by Zara Zenia
"And the bombs? Were they a lie, too?" At least if he confessed, I could offer to testify on Nora's behalf. It would mean staying in Baltimore, but with the chance that the Trilyn's welcome would be permanently revoked, it'd be worth it. To feel safe again, it would be worth it.
"All too real," he said, returning to his desk. If he noticed how his answer deflated me, he didn't acknowledge it. "A failure of two security teams by my reckoning, and ample reason for your readers to worry. I can only say that — for my part —I take the protection of my lands very seriously. This assault will not stand without answer."
"Where did the lie come from, your Highness?" I didn't give a shit if it blew my cover, I couldn't stomach calling it a falsehood or an untruth or anything else. As far as I was concerned, the day I stopped calling out lies was the day I started forgetting what the truth looked like.
"A woman named Rachel was with me in the hallway when Jacob Corbin confronted me. Maybe in the excitement she lost track of what really happened. Maybe she hoped that if she could generate enough interest for free, we wouldn't fire her for negligence. It doesn't matter. Now that her version is out, it's taken on a life of its own."
"No offense, your Highness, but you were in a room full of reporters all day. Why not tell one of them this instead of me?"
The Prince sighed and leaned back in his chair, letting his head fall back against the headrest. "Rachel's version has more entertainment value. I don't understand your people, Ms. Fillmore. All anyone wants to talk about is the biggest news story, but only the most sensational parts of it. Somehow, here, the truth becomes the smallest part of the story."
I wanted to argue, if only to defend the Human race against the judgement of an alien aristocrat. But I couldn't think of a counterpoint that wouldn't be a lie. Thanks to a few particularly traumatic years— including the arrival of the Prince and his siblings —some of Humanity had kicked the news junkie habit, but most of us still lined up for our fix without really caring who our next supplier was. I wasn't exactly the best one to argue in Humanity's defense with my nightly news binges.
"Is it really so different where you're from?" I asked.
"When you don't know how many days your species has in front of it, the past becomes a dangerous lesson. Petty squabbles of the past cost too much under those conditions. The future becomes the only thing that matters."
"So you're better than us?" I blurted, unsure if meant it as a question or a challenge.
Thankfully, the Prince seemed to take it as the former. Either way, this time when he laughed, the brightness reached his eyes, thawing some of the chill.
"I don't believe either of our species are better or worse than the other. Different circumstances breed different actions. If Lord Baltimore had been administrator in Norna instead of this colony, he may have made the same choices."
"Do you feel responsible for what happened at the cultural center, Your Highness?"
The warmth disappeared from his eyes, blasted away by a sheet of ice that made me regret asking the question at all. Of course he felt responsible. A man who would turn his head at me saying people were afraid of a war would feel damned guilty about it, but would he admit it?
"Why in Trilyn's name would I do that?"
"Because Jacob Corbin and his brother might not have attacked anybody at all if your species wasn't trying to use our world as a mine to save itself."
The Prince raised his chin. A subtle shift in his body language, a tightening in his shoulders and jaw, let me know the last question had been a step too far. I braced myself for the alien royal's reaction. With one word from him, a team of buff bronze-skinned alien commandos to rush into the room and slap me in handcuffs. But it wasn't anger in the Prince's blue eyes. It was offense. The man was genuinely offended.
"You can only say that because you haven't seen my brothers with their wives, Ms. Fillmore. They love them very much, and if I'm not mistaken, they'd like to break Jacob Corbin's spine for implying otherwise."
"It's not uncommon for Human men to claim they love their partners when it isn't true," I said. "Especially where there are children or status involved."
"Do you think we're monsters? Each of us hopes we will find genuine love here as well as a way to fulfill our duty!"
"But you aren't leaving until you've done the latter?"
"To do that would be to doom my species." He braced his forearms against the desk and leaned forward, peering at me with an intensity that filled me with an urge to slink back away from his gaze.
"You're sitting in the home I will one day share with my mate," he continued. "The images in the hall are of the plains and mountains of the continent we will rule together. She will have everything her heart desires, as long as it is something my reach can provide her. If you want to focus on what we're getting, you may, but how is it fair to my people to pretend this isn't a reciprocal relationship. And whatever the initial premise, how can we call my brothers' households anything but families?"
His words hung in the air in the silence that followed. They were so powerful, I couldn't bring myself to follow them. I didn't have an argument strong enough to counter Prince Lortnam's sermon. What's more, he wouldn't have listened if I had one to give. His highness believed the hype just as much as the women of the wave did. I guess he had to. The second he stopped believing this was above board, he lost his chance to find a partner forever.
My initial assessment of the Prince morphed to accommodate this new outburst. The library and precision suggested an analytical mind, but the impassioned speech suggested he was a true believer when it came to the future of his people. He thought of himself, but mostly after the fact.
"I... didn't mean to offend you, your Highness. I can see you care deeply about your family."
He blinked, seemingly stunned by the reaction. Then he sighed and his shoulders relaxed.
"No, it is I who has given offense. Sometimes I get defensive about my brothers," he said. The smile crept back onto his lips, chipping away the ice once more. "It's a hazard when your family and your job are one in the same. But now you have the entire story. I hope you will print it truthfully."
