by Desiree Hunt
The human glares at me as if I’d started dripping like a slug-man. “You’re getting married?”
“I’m not married yet!” I explain. “But tonight, she wants me to wed one of the line of eligible young ladies she’s invited to my…bridal ball.”
The human puts her hand over her mouth and lets out one solitary, little laugh. “Bridal ball?”
I groan. Even this creature from a backwater planet thinks this is ridiculous. “Anyways, I told mother I already had a woman in mind, and she said I needed to bring her to the ball tonight or marry one of the ladies of her choosing. So I contacted Celestial Mates—”
Her eyes ignite as she thrusts her index finger in my face. “You’re the one who unleashed that disaster on my life?”
“I didn’t unleash it! It unleashed itself…” After I hired it to. Fuck. “Look, this hasn’t exactly gone as planned for me either. You’re not quite right for the part.”
“Not ‘quite right’ for the part? I don’t even want to impress your mother at some lame-ass bridal ball!” she cries. “All I care about is my work, and if I don’t take that test tomorrow—”
My expression darkens. That damn test! “I know, I know. It’s the most amazing test ever. The suns set and rise over your test, and Great God Horak himself has bestowed upon it His blessing.”
She shakes her head. “Screw you. Seriously. You have no idea how hard I’ve worked and how much I’ve sacrificed for this one shot. To get another one I’ll have to endure at least another six months of mopping up pink puke—not to mention taking out another loan that I cannot afford.”
I shut my eyes. “Look, I’m sorry. If I’d known this would happen, I wouldn’t have done it.”
She waits a good ten seconds before answering. “Good. Apology accepted.”
I open my eyes. “What?”
“I’m not cruel. If someone makes a mistake and is genuinely sorry, I won’t hold it against them forever.” She looks me up and down. “Plus, I believe you didn’t mean to do this, and I can see how you could have made such a mistake.”
“Hey now,” I growl sort-of playfully.
“And especially…” she continues, “when that someone is going to make it up to me.”
“You’re damn right I am,” I vow. I’ll make it up to you in the shower, on my bed, in the gardens, in the hot pool on my lunar mansion, right up against that wall behind us…
“Good, because we’re on the clock. I need to take that test.”
“Right.” That damn test again. I wish she was this enthusiastic about my cock.
“And I am still here,” a very familiar voice pipes in.
I turn. Slowly. Ivar, I swear to fucking Horak…
Ivar smiles, immune to my evil death glare. “Now, my lady,” he says, offering his arm to the human.
My eyes bug out of my head. Don’t you dare touch her!
But…she does! Her hand slides easily through the crook in his arm. He pats her wrist and smiles.
The bastard. Just wait until I had a few minutes with him alone!
“I’m Ivar,” he says. “You’ll have to excuse me, but I’m afraid I haven’t caught your name.”
“That’s because I didn’t give it,” she replies with a coy smile.
Where the fuck did that coyness come from? And why was Ivar smiling back?
What the hell was going on here?!?
“Don’t be rude, brother,” I hiss through my gritted teeth. “Where she’s from, she might not be allowed to share such intimacies.”
The human raises an eyebrow at me dismissively. “My name is Aisha Porter. I’m my own woman, and I can share whatever intimacies I please.”
Ivar’s pervy lips curve into his most charming smile. “Ah, my favorite kind of lady!”
Favorite kind of lady my ass! I crack my knuckles. Her intimacies are not for the likes of you! And human, the only person you’ll be sharing your intimacies with is me!
Ivar leans in close—a bit too close for my liking—and whispers something in the human’s ear. The human laughs.
My heart soars. Her laughter is as beautiful as she is. There’s something musical—no, magical—about it. But the fact that she’s laughing with Ivar that way is nothing short of a curse. I almost cheer when she pulls away from him.
“Come on, let’s go.” I stomp off down the hall. The human and my brother rush to catch up with me, and when they do she’s laughing again.
