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  “How does he do that? Just appear and disappear like that?” Sebastian asked, awed. He had reluctantly agreed to go to the hospital and bring the armor to my apartment, but only if I told him absolutely everything. Which I had tried to do, though Kristoff didn’t like it. Still, I felt like I owed my friend an explanation and besides—telling it to someone else and having them believe it made me feel less crazy.

  Not that there could be any doubt about Kristoff telling the truth now. Besides the heap of silver metal parts which was all that was left of the assassin-droid, his chameleon-like skin changing abilities, and the small crystal cube which projected a message from the previous Empress, who looked like a much older version of myself, I could now add the irrefutable fact that his technology was clearly not of this world. Case in point, he was somehow able to twist a knob on his thick leather belt and vanish into thin air, only to reappear when I least expected it.

  “It is Nicean stealth tech,” he explained to Sebastian who was looking at him with a kind of awe-struck lust. He clearly wasn’t holding a grudge against Kristoff for strangling him the night before, even though I could see the marks of the big alien’s long fingers still on his neck.

  Yes, that’s right—I said alien. There was no denying it anymore—Kristoff most definitely was an alien. An alien who had insisted on following me to the hospital when I refused to call in sick for my shift. But at least now that he had his armor he was able to make himself invisible while he watched over me.

  “I wish I could get some of that tech,” Sebastian murmured, looking over Kristoff’s lean, muscular physique hungrily. “It would really come in handy when I go clubbing.”

  “It would not work for you,” Kristoff told him shortly. “You need Majoran blood in your veins and the ability to change the color of your skin, hair, and eyes at will. We are chromatachromes—the tech simply enhances our talents.”

  “You can do all that?” Sebastian asked eagerly. “Show me!”

  Kristoff looked at me and I nodded apologetically.

  “Could you? He won’t stop asking until you do.”

  “Very well.” With a shrug, he turned his skin deep green, then violet, then back to the tan with a gold sheen which was what he most seemed to favor.

  “Oh my God,” Sebastian exclaimed. “He’s like a sexy, muscular chameleon!”

  “It’s pretty amazing, all right,” I acknowledged. Then I saw a nurse coming down the corridor. “Kristoff,” I hissed, turning my head to him, but he had already disappeared. To anyone watching, it would look like Sebastian and I were alone in the hallway, perhaps discussing a patient. But I knew that Kristoff was just behind me, keeping an eye out for any potential threats, even though I couldn’t see him.

  “We’d better get to the Pit,” Sebastian remarked. “Uh…” He cast a glance behind us. “How is he going to, you know, keep from bumping into people if he’s shadowing you all night?”

  “Don’t concern yourself,” rumbled a deep voice, pitched for our ears alone. “I will not give away my position.”

  It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up to hear his voice coming out of what appeared to be empty air. I took a deep breath and tried to shrug off the feeling of being watched—not just by Kristoff but by some unseen enemy too.

  “Why are you even here if everything he told you is true?” Sebastian demanded, as we walked towards the ER, which was still pretty quiet this time of night. “I mean, if you’re really some kind of goddess or empress or whatever then what are you doing pulling a nine to nine in the Pit? You should be on your way to Glamour-planet, girl!”

  “I can’t just pick up and go like that,” I exclaimed, telling Sebastian the same thing I had told Kristoff. “I have a life here! I worked hard to get into this program.”

  “Didn’t we all,” he murmured. “But if some massive, muscular, sexy alien showed up and told me I was supposed to be the king of his universe, I sure as hell wouldn’t be hanging around here!”

  “Well, I am,” I said stubbornly.

  “So then why is he still hanging around if you told him you’re not interested in being the Queen of Everything?” Sebastian threw a look over his shoulder at my invisible bodyguard even though he couldn’t see him.

  “I can’t, um, convince him to leave without me,” I said. “He seems to think I’m still at risk.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be in the ER,” he pointed out. “You don’t need to bring your stranger danger in here for all of us to share!”

