Assistant for the Alien Prince by Tammy Walsh

Jessica

Earth really wasa beautiful marble in a sea of dark silence.

Few other planets could match its sheer beauty.

The azure blue and rich greens and soft yellows and red, topped and tailed with white at its extremes, making it more diverse than any other planet I had seen.

Not that I had seen many.

Zai took us in slow and joined the growing swell of merchant ships coming and going from all four dimensions of the galaxy.

Business was booming on the backward little planet.

We took our cue from the more advanced civilizations throughout the galaxy to develop a powerful manufacturing base.

But we would see none of that during our stay there.

We descended to the west coast of my home country known as the United States.

It’d taken a battering during the preceding century and was still very much in recovery.

Still, we had come out the winner and stood to lead the world as the most powerful nation for another hundred years or more.

Not that any of that mattered when you lived on the coast, tucked out of the way of anyone’s notice the way my aunt had lived the majority of her life at her beach house.

I gave Zai instructions and guided him toward the lonely white house curled up in the crook of the arm of a spit of land that jutted out into the roving seas below.

The outer walls were the first thing I’d had refurbished, the shining white like a beacon of hope similar to any lighthouse.

The sea was gentle tonight and caressed the rough yellow-orange sandy beach and frothed at the mouth that it finally had visitors.

The only visitors it’d had in recent years were the builders I’d managed to pay to do some construction work.

It’d been too long since I’d last laid eyes on the place, but now that I had, it reminded me why I had worked so hard, why I was desperate to make the most of the house and bring it up to scratch to live in.

My little slice of peace in an otherwise tumultuous world and adjoining galaxy.

Zai set the ship down in the field beside the house.

The engines powered down as we descended the ramp.

It seemed strange to have Zai, a crown prince, in this house that’d always been my sanctuary growing up.

Two worlds coming together that never should have been in contact.

Zai waited patiently as I fished the front door key out of the small water feature in the front garden.

I dried it on my skirt and slipped it in the lock and opened the door.

Zai had to duck his head to fit through the doorway.

“It’s a little rough around the edges,” I said, suddenly nervous about what his opinion of my dream home would be. “It’s not finished yet.”

He peered around at the small but cozy interior, his purple eyes taking in every detail.

“It’s nice,” he said. “Homey.”

The pent-up tension I didn’t know I’d been fostering began to melt, relieved he wasn’t shocked by how decadent it was.

“It’s not a palace…” I said defensively.

He was in front of me before I knew it and tilted my chin up so I looked him in the eye.

“You being here makes it a palace.”

He pecked me on the lips, drawing a smile from me.

“Show me around,” he added.

“There’s not much to see…”

I felt giddy with excitement that I could show him the place.

Much of my aunt’s furniture remained.

It was ancient but functional.

I showed him the front room, the kitchen, the back garden, then outside to the small greenhouse where the shelves sat largely empty save for a handful of cactus plants.

Then I took him down to the beachfront to show him the main feature of the place.

He came to a stop when he saw the ocean and drifted slowly toward it.

He became completely still, his hands outstretched toward the rushing water’s edge, and crouched down to place his hands in the cold water.

He kissed it to his fingers.

“You must feel a great sense of peace in this place,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, crouching beside him. “My home life was a little nuts when I was a kid. My father was so full of life that it spilled over and made everyone energetic around him. I never liked living that way. I liked the quiet solitude of the beach. I suppose I was always too much like my aunt.”

“If she’s anything like you, she was a wonderful lady.”

I beamed up at him, fully aware of how much like a child I must have looked.

“I wish you could have met her.”

“I do too. She sounds like a remarkable woman. She was never in danger in this house?”

“What danger? We’re as far from the goings-on in the world as it’s possible to get.”

“In some ways, that makes this place more dangerous than any other. What if strangers came? What if your aunt fell and hurt herself?”

I pursed my lips.

“That never happened.”

“But it could have. It might happen to you too.”

I blinked in surprise.

“How did you know I want to live here? I never told you that.”

“It’s obvious by the way you look at the place. You belong here.”

I smiled.

“Yes, I suppose I do.”

“But in solitude, there’s also loneliness. Your aunt never suffered from it?”

“She always had us to come visit her now and then. She always liked seeing us. Mostly she liked seeing me as my sister prefers the distractions of the city.”

He reached up and took my face in his hands.

“Give me slow and peaceful any day of the week.”

He kissed me and I melted in his hands.

“But there’s one part of the house you haven’t shown me yet,” he said.

“What?”

His eyes flicked up to mine and a shiver traveled the length of my body head to toe.

“The bedroom.”