by Maia Starr
“How dare you speak to me like that!”
“I did dare, and I will say it again and again if you’d like. You are lousy in bed, you are boring—”
“Okay, okay I get it. Now just calm down let’s talk through this,” he said, suddenly becoming nicer. He held my hand and said, “I’m sorry. I apologize. I just miss you so much, Melody, that is all. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“No. Wrong. You don’t know what to do now that you don’t have the interest of the public eye on you anymore. It is annoying, and I don’t care. I’m done with you, James, and I can’t believe that I stayed with you for so long. Now get out.”
“But that’s not what you really mean. I know that it is not. Melody, honey,” he said.
“Michael! James is ready to leave now!” I shouted. My Secret Service guy appeared and grabbed James’ arm and escorted him out all the while James was saying, “Melody, honey, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I will pay for dinner now. I will pay for all the dinners if you want!”
I just laughed and did not listen. “Good riddance,” I said to myself. I was glad to have Secret Service for the first time in a long time. If it meant getting rid of men that I did not like, then it was worth it. I kicked back and felt good about putting James in his place. My strange, boring, normal Earth life was full of these types of little visits, and the next visit was from the President of the United States.
“Melody, have you thought any more about living in the White House? I still want you to move in. It will be good for you,” he said.
“Ugh, Dad, no. I already told you that I want to live here. Though I’m not even sure that is what I want,” I said.
“Well, what is it that you do want? You are the daughter of the President of the United States. I know I don’t have a lot of time lately, but we can figure something out.”
“Do you want to know what I really want?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“The one thing that being the daughter of the President of the United States can’t give me: privacy.”
“Oh, I see.”
“I just want to go off and write somewhere, like I told you. That is a dream of mine. It was pretty bad before, and now after the incident, it is worse.”
“I’m sorry, Melody. I have to admit that I have been selfish. When I started running for office, I only thought of the opportunity it would give you to go to whatever school you wanted and to do whatever you wanted. You have an advantage, but I did not think that you would be such a private person and this is the worst thing for you.”
“I know, dad, I know. You did not know. But I just want you to know how serious I am about that privacy and I might run off to woods now and then for a couple of months. If I do, don’t freak out,” I said.
“I understand,” he said. “So, want to order pizza and watch bad t.v.?
“Definitely,” I said.
That was the last of the weekly visits for a while, and I was glad to find some alone time to just chill. Then one Sunday morning I was lounging in my robe and reading a book about space. I had picked up astronomy lately because it was the only thing that made me feel close to Cylo again. I was feeling a little strange that morning as I laid on the chaise and pushed a blanket over me. I was just feeling off, and I did not know exactly what it could be, so I just took it easy.
Ping! It was a text message from Sally that read, “Brunch and mimosas?”
They were eager to get me back into my routine and get me out in public again. But for some reason sitting in a restaurant in Beverly Hills did not excite me. Nothing could hold a candle to the adventure that I had experienced with Cylo on Kelon and on Tiok.
But something was different. As soon as I read the word mimosa, I felt my lunch come up. “Oh god!” I said as I ran to the bathroom. I made it just in time. I was throwing up the rest of the day.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” I thought aloud. “Maybe it is some sort of parasite I caught from eating the fish on the alien planet of Kelon,” I said. I flushed the toilet and went back to reading. Then later I ordered pizza and was excited to eat it. This was my favorite food. I always wanted to eat it. But as soon as I opened the cardboard box and the steam and smell of cheese hit me, I gagged. I ran to the kitchen sink and hurled again. Jesus, I must be really sick. Pizza was my favorite food, and it never made me sick. The only time a woman’s cravings flipped was when…
Then I realized, “No! No! It can’t be,” I said. I ran to the bathroom in a panic. I opened my bathroom cabinet and began searching through old boxes of q-tips, cotton balls, condoms, and things until I saw it. “There you are. Thank god. I couldn’t exactly go out and get one of you without everyone seeing,” I said as I clutched the at-home pregnancy test in my hand. I trembled. If I was, then this was going to be complex. I tried not to think about what to do until I took the test. But it was hard not to think about trying to hide an alien hybrid child while it flew around the house and you were the daughter of the President of the United States and all eyes were on you all the time. “Shit. This is not going to be good,” I said. So I took the test.
“Come on! Hurry up,” I said to it, waiting for the three minutes to go by. Then my alarm on my Draqua went off. I turned it off and ran to the test.