  “That’s the thing—I don’t think I am in danger. Not here in a crowded place, anyway,” I said in a low voice, indicating all the people around us now that we were in the ER proper. “The assassin-droid came after me when I was all alone at home. As long as I stay busy and in a place with lots of activity, I should be fine.”

  “But why take the chance?” Sebastian demanded.

  “Damn it, Sebastian—you’re supposed to be on my side!” I exclaimed. “I can’t just let this reshape my whole life! Even if I did decide to go, I have some loose ends to tie up here. Some patients I’m responsible for. Not to mention I’d want to give our Attending a damn good excuse before I suddenly disappeared off the face of the Earth.”

  Just saying that made a shiver go down my spine. That was the real reason I didn’t want to go with Kristoff, even though I now believed him. I didn’t want to leave my safe, normal existence and abandon the only planet I’d ever called home.

  I know it sounds foolish, but I was more afraid of the unknown than I was of some possible killer lurking around the corner.

  “So he’s just going to shadow you and stay at your place until you change your mind?” Sebastian muttered.

  “I don’t know. I guess.” I shrugged and reached for a chart. “Look, we’d better get to work.”

  “Okay…see you, I guess. Be careful.” He gave me a cautious look and then threw a glance over his shoulder as well, as if Kristoff might be watching him.

  I knew he wasn’t though—he was too busy watching me.

  Kristoff

  I wished I could have convinced Charlotte to come with me at once. I had already signaled my ship, getting it ready to go. My best shuttle was cloaked in stealth tech, hovering in low Earth orbit, ready to descend the moment I called it to me. But I couldn’t go until my new mistress was ready to come with me.

  I considered taking her by force—simply picking her up and slinging her over my shoulder. She was light enough—it would be easy. It would also be for her own good. It was a fool’s errand, shadowing her at the House of Healing, watching and waiting to circumvent any new attacks before they happened.

  It was true, I told myself restively. Now that I had made contact with her and she believed me and understood I was telling the truth about the galaxy and her role in it, I should simply kidnap her and take her back to Femme One. There she could begin the Trials and prove she was the True Incarnation so she could take the Golden Throne.

  Except I knew if I did that, she would never forgive me.

  Though I hadn’t known her long, I already knew my new mistress well enough to understand that she couldn’t be bullied or coerced into doing something she didn’t want to do. I remembered with admiration the way she had dealt with her male superior, who had come to her domicile seeking her sexual favors. Charlotte had sent him away and not gently either—which was good, such males deserved no gentleness when it came to the rejection of their advances.

  Just thinking of the proprietary way he’d touched her made a low growl rise in my throat. Mine, came a thought, unbidden to my mind. She is mine and the next time that bastard touches her I’ll cut off his fucking hand!

  The vehemence of my feelings surprised me and made me uneasy. But of course, I was just protecting my mistress—or so I told myself as I threaded my way through the crowded halls of the House of Healing.

  I watched as Charlotte assessed the hurt and injured and dealt out treatment. She worked with quiet efficiency and I saw as an obser
ver what I had not been able to understand as a participant in this drama the night before—she truly loved her calling. Though her La-ti-zal power was not as a Healer, still she poured her whole heart into practicing her profession.

  I saw that she knew when to be gentle and when to be brusque—saw how she worked with grim determination to save a child’s life, who had come in after having some kind of allergic reaction. I saw how the little girl’s parents hugged Charlotte and kissed her and cried with relief when it was clear their child was going to survive.

  What an Empress she’ll make! I couldn’t help thinking in admiration. She truly has a heart for her people.

  After Sundalla the 999th had Ascended to the Heavens, I had never believed that her successor could win the boundless admiration I’d had for the old Empress. And yet, almost against my will, I felt respect growing in my heart for my new mistress. I remembered the words of Sundalla the 999th when she had asked me to go search for her next Incarnation and keep her safe. She had begged me to show her new Incarnation the same love and devotion I had shown to her.

