Chapter 6 #2
I glanced at the navigation console, the holographic display indicating that several hours had passed since I’d fallen asleep.
Odd. The nightmares tended to pay their cruel visits no matter how brief the nap, yet this time they had mercifully stayed away.
I shook my head slowly, ridding my brain of the last vestiges of sleep, when the unmistakable sense that I wasn’t alone prickled along my spine.
Turning my head, I found myself face to face with a pair of enormous emerald eyes staring with unblinking curiosity from within a halo of dark pink curls. Lilibet stood barely an arm’s length away, her tiny hands clasped behind her back in a gesture that was both innocent and endearing.
“What’s the matter, princess?” I asked, swiveling the pilot’s seat to face her fully. Lilibet didn’t appear upset or frightened—just curious. I extended my hearing toward my cabin, picking up the deep, steady rhythm of Jolie’s breathing, suggesting she still slept peacefully.
“How come you don’t have a bed?” Lilibet asked, her small brow furrowed with concern.
“I do,” I chuckled, the sound rumbling low in my chest. “You and your MeMe are sleeping in it.”
Lilibet’s face immediately crumpled into something resembling righteous indignation, her lower lip jutting out in a way that was both fierce and utterly adorable.
“You shouldn’t sleep in a chair. It’s not good for you,” she fussed, then brightened as inspiration struck.
“The bed is really big. You could sleep in it with us. MeMe sleeps with me sometimes when I’m sick or afraid.
She says it helps chase the bad dreams away. ”
The innocent suggestion hit me with the force of a plasma blast. The idea of sleeping beside them—of holding them close, keeping them safe and protected through the vulnerable hours of darkness—stunned me with the raw intensity of how desperately I desired exactly that.
The image bloomed unbidden in my mind. Lilibet curled between Jolie and me, her small body radiating warmth and trust, while Jolie’s soft breathing whispered against my shoulder.
No. It was too dangerous, too tempting, too much like the life I could never allow myself to have. The nightmares might have stayed at bay tonight, but they would be back. And I didn’t want them to touch my females.
“It’s not so bad,” I told her, forcing my voice to remain steady.
“Besides, I have to be here in case the ship needs something.” I didn’t tell her that as the queen’s guard, I’d endured sleeping arrangements far worse than a padded pilot’s chair.
Cold stone floors, cramped cells, sometimes no rest at all for days on end, and that was before the torture.
Lilibet approached with the fearless confidence of youth, her small, chubby hand landing on my forearm.
Her touch was feather-light yet somehow grounding, and I held perfectly still, afraid to disturb this moment of simple connection.
“Your scales are pretty,” she said matter-of-factly.
“They look like water and sunlight dancing together.”
I glanced down to where her tiny fingers traced delicate patterns over the cerulean scales that covered my forearm, each one edged with hints of gold that caught the light.
The youngling’s gentle, accepting touch made all the cruel words about my inability to shift my scales disappear.
The scales that had marked me as different, as lesser, suddenly felt like something beautiful.
“Thank you,” I managed, my voice tight.
“Is there water where you are taking us?” Lilibet asked absently, her fingertips continuing their exploration of my scales. “MeMe promised to teach me to swim, but the water on Prince Qurbaga’s planet was dirty and smelled bad.”
“Yes,” I promised, my heart clenching at the casual way she mentioned the horrors of her former life. “Zarpazia has beautiful, crystal-clear lakes and rivers. There’s even an ocean with pale green sand that our queen calls a beach.”
Lilibet’s face lit up with pure delight, her eyes sparkling like captured starlight, then her expression shifted to something more serious, more vulnerable. “Will we be safe there? Really and truly safe?”
The worry in her voice was more than I could bear. I reached out slowly, letting my palm cup her soft cheek. “No one will ever hurt you or your MeMe again,” I vowed, pouring every ounce of conviction I possessed into the words. “I promise.”
Lilibet studied my face for a long moment with those impossibly wise green eyes, as though she could see straight through to my soul. Then her features relaxed into a smile.
“Is being a pilot hard?” she asked. I’d been around enough Zarpazian younglings to recognize this type of shift in focus as perfectly normal for a youngling.
“It’s easy,” I grinned broadly, surprised by how natural the expression felt. “Would you like to learn?”