“Holy shit,” I said. “I’m pregnant. Oh my god, oh my god,” I said pacing back and forth with the test in my hand. “What the hell are you going to do now, Melody, since you are pregnant with Cylo’s child?” I smiled happily for a few seconds, then I was upset. This was not a good thing. I could not exactly have an alien baby on Earth. There would be no hiding that and then everyone would know the Draqua existed. Shit, shit. This was bad. This was really bad. I realized just how ironic it was that King Hydros wanted me gone from Kelon so that humans would not know about the Draqua, but in doing so, he sent me back pregnant with a Draqua offspring.
Shit, what can I do now? I thought. Then it happened. I set into a deep depression. I could not move. I did not want to leave my bed in the morning, and I thought about nothing other than the fact that I wanted Cylo at my side and he was not around at all. I was going to have his offspring where the offspring would be considered alien, and I had to do it alone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CYLO HYDROS
“I am worried about you, Cylo,” my father said as he moved into my hut.
“There is nothing to worry about,” I said.
“You have not been yourself since you took your human to Earth. You are depressed. I have never met a depressed prince. The world is yours. Go enjoy it. We will find you another human,” he said.
“I do not want to speak of this,” I said.
“You have been cooped up in this hut for weeks now. You must get out. Go for a swim! Go catch some fish! Do anything. I can’t stand to know that you are in here wasting away. Where is my debaucherous son? Where is he? Bring him out,” my father said.
“I am fine, father. I have said it before and I will say it again: I just don’t feel like doing the same stuff all the time,” I said lying. It was because I missed Melody and it was destroying me.
“If you say so,” he said. Then he stepped to Baca and Jix and said,” Do something to lift his spirits, will you? Take him anywhere. You have my permission.”
“Yes, sir,” Baca said.
Then my father left us.
“Don’t even think about it. I am fine,” I said.
“No, you are not. You have been moping around here, and it is very boring. You don’t even see Sarah and Michelle anymore,” Jix said.
“Ugh, I am done with them. I just want to sit here. What is so wrong with that?” I said.
“It is wrong because it is not you. You are heart broken. A prince with a broken heart. I have never seen you like this in all our lives,” Baca said.
“How about we go to Kila? We can get away from all this. We will fish and hunt and light a fire,” Jix said.
“Now that’s an idea,” I said as I go
t to my feet. I shifted and flew out the window. My friends shouted behind me and flew behind me. We swooped and flew hard and fast all the while making a path toward Kila. It had been a long time since I had been and it was just what I needed. As the island came into view, I dove straight down into the ocean. Whoosh! I hit the surface of the water and swam hard and deep. I eyed a fish and grabbed it with my bare hands. I swam for the surface. I broke through and spread my wings out, flying into the air and onto the beach of Kila. I threw the fish in the sand.
“Woooo! Cylo!” Baca and Jix shouted. We flew around the island, skimming trees and playing like we were younglings again. It was just the energy release that I needed. An hour later, we were on the beach.
“Light a fire! Let’s cook this dinner the prince has caught!” Jix said teasing me. I sucked in a sharp breath of air and then lit the firewood on fire. They whooped and hollered, and we cooked the fish.
“This is what I’m talking about!” Jix said as he bit into the flesh of the cooked fish. We all kicked back drinking our secret stash of lana juice, being silly and fucking around.
Then Baca suddenly stopped laughing. He grew quiet. “Baca, what is it?” I asked.
“I think it’s happening,” Jix said.
“What?” I asked.
“The premonitions. I’ve seen it before. He gets quiet like this. He’s paying attention to what he’s seeing,” Jix said.
“It’s over. It’s gone,” Baca said coming out of his daze.
“What was it? What did you see, Baca?” I asked.
He looked at me. He did not look happy.
“Just know that these visions change all the time,” he said.
“Just tell me what you saw,” I said.
“I saw us, me, you, and Jix. We were fighting,” he said.
“Fighting each other?” I asked.
“No, fighting against your brother,” he told me.
We all grew quiet. I sighed as I took in what he was saying. If he had only seen me and my brother fighting, I would take it for any other wrestling fight we had. They could be very serious and we got hurt, but they were brotherly fights. This time Baca saw him and Jix fighting too and I knew that meant is was not just a brotherly spat.
“Who else did you see?” I asked.
“I saw Veiras,” Baca said.
“Shit. I knew it,” I said.
“Knew what?” Jix said.
“I have had some suspicion that Veiras is leading the opposition and he means to be violent about it.”
“Why did you not share this with us? We are hybrids too,” Jix said.
“Because it was only a suspicion. But now with the vision, maybe it is right,” I said.
“Shit,” Baca said.
“I will speak to my father first thing. We are too drunk to leave this night. If there is opposition out there that is strong and wanting to fight, then we cannot be caught drunk and off guard,” I said.
