“Ma’frela,”the green skinned one said, which I supposed must be some kind of nickname.
And then both of them knelt at her feet.
Ah—sothatwas what she’d been doing, I thought as I watched the Emperor studying them from the corner of my eye. Damn—it had been really quick of Rylee to let them know through their Bond link what was going on.
And then, to my surprise, a third alien male appeared and this one I recognized.
“Vik’tor!” I exclaimed, as he came striding up to me.
“Hello, little girl,” he rumbled and dropped to one knee before me. Taking my hands in his, he kissed them gently as he looked into my eyes. “I missed you, baby,” he told me. “I was fucking scared to death when I woke up and you were gone.”
“Oh, Vik’tor…” Laughing and crying at the same time, I leaned down—though I didn’t have to lean very far—and put my arms around his neck. We kissed deeply and I tasted his warm, cinnamon breath that made me want to melt against him and do a lot more than just kiss.
After a moment, someone cleared their throat and I looked up and realized that Emperor Shadout had been watching the whole display.
“Oh, excuse me, Your Majesty,” Rylee said. She and her two husbands had been locked in a three-way embrace but they were all looking up at the Emperor now.
“Yes, forgive us,” her green-skinned husband said. “We’re just so happy to see our mate again.”
“Fucking right,” the blue-skinned one remarked and Vik’tor rumbled agreement as well.
“I see that you are,” the Emperor remarked. “But…you do not feel denigrated by kneeling in front of your females?” he asked.
“Never,” Vik’tor said firmly. “I’m happy to kneel at Natalie’s feet to let her know how much I love her.” And though he was speaking to the Emperor, he was looking at me as he said it.
My heart leapt in my chest and I felt like my whole body was blushing.
“Oh, Vik’tor…” I whispered and then didn’t know what else to say.
At that moment, the crystal doors began to swing open and Thallia stepped forward again.
“Please follow me and I will announce you, Your Majesty,” she said to Shadout. Then she strode into the throne room where the Rainbow Empress was already seated on her crystal throne, looking absolutely gorgeous and otherworldly in the golden light coming down from above. It lit up her multicolored hair like a nimbus around her head and made her swirling rainbow eyes seem to glow. This time she was wearing the white leather bustier I had seen on her in a previous vision and it really did a lot to show off her breasts.
“His Highness, Emperor Shadout the Twenty-second and one half,” Thallia called. “Ruler of the Male side of Tangella Alpha-Prime. Who will vouch for this male?”
I had been expecting this and was about to vouch for the Emperor when, to my surprise, the Rainbow Empress spoke up.
“I will vouch for him myself!” she declared, giving the Emperor an intense look. “For I have been longing to meet him and I am glad he is here at last to fulfill the desires of both our hearts.”
Such direct language might have scared a human guy off, but Shadout seemed to like it. He strode forward, down the curving golden path and this time the cleansing watersdidn’tappear. Either the Empress didn’t think he needed cleansing, or maybe it was just that she was so eager to meet the man of her dreams, she had decided to forego this bit of protocol.
All eyes were on the Emperor as he approached the crystal throne. He towered over everyone in the room and his black hair, piercing black eyes, and the deep purple of his skin contrasted sharply with the pastel rainbow tones of the Empress’s hair and eyes and her pale lavender skin tones. And yet, despite their contrasts or maybe because of them, you could plainly see that these two belonged together.
I was holding my breath as the Emperor got to the seventh step of the dais. Would he pause and bow the way he was supposed to? I shot Rylee a glance and saw that she was nibbling her lower lip with nervous tension.
A silence fell over the throne room as we all waited to see what the Emperor would do. And then, just as it seemed like he wasn’t going to bow, he went down to one knee—moving very gracefully for a man who was over ten feet tall, I thought.
“Empress Shalaya the Twenty-second and one half,” he said, just as he had in my vision. “I am your missing half. Will you join with me and try to make our people whole again?”
The Empress rose and held out her hands to him.
“Emperor Shadout Twenty-second and one half, long have I dreamed of this day,” she said in her low, feminine voice. “Please rise and come to me—I will be pleased to join with you.Morethan pleased.”
The Emperor rose and stepped up to join her on the dais and the two of them took each other’s hands and stared into each other’s eyes. The Emperor was so tall he made even the eight-foot tall Empress look short and it was clear that they were already smitten with each other.
Then the Rainbow Empress got a worried look on her face.
“We are together…and yet not,” she said.