“I was away on a personal errand when the king commissioned your services to…” Draco continued, “…escort the princess back from her little excursion.”
“Where is the king?” Cullen asked bluntly. “There is the matter of my fee.”
“Ah yes, his highness has been called away on an urgent matter of state, he’s a very busy man, you see.”
“So you’re here to make my payment?” The mercenary eyed the nobleman coldly.
“Well, yes… in a manner of speaking.” Draco felt a chill run down his spine. He would never even consider facing this violent man in any form of battle.
“What does that mean?” Cullen’s voice had a edge to it that Draco didn’t like.
“Well, your task is yet to be completed.” Draco said calmly, but his heart pounded hard inside his chest.
“How?” Cullen gritted his teeth. “I was to get her out of the Dark Keep and bring her here unharmed. And so I have.”
“Yet you have done her more harm than ever could be done, you muscle-bound dimwit.” Draco thought, but just smiled serenely.
“What more should I have done?’ Cullen demanded; his dagger almost in his grip. “And I want my fee increased tenfold, the mission was a lot more perilous than afore mentioned.”
“Tenfold?” Draco smiled. “Why, yes, you will get ten times the gold promised to you.”
“Where is it?” His teeth ground hard, dagger almost out of its sheath.
Draco sighed and fished out a small leather pouch, it looked heavy enough for the amount Cullen asked for and more. He tossed it across the table and the mercenary grabbed it in one hand. He hefted the pouch on his palm, nodding agreeably.
“That’s more than ten times the agreed upon fee, mercenary.” Draco smiled. “But consider the extra as an upfront fee, for as I have said this mission in not over yet… and once it is, you will receive another purse, twice as much as the one you now hold.”
The cook arrived with a steaming platter of roasted beef and some fresh baked bread. He glared at Cullen and then turned to Draco, bowed and left. Cullen grabbed a hunk of meat and tore into it, chewing slowly and watching the nobleman with interest.
“What is to be done?” He asked brusquely.
“The princess, Shania, is to be wed to the prince of a kingdom to the south.” Draco began directly. “Your new mission is to escort her safely to the king’s Castle there, where she will be wed.”
“Shouldn’t a task like this require the Royal escort, with your own knights?” Cullen spat out a hunk of tough meat and bit into some bread.
“Of course it does,” Draco nodded. “The main escort will be a decoy, to lure away potential threats. And as you know, the princess was compromised and thus your services were required.”
“So I will be escorting the princess alone, again.” Cullen looked uncertain.
“Yes, well, I can arrange for one of her handmaidens to…”
“One woman is bad enough to travel with… not all the gold of Gawain’s treasury will make me ride with two. I will escort the princess alone and hand her over to her husband-to-be myself.”
“Ah, excellent.” Draco pressed all his fingertips together, smiling wolfishly. “Do this and return and your reward will be waiting.”
“It had better, or it’s your skinny noble neck I will be carrying off to feed the crows.”
***
Draco recollected the barbarian’s cold threat and hoped that his carefully thought out plan would succeed. Once the princess was away, with the muscle-bound oaf, he would send in his personal messenger and let word into the Southern king’s ear that his heir’s wife to be was carrying the child of a savage. The petulant prince would then want Cullen’s head on a spike and refuse to marry Shania, unless Gawain relinquishes the Western Kingdom to him, thus allowing Draco complete control of two kingdoms as he already manipulated his own nephew, the prince Jous-le-Fontain into this scheme.
Draco threw back his head and laughed as Nagynia looked up and smiled, licking her saliva off his rigid cock. She knew he was up to his scheming again and it was always exciting to suck his cock when he was at his sinister best. She went back to work on him, but her mind drifted to the huge muscular barbarian she had seen earlier in the barracks of the Castle below. His prowess in battle was legendary, and so were the rumors of his prowess in bed, she made up her mind to see if that were true, later in the dark of the night.
Story Six
When Hailey received the message that she was waiting for, a mix of emotions rushed through her. Of course, she was thrilled that she had finally received what she believed was the invitation of a lifetime, but she also experienced a sensation that she didn’t expect to take hold of her; fear.
She didn’t fear the one who had invited her though. Of that man, she was certain. The two of them had talked, both through messages and other means of communication that had recently become available to them every single day for months.
He was all that Hailey thought about and from the impression she received, he was also everything that she had ever dreamed about.
However, she certainly felt a sneaking sense of reservation, filling up her bones and sneaking into her soul each and every time she read the message.
She read it over and over again, trying her best to make peace with it. She wanted to know what it was that caused her such hesitation, since this was what she had wanted. Yet, now that she had it, she was nervous about receiving it.
