I’m posting this REALLY early, but that is because I am officially 4 freaking days ahead. Yes, I’m at 40K!! I just surpassed it a few moments ago. I’ve written almost 8K words today. I’m 226 words short of that 8K. No, I will not be trying to pass that, . I kept pushing myself to get what I got, . My goal is to finish EARLY! Yes, I can see the end. It is right there.

Feel free to critique what I have so far. Yes, I did do some words as separate, . Yeah, that did pad the word count, but not that much Okay, maybe it did, but for now, I don’t care.

Otherwise, what do you think?

Their world was not like our own. They lived on a dual sun planet. They had races that only those who were of the non-Human world knew about. There was an unknown ruling force for their universe, which only a few knew about. It was the kind of knowing that if one spoke a word of it to some one who was not to know, it would be the signing of a death sentence.
There are humans. They were boring and basic. Every one knows about them.
There are Vampiric Humans. They were allergic to the sun, and had fangs. They, unlike their Full Blood Vampiric cousins, did not need blood to survive. They also did not possess the strength of their cousins.
The Elven Humans were almost ethereal in their beauty. They both were tall and slim. Both male and females were of similar size. Males were usually taller, but on average, only by a few inches or so. They were more fragile than most normal humans were.
The governing world of the Spirits Council, which most of the humans, including Vampiric and Elven, knew not a thing about. They were clueless on the existence of them.
The unknowns are also the Magickals and the Faeries.
The Magickals keep the Faeries under control. There are two types of Faeries: The Good and The Bad. The Good usually, for the most part, work with the Spirits Council to keep the The Bad under control. There, like in any society, are those that claim to be The Good but working for The Bad. The Spirits Council does the very best that it is able to keep that to a minimum, but not a thing is ever completely done away with.
The Faeries, no matter Good or Bad, are fiercely loyal. They will kill for those they care about, whether the one they care about is wrong or right. Faeries also have the choice of going Good or Bad. They have the option of switching sides, easily, and usually with out too many com-plications. If they are forced to “go after” the ones they previously worked for, they are able to pull back and use previous obligations as the reasons, but if are found to feed information to the other side, they are immediately killed, no questions asked. A few have died under false information, but it was a price to be paid for switching sides.
The Magickals are usually humans, including the Elven and Vampiric. A round the time, they turn sixteen, they will either develop magical powers or they do not. If they do, they are taken to special schools to learn how to control and use their magic, along with train to be come part of the Spirits Council “army”. If they do not develop any powers, then they do not enter the special school. At times, this can and does cause problems for families if one child develops the powers required and another does not. The one that does not is not to know any thing about the Spirits Council nor why their sibling is going to a special school and they are not. The most common excuse is that the Magickal child is having problems at the school and needs special lessons, or what ever is needed to be said to make the non-Magickal child not feel not included.
The Magickals that are deemed strong and fit are used as “foot soldiers.” The strongest and toughest are sculpted in to the perfect assassins. Some assassins ended up switching sides, which can make for a very dangerous opponent, but one that the Spirits Council assassins are used to dealing with.
Other Magickals were used to help protect the humans. The Faeries, as the Spirits Council told the Magickals were jealous of the humans. They were always of the same size, and did not have to deal with any of the problems that the faeries have to. As most any one knows, though, most things are not done out of jealousy but for other reasons. The Spirits Council just has decided not to share the real and true reason with the Magickals and every one else who happens to be involved with the ongoing conflict.
There are a few select few Magickals who are chosen to be molded to be come future leaders of the Spirit Council. They are chosen at a young and tender age. Some are be cause of who their family just happens to be. Some are chosen be cause of their achievements. Some are chosen be cause their family greases the pocket of certain members to guarantee a place for their child. As with all systems, there is a way to corrupt it and there are those who are willing to do what ever they must to get what they feel that they deserve or what they desire.
Along with developing magical powers, Magickals’ bo-dies also begin to slow down the aging process. At sixteen, a Magickal will look sixteen, but at forty-six, that same Ma-gickal will look to only be about twenty-six. The average age for a Magickal to die at, from old age, is a round three hundred.
When they find the Mate of their choice, they are able to share the ability to slow down the aging process. There is one major downfall to doing so, though. The person, no matter how the relationship works out, will retain that ability. There are also a maximum number of times that it can be shared. No Magickal has yet found that exact number in the recorded histories of the Magickals.
?
Her red hair glinting in the sunlight, Alestra Silvergust quickly steps in side her store, The Griffin, to avoid being burnt by the bright sun. As she closed her door, she glances up, towards the sun, and sighs, wishing that she could be out there, more often, with fewer consequences.
Alestra was a member of the Vampirian Human race. The legend states that, at one point, her ancestors begged of the gods to remove their blood requirement from their biology. The gods allowed this change to occur but not with out some requirements. In giving up the requirement that they survive on the blood of their own kind, they also gave up many of their strengths: their stronger than most humans’ strength, their ability to move nearly at the speed of light, and their ability to flash through space and time. They gained the ability to be out in sunlight but not for extended periods of time. Some of them retained the ability to have control over locks and lights, as well as the mental ability to erase the memories of certain peoples, but that is a trait that is few and far between with the current generation of Vampiric Humans.
Alestra turned a round with a sigh. She loved who she was but some times it would be nice to be able to be out-side. She had craved that since she was a child. Today was a day that she wished she was able to take a stroll. The sky was a beautiful grey blue color, the color of a beautiful day. There were few to no clouds floating across. She hated being forced to stay in side when every one else was able to walk a round freely.
There was a tinkle clink sound, one that carried through the store, and she looked up. A broad smile spread across her face as she recognized the person coming in. It was her best friend, Trellyn Firebrand. Her gorgeously tanned skin glowed in the reflection from the sun through the glass door. Her grey, sharp eyes sparkled with humor.
“Hey, Alestra, what is shaking?” Trellyn asked, with a hint of laughter in her voice.
“Hey there, Trellyn, how is it hanging? Not a thing too much is going on here. Just the normal ‘woe is me, I have to stay in side always’ self hate.”
Trellyn rolled her eyes, as Alestra expected her to do. “Girl, you have got to stop hating on your self just be cause you can not walk in any sunlight. Come on, Girl! You got a great store and you gots one hell of a great friend.” Trellyn said the last line with a laugh. She then posed a little, and pretended to fan her self for her awesomeness.
Alestra laughed, lightly, and prettily. She could not help it. Her friend always had a great way of making her laugh. The way that Trellyn voiced things, and how she spoke so bluntly never failed to surprise Alestra, nor did it ever fail to make her laugh right when it was supposed to.
“I know, Trell, I know. I have got to stop this ‘my life sucks be cause I can not worship the sun’ mentality. Just stopping it though is harder than one might think,” Alestra said with a sigh. Her almost silver eyes shined a fraction with unvoiced thoughts.
Trellyn wrapped her arm a round Alestra’s shoulder and gave her a bit of a squeeze. “Buck up, Girl. I think you just need to have a little fun. Actually have a life instead of just pretending you do.”
