Wed to the Alien Prince by C.V. Walter

Chapter 16

The negotiations with Kaelin's mother took longer than Serogero expected though he found himself occasionally hoping their connection would drop. Every time he glanced over at Aidan, the young man gave him a thumbs up and a grin.

When they'd finally reached the agreement that he'd truly wanted, her support for their union and willingness to declare publicly that they weren't a threat to the planet, he had the feeling that she'd gotten him to agree to far more than he would have under any other circumstances.

When they finally signed off, he found himself leaning against the back of Kaelin's chair. Her hand was stroking his gently and the only feelings it gave him was comfort. Aidan signaled that he was leaving and they were alone in the room.

"That was..." His voice trailed off.

"Yeah, mom can be a little intense when she gets going on something. Probably doesn't help that she's been wanting to push me to date but didn't want to actually be pushy about it. You're almost perfect for her career and personal aspirations, at least as far as I'm concerned."

"She wouldn't use you to further her professional goals, would she?" he asked, aghast.

"Officially? No, but she's not exactly someone who can stop working, even when she tries. She spent a lot of her life working to make sure that my brother and I had the best support possible with everything and, as far as that goes, I was actually the less work of the two of us."

"What's wrong with your brother?" Serogero asked. "You never mentioned any problems, is he like you, as well?"

Kaelin smiled at him. "No, he's got his own issues. He's sweet and funny and loving and will never really function beyond what a twelve or thirteen-year-old would. It took a lot to get him to be able to live as independently as he is, mostly because mom knows she's not going to live forever and he can have a full, long and happy life."

"I never knew," Serogero said quietly. "We don't have-"

"Your population has such a low birth-rate, I wondered if your population had any room for genetic anomalies like us. I suspect that the kinds of issues we have are corrected in the womb if they're allowed to be produced at all. Isn't that what your bio-nanos do? Fix problems that manifest?"

"I-" Serogero stopped abruptly, his mind racing. "I don't know that it's ever been discussed, come to think of it. Certainly not in my lifetime. I'd have to talk to Mintonar about how much impact? the bio-nanos have on genetic mutations. That's what this is, right? A kind of mutation?"

"As far as I understand it," she agreed.

He sighed. "Alright, that's another thing to bring up with Mintonar when we talk to him again later today."

Kaelin sighed. "Can I say, I'm tired of being poked and prodded?"

"I thought you said the testing wasn't as bad as it had been on Earth?"

"It's not," she said. "Doesn't mean I'm enjoying it at all. I know more about how my body works than I ever thought possible and it still feels like we're not actually accomplishing anything."

"Just a little longer," Serogero told her. "And I'll see what we need to do to move everything forward."

"Everything?" she asked, her expression hopeful.

The thrill that shot through him had little to do with her touching him and everything to do with the ache that had been building in him from holding her all night, every night, since he'd met her and doing nothing more than holding her.

"Everything," he agreed.

Kaelin stood up and put her arms around him. "Are you sure?" she asked quietly. "I know what you told my mom but I completely understand if you still aren't sure about being with me."

"Cherna," he told her, cupping her cheek with his right hand. "I have never had any hesitation about being with you. My only concerns have been with being good to you and making sure you are completely taken care of."

"Right," she said and nodded. "And I wasn't really ready to jump into a relationship with you but I think I might be ready."

"Your mother was correct when she said you haven't known me all that long," Serogero said. "And I know that things tend to go a bit slower on your planet."

"Roger," Kaelin said, and his human name sent a thrill through him. "I'm not exactly sure how much clearer I need to be about my feelings but maybe I should just say it straight out."

"You don't have to say anything you're not ready for," Serogero told her.

"Thank you," she told him. "But, really, I think I've been ready for some of this for a few days now. I understand you're trying not to rush me but I think we've gone from slow to glacial, especially with how we've been pushing to get it so I can act as your partner."

"There's so much to learn and all the tests and-"

She put her fingers against his lips and he almost hit his knees with how much he wanted her.

"Roger, there's more testing to do today but if you don't take me to bed and start the intimate part of this courtship, I think I'm going to tear my skin off with need."

The image shook him and he blinked at her. "Is that something you're likely to do?"

"Not literally," she told him. "But it feels like it. My nerves are so on edge that if I don't get some relief I'm not sure I can be held responsible for what I do next. You're honestly lucky I haven't turned into a raging bitch from the frustration."

"I don't think you could turn into a raging bitch on your worst day," Serogero told her.

"I could," Kaelin argued. "Well, I'd like to be able to, anyway. I don't think I've trained myself out of it just yet. I mean, mostly I have to do it in private but it's something that I think I could do if provoked enough."

"I'm almost tempted to provoke you," Serogero said with a grin. "Just to see you do it."

"Maybe to you," she said. "Just because you provoked me but I don't think I could do it to someone else. Most people don't deserve it and the ones that do would hold it against me to the point that it wouldn't be worth it."

"What do you mean?" he asked, irritated at the thought that anybody would hold a bad mood against his Kaelin.

She sighed. "Most people who would deserve to be the focus of my irritation are mostly just having a bad day themselves. And the ones that aren't are probably just throwing their weight around to prove how much power they have. The odds that I'll have to deal with them more than once are slim but if I do, if I have to be under their power again, and I treat them the way they deserve, I'm a bit more memorable than your average human. Which means they'll remember that I'm the girl who was a bitch and they'll be even worse than they would have originally."

