Chapter Seven
Kristoff
I could see by the expression in her wide green eyes—half frightened and half defiant—that my words had shaken her to the core.
“What…what do you mean?” she whispered.
“I mean,” I said. “That you are the true Incarnation of the Goddess-Empress. You are Sundalla the 1000th, she who is the rightful ruler of the Goddess’s Cloak.”
I dropped to my knees before her, prepared to make my vow of fealty. I was glad, at least, that my erection had gone down—the fight with the assassin-droid had taken all my concentration which had helped. But I felt it stirring again when I looked at her—she was wearing a short lacy black robe which hugged her lush curves and showed her long, lovely legs. It was enough to give me blasphemous thoughts—thoughts which I pushed quickly out of my mind.
“My Lady,” I began but Charlotte was shaking her head.
“The Goddess’s Cloak? What’s that?” She was still looking at me uncertainly. I reminded myself that she came from a closed world and so was ignorant of much of the workings of our galaxy. But surely she had gotten some information from the message her friend Leah had sent to her via the Commercians? The little bastards were mercenary but they were also thorough—they wouldn’t have stopped communicating with her until she understood.
“The Goddess’s Cloak is what most of the Twelve Peoples call the galaxy we all live in,” I told her. “What do your people call it?”
“The Milky Way,” she said, sounding distracted. “I’m sorry, but did you just tell me I’m supposed to be the ruler of the entire galaxy?”
“You will be if I can get you back to Femme One to undergo the trials and prove to the Council you are the true Incarnation,” I said grimly. “Unfortunately, there are already those who would rather see you dead than sitting in your rightful place on the Golden Throne.”
“Oh my God…” Charlotte shook her head, backing away from me. “I…I can’t believe this. This is crazy.”
“I know it seems overwhelming.” I rose from the floor and went to her, moving carefully so as not to frighten her even more. Already I was attuned to her, though I had yet to give her my vow. I could feel her fear and disbelief in the air between us. Without conscious effort on my part, my skin turned a deep purplish blue to reflect her emotion.
“Oh!” Charlotte jumped and put a hand to her mouth, her green eyes getting wide.
Again, my body responded unbidden, my skin giving a bright flash of yellow in response to her fear and surprise.
“Why are you doing that?” she asked in a wavering voice. “What does that mean?”
“You mean my skin color?” I could have asked the same thing. It seemed strange to me that I was already so attuned to her that my body changed my skin tone without conscious effort on my part. But then I remembered the blood she had given me—that must be the cause.
“Yes, I mean your freaking skin color!” Charlotte exclaimed. “Why does it keep changing?”
“My body is simply reacting to your moods—reflecting your emotions as you have them,” I explained.
“What? That…that’s bizarre! Why?” she demanded.
“Because I am yours, Goddess,” I told her simply.
It was what every Majoran male says to the female he chooses to give his life to and acknowledge as his own personal goddess but my words seemed to bother Charlotte deeply.
“You’re mine? What does that mean?” she demanded. “I don’t even know you!”
“No, but you will. Come…” I led her to the small, padded couch she had behind her food-prep area. Once she was settled, I went to my knees before her once more.
“What are you doing?” She looked at me nervously. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to propose?”
“Propose?” I frowned at her. “You fear I am asking you to be my bonded mate?”
“Um…I guess that’s one way to put it.” She nibbled her full lower lip nervously and I had to fight to keep my body from flashing orange in response to her emotion.
“Please don’t fear that,” I told her. “Though my life and my chastity are sworn to your service, I would never be a candidate for Royal Consort—my blood is not exalted enough. As I told you before, my mother was only a lesser noble.”
“Um…” She still seemed not to understand. “So then…why are you on your knees in front of me like that? It’s kind of, uh, making me nervous.”
“I know,” I said. “I can tell.”
Feeling the emotions of the Empress, even though none of us is her fated mate, is one of the unique attributes of the Imperial Guards. Most other males of the Twelve Peoples only feel the emotions of their chosen females after they bond. But for us, the ties of loyalty run so deep, we are intimately connected to she who sits upon the Golden Throne.
“Kristoff,” she began but I took her hands in mine, sending a charged tingle through both of us.
I knew well enough what that tingle meant—that the new Empress was a La-ti-zal, a female specially blessed with gifts from the Ancient Ones—and that we were sexually compatible.