This was the same old line Trellyn had given Alestra. Over and over, she heard about how she needed to just get a life, and the rest would fall in to place. Alestra had no idea who Trellyn figured that, but since Trellyn always seemed so happy, and full of life, maybe there was more to it than just empty words and promises of hope.
“Maybe, Trell, just maybe, I will take you up on your of-fer. One of these days, I might just have to. I definitely need to get a life. I am not getting any younger, and eventually, I would love to have a family, some kids, maybe.”
Trellyn laughed gaily. “Girl, if you are goings to do it, you are going to have to do it now. Do it now. Grab the life by its horns and live your life. You might only be twenty-six, but do you want to start having those kids in your forties? Nah, no one does!”
Before Alestra could respond, the bell tinkled and clinked, signaling the entrance of some one else. She looked up and smiled broadly. Trellyn’s brother, Temper, had walked in to the store. He was almost like a brother to her. She loved him like a brother that much was true.
Some times, she wished she had some sort of non-platonic feelings for Temper. It would have made her life a lot easier. She knew their family. She loved their parents. Her family got along well. Sadly, it was not meant to be, be cause those feelings she had hoped to develop never came to fruition.
She spun away from Trellyn swiftly and easily and launched her self towards Temper. He opened his arms, his dark green eyes sparkling. Unbeknownst to Alestra, Temper did have feelings towards Alestra. He felt more than just brotherly/sisterly love towards her. He would never act up on those feelings, knowing that Alestra did not feel the same. That and he would have had to explain what he really was, as well as whom and what he worked for. He did not think that her mind could wrap a round that subject.
Alestra reached her face up and kissed his cheek. She was not short by any measure but she always felt petite and dainty next to Trellyn and Temper. Trellyn was a couple of inches shorter than her brother, but still at least six inches taller than Alestra, who was five feet, six inches, or so. Temper also had muscles on top of muscles, or so it seemed to Alestra. She knew he was a very active man, but she wondered how much work he had to do to maintain that physique.
Easily stepping out of Temper’s arms, Alestra looked at him, with a smile on her face. When she smiled, her face lit up. She smiled carefully though, refusing to show off the fangs that she was born with. They, in her mind, were some thing she had to hide, not some thing, she should have any sort of pride in. She even refused to show them off to Temper and Trellyn, even though they both knew of them, and had seen flashes of them. Temper looked at Trellyn with a shrug who shrugged back. It was some thing they were used to by now with Alestra, and since they both had their own secrets they kept from her, they did not usually call her out on it.
“Hello there, my friend, Mr. Firebrand. What brings you to my humble shop?” It was the line she used most of the time that he showed up, which was not very frequently.
Temper grinned at her, his white, nearly perfectly teeth almost sparkling. There were only two teeth out of place, which Trellyn liked to say that she knocked loose to keep him from being too perfect. Who liked a perfectly perfect smile any way? “Nut tin’ much, my darlin’ Alestra. Nut tin’ much. Just wan tin’ to see the woman of me dreams,” he said, with an accent nearly identical to Trellyn’s. It made since they were siblings, but most of the time, that was the only thing that they had in common. Trellyn came off as sarcastic but with a kind heart and a strong mind. Temper came off just as his name suggested: easy to rile and hard to calm.
Alestra snorted, as she did each time he pretended, in her mind, to be attracted to her. She refused; no, she was just in denial, that he, or any man, would have feelings for her.
“What ever you say, Dude, what ever you say.” She looked at him, with a concerned look on her face. He hard-ly ever showed up in the middle of the day, let alone just a couple hours after she opened her store, and never during the week, like today. Some thing was up. Either some thing was on its way to going down, or it had already happened. She looked his face over, checking and double-checking, scared that she might be right, but wanting so hard to be wrong. “Some thing happened, has it not? What happened? What is it? Please, Temper, just tell me.”
Temper gently gripped her arms. They were trembling from her fear. She was scared to death that some thing had happened to her family. She had already lost one family member; she was so scared that she was going to lose another one again.
Temper held her arms and looked at her, looking deep in to her eyes. “Allie, it is not your family. Not yet at least,” he added.
Alestra looked up at him. “What do you mean? Not yet?”
Temper sighed, and dropped her arms. He took a step away and began to pace a few steps, just going a few steps forward and then a few more back, for a few seconds. It felt like hours to Alestra before he spoke again. “There have been threats. Numerous, since the passing of your father. Your mother decided to keep you and your siblings out of the loop on that issue.” One could hear the disgust and disagreement with that choice in Temper’s voice. Obviously, he would have made a different decision if it had been him to make it.
Alestra’s jaw literally dropped, and she took a few steps back, until her rear end hit the side of her counter with the register. She reached back, gripping the marble tile that covered it, gripping until her hands were white with the strain. “There have been more? Why would I not be told about this? Why was I not told about this?” She looked at Temper, then Trellyn, and back at Temper. “Should I not have been notified? Should I not know that my life, the lives of my family, the life of those I love have been threatened.”
Trellyn walked over, carefully, to Alestra’s side, and put her hand over hers. “Just listen to him, Honey. Just listen to him. Trust me; I think you are going to want to listen.”
Temper nodded at Trellyn. “I have wanted to let you know for the longest time, but no one felt that you suppo-sedly were not able to handle the news that your life, and other’s lives might be in danger.”
Alestra looked at Temper. “What do you mean?” She at-tempted to take another step back but was stopped by the counter. “How do you know this? How do you know any of this?”
Temper sighed, a long, deep, obviously troubled sigh. It was obvious that there was an answer he wanted to give but was not allowed to. “Alestra, I can not answer that question right now.” When her mouth opened, as if she was to question him, he held up his hand. “Please. This is not some game that I am playing. This is a life or death situation. Your life and the lives of your family’s, all of them, they are all in danger. I am not fucking with you. You know that I would never lie to you, purposefully, nor would I deceive you, unless I had a damn good reason. True?”
Alestra nodded, and sighed. “Okay, fine. I will accept that. So, why am I now learning of this? Why am I just hear-ing about all of this now? Why, after all these years, am I deemed worthy enough to find out that my life is being threatened; that it is still being threatened? For the love of the gods, my *father died over ten years ago. If I, or my family, have been threatened since then, how could I not know?”
Temper stepped closer, but stopped when he saw her eyes go wary. This was all coming as a shock to her, and she was not completely ready for the whole truth, even if he was of the ability to give it to her. “I do not know why your mother decided to leave you out of the loop, but *he* did. You need to know now be cause you have been named as their next target.”
“Their? What the hell does that mean?” Alestra was get-ting angrier with each word, and it was showing in the grip of her hands, and the look in her eyes. They were blazing fire.
“I can not tell you the whole true store, but I can tell you that the ones after you, and your family, are dangerous. Very dangerous, in a way that I can not begin to make you comprehend. I, and my team, have been charged with keeping you safe.”