With some warmth infused into his face, the Prince was actually handsome like a combination of a quarterback and the nerdy guy next door. Not the sort to stage a terrorist incident for a date at the risk of getting caught. The kind of man who would do that wouldn't downplay his own heroics. Prince Lortnam couldn't have staged the attack. This man simply didn't have it in him. But that didn't eliminate his other brothers as suspects. If highly introverted Prince Lortnam would brave a day of interviews to protect his brothers' chance at finding a mate, what were the other brothers willing to do? How far would they go? There was only one way to find out.
The Prince seemed to like me well enough to let me into his home. Maybe I could parlay that into something a little more personal. If I could stand to be in the fortress for that long.
"To honor our agreement in the alley, yes," I said. "But as an apology... how about you let me buy you dinner? And you can tell me more about your project here in Baltimore."
I tilted my chin down, ever so biting the corner of my lower lip. The patented Kelly Grant flirting signal.
Chapter 7
Lortnam
It took several seconds for Kelly's question to register in my brain. When it did, I still wasn't sure I had heard her correctly. The conversation had been going well, in fact better than I expected. Which was to say it hadn't devolved into a massive gush over the more fantastical parts of the mating arrangement. After a day spent with her colleagues, I now knew better than to take her level head for granted.
True to her promise, Ms. Fillmore had listened to and accepted the truth. She held us more blameless than we deserved. For this benefit of doubt, I was grateful, but I had not expected it to lead to a request for another meeting.
"Are you angling for another interview, Ms. Fillmore?" I asked. If there were any luck on my side, the answer
would be yes.
She shrugged and dipped the tips of her fingers into her jeans pocket, letting her hip fall to the side. "Why don't we call it an extended conversation? Off the record, if you prefer."
Kelly stared at me, her eyes sparkling as if she already knew I would say yes. As if she knew I wouldn't be able to resist her. I had seen that expression, that pose on hundreds of women. I may have been hopeless with social reading, but I knew when I was being flirted with.
I opened my mouth to refuse her, but the words wouldn't come. I stared down into her eyes, loving the sparkle that had come back to them. It had to mean something, but I hadn't spent enough hours in her presence to guess at what. With my notoriously bad social skills, it might take days.
No, I couldn't hope to have days of Kelly Fillmore's time. But I wanted... needed more than a meal in Baltimore. There were too many dangers out there.
"I will agree to your request," I said. "On two conditions."
Kelly nodded in apparent satisfaction and folded her arms across her chest. "Name them."
"I will share a meal with you, Kelly Fillmore, on the condition that it is a formal date and we take our meal here."
A thrill of gratification filled me at the look of shock on her face. To think that I had the power to shock her with my request when a fake story orchestrated by her people could not.
"I... okay..." she stammered softly. "Not gonna lie, I wasn't expecting that."
"I don't see why," I said. "You're a beautiful woman, Ms. Fillmore."
"Your Highness, I think if you're going to ask me out on a date, you can go ahead and call me Kelly."
"Kelly," I whispered, trying to keep the smile from my lips. "Your response to my conditions?"
"The first one, I just can't agree to. I'm sorry, your Highness. But the second... yes, I'd like that."
I furrowed my brow, unsure how to take her mixed response. "Why won't you have dinner here?"
"Honestly? Because it wouldn't matter how fancy the meal is, I'll never relax as long as I'm inside of a fortress."
"A...what?"
She raised her index finger and gestured to the room around us. "Your ship."
"This isn't a fortress, Kelly," I said, shaking my head. Was that what the Humans on the ground thought? "It's my home, as I said."
Kelly lowered her chin and quirked an eyebrow. "That has its own private army."
"My security team," I said.
"And weapon's systems?"
"Space is dangerous!" I sighed, closing my eyes and taking a breath of recycled air spiked with her perfume. "But I take your meaning. What one sees as a defense, others view as an offense. However, I'm afraid that creates a problem. This palace is my protection, and after hearing what I told you today, I'm sure you can understand why I'm reluctant to abandon it. Particularly when I'm asking to spend an evening with you."
The look of surprise came again, but somehow I could see my answer hadn't been wrong.
"I guess that's fair," she said. "How about a compromise? Your advisors or court or whatever can choose the restaurant and do whatever sweeps they need. They can even eat inside when we do."
I rubbed my chin as I considered her idea. My first instinct was that it was unlikely to protect either of us. The Corbin Brothers— and however many accomplices had helped them —had to have been watching our movements for their plan to work. It wouldn't be hard to find me in Baltimore, and it wouldn't take a building wired with explosives to kill me.
But the second instinct, and the stronger, was to agree to whatever condition let me see her again.
"Agreed," I said. "But I will need a way to contact you when my people find a suitable restaurant."
"Your Highness, are you asking me for my phone number?"
"Lortnam," I corrected her. "And yes, Kelly, I am."
Her smile widened and she looked down at her pad and scribbled onto it. She ripped out the page and folded it before passing it to me.
"On that note, I should probably go." Kelly climbed to her feet, stowing her pad and pen back in her worn purse. "Your people were planning to help with that, right?"
