Triad In The Stars: Sci-Fi MFM Menage Romance (Celestial Mates) Page 3

  "I could say the same," Vanor replied calmly. "Trust a Greole to call himself king just because his father wore the crown."

  Elias frowned, staring at him.

  "Have no fear," the other warlord said. "I don't mean to rule without first proving to my people that I am rightfully their king. I understand you've challenged me. I accept."

  Vanor grinned, baring his teeth in a feral snarl at his enemy.

  "Good," he said. "You can die with honor, then. Rest in peace, knowing Haverins will have a king who can protect them. One who has defended our borders for years while you've been playing around with women in the safety of your home."

  Elias bristled, taking a step towards him, his golden eyes flaming. The priests wanted to say something, but Elias stopped them with a firm look.

  "Big words," the warlord told him then. "Coming from a man who is so detached from our mutual home I doubt you would have recognized me if I didn't wear my colors. You want to rule people you neither know nor understand.

  “While it's admirable that you protect our borders against galactic scum and thieves, I've been maintaining order here, where it matters. As for my female liaisons, I have no reason to apologize. Except maybe not to offend you, Lord Merive, who you're told to still be without a female's touch."

  That insolent dog!

  The crowd had fallen silent. Both those who had cheered for him and those who had supported Elias. They were looking at them both now with bated breath.

  But it wasn't the expressions of their faces that Vanor noticed. It was their eyes, bearing only glints and specks of gold, a clear mark of bloodlines being weakened.

  Only he and Elias had eyes of the clearest gold, and that was where their similarities ended, as far as Vanor was concerned.

  That, if not anything else, decided the matter for him. Haverins deserved a strong king and for all his fancy words, Elias was not half the warrior he was.

  "Come then, boy," he called, the distaste plain in his voice. "Words are for lesser men who can't back them up with actions."

  Elias drew his sword immediately, a wide, hungry smile on his face.

  "At last, we agree," he said, charging at him.

  They met with a clash of metal against metal, the crowd backing away from them as fast as they could. Vanor was momentarily caught off guard by the fact that Elias wasn't as weak or fragile as he'd expected, but in return, the same startled realization dawned in his rival's eyes.

  A worthy rival?

  Blood pounded in his veins as Vanor pressed back, finding equal strength opposing him.

  In that moment, a gasp went through the crowd.

  Despite himself, Vanor looked away from his opponent, a grave error in battle, but the other warlord had seemed to have forgotten about the duel as well. They froze, locked together, staring at the strange female standing on the steps of the temple.

  She looked at them, wide hazel eyes full of wonder. Her beautiful dark hair floated gently in the wind and a tight white dress covered her sweet, curvy, divine body. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was also so much more.

  Vanor's heart nearly stopped, looking at his fated.

  My fated…

  It was like all the pieces of the universe suddenly fell together and made perfect sense to the young warlord. Like the puzzle of his future and present was being wrapped up for him in the matter of a split second, in the form of the most magnificently gorgeous woman he could imagine.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a matching expression on Elias' face. Vanor’s insides twisted with icy horror. That look could not be mistaken.

  No. This can't be. Not him.

  Yet when the female smiled slightly, the world gained color and light Vanor couldn't remember it having before.

  "I assume that this is not a good time," she said.

  4

  Chloe

  This has to be a dream. It just needs to be.

  It seemed to Chloe like that had been her mantra ever since she set foot in the Celestial Mates agency. So far, it hadn't exactly helped her, nor been true in any meaning of the word.

  Reuben had used his teleporter again, this time only on the spatial dimension instead of flinging her through time like he had before, but Chloe was too shaken to be suitably impressed by the agency's powers. With a sort of unflappable disinterest in what he was disturbing, the man had apparently put her down right in the middle of something very important and possibly deadly.

  Expecting Reuben to actually tell me what the hell is going on was obviously too much to expect, she mused nervously, looking over the crowd and the bustle in the middle of the throng of bodies.

  With the tiny paper still in her hands, Chloe studied the scene, amazed despite herself. The world she'd ended up on was beautiful and rich, with gorgeous buildings straight out of ancient Rome, and air so fresh it made her a little dizzy. She was standing in the shadow of a colossal temple, reaching for the skies, made of dark stone that brought volcanoes into her mind.

  Right in front of her, two warriors were engaged in a fight. Their mutual enmity would have been obvious even without the swords at each other's throats.

  On the other hand, it was a wonder Chloe noticed the blades at all. The men themselves captured her attention with such demand she couldn't have looked away if she tried. One was blond and fair, his face noble and lean, and the other fitting the tall-dark-and-mysterious type, but they were both gorgeous to a fault. Tall and broad-shouldered, with bright golden eyes full of emotion she couldn't entirely understand, they were impossible to look away from.

  Above all else, Chloe couldn't really understand much of her own feelings either. As soon as her eyes fell upon the men, something inside her had snapped. It was only natural for her heart to beat a furious rhythm, looking at the two guys who made her mouth water, but it wasn't just that.

  She was starting to consider whether there was some truth to Reuben's nonsense. It sure hadn't made much sense before. Chloe thought back to when the man had led her back into the agency and her claws had come out, ready to tear him a new one.

