Beauty and the Space Beast: A Space Age Fairy Tale (Star-Crossed Tales)

by J. M. Page

  She’d done this to them, her and her stupid arm. She sent the ship careening off-course and now they plummeted to their doom. She wanted to cry, to apologize, to go back in time and undo everything she’d done.

  How could she have been so stupid? So careless and reckless? Of course he recognized her. Recognition shone in his eyes from the moment they met behind the wall and Celine had been cocky enough, or naive enough, to think that she could fool him.

  Well, there was only one fool here, and it was the one with the disobedient arm.

  Ben seemed intent on outing her as a modder and Celine couldn’t help but wonder why. He’d been so convinced and so sure — but to what end? To have her jailed? Executed?

  Maybe her father was right.

  She finally chanced a glance over at Ben, his face set into a hard mask of concentration. He’d said he owed that girl a lot. She recalled his reverent tone with those words and remembered the way her stomach flip-flopped, knowing he was talking about her. That she was the one he owed.

  Still, she couldn’t tell him the truth. Not that she’d ever have the chance now. Her secret was going to the grave with her and much sooner than she expected. It had to. It wasn’t just her life at risk, it was her father’s and everyone else’s in the Wastelands. Even though she was still angry with her father, she’d never condemn him to death at the hands of the humans he so feared.

  She just couldn’t. Even if it would make Ben happy to know the truth. Some truths did more harm than good, she decided.

  And that was the heart of the matter really. Her arm was a secret that no one would understand and it seemed to be getting worse. Where it had only been a nuisance at first, and she expected her control over it to improve, the arm from Scorpia seemed to be getting worse, somehow more autonomous.

  Celine flexed her new hand, her stomach turning upside down, her insides quivering and acidic. The hand felt wrong somehow and it made her queasy to think about the trouble it had brought her.

  Or maybe it was the screaming nosedive that made her queasy. Warnings and alarms pressed in on all sides, making her very skull vibrate with the unbearable racket.

  Oh, Celine, what have you done?

  Ben wrestled with the controls, fighting to pull the ship back before they crossed the point of no return. His hands were shocking white with his forceful grip, his jaw clenched tight. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his brow pushed down in a stern look of complete furious concentration.

  Even with all the noise and the certain death rushing ever closer, Celine couldn’t stop herself from thinking about how close he’d come to kissing her. And how she’d never get the chance to do it now.

  In the moment, she didn’t realize how badly she wanted his lips pressed to hers. She tried to ignore the thrum inside of her that insisted she get closer to him. Always closer.

  Now she regretted that she ignored it. Regretted not giving herself up to him, even if she couldn’t be honest with him.

  Locked in concentration as he was now, he was infinitely more attractive to her. There was a command about Ben behind the controls. A confidence and swagger, even in the face of disaster, that she found drool-worthy.

  But there was no place for thoughts like that at a time like this! They were surely going to crash any moment, nothing left of them but pulverized dust, carried off into the sands to be forgotten.

  If that was the case, though, was there any harm in relishing in her little fantasy in her last moments? His fingertips tracing up her arm, sending tremors up her spine, making her mouth dry and her head fuzzy.

  The man had ensnared her and it was dangerous. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about it much longer.

  And then, as if he’d read her thoughts and wanted to make her eat them, Ben stabilized the ship and the warnings ceased. He climbed back up, through the clouds, and smoothed their trajectory, coasting level and even.

  It took Celine a while to accept that they really weren’t crashing, that they weren’t going to die, and that Ben had complete control over his ship. She looked out beyond the windscreen and spotted stars twinkling through the upper atmosphere, swirling clouds gobbling up everything below, and her heart began to slow.

  Ben swiveled in his chair to face her, a stern, yet concerned expression written into his features. “Are you okay?”

  Celine still gripped the armrests with white knuckles, and was sure that her hands were going to be permanently frozen into that claw-like grip. Were they really okay? Was it possible she hadn’t doomed them?