“Your team. Your TEAM? What the hell does that mean? You have no team. You are an out of work bum, according to Trellyn and your family.”
Trellyn coughed. “Um, no, Girl. That is just the story that he and I give.”
Alestra jerked her hand away. “You!? You are in on this now? So, now I can not trust you either?” Alestra seemed to sink in on her self, mentally and emotionally, though the only outward sign that she was truly affected by what was going on was her eyes. The color was not as bright as it was when she was angry. It was a duller, muted color.
“Gods damn it, Temper! You had to bring my ass in to this. I am not a part of this, but no, I have to deal with your bullshit too. What is next? Telling me that Cullum will be there?” Trellyn’s eyes widened as Temper’s eyes tried to avoid hers. “You know how well that kind of crap will go down. You know how he feels about certain humans.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What do you mean you are not a part of this?” Alestra was getting similarly confused and angry, angrier than before. “Would some one tell me what the fuck is going on already? I have the right. TELL ME NOW!”
“Basically, Princess, you have to leave with me and Temper. If not, you risk the life of your self, that of every member of your family, and any one that has ever been exposed to you, even if it was an accidental run in. That is what is going on.”
?
Alestra spun a round at the voice that spoke behind her. It was a man, tall, and dark. He had black hair, and bright green eyes that did not even seem real. He had muscles. There were not as many as Temper’s but they suited his physique perfectly. He had a sneer that was framed by a pair of kissable lips. Alestra shook her head at that thought.
Who was this man? Where had he come from? How had he gotten in to the shop with out her seeing? Her back door had a very sophisticated alarm that was claimed to not to be able to hacked or broken in to. She guessed she was going to have to call that manufacturer and demand her money back, or some sort of compensation, be cause this man was not supposed to be here.
She looked at Temper, who seemed almost relieved to see the man show up. She looked at Trellyn, who was avoiding eye contact and looking a round the room.
“Okay, and who the hell are you, may I ask?”
“Oh, you are such a prim and proper Princess. In addi-tion, yes, you may ask, but no, I will not answer who I am. However, Trellyn over there does know me, as well as Temper. He is a partner of mine.”
Alestra looked at Temper. “Well, I guess it is a good thing that I never had a thing for you, huh?”
Temper just glared at her. “Ha ha, Allie. Ha ha. You know that I am not gay, no matter how much certain people,” he said with a glare at Trellyn, “would like to make other believe that to be true.”
Alestra shrugged, still annoyed with Temper. “Okay, fine. I do not really give two figs whom you think are. I just want you to use that exit right there,” she told the man who had arrived from the back, while pointing at the entrance / exit that Temper and Trellyn had used to come in to the store, “and show your self out. Just make sure it actually does hit your back end on the way out.”
“Oooh, a temper does she have. A fiery Princess will do you good but not at this moment.” The contempt on the man’s face and in his voice was undeniable.
“Okay, seriously. What the hell did I ever do to you? I have never seen you in my life. I have no idea who you are, yet you talk to me like I am a piece of gum off the bottom of your shoe.”
“That is extremely astute of you, Princess. I did not think you would have the brains to be able to figure that much out.”
“Cullum, Dude, back off. Okay just back off.” Temper’s temper was flaring but it did not seem to ruffle the man it was directed at. Alestra lifted up her hand, in an attempt to calm him down. “No, Alestra, this is one fight, no matter what, will I back down. This man might be one of the best I have ever had, but I will not allow any one to talk to you like that. You do not deserve that. Not from him, not right now.”
“Oh, now you get protective over a female? Since when do you let any one of these,” he said with such disgust that Trellyn gasped a little, when hardly any thing ever affected her. “You are one to talk about protecting some one. Show me Trinity Jolansa, and then I will see you at your best, I guess.”
“Fuck you, Cullum, fuck you,” Temper said, the temper immediately falling flat, and the fight leaving his eyes, leav-ing them dull and almost lifeless. Alestra had never seen him like that. She immediately walked over to him, and put her hand on his chest. When he turned away, gently push-ing away her hand, Alestra control on her temper snapped. She spun a round, and stalked over to the man who had hurt the one who was as close to her as a brother, if not closer.
“You are a bastard. I do not give a flying fig what you have to say about me, as I have no idea who you are but you hurt my friend, and that was uncalled for. You hurt him, just be cause you have no idea what friend ship truly is. Temper called you a friend, and you treat him like this? You fucking bastard! You are the one who is not worth the slime that a slug uses to slither along. You are not worth the effort one would need to wipe shit off one’s shoe. Just leave.” She pointed to the door, anger forcing her to make it a stabbing motion. “Just get your ass out of my shop be-fore I call the authorities and have you escorted out.”
“Sorry, Princess, but I am not going any where. Not un-til the threat against you is eliminated or you are. Either way works for me.”
Trellyn gasped, and reached for Temper before he could make a move. It seemed that her actions were not needed be cause Alestra had already made a move. She reached up, and slapped Cullum’s face, leaving a bright red hand shaped mark on his face. Before he could react, she delivered a well-aimed punch with her other hand to his solar plexus. She smiled brightly when he made an audible oof sound when her hand connected with his solar plexus. “Now, get the fuck out. I will take my chances against what ever is out there, but I will not be going any where with you. Not now, not ever.”
Cullum turned on her, with a look so full of fury that she took a step back, and then another, just to be safe. She was not easily frightened of a man but the look he gave her was enough to send chills of alarm up her spine, and make the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Temper walked over to Alestra, and pulled her away.
“Alestra, you need to just back off. Trust me, Love, just back away.”
Alestra would have normally fought against the hold, but for once in her life, she listened to reason, and just stayed back. She did not completely listen, though, and snarled, “Why the hell are you not listening? LEAVE!”
Cullum moved towards her, each move of his legs care-fully controlled. He stopped just inches from her and Tem-per.
“Cullum, do not say what is sitting on the tip of your tongue. I am still pissed as hell at what you just said, and the wrong word to the best friend my sister and I have ever really had will just set me the fuck off.”
Cullum looked at Temper, and then at Alestra. A look of disgust caused his lip to curl, showing off a bit of canine. It was not a long tooth, nor was it a short one. Alestra’s eyes widened when she saw it, and her mouth dropped, slightly. Cullum rolled his eyes at her.
“What is the matter, Princess? Have you never seen a half breed at all? Did your daddy keep you hidden away, and protect you? Are we too good for your lily white pres-ence?”
Alestra gasped. She looked at him, eyes a bit scrunched, her nostrils half flared, a seriously confused look on her face. She had absolutely no idea what this man was ranting and raving about. She was quite vocal in how she told him that, as well.
“I have no flipping clue in hell what you could even be-gin to be talking about. No, I have never met a half-breed. I was told that they were not possible. I was told that Vampiric Human and Human had incompatible DNA. That they could never create a child, no matter how much they might desire one.”
Cullum scoffed. “Great lessons in life you were given there, Princess. I wonder how many lies your mother filled your head with.”
