by Leslie Chase
No matter how much my body wanted to, no matter how much I craved his touch. I groaned with a deep disappointment as I stood, Xendar sitting back to let me up. The hurt look he gave me almost made me cry, but he made no effort to stop me.
"What's wrong?" he asked, and I just shook my head. There was no answer I could give him that would make any sense, that would explain why I wasn't giving him what we both wanted so badly.
Turning away from him, I stared at the door. Suddenly the space in here felt even smaller, and I could hardly breathe. Behind me, I heard Xendar stand slowly, carefully. Moving closer, he reached out a hand to my shoulder and, when I didn't pull away, rested it there.
It was a confusing feeling, drawing comfort from his touch. I wanted so much more, and so did he. Tears welled in my eyes, and I turned again to bury my face in his chest and cry. His strong arms folded around me and lifted me, and I knew I was safe. Safe from everything but the pain we inflicted on each other.
I'm not sure how long it took me to recover. Once the tears started they wouldn't stop, and while Xendar wasn't the best person to comfort me in that moment, he didn't abandon me. Holding me close he stroked my hair and eventually the tears stopped.
"Sorry," I said at last, sniffling. "I didn't mean to..."
My words trailed off helplessly, but he understood. Gently putting me down, he wiped the tears from my cheeks.
"This has been a shock, Princess," he said. "I understand, and I do not want to push you to anything you don't desire. You have nothing to apologize for."
I almost laughed at that. Surely he knew how much I desired him? If only I could give in. Or get some space. Being cooped up in here with him was going to be a nightmare of frustration.
"Are you sure I can't go out, somehow?" I shook my head, raising my hand before he could object. "I know that you're protecting me, and I appreciate that. I won't do anything to make that harder for you."
Unlike something else, which I definitely wanted to make harder for him. Stop thinking about that, I told myself. Trying to joke about it wasn't helping me forget it.
He grumbled and shook his head. "You would be recognized too easily. Your face is famous, and as long as you insist on wearing that dress—"
"It's all I have to wear," I objected, interrupting him. "I'd put on something else if I could, but you can't expect me to go out naked!"
His laugh had an edge to it and I realized that the idea wasn't entirely unpleasant to him. My cheeks heated and I punched his arm, which only hurt my knuckles. It was like punching a tree trunk. A warm, gorgeous, sexy tree trunk.
"Of course I'd never suggest that," Xendar replied, rubbing his arm. I got the feeling that he was humoring me, pretending that my punch had hurt at all as I shook my stinging hand. "But if you made some changes to your outfit..."
He trailed off at my blank expression, frowning. Oh crap. I was making some kind of mistake, I knew it, missing something that should be obvious. Unfortunately, I had no idea what it was. All I could think of to do was draw myself up and glare imperiously, hoping he'd give me some clues before he realized I had no idea what he was talking about.
For a second, we just looked at each other, and then his eyes widened. My heart thumped and I gritted my teeth, trying to think what I'd say if he'd worked out that I wasn't who he thought I was.
"You don't know how to alter your dress?"
I breathed out. It felt as though I'd been holding my breath for centuries. This was something I could cope with.
"I always had servants for that," I muttered, trying to make it sound convincing. My embarrassment was real enough, even if the reason for it wasn't what he thought it was. "It never occurred to me that I could do it myself."
That drew a bark of a laugh from him. He turned away, trying to hide just how amused he was by that, and my embarrassment mixed with anger. Which was, I had to admit, ridiculous. He wasn't laughing at me, not really, but it still hurt.
"Shut up," I told him. "It's not that funny."
His shoulders shook with laughter, and I glared. "Okay, do you know how to do it?"
Finally, he managed to get himself under control and nodded. "It ought to be simple enough. You just have to access the menu systems and choose what you want to wear. I couldn't give you a fashionable new dress, but something simple? Certainly."
"Why didn't you say so?" I put my hands on my hips and looked up at him. "Do you know how annoying it was to wear this outfit through the woods?"
"I did wonder why you didn't change," Xendar admitted. "And why you left your shoes behind rather than change them to something more sensible."
It took an enormous effort, but I managed to stop my jaw hanging open. The impractical shoes I'd left behind could have been something practical? Yes please. "Okay, you can't just say that. Now you have to show me."
Xendar nodded and beckoned me into the middle of the space. Pulling a tablet from his belt he pulled up some kind of holographic display. It just looked like a complicated display of colors to me, but as soon as he started to touch the settings my dress stiffened around me.
It was the strangest feeling, not entirely unpleasant but very weird. Almost like a full-body tickle. I caught myself before I started to giggle, trying to remain appropriately serious.
"What would you like?" Xendar asked, frowning and focusing on the holographic display. "There are a few presets here, and I'm not going to try to create anything more complicated. I'm no fashion designer."
"Just put me in anything practical, please," I told him. It was hard to keep a straight face with the strange crawling sensation on my skin as the dress moved around.
I jumped as Xendar adjusted something, and the dress tightened around me. Not enough to be painful, but the feeling of it drawing in without anyone touching it was eerie. He made another gesture and the skirts folded in closer to my legs. The bright red fabric dimmed as I looked down, darkening to a deep green and lengthening.