"That's not right," he said, frowning harder.

She shrugged. "Doesn't matter," she said. "That's life. So, no, if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not be a raging bitch. I kinda like myself."

"Hmm, then maybe I should do what I can to help you with the frustration that you seem to be experiencing."

"You're not?" she asked and he could hear the question in her voice.

He opened his mouth to answer then changed his mind. Instead, he captured her lips and pulled her hard against his body. There was no question about what he wanted from her. It had taken everything he had to keep himself from taking her in her sleep over the last few days.

When he pulled back just enough for her to breathe, the dazed look in her eyes was enough to pull him back to her lips. The only thing that kept him from pushing her back and pulling off her clothes was the lack of a large enough horizontal surface in the room.

They were interrupted by the sound of the door chime and Serogero pulled back enough to answer. "We're busy," he said.

"Yeah, I know," Aidan said, his irritation evident in his voice. "Get a damn room. I need to get to the equipment."

Serogero closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Kaelin's. "We have to go to the Medical Bay from here, don't we?"

She nodded.

"Right," he said. "After we're done at the Medical Bay, I'm taking you to bed and I'm not letting you up until we're both satisfied."

"Promises, promises," she whispered.

"Kaelin," he groaned. "I can't just take you here. Even if we weren't about to be interrupted, you deserve better. A bed, at least, if not the days of feasting and celebration that would be traditional."

"You," she told him. "I deserve you. And the best effort you can give me. We have responsibilities, I know that, but I need you tonight."

He kissed her again, hard and deep, then pulled back and put his hands on her biceps to hold her in front of him. "Deep breath," he said. "We'll go see Mintonar and encourage him to finish quickly."

Kaelin took a deep breath and nodded at him.

They were both as composed as they were likely to get when he opened the door for them to leave the room. The disgusted look on Aidan's face told him they weren't doing a very good job of fooling the boy.

"Do I need to get a cleaning crew in here first?" he asked.

"Mind your own business," Kaelin told him.

"This equipment is my business," Aidan told her. "Don't get your girl cooties on it."

"Rude," Kaelin huffed at him. "I'm telling your mother."

"Tell her not to get her girl cooties on it either," Aidan said and made a face at her.

Kaelin laughed at him and Serogero did his best not to glare at the boy. He knew he had a habit of teasing the women friendly with his mother but he couldn't help but notice how close he was in age to Kaelin and how the banter was less of a young man to adult women he respected and more a young man to a woman he considered a peer.

They made their way quickly to the exam rooms of the Medical Bay to be greeted by a grinning Molly and Mindy. Mintonar was focused on his monitors and the holoscreens he had pulled up.

"Are you ready?" Molly asked. "What'd she say?"

"We have a tentative agreement," Serogero told her.

"So that means you guys can-?" Mindy asked.

"Technically we didn't need her approval," Kaelin said, letting go of his hand to take her accustomed seat in the chair. She'd been doing this so much, it didn't cause her a moment's pause to slide into the position she'd been in for all the more invasive tests.

"Technically you don't need all these tests, either," Molly pointed out. "But you were doing them for a reason. So?"

"So, we're good to move forward," Kaelin said without meeting anybody's gaze.

Molly squealed and Mindy turned to take something from Mintonar.

"Move forward with what?" Serogero asked.

Mintonar turned. "We'd discussed not changing Kaelin's physical appearance with the bio-nanos and it did not take me long to come to the conclusion that the bio-nanos were not only badly programmed to do that kind of work, they were not equipped for it. We simply do not know enough about the differences in human physiology to be able to deploy them in that manner."

"Then what have you been spending all this time studying?" Serogero asked.

"There's more to this than her physical appearance," Mintonar said, his tone one of someone speaking to a child. "In fact, that's the least important thing about Kaelin."

"I didn't-"

"What he means," Molly said with a glare for her ajoian. "Is that the change in her appearance is the least important thing we need to worry about. I know the thing you care about the most is who Kaelin is as a person and you want to keep her the way she is."

"Of course," Serogero said. "I thought that was obvious."

"It is," Molly said and smiled.

"The most important thing is how the bio-nanos will interact with Kaelin's human implants and the very important functions they serve," Mintonar said. "As they were, they would have broken them down and used them as spare parts to build more bio-nanos and attempted to replace them in their own way but they're too non-specific for that. What I've spent all this time doing is finding a way to reprogram the bio-nanos to understand and duplicate what her existing implants do before breaking them down."

"That's," Serogero said and blinked. "I didn't think you could do that."

"Technically," Mintonar said. "I can't. Or, I should say, I shouldn't be able to. If I had been starting with bio-nanos that were created for the Orvax, there would have been too much to change. Starting with ones that were based on Molly were better but there was still too much that they'd try and fix."

"But you've figured out how to program the blank bio-nanos?"

Mintonar waved him off. "I've always known how to program the blank bio-nanos. The easiest way is to put them through whatever you want them to learn. This required narrowing their focus and forcing them to report their hosts status before being approved to make any actual changes."

"So, what are they going to do?" Kaelin asked.