Assistant for the Alien Prince by Tammy Walsh

Jessica

To thinkof him leaning over my bed while I was fast asleep was terrifying.

With the faint hard edge of moonlight picking out his hard facial features, he looked like something birthed from my nightmares.

My initial reaction was to run, to get away from there as quickly and as fast as possible.

But there would be no running.

I needed the money.

I was on an alien planet now and comforted myself with the belief that the Ev’vat had a different culture and way of doing things.

Who was to say that creeping into a stranger’s room and prodding them awake while you leaned over them menacingly wasn’t how they usually woke each other up?

I snorted at the idea.

It was ridiculous on the face of it.

The shuttlecraft flew smoothly and although I tried to get comfortable on the seat I’d chosen, it clearly wasn’t made for long journeys.

The best chair in the entire cockpit belonged to the co-pilot.

It was an armchair with far more space to lean back and get comfortable and sleep.

But that meant sitting next to the prince and who knew how he might have taken the thought of me drifting nearer to him.

He was like every playboy I had ever met.

He liked to live beyond his means and considered women nothing more than temporary playthings.

Frankly, I was surprised he hadn’t slipped between the sheets and cuddled up close, and taken me right then and there.

The thought alone made me shiver.

With disgust, I told myself, not excitement.

I shook my head to dispel such thoughts.

I was here to do a job, nothing more.

Still, that co-pilot’s chair was too enticing.

“How long before we arrive?” I asked.

“About three hours.”

Eugh.

Three hours.

I couldn’t sleep on this seat, so I unclipped my belt and approached the co-pilo’s seat.

As I sat down, I placed my bag on my lap and peered over at him.

“I’m just sitting here because it’s the most comfortable seat,” I said sternly. “Don’t start getting any ideas.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Zai said around a broad grin that almost sent me hurtling back into the uncomfortable seat.

Almost.

I pressed at the controls to make the seat slide back so I could lay down.

All I managed was to make it jerk back and forth, slide side to side, and rise three feet.

I growled and banged at the controls with my fist.

“Let me,” Zai said.

He leaned over me slowly.

I stiffened, my hand reaching into my bag for the lamp I’d lifted from the palace bedroom.

I wasn’t going to make the same mistake I had yesterday and not come armed in case someone tried to take advantage of me.

Zai pressed at the controls, working them expertly with his surprisingly dexterous fingers.

He focused on his task, his face no more than three inches from mine.

I shrank back in my chair, pulling my neck in like a turtle.

Boy, he was handsome.

His cheeks were smooth and his high cheekbones poked pleasantly at his taut skin.

His purple eyes glinted like the most beautiful marbles and were the only aspect of his earlier disguise that wasn’t concealed.

My seat lowered, then leaned back, until it was virtually horizontal.

“Is that good?” Zai asked.

I nodded, my mouth suddenly dry.

He eased back into the pilot seat and resumed manning the controls.

I tried to get comfortable but there were too many questions that bubbled at the front of my mind, demanding answers.

“You don’t trust me, do you?” I said.

He blinked in surprise that I’d said anything, never mind that I said those six words.

“I don’t know you,” Zai hedged.

Which was another way of saying that he didn’t.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t trust you either. I just think it’s a good idea we’re honest with each other so we know what we’re up against.”

He pursed his lips but didn’t take his eyes from the windshield.

“I have to live here for the next week,” I said. “It might help to know what the situation is.”

He continued staring out the window.

He let out a sigh before coming to a decision.

“The Queen doesn’t think it’s a good idea for me to trust anyone until I’m crowned king. After what happened the other day, I can’t say I blame her.”

This was news to me.

“What happened the other day?”

He hesitated again before answering.

“The previous organizer, the one before you, turned out to be a spy. She was intending on alerting my enemies to my location so they could kidnap me.”

I gasped, my hand covering my mouth.

“That’s terrible!” I said.

He shrugged.

“It’s the truth. So, we had to find a new organizer, someone from off-planet who would be less likely to be corrupted by the tribe leaders.”

“I see.”

Suddenly, him wanting to leave the palace so early in the morning without telling me didn’t seem so surprising.

“Just so you know,” I said, “you’re the first Ev’vat I’ve met and I don’t know any of your tribe leaders. I’ve met a lot of barbarians in my time—most of them ex-boyfriends—but I’ve never been a spy to one.”