Additionally, Hailey was also nervous about the idea of telling her family. They were poor humans, but with the exception of Hailey, they were happy with their lives.
Her family was content to stay the way they were and they refused to accept the world that was changing continuously around them. They were so worried about losing themselves that they became consumed in being complacent.
In almost a hundred years, the family consisted of farmers and even though it was a fairly lucrative business once upon a time, the need for organic freshness was soon outweighed by the need for supply.
Still, instead of helping to bridge the gap and change with the times, they had resi
sted the technology and thus, eventually, they were left behind.
Then, when the aliens came, the family really began to propel themselves into a downward spiral. Her father drank heavily and eventually died, while her mother and sisters tried their best to maintain the dying farm.
Unfortunately, the best that they could do under the circumstances was to become self-sufficient.
That was okay, for a while. After all, at least they had food, but within a few years, the house and machinery started to fail and those were fixes that, even with all of the technology the world had, just beyond the gates of their farm, there was still nothing that could make a new water-heater or tractor sprout out of the ground. Those things needed actual currency, money that they had tried their best to live without.
Yet, now that they had no real way of both eating and selling their crops, since there was a limited supply, as well as a limited amount of buyers, the house fell into disrepair.
If they didn’t work fast and come up with some kind of solution, Hailey knew that they were going to end up losing the farm that her parents had sacrificed everything to not only keep, but maintain in a pure fashion.
Hailey didn’t agree with this though and, being the oldest, she also couldn’t just stand by and watch her mother ignorantly suffer when there were options for her that she just refused to consider.
To Hailey’s mother, it seemed that she would rather see her family starve to death and be put out on the street then to conform to the new way of doing business. Hailey just didn’t understand, but as she clutched the money, the real, live, tangible money in her hands, more than enough to fix everything, she breathed a sigh and hoped that now that it was a done deal, she could make her mother understand.
It was a long day for Hailey. Instead of telling her mother what she was doing, she just went around town
and even different parts of the Earth, now with plenty of whatever she needed to get her anywhere she needed to go, to pay off her family’s debts and then buy a wonderful feast for them.
Her mother and sisters would be out working in the field all day, which was where they also expected her to be and so, she could go about her business without worrying about being disturbed.
Plus, it was her turn to make dinner tonight, which worked out perfectly. They expected to be working out in the field, getting food, whatever it was they could find after the drought, so that they might have food for the next day, so they still would think nothing of her being in the house while she prepared their meal; the dinner that they thought was going to be yet another rousing soup filled with lettuce and all of the other random bits that they had scrounged up the day before. They thought dinner was going to be awful, as it had been every night for almost a year, but tonight, it was going to be magnificent…and that was only the first surprise.
For as excited as Hailey was to share the news with her mother and sisters, by the time she ended up calling them in for dinner, she was so nervous that she hardly even felt hungry.
She hoped that she was making the right decision; she had no doubt for herself, but it was for the sake of the relationship she had with her mother and sisters that she was worried.
Everything else, she could handle.
No matter what happens, she thought to herself as she saw the old door handle curve, signaling that all of her planning for tonight was about to either pay off or blow up in her face, by this time tomorrow, you will be in the loving embrace of Xavier, beginning your new life far away from here.
When her mother opened the door, her eyes grew wide, Her sisters followed and, smelling the unfamiliar, savory delight that Hailey had cooked up, rushed past her mother with large smiles, beginning to devour the food in its entirety.
As though they really feared that the food would be taken away from them, or disappear if they did not consume it quickly enough, the girls didn’t even bother to grab plates. It had been so long since they had full stomachs that they wanted to have it all at once.
“This is delicious!” They exclaimed, digging deeply into the food.
“Stop!” Their mother screamed and with effort, the three girls put down their meal. Then, with angry eyes, their mother glowered over at Hailey and demanded, “What did you do?”
Hailey smiled, hoping that it wasn’t too late to bring her mother back to her senses. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She had done what she honestly believed she needed to do in order to ensure the safety and security of her family.
Even if her mother couldn’t see it, Hailey hoped at least, that her father would be proud of her. She wasn’t sure considering how undeniably he was against the kind of thing she had found that it made sense to do, but she was not just doing it for her own happiness. She was also, mainly doing it to ensure a better future for her mother and her sisters, as well as for herself.
That was why she had made such a deal. It wasn’t because she really wanted anything other than love from Xavier, it was so that she could be happy with him without feeling as though she had abandoned her family when they needed her most.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, Mother. I bought everything that you see here,” She answered, beaming and trying to get her to be proud of her. Always the black sheep of the family, never following what their mother had to say, like her sisters did, because she researched and knew that there was a better way, almost every time.