  Though I had tried, I had been unable to give my promise, saying that I could never love and respect anyone as I did my old mistress. And yet the old Empress had known—she always knew somehow.

  “When you find her…you will also find her worthy. Worthy of the same love and devotion you have shown to me all these years,” she had told me. “Now go, my dear Kristoff—the wisest and bravest of all my Guards. Go and seek her out.”

  I had sought her out…and I was beginning to think the old Empress had been right. Now if only I could convince Charlotte that she belonged on Femme One instead of Earth… In the meantime, though, all I could do was watch over her and protect her.

  But when the threat came, it was so cunningly hidden I almost didn’t see it before it was too late.

  Charlotte

  I wished I could get rid of that “somebody’s watching me” feeling. It wasn’t just from having Kristoff somewhere behind me, shadowing me with silent stealth, either. I felt like someone else was watching—someone who wished me harm.

  I told myself I was being foolish but I couldn’t shake the feeling. It was creepy—like an itching sensation right between my shoulder blades.

  Come to think of it—my whole body was beginning to feel itchy and strange. The skin of my arms and legs and torso felt tight. But when I ducked into the bathroom to check myself—after first letting Kristoff make sure no one else was inside—I saw nothing that could be the cause of my discomfort. No obvious rash—no reason my skin should feel inflamed.

  I shrugged it off as paranoia—a psychosomatic outward manifestation of the inner turmoil I was feeling. But as the night went on, I began to feel more and more unwell—almost as though I was running a low-level fever.

  Sebastian noticed it too. At around three in the morning, we had a lull in the action, which sometimes happens, even on the busiest night. Just a little quiet time when one set of patients had been taken care of and right before a fresh set comes in.

  “Hey, what’s wrong with you?” he asked, pulling me into an empty care area—the name we gave to the little, curtained off cubbies where we put patients as they came in to the ER.

  “What…what do you mean?” I frowned and shook my head. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your eyes are bright, your cheeks are flushed… I would say it was love but you look more like someone getting sick than someone falling head-over-heels. Uh…no offense.” He looked all around us. “Is, uh, he still here?”

  ‘He’ meaning Kristoff, of course.

  “I don’t know,” I said irritably. “I guess so.”

  As the hectic night in the ER had worn on and I had gone about my usual routine, the idea that a huge alien warrior was invisibly shadowing me had begun to seem unreal again. I had stopped being careful where I walked or how I moved and Kristoff, for his part, had never run into me once.

  In fact, as I stood there feeling dazed and half drugged with the strange hot, tight sensation that had enveloped my whole body, it was almost easier to convince myself the whole thing was just a dream and I didn’t actually have an invisible seven-foot tall body guard following me around at all.

  “I mean it, Charlotte—you don’t look so good. Here.” Sebastian pulled a portable temperature gauge out of his lab coat pocket and poked it into one of the disposable plastic sleeves we use to keep from spreading germs.

  “Sebastian—” I tried to protest but he shook his head.

  “Uh-uh, sweetie—no complaints. Open up and say ‘ah.’ I need to know what’s going on with you.”

  “Fine.” I sighed and let him slip the temperature probe under my tongue.

  I waited, not very patiently, until it finally beeped and Sebastian withdrew the probe and shucked the plastic sleeve into the nearby trash.

  “Well?” I asked as he examined the unit.

  “No.” He frowned to himself in concentration. “No—that can’t be right. Here—try again.”

  “What? Why?” I demanded, but he was already fitting a new plastic sleeve on the probe and sticking it in my mouth.

  I put up with the process a second time and then a third—this time using my own temperature gauge because Sebastian thought something must be wrong with his—before I finally lost patience.

  “No more!” I exclaimed, when he tried to take my temp a fourth time. “What does it say?”

  “It can’t be right.” He frowned and finally showed it to me. “According to this, you’re hypothermic.”

  I frowned at the reading on the gage—92.6—a full six points lower than the standard human body temperature of 98.6.

  “What the Hell?” I muttered. “What does this mean? I don’t feel cold—in fact, I feel like I’m burning up.”