  The was a soft click as Ben unbuckled his restraints and took the couple of steps to her side, his eyes still shimmering with the unanswered question.

  Celine opened her mouth, once, then twice, trying to find her voice. She licked her parched lips and cleared her raspy throat where a scream of terror had been lodged ever since she threw them off-course. Now, she finally discarded it and nodded at him slowly.

  “Yes, I’m just…”

  Ben stooped, his warm palm cupping the side of her face, the rough pad of his thumb stroking the ridge of her cheekbone as he dropped to one knee, meeting her gaze head on.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Celine nodded again, mute this time, transfixed by the inexplicable hold he had on her.

  “I promised I’d keep you safe, didn’t I?”

  Celine swallowed thickly, a heavy drum beating in her chest, her lungs tight and full of hot prickly air. She could get lost in that searching gaze of his. In the raw power of this man, of the danger they’d so narrowly escaped.

  Before she could talk herself out of it, Celine lunged forward, closing the distance between them with an abrupt kiss.

  Ben stiffened, his lips unresponsive and cold. She thought she’d read the whole thing wrong, that he didn’t want her after all, that she was just some silly girl projecting her fantasies on an unwilling partner.

  Then his hand swept into her hair, cupping the back of her neck as he pulled her in, deepening the kiss. His lips became warm and pliant, coaxing her to open for him, to let him in. It wasn’t just the kiss he wanted from her, but that was all she could give him.

  She answered his enthusiasm with her own, a surprising buoyancy lifting her up with his touch. It was unlike anything she’d ever felt. Unlike anything she’d imagined.

  If you’d asked her a day earlier, Celine would have described the sensation like flying, floating and weightless, above and out of her body. But now that she’d actually flown, she knew it wasn’t a good comparison. The thrill and rush of flying paled next to that of kissing Ben.

  His lips moved against hers and Celine felt light and airy, full of bubbles and electricity. She never wanted the kiss to end. Never wanted that moment to end.

  But of course, it did.

  Ben broke away from the kiss leaving them both panting for breath, eyes still locked together, hungry and intense. She wanted more and Celine was pretty sure he did, too.

  The Prince gave her one of his signature half-cocked grins, resting his forehead against hers while her chest heaved, desperate to suck air into her lungs. Every gasping breath filled her with his scent and the raw masculinity that rolled off of him in forceful waves.

  “That was my line, you know,” he said, his face still only inches from hers.

  Celine frowned, her brain still fuzzy from endorphins. “What’s your line?”

  Ben flashed a smile that nearly took her breath away and she knew she’d walked right into whatever he set up. “This,” he said, scooping her into another hungry kiss.

  She could just melt away into a puddle at his touch. At the expert way his lips meshed with hers. She felt like he could make her shatter into a million pieces and she’d never be upset about it. His kiss spoke volumes that he couldn’t seem to, and she wanted to do the same. She wanted to give it everything. She wanted to give him everything. But still, she held back as guilt clawed at her insides.

  Tell him the truth. Do it now before this goes further.<
br />
  But Celine knew she couldn’t do that. There was far too much at stake. Countless lives, including her own.

  Realizing the truth of the situation, she pulled back, her eyes cast down. “Ben, I—”

  “Shh,” he said, pressing a fingertip to her lips ever-so-gently. “It’s okay. I don’t know what’s going on, and I know you’re not ready to tell me. I hope you’ll trust me with it someday soon, but it doesn’t have to be today. All I know is I feel… something with you. Something I’ve never felt before and I want to keep feeling it. If that means you come to me with some secrets, then that’s something I’m going to have to live with for now.”

  Celine looked up at him, wide-eyed before she couldn’t stand to stare into the heat burning in his eyes any longer. Looking into Ben’s gaze was like staring into the depths of a flame and she could only manage it so long before she had to turn away, blinking. Her pulse quicked, a rush a warmth flowing through her whole body as she nodded.

