Page 6 of Nanny for the Alien Prince (Alien Recruitment Agency #4)

6

NATH

“What was that?”

It was the fifth — sixth? — time I had asked the same question in as many minutes. No wonder they were looking at me that way…

I knew all about how the Ministers spoke to each other secretly while they were addressing me. We had as many spies watching our people as we did our enemies. It was, unfortunately, necessary.

Politics being what it was meant we couldn’t take any chances… unlike some of our more trusting — and far too naive — ancestors who very nearly lost the throne to wayward politicians hungry for power.

No doubt they were shuffling messages to each other at that moment about how I was not focused, how, unlike usual, I did not have a commanding grip on the facts and information they were sharing with me.

They weren’t wrong.

I had overseen uprisings, carried out my father’s orders to the letter, and not once — even when my life was once threatened and in very real danger — had I ever blinked .

But yet now, with the single look of an angered human female I barely knew, I couldn’t bring myself to focus on even the most significant things they were telling me.

Her opinion mattered that much to me.

More than that of the Ministers.

More than virtually anyone I knew.

And I was damned if I was going to let her opinion of me slip any lower than it already had.

I looked up at the holograms standing to attention around me, the seemingly solid Ministerial forms focused intently on me. The technology might have frozen for the movement on their faces.

I realized I had faded off, losing concentration once again. But I refused to ask them to repeat what they had just said for a sixth — or seventh — time!

I glanced toward my communicator, which sat silent. I sheepishly met the Ministers’ eyes. “Excuse me. My father, the Emperor, is calling. I have to take this.”

They nodded understandingly — they always were with anything concerning my father. Nothing demanded respect more than a crown.

I shut off their transmissions so they couldn’t overhear the ‘conversation’ I was sharing with my father — not that there was any to watch — and I fell back into my armchair and let out a deep sigh I didn’t realize I’d been holding. I turned it around to face the windows that looked out over the gardens.

It was a beautiful view, not that I spent much time enjoying it. Matters of state always clawed for my attention, sucking what focus I might have had from actually enjoying the view.

Rearing up like a giant fist was a mountain, purple with distance. How could I have thought it wise to take the boy and his mother up there to see the Shriim was beyond me.

I shook my head. How could I have been so stupid? The boy was far too young to be exposed to the Shriim, but then again, he wasn’t the reason I’d taken them up there, was it?

It had been to show off to Amelia the majesty of our fine creatures, and the view from the top of Shriim Mountain was truly spellbinding… if only we’d been able to see any of it when it was pitch black outside.

I let out another sigh and shook my head at my idiocy as I recalled latching onto the boy and dragging him onto the back of Biik and soaring high into the air with him in tow, so his mother could watch us from the mountaintop…

I’d wanted to give her a view, to show her a taste of the awesome Ulsen culture that she had never experienced before… and succeeded only in scaring the living wits out of her and her little boy.

I sank so low into my chair that I almost slid out of it.

If I could only relive last night, could only have done something that she — I mean, they — would have enjoyed…

And then an idea struck me.

I bolted upright and leaned forward. I immediately regretted it as the sudden movement sent a tidal wave of blood to my temples. After the smoggy black curtain had cleared, I could see everything clearly.

Not all was lost. After all, it wasn’t like the mother could go anywhere — oh, she might try to run, but there was nowhere the Ulsen empire could not reach her.

And I was the second most powerful person in the empire (officially at least — as my mother was clearly in the top spot whenever she had a mind to take advantage of her position) and I could call upon all our resources to locate her and the boy whenever I wished .

Not that I ever thought she would do something so foolish.

She was a practical woman, with a practical head on her shoulders. Even if she hadn’t been before, having to rear a child would have made her practical in the long run.

Amelia would remain here at the palace until the boy came of age. And there were still many years between then and now.

And what were first chances made for if not to learn from and benefit second chances?

I would make it up to her — her and the boy — but how?

How?