"Um," I said, taking as deep a breath as I could. That wasn't very deep — somehow the dress incorporated a corset now, or at least that's what it felt like, and I could hardly get any air. "This isn't better."
"Sorry," he said. "This interface isn't very clear. Let me try again."
Its grip on my lungs loosened and I sucked in a deep, relieved breath. Xendar kept tapping away at the display and the whole outfit seemed to melt around me. I gasped, trying to keep a grip on the suddenly-liquid dress as it slid off my shoulders, but before it could get too far, Xendar hit a button that froze it in place. For once he looked a little embarrassed himself, turning away from me and trying to undo whatever he'd done.
"That was an accident," he said before I could gather my outrage to shout at him. "I'll fix it!"
There weren't many men I'd believe that from, but oddly I trusted Xendar. He'd had all the opportunities he needed to see me naked, and he'd been a gentleman about each of them. I could trust him with this.
That didn't make it any less embarrassing though, and I glared at him as he hurriedly tapped at the hologram. After what felt like ages, the dress started to solidify and crawl back up across my skin. It felt just like the emergency survival suit that had saved me during the destruction of the Darkfang, which made sense when I thought about it. I just hadn't considered the other uses of that technology.
Or that anyone would be rich enough to use it for a dress. But by now I should have known better — if anyone was going to do something like that, it would be Princess Immorata. I wondered what the woman I was impersonating was really like, but I doubted I'd ever know. She was off somewhere enjoying herself and I was stuck dealing with her mess.
There wasn't time to dwell on that now, though. The liquid dress had darkened again to a plain black and was solidifying. Gone were the frills that made it so impractical, and I found myself looking down at a simple and practical black dress that fell to just below my knees. It still had the air of something expensive about it, but it no longer screamed wealth. More of
an understated murmur, I thought.
"That will have to do," Xendar said. "There are a lot more settings in here than I expected, and even the basic presets are complicated."
"Complicated enough you nearly left me wearing a puddle," I agreed with a grin. His blue skin darkened in an oddly adorable blush. "Yeah, I'm happy stopping here. How about the shoes?"
"There's a matching setting for those, I think," he said. "Put them on and I'll give it a go."
Dubiously, I slipped the impractical shoes on again and felt them start to flow. The tickling of their transformation was far worse than the dress had been, but at least it was quick. I sank down to the floor as the heels were absorbed, and felt the liquid matter crawl up my calves. Sensible black boots to match the dress. Looking at the new outfit I could imagine going hiking in something like this.
At least it would be better than the fancy red dress that got caught on everything. And much better than going barefoot had been!
"I wish I had a mirror," I complained as I tried to get a better look at myself. Xendar shook his head.
"You look fine," he told me. "More importantly, you don't stand out as much. As long as you're careful, and don't draw attention to yourself, we can risk you going outside now."
I felt a weight lift from my heart and threw my arms around him before I could recover my composure. It was silly to be so excited about leaving but being trapped in the truck had already started to grate on my nerves. Even a little bit of fresh air was better than nothing.
It took an effort to remind myself that it didn't mean I was free. This place was too dangerous to go wandering off on my own.
Xendar looked uncomfortable as he pulled back from my embrace, and I felt my cheeks heat again. Both of us looked away, embarrassed, and after a moment he coughed and spoke, thoughtfully.
"This truck will be drawing attention sooner or later. People know it belonged to the verkesh, and they might get curious about who owns it now. While you were stuck here we didn't have a choice, but now that you can leave we should get rid of it."
I nodded at that, having no desire to stay here longer than necessary. It was uncomfortable, unpleasant, and it had cages. "So, where do we stay instead?"
"We can move into the Nest Four," Xendar said. "It's going to take some work to make it safe to fly, but at least there you'll be out of sight and if there's a problem we'll be able to take off and make a run for it."
He didn't sound happy, and the gripping motion he made with his hands, as though he was throttling some imagined enemy, made me think he'd rather fight than run. But his plan made sense.
"How long are we going to be stuck here?"
"No more than a few days. Anything I can't fix in that time will have to wait anyway, there aren't the facilities here for a full overhaul." As he spoke, Xendar went back to the door and slid it open, looking around. The space outside was relatively clear and he waved me over to join him before jumping down to the ground.
The smell hit me as I made my way to the door. Like a garbage dump and a sewage plant had collided. I almost gagged at the impact of it, rethinking my desire to leave. How did people live in a place that smelled this bad? I choked back a laugh. That was more like a princess's thought than my own. Maybe some of Immorata's squeamishness was rubbing off on me as I pretended to be her.
Xendar laughed and reached up to me.
"You'll get used to it in a while," he said, lifting me down to the ground beside him. "A place like this, no one's building sewers."
"It's awful," I complained as I got my footing. The ground felt squishy under my boots and I was suddenly very glad I hadn't decided to go barefoot. "But I can stand it for a little bit."
He nodded, putting a hand on my back and guiding me towards a narrow alleyway between two of the thrown-together buildings. The quicker we were out of sight, the happier we'd both be.