  “I feel the same way,” she said, earning another broad smile from Ben. His hand still around the back of her neck pulled her closer and Celine closed her eyes in anticipation of another sweet heart-melting kiss.

  She held her breath, that moment frozen in time, knowing the kiss was coming. But nothing came. Ben’s hand dropped from her neck and Celine frowned, opening her eyes in confusion.

  He was still on one knee directly in front of her, but now the Prince looked off through the windscreen, his eyes unfocused and distant.

  “What is it?” she asked, hoping to earn his attention again.

  He just stared off with that vacant expression, like something inside of him had snapped and short-circuited.

  “Ben?” Celine waved a hand in front of his eyes. “What’s wrong? What do you see?”

  Her question seemed to snap him out of his stupor, at least a little. He sprang to his feet without a word, leaping back into the pilot’s seat, his hands flying over the controls.

  Celine’s stomach twisted itself into knots. What now? Were they going to crash after all? Was something wrong with the ship? With her?

  What could possibly make his mood do such a complete one-eighty? His expression had been soft with her, tender even as they kissed. Now it was hard, his forehead furrowed and creased, his mouth set into a thin grim line.

  “Ben?” she tried again, her voice soft and worried even to her own ears.

  With blinding speed, he whirled on her, his eyes dark and accusatory. “You should start talking now,” he said, his voice empty and hollow.

  “What? Talking about what?” Celine’s pulse raced. What had changed in such a short period of time? She still didn’t have a clue.

  Ben growled; actually growled at her, a guttural animalistic threat. “Was this your plan all along? Get me out of the city so I can’t protect or warn any of them? Who are you working for? Who put you up to it?”

  It seemed her entire body vibrated with nerves, anxiety, and pure shock-laced affront. “What are you talking about? I have no idea what’s going on. Besides, you’re the one that took me out of the city! How could it have been my plan?”

  He studied her for a long moment and Celine wondered again what was happening. Finally, Ben sighed, his face falling into defeat, though somewhere the dark anger still lurked.

  “Please tell me what’s going on, Ben.”

  With eyes still narrowed, he turned to the panel in front of him, pointing at the navigation.

  “The city, it’s right over there,” he said with a gesture towards the windscreen.

  Celine followed his gesture and saw only clouds. She thought back to when they left the city, how the force field left a hole in the clouds large enough to see from some distance, let alone as close as they were now. But when she looked down, there was no hole. No city. Just endless swirling orange clouds.

  “What do you mean? Your navigation must be off, there’s nothing there.”

  Ben’s face drained of all color, his expression solemn. “The force field’s been disarmed.”

  His words rang through her mind like echoing chimes. Disarmed. The force field’s been disarmed.

  How? Why? By whom? A million questions whizzed through her mind and Celine realized why Ben had been so suspicious of her just a moment before. The coincidence was uncanny. The force field operated without interference for thousands of years and within a day of her arrival from the Wastelands, it was disarmed.

  She’d be suspicious too.

  “Who would want to do that? And why? And how?” she asked the questions out loud, hoping for some insight from the Prince, but Ben just shook his head.

  “I don’t know.”

  The coincidence was too much, even for Celine. Somehow, she knew this had to do with her, though she didn’t know how.

  “Jubilation to Terra-3, come in,” Ben said into his comms. “Terra-3, do you read?”

  Only static answered them.

  “The dust must have taken down communications,” he said, all business now.

  “What do we do?” Bile rose in Celine’s throat, burning and caustic. She bit back the bitterness on her tongue and tried her best to keep calm. Ben could handle this. He could handle anything.

  “You don’t do anything, just sit there and stay strapped in. I’m going to land us blind.”

  Chapter Ten

  Ben

  He didn’t have any choice. With comms down and the city under siege from dust, he needed to land, he needed to land fast, and he’d have to do it on his own. Undoubtedly, his father was looking for him. As were countless dignitaries and advisors. All wasting resources looking for him instead of solving the problem, he was sure.