I had so dismally failed with what I thought she would like last time that I wouldn’t make the same mistake and jump to something I thought she might like…

Then the answer came to me — not as an idea but in the form of the boy’s history teacher, Ercor:

“...these are called the Velhellum Buds of the Velhellum Tribe on Axioc Prime, the very same subset species of Ulsen that—”

“The Rise of the Axioc Prime mutinies!” the boy said joyfully, clapping his hands and beaming with joy.

His teacher nodded that he was correct and launched into a whole new episode of the Ulsen illustrious history.

The boy… I thought. Of course… If anyone knew what Amelia liked, it was him…

I got up from my chair and raced toward the doorway. My secretaries — all four of them — looked up, startled at my sudden appearance.

Number Four — I could never remember their names and only identified them by the order in which they had joined my office — had her hand dipped in my private stash of Ulsen chocolate truffles.

Number Three dropped the file she was holding and the papers fluttered to the floor.

Number Two spat out her tea, spraying it over the holo-monitor that she had, until that moment, been watching. Some kind of mindless entertainment show.

“At ease, ladies,” I said.

“Your Highness!” Number One said, the only one who had any sense of self-control. She shot to her feet. “Your Grace. This isn’t… This isn’t what it looks like…”

“Of course it isn’t,” I said, recognizing slacking off when I saw it. “No one would ever say it was.”

“Is there, uh, anything we can do for you?” Number One said.

“I’m going out for a moment to… get some fresh air and think. Hold all my calls and delay any meetings I have.”

“But the Ministers…” Number Two said, wiping down her damp monitor. “They’re still waiting for your call with your father to end.”

“Oh. Right. Tell them to… hang on. I’ll finish my call soon enough.”

And with that, their jaws still on the floor, I rushed toward the exit.

I perhaps shouldn’t have been surprised at their shock. After all, they had never seen me take a day off… much less leave a meeting early.

Especially not in the middle of the day.

But I had more serious things to deal with. Amelia’s opinion of me was in jeopardy. And the only way to restore it was to meet with the boy.

The gardens were sprawling and massive. A total waste considering I never wandered amongst all the incredible flowers and plants. And now, I totally regretted that, as I got lost immediately.

I couldn’t make out where the boy and his teacher had gotten to! They couldn’t have circled around and headed back the way I had come, had they?

It was unusual, I thought, that the tutor would take his charge out of the classroom to study and learn. My tutors had certainly never held with more modern styles of teaching. I was never allowed out into the sunlight to play with my friends. No matter how much I begged.

And then I saw them. Over by the Yyar. The tutor snapped one of the flowers off and held it in his cupped hands. It looked much like a giant ball of pink snow. I glanced over my shoulders and was pleased the Chief Gardener wasn’t around to see the vandalism of his precious plants.

The tutor handed the flower to the boy, who raised it to his face and sniffed it. The moment he did, the flower exploded into hundred of fluttering flowers that rose into the air, flying upward.

The look on the boy’s face was one of wonder and pure amazement.

I couldn’t help but smile. There were few things more beautiful than the awe and wonder of a small child. The complexities of everyday life hadn’t yet come in and dispelled his sense of wonder. It wasn’t that the miracles disappeared from everyday life, we just became blind to them.

But we could always see the wonder on a young child’s face and remember what we ourselves had lost long ago.

As I approached, the tutor caught sight of me. The smile on his face at seeing the same miracle on the boy’s face instantly disappeared and he bowed low. “Your Majesty.”

I had ruined his sense of wonder with my appearance. Maybe I was the reason for its loss in many of my people’s eyes.

The boy hastily bowed too, but it was clumsy and disheveled. I wouldn’t berate the boy. Likely, he hadn’t performed it often before coming here.

“I see you were showing the boy the Yyar,” I said.

“Yes, Your Highness. I was telling him about how we name our plants and flowers after our greatest victories and losses.”

“Losses?” I snapped. “We are the Ulsen! We do not suffer losses!”

