“Daisy?”
It’s Griffin’s voice, I know that, but I’m not really sure where it’s coming from at first. I’m comfortably dreaming about living in the woods surrounded by a bunch of cuddly animals when Griffin’s voice breaks through.
“Hmm?”
I open my eyes and Griffin’s leaned over me, still pale as a ghost, but smiling.
“Are you alright, Daisy?”
“Please don’t tell me that my legs are on backward or something,” I say, noting that my arms and legs hurt and my back seems ready to join in the fun. “Hey, are we on… your planet?”
Griffin nods and unbuttons my—wait, why am I wearing a uniform? I wasn’t wearing this before! I was wearing that useless, paper-thin designer dress.
“Uhh, is it a good time for that?” I ask as he rushes to unbutton it clear down the front and slip his hands inside, over my bare, warm skin. “I’m a little confused about a lot of things, and as happy as I am to see you, maybe we shouldn’t have sex just now?”
“Don’t be daft, Daisy; I’m just healing you!” he says with a scowl. “Hold still, would you?”
Oh.
“Well, should you be doing that, either?” I ask. “I mean, since you kind of sapped your energy back there with the bad alien and friends?”
“I’m getting my energy back.”
Griffin’s dark hair sticks up at a lot of odd angles, setting off the serious pallor of his face. I can’t help wondering if he’s even supposed to be out of bed, never mind healing people, but I hold still while he dances his cold fingertips over my skin.
“There now,” he says at last, in a whisper. “How’s that?”
“I’d still like some confirmation that nothing on my body has moved to a location where it shouldn’t be, but otherwise, I think I’m alright!” I pull on the collar of the uniform shirt. “So what’s with this?”
“Oh. Standard uniform for relaxation or leisure,” Griffin says with a little grimace. “Wait until you see the standard uniforms for work and public appearance. Bloody awful. So boring you’ll want to claw your eyes out.”
“That sounds pretty bad.”
“I miss my purple jumper. I wanted to bring it home when we returned.”
Even though the purple sweater is one of the most godawful articles of clothing ever created on Earth, I suddenly wish I could hand it over to Griffin. I’d even let him wear it, if I could. Well, maybe just for a little while.
“Your planet feels remarkably similar to mine,” I say, hoping to distract him from the deep funk that missing an ugly, purple jumper might put him in.
“Well, of course, that’s why we chose your planet for experimentation and research, ages ago, when we first discovered you. Your planet’s heavier, though. Or, I felt heavier, anyway.”
“Oh! So I’ll feel lighter here? I think I could get used to that.” I sit up, fighting a wave of nausea. “Is it normal that my stomach feels queasy?”
“Most people puke their guts up—real big mess.”
“Not their… literal guts, right? You’re just using an expression for dramatic effect.”
Griffin stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “When have I ever not been dramatic? But anyway, I settled your stomach just now.”
Devon bursts into the room with Kammie on his heels. “Griffin! What are you doing out of bed?” he demands, balancing a plate on one hand. The plate seems to be piled high with gray goop, and I desperately hope it’s not something that is supposed to be consumed.
“I had to check on Daisy,” Griffin says, laying down beside me and stretching out on his back. “I’m staying right here with her, too, so don’t even think of sending me back to that horrible room. It’s cold and boring in there.”
“You’re supposed to be resting.”
“Don’t frown at me like that; you can’t change my mind.” Griffin moves closer, bumping his hip into mine and reaching up to place his hand on my middle, which reminds me all at once that my shirt is hanging open. I hurriedly button it, all the while fighting a monster blush. “See? Daisy needs me here with her while she adjusts to our world.”
Kammie steps around Dev and leans over me, inspecting my face. “You look quite healthy and whole to me,” she announces. “Darling, wait until you get to look around! Dev took me for a quick walk, because we were so hungry…”
I look again at the gray goop. “Hmmm.”
