“It could,” Archon shrugged. “We can always call another meeting when we have more time, or when wasting theirs seems more appealing than it does now…”
“ARCHON! YOU ILLEGITIMATE BASTARD!”
Archon turned with a broad smile, for a greeting as honest as that could only come from the mouth of a friend. There was one king he could stand. One king he rather liked, perhaps even admired. Dominax the winged. Half devil, as shown by the proud horns which rose from his head. He was also half angel, as revealed by the big black wings which would unfold from his shoulders when he was flustered or decided to have a little fly about the place. Officially, he was a beast of indeterminate generic origin, but he ruled over his kingdom with what Archon could only describe as an outrageous yet utterly dominant style.
“Dominax! You twisted perversion of a beast!” Archon returned the greeting.
“Neither one of us deserve our crowns, do we,” Dominax laughed, wrapping Archon in a masculine embrace. “You’re still a scaly bastard, aren’t you.”
“And you still drop feathers wherever you go,” Archon replied. “You need someone to follow you around and sweep up after you.”
Dominax let out a hearty laugh. “Tell me, Archon, while we wait for the stragglers. What is new in your pitiful life?”
“Come to my ship and see,” Archon said with a smirk.
“Oh? You have something you're not supposed to, do you?”
“I have something I never thought I’d have. A mate.”
“A mate? This I have to see.”
“After the council!” Varin called out. “They’re finally all here!”
“Bugger that,” Dominax replied. “I want to see the human.”
“See the human on your own time. We have a universe to run.”
Chapter 22
“So that’s a human, is it?”
Dominax was staring at Iris with great interest. Iris was staring back with much less interest and far more annoyance.
“They’re more trouble than they’re worth. Get yourself a nice Grinklefink girl. They have obedience in their genes. These humans, they’re always getting into something. And they take to disobedience like ducks to water, so there’s nothing to do but beat them regularly.”
“Very intriguing physical structure,” Dominax said, ignoring him. “Sort of… curvy, aren’t they?”
“Yes. They are.”
“Full in the ass, too. A nice round rump, made perfectly for the punishment you say they deserve.”
“Dominax…”
“My last pet died,” he said bluntly. “I’ve been looking for something to replace her. A human might be interesting.”
“Humans are interesting, but be careful. They have a way of… well, capturing you back.”
Dominax grinned broadly. “Don’t tell me you have fallen in love. Don't tell me you intend to make this human thing your queen.”
Archon restrained the urge to bash his skull in for calling Iris a ‘thing’.
“The nobles want an heir. Perhaps it is time I gave them one,” Archon smiled. He had not thought about it before, but now he did, it occurred to him that the nobles of Archaeus would become apoplectic if he were to declare a half-human heir. It would ruin all their plans to eventually suck his seed into the womb of one of their dancing pawns.
“Are you done?”
Iris didn’t mean to sound quite so short with him, but sitting alone on a ship and waiting for him to return left her with nothing but time to think about her family, and all that she had lost. Now she was staring at two kings, the second hardly endearing himself to her with all the talk of pets and rumps.
If Archon was telling the truth, she might see her family again soon. She wondered what she would say to her father, or what her brothers would think of all that had happened. Iris was actually glad that the tribe had been zipped off the planet. It meant they wouldn’t know about the sexual spectacle she had become.
“We are done. We are also giving King Dominax a lift.”
“You’ll barely notice me here,” the king with the horns and the wings said nonchalantly, as if there was some chance he’d blend into the background.
There was absolutely no chance whatsoever. Iris could not stop staring. As much as she was not in the mood to meet new royalty, Dominax was a most compelling beast, with long dark hair cascading over his shoulders in a thick raven fall.
For once, she was silent. Dominax winked at her, then followed Archon into the royal lounge where she had been waiting all this time. It had seemed large when she was alone, now it felt like very close quarters.
“So,” Dominax said. “Earth.”
“I’ve stashed a number of troublesome things there over the years,” Archon admitted. “It’s such a strange little planet, they never seem to notice.”
“I thought there was an accord to avoid that planet.”
“It is within my borders, technically, and I have every right not only to visit it, but to use it as I see fit.”
“Hey, don’t worry, I won't tell,” Dominax smiled. “Your secret is safe with me.”
There was a wicked glint in the king’s eye which suggested absolutely nothing and nobody was safe with him. Iris had to trust that Archon knew what he was doing. She had experience with one corrupt, powerful male which landed her in the dungeon. Gods only knew what Dominax would do with a human if he had the chance.
“Is there somewhere else I can be?” She murmured the question in Archon’s ear.
“Actually, you and I should be getting ready. We will need to change our clothes.”
“These clothes are strange.”
She didn’t like the clothes. She also didn’t like the green and blue ball they were in orbit around. It looked strange and vaguely untrustworthy, even at a distance. Iris was working hard on not getting her hopes up. She did not believe, for a single second, that she was actually going to see her family again. She did not truly believe that Archon had saved them. But some small part of her insisted on holding onto the hope that he was not a complete bloody liar.
“Those clothes are jeans and a t-shirt. They are a common form of apparel, and they will ensure that you blend in.”
“And these rubber shoes?”
“Those are sneakers. They are comfortable, allegedly.”
“I don’t like this place. It is strange.”
“It is where your family have settled, and it is where they will stay. They can never return to Zeta and tell the others there of far off planets and the future which is yet to arrive.”
“Is this how you did it?”
“How I did what?”
“Became king? This is where all the other royals went, isn’t it? All the ones that disappeared? All the ones you are supposed to have killed? You didn’t kill them. Did you?”
Archon smiled.
“You're not brutal, are you. I mean, except with me, obviously. You’re smart.”
Archon tapped her nose with a clawed finger. “I am both. But I am the second before I am the first. Life is easier that way.”