The tutor gibbered, unsure what to say in response. He knew as well as I did — probably better — that we had had our share of terrible defeats over the years. “Of course, uh—”

“I’m joking!” I said, making a mental note not to joke with anyone while I was so visible as the Crown Prince. The title played havoc with my joke-telling abilities.

“May I have a word with the boy?” I said.

“Yes, Your Highness. Of course.”

He bowed once more and slipped backward so I could be alone with the boy. The boy looked after his tutor, a look of concern dappling his brow.

I moved to one side so his tutor was visible at all times to help the boy feel more relaxed. His teacher kept his head bowed low but followed at a discreet distance, not far enough for him to lose sight of us but far enough that he couldn’t hear what we were saying.

“Would you like to take a seat?” I asked the boy, motioning to the fallen log behind him .

As he hopped onto it, wild animals scurried out and took off into the dense woodland. As I took a seat beside him, the boy looked over at his tutor. There was more than a sense of fear in it.

The teacher could do nothing but watch on.

I rearranged my cloak and realized how threatening I must have appeared to him. But there was little I could do about that.

“I wish to speak with you about last night,” I began. “I need to make something very clear. Do you know what I wish to say?”

The boy nodded, his skin turning a pale shade of blue that did not look altogether healthy. “Yes.”

I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t thought he would have been able to pick up on my desire so easily. “Very well. Then what do you say?”

“I… I’m sorry,” he said.

My hopes — and my shoulders — fell. He wasn’t going to tell me what I wished to know. “Why?” I asked.

“I… I was afraid. I’ve never seen a Shriim before, never mind ridden on one…”

My eyes moved to the side as I realized the boy had gotten the wrong end of the stick. I shook my head and smiled. “No, no, my lad. That’s not why I asked to speak with you today.”

He looked up at me hopefully. “It’s not?”

“No. In fact, I wished to apologize for what I did. You are far too young to be faced with the Shriim. When I was your age, just seeing my father’s Riders made me run and hide under the nearest rock.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. They can be fearsome beasts. Your reaction was a whole lot braver than mine. I would have screamed like a little girl and run for the hills.”

The boy’s growing smile faltered. “But I did scream. I didn’t run but I screamed.”

“Did you?” I said, stroking my chin. “I thought that was me screaming.”

“You didn’t scream.”

“Oh, yes I did. But you couldn’t hear me because your ears were full of the wind.”

He cocked his head to one side, unsure.

In truth, I hadn’t screamed. Biik was closer to my best friend than anyone else in my life. But when I was the boy’s age, I’d screamed blue murder at seeing her face to face.

“So don’t worry about being scared around the Shriim,” I said. “One day, when you’re ready, I’m sure you won’t scream. But that’s for another day.”

The boy smiled up at me and I cleared my throat. “The truth is, it’s not only you I need to apologize to. That’s why I came to speak with you today. I need to apologize to your mother.”

“She’s not my mother.”

I blinked at his rebuttal. “Of course she’s your mother.”

“She cares for me but she’s not my Mom.”

This was the very last topic of conversation I thought I’d have to face with the boy. After all, who was I to discuss family matters with him? I still suffered from the same issues with my own father!

“Does she care for you?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And she’s there every time you need help?”

He nodded.

“Then in what way is she not your mother?”

The boy thought about it. Then lowered his head. “She doesn’t share my blood. She didn’t meet my dad. She didn’t give birth to me—”

He cut himself off and looked away, tears playing on the lids of his eyes.

I peered around and looked for the teacher but he was nowhere to be seen. Of all the times to disappear on me…

I turned back to the boy. “Look,” I said. “After I was born, my parents rarely saw me. It was my nanny who looked after me. She became my mother and was more real to me than even my biological mother in many ways. I learned from her, took on the way she thought about the world, the way she saw the galaxy. She educated me more than any of my tutors ever did.”

“But she wasn’t your mom.”

“No. But she was the biggest influence on me and my life. There’s nothing in the world I would change about that. I am lucky to have had her as my nanny — and my second mom.”

The boy kicked his own feet and smiled over at me.