My anger grows until it erupts into spores like a Plutorian stink weed. This is ridiculous. I’m getting jealous.
And I’m not the only one.
Trallia, one of the many servants of the royal home, walks by and eye-fucks me—and then, when she sees the human, tries to level her with a death-glare. And then Moriaki, another servant, walks by and does the same thing. The human notices the pattern by the time the fifth servant we encounter eye-fucks me and then tries to level the human with a death glare.
“I’m surprised you had problems finding a date for tonight,” she says. “I can’t for the life of me see why, but it seems like you’re pretty popular.”
I look over at her. “Do you want to see why, sweetheart?”
She isn’t intimidated. “You gonna flash me in the hallway, babe? How sexy.”
I stop walking. She does too. I put my arm out until my palm hits the wall and her face is inches away from my bulging bicep.
“It is sexy,” I tell her. “Anywhere. Anytime. It will be the fucking sexiest thing you’ve ever seen.”
“Okay, seriously, I’m still here!” Ivar cries.
This time, I don’t turn. I just bellow, “Why?”
“Because you begged me to come,” Ivar says.
Fuck. No matter how I looked at it, this was on me. I push myself off the wall and continue walking. “Let’s get this over with.”
The walk to the voyage chamber is very long. I make it a point to remain silent the rest of the way. My body already wants her; I don’t need my heart warming to her as well.
Damn those cherubs!
I stew in my own thoughts. And those thoughts aren’t very pleasant.
I can’t marry one of mother’s sycophants. I’d rather renounce my wealth and privilege. And yet, what was I without them? I had no skills. No education—or at least, I’d retained no knowledge from my education. My unique skillset was only truly fit for only one profession: the oldest profession in the galaxy.
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. I loved pleasing women, and they loved pleasing me. But who would be my most lucrative clients?
Mother’s sycophants.
Shit! I must get out of this. But for some reason, every time I think of a solution, it features her.
I sneak another glance at the human. She’s more beautiful every time I look at her—or, rather, every time I look at her, I see something else to admire. The determination in the way she carries herself. The intelligence in her eyes. The way those tits bounce. It’s a struggle to pull my attention away from the determination and intelligence of those bouncing tits when we reach the voyager chamber.
“Wow!” Aisha cries out, her expression once again filled with awe. “This is amazing! So amazing that I even just said wow!”
She turns, laughing. This time, she’s looking at me and I feel the full force of it invigorating every cell in my body. Reluctantly, I tell certain cells to be a little less invigorated as my brother steps forward with instructions.
“Aisha, walk to the center of the room. The universe will expand as you move deeper into it,” Ivar says.
The human steps onto the platform. She jumps as the representation of a galaxy flows to her left and expands.
“It’s alright, nothing is going to hurt you. Just keep walking,” Ivar assures her.
She raises a finger to touch a constellation of stars. They shimmer around her body, illuminating her curiosity and beauty. For a moment, I forget what I’m doing or why we’re here. I think I could watch her learn forever…
“
What you’re seeing there are the Charted Territories,” Ivar continues, “but from what Sirius said, we know that you came from the Uncharted Regions. Even uncharted, we’re still able to search for your solar system based on its basic parameters. What is the weight of your solar system?”
Standing amid an amass of stars, the human turns and looks at us. “It’s what?”
“It’s weight,” Ivar repeats.
He human looks at us blankly.
“Maybe she needs more clarification,” I cut in. “It’s gravitational signature or value.”
“Um… I know that we have eight planets.” She smiles as if she hopes that her answer is helpful.
It’s not.
I glance at Ivar. He’s very purposefully not looking at me, and I’m not even sure he’s trying to keep the smile off of his face.
Refocusing on the controls, I plug in the data of eight planets. “What else do you know?”
“We have a sun,” she says.
“Just one?”
“Yes. And, some of our planets are really big and others are a lot smaller.”
Oh gods, I was right. She is a dullard.
