by Lyra Shanti
Fola didn’t particularly care for Lod Zin, but she could tell he was telling the truth about The Dome. She was certain Ohr was hiding it somewhere, and it was up to her and her brother to find out where.
As she approached Sterek’s sleek, Krian-style ship, which he custom-built himself, she parked her bike and smiled. He was waiting for her on the hatch’s ramp, waving. Unable to hold in her excitement, she ran up the ramp and grappled him. Just like when they were children, she wrapped her tail around his legs and pinned him down.
“Alright, alright, Sis! That’s enough,” said Sterek, laughing. As stoic and serious as Fola could be, she often showed another side with her brother. He was the only one in the universe she truly trusted. Even with Kuva, who was near perfect as a caring, loving partner, Fola found it difficult to fully let go and trust. Too much pain had happened in her life, too many had betrayed her. Sterek, however, was Fola’s mainstay and her emotional security. She couldn’t imagine losing him, and if she did, she didn’t know if she’d be able to withstand the pain.
“I missed you, Bro,” she said after slurping his face with her tongue. Licking each other like cats was something they had done since childhood. Sterek laughed and said, “I missed you too. Now are we ready to go help Pei or what?”
Fola laughed and said, “If we don’t, Gods know he’ll be lost!” Getting up from the floor, she walked into the ship’s bridge and grabbed a seat. Sterek followed her and closed the hatch-doors.
“Is everything sealed and ready?” she asked as she activated her seat belt.
“All is a go,” replied Sterek, joining her.
“Then let’s go find us a dome!” shouted Fola as Sterek lifted the ship up from the Sirini ground.
Once entering Sirin’s outer atmosphere, they raced past its sun, and then shot into hyperspace. It wasn’t how pilots typically maneuvered through the folds of space; they usually waited longer and were more careful, but Sterek knew space-time like the back of his hand. He had always been great at anything tech, but especially ships, and how to fly them. It fascinated him, and was the one thing that kept his mind from turning dark when he was a child-slave. There was another thing that kept Sterek going, and that was his beautiful, often hot-headed sister. Together, they were a force to be reckoned with, and they knew it.
Vax will never know what hit him, thought Fola as she grinned, watching her gifted brother twist and turn through the stars.
--
Pei knocked at the door in a secret, coded rhythm.
“Come in, General,” said Zin as he casually picked out a dress-shirt to wear for dinner.
Pei walked into Zin’s room, looked around for cameras, audio-bugs, or hidden enemies, and then quickly reported to his fellow Tah spies through a digital wrist-communicator that everything was clear in Zin’s room. He looked at Zin’s changing of clothes for a moment and said, “Your Majesty, with all due respect, what the hell are you doing?”
Zin looked over at Pei with a nonchalant glance. “What does it look like?” he replied.
“It looks like you’re getting ready to go somewhere fancy,” said Pei, folding his arms, annoyed.
“Well, that would be because I am on my way to visit the princess,” said Zin as he tied his thin, shiny blue tie.
“What? No, you can’t!”
“Why not?”
“Because… it’s not safe, Zin! Sorry, I mean, Lod Zin… but from what I heard through the audio-bug we gave you, you just told the prime minister to kindly ‘piss off.’ That’s not good! We had a plan for you to take this nice and slow, and now he knows everything!”
Zin rolled his eyes and said, “It’ll be fine, General. This is my home… my kingdom. And besides, he won’t do anything to harm me while I’m with his daughter. He can’t since he pretends he is a perfect father and leader, when it comes to Miara.”
Pei sighed and said, “Yes, that’s all well and good, Your Majesty, but Vax now knows you are on to him and that we are in search of The Dome. We have to act now, Lod Zin, before it’s too late. If we delay meeting with Fola and Sterek at the Tirleni camp, we will risk losing the advantage of surprise. Don’t you get it? Vax will have time to hide The Dome even better!”
Turning to Pei, the well-dressed king said, “Pei, no offense, but I think you’re overreacting.”
“What?!” sputtered Pei.