Alestra struggled against Temper’s hold. She struggled hard, and with all her might. “My mother never lied to me. If she told me that, it was either what she believed or it was what she had been told. She and my stepfather, who was Human, tried for years to have a child and could never conceive. Trust me, if she could have had a child with him, especially now that he is gone, do you not think they would have done so.”
Cullum shrugged. “Your step father was an idiot who thought that your mother hung the moon, and believed every thing that she said, no matter what. She had her children through her beloved Vampiric Human mate, be-fore he was killed. Why would she want more?”
Alestra struggled more against the hold Temper contin-ued to have. “Temper, let me go, okay. I will not do some thing stupid.”
Temper shook his head. “Sorry, Love. I know you ex-tremely well. Your brain does not always connect with your heart, and I know this man. He will set you off, purposefully, just to put you back down.” He looked at Cullum. “While I do know why you are acting like this, pissing her off will not achieve the goal of keeping her safe. I know you do not care if she lives or dies, but I do.”
Cullum sighed, and looked at Temper. “What ever, Man, just what ever you have to say. Let her rot for all I care. If she is coming, she needs to be on the ship in no less than three hours. Any thing after that, and she will be left behind. You, as well, if you fail to show up at the appointed time, will be left behind, friend or not. There is too much going on for us to lolly gag a round. Do not forget to show up, Temper. I would hate to have to leave you.”
With those words, he disappeared. Not walked out the door and disappeared, but literally just poofed out of the room, leaving no sign that he had ever been there in the first place.
Temper dropped Alestra’s arms and she looked at him and at Trellyn. Neither one seemed surprised at all that he had just disappeared like that.
“Okay, what the hell is going on? Who was that? Why was he so hostile? And how the hell did he just disappear like that?” She expelled the questions with barely a breath between each sentence.
Trellyn looked at Temper and threw her hands in the air. “Do not look at me, Bro. You know I was all for telling her the truth from the beginning. The whole truth, leaving absolutely not a thing out, is what I want to hear.”
Temper rolled his eyes. “No, even with Cullum being a freaking moron, she will not be able to handle the whole truth. Not yet, not now.”
Exasperated, Alestra reached up and smacked Temper on the back of his head. “Will you stop talking like I am not here? Now is not the time for that. Just stop!”
Reaching up to rub the spot that Alestra had smacked, he looked down at her, with resignation in his eyes. “Oh for the sake of the gods, Alestra, I can not tell you this! I can not. It is forbidden.”
“Forbidden? I just saw a man, who was flesh and blood, and half-Human half Vampiric Human that just disap-peared. Literally, he was here and then he was not. How do you explain that? Do not give me this ‘It is forbidden’ bull-shit.”
Temper laughed lightly. Alestra was definitely not react-ing how one would have expected her to react. She wanted the answers, and would think on them later, dwell on them some time in the future, but for now, she just wanted those questions to be laid to rest.
Trellyn looked at Temper. “For the love of the gods, Dude, just tell her. Tell her some thing. Let her know some thing that will explain any thing.”
Temper rolled his eyes at Trellyn. “Fine, then you can be the one to take the blame for this!” Trellyn just shrugged, as if she did not have a care in the world. “Okay, Alestra, you want some form of the truth? Are you serious on this? If I tell you, and you freak out and tell some one else, you will literally be signing my death sentence. This is not a joke. This is more life and death than your own situa-tion.” At her nod, he continued. “Okay, Cullum Katara is technically my boss. He is what is known as a Magickal. He, in the most basic of terms, has magical powers. He can poof any where. He can pretty much do what ever he wants to do. Like most every thing, there are limits, but not too many, considering what he does for a living. He is what is known as a Protective Assassin. He has been assigned to protect you, along with our team of Lasiandra Colorns, Jamerly Mackonal, and my self. While Cullum says that he is willing to let you just die, he would never actually follow through with that, be cause it would be risking death him self. That, and what we are fighting, he refuses any one to be hurt by them. He has lost enough to them.”
Alestra looked at Temper, almost as if in a daze. “’What we are fighting’? What does that mean? Who is after me? Who wants to see harm come to my family? Explain this to me, please, Temper.”
Temper took a deep breath, and looked her right in the eyes. What he was going to show her was absolutely going to blow her mind. He signaled, covertly, to Trellyn to come behind Alestra, just in case.
Alestra looked at Temper, and felt her mind empty and be come relaxed. Then, Temper disappeared. Alestra gasped, and looked a round. Where did he go? Why did he disappear? What was going on? Then she felt some thing brush up against her ear, and the flutter a round the back of her head to the other ear. She attempted brush it away, but felt a small poke on her finger. She looked to the left, at her shoulder, and sitting there, was Temper. He had gone from six feet six inches to only a round six inches in height. He was sporting a pair of green and black wings, which sparkled in the beams of light from the filtered skylight above. Instead of the clothing he was wearing previously, he was wearing a loincloth, and not much else. Catching her eyes, he snapped his fingers. He instantly appeared before her, in all of his six foot six glory, including the clothing he had been wearing before.
Temper cursed as Alestra’s eyes rolled back in to her head, the whites the only thing visible before her eyes closed completely and her body collapsed in on itself. Thankfully, Temper and Trellyn had expected it, and Trel-lyn was there to catch her, and slowly bring her to the floor.
Temper dropped to his knees next to Alestra. He looked up at Trellyn with a scowl on her face. “I knew this was going to happen. I just knew that this is what would happen when she found out the truth. Now how the hell do we tell her that it was some one in our family that ordered the hit on her father, all those years ago, and that that person is also the reason that her step father was killed and that her mother is still missing?”
Trellyn looked down at the face of her friend, the very best friend that she had ever had. “I do not know, my brother, I do not know, but I do know that we will find a way to make her under stand. But until we figure that out, and before she completely comes to, please, can we get her to Cullum’s ship, so we can get out of this situation before it be comes more than either one of us can handle alone. When we get on to the ship, I will contact some one to take care of things here, so that she will have one less thing to worry about.”
Temper nodded at her, and took them all to the ship, using a similar piece of magic as Cullum used, but also dif-ferent, at the same time. When they arrived on the ship, he carried Alestra in to a room that was decorated in colors similar to what she would find in her own house. Temper was thankful that she would at least have that comfort, since it might be a long while until she actually will have the chance to see her house again.
He left the room, and ran, literally, in to Trellyn. He nodded at her. “She is still not conscious. I do not know when she will awaken, but if you could, stay with her until she does. I need to check in with Cullum and the rest of the team.” At her nod, he kissed her cheek and went off in search of Cullum.
?
Cullum was standing at the cock pit, with Lasiandra Co-lorns. He had his back to the entrance door, though a slight stiffening of his spine showed that he had heard the approach of Temper, even before the door slid open.
Cullum was bent over one of the controls, reading some of the readings. Based on the white knuckled fist he had sitting on the side of the controls, either some thing was going on with the ship that was not good, or he might be regretting how he acted in Alesta’s store earlier.
