by J. M. Page
Alien Frog Prince
Star Crossed Tales
By J. M. Page and Juno Wells
Copyright 2016 J. M. Page and Juno Wells
Copyright J. M. Page and Juno Wells 2016
Cover design by J. M. Page
This book is a work of fiction. All the characters in this book are fictitious and any similarity to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidence.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
Bonus Book: Beauty and the Space Beast
Chapter One
Jen
“Come on, not today,” Jen grumbled, trying to wrench her key free from the front door of her apartment. In one hand, she held a thermos of hot coffee to ward off the chill of winter and in the other she juggled her bag and her gloves, just trying to lock the place up before she left for work.
Which she was already late for.
The key never seemed to work right — she had to push it all the way in the lock, then pull it out two notches and turn it just right or the deadbolt would never let it go. But today, even the most careful jiggling was not working and the key would not come out.
“Just. Let. Go!” she yelled at the door, using her foot against it for leverage. Finally, the key popped free, her foot slipped on the icy stoop, and Jen barely managed to catch herself on the railing.
She laughed at the close call, her heart hammering against her ribcage. Falling down the stairs and breaking her tail bone would be a less-than-desirable start to her day. Spilling her coffee also seemed like a tragedy she’d rather avoid.
As it was, she was already running ten minutes late and hoped her boss wouldn’t notice. She rushed down to her car, hoping it would forgive her for not warming it up, and in her haste slid across the driveway, grabbing blindly at car parts for purchase.
Whoever it was at the weather service who claimed they had another week before winter’s arrival deserved to be fired. There was almost two inches of snow on her car that accumulated since she’d gotten home the night before.
By the time she got it all dusted off enough to drive, she was twenty minutes late.
The one glimmer of hope for her job security was that her boss was absent-minded and probably even later than her.
Or so she hoped.
Luckily, the streets were plowed and the way into work was mostly free of traffic — everyone else seemed to get the memo about leaving early to account for the weather. Everyone except Jen, of course.
Which only served to make her look worse when she walked through the doors of the Interplanetary Embassy. She was a preparation specialist. Being ready for the unforeseen was, quite literally, her job description. Getting held up because of a little snow was only going to make her look incompetent.
She bustled through the hallways, giving polite nods to co-workers she passed, but not giving any of them enough of a window to actually start a conversation.
By the time she made it to Ambassador Tully’s office, Jen was thirty-five minutes late and completely out of breath.
“Rough morning?” Reina asked, hardly looking up from her neatly organized desk. She had tidy stacks of papers, every pen in its holder, with the cap on and the tip down for optimal ink flow. She had her paper clips sorted by size and a designated spot for everything.
“You could say that,” Jen said, slumping into her chair. Her desk was the antithesis to Reina’s. Haphazard piles of papers, all mixed together, pens scattered everywhere, dried out or leaking ink onto important documents, and sticky notes everywhere. Just everywhere. If it wasn’t for Jen’s sticky note addiction, she’d never get anything done.
It was still kind of a wonder that she did.
“You ready for the Prince today?” Reina asked, her pen making faint scratching noises as she jotted down notes in her neat, looped writing.
Jen was in the middle of taking a drink of her lukewarm coffee and nearly choked on it. “Prince? What Prince?”
Reina looked up from her desk, her sleek black hair pulled back into a perfectly twisted bun, and raised a sculpted eyebrow at her. “The Prince from Granota? You did prepare a file on him, didn’t you?”
“Uh…” Jen said, shuffling through the disaster of her desk. “Of course I did?” she lied, having absolutely no clue what Reina was talking about. But despite the chaos and her tardiness, Jen was normally quite good at her job. She enjoyed the research aspect. She liked learning about the aliens that came to visit Earth and figuring out how to best welcome them and make them feel at home.
She liked feeling like she was apart of something bigger, helping forge diplomatic relations between Earth and other planets.
So, even though she didn’t remember getting a file about the Prince of Granota, she felt fairly confident that he was in this mess somewhere.
Reina rolled her eyes and went back to her work. “You should find that before Tully gets here.”
“He’s not here yet?” Jen asked, relief washing through her. Thank goodness for small miracles.
Right on cue, Ambassador Tully walked through his office door, his suit starched and tailored to perfection, his silver hair combed into an effortless coif, and his shoes shiny and reflective. Another person far more put together than Jen.
