14. PEACE
PEACE
I spun looking for the disembodied voice.
Behind us, on a now-working screen was one of the most handsome faces I’d ever seen.
My mouth fell open. Xyrox came up behind me, his large, hard body a steadying force surrounding me.
As his arms went around my waist, I thought he might be the only thing holding me up.
The stranger flashed a brilliant smile. “Ah, so you can hear me, Peace. It’s excellent to make your acquaintance.”
“Wh—who are you?” I stammered. “How do you know my name?” I leaned back into Xyrox, wishing I could crawl inside him and away from this place where these beings I’d never met seemed to know me.
The handsome figure on the screen chuckled and ran a hair through his dark hair. “Where are my manners? Prince Frierik Magnússon of Pleiades, at your service. We’ve been searching for you for a long time.”
“Prince?” I croaked. This day was getting weirder and weirder.
“Yes, but please just call me Frierik. Or Rick if you prefer. Peace One calls me that and I’ve come to like it. Less stuffy, you know.” His perfect smile shone brightly across the screen.
I blinked. “Wait. Peace One calls you that? I don’t understand.“ I glanced up at Xyrox, hoping he could make sense of things. “I’ve never met him before,” I whispered. “I swear.”
“You’re mine, and I’ll protect you,” he whispered back. “I don’t care if he’s a prince. He can’t have you.” His arms tightened around me, and I could feel our identical tattoo heating on his chest. “I think you need to start explaining some things, Your Highness.”
Though most of me was completely gobsmacked by this turn of events, a primal part of me thought his protectiveness was hot. Really hot. I squirmed in his arms. Focus Peace!
Yes, please focus. You are making it difficult to come across as a badass when you are wiggling against my lingams like that.
I bit my lip as the voice in my head admonished me.
“I’m glad to see you found your soul’s mate,” Prince Frierik said, snagging my attention. “That’s good. You’ll no longer be of interest to Jokull.”
I startled. “What? How do you know that?”
“Your eyes glow when you look at … Sorry, I didn’t catch your name, sir.”
“Xyrox Quorath. And you better start explaining, Your Highness.”
“Peace’s eyes—they’re violet. That’s her Pleiadian genetics. And when we find our soul’s mate, our eyes glow when we look at them. Just as her eyes are glowing right now.”
Peace jerked, snapping her gaze back to the screen. “What? My eyes don’t glow.”
“They do,” I whispered. “We’re fated, just like our matching marks told us.”
You’ll have to show me in a mirror later . Peace silently replied, still glaring at the screen. “What does that have to do with Jokull, and why did that fekking fekk send goons to blow up my ship?”
“We’ll have plenty of time to go over all the details when I get there, but the basic story is that Jokull ólafsson, who calls himself Regent, but that isn’t an official title—“
“Don’t try to make him sound like anything but a monster, Rick. Is that her?” A woman’s voice sounded from behind the prince.
My breath hitched. It was my voice. Then a face dropped into the picture over his shoulder, and I completely forgot how to breathe.
It was me . My tawny skin, though slightly lighter.
My violet eyes. My heart-shaped face with an identical nose, lips, cheekbones, and chin.
She even had my platinum hair, though she wore it in a loose, casual style.
While I was bereft of words, I heard Xyrox’s astonished voice in my head. What in all the blazing suns is going on?
Stupidly, my last thought before the little black dots on the edges of my vision coalesced into yawning blackness was, Oh, I forgot to breathe.
***
“I told you to wait and let me ease her into it.” The Prince’s voice was the first one I heard as I swam out of unconsciousness.
“Sorry, not sorry! I was excited. It’s not often you get to meet yourself. Well, maybe more often for me than normal people. What number is she?” My voice that wasn’t me said excitedly and in a language I didn’t recognize.
Am I in a fever dream? I whimpered, immediately wishing I could take the sound back.
“Xiara,” Xyrox murmured. I felt his big, rough hand stroking my cheek. “Can you hear me?”
Xiara? That was the Rykantosian word for “my love” when directed to a female mate. My eyelids fluttered open, and his concerned green eyes were the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.
I smiled weakly. “I’m fine. I just forgot to breathe for a minute. Kind of important.”
“Yeah, you might even call it necessary.” His lips twitched before he leaned down and brushed my mouth with his.
“Oh, good. You’re alive! Come say hi, sister-friend!” My voice from not-me said from the screen.
“You ready for whatever this is?” Xyrox whispered as he helped me to my feet.
“No. Yes? What is this?” I responded as I stood to face … myself in the screen. My not-me waved and smiled. “Hi. I’m Peace One. Which Peace are you?”
“I’m Peace.” My head started to swim again.
“Yes, I know. What number is in the middle of your tattoo?”
“I’m so confused. Did I accidentally lick a hynotoad?”
“As I was trying to say …” Prince Frierik shouldered his way back onto the screen. “Our race lost its ability to reproduce, and Jokull got overzealous in his experiments—“
“Blah, blah, blah.” My doppelg?nger rolled her eyes. “Long story short, Yogurt made a bunch of clones of us and then OG Peace shot us into space. Now Rick and OG are trying to find us and scoop us back up to try to help defeat Yogurt and stop all his dastardly deeds.”
“Yogurt? What language are you speaking?”
“She means Jokull,” Prince Frierik explained. “She’s speaking English, which is a human language from the planet Earth.”
