Alien Prince's Pregnant Fake Fiancée (Celestial Mates) Read online

  “You are her greatest love!” Sirius spouts, all smiles as he bobs and weaves in the air as if dancing for joy. “Lovers climb mountains for each other, span seas, cross galaxies, and fight ogres with foot fungus!”

  “Ogres with foot fungus?”

  Sirius halts his zipping about, thinks about what he’s said, and then waves it off. “You are her hero,” he exclaims. “Go! Be her hero! I can bring the two of you together, but the rest is up to you. You are the builders of what your destiny looks like!”

  Finally, he stops his antics and, hovering in the air, he starts to shimmer as he fades out. “You don’t need me, Volex. Aisha doesn’t need me either. She needs you. Be the man she needs, Volex! Find a way!”

  Then just like that, he’s gone.

  “Son of a bitch,” I mumble, turning around in a circle as I try to figure out what to do with my overwhelming need to strangle someone. The little bastard could help me so easily, but he won’t, and the woman I love is out of my reach. My frustration is almost unbearable.

  Stop. Breathe. What one thing can you do right now?

  I can get Rekaia to give up the coordinates of Aisha’s home. I’ll reason with her. I’ll sweet talk her. I’ll promise not to kill her…

  I’m running before I realize my feet are moving, jumping hedges and dodging pedestrians. I’ve got a jilted fiancé to see.

  “He’s mine!”

  It’s Rekaia’s voice, and it’s coming from the royal voyage chamber where Mother has taken her for questioning. I would normally hesitate before entering into such a confrontational situation, but this time I don’t. I push through the doors ready to pull Rekaia apart limb by limb in order to get the answer I need—that is until I see her.

  She looks awful. Her hair is mussed, her makeup is smudged, her color is pale, and she looks seven hundred years older than her natural age. Her eyes turn to me as soon as I enter the room and they hold a silent, desperate hope that I’ve come to my senses and have chosen her. She was, after all, my chosen betrothed, hand selected by the Queen Mother herself.

  “She carries my grandchild, Rekaia,” Mother says, her voice calm but cold. “As fond as I am of you and your family, I will not suffer this indiscretion. You will tell me where you have banished her.”

  My heart skips a beat as I see Rekaia’s feet begin to lift from the floor as little sparks of energy build around her.

  “I won’t tell you,” Rekaia vows through gritted teeth.

  “You will tell me,” Mother is using her royal voice. Her soft spoken words vibrate throughout the entire chamber.

  “You gave him to me,” she complains, sounding more petulant than someone legitimately wronged. “He’s mine!”

  “Rekaia, I am well aware of the string of broken hearts you’ve left behind. You love my son no more than you love a rock. That is fine. What’s not fine is that you have separated me from my future lineage. I will not tolerate your disobedience, Rekaia. Believe me, I will do everything in my power to get this information. There will be no mercy unless you answer me. Rekaia, what are the coordinates you used?” The walls shake with her question.

  “Nooo! He’s mine!”

  “Where did you send her!” The vibration of Mother’s voice travels through me, hits the walls and bounces back so that the waves crash into each other, creating a sensation of intense pressure. From where she is, held suspended in the air, I see that a blood vessel has broken within one of Rekaia’s eyes to turn it red.

  “Mother…”

  “Tell me!” Mother screams, slamming her fist down, and this time the wave of her voice crashes through me so hard that it leaves me staggering and Rekaia looks barely conscious.

  I can’t let this go on. There’s got to be another way. She needs me. Not Mother. Not Sirius. She needs me!

  Mother gasps in a breath of air ready to let loose her rage, a rage that could kill Rekaia.

  “Mother! Wait!”

  Mother closes her lips and turns her glare on me.

  “I can find her, Mother. I can do this. I’ll bring her home.”

  “How?”

  She’s not going to like this.

  “I have a plan, Mother. You’ll just have to trust me.”

  “You sure about this boy? The Royals are not as popular away from Voltar, especially with the pirate fleets.” Brokk eyes me, yet his hands are on the controllers and a vortex has opened up behind me.

