16. ALICE

ALICE

Later that night, we walked hand-in-hand into the throne room. The first thing I noticed was that the tables for the other women in the center of the U had been removed. They now sat scattered between other courtiers and whoever else made up Zayden's court.

He ordered this, I thought and turned my head slightly to look up into his face. His expression gave nothing away, but he squeezed my hand slightly. He was indeed a man worth getting to know and falling in love with.

Zayden led me up to the top of the raised part of the dais and pulled out the seat right next to him, but we didn't sit down yet. He waited for the dinner guests to quieten before, in a loud booming voice, he announced, "Your future queen, Alice."

My heart beat a little faster. I had no idea what it meant to be a queen. But I was sure I would meet any challenge head-on if it meant I could stay by Zayden's side.

The other courtiers rose, drumming their palms on the table in a loud applause while cheering my name, "Queen Alice!"

Most of the human women stayed seated and quiet. Some glared at me, others sneered.

When we finally took our seats and filled our plates, I leaned over to Zayden and asked, "What will happen to them?"

I didn't have to explain that with them I meant the human women, still sending baleful glances at me.

"Whatever you wish," Zayden answered. "I would prefer to keep them here as our guests. Maybe in time they will find good matches."

"I like that," I replied, turning from one face of my former fellow prisoners to the other. We had all been abducted, feared being auctioned off as sex slaves, that they felt resentful of me now was understandable. I hoped in time, we would find that camaraderie again we had when we were held on the alien spaceship.

The following days went by like in a dream. Like what you would imagine after the announcement of "They lived happily ever after". Two dresses beyond anything I could have ever imagined were manufactured for me, one for Zayden's and my wedding and the other for the next day, when he would officially crown me as his queen.

There were some whispers about an alien queen, but the priests subdued them by announcing that it had been the will of the gods that brought me here. An announcement that seemed to pacify Zayden some, who grumbled about damn demanding priests and I still don't like them.

He later explained that the priests had been the ones ordering him to find and marry me; otherwise, he would have lost his hard-fought crown. Not without another fight, I was sure, but I wasn't sure who would have won, and even if Zayden had been victorious, it would have been empty. You cannot fight against your subjects' beliefs and expect them to love you for that.

Mach-Nak-Tho made it clear I needed to make friends with the ladies of the court and arranged several small group gatherings throughout the day for me to meet the other nobles of Zypheria. She even included several of the human women, and astonishingly, I made friends with many of them quickly. Zypherian and human.

Once the other women found out the whole story about Zayden and me, they came around, mostly. Two had even already found some Zypherian men they liked.

For my wedding ceremony, ten ladies carried my trailing veil, a mix of Zypherians and humans. Zayden awaited me at the top step of the stone stairs leading up to the palace entrance while guards held back a throng of tens of thousands of people gathered in the courtyard to watch our wedding.

My heart hammered hard inside my chest as I gathered the folds of my long skirt to begin the climb of thirty steps. My eyes were glued to Zayden, staring down at me.

The people in the courtyard chanted our names, and the sounds threatened to deafen my ears, but that was nothing to what followed when Zayden broke tradition and came down to the stairs to not only meet me halfway but to gather me into his arms and carry me up the rest of the way.

"They love you already," Zayden had to almost shout over the applause and screams of the crowd.

"I love you," I yelled back, meaning it. I had fallen deeply in love with him over the last weeks. For some reason, I sensed that we had meant to be together even though we had been light-years and worlds apart.

His step faltered just a little. He had never said anything, but I knew he had been yearning for me to say the same words back to him that he told me first upon waking in the morning and last before we fell asleep.

For a moment he looked perplexed, as if he thought he had misheard me, so I repeated, "I love you."

That's when he stopped and kissed me.

The crowd went wild, or so I was told because I didn't hear or see anything; my entire being was focused only on his lips on mine.

Finally, he carried me all the way up to where the high priest stood, smiling benevolently at us.

"The gods have willed you to live your lives together as a mated couple. No male or female shall ever come between you, and if they try, may the gods strike them down, for your mating has found favor with them."

The words were strange, but they resonated deeply within me, filling me with something that had been missing so far in my life, and I was more than happy to bind myself to Zayden.

He was my world, my everything.

"I love you," he said when the priest entwined our hands.

"I love you too." I looked into his strange orange eyes, filled with the truth of them. I loved him more than this new world I had yet to mostly explore, but together, each day would be a new adventure, and I loved that too.