I had never felt that tingle with my old mistress but then, she was forty years my senior and desired no one after her Consort had died. It was a shock to feel it when I touched my new mistress, but I refused to let it show on my face, even though Charlotte gave a little gasp.
“My Empress…my Goddess,” I began formally, looking into her lovely green eyes. “I, Kristoff Xander Verrai, am yours to command. My body shall be your shield. My blood is yours to spill, my shoulders shall carry your burdens, and my lips shall keep your secrets. My heart shall beat only for you. I will never leave you or forsake you—I will follow and protect you until the end of my days. Unswerving Loyalty, Unquestioning Devotion, Unremitting Obedience, and…” I paused for a moment, my throat working. “And Unending Love,” I said, though I hadn’t meant to say it. “These are the code and the credo of the Imperial Guard. Until I die, my Lady, I am yours.”
As I said the last words, a mighty surge ran between us—a rush of electrifying power—of a vow given and received. It was a sign that the Goddess of Mercy had heard and acknowledged my oath to my new mistress.
Charlotte must have felt it too because her eyes got wide and she tried to pull her hands out of mine.
“What was that?” she whispered in an awed voice.
“That was me tying myself to your service for life,” I said simply.
Although I still wasn’t certain why I had added the “Unending Love” part, which was not actually supposed to be part of the vow. I had added it when I gave my oath to my old mistress, Sundalla the 999th because I felt very strongly for her.
I never expected to have such strong feelings for my new mistress—my heart was in the grave with the last Goddess-Empress and though my loyalty was the new Empress’s to command, my love was dead. Yet somehow the words had come to my lips and I had uttered them anyway. Why?
Before I could answer the question, Charlotte was yanking her hands out of mine and edging away from me.
“This can’t be right—I mean, you don’t think you’re going to stay here, do you?”
“Of course not,” I said. “We will be going to Femme One as soon as I can get my armor back and call my ship to come to us.”
“What? I’m not going anywhere with you!” she exclaimed. She got up and started pacing back and forth. “I never met you before last night! I have a life here—an internship! Do you know how hard it is to get into one of these programs? And…and I have sick people depending on me. I can’t just leave them!”
I considered rising to go to her but I could feel her fear and trepidation—though I was careful not to let my skin display those emotions. Instead I stayed on my knees, motionless, to avoid causing her more distress.
“You want to devote yourself to the service of others,” I said calmly. “That is the defining characteristic of the Goddess-Empress. But if you stay here you can help what—hundreds? Perh
aps thousands? If you come with me, you will be able to help trillions. My Lady-Goddess, so many will be touched by your divine hand—”
“Stop calling me that! I’m not a goddess!” she exclaimed. “And…and get up off the floor. Stop kneeling to me like that—it’s crazy!”
“It is a sign of respect,” I said gravely, staying where I was.
“Well, it’s freaking me out.” She ran a hand through her hair distractedly. “This whole conversation is insane. I can’t believe I’m even talking to you instead of just telling you to leave. None of what you’re saying can possibly be true.”
“Are you calling me a liar, my Lady?” I asked, my voice deepening towards a growl. “After what you have seen?” I nodded at the sleek, silver form of the assassin-droid, jumbled in a heap on her floor.
“I…I can’t…It’s just, this is the first I’m hearing about any of this.” She put a hand on her hip and glared at me. “You can’t blame me for saying it sounds crazy!”
This time, I did rise to stand before her.
“I know you come from a closed planet which has no knowledge of the outside universe,” I said. “But did the Commercians tell you nothing when they gave you the message from your friend, the Lady Leah?”
“What message? She shook her head. “What are you talking about? Leah called me a couple of times but I was too busy to talk.”
“No, the message should have come through the Commercians,” I said, frowning. “Char’noth the head of the Alien Mate Index took payment in exchange for reaching you to tell you the details of your friend’s disappearance and ask you to relay the information to her family.”
“Who is Char’noth?” she demanded. “And Leah hasn’t disappeared—she just moved to Virginia with that asshole fiancé of hers.”
I felt a surge of anger.
“So you never heard from the Commercians? Those little blue bastards! Gravex told me they took payment from him in full. They’re avaricious but it’s not like them to defraud a paying customer.”
“Wait…” Her face had gone pale. “Did you say…blue?”