I smile encouragingly. “What else? What is your sun’s vibrational frequency?”
Her lips part and her brows go up, but no answer comes.
I ask her every question I can think of to help narrow down the possibilities, but when we are done, our search has over a trillion possibilities.
“I feel sick,” I say as I put my hands on the control panel and lean into them. Glancing up, the human is still playing with the interactive hologram of the Charted Territories and hasn’t noticed my distress.
“We could give Celestial Mates another try,” Ivar suggests.
“Do we threaten them or bribe?”
Ivar smiles big and slaps me on the back. “How about we start off by trying to appeal to their sense of morality.”
“They have no morality!” I exclaim and then glance hastily in the human’s direction. She thankfully didn’t notice my outburst. I stand up straight, my full height a few inches taller than my brother’s. “Their morality is pairing soulmates. In their eyes, they’ve done that and their moral obligation is done. They won’t listen to reason or ever admit that they’ve paired us wrong.”
“Have they?” Ivar asks, looking pointedly from me to Aisha and then back again. He crosses his arms over his chest and then squares his feet to shoulder width. “I’ve seen how you look at her.”
“That’s right! I look at her like a tree I haven’t climbed into yet.”
“No, brother. It’s more than that.” He looks over at the human again who is now on tip-toe in her ghastly foot coverings stretching to reach a recently erupted supernova that’s in the process of collapsing to form a black hole. “You’re a giant man who has a giant cock and now you have a giant woman…” He wags his brows at me.
“If words like those come out of your mouth again about her, I will sew your jaw shut filled with gore slugs.” To my surprise, I mean every word of my threat, but it fails to have the impact I was aiming for as Ivar laughs.
“That’s what I’m talking about! You like her.”
“Exactly! I like her. I don’t love her. She’s not my mate. Celestial Mates was wrong. They ripped her from her home and her life and shoved her into mine and then left—and I don’t even love her. They are vile little creatures that should be banned from our world.”
“Mmmhmmm…You didn’t feel that way a few hours ago when you were knocking on their door asking for help. What’s changed?”
I glower at Ivar and then at the human. “I don’t love her and never will. They had no right to put her here with me when there’s no hope for us.”
“You saying you’re incapable of love?”
“No, but I know what love is.”
“Do you? You’ve been in love?”
“I…” My voice trails off as I stare at the human. Once my eyes are on her, it takes me a moment to remember what it was I meant to say.
“I haven’t been in love, but I can imagine what it would feel like,” I tell him once I’ve recovered. “This isn’t it. This is uncomfortable and infuriating and full of uncertainty. It’s not love.”
“Okay.” Ivar claps me on the back before digging something out of his pocket. “I picked up one of their homing chits when we were at their sanctuary earlier. Break the seal, and it will summon one of them to us.”
He hands the small token to me. I turn the chit over in my hand and then look back at the human. I don’t have to do this. I could keep her…
But she’s not a toy. She’s a woman with her own destiny, and it doesn’t include me. It includes that damn test. And—oh, to hell with it—if she wants to take that test so bad, I’d fucking make sure she could.
I give Ivar a nod of thanks and then bend the chit until I hear its inner seal break. The air sparkles beside us, higher than our heads and just out of reach, until the translucent image of a cherub materializes.
Fearing that this little person’s attention could be gone as fast as it was gained, I get right to the point. “The human and I are not a match.”
Out of the corner of my eye I can see that the human has stopped her explorations and has given us her full attention. Above me, the cherubic vision digs around for some pocket in their groin wrap—don’t ask me where, I won’t say—and pulls out something that looks like a prism with a viewing lens on its bottom. The cherub holds it up to its eye and looks at Aisha. It humphs and then directs the lens at me and humphs again but in a more speculative tone. The vision then migrates to another more distant spot in the room where it is able to look at both Aisha and me in a direct line to each other—her in front of me—and this time the cherub breaks into a toothy smile and claps his hands.
