Alien's Bride: Lisette (9 page)

“
Yes, you bigoted fool,
because if I touch her I’ll lose everything.”

Drathek sneered and moved away from
him. He made a bow to Lisette. “It was a pleasure to see you again,
my dear.” He glowered once more at Prax-Denay. “You’ve not heard
the last of this.”

Prax-Denay fumed and headed back for
the lab. “Of course. Petty fools like you have nothing better to do
than become irritations. I’m the only one on this world bettering
our society.”

“
Pah!” Drathek exited the
glass doors with loud thumps of his cane. Lisette watched him get
into his flying car and take off before reentering the
lab.

Prax-Denay sat at the central table
with his forehead resting in his hand. Lisette took timid steps
over to him. She was still trembling from how she’d raised her
voice. There were only a half-dozen times in her life when she
could remember standing up for herself. The thought of anything
happening to Prax-Denay made her desperate. He was something worth
fighting for, no matter how difficult it was for her, and no matter
how contrary it was to her personality.

He was her husband and she loved
him.

The revelation made her tremble even
further. She thought of them as boyfriend and girlfriend until an
outsider showed up. Sure, Prax-Denay talked about a marriage ritual
and so forth, but this was the Dak-Hiliah’s customs, not hers.
She’d happily gone along with things as Prax-Denay defined them
because she was direly smitten with him. Then the sex—the sex
turned her happy world to a paradise. She felt at the peak of her
womanly powers, and Prax-Denay showed her such great respect that
she had no trouble getting dirty with him. In truth, she’d been
playing a game of marriage with him. Today it turned real. He
became her family, whom she needed to protect.

She went to her husband and hugged him
from behind. He stood to pull her into a tighter embrace. She let
the sobs rise up and shudder through her chest.

“
Don’t let that oaf bring
you to tears.”

He caressed her hair, but she couldn’t
stop herself. She was overwhelmed, not just by the fight, but the
prospect of more strife in their future. Their wonderful world had
just been invaded by monsters.

“
He has no proof we’ve been
intimate. The worst he can do is complain to the High Council that
Jorenkis left us alone together. That would be an asinine waste of
council time, and he’d make an enemy of Jorenkis. There are too few
Dak-Hiliah left for him to have an aristocrat as an enemy on his
home planet.”

She pulled back so she could look at
him through her steamed-up glasses. “He won’t…cause more
trouble?”

Prax-Denay wiped a tear from her cheek.
“Not unless I get you pregnant.”

She squeezed him again.

“
Forget about Lord Drathek.
Forget about Jorenkis. This is our domain, Lisette. They’re but
temporary nuisances.” He soothed her back. “Don’t let them ruin our
happiness.”

Lisette closed her eyes and focused on
the warmth of his embrace. He’d said just what she needed to
hear.

***

Late the next morning they heard the
chimes of the door. Lisette’s stomach clenched. Prax-Denay headed
out of the lab, giving her shoulder a little squeeze as he passed.
She followed a few steps behind.

Prax-Denay went to the doorway of
Jorenkis’ office. “Oh. So you’re not dead.”

“
Fuck off.”

He took a small bow. “As you
wish.”

“
No. Wait. Go get that girl
in here.”

Prax-Denay looked at her. She stepped
into the office with her head lowered.

“
Hey, beautiful,” Jorenkis
said with his car salesman smile. “You finally got some decent
clothes. Have a seat.”

She looked at the chair but didn’t move
toward it.

“
Sit.” Jorenkis barked the
word this time. She took the chair.

“
Leave, Prax.”

Prax-Denay sneered at him.
“No.”

Jorenkis gave him a look of disgust,
then he leaned in toward Lisette. “How are you getting
on?”

“
Good,” she said. She
concentrated on neither nodding nor shaking her head.

“
How are you getting along
with Prax?”

“
Fine.”

“
How fine?”

“
We’re…getting a lot of work
done.”

“
Yeah, I heard. A friend of
mine thinks you and Prax-Denay have gotten romantic. That’s not
true, right?”

“
Right.” She cleared her
throat.

“
Good. I still see you and
me getting together. I had a lot of time to think things over. I
think the best way to take care of your problems is if
you—“

“
No.”

Jorenkis blinked. “What?”

Lisette forced her eyes to meet his.
Her lower lip trembled. “I don’t…want to be with you.”

Jorenkis glowered at her with the
beginnings of a sneer. Then he leaned back in his large chair and
propped his arms behind his head.

“
Is that so?”

Lisette swallowed. She realized
Jorenkis’ glare had moved to Prax-Denay.

“
Yeah. I see why my friend
was concerned. So you’ve been fucking her, huh Prax? Did she want
it or are you torturing her?”

Lisette’s face flushed. She wanted to
deny his accusation, but she’d already gone as far as she could.
The imbecile’s challenge made her words get stuck in her throat.
She was furious to the point of tears.

Prax-Denay merely sighed. “Are you done
wasting our time? We were in the middle of a damned
experiment.”

“
Don’t try to deflect me. I
bet you slept with her the second I was gone.”

“
If you were so worried why
did you leave us unsupervised?”

“
I didn’t leave you
unsupervised. I had the feeds of three different robots tapped to
watch you two in the lab.”

Lisette felt as though her gut had been
punched.

Prax-Denay remained smug. “Yes. And
what did you see?”

“
Nothing.”

Lisette stopped chewing her lower lip
to eye him.

“
Because you disabled their
connections.”

“
Damn right,” Prax-Denay
said. “I don’t need your snide nose prodding into my lab. If you
want to know what we’re doing, then drag your lazy carcass into
work. The girl and I have worked ceaselessly since you’ve been
gone.”

“
I’m sure you found a few
segments here and there for recreational activities.”