“Oh, it’s not nearly as bad as it looks. And Dev shared some local fruit with me, too. It’s delicious!” She lowers her voice to a whisper in my ear, “They lived on our planet a long time ago and changed some things about our atmosphere to improve it. We’re partly descended from their kind. I told you!” Kammie’s glowing with smug satisfaction and something that looks remarkably like… happiness. Real happiness.
“Alright, but that doesn’t mean there are alligators in the sewers,” I say.
“Yes, there are. My friend saw one.”
I laugh so hard that I feel like I’m going to throw up, but I go on laughing anyway.
“She’s delirious, see?” Griffin says, pointing at me. “I need to stay with her.”
“Daisy, you wouldn’t mind if Griffin got some rest, would you?” Devon asks, in his most reasonable voice.
“No, of course not.”
Griffin huffs and puffs a few times for good measure. “If you want me to go back to that room, you’ll have to drag me. And you and I both know you can’t do that for more than five steps.” He snickers and laces his fingers together behind his head, crossing his legs at the ankle.
“If you weren’t in a weakened state, I’d do exactly that,” Dev says, shaking his head. “And give you a few good bumps on the head while I was at it.” He looks at me then. “Daisy, you must be hungry. Feel free to eat however much you want.”
I’m not quite hungry enough yet to stick the gray goop in my mouth, no matter how good Kammie says it is, so I just smile and shake my head.
“Oy! Dev. Where’s the Emperor President?” Griffin interjects, as if he hasn’t been allowed to speak in forever and can barely hold it in anymore.
“Looking into what happened with our… our…” Devon hesitates. “Our security team.”
“Traitors,” Kammie say. “How awful, all of it. You boys never deserved anything like that! Never mind those horrid old men with the Origin or whatever it’s called, turning you over. I’d like to get my hands on them. Making them fall asleep was not at all punishment enough, in my opinion.”
Devon sighs. “Well, it wasn’t all of our security team. Several of them tried to keep us safe, but they were… Well, anyway, your father’s working to sort it out and set a trial for Mali. He discovered her plan, arrested her, and reached us just in time.”
“Not in time,” Griffin says. “If it’d been him alone, he’d have been too late. Daisy’s the real hero.”
Kammie gives a hearty nod. “Well, of course she is. Daisy might not have told you this, but she used to always slay me at Fantasy Gem Miners. And she won a tug-of-war contest at the state level, before I knew her.”
Oh, God. The last thing I need anyone to know is that my greatest achievements in life up until this week have been an embarrassing video game you can legally download for free and a tug-of-war contest. “Never mind all that,” I say. “We were talking about the Origin Collective and the scary bodyguards and stuff.”
“They really were quite scary, always popping up when you least expected them,” Kammie says.
“Well, their purpose was to keep Griff safe during our journey, but according to the Emperor President, Mali placed the terrorists into our group at the last minute.” Devon lets out another sigh, staring at the floor. “They hid their thoughts well. Griff and I had no idea about their intentions. I should have… I should have gone through their files, myself, before we left.”
I shrug, noting the downward slope of his shoulders. “You can’t blame yourself, Dev.”
Kammie taps my shoulder and places he
r finger over her lips. When I cast a confused look, she points at Griffin, who is… fast asleep.
“I knew he was tired,” Dev mutters, picking up the plate of uneaten food. “You sure you’re not hungry?”
I carefully extract myself from Griffin and slide off the bed. After a few seconds of adjusting to standing again and a quick glance back at my sleeping alien, I accept Kammie’s offered hand and shuffle out of the room with her, Dev following right behind.
“He needs as much rest as possible,” Dev says. “If you hadn’t… well, done whatever you did, we would have lost him.” He pulls me into a one-armed hug, since he’s still holding the plate, but it’s as warm and strong a hug as I’ve ever had. “Thank you, Daisy. Thank you for saving my friend.”
I give him a gentle squeeze and pat his back. “No problem. I’m relatively attached to the little weirdo, myself.”
