Chapter Two
Vyken
One Week Earlier...
“Admiral is certainly a pressure-filled position,” Tyr is informing me, bringing the glass of hot fermented wine to his lips. Over the gigantic military man’s purple shoulder, the Paxian bar buzzes with other plum-colored lifeforms. All male. All vibrating with barely-contained testosterone.
Now that women were starting to populate the planet again -- to a small extent -- the Firosan Mahdfel warriors had been obviously desperate to claim a human woman of their very own.
But me? I swirl my own hot wine around on my tongue, delighting in the contradiction of its sharp numbness. I just do not know if I want a mate at all, really. At least not yet. I have some thinking to do before I sign up for the lottery.
I believe I still must prove that I am worthy of my new position. Once Tyr was promoted to Admiral of the entire Firosan military, it was I who moved up to General to fill the large shoes of the man -- boss and friend both -- who sits in front of me now.
“But you love it?” I reply once I have swallowed, feeling the heat bloom in my throat and stomach.
Tyr smirks, averting his gaze.
I know exactly what is entering his mind: his human mate. Alyssa is certainly and undeniably beautiful, for an alien, but she does absolutely nothing for me in that way. I have come to the conclusion that I am just not attracted to humans.
It’s a terrible shame that I will not be able to pass down my superior genepool to the future generation, and I have considered joining the Lottery to find an Earth mate if just to create the future’s finest warriors, but I just don’t want the responsibility of a mate I will not be fiercely and intensely attracted to. It is simply not fair on her.
I do not wish to create my children the way my father did, or his before me. My children, if they are brought into existence, will not be accidental. They will be born of a kind of passion I cannot bear to deny myself. They will be born of love.
So, more likely, they will not be born at all.
And I don’t believe that an algorithm, no matter if it is one as complex as that of the DNA Lottery, can find something like my fated love.
“I’ve been trying to spend as much time as I can aboard the Spitfire, but there are many things that require my attention planetside. I am lucky that Alyssa is so understanding as to allow me to shuttle her back and forth,” Tyr is saying. I snap my attention back to him and raise my brows to show that I am listening. The spiced wine is starting to go to my head already. “If you want to stay in ships all your life I recommend you get promoted no higher than General.”
This elicits a bitter chuckle from me.
“I don’t think we’ll ever have to worry about that. With my history I’m surprised they promoted me at all,” I point out. I wouldn’t say I have a problem with authority, as such -- although I have always worked under Tyr, a man I would trust with the lives of everyone I know, so perhaps I am just lucky -- but I do have the tendency to make rapid and controversial decisions. So far they have always worked out in my favor, and we won the Suhlik wars, after all, but who knows what trouble my rash behavior might get me in in the future?
I can’t wait to find out.
The evening passes as a succession of increasingly more tasteless wines, and quickly becomes a blur, and then a haze. The time for Tyr’s news, the reason he wanted to drink with Axion and I, comes and goes, and all I remember is my heartfelt agreement to whatever he proposed.
And I remember the second piece of news. Alyssa is pregnant.
My old war buddy and my respected superior truly has it all now. The job, the ship, the woman, and now the family. Something that very few of us warriors are ever going to have. He has it.
I remember one more thing through the fog of our rambunctious and laughter-filled night. Somewhere around drink seven I realize that I want it all too. I have my ideal title and career. I might even get my own ship in the near future.
Around drink eight I eagerly and giddily sign up for the Earth Lottery. In that moment, I truly want what Tyr has.
Around drink nine, however, is when I wholeheartedly agree to my first serious mission as General.
Through the numbing alcohol in my blood and in my mind, the two events blend into one. And I am very aware, on a molecular level, that one of these two things is likely to destroy my life in a way I can never come back from.