“Yes, that is a good idea,” Jix said.
We were all quiet as we contemplated what could happen if the vision that Baca saw was real. This was not going to be good. My brother and I fought, but not for real. I knew that something was brewing, I could feel it in the air, but I did not know exactly what that was.
The next day I went to my father first thing in the morning.
“But father, what if the vision that Baca saw was real?” I said to him.
“Son, you said yourself those visions of his change all the time. I am sure this one will too, and it was probably not what Baca saw. If you were there with your brother, Baca, and Jix, then you all must have been against Veiras together.”
“No, I don’t think it was like that, father. Baca said I was fighting against Greia.”
“Son, I hate seeing you like this. First, you were filled with depression for your human, and then you turn that depression into paranoia. I can not see you allow yourself to go from sadness to madness and then sadness again. It is not worth losing my son’s mind. Go,” he said.
“Go where?” I asked.
“Go to Earth. Go get your human,” he said.
“What?” I said.
“I mean it. Bring her back here. You are not going to be happy until you have her with you. I have seen those signs before, the same ones that you are showing.”
“You have?” I asked.
“Yes, on myself with your mother. I could not see straight unless I knew that she was mine,” he said. “Now go, but you must leave this instant. Tell no one where you are going or that you are leaving at all. Do it as quietly and as secretly as possible. We can’t have a repeat of what happened to you last time. No one must know you are gone. I will tell everyone you are depressed in your hut not to be bothered,” he said.
I ran up to him. I gave him a big hug. Then I shifted and ran out onto the veranda and took flight. I took a short flight all the way down to the sandy ground. I would be walking to a ship and not flying to it. I did not want to draw attention to myself. I quietly opened the door of a ship that was not mine. It belonged to my father’s fleet, but it was a general ship used by general warriors. It would not be suspected of being my ship. I climbed in, and in seconds I was roaring through the clouds of Kelon and out into space. I could not believe what I was doing. I was just recklessly going after Melody. I loved her. I needed her, and now I was going to have her back in my arms. I did not care about anything other than finding her again. I did not know how I would do it, but I was going to try to do it without being noticed by the humans.
“Computer set course for Earth,” I said.
“Setting course for Earth. What is your landing destination?” it asked.
“Los Angeles,” I said.
“Setting course for Los Angeles,” it said. Then all I had to do was sit back and wait. Soon I would see her again: my human female.
Hours later, I had arrived. Finding out where she lived was not very hard. She was the daughter of the president, and there was ample information in the Earth archive information that we had stored over the years. She lived not far from the beach where I had taken her from the first time. It was a quiet, sleepy beach village in the night.
It was very dark, with no moon that night. It must be very late, I thought as I realized that no one was stirring. I sat on the roof of a home. I looked across at the open window of the home of Melody. I quickly and silently flew into the window. I thought I would have to walk around a while to find her, but I was wrong. Instead, she was sleeping in the very room that I flew into as if she were leaving the window open for me. I walked over to her. She was delicate and petite under the sheets. I stared at her for a long time. I wanted to just look at her. Her long hair was splayed out across the pillow around her. The white sheets hugged her hips as she lay on her side and her sleeping face was beautiful. I put my hand on her leg and ran it up toward her thigh. She moaned. Her moan was seductive, and it was the best sound I had heard in a long time.
“Melody,” I whispered in her ear. She stirred.
“Oh, Cylo,” she said, but she did not wake. She was dreaming. I smiled at her. This was too much fun to pass up.
“Do you want me to take you? Say you want me to take you,” I said, taking control of her sleeping mind.
“I want you to take me. I want you to take me,” she repeated.
“What do you want me to do to you? Tell me what you want me to do to you,” I whispered.
“I want you to kiss me,” she said. I planted a kiss on her lips. She moaned.
“What else do you want me to do? Tell me,” I said.
“I want you to touch me,” she said. I put my hand on her waist and then moved up to her breasts. She sucked in a sharp breath of air.
“Yes, Cylo, that feels good,” she whispered.
I couldn’t handle any more of this. I needed to hold her. I scooped her up into my arm and held her body close to mine. I covered her mouth with mine. She stirred in my arms. Then she woke and struggled for a second, and then she melted and sig
hed.
“It’s you, it’s really you,” she said.
“Yes, I’m really here,” I said. She wrapped her arms around me. She held me tightly.
“I can’t believe you are here; are you real? Am I dreaming?” she whispered.
“If this is a dream, then I am dreaming too,” I said. Then I laid her down on the bed, and she looked up at me as she rubbed her eyes, waking up.
“Melody. I missed you so much. I could not be without you,” I said. Then I kissed her.