“And you know her better than anyone else,” I said, leading the conversation back in the direction I needed it to go. “Is that true?”

“I guess so.”

“There’s no guessing about it! You know her better than she knows herself, I bet.”

The little boy shrugged his shoulders. “I’m different. I know that. But why do I have to be so different from everyone else?”

I sensed this was what the boy was really concerned about. He knew who his real mother was. He was more worried about who he was — a far more adult problem and one everyone struggled with in their life.

I nodded. “You are different from other Ulsen but don’t let that stop you from achieving your dreams. Too many hide their differences and try to fit in with the crowd.”

“But I’m already different from everyone else. I don’t want to be even more different.” He hung his head. “They’ll call me a freak.”

“They will call you many things. But you must embrace what you are because you possess something many others will struggle to attain their entire lives.”

“What?”

“Uniqueness. These differences are what set you apart from everyone else. They make you more likely to succeed in your life. You should embrace those differences, not hide behind them. Embrace them and wear them like a shield.”

I liked when the boy’s eyes lit up, growing in confidence as he nodded his head. There would be many obstacles on his road to truly accepting himself but at least he would be taking the right road.

And yet, was I really such a bastion of my own recommendation? After all, had I fully accepted and adopted my uniqueness?

I was as different from my father as the boy appeared to be from his, and yet I hadn’t accepted my differences yet either.

I was one of those I warned him against. I was still looking for my place in the world.

And yet here I was telling him he should adopt his differences and use them to the greatest effect… when I had not done the same.

Still, words of wisdom were still wisdom even if they were not truly lived by the speaker.

I was naturally more aggressive and direct than my father, who tended to be more of a negotiator, preferring to seek out peace, no matter the cost .

I frowned at myself and my own life choices. Better than issuing words of advice was actually living it.

I checked for his teacher and noticed him hiding behind the Assendra Bushes. Now you decide to show your face? Where were you a minute ago, asshole?

I swallowed my irritation and focused on the question I wanted to ask.

“I want to apologize to her, the same way I apologized to you,” I said, “only I want to buy her something. A gift. A present to say sorry.”

“Why don’t you just tell her you’re sorry?”

“Because sometimes it’s easier to say sorry with gifts than words. For adults, anyway.”

The boy frowned. “Then if it’s easier, isn’t it less of a sorry?”

I didn’t know if he realized how wise his question was, but it came across as deep and profound beyond his years. “That might be true. But I want to give her a gift anyway. Do you know what she likes? Maybe certain flowers? Or candies? Or chocolates?”

The boy shook his head. “She doesn’t like that stuff.”

My expectations failing once again!

I considered Amelia’s curvy body and should have realized that was the case. You didn’t get to look like her by chowing down on your favorite guilty pleasures every day of the week.

“Then what?” I asked.

And suddenly, I realized what I was doing…

I was asking the son of the female I couldn’t stop thinking about to give me a special insight into his mother… and he had to know what that meant…

Or at so tender an age, did he know?

I shifted, suddenly very uncomfortable on the log. I had just handed him power over me. If he decided not to tell me what I’d asked, it was a sign that he wasn’t ready for me to get close to his mother.

And she would, doubtless, not accept anything I offered her after that.

The boy cocked his head to one side. “Dancing. She likes dancing.”

I breathed a sigh of relief before considering his answer again. “Dancing?”

“She does it a lot back home. At least, she did when we were at home. She used to do it after putting me down for the night. She doesn’t know I saw her doing it every night, but I did. She loves dancing.”

I scratched my chin. Dancing?

“Your Highness?” the tutor said, stepping out from behind his hiding place, hands clasped together as he shuffled forward. “It’s the end of the boy’s lesson and I need to return him to the classroom before his next tutor arrives. If I may…?”

He motioned toward the boy, to take him away.

“Of course,” I said, getting to my feet and helping the boy from the log. “You’ve been most helpful.”

The boy smiled and padded after his teacher.

I watched them leave before running the concept of Amelia’s apparent love of dancing through my mind.

