to do when she was nervous about something. Her skin started to glow ever so slightly, and she sat down on the bed of the pod.

  I positioned my chair to fully face her and grabbed her uninjured hand

  Amihanna looked at Mae’ani and nodded. “I’m ready.”

  This one little thing—getting inside the pod—was hard for her. It might not have been a problem for anyone else, but it was for her.

  She looked at me and smiled, and I wanted to cheer her on, but I didn’t think she’d want that.

  We settled into silence as Mae’ani explained everything that was happening. I could feel Amihanna’s tension rise as the probes went on her forehead. Her knuckles went white as she gripped my hand, but I barely felt it.

  Nothing hurt as bad as the day I lost her. She was back now, but I was afraid of losing her again. So, I’d hold on. I’d be there for whatever she needed. Because I’d lived life without her, and I’d barely survived.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  LORNE

  I left Amihanna to rest. She’d expended a ton of energy and even with the healing pod session, she was going to feel weak for the next day. She promised me that she was going to rest, and Roan promised to make sure she’d actually relax. I’d left them eating in one of the smaller dining rooms, and after they were done, they would be in my room watching some Earther vids Roan had brought to Sel’Ani.

  For now, she was occupied. So, I went to find Rysden. It’d been a couple of hours, and I was sure that he was annoyed with me. But I honestly didn’t care. Amihanna needed me to be with her, and that was that.

  But now I needed to focus on figuring out why today had gone so terribly. We had problems—worse problems than I’d wanted to admit—and I wanted to make sure that the estate was secured. We couldn’t be attacked again. That was my first priority. The second was to make sure I had the crown. Soon. If I were king, I’d show them how lucky they were to have Amihanna, and if they didn’t agree, then I’d show them that I didn’t care. I didn’t want or need their approval. A king didn’t need it.

  I found Rysden surrounded by people in the large, formal conference room. The lights were dim to see the holo schematics and reports hovering above center of the round table. From what I could tell, they were discussing the bomb in Seri’s wrist unit. A scan had been taken when she’d entered the estate, but the readout from the scan said it was clear.

  A group of advisors and council members—including Rysden’s second in command, Declan, and Ahiga—surrounded the large round table. There were chairs, but no one was using them. Vidscreens around the room showed different muted footage—the cleanup of Amihanna’s room, the area surrounding the estate, and the interrogation of the security staff.

  The men and women in the room were in the middle of an argument that didn’t stop until I stood next to Rysden.

  “What’s the update?”

  “We’ve found that the explosives were made from the crystal dust from Abaddon’s moon. Which aligns with what Amihanna saw—how they were mobilizing and testing different uses for their lucole.”

  “We never should’ve let them have Abaddon.” Captain ni Eneko’s glow was bright, and from the answering brightness in the room, he wasn’t alone in his thoughts. “We knew—”

  “We can’t change what my father did. We can only deal with now.” I looked at Declan. “What do you know?”

  “Not much. I was kept in the dark about all of this. It was Jason’s project, and I think it’s safe to say that even if I hadn’t left, this would’ve scored him the CEO position when my father retires.” He shook his head. “But you just caught us. I was about to head out to talk to Matthew—the elite AIF who came with us from Abaddon. He coordinated all the ships’ manifests in and out of the base. He knows exactly where the lucole went and how much they have. That will give us at least an idea of what we’re working against and their possible firepower.”

  “Anything you can find out would be helpful.”

  “Agreed.”

  “What about the poison that was used on Audrey?” She was the halfer medic friend of Amihanna’s. She’d been poisoned just before we left Abaddon, but our medics were able to neutralize it. “Is there more of that? Should we be preparing for more than just bombs?”

  Declan shrugged. “I’m not sure. I think that the poison was something new they were just developing. It only made Audrey sick for a day, and while that’s not great—I’m sure they were hoping for something much worse. Matthew probably won’t know much about SpaceTech’s lucole experiments, but…” Declan paused for a second and I could tell by the way he pursed his lips and looked away that he was about to say something and he didn’t think I was going to like it. “Even if Matthew has a ton of information, I think it’s time for me and Ahiga to go back.”

  That was quite possibly the worst idea I’d heard. Did he want to die? “You’ll get caught.”

  Declan crossed his arms and stared at me. It was his I’m-doing-this-anyway look.

&nb
sp; With two bombings targeted at Amihanna and now Declan heading back to his father, today was shaping up to be the second worst day of my life. “Fine, but if you get caught, I don’t think I can go save you again.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got Ahiga, and I’m going to go pick up Amihanna’s Albuquerque friends from where I stashed them. They want in, and I’ve got a ton of people planted on the inside. I’ve got a plan.”

  A plan? What plan? From what he’d just said, he had a random group of people that he was going to get killed along with himself. I didn’t hear any plan in there. “Well, as long as you have a plan.”

  Rysden’s hand clamped down on my shoulder—a warning to bring my mind to the present. Not everyone in this room was friendly.

  I gave him a nod of thanks and he dropped his hand.

  “I’m assuming that the specific materials used is the reason we didn’t detect the bombs.”

  “That’s correct.” Councilwoman Yneia ni Shanam was a woman of facts and science. She was one of the top minds on the forefront of Aunare’s tech development and served as my chief science advisor. “I have a group trying to adjust our current scans to read for the lucole dust, but we’ve not been successful so far. I’m hopeful that whatever insight Declan can find will help us. But even the tiniest bit of dust could cause a massive explosion. Detecting something as fine as a few specks of dust is proving to be extremely difficult.”

  “How long before you finalize detection systems?”

  The councilwoman looked up for a moment and then sighed. “I can’t accurately predict yet, but at the rate we’re going, probably a few weeks at least.”

  A lot can happen in weeks. I needed her to work faster. “Can you make it days?”

  Councilwoman ni Shanam was quiet again, and I knew she was weighing her words. She was always very careful with what she said—especially when regarding her work. “I’m not sure that’s possible unless we have some as of yet unforeseen breakthrough. I’ve got everyone working on it, Your Highness. But it’s a tough puzzle. Could it be tomorrow? Probably not. Could it be next month? I hope so.”