  "What the fuck is going on here?" Chloe screamed at the man as soon as they were back in the building and the noise of the city that definitely wasn't New York had faded away.

  It felt weird to raise her voice in a place like that, a lobby that reminded her of a spa and seemed to demand respect and quiet from people. That said plenty about her upbringing, and about how mad she was.

  "No, sorry," she went on while Reuben waited patiently. "Fuck doesn't even begin to cover it. It's more like... More like – do you see!? You've screwed me up so badly I can't even find the words to yell at you! You've blasted right through the limits of my vocabulary, you piece of manipulative shit!

  “Where the hell am I really? If this is some prank show, I will sue your ass so hard your grandchildren will be paying mine!"

  I really need a lawyer.

  She stopped, panting, gasping for air. She honestly couldn't remember being so mad ever before in her life, but something about Reuben still made her hold back. His presence was soothing to a fault. She sort of hated it. It felt wrong to rage at a kindly old man, even if he had just scared the crap out of her.

  "Are you finished, Miss Riley?" Reuben asked, smiling, his voice as calm and collected as ever. "I understand your reaction, believe me. You are not the first to feel this way and I doubt you'll be the last. I thank you for not trying to pour every curse at me, hoping one will hit home. People have tried."

  "And has it worked?" Chloe shot back, feeling herself relaxing against all reason, perhaps because Reuben was very pointedly not fighting back.

  Her cheeks were lit with red and her whole body vibrated with terror, but still, she could take breaths. She could get out words. She was far too composed in her own opinion.

  "No," the man said, a mischievous grin slipping to his lips. "You see, I have not lied to you, but I haven't told you the full truth either. If you'll hear me out, I c
an enlighten you."

  When Chloe said nothing to that, Reuben nodded to himself, beckoning another person she hadn't noticed standing in the far corner of the room before. A woman in a light cream-colored dress came to them, a tray with two chalices in her hands.

  Reuben motioned to a sofa resting against the outer wall and, tired like she'd actually traveled 7000 years, Chloe sat.

  The woman bowed and Reuben took the chalices, offering her one. Chloe glared at the liquid inside and then at Reuben as the woman left them alone again.

  "You must be insane if you think I'm going to drink anything you offer me," she said.

  "Fair enough," he replied, setting the twin cups down a low table in front of them. "I'll put them here and after I've had my say, you may choose whether to drink or not. Now, I ask that you don't interrupt me while I explain. Then I will answer any question you might have."

  "Trust me, I have many," Chloe said bitterly, slouching in the seat as her body felt like it was turning into jelly, but Reuben was as unfazed as before.

  "I did not lie to you," he repeated. "The Celestial Mates dating agency provides a very unique service. Everything you've heard about us is, strictly speaking, true, but it's not as bad as you think. The fact that no one ever returns should tell you that.

  "We specialize in finding true love and when we say true, we mean it. There are no limits to our search for your perfect partner. Every dimension is combed through by our device – the beacon of light you saw.

  “Just imagine it. There is a person truly perfect for you, but you are separated by enormous, impossible distances of space and time. That is where we come in and before you ask, no, we're not human. I don't think you have a word for us. We are a species that delights in bringing people together, to strengthen the reality we live in.

  "You really are on Terra and the year truly is 9303. And somewhere out there you'll find what we promised you."

  After he finished, Chloe sat a long moment in silence, waiting for more tales of magic.

  "Time travel," she said then, her voice flat. "Aliens. A dating agency that could send me across time and space."

  She paused for a moment, groaning and dropping her head in her hands.

  "I'm going to need some serious therapy when I get home. Now cut the crap, drop whatever curtains you need to show me the audience laughing at me. Then we'll take a nice trip to the police and I can go back to work, okay?"

  She looked up, throwing hateful glances at her surroundings before returning her attention to Reuben. The guy was growing less and less dear to her.

  "Congratulations, by the way, you've done me one favor in the midst of all this. I'll forever have the best story of what happens to women who try to blind date."

  Reuben gave her a look usually reserved for disobedient children, but Chloe had had enough. It was finally clear to her that she wasn't going to get any satisfaction from his increasingly cryptic and, frankly, insane explanations. She believed they'd come to the point where Reuben the talk show host was getting zeroes added to his pay check for being able to keep her there past the point a normal person would have just gotten up and left.

  So why wasn't she doing that, exactly?

  Without another word, Chloe rose from her seat and walked out of there, picking up speed with every step until she was running. With three steps, she was out of the building again, putting as much distance between herself and Reuben to get out of the hologram or whatever the alien city around her was.

  She kept running and running, growing scared.

  This thing has to have an end, right? How can they afford to build something like this? I don't think they build sets like these for blockbuster movies. What the hell is going on?

  Chloe was so panicked, trying to run in high heels and the skintight dress she had unwisely chosen that morning that she ran right into someone.

  That someone had three eyes. He was also blue and Chloe had no idea if it was even a "he". She reached out her arm, unthinking, only to brush her hand against smooth, slightly slippery skin. It didn't feel artificial, especially when the creature began talking to her in an irritated voice in a language that sounded like ping pong balls being thrown against the wall.

