by Zara Zenia
"Final warning?" Rachel whispered in panic. "But—"
I motioned for her to be silent. "Stay close. It's almost time."
Corbin the Younger's screams almost drowned out my whispered instructions. "That's our cue guys and dolls! Up against that wall. Now! Now!"
I pulled Rachel closer to me, straining my ears to listen for the ambient sounds beneath the screams. When I heard the police breach the exterior of the building, I rolled to my feet, tucking Rachel beneath my arm. The police moved into the corridor Rachel and I had walked minutes before. I moved to the back of the room.
In my haste, I didn't wait for Rachel to show me the secret of the door. I slid my palm against the surface, connecting with the hidden biofilm scanner. Gunshots rang out just as the door slid open.
I had done it! Rachel of Baltimore and I were mere feet from safety, even if I had done nothing to save the Humans in the room. No, I couldn't focus on that now. We had to capitalize on our mistake or none of this mattered.
"There you are... your Majesty." The lead terrorist's chilled voice reached me before I saw him.
A feeling of dread crept over me. How long had it been since I'd heard his voice? Long enough for him to have snuck away. Of course they would cover the back exit. The Humans shared information too readily, and useless information far too eagerly.
Setting Rachel on her feet, I turned to face the leader. Up close, he didn't look half as tough as he sounded. The flush in his pale face matched the red of his hair almost to the color, giving him the appearance of a Human-sized pale pink worm. His eyes were gray as stormy waters and they darted from me to Rachel and back with the same frenetic energy.
I would not raise my hands in defeat to a man like this. I would not give him the satisfaction.
"It's your Highness, if you want to use the formal address," I said, gritting my teeth. "Though given the circumstances, I can't imagine why you would."
Rachel tucked herself behind me. Perhaps she hoped my broad chest would be as good for deflecting bullets as it was for shielding her from view. I didn't blame her, because I hoped for it too. She shouldn't suffer because I forgot to consider the information she gave me.
"No need to be impolite," he said. "We just have a difference of opinion. But hell, that's fine. I can fix that right now."
The leader reached into his pocket, pulling out a detonator the size of his palm. I stepped back, pushing Rachel deeper into the hall. Damn it, how had I forgotten Corbin the Elder and his little friend?
"I can fix that right now," Corbin the Elder whispered again.
Without thinking, I leaped forward, crashing all of my mass into the would-be terrorist. Speed and momentum carried our bodies to the ground. The fall gave me just enough time to grab Corbin's wrist. As we landed, I bent it backward, until his only choices were to yield or listen to the bone break.
He took longer than I expected to yield. When he did, I rose to my feet, staring in wonder at the small detonator. "I have to tell you, Mr. Corbin. If you're the best warriors Humanity has to offer, I'm not impressed."
Corbin the Elder spat and let out a humorless laugh. "Name's Jake. And don't get excited, your Majesty. I'm far from the best. We're legion."
All patience gone, I reared my leg back, striking a blow to the side of Corbin the Elder's head that rendered him unconscious. I'd had enough of his mad jabbering for one evening. It was the detonator that caught my attention. Somehow, the small device was familiar. Sure enough, I turned it over and ripped it open to find a familiar arrangement. Not familiar enough for me to identify the manufacturer from memory without a branding mark, but enough for me to guess at how to disarm it.
I pulled a wire. The detonator blinked twice, then appeared to lose power. Strange that something so destructive looked so benign once you disconnected the battery.
Footsteps thundered up the hallway, rounding the corner to join Rachel and me. Four Human men in the black uniform of the Baltimore Police Department stood with the weapons aimed at Corbin the Elder's unconscious form.
"Prince Lortnam of Trilyn?" one of them, a middle-aged man with silver hair, asked.
I nodded in agreement.
"We've been sent to see you safely returned to your palace. Are you all right, your Highness?"
"All right?" Rachel said, moving away out of her hiding spot behind me and into the officer's view. There was something about the glitter of elation in her eye that unsettled me. "He's amazing. He saved us all!"
