Princess for the Alien Commander by Tammy Walsh

Ikmale

Sofia could be playful too?

She was full of surprises.

When I involved her with the game I played with the kids, I wasn’t sure how she would respond—if she would respond at all.

But she exceeded my expectations when she grinned as broadly as I did and teased the children.

I’d always enjoyed playing with the local children.

Many of them were kids of my friends who I played with when I was a child myself.

Through them, I learned a great deal about what real life was like for the kauah.

After all, at the beginning, I was one of them myself.

It was only as my father became more successful at work that I rose through the ranks of society.

I never lost contact with my friends, and many were an integral part of my honor guard.

It was those we knew from a young age that we could trust the most.

I still didn’t know if I could fully trust Sofia but there was no way to fake the genuine happiness she displayed when playing with the children earlier.

We left the city and negotiated our way through the dense forest, easing around the gentle bends until we reached the next town.

Its name was Blell and its surroundings were known as the most beautiful in the entire kingdom.

Huge mountains rose on either side of it, nestling it within a narrow valley.

A pristine stream of ice-cold water trickled through the middle of it, melted from the tallest snow-tipped mountain peaks.

“Wow,” Sofia said as we stepped from the carriage.

She breathed in the fresh mountain air and smiled over at me, then noticed I was openly staring back at her.

“Wow indeed,” I said.

As we descended into Blell—what was really an encampment of local Druids—the Chieftain welcomed us with wide open arms.

He carried a large staff carved from a branch of the holy dilsal tree.

They pulled neither flowers nor food from the earth, never snapped off the branches from trees for kindling, and only ever consumed that which had already fallen off or died on the vine.

They spent the greatest part of their day farming and praying to father nature.

It was said that if they ever stop praying, nature would cease to share its bounty, and nature itself would shrivel up and die, taking the rest of nature with it.

Although they didn’t partake in science and modern technology, they did not shun the rest of us who did use it.

The Druids were the unofficial priests of our religion, Prayn, and lived freely in the surrounded nature.

Their horns were rough and haggard, more like tree bark than the smooth horns of those that lived in the city.

The Chieftain embraced first me, and then Sofia, his long straggly hair making her nose itch.

The Chieftain smiled broadly and took us inside his tent.

He gave us food and wished our wedding well.

“All is well within nature?” I said.

The Chieftain nodded.

“All is well, though we hear rumors of a great darkness sweeping across the landscape.”

My heart turned cold.

“The dras. Tell me, have you come across any strangers?”

The Chieftain nodded.

My breath hitched in my throat, shocked they would enter our holiest site so brazenly.

“We gave them food, water, and shelter,” the Chieftain said, “and they continued on their way.”

It was not in a Druid’s culture to hold enemies hostage, even if they threatened their very existence and way of life.

The dras were as holy as a brick and wouldn’t have hesitated to wipe the Druids out the first chance they had if they ever got their greedy hands on our territory.

“Darkness never lasts forever,” the Chieftain said. “When light shines and blossoms into the full beauty of day, darkness always shies back, not gone, perhaps, but away from affecting anything the light touches.”

I wasn’t sure what he was referring to when he spoke about this “light.”

Druids tended to speak in a way that assumed everyone was as pious as they were, where they were certainly not.

But when his eyes turned to Sofia and a smile crinkled his aged face into an even broader grin, I realized what he was referring to.

Sofia was the light.

But how could she be?

How could she be when the king’s own dark blood corrupted her veins as thickly as it did his own?

When the Chieftain escorted us out of his tent, he placed a hand on my elbow.

“Tonight, we will come and perform for you. We will share in the joining of the two great houses.”

There was no denying his invitation.

He would continue with the celebration even if I decided not to attend.

We bid farewell, climbed into the carriage, and continued with our journey of the territory.

“What did he mean by having a party at the castle?” Sofia said.

I was lost in my little world and it took a moment for me to come back to myself.