  “I have to find her. My life is Aisha’s now, and I will devote it to her wherever she is.”

  Brokk nods approvingly, focuses on the controls a moment and the vortex behind me grows ominously large. Then, stepping out from behind the controls, he takes a small globe from his pocket. He tosses it into the air and catches it, then hurls it into the void with all of the strength of his arm.

  The vortex goes from its whirling blues and whites to a black hole ready to rip through dimensions.

  I swallow nervously and steady my breath. The trip ahead will take untold days, and I will face unknowable obstacles.

  Am I terrified?

  Gods yes.

  Am I going anyway?

  Gods yes.

  “Thank you, Brokk.” I say with a nod.

  “Take this.” Brokk slips a ring from his finger. “Show it when needed, and it might help you gain safe passage.”

  “You will always be a friend to me because of this,” I say, and I mean every word. “If I have the chance to be there for you some day, I will.” With those final words, I turn and leap, letting the dimension hopping vortex stretch the energies of my existence into a thin thread. Through it all, one thought remains intact.

  I will find you, Aisha. I am yours.

  Chapter 23

  Aisha

  “I’m blue!” I lament, standing in front of the mirror.

  “Mrs. Brewer fed me tuna this morning,” Mr. Cuddles responds in between licking his front paws. “Why don’t you feed me tuna?”

  “I made you tapioca pudding from scratch last night,” I retort but get little more than a cat-shrug in response. “You’re an ingrate, you know that?”

  “At least I don’t look like a Christmas lightbulb.”

  My shoulders deflate as I look back in the mirror. Mr. Cuddles is right. Gone is the soft, warm caramel of my skin’s natural tone. Every inch of me now glows a soft blue, yet when I pull up my shirt and push down my waistband, that glow shines bright enough to light up a room.

  “Hi baby,” I say, laying my palm on the gentle swell of my belly. It’s only been two weeks since I’ve been back, yet everything has changed. I haven’t been to school, and I haven’t been to work. None of it matters, though. I only care about the tiny life growing inside of me.

  Well, that’s not true. I miss Volex. I miss his laugh. I miss how I could curl myself into him. He was so strong, and so warm and loving.

  “He’s not coming for me, is he?”

  “I thought you’d left me but you came back,” Mr. Cuddles offers in answer as his paws knead the little blanket on which he sits while purring loudly.

  “I’d only been gone a day, Mr. Cuddles. I’ve been back for over two weeks.”

  A knock sounds at the door.

  “Aisha, honey, you in there?”

  “Ahhh fuck…” It’s the landlord, a sweet little lady of ninety years old.

  “You haven’t paid your rent yet.”

  “And she ain’t going to pay it, you old bag,” Mr. Cuddles says.

  “Hush,” I hiss at him, forgetting that all Mrs. Thompson will hear is Mr. Cuddles’ meows.

  “The only thing she ever offers me to eat is from a bag of cat food she bought two and a half years ago. She made salmon croquettes the other night and never offered me a bite!”

  Salmon croquettes do sound good.

  “Can I come in, honey?” she asks, and I hear her keys jingle.

  “No! No, Mrs. Thompson,” I call out and follow with some deep, hacking coughs. “I’ve got a very bad cold.” I cough some more. “Sn
ot everywhere, I’m a mess. It’s not safe, Mrs. Thompson.”

  I can tell Mr. Cuddles is impressed with my performance by the way he’s twitching his tail.

  “Oh my, yes, you sound awful, dear! Okay then, you rest.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Thompson,” I add hurriedly, reaching a blue hand out toward the door. I’ll probably never see her again. “You’ve been good to me.”

  “Oh you’re welcome, sweetheart. Just feel better.”

  I sit down heavily at my desk chair as I listen to her shuffle off down the hall. I’ve never not paid a bill in my life, but today I’m going to skip out on my rent altogether. I’m going to take Mr. Cuddles and go.

  My computer pings at me, drawing my attention.

  AlienJam’en: Extraction in place.

  I sigh heavily, close my eyes and shake my head.

  “These people are bonkers. Why did I agree to meet them?”