Then again, if Jen had someone in charge of dressing her every morning, she’d be put-together too. She knew for a fact that Tully was not organized enough to manage all that on his own and he had an army of assistants and advisors to help him.
“Morning Reina, Jennifer,” he said, nodding to them each in turn. “How are my favorite ladies today?”
“Good morning, sir,” Reina said, head buried in her work.
“Hard at work,” Jen said, digging through her desk for the Prince’s files. She couldn’t believe her carelessness. She’d never ever just straight-up forgotten an assignment.
“Are you ready for the Granotan Prince today, Jennifer?” the Ambassador asked, leaning over her shoulder as he slurped his coffee.
Jen eyed her cold coffee with jealousy, but knew she didn’t have time to dwell on it.
“Of course, sir,” she lied again, hoping past-Jen did her a favor.
Tully had no sooner nodded and gone into his private office when Jen found the paper she was looking for and yanked it out from the bottom of her pile.
And then she knew why she’d forgotten about it.
The whole afternoon rushed back in vivid detail — the text from Adam, the assignment, her whole world crashing down all at once.
Okay, so maybe their break-up hadn’t been quite that dramatic, but it was devastating in its own way. Her boyfriend of over a year broke up with her, via text, for someone else. Not just anyone else, but another man.
Jen couldn’t be mad at him for that. She was more upset that for a year, Adam didn’t feel he could be honest with her — or himself. It had been nearly two months since they broke up and Jen kn
ew he was much happier now with his new boyfriend. And he deserved it. She wished him all the happiness in the world.
But that day, when he’d first texted her, she felt like everything was collapsing around her. She’d shoved her new assignment out of sight and proceeded to forget about it entirely.
And now look at where it had gotten her. The Prince was coming today and she didn’t know the first thing about their planet, their customs, or their expectations.
She could easily be the single weak link that destroyed diplomatic relations with this foreign planet. She needed to think of a plan and fast.
The phone on her desk chirped, lighting up somewhere under the mountain of debris, and Ambassador Tully’s voice rang out. “Jennifer, are you ready to brief me for today’s arrival?”
Her stomach sank, her palms growing damp. There was no time to do any research. No time to come up with something for the Ambassador. She just had to tell him. She had to come clean.
Hopefully he could make do with the bare-bones write-up from the Extraterrestrial Anthropology Department that she held in her hands.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t be the unmitigated disaster she pictured in her mind.
Hopefully, the Granotan Prince wouldn’t declare war on the human race for being ignorant and insensitive to his customs.
Nope, it was definitely going to be a disaster. She’d just have to prepare the Ambassador as best she could.
“Yes, sir,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat. Deep breaths. Act confident. How much attention do you think he normally pays anyway?
The last thought comforted her the most. This was the Ambassador’s job after all. He met royalty and diplomats from far-off planets all the time and deftly navigated conversation and treaties without batting an eye.
How much did he really need her anyway?
She grabbed the papers from the EAD — mostly blank without any of her own notes — and scurried to the Ambassador’s office, her whole body jittery and nervous about telling him.
She walked through the door, cold panic washing over her, and Tully greeted her with a warm smile, his hands clasped on top of his desk.
“I think this ought to be an interesting one,” he said. “I’m excited to hear what you’ve got for me.”
Jen winced inwardly, the air in her lungs burning with shame. “Um… About that. There’s something I need to—”
The Ambassador’s phone rang, a catchy tune from the radio, and he pulled a face, holding up a finger to silence her as he answered it.
“Tully. Yes. Mhm… I understand. Doesn’t leave me much choice does it?” he said with a chuckle. “Alright, I’ll see you then.” He hung up the call and leveled a look at Jen that made her squirm. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, appraising her.
“You’ve been working in my office for how long, Jennifer? Two years?”
“Four in April, sir.”
“Four years! I think it’s time we put your skills to the test,” he said.
Oily unease slid down the back of Jen’s throat, mixing with the acidic taste of her own panic. “Sir?”
“I’ve just received word that I need to be somewhere else today and I’ll be unable to meet with the Prince. But I know you can handle it. You’re always so thorough!” The wide grin he offered her did nothing to quell Jen’s nausea. This was worse than her worst-case scenario.
She wasn’t an Ambassador. She didn’t meet the Extraterrestrials. She just studied them, dreamed about visiting their homeworlds, and stayed behind her messy desk.
“Oh, no. I couldn’t. I’m not… I haven’t… I can’t. Shouldn’t it be another Ambassador?” she asked, stammering through her protest.