“
I already told you we’re in
the middle of an experiment!” Prax-Denay strode to the front of his
desk. Lisette felt them to be united against their common enemy.
“Are you going to lob baseless accusations all day?”

Jorenkis turned toward his console.
That felt like a triumph to Lisette. He couldn’t confront the two
of them head on. He spoke to his monitor.

“
You don’t think she’s cute,
Prax? She’s timid and bookish. Easy to bully. Just your type,
right?”

“
I think she’s a lure, set
by you and your more ignorant superiors, in order to take me down.
None of you can bear for an Etiken to be as accomplished as I am.
Someone above you is intimidated and wanted to use a slave to
destroy my career. Your convenient month long absence only
confirmed my suspicion.”

Jorenkis shot him a dubious
look.

“
Tell them their ploy has
backfired. Not only have I resisted your bait, I’ve used her to
bring my work to even greater heights than before. Tell them this
Etiken hasn’t touched a petal on the pretty flower you put in his
lab. That’s something even Lord Drathek admitted he couldn’t do.
For me, who is in all ways superior to you and your ilk, it was
easy. I put her to work. I used her to further my supremacy over
the rest of you dullards. That’s all.”

“
All right!” Jorenkis said.
“You’re not sleeping with her. I believe you.”

Lisette felt like clapping. Prax-Denay
was magnificent! His words were so strong—so eloquent. She brimmed
with pride to be married to him.

“
He doesn’t even want you,
Lisette,” Jorenkis said, while turning his face toward her only
slightly. “I’m here, and I want to make it work with you. What? Are
you going to just die unmarried?”

“
Lord Elentinus said I
didn’t have to—”

“
He’s not here. I’m running
things. I’m not going to let a woman go to waste when we’re
practically extinct. If you don’t want me then you’ll have to be
with someone else, and most of them here are from the old guard who
think women are supposed to be collar-shocked into
submission.”

Prax-Denay groaned and cupped Lisette’s
elbow. “Up. Up!”

She scrambled to her feet.

“
We don’t have the whole day
to waste on your idiocy.” He pulled Lisette towards the
door.

Once out of his sight Prax-Denay’s
gruff hold became gentle. He hugged her against his side and kissed
her forehead. Lisette stifled a joyful laugh.

***

Jorenkis remained in the building too
late for them to share their evening meal together, a ritual
Lisette had come to cherish. Prax-Denay and Lisette exchanged looks
of abject annoyance when the light in his office was still on past
dark.

“
He does have some duties,”
Prax-Denay told her as they ascended the stairs. “We’ve built up a
large back-log of work for him to report to Lord Matoranis. He can
get obsessed with his tasks sometimes. He’ll likely be here all
night.”

Lisette pouted. Her sweet husband
deserved some extra-special loving for dealing with the twit so
adroitly. She had to settle for a heated kiss on the
landing.

“
You must sleep in your own
bed tonight, my dearest.”

She puffed out a breath of
disappointment.

“
It won’t be for long.”
Prax-Denay swept his fingers through her hair. “Once he’s caught up
he’ll take another extended vacation. He can’t bear to have me
trouncing him.”

Lisette smiled and nuzzled her cheek
against his hand.

“
I love you,” Prax-Denay
said.

She lifted her face to look him
squarely in the eyes. “I love you, too.”

He closed his eyes to shudder with
euphoria. “That’s the first time you’ve said it.” He kissed her
gently and parted from her.

She fell asleep on what felt like the
blissful cloud of their love. Floating turned to rocking in her
dreams. She was on a cruise ship with Prax-Denay back on Earth. The
waters were turbulent. She clung to him while high swells wreaked
havoc on her equilibrium. In the dream she broke from Prax-Denay’s
side to vomit over the bow.

She woke just in time to lean over the
side of her bed. The contents of stomach poured onto the floor.
Before she could fathom why another involuntary heave wrung her,
shooting out still more vomit. By the forth such heave her stomach
was empty and only clear liquid escaped. Finally, the onslaught
within her ceased. Her temples throbbed and her torso felt cramped.
She balled herself against the headboard.

What had she eaten? There was nothing
unusual she could recall. She and Prax-Denay dined on a set menu
that varied little from week to week. She’d had bean curd and fish
for lunch, the mollusk in brown sauce for dinner. It tasted no
differently than normal.

She climbed from the bed on tremulous
legs and went to her bathroom. After rinsing her mouth she
swallowed a few gulps of water. A robot was at her bedside cleaning
up the vomit. She huddled back beneath her sheets once it rolled
away. Something she’d eaten had been bad, or she’d caught some
Dak-Hiliah flu from Jorenkis. She’d wait until morning to tell
Prax-Denay.

Just when her thoughts were turning
into the nonsense that came before sleep she leaned off the side of
the bed again for another puke session. The water came up, then
bile and spit. Her middle tightened with shocking pain. She balled
up once again until it abated enough for her to move. This time she
forced her unsteady legs to the door. Maybe Prax-Denay knew of some
medicine that would relieve her suffering. She no longer felt
capable of waiting until morning.

Her door led out to a lobby which
separated her apartment from Prax-Denay’s. In the middle was a
seating area beneath a skylight with several blue and green plants.
She could see a figure lying on the long couch between two ferns.
It appeared Prax-Denay couldn’t bear to sleep in his bed without
her. She knelt beside him and nudged his side.

“
Prax…I don’t feel
good.”

Jorenkis rolled over and looked at her.
“Huh?” He sat up and tapped on the lamp beside him.

Lisette wanted to retreat at the sight
of her enemy, but her legs could only go so far as an armchair
beside the couch. She hunched over with renewed agony.

“
What? You’re
sick?”

She began to nod, but stopped herself.
“I threw up.”