“Don’t be alarmed,” Natira told the girls. “They will simply be marking for proper identification. This won’t hurt, nor is it permanent.”
The soldier approached Nellie first, taking her hand and stamping the back of it. He then did the same with Kelly, Brenda, and Rachelle. He turned to me.
“Your hand?” he said. I looked at Natira.
“No,” Natira said to him. “She’s Princess Freya of Athim. She’s not for trade. She’s Prince Modric’s wife.”
He shrugged and walked away from me. As soon as he was done, the other soldiers came to the front of their ship. Their search had ended successfully. No illegal products were found on the ship. Once we received the all clear, they left the ship.
Brenda looked at the stamp on her hand and began to sob.
“It’s all becoming too real,” she cried. “I’m scared.”
Nellie hugged her, but I knew that no amount of hugs would help this situation. It was petrifying and reminded me of the American slavery I had read about in history class. They were basically being prepared for trade. The mark on their hands just made it even more real.
“It’ll be okay,” Natira said, desperate to calm her down. “Please don’t cry! You will ruin all that hard work I put in with those false lashes!”
Brenda laughed in between sobs, but the soldiers marking them had put a dark cloud over our ship. Things were about to drastically change. I had wanted to save them, but I was helpless. There was nothing that I could do, nor was it my battle to fight. They would be traded tonight, whether we liked it or not.
I silently sat by a window for the remainder of the journey to Hallon. I would not have known we landed if I wasn’t watching. Ship landings were so much different than airplane landings. No bumps, no turbulence, just an easy swoop onto the ground below.
I was surprised what Hallon looked like compared to Arilia. Hallon looked very similar to Earth. The terrain reminded me of Arizona. There were many mountains with different shades of orange, raising high above the ground and into the clouds.
There was no vegetation, aside from a few cactus-like plants. They were taller and fatter than the cacti in Arizona. The skies were blue with fluffy white clouds. The sky was the same as Earth. Natira walked over to the window and picked up on my observations.
“They call this Earth 2.0,” she commented. “Do you want to know a secret?”
I nodded, eager to hear what she had to say. She leaned down and whispered in my ear, making sure none of the other girls could hear.
“Modric wants to overtake this planet for you since it’s so similar to your home,” she said.
I was flattered. Someone wanted to overtake an entire planet for me? While I knew Hallon would be the most difficult, and possibly deadly, to overtake, the fact that Modric wanted to win it for me turned me on. Despite his often hard demeanor, he really did have a heart.
“I guess it’s time to get this show on the road,” Natira said, standing straight and running her hands over her dress. Like me, she wasn’t dressed as sexy as the other women. It was actually pretty funny to see her dressed so conservatively.
The four girls sat up nervously, catching their first glances of Hallon out the window.
“It doesn’t look that awful,” Kelly said meekly.
“You girls will be fine,” Natira said, motioning them to get near the door. Natira instructed us on how to leave the ship. She and the girls would go first, accompanied by Athim soldiers both in front and behind them. Next would be our crew, including the pilot. Finally, I would emerge, hand-in-hand with Modric. My first public appearance as alien royalty.
I hugged the girls goodbye, unaware of when I would see them next. Unlike goodbyes on Earth, this was hard, because there was no guarantee that I would see them the next morning.
After we left Hallon, we would be planets apart. Although I had only been traveling with them for a few weeks, we had shared experiences unlike any I have ever had. When Modric entered the room, I put on a brave face. Although I would miss the girls, my purpose here wasn’t to make friends. I was here to be Modric’s wife.
He looked amazing. He was in traditional Athim royal clothing. He wore a long, hooded maroon robe with a large, gold Athim crest on the chest. With his flat sandals he looked comfortable, but also in control. As the girls left the room, he turned to me.
“I’m so excited to show you off,” he said. I would have normally been offended, but since our dining room incident, I felt closer to him than ever before. My sexual needs trumped every other emotion. I wanted him to show me off. I wanted people to feel the sexual chemistry we exuded.
We stood by the door, the ship quickly emptying of Athim soldiers and the crew. Finally, it was just us. While we waited for everyone to go down the stairs, I turned to Modric.
“The ship is empty,” I said quietly. “Are you sure we can’t just stay back here?”
He surprised me by slapping my ass. I jumped as he laughed.
“We’ll have much more time for that later, my princess,” he said. He reached for my hand. My ass still stung, but I was incredibly turned on. I had never been spanked before. I had a feeling that Modric would be surprising me in a lot of ways once we finally made it to the bedroom.
As we reached the top of the stairs, I was shocked by all the people below. It was similar to when my father had been sworn-in as President. There was a sea of aliens below, some cheering, some booing. I was surprised with how different they looked. Some were tall, some were short. Some were thin, some were fat.
I became uneasy as I began to think about things that previously had not crossed my mind. The big one: The Americans had chased the Hallons off Earth. I could be looked upon as an enemy, even more so than Modric. I suddenly wanted to step back into the ship, but Modric carefully led me down the long staircase. We walked down the staircase, step by step.
“Some of these aliens might recognize me as the President’s daughter!” I hissed at him.