“Yes, blue. They are long and thin with eyes on stalks. They stand about so high…” I showed a measurement with my hand not too far from the ground. “They make contact through shiny objects such as viewers or…”
I trailed off because Charlotte had sunk back down to the padded seating area with her head in her hands.
“Oh my God,” she was murmuring. “Oh my God…Oh my God!”
“Mistress?” I knelt before her, feeling her distress so clearly it roused my protective instincts. But there was no outside foe to fight for her—the source of her suffering was internal.
“The worm,” she said at last, looking up at me, her eyes filled with a strange mixture of relief and regret. “That damn blue worm! He’s been trying to talk to me for weeks. Every time I looked in the mirror or the side of the toaster or even a metal spoon…I mean, I couldn’t even use the bathroom without him yelling at me from the reflective water in the toilet!”
So the Commercians had tried to contact her.
“You never listened to what he had to say?” I asked, frowning.
“You don’t understand—I’m a practical person. I don’t believe in things like ghost stories or fairy tales or aliens. I…” She put her face in her hands, her voice coming out muffled. “I thought I was going crazy.”
At last I understood the source of her tangled emotions—she had feared for her sanity.
“Mistress,” I said as gently as I could. “You’re not insane and neither am I. There is another world outside your own small planet—a vast one that needs you. Needs you desperately.”
“I can’t.” She sat up, shaking her head, her lovely face set. “I can’t just pick up and go. I told you—I have a life here. I, uh, appreciate that you came all this way and that you saved my life…” She looked at the remains of the droid and shivered. “But you’ll have to go back to that…that other world without me. I’m staying here.”
“Then I am staying with you,” I said, though my heart was heavy. “I have pledged myself to you for life, my Lady. I will never leave your side.”
Charlotte
“What?” I stared at him blankly. “What are you talking about? You can’t just move in.” I thought about how I had promised my landlady not to have strange men over. And a seven-foot tall, muscular alien with rainbow eyes and skin that could change colors was about as strange as it got.
But Kristoff had a stubborn look on his chiseled features.
“My Lady, I have pledged my life to you,” he said, frowning. “My place is at your side. I will not abandon you.”
“Well then you’ll have to rent your own apartment,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Because there’s no room for you here. I only have, uh, one bed.” I could feel my cheeks heating as I said it but I went on anyway. “And I’m not letting some strange man sleep with me. Also, you won’t fit on the couch.” I indicated my little loveseat which was barely big enough for one normal sized person to stretch out on—there was no way a seven-foot tall alien would fit.
He frowned. “I will sleep on the floor at the foot of your bed, if necessary, but I will not leave you alone. That would not be safe.”
“Why not?” I demanded. “You killed the, uh, assassin-bot thing.” I gestured at the shiny silver jumble on my carpet.
Kristoff’s strange eyes narrowed.
“Assassin-droid. And do you really think that is the only attempt your enemies will make on your life? As long as you live, you’re a threat to those who want power—power which should rightfully be yours.”
“I don’t want that much power!” I exclaimed. “I just want to be left alone!”
He shook his head. “That is one thing you will never be again. The Goddess-Empress must be warded at all times for her own safety and protection.”
“Look here,” I said, glaring at him. “You can’t just decide to move into my home and never leave!”
“Which is why you must come with me to Femme One,” he said. “Only there can you be adequately guarded.”
“I told you, I’m not—”
Our argument was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door.
“Wait. Just wait a minute,” I said to Kristoff. “I have to see who this is.”
“Are you mad?” He stepped in front of me when I would have gone to get the door.
“No, I’m thinking I have someone at the door,” I said. “Now will you please get out of the way and let me answer it?”
“Think, my Lady—who was it the last time you opened the door? This could be another droid sent to kill you,” he warned.
For a moment my heart seemed to stop in my chest. He could be right, whispered a panicked little voice in the back of my head. The whole world—hell, the whole universe—could be out to get you!
But I couldn’t live like that, couldn’t give in to paranoia. I was still trying to deal with the idea that there was in fact extraterrestrial life out there, let alone the idea that I was supposed to go to some mystical planet and rule over it all from a golden throne. I couldn’t let go of my humanity and my nice, normal world just because some tall, muscular stranger said so.
The knocking sounded again.
“Step back,” I said sternly. “I’m going to get the damn door.”
He frowned. “Then I am coming with you.”
Descended Part 1: Queen of the Universe? Who, me? Page 8