I raised an eyebrow. Was it possible Rachel and I remembered the events of the last few minutes differently? Endorphins were a powerful chemical, but they shouldn't have turned me from a deserter to a hero in her eyes in the space of a few minutes.
"Is that a fact, your Highness?" The officer finally noted Jake Corbin's lack of movement. They slid out of their defensive stances, stowing their weapons in the leather holsters at their hips.
"She's mistaken," I said. "I—"
"Don't listen to him. The Trilyn are a very humble people," Rachel said, turning to the officers and flashing them a smile. "His Highness is just being modest. He single handedly took down their leader!"
"Make that an armed terrorist, Captain," one of the officers said. He held up the handgun Corbin the Elder had brandished against the guests— hostages —at the start of the attack.
An attack in our cultural center. An attack aimed at sowing terror in our would-be allies and our would-be mates. A wave of fury washed over me so powerful, my muscles trembled for the first time that evening. This could not be allowed to stand. Whoever funded these terrorists, whoever supplied them with equipment, I would find them. I would punish them. For the sake of my future bloodline and for my brothers, I had no choice.
"Like I told you," Rachel said, the smug satisfaction dripping in her voice cutting through my silent vow. "His Highness is a hero."
The woman would not let her version go. It didn't matter that it bore no resemblance to reality. And to make matters worse, as I looked at the faces of the officers, I realized they took Rachel's version as truth. Nothing I said would convince them otherwise.
I was used to my words being drowned out by louder voices. It shouldn't have surprised me, but it still did. Every time. But none more than this.
Chapter 2
Lortnam
It took the combined forces of my private security team and the Human officers of the Baltimore Police Department nearly an hour to clean up the mess the Corbin brothers’ rage visited on our cultural center. As a VIP, and a foreign dignitary besides, I was released after a cursory interview, where I relayed my account of the attack. Finally, my vehicle finally left the scene, bound for the safety of my palace— the ship of Trilyn splendor I called home. It had thick walls, my libraries, a security team dedicated to my protection, and all the technologies and comforts of my home world. I was more than ready to go.
Never for a moment did I doubt my decision to leave. I had estimates to collect for repairs on the facility. Someone had to assess the continued risk to the mating outreach events. Of my brothers and our royal council, at least one member had to remain objective. Four of us had found mates already. The others were getting anxious. I was getting anxious, even if I couldn't admit it to them. For all our sakes, I needed to focus on the tasks at hand, not in how a terrorist attack I happened to witness played in the Human press.
I was, as it turned out, deeply mistaken.
As I cowered behind my makeshift podium, one of the bolder guests in the audience shot video of the entire attack. The entire video spanned ten minutes, half of which captured the sole of a brown pair of shoes. Someone with a flair for the dramatic cut the video down to twenty-five seconds. In those twenty-five seconds, the only seconds not of an article of clothing or of Jake Corbin's face, featured Rachel and me behind the podium.
At least, there was a Trilyn who resembled me in the video. The Trilyn in the video leaned down to the Human woman, his pale blue eyes blazing as he whispered feverish instructions to her. I
n a smooth motion, he scooped the woman into his arms, cradling her against his deep, broad chest before springing to his feet and disappearing from view. It was an elegant performance, all things considered. It was too bad it bore no resemblance to reality.
But the Humans were a young species. For them, the twenty-five second video was proof that I was a hero. By the time the late-night news came on the air, the short snippet of the video had become all anyone saw or cared to see. It didn't matter that I was rescued by the Baltimore Police seconds after the video was shot, the same as everyone else in the cultural center.
In fact, the co-star of the clip made sure that fact didn't matter. While I called contractors, dealt with insurance adjusters, and left messages for liaisons at the Baltimore Police Department, Rachel had been busy with calls of her own. She was interviewed in the seconds immediately following the clip of my supposed heroics. On every channel. And each time she was just as insistent; if not for me, everyone in the cultural center would be dead. I was a hero! And Rachel was the crimson lipped bard singing the song of my first great victory.