Watching the look of unbridled excitement bloom across her face was like watching the sunrise after an endless night, turning my heart to something mushy and warm. I held out my arms in invitation, and she came to me without hesitation, climbing up to perch on my knee.
While piloting a shuttle like mine didn’t require the complex skills needed for warships or fighters, there was still plenty I could teach an eager young mind. It was surprising how delightfully she absorbed every piece of instruction, her questions intelligent and her enthusiasm infectious.
I was even more surprised by how much I genuinely enjoyed her company.
Simply listening to her chatter about everything and nothing—her observations about the stars, her memories of better times with Jolie, her dreams for their future—brought me more joy than I could remember in what felt like forever.
I’d just let her nudge the propulsion system with her tiny finger, which sent up a cascade of brilliant ion bubbles floating through the void like luminescent pearls, much to her delight, when the shuttle’s comm unit buzzed with an urgent, insistent tone.
“Lilibet, I need to answer,” I told her, my voice suddenly tense as I carefully lifted her from my lap to the co-pilot’s seat where she would be safely out of sight. “Can you be very quiet for me?”
She pressed her small lips together in a tight line, nodding solemnly as she slid lower in the oversized seat, her emerald eyes wide with understanding.
My heart spasmed painfully at how she instinctively understood the need to remain unseen and unheard—a survival skill no youngling should ever have to master.
I hit the comm button, and a haze of blue-green light slowly materialized on the screen, the particles gradually coalescing into the familiar features of the king.
“Hello, cousin,” Vraxxan drawled, his voice deceptively casual, but the rigid set of his teal gaze was anything but relaxed. There was ice beneath the warmth of his greeting.
“Hello.” I offered a faint smile that felt strained, even to me.
Vraxxan steepled his long fingers together as a prop for his angular chin, a gesture I recognized as his thinking pose.
Never a good sign, especially when directed at me.
“Would you care to tell me why there are Kwado warships en route to Zarpazia and the Chamberlain is calling for your head on a ceremonial pike?”
I sighed deeply, casting my gaze to Lilibet, who gave me a faint, encouraging nod. Sometimes it was better to show than tell. I reached over, my hands spanning her tiny waist as I lifted her to sit on my knee, positioning her where the comm screen could capture her fully.
“King Vraxxan, meet Princess Lilibet,” I said, watching my cousin’s eyes go wide with shock and something that might have been understanding.
“She and her MeMe were guests in Prince Qurbaga’s harem for far too long and decided they wanted to leave.
So, I’m helping them leave.” I spoke almost in code, noting by the subtle change in Vraxxan’s expression that he read through my carefully chosen words to the horror underneath.
A faint sound of dismay, soft and heartbroken, preceded Lucy squeezing herself into the frame beside her mate. Her expression conveyed that she, like Vraxxan, realized exactly what kind of hellish existence Lilibet had endured in her short life.
“Hello sweetie.” Lucy softened upon seeing the youngling, her voice taking on that special tone human females used with younglings—warm honey mixed with protective steel.
“Lilibet, this is Queen Lucy,” I offered, watching her reaction with careful attention.
Lilibet studied Vraxxan and Lucy’s images, her head tilting as she processed the unfamiliar faces, then her cherubic features broke into a radiant grin. “Hello,” she offered to both of them with perfect politeness, then her attention turned solely on Lucy. “You look like my MeMe.”
“Lilibet’s MeMe is a human female,” I explained quietly, watching both the king and queen’s expressions grow hard as granite, their shared look conveying more than any words ever could. We needed to talk—privately.
“Lilibet, my princess,” I said, holding her securely against my chest as I stood. “Let’s put you back to bed with MeMe so I can talk to King Vraxxan and Queen Lucy, okay?”
“Okay,” she linked her arms around my neck happily, her trust in me humbling.
I carried her back to my quarters, each footfall carefully placed to avoid even the whisper of sound on the metal decking.
Jolie lay in the center of the bed like a sleeping goddess, curled on her side in peaceful slumber, her dark blonde hair a glorious disarray of waves spread across my pillow.
The sight of her there, so vulnerable and beautiful, hit me with the force of a plasma cannon.
I’d never seen anything more breathtaking in my entire existence.
I motioned for Lilibet to be quiet as I sat her on the edge of the mattress, the surface barely dipping under her featherweight. “Shhh, don’t wake your MeMe up. Go back to sleep, princess.”