“The doctors said he used up all of his energy, with what he did,” Devon says, pulling away. “He’ll need time to rest and recover, though knowing him, he’ll want to bounce right back into action.”
“Don’t worry; I’ll help you make him rest. We can always threaten to send someone back to Earth to burn his purple sweater. That seems to be a supremely motivating factor in his life.”
Dev laughs, a relieved sort of laugh that echoes all around us, and then he stares down at the plate of mysterious food stuff. “I wonder if we should have made Griffin eat something while he was awake…”
“Dev likes to make sure people eat,” Kammie says. “He’s already fed me twice since I woke up.”
“Well, I just want to make sure everyone’s alright!”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Dev, it’s okay. I know you’re worried about Griffin, and you’re feeling like a mother hen right now, but it’s alright. Promise.”
“He’s my… my dearest friend.”
“I know, Dev. He’ll be alright. Between you and me, he’s got all the care he needs.” Still, I can’t help the uneasy silent questions circling in my head. If he was betrayed by his security guards, who else might try to betray him?
Dev glances at Kammie. “I know you probably want to look around more, don’t you, my love?”
The red that sprouts in Kammie’s face tells me that this ‘my love’ thing is very, very welcome. “Oh, well, of course. But we don’t have to just yet, if you want to stay with Griffin for a while.”
“Just for a bit, maybe?” Dev asks, taking Kammie’s hand and bringing it to his lips. He stares at her so tenderly that I nearly melt on the spot for her sake. Geez. “Would you join me, Kammie?”
“Good idea,” a voice says from behind me, effectively making me jump several inches off the ground. I slowly turn around to find Griffin’s father standing behind us, his head held high and his hands behind his back. He seems even more intimidating now, up close, though he’s certainly less angry. “Devon, you and your friend will take a turn watching over my son. See that he rests.” He hesitates. “He won’t want to, but he must regain his strength.”
“Alright,” Dev says. “But Daisy—”
“Daisy will come with me. I’d like to speak with her privately.”
I try to control the trembling that seems to have taken over my body. “Privately?”
The Emperor President doesn’t allow for much argument between the hard line of his mouth and the stern expression in his eyes. “Will you follow me, Daisy?”
I hug Kammie goodbye, offer Dev a quick smile, and then follow Griffin’s dad down a hallway and up a huge set of stairs. From there, he leads me to another corridor, only stopping once he reaches the end of it. Inside, I find an office, minimalist to my eyes. I can’t quite spot a source of light in the room, but I realize after a few seconds of staring that the walls set off a gentle glow.
“Is this like your Oval Office?” I ask, before I can stop myself.
“Oval Office?”
“Well, I mean, is it your office?”
The Emperor President nods. “Please, sit down.” He waits as I struggle with one of the pod-like chairs and then sits in his own, a high-backed one that looks incredibly uncomfortable and leaves him sitting up straight and stiff.
I feel a bit like I’m in the principal’s office again. “Uh, you wanted to talk to me?” Should I call him Your Highness? President? Pops? Hmmm.
“I cleared my schedule for the next two days,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like a response to my question. He stares in my direction, but sort of over my head, as if he’s thinking. “We were all foolishly vulnerable to Mali and her cohorts. Mali was my son’s betrothed.”
“Evil fiancée, yeah.” I clear my throat.
“Had you not acted when you did, my son would be lost,” he says, and his eyes flick down to mine. I feel like he’s looking into my childhood memories and deepest secrets. It’s not nearly as comforting as when Griffin does it. “Why? Why did you save him, Daisy Elena Kirkwood?”
As much as I want to look away from him, I know I can’t give in to fear. I squirm a bit in my seat, but then I suck in a deep breath and raise my head high. “He was willing to save all of us, even if it meant he died. I couldn’t let him fail, especially when he had a wager to win, with you.”
The Emperor President considers this. “You love him.”