Temper took a deep breath and stepped in side the cock pit. Cullum turned a round, his mouth tight. “So, the Princess is aboard, and it seems, unknowing that she is.”
Temper growled to some extent, but kept his displea-sure in check. “I know you hate Vampiric Humans. I know you have very good reason too, but you also know that Trellyn and I have every reason to hate them as well. Yet, you notice that we both love and adore Alestra. Do you not think there might be a reason for that? Do you not under stand that maybe, just maybe, there are some Vampiric Humans who are not that bad? Who do not suck? Who are not out to rid the world of the ‘half breeds’ and the rest of us who are not like them?”
Cullum rolled his eyes. “You are thinking not with your brain but with another part of your anatomy, Temp. One does not have to look very hard to see that you find her desirable, and that you want to be with her, and claim her.”
Temper flexed his hands, attempting to keep a reign on the outburst that wanted to come forth. He knew that Cul-lum’s reasons for hating Vampiric Humans were good and legit ones, but he was not happy hearing him discuss and talk about Alestra like she was the worst thing that had ever been born on the planet.
“Okay, I am not going to discuss this any further at this moment, but can you lay off of Alestra for the time being. She had no part in the death of your family, no matter how much Vampiric Human she has in her. She also has no idea where to find your sister. Trust me, with this girl, if she did, she would tell you.”
“What ever, dude. I do not care if her precious little feelings are hurt, but for now, I will not say a word to her, be cause you asked me not to. For now,” he added with great emphasis on the last sentence.
“Thanks, Cull. Seriously, if you ever take the time to get to know her, you will realize that she is not as bad as you most likely would like to believe that she is.”
Cullum shrugged and looked back at the instrument panel he had been concentrating on before. “Any way, we have bigger problems than if Princess’s feelings are hurt. According to this, we are losing our shield power. We are more than losing it. We are hemorrhaging it like a stuck pig with a slash in its throat.”
Temper gagged a little at the picture the description brought up in his head. “Ugh, could you not have found another analogy to use? That is just absolutely disgusting. Not a thing else could be more totally and completely nas-ty.”
Cullum laughed at Temper’s discomfort. “If I did not know any better, I would think that you were disgusted by some thing, my man. You are a trained assassin, for the sake of the gods. Why would the image of a dead bloody pig bother you at all?”
Temper groaned. “You know me well enough to know the answer to that. I am so not going in to that right now. Any way, any idea what the problem with the shield power is? It is not like we have been hit any time recently, and if we had, it would have long been fixed. Regular mainten-ance rules out wearing out.”
Cullum nodded. “That leaves sabotage, but who would be dumb enough to sabotage my ship? There is not a one that I can think of.”
“I do not know of any one that stupid. Then again, I do not know that many stupid people. I meet some one stupid I force my self to forget them.”
“Yet you still remember the Princess.” He held up his hand at Temper, warding off the voicing that he was bound to have. “Last one, for now, I promise. It was just one of those things that I could not resist letting slip.”
Temper growled slightly. “Just stop. I count you as a friend. You continue to dig on her, and I will be forced to count you as an enemy, okay.”
Cullum mockingly saluted Temper, while Lasiandra just rolled her eyes. “You two boys make me wish I had joined the convent like my mothers had desired of me,” she drawled with a lilting, sexy accent.
Temper’s eyes flashed to her, with a slight hint of an-noyance. “Just stay out of this, Aria. You might like to claim female as your gender, but no one here really believes any of it.”
Lasiandra ’s fist drew back, and Cullum grabbed her arm. “Not on the ship, Baby Girl. You know that. You can kill him on your own time, but for now, we need him alive so that I do not kill Princess, okay?”
Lasiandra looked at Temper, and rolled her eyes. She quietly got out of her seat, and most likely for the first time in her life, walked away from Temper with out giving in to the desire to lay a man flat. Her Elven Human form in its all of its glory. She was a gorgeous six feet three inches, with long silvery blonde hair that reaches almost to her rear, and usually braided loosely. Her lavender eyes usually flashed with fire, but as she left the cock pit, they were dull and almost lifeless.
Cullum watched as Lasiandra left him and Temper alone, a strange look on his face. He looked at Temper and saw a pained expression on his face. It seemed his friend was not as unaffected by Lasiandra as he liked to pretend. It was going to be a rough situation for them, if they ever attempted some thing. Lasiandra, being an Elven Human was part of the Spirits Council. Her family was also all but royalty, which was ironic considering Cullum counted her as a friend but was so distrustful of Alestra who’s family was no where near royalty. Taking in to account that Temper was a Faery, even though he was a Good Faery and his family has always been in the trust of the Spirit Council, relationships between the Faeries and any other species was frowned up on. It was more than frowned up on, it was almost against the law. It was, in fact, actually against the law in some areas of the world. There were some groups attempting to change those laws, but like with any sort of secularism, it was slow going, if ineffective at best.
Temper looked up and caught Cullum’s eyes and saw the speculative look he was giving him. He shook his head. “No, man, do not even think about it. There will not be any thing happening between Lasiandra and me. There is just absolutely no hope of any thing becoming of that.”
Temper sounded so defeated that Cullum wanted to say some thing, but what could he say to him? Not a thing would truly fix the situation, unless Temper and Lasiandra both wanted to attempt a relationship and see where it went from there. Cullum nodded at Temper, in total under standing. It might not show but Cullum did have some ex-perience in wanting what he could not have, or what he should not.

Cullum was twenty-six, and fresh out of the Spirit Council training becoming specialized in space flight, armed protection and covert operations, when he met one whom he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life. Her name was Rokta Tailmark. He thought she was perfect, but he found out too late the truth about her.
He had seen her when he was in training, but he had never had the chance to even meet her until he had gradu-ated. She was the sister of some one that he thought was a friend. That friend had in turn actually stabbed him in the back.
Any way, he wished he had never met her. He had thought he was in love with the woman. He was glad that he had never gotten to the point of giving her the ring that he had purchased. He was glad that he had realized what a user she, as well as the rest of her family, really was. He should have known that she was not the one for him when he did not want to give her the ring of his mother, the one his father had placed on her finger the day that they had be come engaged. His mother had given it to him, when his father had gotten her a new one when they had reached their golden anniversary. He had cherished the fact that she had given it to him, and every time he looked at the ring, he remembered what she had told him when she gave it to him:
“When you find the one you are meant to be with, you will know it to the depths of your soul. You will always want her at your side and feel like a part of you is missing when she is not. You will cherish her, and you will love her. When you find her, you give her this ring, and you tell her the story behind it. You make sure you tell her that it is an heirloom that has wonderful memories behind it.”
He remembered asking her how it was an heirloom when only one person had actually owned it. He remem-bered the sound of her laugh, which made him smile slightly when he thought of it.
“You are sharper than one might give you credit for, but you are also correct. It might not be an actual heir-loom now, but once you place it on your future bride, it will be come that. It will have the memories of two women, and if it is passed on like it should be, then it will officially be come a most treasured and loved heirloom.”
