by Maia Starr
I heard Andrene suck in a sharp breath of air in frustration. She looked over at me and narrowed her blue eyes. Through gritted teeth, she said, “Then it is settled.”
"It is settled then. You leave first thing in the morning. The rest of you, gather all your reports to be transferred to Ambassador Representative Andrene Novan's data files. She will need all the information available on this attack, including maps, destruction list, wounded list, and a list of the weaponry found. Flight control, ready our fastest ship with a crew of four to depart at first light!” Executive Ambassador Cavell Novan shouted giving orders.
The room erupted into action, everyone taking on the responsibilities. Then I saw Andrene's father walk over to her and quietly say in her ear, “Do not fuck this up. It is not only your position riding on this, but mine as well. I will not have your incompetence ruin a career that I have held for more than twenty years. Stick to the agenda and say exactly the speech I give you to say to the king, verbatim. Do not go off script. Do as you are told and all will go as planned. You will be in and out of Mooreah in forty-eight hours so as not to linger long enough for you to mess it up,” he said sternly and without any tone of respect or concern for a daughter that was about to go on a mission to another planet, a very dangerous planet with only me as her guard. He walked away without as much as a hug or a word of good luck or support. Andrene’s eyes followed her father with hate, and I noticed her fists clenched at her sides.
Then she stomped across the room and out the door. I followed her, not giving up on my responsibilities to protect her.
"Where are you going? You should not leave the room without informing me,” I said trailing after her.
"Come if you want. I am going back to my apartment. I have communication calls and arrangements to make, and to get my affairs in order before we depart,” she shouted at me without even looking behind her.
I followed her across the courtyard of the damaged embassy back to her apartment. When she got to the door, she looked at me and said, “Stand guard out here if you want to. I need my privacy." She went inside and slammed the door in my face. I sighed in frustration. There was no point standing outside her door when we were leaving in a matter of hours. I would need to make arrangements of my own to make sure that the ship was well equipped with everything that I would need to make sure she entered Mooreah safely and returned back to Earth and to the embassy. But mostly, I just needed to get away from her scent. How was I going to deal with it in the close confines of a ship, and constantly trailing her for her own protection?
I moved away from her apartment to the flight control preparations. It was good to get my mind off of the human female that frustrated me so and to do some work. I had to make sure that the ship was equipped with firepower on the outside as well as artillery on the inside. It needed to have survival kits as well as perfect navigation and communication lines.
When I went back to the apartment building to check on the progress of my new client, something caught my attention. Being a Drackon warrior made you very aware of all spaces around you, including the roof of a building. I stopped and looked up and couldn't believe what I was seeing. Was she absolutely nuts? Was she trying to make my job harder on purpose, out of spite? I quickly shifted into weredragon form and then flew up on top of the roof landing next to her.
"Holy crap! Are you trying to scare the shit out of me, you stupid creature?” she shouted at me.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed by sitting up here?” I shouted back at her.
Her eyes widened and she got to her feet and came directly at me. She was petite, but most humans were to me. She tilted her head back and looked at me with glaring eyes and said, “Just because you protect me does not mean you can tell me what to do! I will sit up here if I want to!” she shouted.
"Yes, sitting on the roof of a building is a very smart thing to do hours after being bombed,” I shouted back at her.
"Well… I can't leave without seeing them! And not you nor my father will stop me from that,” she said as she pointed away from the embassy.
"Seeing what?" I asked as I followed her finger to where she was pointing. She was pointing over the tall cement walls of the embassy out into the safari range fields. There in the darkness, I saw large beasts moving slowly, and then they made loud noises, sounding like trumpets or horns.
"Are those…” I asked as I took a few steps toward the edge of the roof.
"They are elephants. They are everything to me. They are beautiful and majestic and I am sorry to be leaving them. The one solace I have being stationed here is the beautiful wildlife that surrounds us. We hardly deserve to be in their presence,” she said, taking steps toward the edge of the roof. Her eyes became watery, and I was seeing a different side to her. I never would have thought that a spoiled, arrogant brat would care anything about creatures of the wild on her planet, yet here she was showing me that she cared. Here she was alone on the roof watching them when no one else at the embassy was doing the same.
"You will see them again when we return,” I said, trying to comfort her.
She looked at me startled, and then said, “Yes, I suppose you are right. But just in case, I like to be prepared. You never know what could happen on a mission; this could be the last time I see them,” she said with her voice trailing off quietly.
I looked at her. I looked at the elephants. I look down at the courtyard of the embassy noticing that it was very quiet.
"Do you really want to see them?” I asked her.
"What..?" she asked, but before she could finish asking the question, I picked her up and flew off of the roof. I flew over the fence of the embassy and took her out into the fields, flying above the majestic, large beasts.