“Don’t worry about such a thing,” Modric said softly. “You’re not the President’s daughter. You’re my wife.”
He was right. I was no longer connected to my father or the United States. I was now an Athim Princess.
“Wave,” Modric commanded. “Wave and smile.”
I did as I was told, channeling my inner Meghan Markle. She was an American thrust into the royal spotlight. If she could do it flawlessly, so could I. As we got closer to the ground, both the cheering and booing became louder. It was so loud that I could no longer hear Modric as he attempted to talk to me.
Once we finally reached the ground, a tall Hallon came forward. He was larger than Modric and more alien-like. While he had human features, his skin was a turquoise green, and his hands were scaly. I noticed a tail sticking out of his robe. He was grossly overweight and waddled over to us. Instantly, I felt worse for my friends. While Modric was an alien and a dragon, he still was rather human. Human-like and attractive. Hallons were a completely different animal.
Modric and the alien bowed to each other. I had seen this happen before with my father and other country rulers. This must have been the Hallon King that Natira had told us about. King Ryu.
“My wife, Freya,” he introduced me.
“King Ryu,” the king said, introducing himself. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
He bowed to me as well and kissed my hand. His lips were cold and slimy. I was not impressed, but knew that I had to save face. I smiled sweetly and bowed in return.
King Ryu stepped aside to make way for another alien. I was surprised. She was stunning. While she had the same skin tone and alien features like Ryu, she was nearly a third of his size weight-wise. They were both about the same height. She had beautiful silver hair and everything about her screamed “regal”.
“This is my wife, Queen Amira,” he introduced her. We exchanged bows.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Princess Freya,” she said. “You’re simply gorgeous.”
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p; “Thank you,” I replied. “It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.”
“I will be accompanying you when the men take care of business,” she said. “I have a fantastic day planned for us tomorrow. I will tell you all about it at dinner.”
My fears slowly began to fade away. Neither Queen Amira or King Ryu seemed to hold a grudge against me. I wondered if they knew who I was. I wondered if they knew that my people had chased them off Earth. If they did, they didn’t act like it.
King Ryu and Modric began to converse in a different language, one that I assumed was Hallon. As they spoke, I looked around. We were on a platform, high above the other aliens. Natira walked up behind me, putting her hands on my waist.
“Isn’t he good looking?” she whispered, pointing at King Ryu. I looked at her, my eyebrows raised in suspicion.
“Are you being serious right now?” I asked. She nodded.
“I know, I know,” she said. “I’m usually into girls, but something about him… I don’t know. I think he’s really attractive.”
I couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. She was surely joking. I studied her face, but she looked pretty serious to me.
Weird, I thought to myself, but before I could think any further, Queen Amira interrupted our conversation.
“Let’s sit down,” she said, pointing to three chairs near the podiums.
“Sounds good to me,” I said. We walked over to the chairs. Queen Amira sat down on one side of me and Natira sat on the other.
“I will translate this speech for you,” she whispered into my ear. Modric and King Ryu walked towards two podiums. Despite the crowd and the noise, Modric looked composed and in control. King Ryu began to speak, and the crowd grew silent.
“King Ryu is introducing Modric,” Natira explained. “He’s telling the people that although we have had differences in the past, Modric and the Athims have brought valuable resources that would change the relationship between the two races.”
“The girls?”
She nodded.
“He’s explaining how the girls are already taken by Hallon royalty. He’s excited to introduce human traits into their gene pools.”
I felt better for the girls. They weren’t going to be auctioned off. They would become royalty. While they would still have to breed and birth Hallons, they would be well taken care of as royals.
As King Ryu mentioned the human traits, the crowd roared with excitement. He finished his speech and Modric began. Modric also spoke in Hallon. I was unaware that he knew the language, but it did make sense. It was better to keep your enemies close. And by doing that, you would need to learn their language.
“He’s saying that he has a wife that he can’t wait to fuck tonight on their planet,” Natira said, interrupting my train of thought. I gasped.
“Just kidding,” she continued. “It’s all of the typical government bullshit that I’m sure you’re used to hearing. You know, ‘I’m honored to be here’, ‘I look forward to our future relationship.’ Blah blah blah.”
“Oh, I know that all too well,” I rolled my eyes. “What I didn’t know was that you and Modric are fluent in Hallon.”
“Since they are one of our biggest enemies, our father made sure that Modric knew the language,” she explained. “Although I voluntarily wanted to learn it.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I’m obsessed with the Hallon culture,” Natira whispered. “I always have been. Growing up, it was forbidden, but I could get magazines and newspapers from Hallon. Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of visiting here. I know it’s not on the best of circumstances, but I’m so happy to be here. It’s really the only reason that I signed up to train the girls.”
I was surprised by this. Not necessarily by the fact that Natira had liked Hallon, but the fact that she was opening herself up to me. The more I learned about her, the more she became a real person and not just Modric’s sister or my language teacher. I still wasn’t sure if she was serious about finding King Ryu attractive or not. We would have to get into this more later.
Modric finished his speech, and some more people spoke after him. They also spoke in Hallon, but I told Natira she could stop translating for me. I was very bored, but enjoyed the alien watching. I couldn’t get over the fact that this species was so different than the Athim aliens.