Zai snorted and, unable to contain himself, exploded with boisterous laughter.

It was light and breezy and filled the tiny cockpit like music.

It even brought a smile to my face.

He laughed too hard for the joke I’d made, but I guess the Ev’vat had a different sense of humor to humans.

He wiped the tears from his eyes and sighed with relief.

“Thanks for that,” he said.

“For what?”

“For making me laugh. I can’t remember the last time I laughed like that.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“You’re welcome. Just so you know, I charge extra for my jokes.”

He looked over at me, smiled, and made the blood rush to my cheeks.

He was handsome and charming, but weren’t they all?

My father had been a very handsome man too, with bags of excess charisma.

He could turn an enemy into a friend in the blink of an eye.

In the end, he ended up succumbing to his own charms and condemned his family to a life of destitution and debt.

I wouldn’t allow myself to get close—not even as a friend—to a fellow charmer.

I’d seen full-page spreads of Zai in magazines while growing up.

He was a full four years older than me and was the pinup of many human girls.

The poster of him was the only one I even considered putting up on my wall.

But Tina got to it first and added it beside her collection of a thousand other handsome boys she’d taken a liking to.

“So, tell me about the Pairing ceremony,” I said.

“You’ve never seen one before?”

“Sure, I’ve seen them. But I’ve never been to one. What does it feel like to be there?”

“The only Royal Pairing I’ve been to was for my cousin. But that was different.”

“How?”

“First of all, she was allowed to choose her partner. The Crown Prince is less fortunate.”

“But you must have met the daughters of the tribe leaders before?” I said.

He shook his head.

“Nope. I played with them when I was young. We’re often encouraged to stay at each other’s palaces and castles to help develop bonds between the next generation, but I haven’t seen them for many years.”

I felt sorry for him.

All that money and power and he couldn’t freely decide who his fated mate would be.

Even those from the lowest social levels back on Earth could choose who they wanted to marry.

“I have to marry for the stability of the kingdom,” he said.

“That doesn’t sound very fair.”

“It’s not about being fair. It’s about tradition and doing what we must. Besides, it’s not all bad. Not everyone gets to marry their fated mate.”

That was the part of the ceremony that intrigued me the most.

“Don’t you have any freedom to choose your fated mate?” I asked.

“The Soul Dance will tell me who my fated mate is.”

“What does it feel like to dance with someone and know they’re meant to be your partner forever?”

Again, he shrugged.

“I only know what my parents told me. To them, it feels like a bolt of light, like a supernova. When they felt the link between them, they thought everyone could see it, but when they watched the recordings, they could see it was only them who felt it. The guests sensed it on some level but they hadn’t felt the true power of their love.”

I could imagine the scene now:

The fated mates dancing in front of a large crowd, turning in the hypnotic rhythm of the Soul Dance, each filled with love for the other.

“Sounds like a fairytale,” I said.

Zai smiled over at me.

“I suppose it does, so long as you feel it with the right person.”

I frowned at that.

“I thought the purpose of the ceremony was to find your fated mate from the three daughters?”

“It will. But only if the ceremony is perfectly arranged. No one quite understands how it happens, but it seems that every Ev’vat—every species throughout the galaxy for all I know—is a thread in a large tapestry of life. Some of those threads weave together to create an even more beautiful image than they could alone. I suppose some threads are more vibrant. Those threads always find each other in the end because they’re meant to be interwoven. At least, that’s how my teachers always described it to me.”

I smiled at the romanticism of the idea of finding a fated mate, to know there was one being out there especially for you—for everyone—and all you had to do was find them.

A single touch, a look, a dance, was all it took.

It didn’t take hours of conversations to get to the heart of what someone was like.

All it took was a simple elegant dance.

Zai glanced at the clock.

Out the window, the sun’s shy fingers began to creep through the dense cloud cover revealing the expanse of the countryside spread before us.

It was like heaven’s arms were opening just for us.

“It’s coming up to breakfast time,” Zai said. “How about we stop off somewhere and get a bite to eat?”

“Sure. That sounds great.”

Zai grinned like a little boy allowed to open a present on Christmas Eve.

And as he took us down, pulling up to a bar on the edge of a small town, I sensed the thrum of excitement swelling within my chest.