“Human? Earth?” I looked at Xyrox because he was the only thing that felt real at the moment.
Prince Frierik cleared his throat. “Yes. Peace One is from Earth. I think maybe we are giving you too much information at once—“
The other Peace bounced in her seat like a happy child.
“If I can handle it, so can she. What number is in the middle of your tattoo? Mine is number one, so that’s why they call me Peace One.
Is yours on your ass, too?” She stood and reached for her waistband when a huge purple hand came out of nowhere and wrapped her entire fist in his.
“Princess, we talked about this,” a deep voice grumbled from off screen. “No more exposing yourself on camera. Not even to your clone.”
I sucked my lips between my teeth to avoid laughing out loud. I was beginning to liked this Peace.
She plopped back down into her chair, a pout on her lips. “Fine. This is Varroc, by the way. He’s a Lithomorph and my mate.”
A male squatted behind Peace One, his serious purple face appearing on screen. nodding seriously to Xyrox and me in hello. “It’s an honor to meet you. I am Varroc of Lithoria. Third son of the revered King Herroc, General of the Quarzion Legions, and Mate of Peace One of Earth.”
My eyes widened a bit as Xyrox stood to his full height, squared his shoulders, and placed a fist over his heart. “I am Xyrox, First Son of the House of Quorath, Senior Agent of Intergalactic Investigative Forces, and Mate to Peace of Rykantos.”
I really need to get you alone right now Agent Quorath. Also, can I say, I’m starting to appreciate this telepathy thing no matter where it came from.
A smile teased the edge of his upper lip as he tried to hold his “I’m as big of a badass as you are” pose in front of our new friends.
“You’re talking in your heads, aren’t you?” Peace One twirled a lock of hair around her finger and grinned.
My eyes shot to my twin on the screen and narrowed. “You know about that?”
“Yep, thought so. Pleiadians have telepathy, and it works with our mates, too. It has to do with the whole bond, matching tattoos, clone woo-woo,” she explained breezily.
She leaned closer to the camera. “The mate telepathy thing has other perks too. Have you experienced that whole feeling the other’s body thing when you … ”
“That’s enough, princess.” Varroc’s purple skin somehow flushed. Peace simply smirked at him.
“Princess?” I asked, the title taking me by surprise. I’d thought it was simply a pet name the giant rock guy called her.
Peace One shrugged. “Yeah, funny that. Who knew the big lug was a prince back home? Became his mate and, boom, I’m a fucking real-life alien Disney princess!”
She laughed as if this was hysterical. I had no idea what a Disney was, but was glad it made her happy.
“So,” she continued. “What number are you?”
I looked down at my chest. “I don’t know what number it is because I don’t recognize the symbol.”
“Show us. Rick will know.”
I clutched my shirt in my fist. “It’s between my breasts, and there’s no way I’m showing you.”
“Hold on a second.” Xyrox turned back to the communication console and did something with the screen and buttons. “I sent you a drawing.”
“Received.” Prince Frierik was back on the screen after Varroc pulled a protesting Peace One out of the way. “That’s a two. You’re Peace Clone Number Two.”
“I’m number two?” I repeated, my mind whirling again, but this time with anger as I thought about how many versions of me had been marooned on strange planets as orphaned babies. “How many of us are there?”
Prince Frierik grimaced. “We’re not sure. Half a dozen, maybe. Possibly more.”
“At least six. Wow. And you found Peace One first and Peace Two second. What are the odds of that?”
“One in thirty,” Xyrox answered, earning a dirty look.
“Well, as fun as this has been, and as pleased as we are to have found you, Peace Two, we must sign off to jump into hyperspace. We should be at your location in approximately one and a half rotations. I’ve instructed Julie to provide you food and a comfortable place to rest. We’ll go over all of this in more detail once we pick you up. ”
I punched Xyrox in the arm and gave a little happy dance. “We’re saved, and by definite friendlies this time.”
Prince Frierik’s brows knitted together. “You’ve been in contact with others? Julie said you were the only intelligent life on this planet.”
“Is Julie how you found us?”
“Yes. She’s instructed to contact me whenever any Peace connects with a MEDIC or a Julie-enabled device that’s connected to the Intergalactic Network.”
“Oh. We didn’t know Julie could do that. Just before you called in, Xyrox made contact with a ship using one the old coms. A, um …” I clucked my tongue, trying to recall his name.
“Captain Helos of the freighter Silverlight ,“ Xyrox supplied.
“Yes, that was it. Captain Helos said he’s on his way. He’s already in hyperspace so we can’t intercept him.”
The prince’s face tightened. “When is he due to arrive?” Prince Frierik asked.
“He estimated about two rotations,” Xyrox replied.
Prince Frierik began frantically working on his navigation system. Xyrox and I exchanged a worried look, neither of us needing to see what he was doing to know it couldn’t be good.
“What’s wrong?” Xyrox asked, looking fierce.
“Who is this Helos? What should we be prepared for?” Every muscle in my mate’s body tensed as he studied Rick, Peace and Varroc on the screen.
Rick and Varroc were stoic, giving nothing away, but my sister-clone chewed her bottom lip—a sure Peace sign of worry.
Prince Frierik looked up from his console, his expression calm. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Just in case, we will increase our speed in order to get there first. I’ll instruct Julie to provide defenses. In the meantime, eat and rest. We will contact you when we arrive. Out.”
And with that, they were gone.