I wake in my bed still dressed in the vestiges of last night’s disguise. The thick cloak made it halfway off as I tossed about in my bed, but the upper part of it is wrapped uncomfortably around my torso, pinning one arm against my chest.

I extricate myself from its hold and hang it over the headboard of the bed in lieu of actually walking to the closet and hanging it up. It is a well-made cloak, bought for the express purpose of hiding both the tone of my skin and the shape of my body. It also hides the tattoos that dot the flesh of my arms and back. I force myself to swing my legs out of the bed and pad across the floor to the mirror, barely large enough to encompass my eight-foot tall frame.

I am larger than most Velorians by a significant enough margin that it is frequently remarked upon. For another of my species, there might be a struggle to find clothing that fits correctly, or even doorways that allow one to enter without ducking. With my title, however, I have no trouble acquiring tailored clothing or specially made suites to accommodate my size. I reach toward my face, carefully removing the golden contacts that I had forgotten to remove before dozing off, revealing the glimmering silver beneath. They are bloodshot, slightly irritated from sleeping with them in, but we Velorians are resilient, and they look mostly clear again after just a few quick blinks.

Despite the late, or rather early, hour I’d arrived home during in the night, I feel rested. Velorians require less sleep than other species. It is nice to have several, unbroken hours, but we function perfectly well with less. I cannot help thinking that the ease with which I’d slept might have be because of the way I spent the few hours before closing my eyes.

The human woman was exquisite, but I was so taken with the usual anonymity of my disguise that I had not even asked her name. If I asked for hers, then I would, in turn, be expected to give my own. I could not have done this, of course, and giving her a fake name would be venturing into the territory of blatant lies. I prefer omission of certain facts to the overt twisting of them into a truth that better suits me.

There is a knock at the door just as I’m fastening the clasps of a fresh pair of pants. I can tell who it is by the fact that they wait barely a second before opening the door and charging in anyway.

“Jari,” I say. “I see you had no trouble slipping past security.”

The fire Velorian I have known for forever shrugs. “Of course not. Though to be honest, Takkan, you should really think of bringing in a few soldiers we didn’t serve with.”

I shake my head, but cannot wipe the smile away. I have known Jari since the Xzerg wars, when we fought in the same company, and there is no need to put up any sort of front with him. Even if I chose to, he would know which parts of myself are authentic and which were fabrications for the public’s benefit. The most difficult part of being the crown Prince, the ruling monarch, is that in creating a public persona, you begin to lose track of your old self. Jari, in addition to the old friends who now act as part of my personal guard, go a long way in keeping me from forgetting.

“You’re right,” I say. “If you really had a mind to sneak in and usurp my throne, you’d have no trouble convincing at least one of them to join you.” I pretend to think about it at length. “Especially Sovren. Excellent soldier, but he’s never actually liked me.”

Jari lets the door close in his wake. I throw on a fresh shirt. “What’s—“ Jari begins to ask something, but pauses, eyes drifting to the cloak discarded on the bed. The soldier hasn’t survived this long by being unobservant. His eyes go next to the case I’ve stowed the high-tech color contacts in. His eyes nearly roll with disappointment.

“Really Takkan?”

You’d think I would have a good answer prepared, as I do for nearly every other situation. But somehow it is different fielding questions and accusation from my friend than it is the council or the press. I cannot think of anything to say that will wipe the accusatory look from his face.

“The council is constantly harping at you about at least pretending to search for your mate, and instead you spend your nights skulking about in that cloak watching the sparring matches.”

“I’ll have you know I am adept at multitasking,” I say. “Perhaps I find that it makes more sense to search for my soulmate in a more… organic setting.” This is not a lie. How can I hope to meet someone and truly see who they are if I appear to them as Prince Takkan? More likely, I will meet the same artificial version of themselves as the one I often resort to showcasing myself. My nights away from the palace are not just about meeting suitable females; it also gives me a chance to interact with my people, to see who they really are, to hear what they really think about my rule, about the council, about the universe at large. I cannot do such things dressed in fine clothes with a bodyguard at my side.

“I did meet a woman last night,” I say, because Jari and I not in the habit of hiding things from one another, hence the fact that he even knows about my propensity for sneaking out of the palace in disguise.