“Extraordinary! A 100% match!” He gives me a severe look. “Many of us said you were unmatchable, Sir Volex. We’d been searching the sky charts for years trying to find a match in preparation and anticipation of your request. Sirius succeeded where we thought only failure was possible. He’ll get an accolade for this!”
My mouth drops open. All Sirius should get for this is a kick in the ass!
“She is your only match, Sire,” the cherub continues. “She is your only soulmate.”
Oh fuck…
“Wait!” the human exclaims, advancing on the translucent image. “I don’t care if he doesn’t have anybody else. That doesn’t mean I won’t, and I want my life back!”
The cherub’s face scrunches in thought and then he does something out of view. Then, he whips over to the other side of the room to look through his prism at Aisha and me, this time with me in front.
His chubby cheeks get chubbier with the eruption of a face-consuming smile. “You are a very lucky woman! Celestial Mates does rarely services your home world. Yet, just like Volex, you have only one soul mate. And, thanks to Sirius’s excellent work, you have now been united. This quest has been completed and is an unquestionable success! Your thanks and gratitude will warm our hearts for eons to come.”
Smiling as big as ever with a maniacal glint in his eye, the cherub’s image blinks out just as the human makes a wild leap to slam her hand through empty air.
“No!” she screams. “I have a test! I have a life! I share a cat! I want to go home! You fucking kidnapper! You can’t do this. Send me home!” But, the human is simply yelling at empty space.
Ivar watches the scene with a small smile on his lips. “You two truly are made for each other.”
I glare at Ivar. “I’m going to hit you.”
Ivar throws his hands into the air and backs away. “Hey, I’m a lover not a fighter.”
“You’re a sadistic opportunist.”
“Only when it comes to love,” he replies with a cheerful smile I want to rip right off his face. “Look, you two should talk. Get to know one another. You’ve got a ball to get ready for after all, brother.”
I throw my head back and groan. That damn brid
al ball. The frilly bane of my existence. I almost forgot!
“That’s right. I’ll leave you to it, then,” he says, patting me on the back. Then, he turns and shoves his hands deep into his pockets and saunters out of the room with a carefree whistle on his lips.
“I’m going to kill him,” I murmur to myself, though I can barely hear the words over the human’s screams.
She’s still in the middle of the room, yelling at the space where the cherub disappeared. Numb, I walk over to her and gently grab her shoulders.
“That asshole!”
“I know,” I tell her. “Today hasn’t gone the way you wanted.”
“No shit! I wish—I wish—God! I’m so mad I could punt that little cherub!”
Her hands are balled at her sides. Her nostrils are flaring. Her temples are throbbing as if they’re trying to grow horns of their own.
“Would it make you feel better to hit me?” I ask.
She bites her delectable bottom lip. “Maybe.”
“Well, go ahead then.”
She raises her fist, but instead of hitting me she sinks into my chest. “I don’t want to hit you. I just want to go home,” she whispers as she looks up at me with big, glassy eyes.
You are home. The words sit on my tongue, but I hold them back. Instead, I hold her surprisingly soft body close. “I will get you home. It will take time. You won’t make it back for your test tomorrow…”
Her anguished face crumples. It hits me hard, but I refuse to crumble, too. I must remain strong. I will make this up to her, especially considering what I must now ask her to do.
“I’ll make sure your life is whole when you do get home. I promise. But first, I need your help.”
She takes a step back. Her brows furrow. “What kind of help?”
“Do you remember the bridal ball?”
She shakes her head. “No. Never again.”
“So you’ve been to one before?” I ask, hope stirring in my chest.
“Prom, but it was close enough. Fucking Anthony. I went only because I felt sorry for him, and then he ditched me for Kathrine Taylor. Turns out she was who he wanted to ask the whole time, which would’ve been fine if he hadn’t also left without giving me a ride home! So I made a rule: no more dances.”