“Look, there’s nothing Vax can do to me. I am his daughter’s betrothed, and I am on my way to see her. Wasn’t this part of the plan anyway? You would meet Sterek and Fola at the camp, and I would stay here in order to convince Miara about her father’s true nature. There’s no need to panic, General. Everything is on track.”
Pei sighed and rubbed his forehead. “No, Your Majesty, it is not on track. You and your temper just revealed to Vax, not only our plan, but that you know about how he’s taken your mother and Raven. You are now a dangerous threat to him, and he WILL try to take you down. You cannot go to that dinner tonight.”
Zin laughed and sarcastically asked, “Are you giving me an order, General?”
Pei swallowed and folded his arms, frustrated beyond belief. “Look, Zin… I just want to keep you safe. That is what Ayn charged me to do, and I will keep my word to my king, even if you annoy the hell out of me, to be honest.”
Zin cracked up with laughter. “Oh, Pei… how you’ve changed since you were a priest! I like you much better now.”
“Great, that’s… great, Zin, but… we really have to go! Come on, get your necessities and let us be gone from here.”
Zin shook his head and folded his arms. “I told you, Pei, I will be fine. There is nothing Vax can do to me at present. Besides, me sprinting away like a common criminal will only raise Vax’s suspicions further. Let him think we don’t know where the Dome is located. Let him think I’m full of hot air without proof. That will give you time and advantage. Go ahead, Pei, go to Tirlen released you from your charge.”
Pei sighed and said, “No, you can tell him yourself. When you are captured or worse by Vax, you can explain how you wouldn’t come with me when I asked.”
Pei turned to leave, huffing and frustrated. As he slammed Zin’s bedroom door behind him, Zin smirked and thought, Silly, Pei. How on Ohr would I be able to tell Ayn anything if I were captured?
Zin shrugged, then dialed Princess Miara’s code on his wall-communicator. “Hello, Miara? Oh… hello, Lady Rea, this is Lod Zin. Would you please alert your princess that I am on my way, and I will be there shortly? Thank you.”
Ending the call, Zin took one last look at himself in the mirror. He was adorned in a light, silky-blue jacket with dark blue pants and a sparkling silver blouse. He loved fashion, and he wanted to look his best for Miara. Not only did he want to change her mind about her father, but he also felt terrible for having stood her up at the altar.
“You can do this,” he told himself in the mirror. He then exhaled and shook the bottom of his silvery hair. Darting out the door, he briefly thought about his Lady Raven, and his mother, and hoped they were both still alive. It was all he was living for, and though he still didn’t believe in Gods, he knew at least Ayn, The Bodanya, would never abandon them.
Chapter 6: Rendezvous
Slowly, she opened her sleepy eyes to view the ceiling fan above her, twirling around much like her own half-awake mind. Yawning, she began to remember her wonderful dream; it was her and a man with dark wavy hair, making love in the moonlight by the Parevian Sea. It was breathtakingly beautiful on the beach, and their moment of climax was so real it made Iliya wake up to her own ocean between her legs. Sighing, she rolled over and smiled, hoping to dream about it once again.
What she didn’t expect to see was Baran sleeping next to her. Iliya’s tired eyes grew wide as she quickly realized she was in his bed, in his room, and laying naked next to his own unclothed body! She wanted to scream or pinch herself, but she also didn’t want to wake him.
What the hell am I doing here? she asked herself, puzzled beyond
reason. Did he have his way with me last night? No, he’d never! He’s not like that!
Within seconds, her mind showed her clues in flashes of memory: Baran laying her down in bed, Baran lying next to her, and then… it all went hazy.
Oh, come on! she silently growled. I know I was quite drunk, but please, silly brain of mine, tell me what happened!
Just then, Baran yawned as his blue eyes flickered awake. He took one look at the nervously smiling blonde girl next to him, and he groaned, throwing a pillow over his face.
“Oh Gods,” he said, “someone kill me.”
“Um…” said Iliya, sheepishly, “Baran, why am I in your bed, and naked?”
He merely groaned underneath the pillow as a reply.