  “You do?” Abandoning scientific methods, Sebastian put a hand to my forehead. “Your skin is like ice!” He looked really worried now. “I knew you weren’t looking right. Charlotte, we need to run some tests and find out what’s going on with you. This could be dangerous!”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, trying to wave him off. “I’m just still tired—that’s all. I’ve had, uh, a lot happen today.”

  “I know that,” he hissed. “And you’ve also possibly been exposed to some new pathogens today. Pathogens from a whole different planet when the Invisible Hunk came into your life! Remember that TV show we binge-watched together—The Strain?”

  “Oh, please, Sebastian—don’t be so dramatic,” I said irritably. “I’ll be fine—I just need a good night’s rest.”

  “But Charlotte—”

  “I know what may be the cause of this,” a deep voice came out of the air behind me.

  Sebastian and I both jumped and looked around guiltily, like kids with our hands caught in the cookie jar. So Kristoff was still there—he wasn’t a figment of my imagination or a really vivid dream as I had sort of halfway been hoping.

  “What is it?” Sebastian hissed out of the corner of his mouth, looking like somebody in a spy movie passing information while trying to look innocent. “If you gave my friend some kind of incurable alien disease—”

  “It is not incurable but it’s not easily solved either.” Kristoff sounded unhappy. “I told you, my Lady, that you should not have given me your blood.”

  “What?” Sebastian demanded. “How is Charlotte giving you a transfusion of her super-rare blood going to make her sick? It’s not like it was the other way around and she took your blood.”

  “It is the Royal Cycle beginning,” Kristoff replied obliquely. I wished I could see him and try to read his face because his words weren’t making any sense.

  “What does that mean?” Sebastian hissed.

  “That Charlotte must come with me to Femme One and soon—there is no medicine here on your primitive planet that can cure her,” Kristoff said.

  “Now, wait just a minute—” I began but that was when I heard another voice calling my name.

  “Dr Wal
ker!” a man’s voice shouted across the ER. A familiar voice, I’m sorry to say. I looked up with dread and saw that Dr. Drake Hunter was glaring at me from the other side of the Pit.

  “Oh no,” I moaned, feeling my stomach turn over. God, could this night get any worse or weirder?

  “What is it?” Sebastian asked. “What does he want?”

  “I forgot to tell you but he came to my apartment earlier to ask me out again,” I said under my breath. “Kristoff was already there with me and Hunter saw him. Then I told him to get lost. He, uh, wasn’t very happy about it.”

  “And you talk about me being dramatic!” Sebastian’s eyes were shining with excitement. “Girl, you are just dripping with hot, eligible men! I wish you’d tell me your secret.”

  “There’s no secret involved,” I muttered. “And I’d be happy to give you this particular ‘hot, eligible’ man. He’s probably here to assign me to go mop vomit and change bandages in the burn unit.”

  “Hmm, he does look angry,” Sebastian admitted.

  “Dr. Walker, I’d like to talk to you now!” Hunter repeated, glaring at me. Great, so he was prepared to cause a scene.

  “I’d better go,” I muttered. “But I want you to stay here, Kristoff,” I said to the empty air behind Sebastian.

  “Under no circumstances.” His deep voice was a protective growl. “I will not leave you alone with a male who wishes you harm.”

  “It’s not like he’s going to attack me,” I said. “He’s probably just going to say a whole lot of nasty things to me. Things that might make you want to snap and strangle him like you did poor Sebastian last night. I don’t need that kind of a scene right now.”

  “I will not leave you,” he insisted, his deep voice sounding tense.

  “I’m the Empress, right?” I said, turning to glare at the empty space and wishing I could look him in the eyes. He was so tall I was probably eyeballing his chest—only I couldn’t tell because he was invisible. “I’m the Empress so what I say goes! And I say stay here.”

  There was a restive movement in the air, as if he was shifting from foot to foot angrily. But at last he said, in the coldest voice possible, “As my Lady wishes.”