Something about the woman's opportunism left a bitter taste on my tongue. I had barely managed to change into a robe and satin pajama pants after a long bath to soothe my muscles. I loved to soak in the large tub of steaming water and did so often. Rachel's pristine appearance suggested she was meticulous with her grooming but preferred the speed of a shower. All the better to seize her moment.
That night when I got into my bed, I tried to put Rachel and her heroic sagas out of my mind. The Humans loved an epic tale, but their hunger for new entertainment was insatiable. By morning, there would be a new video clip to quench their hunger. Hopefully, it would be longer than twenty-five seconds.
I was deeply mistaken. In fact, I was making a habit of it. The clip led every hour of the local morning news. Baltimore's proximity to New York, the epicenter of most morning news and a slow news day, led to the story being broadcast across the globe to all Earth citizens.
The only news outlet that didn't cover the attack on the cultural center was our home world news. They would not and could not until they had a comment from me, or one of my brothers.
By lunch, all of my public lines of communication and my assistant’s lines were flooded beyond all hope. Nissala finally let the messages stack and reached out to a temp agency in the city for additional help. Journalists from around the country wanted to interview me. Bloggers wanted to speak with me about Trilyn relaxation customs, with sultry giggles that suggested they had something more physical than relaxation on their minds. The hosts of a daytime talk show were interested in a combined make over and dating segment— where I could show off Trilyn courting rituals! Business columnists wanted my comment on the state of Earth’s economy. That request, I was genuinely interested in accepting. The others seemed like a special brand of torture, each uniquely designed to press buttons nobody but Jinurak should have known I had.
When dinner rolled around and brought a meeting of the royal council with it, the walls of my palace seemed preferable to a ride in my transport to Jinurak’s ship. But I had no choice. For one, as High Prince, a summons from Gardax couldn't be ignored by any of the Princes. For another, I was the one who asked him to call the meeting.
A gang of reporters, five cameras deep, hovered near the exit to my palace. They couldn't see me through the blackened privacy glass of my transport and the hovercraft's ascent into the sky gave them a narrow window to capture the vehicle at all, but that didn't stop them from snapping every second of footage they could as my pilot bore the ship toward Jinurak’s palace.
What the hell is going on? Why are they all here? I sighed in frustration.
I landed at Jinurak's palace less than an hour later. Mercifully, the press hadn't gathered beneath his entrance. They must not have thought there was any entertainment value in watching the royal brothers in lieu of their new hero. That stroke of luck couldn't last long.
Jinurak waited on the landing pad as I disembarked, his blue eyes locked on me as I climbed out and adjusted my tunic. In height and build, Jinurak was my perfect double. As children, we had used the resemblance as a form of entertainment, endlessly fooling the servants in our royal father's household. When our Father tried to lecture, I pointed out our eyes were completely different colors, his green and mine blue. Any idiot who could see could tell us apart, if they took the time to look us in the eye.
I hoped, as I approached Jinurak, that he had somehow missed the infamous clip on the news. The longer I could go without having to recount my supposed heroics in detail, the better.
His lips turned up into a mocking smile, dashing my hopes to dust. "How has the day been treating you, brother?"
Jinurak suppressed his laughter, but I could hear it just beneath his words. Hell, I knew his body as well as my own. I could see the laughter in the slight tremble of his shoulder, the gentle shake of his cheek.
"Not as kindly as when I can go back to my rooms and not come out again," I snapped, striding past him. "I know the way to the meeting room."
I didn't have the temper to indulge Jinurak’s teasing. But the fact he tried to hide the laughter at all gave me hope the rift between us might mend before long.
