Laurel was filling Ellis in on the latest gossip, and she listened passively. “I think I’ll go into labor soon,” Laurel said suddenly.
“What? Is that a prediction?” Ellis asked, looking at her weirdly.
“Not, I just felt the first co
“What do you think about the name ‘Tom’?” Laurel asked on the way to the bath.“You took the whole cat metaphor literally, didn’t you?” Ellis joked. Laurel didn’t understand. “God, have you been here too long that you have forgotten the masterpiece that is Tom and Jerry?” she paused. “Which reminds me, we might have archives of Tom and Jerry and Roadrunner, right? Oh my god, Children must watch such a thing.”
The crowd gasped at Logan's statement."Oh, no you didn't," Laurel said, her tone indignant. She jumped to her feet. Micheal grabbed her around the waist, yanking her back down, and clapped a hand over her mouth. He whispered into her ear and she calmed a bit, but her eyes were shooting death threats at Logan.Ellis tried to remain calm, but her eyes stung and she had difficulty swallowing past the lump in her throat. Be an Empress. Don't cry. Don't make a scene. Empress’ are calm, dignified. They don't smother their husbands with a cushion, no matter how tempted they may be.His words had hurt but she took into consideration his shock and confusion. Of course, he wouldn’t believe that he had fathered the first Zothean girl in centuries. No, two girls."Carlisle, do you have your DNA reader ready?" Ellis asked, her voice surprisingly calm. Micheal looked
Ellis almost started to follow before she remembered the twins. Both of them were sleeping, their tails entwined."Go," Nin said. "I will watch the little ones."Ellis gave her a quick hug and chased after Laurel. Dorian was seated at the table, his eyes aglow with joy. He kissed his mate and folded his arms around her. "He's hatching fast," he said, and Ellis could see that he was right.A doctor appeared with the DNA reader."Just in time," Ellis said. The baby's shoulder appeared, followed by its head, covered in short, black hair.Dorian lifted the baby out of the egg and let out a strange, strangled cry. He almost dropped the baby. Laurel darted forward and covered his hands with her own to support it."Holy fucking shit," Ellis said mildly. "Another girl."The
"What if we separate the girls from the mass by a glass window?" Logan answered."That sounds like a zoo," Ellis groaned. Logan looked confused by this. "They put animals in small, cramped placed and show them to the people in exchange for money," she explained."That does sound strange.""Moreover, I am not allowing people with ill intentions and thoughts to see my daughters in such a state of vulnerability," she protested. Ellis gave them a short explanation about the heinous crimes committed against children and he looked like he was about to abduct all the children on Earth and bring them to his galaxy to protect them."How about a Council Meeting? We will invite all the members of the council and government departments. We will also invite the presidents of the planets and nation-rulers. They will come if I invite and they can see our daughters and report back to the people about what they saw."Ellis grabbed the notepad from
Ellis sat at the head of the massive care where she had her mating ceremony with Logan. Her beautiful baby girls were laying on her lap, playing with Ellis’ hair. She kept in her flinches as her babies tugged and pulled with fascination. She had lost the argument about nudity. Isabella and Athena were rolling around, their bits in the air. Apparently, the lack of clothing would prove their claim: that her daughters were female. On either side of her, Leo and Logan stood, looking around the room. Nin knelt in front of Ellis, keeping a watchful eye on the people in the room.If Ellis wasn’t on the verge of running out of the room with her babies, she would have been amused by how tense Nin was.