“When a kauah gets married, it’s not only them and their families that come together but the entire community.”

Sofia nodded, though I doubted she fully understood the concept.

But she would tonight.

The Druids would make sure of that.

After a long dayon the road, we were both weary when we finally rolled up to the castle.

Already, the Druids had arrived and began setting up their party in the outer courtyard.

The servants hurried to and fro preparing for the event, the excitement evident on their faces and in their movements.

It wasn’t often that the Druids hosted a party and everyone enjoyed it when they did.

It was a way of connecting not only with nature and the Druids but each other.

Not to mention, there was no greater performance in the entire kingdom.

I helped Sofia from the carriage.

Her legs were a little weak from traveling and she stumbled.

I caught her and held her soft body close.

She didn’t jerked back or shove me aside as I expected and instead held my eyes.

A tractor beam might have frozen us in place.

“Have a nice trip, young master?” Bakerfield said, coming down the front steps.

His interruption broke us apart and I put Sofia on her feet.

“Yes,” I said hastily. “It went very well. Long, but well. I see the Druids have already shown up?”

Bakerfield nodded and Sofia turned to head inside.

“I’m going to head upstairs to get washed and dressed for the Druid ceremony,” she said.

“You don’t need to attend if you’re already tired,” I said.

“And miss the greatest and most cherished kauah festivity? I don’t think so.”

She turned and sauntered into the castle.

My eyes trailed hungrily after her.

She moved slowly, her long, toned muscles in her legs and ass summoning a deep guttural growl at the back of my throat.

Once she disappeared inside, I turned back to Bakerfield, who stared at me expectantly.

Shit.

I’d completely missed what he’d said and he expected a response.

I jabbed a finger in my ear and wiggled it around as if to clean it.

“What was that? The road was very dusty…”

Bakerfield’s lips curled into a smile.

“Something is certainly not working correctly, but I’m certain it’s not your ears…”

Bakerfield had been in my family for decades and was the only human I had ever managed to bring myself to trust.

He’d had hundreds of opportunities over the years to share information with the king or his associates to enrich himself and had never taken one of them.

In fact, there were members of the kauah who’d been a whole lot less loyal than Bakerfield over the years.

My thoughts shifted to his equal in the palace, currently serving the king.

Was Ujok any different to Bakerfield in that regard?

The king trusted him as much as I trusted Bakerfield.

And if one human could be trusted, then why not another?

Why not Sofia?

I shook my head of the thought.

The situation was completely different.

Sofia was the king’s daughter, and when push came to shove and she had to choose between me and him, which would she go for?

I shoved the question aside to consider later.

I washed, changed into a fresh set of clothes, and met Sofia outside her bedroom.

I was shocked when she came out wearing a gorgeous dress of earthy browns, her hair curled up into an unusual design.

Sofia laughed and glanced up at her own hair.

I wanted to yank her hand away, to never hide that beautiful smile of hers from me, but stayed my hand.

“Your resident hair designer gave me this style,” she said. “It’s supposed to be something the Druids would appreciate. I can’t tell if she was being serious or not.”

“She was being serious,” I said.

“Really? But it looks like a birdnest!”

“The Druids are about nature and all things natural. If you head downstairs dressed in earthy browns and greens and your hairstyle like this, you run the risk of them kidnapping you and taking you back to Blell!”

Sofia stopped laughing immediately, her eyes growing wide.

“Seriously?”

I offered her my elbow.

“Let’s head downstairs and see.”

Suddenly not so sure about her getup, Sofia hesitantly took my elbow and we headed downstairs.

The servants paused to gasp at how glorious Sofia looked.

Once again, my chest swelled with pride that I had such a beautiful woman on my arm.

I ignored the thin tendrils of doubt in my mind about where her loyalties truly lay as we entered the outer courtyard and the Druid celebration began.

The Druids had builta large fire in the center of the courtyard and cooked five stewpots around it.

They handed it out to anyone who wished to eat.