He remembered smiling at her, humoring her. Not long after that, with in just a few months, his whole world had been blasted apart. He was so glad that his mother had not seen the monumental mistake that he had almost most. At times, he wondered what she would have said if she had seen him taking those steps, but with the completely wrong woman. He wondered if she would have allowed him to make his own choices, or if she would have tried to talk him out of it. It made him wonder how he would have reacted if she had tried to talk him out of asking the bitch to marry him. He did not want to believe that his mother would have just sat idly by as he started to make the biggest mistake of his life. He believed, with all of his heart and his soul, that she would have at least spoken to him, and voiced her fears, or her opinions, of the woman.
He still could not believe how easily he had been taken in by her. She had sweet talked him in to thinking that he was the only one she was with, and that he was the only one that she desired. He got the surprise of his life when he walked in to the bed room that they shared, and found her, completely naked, in a compromising position with an equally naked male next to her. He remembered, with great pleasure, tossing both of them out, not allowing them to dress, out of the door, and her, completely out of his life.

Shaking his head, blocking out the past, Cullum focused on Temper. He placed his hand on the man’s shoulder, in under standing, and then dropped it. Temper grinned at him.
“Getting all touchy feely on me, are you, Cull? Wow, you must really be hurting for a lay,” he said with humor in his voice.
Cullum reached up and smacked Temper on the back of his head, some thing he knew the other man hated, which mean he took great pleasure in it all the more.
“Okay, what ever, Temper, back to the shields. We need to get them fixed as soon as possible, or we risk becoming sitting ducks out there.”
Temper nodded in agreement. “I will get right on it. Maybe I will see if Lasiandra if she would be willing to offer me some assistance.”
Cullum laughed at the good humor of his friend. No matter what happened in Temper’s life, he never let it get him down. He always found a positive in every thing. To have that sort of mentality was some thing that made Cul-lum envious of his friend.
“You do that, Temper. Personally, I am going to make sure that The Princess is awake and relatively unharmed.”
Temper looked at Cullum, whose eyes held a mischiev-ous glimmer. “Cull, take it easy on her. She is not in any way related to the death of your family. You have the right to hate her be cause of what she happened to be born but do not let it completely shroud your ability to be at least civil to her.”
“I remember my promise, Temper. I will not break un-less forced to. You know me a hell of a lot better than that.”
Temper emitted a small sigh, and walked out in search of Lasiandra. Cullum watched Temper’s retreating back, and looked back at the instrument panel, a small frown on his face. Some thing was up with it, and he was going to get to the bottom of it, but first, he had to check on the newest passenger of the ship.
?
Alestra woke up, and looked a round. She did not rec-ognize any thing at all. She opened her mouth to scream when Trellyn walked in to the room through an automatic sliding door. Alestra quickly sat.
“Where am I, Trellyn?” Alestra was not nervous. She had a feeling of where she most likely was, whether she wanted to be here or not.
“You are on Cullum’s ship.” She held up a finger and waved it at Alestra. “No, there will be no arguments. You need to be kept safe. Be sides you being my very best friend, Temper’s job and life depend on you staying alive.”
Alestra looked at Trellyn, head slightly cocked, face confused. “Why would his life depend on my life?” She understood that his job relied on her. That part he had made most abundantly clear.
“If you ignore the fact that he has feelings for you that are more than brotherly, the organization that he belongs to, if you die on their watch, will kill this whole team. Your family has that much power.”
The mention of her family brought the whole shop inci-dent back with vivid clarity. She remembered Cullum’s animosity. She recalled his literal disappearance. Then her recollections dredged up the transformation of Temper, and she looked at Trellyn, her eyes wide.
“So I see you now remember that. I wondered when you would recall that.” Trellyn took a deep breath, and sat on the edge of the bed, close to Alestra. “Okay, first you need to under stand that you can never tell any one what I am about to tell you. There are too many lives at stake for you to tell the wrong person what you know.”
Trellyn waited for Alestra to agree. Alestra thought that it must be some thing she was never going to believe, but was some thing she was just going to have to trust Trellyn was the truth. She loved Trellyn as a sister, and trusted her with her life, so she gave her that trust. “You are completely understood, Trellyn. Under no circumstances will I share what I know.”
“Good, be cause I am so not supposed to be telling you any of this, but for your sake, I think you need to know.” Trellyn took another deep breath and began.
“Temper and I are Faeries.”
“What do you mean Faeries? Do you mean like that stu-pid cartoon for girls that happens to involve little flying creatures?”
“Yes, we are basically like that. Nevertheless, our spe-cies, and yes, it is a species, have the ability to be at full human size if we desire to be. We can easily go back to Faery size if we desire, yes, but most of us prefer to be in the human form.”
“Okay, this is hard for me to under stand, so bear with me. Why do you prefer human form? I would think being able to fly would be the best thing in the world.” Alestra leaned forward a little, relaxing, and for some reason, com-pletely accepting this. It was not too hard to believe. She was a Vampiric Human, but her Vampiric brethren still existed, though most non Vampiric Humans did not know that. Why should the existence of Faeries be any different than that?
“I personally hate to fly. If I have to be totally honest, I am scared of heights.”
Alestra laughed lightly at that, be cause she knew it was definitely the truth. Her friend would not even climb on a ladder that would bring her higher than her six foot three inch height. “Okay, that makes sense for you, but why for others? Why does Temper prefer it?”
“Okay, the reason for Temper brings me to the reason you are here. There are two types of Faeries: The Good and The Bad.”
Trellyn laughed lightly as Alestra’s eyes got huge at that. “What is the look for? It is not much different than the fact that all humans have good, bad, and those in between. With Faeries, we can not ‘ride the fence’, so to speak. It is also a free choice.
Those who choose The Good, like my family, tend to work for the Spirit Council. That is whom Cullum and Temper work for. That is who was sent in to keep you safe. The Good Faeries and the Magickals, they both work to-gether to keep the world safe from The Bad Faeries.”
She looked carefully at Alestra. “Cullum is a Magickal. He is considered a rare breed. Be sides being half Vampiric Human, he is also a half-breed with the Magickals. His mother, who was a full-blooded Human, was a Magickal. His father was not, and was the Vampiric Human. I will seriously be killed if I told you this, but his family was killed by The Bad Faeries and a clan of Vampiric Humans. That is why he is so hostile towards you.”
Alestra gasped, under standing written on her face, along with pain. She could completely relate to his hatred of her. She represented the family that was cruelly taken from him.
Trellyn watched the play of emotions on Alestra and wondered how she could be so forgiving of Cullum’s atti-tude. Then again, Alestra’s father had been brutally mur-dered when Alestra was only a young child, and she had been the one to find the body, which was some thing very few people knew about. It was not some thing that was ever really released, for the sake of Alestra who had it mostly blocked.