Traditionally, a meeting of the royal council was hosted in the chambers of the High Prince's palace. But Gardax, our High Prince and my elder brother, lived with his new mate, Amy, and with her being pregnant, didn’t wish to have his unruly brothers at their home when she was so close to giving birth. Jinurak's meeting chamber wasn't as luxurious, it wouldn't have been proper for a lesser Prince's meeting chamber to rival the High Prince's, but it was more comfortable than any room in my palace and Jinurak stocked his storage with fine wines. Comfort and wine were the only guaranteed ways to hold Rawklix's attention, unless you happened to be a Human woman. Though, Rawklix had found time, somehow to gain a law degree here on Earth. It had come in handy not too long ago when Akrawn had been accused of stealing a priceless artifact.
My brothers sat at a table of heavy cream stone laden with our dinner feast. A spread of roasted fish, spiced grilled meat, and succulent vegetables lay on the table, perfectly portioned to each of our massive appetites. My stomach growled at the sight of it, but my mouth dried at the sight of my brothers’ faces.
The meeting table had been carved from the Mountains of Norna, where Jinurak and I shared rule. The miners pulled the stone from the mountains and transported it to the villages. Our artisans polished it to a gleaming shine and carved images of our sacred mythical creatures into it. I kept its double in my favorite room, the library. Many a night I had fallen asleep happily at that table.
Rawklix didn't share our reverence for the twin treasures. He leaned back in his chair, balancing his socked feet against the smooth surface. He glanced up at the swish of the door opening, face sliding into mischievous delight as he saw me.
"There you are, big brother! How's it feel to be a celebrity?" He tossed back the last of his glass of wine and reached for the bottle to refill.
Gardax and Darbnix joined us on view screens embedded in the walls. “It is good to see you brothers,” I said. “How are your mates? Doing well, I hope?”
“Amy is well. The little one will arrive any day now,” Gardax explained.
“Rose is well too, and she sends her best wishes that you three soon find your mates as well.” Darbnix smiled.
“Thank her for us,” I said.
“Now, the reason I called this meeting,” Gardax began, “is because I saw on the news—”
"The Human's most recent obsession is no reason to call a council meeting," I said, taking my seat at the head of the table across from the screens.
Rawklix snorted into his cup. "Even when a council member is the subject of the obsession? You're dreaming, Lortnam."
Maybe I was dreaming. But our people needed hope as surely as a being needed sustenance. Gardax and Amy's baby, delivered safely by our finest physicians, would bring mo
re hope to our people than we could have dreamed, but it wasn't enough. They needed more. All of us had to find mates, there was no other option.
Jinurak took his place at the other end of the table, with our brothers looking on from behind his shoulders.
"I'm focused, Rawklix.”
“Despite that, why don’t you give us more details, brother, then we can discuss what is to be done,” Gardax suggested.
I nodded. “What you saw on television I had to live through." I paused and looked at them, letting the seriousness of my expression convey the weight of my words. "The attack was organized and ideologically motivated. It was the first in Baltimore, but it will not be the last."
Gardax leaned forward, bracing his hands on the armrests of his throne. "I know that we have had our trouble with different terrorist organizations. Manzar fought the Humans First group in New New Orleans and won, but it was hard fought and in the end left the city a mess. Akrawn was recently framed, and thanks to his mate, the AIs, and Rawklix, diverted another incident that may have caused us to abandon our mission. But Father feels we must continue. And most of the Humans have been accommodating to us, with only a very few joining the resistance groups.”
"I think there are more than a few who resent us, Gardax," Darbnix corrected. "And maybe they're right to. We didn't tell them four years ago that the project would take this long."
"The mission can't be abandoned until it's a complete success," Manzar grunted. His coppery braids shuffled as he lowered his head. "No matter how distasteful you find the methods," he directed toward me.
Of my brothers, Manzar was the closest to our origins. A fearsome warrior with olive skin and slit pupils with orange eyes. Back home, his island produced our best military technology and personnel. The military badly wanted to get in Manzar's good graces, but after the debacle with Humans First, he was a bit wary of supplying them with new tech. Despite the war he’d fought in New New Orleans, he’d found his mate and taken her home to Trilyn, along with her father. I was actually surprised to see him here and not on a vid screen.