Assistant for the Alien Prince by Tammy Walsh
Zai
I returned Asar,the daughter of the third most powerful tribe, to her father and was relieved I would get to take a little break before having to announce which of the daughters was my fated mate.
They were all due for a shock as I hadn’t felt the spark with any of them.
In their homes right now, Ev’vat everywhere would be discussing who they thought was my fated mate and ascend to become the next queen.
Some might even make a bet.
But none could have chosen correctly because they didn’t know where my heart truly lay.
I left the temple and found a quiet spot in a small garden outside.
I took a seat on a wooden bench and got comfortable.
My legs throbbed from the dancing but it was my head giving me the most strife.
I just couldn’t get her out of my mind.
She was there, everywhere I looked, every thought reminding me of her.
A part of me had hoped I would be wrong and that a fated mate would be chosen for me from the three daughters, that the things I felt for Jessica were simply temporary infatuation.
Soon, I would have to make a decision that would decide my future and the direction the kingdom would take.
A shadow danced on the fringes of light cast by the temple’s refracted light, a figure in the shadows, waiting and watching pensively.
Probably a servant, I thought.
“I’ll be in soon,” I said. “I just need to… think for a while.”
The figure didn’t move and picked at the skin of her fingers nervously before stepping into the light.
I repeated myself: “I said I would—”
The rest of my sentence died on my lips as Jessica stepped into the light.
She no longer wore the ill-fitting unflattering sack from earlier but a gown in the traditional Ev’vat style.
A single length of cloth wrapped her head to toe, exposing as much flesh as it covered.
Her hair was done up in twin curled tornadoes on either side of her head, taking on the appearance of horns that, as a human, she didn’t possess.
Her eyes sung a song of deep melancholy, her lips bright red as the passion I knew she contained within her heart.
With a single glance, I was gone, taken with her and lost to the sands of time.
I got to my feet as sitting before such beauty didn’t seem right.
She gnawed nervously on her bottom lip as I approached.
“You look incredible,” I said.
She smiled and shrugged her exposed shoulders shyly.
“It’s… just something…”
“You threw on?” I completed for her.
“That was forced on me and then Tina painted this stuff on my face.”
I half-grinned, half-frowned at her in confusion, but it could remain a mystery so long as I got to drink her in like a fine wine.
“Would you like to take a seat?” I said.
“No, thank you. I just came to check to see how you’re doing. How was the dancing?”
Lackluster without you.
“It was… fine,” I said.
“Did you find your fated mate?”
Yes, and it’s none of the tribe leaders’ daughters.
“I didn’t see you in the main hall,” I said, trying not to sound desperate. “I looked for you.”
“I had some… things I had to take care of. By the way, did you fly Tina here?”
“She contacted my people and said you okay’d the idea.”
“Of course she did,” Jessica said, rolling her eyes. “She’s incorrigible.”
She smiled up at me and I beamed down at her like a fool.
The silence yawned between us but I took no notice of it, as I was as comfortable in her presence as I was with being on my own.
“I suppose I should leave you to your thoughts,” she said.
She turned to leave but I snatched her hand from the air.
She looked afraid, frightened I had grabbed her… except it wasn’t me grabbing her hand that made her nervous.
It was the look in my eye.
The insatiable hunger that I couldn’t tame even armed with a kh’ar and lar.
“I should go,” she said but made no movement to do so, a reflection of the first time we made love in my shuttlecraft.
I took her other hand in mine.
And I began to spin.
“We shouldn’t dance…” she said.
But I continued to turn, holding her tightly in my arms, spinning faster and faster.
I felt the energy in my veins, the energy that rose through my legs, crackling like electricity, and the unmistakable tear of time and space that opened up between us, the sharp shard of light so bright it almost blinded me, and in her eyes, I saw that she saw it too.
There was no denying it this time, no way to avoid it.
It shone brighter and brighter.
There was no audience to see it, but that didn’t matter.
We saw it.
We knew the truth.
That was all that mattered.
The light pulsed with each of our revolutions and I pushed us harder and faster, Jessica’s eyes never leaving mine, as I took us to new speeds and new heights.
A silent explosion erupted from that tiny tear like a stone had been tossed into a cosmic pond and echoed out around us and beyond.
We slowed to a stop and I clung to her closely.
“It’s you,” I said. “It’s alwaysbeen you.”