I expected to hear her protest and shouts, but instead she was quiet, and then I heard her giggle slightly. I held her tight in my arms against my body, and although it was hard for me to keep some sense of composure and not flip her around to kiss her, it felt good to give her this gift.
"They are absolutely beautiful,” I heard her whisper as I flew her over the herd of elephants in the dark of the night. She was thoroughly enjoying the moment and I heard her take a deep breath of air, as though relieving a lot of stress. It was fun, even for me. I had not done such a simple flight for fun in a very long time. Flying had always been part of a mission for me; it reminded me of simpler times as a youngling before my training for the battalion began.
After ten minutes of flying, I took her back to the embassy, landing near the front door of the apartment building. I set her down on her feet with her back to me. Then, we both just stood there. Her body was still pressed against mine and I couldn't seem to unwrap my arms from her body. With her back to me pressed against the front of my body, her breathing grew heavy. I could feel her heartbeat racing. She said nothing. I said nothing. With her hair up in a bun, her long, elegant neck was exposed to me. I lowered my head just above it, my lips aching to press against her flesh. But just when I was about to place a kiss on her, she took a step forward. I immediately snapped out of the hypnotic hold she had on me and stood at attention, remembering that she was a client.
"I will see you in the morning for departure,” she said with her back still to me, only a few steps in front of me. She did not turn around. Instead, she walked directly toward the door of her apartment and walked inside.
"Fuck, Kuvo... get a hold of yourself. She is an assignment and nothing more. You must reel it in for the mission tomorrow,” I said as I flew straight up into the air and out of the embassy. I needed to blow off some steam after being so riled up by her closeness to my body. I flew hard and fast over the savannas. I could hear the roar of various large predators hunting in the night. It was good. It was primal. I felt in my element, a creature amongst creatures.
Chapter 3
ANDRENE NOVAN AMBASSADOR REPRESENTATIVE
I only had twenty four hours to prepare for my departure from Earth, but I had been planning my escape
from my father for years. Now it was time to put that escape plan into action, far away from his overbearing ways. Far away from him ruling my life, it would no longer affect me after today. I dragged my bag toward the door the morning of departure. There was a knock.
"I've come to see if you're prepared,” the weredragon known as Kuvo Bane said to me when I opened the door. He didn't bother to be invited in. Instead, he pushed past me.
"What? What are you doing?” I said as I followed him inside my apartment. He grabbed my bag and put it on the table. He unzipped it and began to go through it.
"What the hell are you doing? Those are my private things! Get out of there!” I said as I tried to grab the bag from him.
“Your father asked me to come look through your items to make sure you were prepared for travel in space and to be on Mooreah,” he said as he picked up a red pair of panties and held them in both hands showing them to me. “Does this look like something you would need?” he said with a smirk on his face.
I gasped. “Ugh! Put those down! Get your dirty hands off those,” I said, grabbing them from him and pushing them into my bag.
"Just as I thought. You are not prepared at all, and you have way too much stuff for a light trip into space and forty-eight hours on Mooreah. This is just too much; just like a female to pack this much,” he said with frustration. I grabbed my bag from him and zipped it up and said, “I am taking what I want to take. Now if you will stop going through my panties, you pervert, I need to meet with my father before departure. You're holding up the mission with your obnoxious intrusions,” I said as I picked up the bag and carried it with me out into the hallway. I could hear him laughing after me, the annoying rogue. How dare he!
It wasn't enough that he got under my skin the night before, when he took me to see my favorite creatures, the elephants of the African savanna. He had surprised me then. Up until that point, he had been a pain in the ass. He had pushed his way into my life and was putting my plans into jeopardy. But when he picked me up and flew me over the fields, of his own accord, I saw him in a different light… even if just for a few minutes. It was touching. It was not something that I had expected from an arrogant alien weredragon. It had shocked me, to the very core of me.
But then, when we landed outside the front door of my apartment building, something happened. The way his body was pressed against my backside made me feel like I was melted onto him. It made me feel like I was paralyzed and could not move, and what was worse was that I did not want to move. I hated feeling that way.
I struggled in that moment to restrain myself from turning around and throwing my arms around him and kissing him. I wanted the weredragon to take me right then and there; I felt completely pathetic about it when I had walked into my apartment once I got away from him. How did I let him overcome me in such a powerful way? It was embarrassing for an ambassador representative who was supposed to be strong and not give into temptation and distraction of lust. Especially an ambassador that had just been assigned a very important assignment to go to Mooreah and meet with King Caspin Rykor in order to figure out the mystery of the Drackon weaponry used in the attack on the embassy.