Dancing, huh? Hm…

I had never seen anything so sexy in my entire life.

Amelia moved with a grace that I’d known from the moment I saw her that she might possess, but to see her performing the way she was now, with sweat slicking her brow and her brows knitted together in intense concentration… my whole body turned rigid, staring openly, drinking in her every movement.

I didn’t much like the dancing teacher’s hands on her body but he handled her with an air of distant professionalism rather than that of an amorous lover. And by the distinct lack of interest he showed in her when he ran his eyes over her form, I could only surmise he preferred a… different kind of partner.

I couldn’t believe there was a red-blooded male anywhere in the galaxy — no matter his race or species — that could have looked at her without feeling what I was feeling right then.

To be able to put my hands on her, feel her… well, that was in the realms of pure pleasure.

“Yes, yes!” the dance teacher proclaimed as he spun her on the spot, stamping his foot as they completed the dance.

Her chest was heaving and she could barely control her breath. She gasped for oxygen and supped from a glass of water that the servants around the edge of the room held, watching in rapt attention, just as I was.

And then Amelia spotted me.

I almost turned on the spot and left but I didn’t want to tear my eyes from hers. Hers locked onto me and sucked me right in. Then they turned hard and icy and glared at me. Angry.

Not quite the thanks I was expecting for having the dance teacher brought here, that was for sure.

After that, she baited me, harassed me, insulted me…

I don’t mind admitting she pissed me off. Royally.

I brought the dancer here in way of an apology and she spits in my face?

She even challenged me in front of the servants! And if she did so in front of a handful of them, by nightfall, you could bet word would have spread to every servant’s ear. How could they take their master seriously when a human female so easily harangued him?

When she turned her back on me, I saw red. I rushed up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder.

She attacked me, using my own species’ military dance drills against me! But she was in for a shock if she thought I would back down.

I defended, seeing what skills she had, before launching my own attack upon her. I held back, not unleashing my full power as it was hardly a fair fight.

Then, when she finally managed to land a blow on me — an illegal move but it was a successful strike nonetheless — I decided to show her who was boss, grabbed her, and hurled her across the room.

Of course, I would never do her any harm and caught her before her back found the opposite wall. She was pressed so close to me, so close I could practically taste her.

Her scent filled my nostrils and my brain and I could neither think nor see anything but her.

She was entombed within me. I was full of her — only her — and knew then that there would never be another female that would create such a reaction in me as she had.

When I finally pulled away from her, it required every ounce of strength to do so.

Dinner was especially good and the previous evening atop the holy mountain might not have taken place at all. It was like we had all met again for the first time, and this time around, we’d gotten to see each other for who we really were and not the play actors we had pretended to be before.

I smiled over at Amelia. She smiled openly back at me. The wine tasted sweeter — when I bothered to notice it — and the food far more succulent and delicious than it ever had all the countless times I’d eaten there before.

A flurry of tiny Shriim battered at my insides, sending my stomach into a churning miasma of congealed emotions. I wasn’t sure what to make of them, so I let them be, and allowed myself to savor and enjoy every moment I possessed them.

I knew that things, no matter how they had been between us before, would never — could never — be the same again.

I stood before the windows looking out on the scene with a pair of eyes that might have been brand new. They no longer felt like they belonged to me.

New eyes, new vision.

I knew what I needed to do and I also knew how much I really didn’t want to do it… but that didn’t change the fact that it had to be done…

And so, without dwelling on it any longer in case it gave my mind time to think of a reason that I actually didn’t have to do it, I pressed the intercom button that passed me through to the secretaries. “Call my father, please.”

It took a moment and the communicator was already buzzing. I used the time to consider what I wanted to say. I knew the end result I wanted but not how I would get there.

When he answered, I was once again relieved that time had not been allowed to play a part in my decisions otherwise I would have hung up before he’d answered.

“Nath?” father said in his deep, commanding voice.