"Ellis!" Logan snapped, slamming a file in front of her. "What have you done?" Ellis cringed. The papers scattered and she started trying to collect them, "I don't know. I'm sorry." "You've ruined everything! You destroyed the Empire!" "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to," Ellis babbled. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," he mocked in a high-pitched voice. “You were so high and mighty. I knew it… you wouldn’t make a good Empress.” "Please, Logan," she cried. "I'm sorry. I'll
Logan blinked as he swung the door closed. “I didn’t have a choice. The babies needed to relieve themselves and Nin held the crowd off.”Ellis thought about the situation carefully. “We could make litter boxes for the babies,” she suggested. Logan wrinkled his nose when she described what she meant. “That sounds disgusting.”“No. It’s safe and we can change the soil every day to make it sanitary for the kids,” she told him. He was reluctant but departed for the kitchen.With Nin by her side, Ellis ma
She thought. “What can I do?” she asked. Micheal had no idea.“I need to see Logan,” she announced.“I will go with you,” Leo announced, getting up and putting down the tray of food. He took the controller from Micheal and switched it back to the hallway feed, studying the image thoughtfully. “Which reminds me… Nadia has been trying to put her name back into the system… She has been very strange, trying to match up with Leo, too,” Micheal said. Ellis turned. “Last time I saw her, she hadn’t taken a bath in a long time and was running down the hallway,”
Technology had advanced, but Ellis and Cristine still waited for the day when they could travel to their timelines and see their parents for one last time. To ensure them that they weren’t in a hopeless state, dead or have run away from home.But the technology never allowed it. There were basic rules of the planet that couldn’t be breached.So, they plotted.Cristine had used all her free time to learn how to operate Zothean ships. She was adept at aeronautics and engineering and negotiation, so Ellis and Logan had leaned heavily on her in their negotiations. It could be said that the Empire was in a time of peace under their rule.One day, Cristine came up with the idea.“These jumpers travel to the universes all the time without breaking the fragment of the universe. The only rule is to not meet yourself or members of your own family after you have been pronounced dead, right?” she asked.Ellis nodded. “Yes,
He hadn't seen her again until it was over until the city was in ruins and the palace itself was leveled to the ground. The underground city had been hit; Mitch must have known that Logan would try to send his family there. As he made his way to the ruins of the temple, he hoped and prayed that Ellis had disregarded his directions.So many had perished. So much had been lost.The Goddess lay back and propped her head on her hands as she looked up at the stars. "Perhaps someday, I'll show you Ellis's memories of it. She never told you the entire story of what she went through that day. I'll just say that she made me proud again for being so brave and resourceful."His mind was drawn back to the moment he had found Ellis in the rubble of the temple, his relief at finding her safe so deep and intense that he couldn't even form a proper prayer of gratitude.He had wanted to give her a shake when she told him of sending Laurel and the babies away in the escape
Isabella drove out the Council members and the cameras, her manner so brisk and officious that no one dared question her, and shut the door firmly. She sat down beside Logan and drew him into her arms, just as she had done when he was a little boy and hurting from his parents' neglect. He was too large now to snuggle into her as he once had done, so he laid his head on top of hers and wrapped his tail around her arm."It can't have been him," he said. "It can't."She pulled back to look up into his face. Her eyes were soft with compassion. She said nothing. She didn't have to.Logan buried his hands in his hair and tugged. The pain was the only thing that felt real. But Isabella gently reached up and tugged his hands away. He wanted to scream, to attack something with his claws and shred it to bits. The pain was swelling within him to the point where he thought he might burst if he couldn't let it out in some way.Isabella pulled him back into her arms an
He was twelve and Isabella had taken him to the market with her to buy herbs. Logan wandered over to the next stall, which sold jewelry. There was a set of jewels that his eyes kept being drawn back to as he examined the merchant's wares. It was a headband of red-black stones with a matching bracelet and ring.He imagined giving that set to his mate. Would she squeal in delight the way his mother did when his father presented her with jewels? Would she throw her arms around him and press her mouth to his? (The latter Logan thought was a bit disgusting, but Micheal had said humans liked "kissing.")Last night, he'd asked Micheal, his voice low and shy, for this question meant much to him: "Micheal, what will my mate be like?" He knew she'd likely be human. Though Earth had been one of the later additions to the database, the majority of their matches now came from its people."She will be the most beautiful creature you've ever seen," Micheal said, and his eyes t
