Chapter 2

Clutching Lady Natoi’s scarf to my chest I hurried down the hallway, past the guards who threw me curious glances, to the elevators that took me to the lady’s floor. Then down another few corridors straight to her chambers.

“Well finally, it’s about time. Where have you been so long?” Lady Natoi ripped the scarf from my hand.

“I—”

“Never mind that now. Come on, we’re gonna be late.” She pulled on my arm.

“Late?”

“Vra, late. Have you forgotten?” Her voice pitched an octave higher like it usually did when she was annoyed. She shook her head, rolling her eyes as if putting up with me was the biggest chore of her life. “We are to meet Sir Naximus and his sons, Sir Vodin and Sir Savious, tonight for a late dinner.”

Impatiently she shook her head harder. “Oh, you little fool.” She raised her gaze to the sky as if pleading with her god. “Why have I been punished with the universe’s most exasperating human?”

Her eyes fell on me as if seeing me for the first time. “And what in the name of Staphor are you wearing? Have I not bought dresses for you far more appropriate than this?” She fanned herself with her hand. “Come, hurry.”

She pulled me into the rooms she had assigned to me and marched to the wall that held all the hidden shelves stacked with clothing she had purchased for me.

“Here, put this on. Nocc, wait, this one.” She pulled out a violet dress that would bring out my blonde hair. “And for Staphor’s sake, hurry.”

She left the room and I did as bid, hurrying along, running a brush through my hair. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful and make her wait even longer for me than she already had.

I was grateful! I was!

Even though I had never asked for this, I appreciated everything she did for me, even her efforts to introduce me to all her friends and friends’ friends. I suspected she didn’t do it solely out of the goodness of her heart. She wanted to be one of the women who brought a mekarry bond together, as she had pointed out so many times.

Mekarry bond, this time it was me rolling my eyes. Other humans were dying terrible deaths by the thousands and I was being paraded around like an object, like a broodmare. I should have been grateful that I was alive, well fed and taken care of. But my insides still turned at the thought of yet another dinner with her friends, who would stare at me expectantly, waiting to be struck by whatever struck them when they ran into their mekarry, which I gathered was something akin to a soulmate. According to the Pandraxians, it was a bit more than that, but that was all I could imagine right now.

I was still too shell-shocked from the events that brought me here, going from a normal life to being invaded by aliens—aliens I had never believed in. Running for my life and fighting to make it through another day had been a nightmare.

For days I hid out with a group of survivors, always worried a drone would find us. Always hungry—something I had never experienced before, not to this extent.

And then the army suddenly appeared, saved us, fed us, and told us that another alien species, the Pandraxians, had arrived and that they would take us to safety.

I was taken aboard one of their ships and brought here, where I was spoiled and pampered like a vied-over pet. Something that was nothing short of a shock to my system.

Some mornings, while on the run from the Cryons, I woke disoriented, thinking I was in my bed, that all this had only been a bad dream, until I realized that no, it hadn’t been a dream at all, it was reality and I was running for my life. Now when I woke up I was bathed in sweat, thinking I was still running for my life and waking up in a dream, because I couldn’t possibly be safe.

My life now seemed turned upside down again as I recalled my earlier encounter. Just thinking about it still gave me heart palpitations. I could hardly believe that I had been in the Emperor’s private chambers.

When Lady Natoi sent me to fetch her scarf and described where she left it, I didn’t know whose rooms I was about to enter. Granted, the guards in front of it tipped me off that this wasn’t a suite like Lady Natoi’s, that it belonged to somebody higher up on the totem pole, but after I explained my predicament to the guards, they seemed to know Lady Natoi and allowed me to enter without a fuss.

It took me a moment to find the scarf on one of those comfortable bean bag chairs the Pandraxians favored, and which I had grown quite fond of myself, when I heard voices on the outside and the door opening. I barely had time to duck behind a pillar when he entered.

The tallest, most handsome Pandraxian I had seen so far. He looked utterly imposing in his teal, metallic, shimmering skin, the same color as the highlights in his hair. I couldn’t see his eyes from where I stood, but imagined them to be the same shade just like I had observed with the other Pandraxians I met so far.

Why I didn’t come out of my hiding spot is beyond me, but I watched the man walk to the balcony and stare out as if he was mesmerized. I should have made myself known then, but there was something about him that caught my attention and stilled me. Something about him made me not want to disturb him. When he walked in he had looked like a man carrying the weight of the universe on his shoulders, but when he stood there, looking out, I realized this was his moment of peace and I didn’t have the heart to intrude. I figured I would get a chance to sneak out a little while later, but then another Pandraxian arrived, a woman whose name I forgot the moment she called him His Imperial Highness, making me realize where I was and I nearly peed myself. This wasn’t like someone simply entering into someone’s private chambers, this, I realized, would be viewed a little bit more seriously.