Alestra looked up at Trellyn. “You are wondering how I can be so forgiving, are you not. It has to do with my father, but it has it is more than that. To have lost your family so cruelly, and then to have the kind that had assisted in that murder, and be under orders to keep that person alive, I do not think that I could do that. Can you imagine if some one murdered Temper and you had to keep them safe and alive?”
Trellyn nodded in under standing, and her fists clenched and unclenched at the thought of losing her brother.
“Okay, now, can we get back to what you were telling me about? What exactly are Magickals, and why do Good Faeries and Magickals have to work together to keep the world safe from The Bad Faeries?”
“The reason for that, Princess, is that The Bad Faeries are one of the most corrupt types of beings there could be. They will steal, kill, rape, what ever they have to do to get what ever it is that they want. Most of the time, it seems that what they ultimately want is to see every one else dead, including their own kind, Good or Bad.”
Alestra’s head jerked up at the sound of Cullum’s voice. He was lounging in the doorway, and it looked like he had been there for long. She wondered if he had heard what she had said about being able to forgive be cause of what happened with his family. Judging by the banked fury in his eyes, he had. She looked worriedly at Trellyn, who was also watching Cullum’s face.
“Yes, Princess, I did hear Trellyn tell you about my family, including what you said after. It matters not to me, be cause I do not request your forgiveness. I do not care if you let me off for what I have said. It has no bearing on me.”
Alestra’s dropped her gaze, looking at the bedspread that she was lying on top of. She was not surprised to hear him say it, but for some reason, it hurt her to hear him say it.
“I under stand, Cullum. As well as that you are stuck with me. I will do what ever you want me to do. I will stay out of your way.”
Cullum looked at her bent head, a frown on his face. He hated her, right? He could not stand being in the same breathing space as her, yet he felt a small stab of pain in his chest at the thought of her avoiding him. He shrugged it off, assuming it was just that he enjoyed the pot shots, even though he promised Temper he was no longer going to make them.
“Is That is all you have to say, Princess? Just make sure that you do. In addition to staying out of my way, make sure you stay out of the way of my crew and my team. They have better things to do than to cater to your every whim and need. There is a chow hall, a couple of game rooms, and a few replicator stations. Any thing you need, you get your self, just like every one else on this ship.”
Alestra stared angrily up at him, with fire in her eyes, leaving no doubt to the fact that she had a spine, even if she did not always show it. “Where the heck do you get the impression that I need some one to wait on me, hand and foot?”
Cullum snorted mockingly. “Well, let us see. You show up on my ship, unconscious. You were unconscious be cause you passed out. Where would I get that idea?”
Alestra made an objection angrily. “Excuse me, Mr. High and Mighty. I just watched a man disappear, after never having seen that before. In addition to watching my best friend’s brother goes from six foot six to about six inches in the span of a beat of his heart. No, no way should I have a reason to react by falling in to a faint. No one has ever reacted that way.”
Cullum leaned away from the wall to clap mockingly. “Bravo, Princess. Good show, great show of sprit.”
“Oh fuck you, Cullum, seriously, just fuck you. I really do not care what you think of me. I am not some spoiled princess like you think I am. I have what I have be cause I worked for it. I am who I am be cause of what I have had to go through.”
Cullum leaned back against the frame, with a contemp-tuous look on his face. “Are you sure about that, Miss Prin-cess? What have you really gone through? Have you really gone through that much, be sides the loss of one parent?”
Alestra gasped at the gall of the man. “It was more than the loss of a parent. It was my father, the man who cared for me when I was sick be cause my mother could not be arsed to do a thing for me or my siblings. It was the man who taught me to read, who helped with my homework. It was the man I worshiped with all that I am.”
Alestra brushed angrily at the tears starting to fall down her face as she forced her self off the bed to stalk towards the man standing there, so scornfully looking at her, like she was a rock stuck in his shoe.
“It was not just the loss of my father that has made me who I am. It was finding his body the morning after he was murdered, by Faeries, it seems, as I have just found out. It was the sight of his blood all over the bed and the floor. It was seeing his eyes wide open, staring at not a thing. It was the fact that he never made a sound so that he would not alert me to the fact that some thing was going on. It was the fact that, even in the last moments of his life, he protected me. That is what made me who I am. The money my stepfather has is not mine. The money that my mother has is not mine. My father was penniless when he married my mother, and was technically that way when he died. My money is only what I have made.”
Alestra looked at his clothes. The dark blue shirt was well cut and obviously made just for him. The pants, in black, were of similar make, and fit like they were made just for his legs to slide in to. While they made for an impressive look, the cost just screamed out.
“At least I do not judge those, based on who they are.”
Cullum growled, and leaned his face close to hers. “Princess, while I feel for what you had to endure, it does not change my opinion of you. You and your kind take for what you can, regardless of the consequences.”
Alestra nearly screamed in frustration. She shoved her hands against his chest, and pushed. She was rewarded for her efforts to hear him laugh derisively.
“I am leaving Princess. Do not worry about that. I will not be back, unless I hear that you are disturbing my crew.”
“I will not come any where near your crew. I have better things to do than to do any thing that might cause you to darken my doorstep again.”
“It is technically my doorstep, Princess. It would do you good to remember that.” With that, he spun on his heel and left Alestra and Trellyn alone.

Alestra spun a round and dropped in a near by chair. “Oh my god, that man is impossible.”
Trellyn laughed. “You two were spitting off fireworks like some thing I have never seen. I have never seen Cullum take such an instant dislike to any one like he has you.”
Alestra sighed, and pushed her vibrant red hair back, the braid having come loose at some point. “Well, right now, the feeling is more than mutual. I have never been that insulted in my life.”
Trellyn laughed harder. “You are forgetting when you first met Temper. He called you a snooty snotty brat who needed to pull her head out of her ass. You proved him wrong, and now he absolutely adores you. You just have to win over Cullum. You just have to show how awesomely amazing you are. Just show him what you show the rest of the world, your bubbly beautiful self.”
“I do not care what he thinks of me. That man is insuf-ferable. He is an arrogant buffoon who thinks he knows every thing about every thing. If I never see him again, it will be too soon.”
Trellyn snorted lightly with amusement. “If you say so, Allie, but I think you are protesting way too much. You do have to admit the man is pretty cute, right? He has those muscles in all of the right spots.”
Alestra attempted to hold in a laugh but failed misera-bly. “Okay, yes, I will admit that he is a fine specimen of the male gender, but that is about all he has going for him. A female would have many problems looking past the ego the size of a large mountain.”
Trellyn laughed again. “If you say so, Alestra, if you say so, but I still think you might like him, and hate that fact.”
Alestra said some thing extremely unladylike to Trellyn, annoyed by the fact that she had guessed some thing that Alestra refused to acknowledge to her self.
?
Cullum re-entered the cock pit area of the ship, and took a deep breath. He could not believe that he was having any sort of reaction be sides deep disgust and hatred towards Alestra, but the defense of her self had added some respect for her, in his opinion, though he refused to recognize it. Her telling him about finding her father’s body, and the fact that she was able to do it with out breaking down, added even more points in her favor. He could only begin to imagine what she had found. He had been spared finding the bodies of his family, since he had been away at school.