Tully stood and laughed. “Nonsense! It’s your job to be prepared. If anyone can handle this on such short notice, it’s you.” He circled around the desk and patted her on the shoulder. “I have faith in you, Jennifer. You can do this. Your planet needs you.”
And without waiting for her to be able to utter another word, Ambassador Tully left the office.
Jen just stared at the door after it closed, refusing to believe that just happened.
She didn’t know the first thing about these aliens and now her boss, the whole agency, and the planet was counting on her to not offend him.
She’d be lucky if the worst thing that happened was losing her job.
Chapter Two
Zakrom
“Your Highness, we will be arriving soon,” Doran said gently. “It would be wise of you to return to your seat and harness.”
Zakrom eyed his advisor warily. Yes, of course it would be wise. Just like coming on this trip was wise.
Or so his parents had told him. Not that it mattered much what the reasoning was, Zak was going to be stuck on this trip regardless.
He had nothing against the small planet on the edge of the galaxy, but he’d had enough traveling to last him a lifetime. Nothing ever came of it. His One remained ever-elusive and Zakrom was convinced he’d never have his Kiss.
That kind of melancholy thinking was what concerned his parents so greatly — and likely prompted them to plan this trip. Surely, they thought it a distraction from his resignation, but to Zakrom, it was only another reminder.
They were both beautiful after their Kiss — his father had long ago found his One with Zakrom’s mother and when she granted him her love in return, sealing it with a kiss, his father took her form, as their kind always did.
It was both the blessing and the curse of being Granotan. Born hideous and repulsive, but with the promise of a beautiful mate, chosen by the cosmos, only for him.
He laughed derisively. What a load of nonsense.
Zakrom had been to the far reaches of the galaxy, searching for his One, longing for her Kiss to make him whole and beautiful, but he remained as hideous as ever. A blight upon any eyes brave enough to gaze upon him.
Sending Zakrom on these diplomatic missions had to be hurting their reputation. He saw the way Ambassadors looked at him. The way dignitaries shrunk away and kept a wide berth.
He didn’t blame them. He could hardly stand to look at himself in the mirror. And the older he got, the bitterer about his lack of love, the uglier and wartier he grew. At this point, he knew he was destined to live a life of solitude and self-loathing.
If only he could find his One, Kiss her, and Change. But that was too much even for a Prince to hope for.
As much as Zak wanted to believe that this planet would be different, he didn’t have his hopes set high. He expected the same treatment he received elsewhere — the lingering glances, riddled with disgust, the whispers, hardly concealed as he passed. There would be no respite for the Granotan Prince. Only more of the same.
More disappointment.
With a great exhale, he pulled himself out of his meditation and wandered back to his seat in another part of the shuttle.
Once seated, Zakrom got his first glimpse of the planet known as Earth, through the long stretch of windows that graced the side of the cabin.
He was immediately struck with the beauty of the planet. The soft swirling clouds, caressing the vast expanses of blue. Those shimmering waters meeting the sultry curves of land masses made of the most captivating green.
It was a planet not unlike his homeworld, but vastly different all the same. Granota was also a water world, but their water wasn’t as rich and deeply blue. Their land was comprised of millions of islands, dotting the entire surface of the planet. Nothing quite as serene and welcoming as Earth appeared to be.
For a moment, Zakrom was mesmerized enough to forget his sadness, to forget the hopelessness that had crowded in on him more and more with every trip he took. He wondered what manner of creature inhabited such a planet. If they too were afflicted with ugliness like he was.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad.
But surely a planet of such splendor and majesty must also have beings of equal beauty. Surely, they would look upon him with disdain, discom
fort in their gaze. It would be more of the same, he was sure of it.
He latched the harness, feeling the first pull of the planet’s gravity as they grew closer.
“It’s an historic day, Your Majesty. You will be the first Granotan to step onto this planet,” Doran said, trying his best to cheer the Prince.
Zakrom was used to his ceaseless efforts. He appreciated the concern, but didn’t see much use for it. He wasn’t depressed, only realistic. That’s what his parents failed to understand.
Most Granotans met their One before their twenty-first hatchday. Zakrom had seen twenty-seven of his hatchdays pass through the years and yet… He was still alone.
He knew now, that was how things were meant to be. He’d be the first King to rule without a Queen. The first to fail to produce a successor. The last in his line to hold the throne.