Like most Americans, growing up, I had assumed aliens were dark grey or green with gigantic eyes. They had small, skinny bodies with huge heads. We were all so wrong.
After what seemed like a lifetime, the speeches wrapped up, and our group was led inside. The girls still looked frightened, but kept fake smiles plastered on their faces. We sat down in a large room and the King Ryu began to speak.
“We prefer speaking in English, but many of our citizens are not familiar with the language,” King Ryu admitted. “I just wanted to express my gratitude to the Athims for bringing us these prized possessions. I must admit, there was a point in time that we thought you weren’t coming. We were pleasantly surprised when you showed up today.”
Natira and Modric exchanged glances.
“We will feast tonight,” King Ryu announced. “But I need to tend to some things before our dinner. Queen Amira would love to show you all around our palace.”
“That would be wonderful,” Modric said. “But, I would like to have a quick conversation with my wife and sister beforehand. Would that be acceptable?”
The king nodded.
“We will leave you alone to talk amongst yourselves,” he said. “Queen Amira will wait outside for you to finish.”
“Thank you,” Modric said.
King Ryu grabbed Queen Amira’s hand and they left the room. However, several Hallon soldiers remained with their guns visible. Modric, Natira, and I had picked a large, yellow couch to sit. We were far enough away from the soldiers that we could have a conversation without them overhearing. Natira leaned over me to whisper to Modric.
“I told you! It knew it was them,” she said. “These motherfuckers tried to kill us.”
“I knew it was them, Natira,” Modric said in Athim. I followed the conversation easily. The lessons had paid off, after all. “But we can’t just come in here with guns blazing, accusing them of trying to kill us.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked in a whisper.
“The four ships that attacked us before we went to Arilia, it was them,” Modric said. “It was the Hallons. We had a feeling it was them, but the fact that he said they were surprised we showed up just confirmed it. He didn’t expect us to show up.”
“Modric didn’t think it was them at first because they were attacking us with the girls on board,” Natira chimed in. Modric rolled his eyes.
“It just makes me want to be even more careful and leave here as soon as possible,” he concluded. “I will attend to the business that I need to with King Ryu, but after that, we’re out of here.”
“Do you think they’ll try anything, now that we’re here?” Natira asked. Modric shook his head.
“I don’t think so, but we should be vigilant. For now, we will just pretend that we don’t know it was them who attacked us. We just need to act civil and friendly.”
Natira and I agreed with Modric, and we got off the couch to find Queen Amira. True to King Ryu’s word, she was standing outside in the hallway.
“Do you girls like wine?” she asked. Natira and I laughed.
“We drink it like water,” Natira responded.
Queen Amira led us to a small sitting room. There was a chilled bottle of white wine and a bottle of red.
“I wasn’t sure what you girls would like, so I brought both,” Queen Amira commented.
“Anything is good with me,” I said, pouring myself a glass of the white wine. Natira poured herself a glass of red.
“So, tell me about yourselves,” Queen Amira said, sitting down with her glass of wine.
“What do you want to know?” Natira asked cautiously.
; “Anything you would like to share,” Queen Amira said. “As my guests, I would like to know more about you.”
“Well, my name is Princess Freya,” I told her. “I’m married to Prince Modric. I’m from Earth, the United States specifically. I was sort of thrust into this world, but I’m enjoying it very much.”
She nodded as she sipped her wine.
“And you?” Queen Amira turned to Natira.
“I’m Princess Natira of Athim and I’m pissed off that you tried to kill us,” Natira said. I buried my face in my hands.
Queen Amira cleared her throat and set her wine glass on the table next to her.
“Excuse me?”
“We know that you tried to kill us,” Natira said. Her voice had grown louder with more confidence. “Your men attacked our ship. My brother almost died. And now, you’re all acting like it’s not a big deal! We know.”
“Natira,” Queen Amira said. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I’m not saying that you’re right and I’m not saying that you’re wrong. You very well could be correct, but I have no knowledge of anything that my husband does.”
“Well, would he order an attack on us?” Natira asked. Queen Amira picked her wine glass up again and took another sip.
“He may have,” she said. “But, his younger brother, Prince Kyan, is behind a lot of his decisions lately. You would need to talk more to him.”
“Will he be at dinner?” Natira asked. Queen Amira nodded.
“Well, let’s fucking go,” Natira said, standing up.
Chapter 15
The dinner table was filled with food of all kinds. I had never seen such a spread. It took up most of the long table that had been set up for us. There was human food for myself and alien delicacies for the others. The other girls had already been whisked away. All that remained was myself, Natira, Modric, King Ryu, Queen Amira, and a few others.
“Want to try this?” Modric teased, swinging a large, live insect in his hand. I shook my head as he popped it into his mouth.
“Delicious, but not the best thing I’ll taste tonight,” he winked at me. Even though we all knew the Hallons had tried to kill us just weeks ago, the dinner was very civil. Modric was still in a great mood, because he didn’t know that Natira had confronted Queen Amira. I was sure it would come up during dinner.
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