The last time I told a male who wasn’t a blood relative that I loved him was when I had a bit too much to drink last year and expressed undying devotion to Jagger, my teddy bear. The idea of saying it to a real person has always been foreign, right up there with having enough money to spend a month floating around the world on a party yacht. “Um…” I say, but there’s no use lying to this creature. He’d see through me, anyway. “Yes, I think I do.”
“And what good will that do for you? You don’t belong here, with us.”
Maybe he’s trying to scare me away. “Griffin made me feel stronger and braver,” I say, leaning forward in my pod-chair. “He’s good at that. He can inspire people to believe in themselves. And he’s good at a lot of other stuff, too, that you don’t need to hear about!” I give him a stern look in return, waiting for him to be embarrassed by my weak attempt at suggesting his son is a sex god.
Instead, he remains expressionless. “And?”
“Even if I have to go home, I got something from knowing him,” I say, but as I’m saying it, I can feel angry tears forming around the corners of my eyes. “I don’t want to say goodbye to him.”
“You’d stay here, with my son?”
“Yes. But we’d have to visit my family sometimes.”
“You know what you’re asking for? You’d marry him in our ceremony, under the seal of our officials, and you would be Queen President. You’d be expected to learn our ways and take part in them.”
“Griffin hasn’t asked me to marry him.”
The Emperor President peers back at me with those unnerving eyes, and the air around us crackles with static tension. “Taug didn’t mean to send home a transmission of everything that took place, but without Mali in place to stop it, it broadcasted. Widely, I’ll add. It’s clear to any sentient being that my son returns your affection. I may not understand him, but I do understand that his actions stemmed from something far stronger than adoration. If I allow you to stay here, he will want to marry you.”
“Wait, it broadcasted?” Griffin’s heroics, played out for everyone to see? This could be a miracle in disguise. “Maybe everyone will finally stop treating him like crap all the time and making up fake rumors about him. Griffin’s a better person than they think. He’s a better person than even you think.”
“Perhaps they’ve underestimated him,” he says in a cold tone. Just as I’m about to blurt something I probably shouldn’t, he adds, “I know that I have underestimated him.”
Wow. WOW! I wish Griffin could hear this right now, but I just store it away for later, to tell him. For now, I struggle to keep my face passive.
“He said we’re made from the same stuff. I think he’s right. I
f I stay here with Griffin, I’ll bring what I know, and what I feel, to your people, the same as he will.”
Griffin’s dad stands up, sending a shiver of energy through the room. “It’s important that the Emperor President has an heir, to keep useless chaos and jostling for power from taking place. I fully intend my bloodline to continue. I’ve been informed that the females of your world are incredibly fertile. Are you fertile, Daisy?”
Up until this point, I’ve been able to remain mostly intimidated and careful under his stern voice and hard eyes, but this is just too much. I stand up, frowning at him.
“You know, I’m not exactly sure of my reproductive state, but if you’re expecting a blow by blow of my menstrual history, I guess you’re just going to have to keep waiting.”
Surprise flashes through his eyes, though he catches it relatively quickly. “Very few speak to me with that tone of voice.”
“Very few besides my mother, my nosy aunt, and my doctor have asked me about my fertility.”
He nods to me, just once, and then walks around me, to the doorway. “You’ve shown courage and intelligence, even when other citizens of your planet turned against us and behaved traitorously. And you saved my son’s life, when I could not,” he says after a long pause. “If you decide that you’d like to remain here, then you have my approval.”
I have a feeling this is a huge deal, especially given everything Griffin’s told me. “Thank you.” I walk to him, wanting to slip by and run away, but instead, I tip my head up to meet his gaze again. “Griffin won the wager, you know. He has so many good ideas, if you’d just give him a chance to prove himself.” I take a deep breath. “Oh, and Kammie’s staying here, too, if she wants.”
With that, I walk away, retracing my steps back to Griffin, Devon, and Kammie. After all, you can only face off with an alien king for so long. I’ll have to remember to tell my mom that for her ‘worst-case scenario’ journal, later.
Dating an Alien Pop Star Page 32