But I couldn't stop myself from slowing a little to look around. It might be filthy and unpleasant, but it was also the first alien settlement I'd seen and I didn't want to miss having a look at it. The buildings weren't much to talk of: odd, sure, but they were clearly thrown together from whatever was at hand. It wouldn't have surprised me if humans built something similar, given the same materials.
What stood out to me were the people. Most of them weren't human and some weren't even close. There were aliens of all kinds here, from the small fuzzy creature that I might have mistaken for a dog if it hadn't been haggling at a stall to the tall and spindly being with wide wings like a butterfly. That one was focused on a holographic display, and I wondered what it was up to. Reading the news on the local internet? Playing some kind of game? Updating its social media?
Or doing something that I had no context to understand at all?
There were six-foot-tall lizards carrying guns, and something that looked like a squid rolling along in a ball filled with water. A slender creature that looked something like a humanoid deer, if deer were green and had four eyes. Everywhere I looked, I saw something new and equally strange.
Xendar's hand pressed me forward, and I could feel his impatience. I could understand it too. There were humans in the busy street, but they were outnumbered by the aliens. We'd stand out, and if anyone knew my face we could be spotted quickly. As fascinating as the bizarre mixture of species was, this wasn't the time to explore it. I found myself wondering, though, if I'd ever have the chance. Would I be free and safe to explore somewhere like this in the future?
I realized that I wanted to. For the first time, I wanted this adventure to take me somewhere other than straight back home to Earth. Perhaps it was the fact that Xendar had proved himself trustworthy, or maybe I was becoming resigned to staying with him. Whatever the case, I wanted to have a chance to explore before I got back.
We moved through the back alleys of the settlement, and I wondered if this place even had a name. It seemed to be no more than a mess of thrown together buildings, but wasn't that how a lot of towns started? While I was deciding whether to ask Xendar, we came to the edge of the landing field.
The spaceships were almost as impressive as the crowd of aliens had been, but I did my best to cover my interest. This wouldn't be anything interesting to the princess Xendar thought I was, and I still had to keep up that pretense. So I did my best to keep walking normally and not stare too much at the different ships.
Even I could pick out the ship we were moving towards, though. The verkeshs' lack of care for their technology was obvious as soon as Xendar pointed me in that direction and my heart sank. None of the ships here looked anywhere near as well looked after as the Darkfang had been, but the Nest Four was falling apart where it sat.
I wondered how the verkesh had lost Nests one, two, and three, but really the wonder was that they'd been able to afford number four. I'd just have to trust that Xendar would be able to get it back in working order as he promised.
We were half-way across the field when another ship came in to land, lowering itself from the sky silently and settling not far from the Nest. It moved with a silent menace, a saucer twice the size of our new ship, and I couldn't help pulling away from it as it dropped. Something that big shouldn't float, and I kept expecting it to fall.
But no, it landed precisely and a ramp lowered immediately. Small gray figures hurried down, rifles in hand — clearly, they knew that they were in a dangerous port and weren't going to take any shit. No one challenged them, and the few other aliens I could see ducked away from them.
My muscles stiffened at the sight of the grays, remembering my abduction. Don't be ridiculous, I told myself. They were a whole species, blaming these ones for what had happened to me would be like blaming every human for Ted Bundy. Completely unfair. There were probably billions of the grays spread through the galaxy.
Sensing that something was wrong, Xendar turned to look at me and I forced a smile, unsure of what to say. That was when I saw who was coming down the ramp of the ship. Another gray, but this one had a familiar red
mark on his face. The red mark my phone had left when I threw it at him.
Shit. It was Keshiir, and if I could recognize him, he'd know me too.
12
Xendar
Watching the princess's eyes widen in surprise and fear, I didn't know what was going on, but I knew it was bad. And it had something to do with the newly arrived ship of grays.
That was all the hint I needed to turn her away from them and hurry out of sight behind a bulky cargo hauler. If that was someone who might know her in person, then we couldn't take the chance. Right now, there was no way our ship could outrun theirs, we'd be lucky if we could even make it to space, and that was if we could make it to the Nest Four without being spotted.
I doubted we could. A glance at the markings on the gray's saucer told me that they were bounty hunters, and they looked like a skilled and disciplined crew. It couldn't be a coincidence that this pack of hunters had turned up here right now. They had to be looking for the princess, and they looked a lot more professional and dangerous than the verkesh had been. Someone had been quick off the mark to hire them and send them after her, I guessed.
Killing them and stealing their ship was a tempting option, but too dangerous to actually attempt. There were a lot of the grays, and they only needed to get lucky once to leave the princess undefended and trapped.
"Keep walking casually," I said. We were a striking couple, an Acheran and a human woman together would draw attention no matter what we did. But if we ran there was no chance of us going unnoticed. "Who are they?"
She blushed and shook her head, flustered. I growled, feeling my impatience rise. No matter how difficult this was for her to talk about, I had to know what new threat we were facing. "Do you know them?"
"We've met," my princess said after a moment's pause. "Their captain's name is Keshiir. I, uh, gave him that scar on his face. I doubt he's forgotten me."