“Did we? We couldn’t have, could we?” she asked on the verge of giggling.
Darting up from the red satin sheet that covered the lower half of his body, he looked at her with messy hair and serious eyes. “Yes, Iliya, we did. Are you honestly telling me you don’t remember attacking me last night?”
“I did… what? I attacked you?” she said with a giggle, shocked and embarrassed.
Baran nodded and shook his head. “Yes,” he replied, deadpan, “you were extremely inebriated, and I tried to get you to sleep, but you wouldn’t. Next thing I knew, you came into my room and got on top of me and… My Gods, Illy, you really don’t remember?”
She shook her head, but the second she did, she remembered almost everything. He was right; she had jumped on top of him and stripped, and then she writhed on him, enacting her deepest desires.
“Oh, Gods, Baran, what did I drink that made me so wild?! I remember now! What was I doing? I mean, I may think you’re gorgeous, and if I’m honest, I have wanted to make love to you since I was nine years old, but that’s no reason to force myself on you! Well, unless you liked it… because then, maybe we could do it again, like, right now… because, wow, you look so good with your hair all messy and in front of your eyes and-”
“Iliya!” he blurted out, trying not to laugh. Getting up and exposing his manhood to her for a moment before putting on his pants, he sighed and said, “You really need to get a hold of yourself. What we did last night was a mistake that can never happen again. Is that clear?”
Nodding with a slight pout, she said, “Yes, yes… I wasn’t really serious. It’s just… I wish I could remember it better. Was I any good? It was my first time and all.”
Looking at her with concerned eyes, he took a deep breath and sat on the bed next to her. He then covered her up with the satin sheet. “My dear Iliya… you’re just a child still. You're only fifteen! I wish you had waited to give yourself to someone your age and who could truly be with you.”
“But… I have always loved you, Baran,” she said in earnest. “My mother is a fool not to take you night after night and marry you. I would in a heartbeat!”
“Please, Illy,” he said, rubbing his forehead, “let’s leave your mother out of this. If she ever found out about what we did, she’d kill us both.”
“She’s not my real mother,” Iliya replied with a curled lip. “But don’t worry, I won’t tell her anything. I may be blonde, but I’m not stupid.”
Baran slightly snickered, and then got up. “Good,” he said putting on a black, button-up blouse.
Iliya watched him as she felt the wetness between her legs get even wetter. Why do I have to want him so much? she rhetorically asked the universe. As she watched him dress, she remembered even more of their heated lovemaking. She remembered how hungry he looked as he grabbed her young, but already full breasts, and how good he felt inside her as she passionately rocked on top of him. If only he wasn’t her adopted mother’s lover! It wasn’t fair!
“You are far from stupid,” said Baran, “but what you did last night was a little foolish, to say the least. Are you even taking any sort of protection?”
“Protection?” she repeated, blinking.
“Yes, you know… any sort of birth control?”
“Um....”
“Oh, Iliya! Really?!”
She felt like an idiot, but she had never thought about getting on birth control. She didn’t like the idea of a foreign substance in her body, and she hadn’t thought she’d need it anyway. She had planned to save herself for Jin, which she now realized was a pointless delusion.
On the verge of crying, she looked at him and said, “I’m sorry, Baran, I’m just so stupid!”
Baran, immediately feeling the need to protect her, sat next to her on the bed and wrapped his arms around her. “Oh, sweetheart, it’s alright. I don’t know exactly what will happen, but I do know that I won’t ever let anything bad happen to you. I will always be here for you, honey. You have my word.”
Iliya looked at Baran starry-eyed and held back her tears. He was her hero and her ideal man, and she loved him entirely. Lingering on his blue eyes, she tilted her head, and then tenderly kissed him. He tried to pull away, but couldn’t - it felt too good to stop.
As they kissed, they didn’t notice the woman in the doorway. Had they seen her, they would have stopped sooner. Unfortunately, they were lost in the feeling of each other’s lips and almost made love again, despite their better judgment. If it wasn’t for what Baran saw out of the corner of his eye, he would have allowed himself one last digression.