The portions were small as the Druids never had extra provisions to go around, but even a small piece of their stew was enough to warm the cockles of anyone’s heart.

A bowl was handed to both me and Sofia.

She tasted it—a clutched of tree roots that’d been left to stew for hours— and breathed out a mouthful of steam and gasped at the flavor.

“It’s delicious!” she said.

“I’m glad you like it,” I said. “We don’t get to eat this often.”

Sofia ate another piece of flal vegetable next before pausing when she saw the children we’d played with earlier.

They’d already eaten their share but they stared wantonly, their mouths moving as if they could taste the stew we were eating.

Sofia took one last sip of the juice before leaning over and whispering into a servant’s ear.

The servant took her bowl and handed it to the children, who reached inside and gorged themselves on its contents.

I didn’t want to give up my delicious stew but how could I not after her example?

I sighed and handed it to another servant, who shared it out amongst more locals.

Across from us, the Chieftain nodded respectfully in our direction.

“You’re going to have to slow down,” I said.

“Why?” Sofia said.

“If you keep acting like this, the kauah are going to have me overthrown and replaced with you.”

Sofia threw her head back and laughed boisterously.

“And what would be the point of that, husband? As your wife, don’t I rule you already?”

She chuckled and turned back to the show.

I looked after her.

She was more right than she knew.

Early on, the Druid musicians came out with their instruments hewn from nature itself.

The fiddle players were second to none in the kingdom—possibly even the galaxy—and strummed their mournful music that was so deep, rich, and powerful that the entire household, servants and all, peered into the flames and watched as its tendrils spiraled into shapes that told a story.

It began with a single fiddle player, then a second joined in, and a third, each an incredible virtuoso.

Then the drums added a thick and pulsing rhythm like a heartbeat.

Once the stage was set with music, the dancers came out.

No one could learn how to dance like a Druid.

There was no textbook, no video, no course, it was merely an interpretation of how the music made them feel, how nature imbued their spirit, forming an external dance the rest of us could enjoy.

No Druid dance was ever the same.

Peering over at Sofia, I saw the look of wonder in her eyes.

Her hand lay on the armrest of her chair and sat there, open, taunting me.

I wanted to take it, to hold it.

But I had no idea how she would react.

It was something a husband often did, I told myself.

It was only natural.

It was more likely to come across as strange if I didn’t want to hold her hand.

Despite my fears, I couldn’t help myself but to reach over and take it.

Sofia was so involved with the music and dancing that she was slow to notice me grasping her hand.

When she did, her eyes rose to my face.

She didn’t smile.

For a moment, I thought she didn’t like me touching her, that it had been a mistake, but when she interwove her fingers with mine, my heart soared.

The reason she didn’t smile wasn’t because she was unhappy but because of the serious emotions raging inside her like a river—the same way they were writhing inside me at that moment.

She turned back to the performance and smiled at the undulating bodies.

The Chieftain began to sing, clutching his staff in both hands, a deep bittersweet voice rising to the power of the wind.

Beautiful, enchanting.

Mesmerizing.

That was when Meyeth came out.

She was known far and wide as the most seductive creature nature had ever put on Fod.

Tall and graceful, her horns rose like the branches of a weeping willow from hair the color of midnight.

Her stomach was exposed, revealing her trim figure.

She removed the veil from her horns and danced hypnotically, casting a spell upon every male—and female—eye in the courtyard.

Through it all, she kept her eyes fixed firmly on mine.

The music slowed, beating in time to her movements.

She was said to be more in tune with nature and its rhythms than any Druid who had ever lived.

One day, she would become the future Druid Chieftain.

By the way she moved, I believed that to be true.

She drifted toward me and Sofia, reached out a hand, took mine, and led me forward.

I was already enchanted, deeply under her spell.

It was part of the ceremony, part of the celebration of life.

I was so engrossed, concentrating hard and focused on trying not to embarrass myself too badly, that I hadn’t noticed the dark look on Sofia’s face.