I chuckled, reaching for the button on my desk as I climbed to my feet. "One of my attendants will take you back to the transport, and it will take you anywhere you want to go."
She laughed. "Yeah, don't know about that, but I'll take the lift home. Thank you, your— I mean... thank you, Lortnam."
"Thank you, Kelly."
When she was gone, I slumped back down in my chair. I took great lungful’s of air like a fool, chasing the last remnants of her perfume. It wouldn't have been half as memorable on a different woman, but on Kelly it was perfect. Impressionable.
It was a shame I couldn't convince her to have dinner here. A particularly delicious fish was in season in the waters around Rawklix's island. This year's catch had been so bountiful, he'd sent double the number of crates to my store rooms. Now Kelly wouldn't be able to sample the delicacy from my home world. A poor impression to make on a Human woman on our first date.
The formality of the words snapped me back to reality. What the hell was I thinking? Trilyn didn't date! The parties were the closest I had ever come to Human dating. Countless evenings spent crammed in a ballroom full of women couldn't possibly prepare me for an evening alone with one. I didn't know the first thing about wooing a Human female. Did I even want to woo Kelly Fillmore?
The opposing thoughts crashed against one another in my head, making it ache. My people didn't have lengthy courtships like Humans. We knew our mates when we found them. It had worked that way for my people for generations, until a virus created by Countess Tormundson swept through our population and ruined the whole thing.
We never named the virus. It moved so quickly, we struggled to identify it before all signs along with more than half of our population were gone. Our world descended into despair and panic. The expedition my brothers and I undertook was meant to serve as a spark of hope to sustain us all. And it had worked better than we could have dreamed, but never well enough for me.
The mission on Earth was supposed to be a chance to get away from that. For the first time in more generations than our history counted, Trilyn Princes would choose their own mates. We made our offer, set up our palaces, and waited. For almost four years we’d hosted parties to no avail, until Gardax had Akrawn come up with a new plan, the genetic scanners. They had worked too. Gardax and Darbnix both confirmed their matches with the scanners and then Manzar found his in the midst of fighting a war with that Humans First group. And then, they’d stopped working. Damaged by a malicious woman. Countess Tormundson. One of the few women still alive of our race. She was a jealous woman who’d stopped at nothing to get back at my brother Akrawn because he wouldn’t take her as his wife. She still was somewhere in the universe, but we’d yet to find out where.
I had no idea if Kelly Fillmore was my genetic match. I would need years of analysis to discover for myself if she was or not. It was what made the scanners so perfect. And why I wished we still had them to use.
I wouldn't have years with Kelly Fillmore. I might not even have days. What I had was a single night built around another species’ expectations. Unless I could convince her to arrange another one. But I had no idea how to function on a date, let alone perform well enough to earn a second.
The communicator in my desk chimed. I glanced at the screen in time to see Gardax's name flash across the screen in green letters. I closed my eyes and swore, remembering I was meant to give him an update on the investigation into the Corbin brothers and their potential accomplices. All I wanted to do was strategize for my date with Kelly.
I answered the call anyway, leaning back in my chair and feigning a pleasant expression. "Brother, I was just about to send you a message."
"I should hope so," he said," considering you were supposed to send the report two hours ago. Is everything alright? Have there been any more incidents?"
"The situation in Baltimore hasn’t cha
nged. The last interview just took longer than I anticipated." I tented my fingers, wondering how much to share with him. "And potentially the most fruitful. She was the only one who saw through the sensationalist lies."
Gardax’s mouth tightened into a line. "Those lies have raised your profile higher than anything else we’ve tried in the last four years, Lortnam. You need to stop letting them bother you so much."
"The lies?" I couldn’t keep the astonishment from my voice, even if it risked coming off as disrespectful. "You can’t be serious!"
"You aren’t the one telling them and you’ve done everything you can to correct them." Gardax lowered his chin. "It’s a better use of your skills and talents to figure out how we can use this to our advantage."
It was a suggestion not a command, but only because he trusted me to yield to a gentle hand.
I should have expected Gardax's suggestion, but to hear the words out loud left me too stunned to comment for a moment. Not because he was suggesting we stoop to subterfuge. The situation back home was stable... for now. The longer the rest of us went without finding our matches, the more likely things back home were to deteriorate. Desperate measures were upon us.
"Jinurak said the same thing," I said finally. "Curious that neither of you would say it in front of the others."
"Would you have taken our advice if we had?" he asked.
My brother’s hypothetical reactions in the council room flashed in my mind. Rawklix would make some suggestion that amounted to tell my story and pick the woman who asked to visit my bed chamber fastest. A pleasurable diversion, but not one that would solve my problems. The others, eager for their own chance, would have spurned my own. My voice would have fallen below the wave. Unnoticed. Unheard. No.
When I looked back at Gardax, his expression was unchanged. He already knew my answer.
"You both know me well," I said in defeat.
"And we want what's best for you." Gardax's expression softened. "I remember how hard it was before I found Amy. It pained me to see all of you suffering through it. It pains me now to see you suffer through it still. Lortnam, anything that can be done to move things forward."