Despite Laurel's reassurances, Ellis didn’t leave Logan’s side until the doctor arrived. Laurel held her, gently stroking Ellis's back, murmuring soft, soothing nonsense."He has it, doesn't he?" Ellis asked the doctor after he'd run his reader over Logan's prone body. Logan's tail twitched at the sound of her voice, but he didn't react otherwise. He mumbled unintelligible words."Yes, Empress, he does," the doctor said. He looked exhausted, but his eyes were kind."Oh, my God," Ellis whispered. Hopelessness set in."There's no reason to panic," the doctor said firmly. "As long as we can keep his fever under control and keep him hydrated, he will be fine. Zotheans rarely die from this."It was all reassurance.Ellis nodded. She knew that. Logan had explained it to her when the outbreak first began, and the talk videos said the same. Just like the human common cold, there was no cure for it, and it simply had to run its course. Bu
The king brought Izzy breakfast in bed the next morning. She sat up groggily and accepted a cup of tea. She had to admit being impressed by his courtesy and thoughtfulness. She really needed the tea. She had stayed up late into the night and was no closer to an answer than she had been when she first lay down.She spent the day with the king, taking him to see some of Zothea's museums and cultural institutions. She was pretty sure that it was Drake who was following them all day. Once, she saw him duck behind a tree, and a tail with light hair poked out to the side. The bodyguard knew that Drake wasn't a threat and the king's bodyguard seemed to have decided to ignore him. The king, for his part, seemed to agree with them and didn't question the very large man trying to hide behind fence posts, but it made Izzy's heart ache. If the king was the one she chose, this would be Drake's life, lurking on the periphery of hers.The king was as he described himself: easy to get
Drake was already gone when Izzy and Ellis came back to the dining room and her heart ached that she wouldn't be able to say goodbye to him, but maybe Micheal and Isabella had decided that Izzy would only get more upset. She gnawed on her tail as they passed through the room to where the king was waiting for her in the hallway outside. He had been seated on a bench and he stood politely when she joined him. Another of his kind stood behind him, his skin as green as the forest leaves."This is my bodyguard," he offered. The bodyguard in question ignored Izzy, but sized up her female bodyguard and apparently wasn't impressed with what he saw."Follow me," Izzy directed. The king walked down the hall beside her and Izzy noticed that she was at least a foot taller than he was.She arrived at her nest room to find that all of Drake's things had been cleaned out already and she felt a piercing ache in her heart. She sat down on a cushion beside her table, despondent.
Logan put out an announcement that tonight would be a state dinner and so the temple dining room was packed with people, all of them speculating as to the cause. He and the empress rarely had them and when they did it was usually for a special announcement. The last had been to announce the empress was expecting Prince Edward and the one before that, to announce that Nessie was being appointed to the emperor's Council.Izzy ate mechanically. She wasn't hungry, but Aunt Cristine was right: she had to make sure the baby got what it needed. Drake was alight with excitement and impatient for the meal to end. The entire extended family was seated around the table, all of them wearing their finery. Her mother wore the glow stone tunic she'd worn to her own mating ceremony and Aunt Laurel was dressed in a purple tunic so bright that it hurt the eyes to look at it. Leo kept flirtatiously tickling Cristine's neck with his tail and then looking away innocently whenever she looked up fr
"I saw a doctor less than an hour ago." Izzy unwound her tail from her leg with effort and gnawed on the end of it anxiously.Her father stood and without a word, headed for the door."Daddy, wait, please!" Nessie pleaded. "I'm so sorry! Talk to me.""I can't." Logan's eyes were on the door and his tail lashed in either agitation or anger; she couldn't tell which."Please," Izzy pleaded. "I need to know what you're thinking. Do—do you still love me?""Of course, I do," Logan said tightly. He twisted the doorknob."Don't leave," Izzy begged."Sweetheart, your father just needs a little time," Ellis interjected. "Let him go, and we'll all talk over this later."Goddess, didn't her mother understand that her anxiety was increasing exponentially every moment? She wouldn't survive a wait of a few hours. "Daddy… please.""You want to know what I'm thinking?" Logan turned from the door and marched back to stand in