  Because you don’t have anyone else.

  It was the truth. I had nobody. If I went to a hospital, my glowing blue condition would be leaked right along with the pregnancy, and I’d have men in black trench coats coming into my room. When I found out I was pregnant and thought I needed to escape Volex in order to have my own life, I was wrong. There’s no life for me here on earth, not a safe one—not for me or my baby. When I finally did find a group of people who I thought I could trust, I demanded that I meet them first at a mutually safe location. I’ve been tirelessly searching the internet for options of what I could do ever since I got home. I still don’t have good answers, but I’ve got a few good leads.

  “You are not leaving me behind this time,” Mr. Cuddles says as he jumps effortlessly onto my desk and flops down on my keyboard. I scratch him behind his ear.

  “I can’t promise there will be yummies,” I say. “I really doubt that I’ll have any salmon croquettes to offer anytime soon.”

  Mr. Cuddles closes his eyes and purrs loudly. “Just keep doing that and we’ll be okay.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet up with them, make sure everything’s safe, then I’ll come back for you.”

  “I don’t like it. You should take me with you.”

  “I’ll come back, I promise.” Yet, even as I say it, it doesn’t feel right. “I promise,” I whisper again.

  “If you don’t come back, I’m going to throw up a dead mouse on your favorite pillow,” Mr. Cuddles warns.

  “It’s a deal.”

  Chapter 24

  Volex

  My body rips from space itself to leave me sliding across a sheet of ice that suddenly drops away to nothing but air, and I find myself hanging by my fingertips to the side of a glacier.

  “This isn’t it!” I scream over the high winds, sure that my voice is being whipped away instead of carried back into the portal that stands flickering twenty feet away. It might as well be a hundred miles away for all the good it does me, though, as a thin sheet of ice slides free to leave me dangling by one hand.

  I climb back up the jagged mountain of ice and crawl on my belly to the portal before lifting up on all fours to throw myself back in.

  “You fucking, insane bastards!” I scream at the flickering portal through gaseous fumes hot enough to raise tiny blisters on my skin. Two hundred feet below me roils melted rock, and this time I’m plastered to the side of a rock ledge and the portal is fifteen feet away hovering in mid air. I have to jump for it, and if I miss, I’ll plummet to my death in the lava below.

  “You guys are psychos, you know that? Deranged, lunatic, psychos!”

  Pulling my legs into a tight crouch, I push off from the rock face and stretch my length with arms forward to dive back through the portal.

  “Oh… Oh gods. No! No!”

  I keep my eyes mostly covered as I turn in a circle. I cannot unsee what I’ve just seen—dozens of elderly bodies writhing and moving over one another in the biggest orgy I’ve ever witnessed.

  “Ohhh! She can’t be here. Why the hell would you ever think her vibration was here?”

  I leap blindly for the portal, catching my foot on somebody’s thigh and falling face first into massive, pillowy breasts. I tremble as wafty arms wrap themselves around my neck.

  Untangling myself takes up the most terrifying seconds of my life.

  I jump wildly for the portal, thankful when it swallows me whole.

  I land in a crouching roll and stop with my face inches away from a small, furry creature staring at me with huge yellow eyes.

  “This isn’t even Earth,” I mumble in disbelief and then turn and scream at the portal. “It’s not even Earth, you sick bastards!”

  “Well, aren’t you the blue boy,” the oddly shaped ball of hair says, intermittently flexing and withdrawing opaque talons as it hums a low vibration that I find surprisingly soothing.

  “Where am I?” I ask as it wraps a tail nearly the length of its own body around itself. If I know what planet the pirates have sent me to this time, adjustments to the coordinates can be made.

  “In Aisha’s apartment,” it says as it lifts a foot and begins licking it.

  “Aisha! This is Aisha’s apartment?”

  “Mmmhmmmm,” it hums with a long, ongoing rumble.

  My hand itches with the need to stroke the creature, but I don’t want to be rude.

  It eyes me up and down, then says, “She’s almost the same blue as you—but more glowwy.”