I shut my eyes and formed the words on my lips. “Father, I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve decided I want to deal with the Ordres situation.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“Can’t we talk about this tomorrow?”

Yes, I wanted to say. But that was just my cowardice talking. “No. It needs to be tonight. Right now.”

My father groaned as he shuffled into another room and shut the door behind him. “You know, I believe ‘hello’ is customary when making or receiving messages.”

I chuckled, the tension leaving me slowly. Father always knew how to handle people. It was only with alien species that he wasn’t quite so adept.

He sighed. “This is a big decision. It shouldn’t be leapt into without careful consideration. Let me think about it and—”

“No,” I said forcefully. “The Ordres require a more… confident hand. You’re too kind to them. You always have been. Bullies must be dealt with with strength.”

“You’re saying I’m weak?”

“With the Ordres? Yes.”

“They are our trading partners—”

“They steal from us every chance they get and kill our colonists. We can’t allow this to go on any longer. If they get away with it, what will stop others from doing the same?”

Father was silent for a long moment. He was thinking about it, on the edge of slipping over from one side or the other. I needed to choose my next words carefully.

“Father, look. One day, you’re going to pass away. It will be the saddest day of my life, bar none. And when it happens, the people will look to me as their next leader. But how can I lead them when you never let me take responsibility for any of the issues that come up?”

“We’ve talked about this. When you’re older— ”

“I’m older now.”

I took a deep breath. These were words that we had never spoken before because they had always been too painful for us both to face. For him to hear and for me to say. But I thought now was the time to say them.

“I was never meant to be emperor,” I said. “We both know that. I am the second-born male. Irvale was meant to become the emperor. Not me. He received all the leadership training. Not me. He got all the experience of managing political matters. Not me.”

“You were trained to lead the military—”

“It’s not the same. I was meant to lead our armies, yes, and I would have been loyal to Irvale to the bitter end… But he’s gone now and the people have to rely on me. There is no one else. I need you to believe in me.”

“I do believe in you—”

“Then give me responsibility for the Ordres. Let me decide how to handle them. If you don’t, and I have no leadership experience before you pass away and the crown passes to me, how will anybody take me seriously?”

Father was quiet a long moment before he spoke, and when he did, he did so carefully.

“There are other ways you can lead and get experience. It doesn’t have to be with the Ordres.”

“I can do a good job with them. I know it. I’ll rule with a firmer hand and make them see we aren’t pushovers and we stand by our principles and our people when they are put in harm’s way.”

Father could have taken it as a rebuke but instead let out another deep breath. “Very well. It’s yours.”

I threw back my head and let out a sigh to end all sighs. “You won’t regret this—”

“But know this: A more formidable opponent you will not face. Our ancestors gave too much of our manufacturing abilities to them and now they hold it over us like a dagger. Do what needs to be done but be mindful of the consequences. I believe in you.”

Four little words that brought tears to my eyes, words I never thought I would hear with my own ears. He’d always been proud of his eldest son, Irvale, just as I had.

But he had never taken his responsibilities seriously — perhaps because he always excelled at everything he did and never met a challenge that he had to struggle with. And so he had gone off the rails and gone out in search of a struggle that would challenge him.

And he never came back.

“Now, can I go back to sleep?” my father said.

I calculated the time difference and realized I must have awoken him in the middle of the night. Oops.

“Yes. Of course. Sorry. Sleep tight.”

I ended the call and wandered over to the window. I clutched my hands behind my back and peered down at the garden where I could see Amelia talking with the boy — Elijax — on the same log I had sat on with him only hours earlier.

It was fast becoming my favorite place in the whole palace.

As Amelia’s face turned up toward me, I smiled down at her.

Today was a day to remember. And tomorrow, I would make it another one. I would issue my orders on how to handle the Ordres and let them play out. I would trust my people to use their own judgment and make their own decisions.

Then I would take Amelia and the boy somewhere nice. I ran through all the different options but decided to put a pin in it.

Right now, I had to focus. The Ordres required my full attention. And I was going to give them the same hell they had given us.