  Of all the disastrous things he’d imagined when he snuck Celine out of the palace, this wasn’t one of them. The force field going down was ominous and unnerving. Terranys couldn’t survive the never ending dust storms. Not even for a day.

  Something had to be done.

  “Blind? What do you mean blind? Can you do that? Have you ever done that?” Celine was understandably worried.

  Ben felt a pang of guilt for being so quick to accuse her. He knew better than to think Celine capable of something so heinous, though the evidence was damning. What were the odds of the first arrival from the Wastelands and the first failure of the force field coinciding?

  Not very good. That was for sure.

  Still, if Celine did have something to do with it, they’d have to address that later. Until then, he couldn’t let her out of his sight, just in case.

  “I haven’t, and we’re going to find out if I can,” he said, trying to inject a little humor into the situation. Neither of them cracked a smile.

  He guided the craft lower, through the clouds, pushing harder than he normally would, urgency making his hand heavy.

  They broke through the bottom of the clouds, and still, the walled city wasn’t there. Or, it was, but they could see nothing of it.

  He eased down further, dust wiping out visibility in all directions. Suddenly, giant shadowy buildings rushed up around them, crowding in on them from nowhere. If he wasn’t careful, he could collide with one of the monolithic towers before he ever even saw it coming.

  Ben strained to see through the blanket of dust, his gut twisting with every movement on the controls. One wrong move and…

  He couldn’t think about that. He had to land them safely, both for the sake of keeping them alive, and because he was needed to fix whatever had happened. Were they being invaded? Had the whispers of a coup finally come to fruition? What is just a malfunction? He’d never know until he got into the palace.

  The craft drifted lower and lower, dust-covered roofs rushing past as he narrowly avoided them. And finally, the ground came into view, people running and scattering through the deadly dust like scurrying insects. His heart clenched. It was chaos.

  They both let out a huge sigh as the ship touched down and stilled in the middle of a wide street. Ben knew he’d never find his way to the hangar in
all of this commotion. He just needed to be on the ground.

  Celine had barely finished unbuckling her restraints when Ben grabbed her by the hand and yanked her out of the ship, out into the streets filled with panicked Terrans.

  The wall blocked out some of the dust, enough to see on ground level, but the wind still howled and pushed dust over their heads until it rained down on them.

  All around there was screaming, crying, and sounds of panic. Sirens Ben had never heard wailed and pierced through the cacophony. After the long siren, a calm voice sounded throughout the city.

  “Seek shelter and remain indoors until you’ve been instructed to evacuate,” the calm voice said in clipped enunciated syllables.

  They were evacuating? It was worse than he thought.

  “What is going on?” Ben murmured to no one in particular as he dragged Celine along behind him.

  All the while, he kept wondering if she had some connection to all of this. If this beguiling girl from the Wastelands was the harbinger of destruction for his entire kingdom.

  Was it possible?

  He didn’t want to think it was. He didn’t want to think ill of Celine at all. But he couldn’t be naive, either. She hadn’t been forthcoming or honest with him and now this. Were the two things related?

  They made it to the palace through the panicking mobs outside and Ben paused only a moment to take a deep breath, coughing up fine particles of dust.

  He looked over to Celine, who’d managed to cover her face with fabric she ripped off her pretty pink dress. She looked down at the dust-coated garment with remorse in her eyes.

  “Sorry about the dress,” she said, her emerald eyes sparkling. Ben squeezed her hand.

  “There are a million more where that one came from, though it was quite flattering.” It still was, ripped at the midpoint of her thigh, revealing more of her golden skin to his hungry gaze.

  He couldn’t let his eyes linger for longer than a heartbeat, though. There was no time.

  He dragged her along with him through vast hallways and empty rooms, searching for… well anyone at this point.