  “I’ve found her!” I exclaim and then turn to the portal and yell. “I’ve found her!” The sucking black hole wavers unsteadily and then blips out in a small pop that feels as if a sucking vacuum has just closed. “Mmmm, good riddance,” I growl and then turn my attention back to the creature before me. “So where is the lovely Aisha?”

  “I’m not telling,” it says as it turns in a circle and then curls around itself, tucks its front feet under and stares at me with half-lidded eyes.

  “But, but… I’m Volex,” I say, tapping my chest and waiting eagerly.

  “And I’m Mr. Cuddles, but that doesn’t mean anything more to you than your name does to me.”

  My mouth falls open, but I snap it closed again. Standing up, I take in my surroundings. Moving from room to room, I see that her apartment is about the size of one of my rooms at home. But, it’s put together well and everything about it reminds me of her. Her home smells like her, and I breathe in deep.

  “Mr. Cuddles,” I say, taking a knee before him, “I love the Lady Aisha, and I’ve been searching for her nonstop since the moment I learned that she had left Voltar. I have devoted my life to her, to be with her wherever she is. I just need to find her.”

  Mr. Cuddles partially blinks as he makes that low rumbling sound and pulses out his talons over and over again. “I have conditions.”

  “Anything!” Okay, now we’re talking! Negotiations. Another step closer to my sweet love.

  “I want to come with you.”

  “Oh—sure. Okay.” He’s small. I can carry him as long as he doesn’t rip my flesh with those needles on the ends of his toes.

  “And I want salmon croquettes at least once a week.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” I have no idea what a salmon is other than discerning that it’s a fish. I’m sure we can find something to his liking.

  “And I want to sleep anywhere I chose.”

  “Yes, yes! Sleep is good, that’s what I always say!”

  The little creature stands up and then arches its back so much that it becomes temporarily twice as tall.

  “Okay, we can go then,” it says after its done with its stretch. Then, easier than I ever imagined it could, it leaps over onto my shoulder and sits down.

  “Where?”

  “Never mind that. Just get up and walk through that door and down to the street.”

  The little creature is talking to me, and I’ve got the promise of soon being reunited with Aisha, so I do as I’m bid without arguing about it. I have to stoop down a little when heading out the door, and then when I reach the bottom of the sta
irs, a tiny little woman who looks five times more ancient that our most holy of leaders gasps as I near her and slams herself away behind a large, heavy door.

  “Are you sure about this?” I ask as I stand before a pair of doors that are solid on the bottom but have a top half made of translucent material and criss-crossed wire. Through the doors I can see people who look similar to Aisha walking past as boxes with people inside whiz past even faster a few feet further away.

  “I thought you said you wanted to be with her,” Mr. Cuddles challenged.

  He’s right. Time to suck it up.

  I step out into the stream of people, aware that Mr. Cuddles has looped his long tail around my neck.

  “See that yellow car parked in the street? Get in it,” Mr. Cuddles directs.

  I’m operating on blind faith at this point. It takes me three tries to figure out how to get inside the box, and when I do the person in the front seat turns and looks at me with what I can only describe as disgust. “Another one of yous,” he says with a head shake before turning to face forward. But, he has the box in motion a half second later.

  I don’t ask where he’s taking me. Since he seems to know what I want without asking, I trust in that the same way that I am trusting Mr. Cuddles. Shifting my attention, I stare out the translucent material of the box up at the buildings that seem to do their best to reach the sky.

  “Why was she so amazed with our architecture?” I marvel. The buildings of Earth are unlike any I’ve ever seen.

  When the box suddenly stops, my face slams into the back of the driver’s seat.

  “Time to pay up,” the driver says, twisting around in his seat. “Eighteen even.”

  Eighteen. Eighteen what? Those are the words in my brain, but the rest of me is absorbed with what I’m seeing out the side of the box. The hard ground in front of me is teaming with creatures gathered from galaxies I’ve never heard of. They are tall and short, pink, orange, yellow, green and blue, fat and thin, bearded and beardless, armed and weaponless, alive and… dead? Is that one dead? My mouth drops open.