I hardly comprehended what the emperor and woman were talking about, because my heart already hammered hard inside my throat, even before Emperor Daryus threw a vase across the room. I had heard about his famous temper tantrums and feared I was about to witness one.

When he first discovered me I was sure he would order my execution on the spot if he wasn’t about to do the deed himself with his raised sword. But then he had turned out to be kind.

Without actually seeing myself in the mirror, I stared at my reflection, deep in thought about the encounter.

“Are you ready?” Lady Natoi yelled through the closed door, reminding me of my duties. I pushed all thoughts of the earlier, unnerving encounter aside, and hurried to meet her.

“Good, better.” She scrutinized me from head to toe. “This will do. Now come.”

I followed her like the obedient pet I was up a floor to a balcony, a sort of strato port. I had flown in these vehicles before, but they were still nothing short of amazing to me.

Each was the size of a small SUV, fully automatic, without a driver. They stopped in line like taxis or Ubers, opening their doors to any person approaching and taking said person to any destination they wished.

The windows were darkened to assure the occupants’ privacy, but I was still able to see out and watched a strato liner pass by. Strato liners were like trains or subways, moving through glass tunnels. I would have loved to ride on one of those and look at all the different aliens, but Lady Natoi had declared those were for the lesser class, people of common blood, workers. Making me wonder if the strato gliders were reserved only for the upper class. There were so many of them though, that I couldn’t believe this to be the case.

Emperor Daryus’s palace was covered by a large dome and was the size of a small island, something I noticed when I first came to Pandrax. So far we hadn’t left the dome yet and it didn’t seem as if tonight would be any different.

The strato glider came to a stop at a strato port, the doors opened, and I exited first, helping Lady Natoi out next. Curiously I looked around to see where we were, but didn’t recognize the area. Some kind of boardwalk, reminding me of pictures I’d seen of Venice, ran beside a canal to our left, the strato glider hovered just barely over the dark waterline. To the right was a wide passageway where people walked about like tourists in any city on Earth, only, they were aliens. Stores and restaurants took over the other side of the street.

Even though the idea of this place reminded me of Earth, there was no mistaking that I was on an alien planet. The streets were made from an undefinable white polished material, the same as the walls of the businesses. Streetlights gleamed with a strange halo, strato gliders moved by, and then there were the Pandraxians and other aliens, leaving no doubt that I wasn’t visiting a foreign city on Earth.

“Don’t stare and dawdle. Come.” Lady Natoi pushed me forward, toward one of the larger restaurants.

A droid approached us by the opening doors. “How may I be of assistance, Lady Natoi?”

“Sir Naximus is waiting for us,” she informed the droid in a manner that made it clear she felt put out for having to voice this information to the droid, as if he should have read her social calendar and realized where she needed to be.

Maybe you should invent an app for that, I thought, and nearly snickered but managed to hold it back, which was a good thing, because it would have come out as hysterical, maniacal laughter.

I didn’t feel in any condition to meet two, no, three more, prospective mekarry bonds. I really didn’t. Besides my unnerving encounter with the emperor, some days, like today, I just felt as if I were at the end of my tether. I needed some time to come to grips with the things that had happened, to me, to Earth, but everybody seemed determined not to give the one thing to me I needed the most.

Instead, I was paraded around, taken to stores, dressed and paraded around again, and I was getting a bit sick of it. It was an ungrateful notion, I knew that. I was safe where others had it so much worse than me, and yet, I couldn’t stop resenting the fact that I was being treated like… a broodmare.

“There you are, Lady Natoi,” a Pandraxian rose from a table where he sat with two other men, all of them were deep magenta red, shimmering with the metallic gleam of the Pandraxians. It was easy to see that they were father and sons as the two younger versions of him stood up, one was taller than their father and the other a bit shorter.

“And this must be the human,” the man I assumed to be Sir Naximus said, smiling warmly and curiously at me, the way I was becoming accustomed to.

“Heather Seymour,” I said, putting out my hand.

“It’s their custom,” Lady Natoi explained with a veiled eye roll, just humor her, her voice implied. “You are supposed to shake it.”

Hesitantly, Sir Naximus put his hand around mine and we shook.

“These are my sons, Vodin and Savious,” he introduced and we too shook hands, before Naximus pulled out a chair first for Lady Natoi, then for me.

“How do we know if she is our mekarry?” Savious asked his father, who glared at him in response.

“Mind your manners.”

“Good evening, can I bring you some drinks, sirs and ladies?” a disc-shaped drone arrived, reminding me of a Roomba, just thinner and flying and speaking.

“Vepo will be fine,” Lady Natoi ordered, looking at the men as if daring them to contradict her. I had already noticed that most alcoholic beverages were frowned upon, except at dinner at the palace, which I had attended once.

“I’ll order for you,” Lady Natoi offered generously toward me. “The poor thing is fresh off the ship and doesn’t know much about our customs yet,” she explained to the men.

Just like I did for the rest of the evening, I clenched my jaw and smiled pleasantly. “Thank you, Lady Natoi.”