I was important and needed, and I had fought my father hard to get the assignment, and in that moment last night, I would have thrown it all away if anyone had witnessed me throwing myself at the weredragon that I had only just met, and who was to accompany me on this assignment. It would've been reported to my father and he would have stopped the mission cold, no matter how much protest the rest of the council gave him. It was that realization that made me finally force my legs to take a step forward and peel my body off of his.
In that moment, I felt like my legs were in quicksand, and it didn't escape my attention that Kuvo Bane had grown hard. I felt his hardened staff press against my back. It was an intense moment and my body had responded instantaneously. Another frustrating moment that I could not allow to happen again, and I wouldn't. I needed to focus on work.
I walked into my father’s office with my bag over my shoulder. This was it. This was my last goodbye to my father.
"Here is the introduction, here is the speech, and here are the questions,” my father said, handing me notebook after notebook.
"Father, I think I can handle this on my own,” I said to him an hour before departure for Mooreah.
"Just stick to these scripts that I have outlined when speaking to King Caspin Rykor and you shall be fine. After the first introductions I want you to let him know that I am waiting for a direct communication line and then I will take it from there,” he said, not listening to a word I was saying. I huffed in annoyance and let him go on; it wasn't going to matter anyway.
"Do you understand?” he asked.
"Yes, I understand. I will stick to these scripts that you have carefully written and then establish communication line to you once the king understands that we are not blaming the Drackon, but want to figure out what is going on with weapon distribution to the Partaba people," I said.
He turned and looked at me as though he was impressed. It was as if he didn't realize that I understood why we were approaching King Caspin Rykor with soft gloves before actually getting to the meat of the problem.
"Good, Andrene, that is correct. Now be safe. Do whatever Kuvo Bane tells you to do. That is why I am paying him very well, because he is the best. He will protect you with his life. He has guaranteed me that. He will be paid well upon your return,” my father said, making the entire assignment about money, of course. He wasn't really concerned for my safety in any other respect unless it had to do with money. That was his way of doing things. It had always been that way.
"I will stick with the weredragon and follow his orders for my safety,” I said coldly in return to my father.
"Very well. Then be off, both of you; it is better to be early to the flight control than late and hold everything up,” my father said, turning and walking out of his office. I was shocked. I knew my father was cold, money hungry, and unable to express feeling, but I was not expecting him to give me such an emotionless goodbye. He didn't even hug me or kiss me on the cheek.
I should've been angry at this, but I wasn't. I gave him a look and cocked my head to the side. Tears began to form in my eyes, but not because I was hurt by his coldness; it was because it would be the last time I would ever see him. And even though I was excited to get out from under his wing, the reality of what I was doing hit me right at that moment. But I could not let him see me tearing up or he would stop me from going on this mission. I moved quickly behind him and threw my arms around his shoulders and gave him a squeeze from behind so that he could not see my face.
"Goodbye, father. I love you,” I said quickly and then moved away from him and down the hall. I could hear Kuvo Bane move from his station outside my father’s office and follow me. I didn't want him to see my tears either; he would think they were a sign of weakness. I quickly dodged into the ladies room and cleaned myself up. I looked at myself in the mirror and forced confidence on my face.
"Well, Andrene, this is it. This is the last Earth mirror you will look into for years, possibly forever. Take a good look,” I said as I stared at my reflection. Then I straightened my ponytail, pulling it tight on my head, and walked out. Of course Kuvo Bane was outside waiting for me.
"Is everything all right?" he asked and his question shocked me. How did he know that anything was amiss in the first place?
"Yes, fine. Why would you ask such a thing? Let us go to flight control, get this mission going,” I said, avoiding eye contact with him and walking down the hall.
Ten minutes later, Kuvo Bane and I were standing on the ramp outside of a black ship. The ship was a perfect triangle. It was also very, very small designed to go very fast. It was called the Cosmo.
"After you,” Kuvo Bane said, pointing at the ramp. I walked with my bag strapped across my body up the ramp into the ship. I looked around with a smile. It was small, but it was very advanced. We were walkin
g inside the back part of the ship. To the left and to the right were sleeping quarters that had nothing more than a bed in them. Further down the hall was a small kitchen with machine to rehydrate food. There was a bicycle exercise machine, that was more like a unicycle as it was just the bottom half of the bike with one wheel—very important while in space to exercise. Then beyond that was a washroom that was very small as well, almost the same size as what you would find on a commercial airplane. Then toward the front of the ship was the flight deck with four chairs.
"Good morning, Ambassador Representative Novan. I am your pilot, pilot, Winfrey,” a young man said.
"It is very nice to meet you. I am in your hands,” I said to him with a smile. He smiled back politely and I could tell that he had a pleasant demeanor, which was a welcomed addition to this team as I already knew that Mr. Weredragon was very moody.
"This here is my copilot, Simon; he is also a trained medic,” he said as another young man boarded the ship with blond hair and blue eyes and a dashing smile.