However, tonight, she only wanted to make her mother happy, after all, once she took care of everything and ensured that her family was safe and secure, she wasn’t sure when she would see them again; perhaps at the wedding, but then again, she supposed that would all depend on how her mother reacted in this moment.
“With what?” She demanded, “Did you steal the money?”
Hailey narrowed her eyes as she answered, “What? No, Mother. I didn’t steal anything.” Even though she understood why, given the abundance, when she thought they had so little, her mother would logically conclude that her eldest daughter had pulled off some kind of grand heist in order to provide her family with a meal of this significance, she still could not help but feel slightly offended that her mother would ever think she would do something so foolish.
Her mother stared at her with cold eyes as she answered, “Then…how?”
Desperate to have her mother calm down and try the food that she had tried so hard to acquire and prepare, Hailey pulled a chair out for her mother and grinned before she answered, “Please sit. I have a lot to tell you, but don’t worry, none of it is criminal and all of it is good news.” She then looked around the table at her sisters as she added, “For everyone.”
Her mother stared at her suspiciously, but sat down.
Once she was settled, Hailey went over to the other side of the table in order to begin at least trying to eat as well. When she looked up after pulling in her chair, she answered, “Please…Eat…”
It was then that her mother started, very cautiously, to pick at her food. It was kind of funny, watching her. If Hailey didn’t know better, she would think that her mother thought that the police were going to burst in at any moment and take the food right off of their plates.
Hailey’s sisters, however, were enjoying the fresh meal just as it was. They cared very little about where they received their food. At least they were able to eat a full meal.
The family ate together, the first proper meal that any of them could remember, in silence.
From Hailey’s mother, she sensed strain, but from the other girls, she sensed a joy in the ability to eat fresh.
Being able to give that to her sisters, especially in light of where she was going to be dining tomorrow and with any luck, every night after for the rest of her life, she felt that this was the least she could do.
Eventually though, Hailey decided that she needed to tell her mother more about what she was able to do for her, since she had a feeling that her mother was not going to ask her about it herself.
“So…” She replied carefully, “Mother…I have a few more surprises for you…”
“Oh?” She asked, this time without looking up from her food.
Hailey nodded, “Yes, ma’am.”
“What are they?” Her mother certainly didn’t sound very grateful though and while that wasn’t why Hailey had done this, she did feel a little bit angry that her mother was more suspicious than anything else.
“Well, the house is paid for…And I have arranged to have people come out to the house this week so that they can fix everything that is going on with the house,” She smiled.
“So, we’re not going to be put out on the street?” Her one sister exclaimed excitedly.
“No,” She shook her head, “The house is yours,” Then, to her mother she added, “All you have to do is keep up with the taxes…”
However, instead of being happy, Hailey’s mother just glowered at her, “Tell me this instant, what did you do?”
By now, Hailey was tired of being treated like she had done anything wrong and so, she grew angry at her mother’s demand. She stood up and answered, “I did what was best for this family and for myself. I have entered into the exchange program for young women and I have been messaging with a very nice alien man who wishes to make me his bride. His name is Xavier and I am leaving tomorrow night.
“No, you most certainly are not leaving at all, young lady!” My mother exclaimed, pounding her fist down on the table, “I will not have you whoring yourself out to some alien!” She glowered around the table and screamed, “Now look what you did! You not only put us in God knows how much more debt, but you now put us in debt to an extra-terrestrial!” She looked at Hailey’s sisters now and exclaimed, “Enjoy the food while you can girls, because your sister has ensured that we will likely never eat again!”
“Stop it, Mother! The debt is mine now and it is one I am happy to pay! I love Xavier and
he loves me.”
She glowered at her and answered, “I loved your father. I know he loved me and do you know how I knew that? For starters, he was my species, so I knew that he was capable of feeling the same thing that I can feel, but most importantly, I didn’t just talk to him through messages and holograms! You can’t just send a picture to someone and write them a nice note and know everything about them.”
“I’ve spoken to him for months, Mother…This is what I want…” She huffed with vexation, knowing that her mother was being unreasonable and petty. She didn’t understand anything and didn’t want to understand anything that progressed their lives. She was stuck in a rut, just like Hailey’s father and his father before that. No one wanted to change and therefore, their ways were becoming obsolete, but Hailey refused to let that mean that her family was going to starve or be put out on the street. “Besides, I’m an adult, mother. I can do whatever I want. I exchanged this plan with Xavier because I was trying to not only better my situation, but that of my family’s situation.”
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