  She screamed.

  She screamed to her heart's content, because the only thought in her mind was:

  It's real. No! This has to be a dream. It just needs to be.

  That was her last thought before the world slipped away and the next time Chloe opened her eyes, she was back in the Celestial Mates building. After her encounter with the outside world, the cursed lobby was starting to look homey and comforting.

  She was lying on the sofa and Reuben was standing patiently by her side, waiting.

  "I really wish you had lied," Chloe whispered.

  She could feel salty tears threaten to pour down her cheeks, but she pulled herself together. Or as close to together as she could currently get. Crying wasn't going to do her any good.

  Focus. Evaluate. Stop being a big baby.

  As she sat up, Reuben came to sit by her side again, a sympathetic look on his face.

  "I wish I could somehow convince you that we have no intention of hurting you," he said. "Quite the contrary. We want to give you a chance at unparalleled happiness, but when people fated to be together are separated by such obstacles as the dimensions in which you all exist, the first shock is inevitable.

  “I myself have never experienced it. My kind dwells above such tethers, but sometimes we wish we could experience it like you do."

  Reuben gave a mild shrug, as if these piddling human problems like space and time travel were completely unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

  "I am so far from everyone I ever knew," Chloe told him, trying to find words for the man to understand. "No, scratch that. Everyone I ever knew is dead. How am I supposed to cope with that?"

  "You shouldn't think of it like that," Reuben said as if it was nothing. "They are alive somewhere, you just don't share their time right now. But you still have a chance to find true–"

  "Stop saying that," Chloe said tiredly, leaning back on her sofa. "It sounds like a cheesy line from a fairytale. True love. Couldn't you have found me some passably nice guy? With all your power and technology and space magic – why couldn't you have searched Earth in the year 2016 and found a man to make me reasonably happy? I would have recommended your services to everyone."

  She really would have. Hell, even a decent coffee date would have earned a recommendation out of Chloe at that point. Instead, she’d been transported through time and thrust into something she was wholly unprepared for.

  And I definitely can’t write a Yelp review about it.

  "Listen to yourself," Reuben said, smiling so warmly that Chloe couldn't hold on to the lingering, sharp remnants of her anger. "Passably nice. Reasonably happy. You have been given the opportunity of a lifetime. Not many people find us, but you are here now.

  "Two weeks is all we ask. Two weeks to try if a life of love that doesn't end suits you. If, by the end of it you do not want to stay, I will come for you personally and take you back to Earth, to New York. To the Monday you left."

  Chloe considered that. It was absolutely crazy, but a long-forgotten desire in her was being lit again.

  Reuben was right, damn him. When had she started compromising her happiness, and why? She was in the future and everything she knew was gone, but it didn't change the fact that nothing about the description of her life back on Earth sounded flattering or inviting.

  She didn’t want her Monday back. She just wasn’t sure whether this Monday was going to be any better than the one she left behind.

  "Do I have a choice?" she asked miserably.

  "Not really," Reuben said, shrugging, for once a hint of embarrassment on his face. "I'm afraid you signed the clause to at least give it a shot. Two weeks, our standard deal."

  "Where the hell did it say that?!"

  "In tiny print."

  “But the pag
e was w-" she started, before letting it go.

  It doesn’t matter.

  Despite her life being flipped upside down, Chloe burst out laughing. The tears that she had refused to cry before came now, rolling down her face as she laughed so hard it felt like she was going to burst.

  What else could she do? She was cycling through the stages of grief pretty fast at this point. Acceptance was right around the corner as far as she could tell.

  "Some things never change, do they?" she said finally when she had calmed down. "So did I actually sell you my soul too?"

  "Nothing of the sort," Reuben assured her, offering her the chalice again. "I've now told you everything. Drink this, please. It will protect your health on Corolon. It will also help you understand their language and enable them to understand you."

  "Sounds useful," Chloe jested, feeling life and spirit returning to her again as she downed the drink with half-drunken mirth.

  After a point, there was just too much for her to handle, which made it easier somehow. Besides, what was the harm? Two weeks and she'd get to go home, no questions asked. Two weeks of an adventure she never could have imagined.

  "Alright," she said, getting up, wobbling only slightly on her high heels. "I'm ready. This is going to be a disaster, but hey, I can always skip town. Let's go meet my guy."

  "This way, Miss Riley," Reuben said, directing her to another small side room.

  I'm just going to assume it's a portal to another world, Chloe thought cheerfully.

  She stepped in and Reuben handed her a small piece of paper. The room was darker than the others and quite tiny. There was no furniture and Reuben himself didn't enter. Chloe glared.

  "Please tell me this isn't one of those rocking tubes. All the power in the universe and you can't fix that? I mean, I get it if it's for effect, but – "

  Smiling gently, Reuben raised his hand to silence her.

  "This is a teleporter, Miss Riley. No rocking. I wish you all the luck now. I will see you in two weeks. Until then, I suggest you give it a chance. Of all the places and all the moments, this is the one that was meant for you."