“Of course you did,” the fire Velorian says, his tone exasperated. He folds his arms across his chest, ready to listen. “And now you’ll tell me about her I expect.”

I shake my head. “There’s no time,” I say. “According to my schedule, I agreed to an interview that starts in …ten minutes. Some Federation sanctioned show with a human host. It might go a long way toward engendering further good will between our worlds.”

I finish dressing as I speak. Ours is a race of warriors, and all Velorian clothing looks, in some way, as though it were made for battle. All I’m missing really, is a blaster. I head for the door, Jari following.

“What I can tell you,” I say, “is that this was different.”

“Different,” he scoffs.

I think back to her... the full lips, soft skin, round breasts. I run my tongue over my lower lip, and then I nod. “Different. Something I might be interested in pursuing.”

Jari doesn’t look convinced as he diverges paths from me, wordlessly heading back to the quarters he has been assigned for the duration of his visit. As I walk to the room the interview is scheduled to occur in, I find myself thinking, unsurprisingly, of just how different this woman had been.

I have never before experienced a particular attraction to alien women, but this one was intriguing. Perhaps it was her confidence, or perhaps it was something as trivial as the beautiful color of her hair, shining with copper undertones that remind me of a fire Velorian’s skin. There had been something between us as we lay on the floor of the tent, with our mouths on each other—something that I have never experienced with anyone else.

Velorians are careful of mating, particularly with non-Velorian species, as it would be unfair to form such a bond with a woman who had not consented, or who did not understand what she was consenting to. That is why I had not gone any further last night, however much I ached to.

I still ache, if I’m being honest.

Part of me insists on the unlikelihood of meeting my soulmate in such a way, but the rest of me claims it has felt something new, something that I want desperately to experience again. I have to know if this feeling is merely the excitement of having experienced such pleasure with someone outside of my species.

If my day were not already so filled with princely duties relating to the holiday, I would rush back to the village I visited last night and search for her in the crowd. As it is, I will have to wait until tomorrow, hoping against hope that she feels the same spark that compels her to return to meet me again.

I push such distracting thoughts from my head as I enter the room in which the interview is to take place, if the message that was awaiting me on my comm last night was true. It is a relatively small room and it looks more comfortable and utilitarian than opulent, as it the Velorian way. Two chairs have been set up, angled toward each other. A human woman with short, wild hair and darker skin than the one from last night works at setting up two cameras showcasing different angles, while one of the Velorian council members chats with her about she is expected to conduct herself. The woman doesn’t notice my entrance until my near silent steps bring me further into the room. I catch her in the midst of rolling her eyes at the council member’s directions. She stops moving in the middle of her work and blinks at me.

“Oh, Christ,” she says, and the council member looks absolutely pained, and quickly slips out the door. “You’re him. I mean—nice to meet you?”

I do my best not to smile, wondering what she has heard that makes her so nervous. “’Nice to meet you’ is perfectly fine,” I say. “I return the sentiment. I am Prince Takkan of Veloria. You must be Wren Stevens.”

She recovers quickly from the shock, transitioning to a more confident stance as she explains. “I’m Lena, actually. I’m in charge of the cameras and the audio. One of the other council members snagged Wren on the way in—probably giving her a list of sensitive questions to avoid.” She lowers her voice conspiratorially. “They usually do that when we interview someone important. And you seem fairly important.”

“Fairly,” I echo. “Well, tell Ms Stevens when she arrives that I don’t intend for any questions to be off limits.”

The other human enters as I am halfway through the words. It takes me a moment to realize it. She is dressed much differently, in a white shirt with a blazer and pants that look professionally tailored—a far cry from the more casual clothing of the previous evening, the sort of clothing one wore when they wanted to be prepared for whatever they might stumble into while exploring. It is her hair that most draws my eye, the exact same shade of orange-red that I remember, like the base of a flame. My eyes captured her face clearly, and they find this face an exact reflection. For a moment, I do not make the connection. I am sure that somehow, she has discovered my identity and talked her way into the palace.

But then she smiles, polite and distant, though still able to be interpreted as friendly. Her face lacks every bit of the comfortable warmth it held last night. “You must be Prince Takkan,” she says. “My name is Wren Stevens. I’m sorry for the delay, but I got caught up with one of your advisors.”

