“A few days is enough,” Rylee said firmly. “When you know, youknow.”
At that point the ship started its landing sequence and before I knew it, we were settling on the ground of the Female side of Tangella Alpha-Prime once more.
But as we unbuckled our safety harnesses and got up, I realized that the talk I’d had with my cousin had given me a lot to think about. I knew now that I loved Vik’tor and I wanted to be with him, but would he feel the same way about me? And how could we work out the logistics if he did?
I didn’t know but that couldn’t be uppermost in my mind right now. Rylee and I had to concentrate on getting the Emperor and Empress together again—only then would we be free to return to our own lives—whatever they might be.
FIFTY-THREE
NATALIE
“Please be patient, Your Highness. The Empress will see you in just a moment,” Thallia—the same woman who had led Vik’tor and me to the throne room on our own visit—spoke politely but firmly.
The Emperor frowned, but didn’t complain or act like an asshole about being kept waiting, sothatwas good. We were all standing around outside the Empress’s throne room, waiting in front of the huge double doors made of crystal.
Our guys were on the way—Rylee told me they were making their way through the palace—but they hadn’t reached us yet. It occurred to me that this was the last time we had to make sure this meeting between the two rulers went well. You know that old saying, “You only get one chance to make a first impression”? Well, that’s what I was thinking of as Rylee and I stood there waiting beside His Majesty, Shadout the Twenty-second and one half.
“Your Majesty?” I said tentatively, craning my neck to look up at him.
“Yes, Visionary?” he asked, looking down at me from his great height. He had taken to calling Rylee and I by our La-ti-zal powers so I was “Visionary” and she was “Binder,” which was fine—I didn’t really care if he knew my name or not.
“Have you considered what you’re going to say to the Rainbow Empress when you meet her for the first time?” I asked him.
The Emperor frowned.
“Well, I shall tell her that wemustbe together and that she is mine now, of course,” he rumbled, as though it was completely obvious.
Uh-oh… Rylee and I exchanged looks.
“Your Majesty,” she said diplomatically. “I know you don’t have much, er, experience dealing with females, but speaking as a female myself, I can tell you that women like to bewooed.”
“But how does one go about this ‘wooing’ them?” Emperor Shadout demanded. “Tell me quickly before the doors open!”
“Well,” I said. “I can tell you what I saw in my vision of the two of you together.”
“Yes, yes—tell me now!” he rumbled.
“Well…” I cleared my throat. “First I saw you coming into the throne room and then I saw you kneeling on the seventh step of the dais where the Empress’s crystal throne sits.”
“What?” Shadout thundered. “You saw mekneeling?Visionary, you should know that as Emperor, I kneel tono one!”
Double uh-oh.Rylee and I exchanged another look. If Shadout refused to kneel, this new relationship was going to go nowhere fast. I knew the hard and fast rules of the Empress’s throne room—if you didn’t kneel on the seventh step of the dais, you got thrown out. But how could we convince the Emperor of that?
“Your Majesty,” she said tentatively. “In this case, kneeling isn’t a sign that you believe you’re inferior in any way. It’s part of wooing—it shows the woman how much you care for her and respect her.”
“It’s traditional on our planet, too,” I added. “When a man asks a woman to marry him, he’s supposed to get down on one knee.”
Emperor Shadout’s face was as dark as a thunderstorm about to break.
“I do not like the idea of debasing myself,” he growled. “No matterwhatthe customs say!”
Well,nowwhat were we going to do? From the corner of my eye, I saw that Rylee had that look of intense concentration on her face again. I felt a surge of irritation. Was thisreallythe time for her to be talking to her guys? Shouldn’t she be giving her complete attention to the situation at hand?
Before I could answer either of those questions to my own satisfaction, there was some movement in the guards behind us and suddenly two new alien men appeared.
The two of them had to be Rylee’s husbands because they looked like she had described them. One had dark blue skin and the other had olive-green skin tones and both of them looked overjoyed to see her.
“Rylee! Baby!” the one with blue skin exclaimed.