Page 13

While Titan plotted and replotted his travel plans, the shuttle arrived.

He disembarked and entered the building, all four arms folded across his chest and his head bowed slightly in thought.

There was still some time before he would arrive at his office, which occupied the entirety of the somewhat prestigious 1,057 th floor, and while he would usually use it to engage in pleasantries with those who occupied the floors above him, he avoided conversation today.

There were too many things to think about now.

Once Ambassador Ezra was his, he would resume his standard routine.

Was he being foolish? He considered this as he ascended, eyes narrowed in intense concentration as he picked apart the thought.

Given what he’d heard from his father, it seemed unlikely that the human race would ever complete their anger management program.

It would make more sense to simply forget about Ezra.

Surely, even if someone were to find out the ambassador had refused him, they would determine this was due to his human nature.

After all, humans were nonsensical, contrary beings.

It would not be out of character for one to deny the truth for the sake of causing a fight.

Yes.

Yes, maybe this was it.

Titan nodded at his assistant upon arriving on the 1,057 th floor and hurried through the small reception room to his private office.

He shut the door firmly behind him, then sat himself at his desk and ignored the communications waiting on his holo screen.

There were more important matters at hand.

Matters that would assist him in overcoming this sudden addiction to the wonderfully hairy human man.

With great pomp, Titan took his recreational communication device and opened a program that would connect him with nearby potential mates.

He had used this program in the past, and every time it had taken him almost no time at all to find a suitable partner for his needs.

The hardest part, honestly, was sifting through the bombardment of messages he received and narrowing it down to someone he found adequate.

Sure enough, he had only been active on the program for a handful of Darvrokian minutes when the mating requests began flooding in.

Several were holographic images of genitalia, which Titan was able to dismiss outright, narrowing the choices down substantially.

Even with these options eradicated, however, he still struggled to find anyone he deemed particularly noteworthy.

Had the mating pool truly become so stagnant since his trip to Earth?

It seemed impossible, yet there could be no denying it.

No request out of the many he received caught his eye.

Frowning in irritation, Titan selected a request at random that belonged to a user whose self-supplied images were all of a chiseled and grizzly Darvrokian.

He was covered in scars and was missing part of his second left arm.

His description stated that he was a champion Sand Dweller wrestler, and that he would “love to show someone his trophy. ”

Titan moved on.

The next user was tall and slender, obviously young, and naive, as all his images showed him at parties in the dunes, oftentimes with mind-altering substances in plain sight. In many images, the user had his thin tongue stuck out and all four hands raised, making obscene gestures.

It was clear they were an incompatible match.

Next.

The third profile belonged to a blobbish creature from a neighboring star system who claimed they were in town temporarily and were looking for a good time with someone who would be willing to “show them the sights.” Titan assumed these sights would be limited to his unconsciousness quarters and not much else.

He sighed and closed out of the program. None of the users had what he wanted, which was thick, dark hair; strong eyebrows; two arms; a stocky, sturdy body; and kind eyes. He wanted the soft feel of scaleless, human skin. He wanted someone who was hot-blooded and warm to the touch.

He wanted Ambassador Ezra Miller, and it was driving him insane.

Never before had he been this obsessed. He had known the human for less than two Earth days, but that had apparently been enough for him to seep into every empty crevice in his brain.

No wonder he had been so disillusioned with his life since returning from Earth—the one thing that made his life interesting was light-years away.

Titan folded his topmost arms on his desk and rested his forehead against his fists.

There were meetings he had to go to later, work that had to be done, and he could not find it in himself to care at all.

Nothing ever changed here on Darvrok 6. His job, his personal time, his life.

Was he simply meant to go on like that in perpetuity?

“Um, er, sir? ”

Titan looked up to see his assistant poking his head through the door, a nervous look on his face.

“Your father is here,” his assistant said, the fingers of all four of his hands wrapping around the door nervously. “He says he wishes to speak with you.”

Titan shoved his recreational communication device to the side and pulled his work tablet over to him and turned it on, fumbling to make it look like he had been working diligently. He nodded at his assistant to let his father enter. His assistant squeaked out a, “Yes, sir!” before scurrying away.

A few increments of time later, Titan’s father walked into his office.

In his human disguise, he had been fairly innocuous, but in his true form he was imposing and serious.

Titan never wished to get on his father’s bad side, and he internally cycled through the list of all his recent activities, trying to remember if he had done anything to warrant criticism.

Not that his father offered him criticism with much regularity—that was reserved for Titan’s other clutchmates, Al especially—but his father also did not make it a habit to come down to his office unless he had something of great importance to discuss.

“Would you like a seat, Father?” Titan asked, gesturing to the chair on the opposite side of his desk, but his father shook his head.

“No, thank you,” he said in his low voice. “I will not be staying long.”

Titan straightened his back and clasped all his hands together. “What is it you wish to discuss?”

In response, Titan’s father approached his desk and set a tablet on the table. He pressed a button and a holographic document popped up and hovered above the screen.“You have a new assignment.”

Frowning, Titan scanned the document. The first thing he noticed was his own name… and the title that accompanied it. “Ambassador?” he asked, his forehead creased in confusion. “Ambassador to what?”

“Human-Darvrokian relations are becoming more complicated,” his father explained, “and our people are wary of getting involved with a hostile, underdeveloped species. Surely you recall the incident between Darvrok and the Froothum people?”

“Of course I recall it.” That incident had nearly led to war. “But what do I have to do with this?”

“It has been decided that having a Darvrokian working alongside Ambassador Ezra will aid in expediting positive relations between our species.”

Titan’s heart leapt in the lower quadrant of his abdomen. Was he understanding this correctly? Surely not, because that would simply be too good to be true…

But then his father pointed at the document floating between them, and said the words that Titan had been longing to hear since he had arrived back home. “As such, we are sending you back to Earth.”