She crosses the room, holds out a hand for me to clasp, a curious human habit that I have read about before but never encountered. As I take it, a spark seems to travel between her skin and mine.

“A pleasure,” I manage to say, and she is quick to return the favor. I force myself to release the grip on her hand. She steps back, stares at me with a raised eyebrow. Perhaps the handshake was too long, perhaps there is an inexplicable tinge of confusion in my tone. I do not know what to make of her, of this. Her eyes and body language scream that she does not know me, does not experience any of the recognition that I do, but perhaps she is merely that good an actor. If anything, she seems puzzled by the dozens of expressions that flicker over my face as I stare at her.

“We’re all set up here,” the camera operator, Lena, says. Her words jolt me back to the present. Whether she knows me or not, whatever her motives, I need to keep myself centered during this interview if I’d like to avoid making Velorians look as though they are incapable of answering basic questions.

I sit down in the chair that Lena indicates and prepare to speak. Thankfully, I have plenty of experience at being charismatic and I quickly rein in my array of conflicting feelings about the woman conducting the interview. I answer the questions as best I can, with as little or as much elaboration as is needed. I do my best not to rush for the simple reason of putting the uncomfortable situation behind me. Whatever my own feelings, Veloria’s reputation is at stake. I run on autopilot, with these thoughts churning in the background, tangling the gears of my mind.

It is in the midst of a question about the system of government, as I’m explaining the role the council plays, that it occurs to me to wonder if this entire interview has been orchestrated. She might very well have known exactly who I was last night. She may have only engaged me in conversation in hopes of digging up some information, and perhaps only joined me in the tent for the purpose of having something to hold over me. It would not by any means be the lowest thing my enemies have tried to trip me up. As I speak, I wrack my brain for anything dangerous I might have said.

I pour more energy into the interview than before, the anger and hurt thrumming within me, not making it to the surface. I pay close attention to each word that leaves my mouth, intent on acing each question and proving that this plot (if it is, in fact, a plot) has not gotten to me. I am a professional when it comes to speaking, and I think that, by the end of the interview, it shows.

Wren does not look rattled as I expect her to; she looks pleased with the answers.

“Great,” she says, standing up with a smile. “You gave us a lot to work with, and you organized your answers very well.” She looks to Lena. “I don’t even think we’ll have to do much editing.”

“Happy to have pleased you,” I answer, my tone cool and perhaps a bit hostile. It is a far cry from the warmth and openness with which I had spoken to the camera before.

“Lena and I were headed for some brunch, if you’re not otherwise engaged,” she tries, obviously hoping for a few more ‘off the record’ tidbits to add to her show or her blog.

I hope, sorely, that I hadn’t been completely blind to her true nature. I would rather have never met her again and held onto that pure, beautiful memory than... this.

“I apologize,” I say, in the same tone as before. “There’s a gala today that requires much preparation, and I have a few meetings with my council to prepare.”

She notices. I see a similar shield fall before her own eyes; her face changes from professional distance to the distance of cold dislike.

I cannot trust her. The coincidence is too great to be believed as anything so random as happenstance. There had been dozens of women at the festival last night, and I could not believe that I would end up spending the evening with the one person there most likely to have an ulterior motive. She is a journalist. In my experience they excel at finding out things they have no business knowing. It does not surprise me that, somehow, she has learned of my disguised excursions into the surrounding villages and pounced on the opportunity to find out something about me that the rest of the world does not know.

The callous audacity of it, in addition to her excellent acting both then and now, set my teeth on edge. There is a human phrase I learned in the military, about keeping friends close and enemies closer. I see no reason as to why it cannot be applied here. I need to learn more about her. I need to be sure of her motives.

“Actually, perhaps the two of you would like an invitation?” I hear myself offer, voice slipping back into a faux-friendly interview tone; the one I use in public when appearing friendly is paramount. “It would invite an opportunity to learn more of our attempts to build bridges with other planets.”

“That would be excellent,” she says, but her eyes have joined mine now in growing distrustful. This is a move she did not expect. She does not know what to make of me, any more than I know what to make of her.