“Oh, Gods, Reese!” he blurted as he immediately pulled away from Iliya, and then stood to his feet, which was a mistake, considering how excited he had been only moments before.
Reese was standing with her arms folded and her eyes locked onto Baran. If her eyes could kill, Baran would have dropped dead in an instant. “How long have you been standing there?” he asked, somewhat terrified.
“Long enough,” she replied, monotone. “Get up, Iliya, and get your clothes on. We’re going home.”
Iliya was more than a little frightened, but shook her head, wrapped herself in the sheet, and then stood in defiance. “No,” she said to her adoptive mother.
“No?” repeated Reese.
“Look, it wasn’t her fault,” Baran interrupted, hoping to defuse the situation. “She had a few drinks last night and-”
“Baran!” shouted Reese. “With all due respect, Minister,” she added in a commanding, loud voice, “but will you kindly shut the hell up? This is between me and my daughter.”
“I’m not your daughter,” said Iliya, “and you’re not my mother! You’re my adoptive mother, but you never spent time with me! All you cared about was your Lirhan Army and never even helped me with my studies! You’ve been an awful mother, and you’ve been an even worse lover to Baran, so you have no right to judge us! Why don’t you go to your precious Captain Jayse and leave us alone!”
Shocked for a moment, Reese stood and stared at Iliya with fierce, angry eyes. Suddenly, Reese lunged at her daughter and grabbed her by the hair, making Iliya scream. “You’re coming with me,” yelled Reese, “and that’s final!”
Appalled, Baran said, “Reese, please, stop!”
“Stay out of this, you bastard!” snarled Reese. Baran knew well enough to stay back.
“She’s just a child,” he said as Reese pulled Iliya out of his room.
“Exactly!” yelled Reese as she dragged Iliya to the living room. “She’s a child pretending she’s a woman, and she’s going to be grounded for the rest of her damned life!”
“Get off me, you crazy woman!” screamed Iliya.
“Reese, please,” said Baran, following them to the front door of his manor, “don’t hurt her!”
Reese smirked as she threw Iliya to the ground and said, “Oh, don’t worry, Baran, I’m not gonna hurt her any worse than you hurt me when I was her age. You know, I was going to come here and actually apologize to you for not spending time with you lately. Ha! I should have known you’d just have your way with her the way you had with me!”
“It’s not like that, Reese!” yelled Iliya as she stood up, rubbing her head. “I’m the one who had my way with him!�
�
Reese shook her head, unable to process Iliya’s words. “Just get in the car!” she yelled at her daughter who was still only wrapped in a red satin sheet. Opening the door, Reese stared at her with iron-eyes.
Iliya exhaled, exasperated and almost in tears. “Fine,” she replied as she took one last look at Baran, and then walked out the front door.
Following Iliya, Reese turned to Baran and said, “I don’t want you to see her - or me. In fact, I don’t want to even hear your voice… ever again. Goodbye, Minister.”
“Wait!” yelled Baran as he walked to the door. Reese then slammed it shut before he could reach her. Grabbing his forehead, he turned around and pulled his bangs back, and then slid down the door. Feeling as though the floor were slipping beneath him, he thought, Dear Gods, what have I done?
--
Arriving at the towering golden gates of the palace, Meddhi felt his heart beat a little heavier. It had been three years since he’d seen Ayn and the Holy City, and he felt an odd sort of foreboding as he walked ahead.
Once The Tah guards authorized his name and likeness, they let him inside. Soon after, Ayn himself came bursting through the front of the large palace doors.
“Meddhi!” he yelled from across the walkway.
Reminding him of when Ayn was just a boy, Meddhi watched as his beloved son came running to him.
Now a full grown man, and king of his own planet, Ayn embraced his father with tears in his eyes.
“It’s been so long, Father!” said Ayn, still hugging Meddhi tightly. “So much has happened! You have to come with me and see her! I still can’t believe it. It’s a miracle!”
“What’s a miracle?” asked Meddhi, confused as he walked by his son’s side, entering the front door of the palace.