He shook his head, as he flopped in to a near by seat. He leaned his head against the back of his chair, closing his green eyes. He looked both stressed and relaxed, some thing that only he seemed to be able to pull off easily.
He jumped up when he heard some one approaching the door, eyes flying open. He had not been startled but he was just very uncomfortable with having some one see him showing any sort of stress or weakness, as stress was too him.
“At ease, Cullum, it is just me,” Temper said with a smile on his face. When Cullum visibly relaxed, Temper continued, “Well, Lasiandra kicked me out of the engine room. It seems that I might be ‘too stupid to be able to even touch some thing so infinitely precious’ or some thing like that.”
Cullum snorted in good humor. “Only Lasiandra can say some thing so eloquently. Does she have any idea why it is reading as having little to no shields?”
Temper seemed to shuffle his feet, as if he did not want to answer the question. It was an unusual reaction for him to have, which made Cullum a little suspicious and also worried at the same time.
“Can you please just come out with it and tell me what is going on?”
“Okay, the truth is that the shield reading was correct. The problem is that when we were supposed to get it fixed, it seems it was not. It was not the fault of the shop, it was …” Temper seemed to not want to continue the sentence.
“It was the fault of whom? Was it you? Was it me? Was it some one else? Whose fault is it, Temper?”
Temper forced out a long-suffering sigh. “It was my fault. I was distracted by some thing going on with Lasian-dra. Do not ask me what it was, Cullum, be cause I prom-ised her I would tell no one. Let us just say it is one of the reasons she can not stand to be any where near me, and the reason she threatened to quit a month ago.”
“I know she is pregnant, Temper. I also know that you are the father. She actually already told me. Well, I forced her to tell me when she told me she wanted to leave the team.”
Temper sank in to the seat that Cullum had vacated earlier. He dropped his hands in to his lap, and his chin hit his chest. The way his body was held screamed frustration of not knowing what to do.
He lifted his head and leaned it back against the chair, closing his eyes briefly. He lifted his head off the chair. “I do not know how it happened. Okay, I know how it happened, just not how if that makes sense. We were protected. We took precautions. Shit, we used several types.”
“You know what they say about being over-protected. Some thing always tends to break through those defenses.”
“How would you really know? You are Mr. Perfect in which not a thing ever bad happens to you.”
Cullum laughed, out loud, and almost uproariously. “Yeah, sure, Temper, not a thing bad ever happens to me.”
“Dude, you are crushing on my emotional upheaval. Let me mope and groan already.” He looked over at Cullum, who had plopped down in another chair and was in a very relaxed pose. “What the hell am I supposed to do? She wants not a thing to do with me, and she seems to think I want not a thing to do with her. She has this ridiculous idea that I want her to just disappear, along with the baby.”
“I have no idea what you should do, Man, but all I can really suggest is do not let her disappear. Do not let her just walk away. Do not give up on her. If you really want it to work, just be there for her, until she is ready to listen. If that fails, fall on Plan B.”
“Okay, so what is Plan B?”
“I have no freaking idea man. I hope that if it comes to that, you have one. Better hoping would be that it you never have to deal with it.”
“I guess that is just what I am going to have to do. I have no idea how I am going to go about it but I will make her listen to me, and I will make her see that I do want her, and that I do want the baby.”
He looked at Cullum worriedly. “I just realized some thing, though. She is an Elven Human. I am a Faery. How the hell are those genetics going to work out. As far as I know, there has been no Faery to Human, of any sort, cross breeding.” He sighed deeply. “Good gods, man, I am scared to death. I can not lose her, or the baby. I refuse to even consider the chance.”
“That is probably a smart move, Temper. She and the baby will be fine; you know that. Oh, have you at least told your sister? Considering we are now stuck with her being on the ship as well as The Princess, she is going to either hear about it or figure it out. It might be smart to just tell her.”
Temper shook his head. “Oh hell no, I am not telling my sister that I got Lasiandra pregnant. No way can I tell her that. She will kill me and join Lasiandra in the battle.”
Cullum laughed, realizing that Temper was most likely correct in his assumption about Trellyn. “What about The Princess? Are you going to tell her?”
“Why would I tell Alestra? Why does she need to know?”
“Oh, I do not know. Maybe it would be be cause she is in love with you?”
Temper laughed loudly. “Alestra is not in love with me. She has never been in love me. I am not a thing more than an older brother to her. I am the brother of her best friend, and that is all that I am to her. There was a time when I might have wished that she had more than those feelings, but at this point in time, I do not want that. I want to see her happy, but I know that her happiness does not depend on me.”
Cullum thought on that, though he pretended not to. “Well, she is a friend of yours. It might help to have a fe-male’s opinion, even if I do not think much about her. She might be able to give you some insight in to the female psyche or what ever.”
“No, I will not tell Alestra. That would just weird me out too much. I am more likely to tell Trellyn than I am Ale-stra.”
“Why is that, though? Why would you refuse to tell her, if you are so close to her? If you trust her so much, why would you not tell her?”
“I can not tell her be cause she would not under stand. She believes in love with sex. She believes that a commit-ment must be made. She is extremely old fashioned when it comes to things like that.”
“What ever you think is right man, but I still think you should find some one to talk it over with. It might do you a world of good. Or you know, some thing like that,” Cullum added with a grin.
“Maybe I will, but for now, I am more worried about these shields. Lasiandra is thinking that she can fix them, and while I have no doubts in her ability, I do not know if she will be able to finish it fast enough. I know our time line and I know she knows it, but will she finish in time?”
“Temper, you need to take a deep breath and relax. It will be fine. If Lasiandra says she can finish in the time frame we need her to finish, then I have no doubts in her abilities. You never used to have any doubts where she was concerned either. I guess being pregnant hinders her ability to finish a task.”
Temper snarled at Cullum. “She can do any thing and every thing. She is a damn fine mechanic. She is absolutely amazing at every thing she tries. There is no one to com-pare to her.”
Cullum held up his hands in surrender, with a laugh. “Well, that answered that question. You definitely have some sort of feelings for her. Honestly, I think you two are perfect for each other. Both of you are extremely pig head-ed. You both want every thing your own way, and think that it is the only right way.”
Temper laughed, relaxing visibly for the first time in a long while. “I do not know who you are thinking of, but I think that just described you perfectly as well.”
Cullum laughed good naturedly. “Yeah, man, that I will happily admit to. I am always right. Thank you so much for noticing that. You will do good to remember it as well.”
Cullum and Temper laughed together at what Cullum said. It was some thing he always assumed people would just follow and believe.
?
Alestra walked in to the “chow hall” as Cullum had called it, with Trellyn next to her. Thank the gods that Trel-lyn knew her way a round the ship, be cause Alestra did not want to have to ask some one else. She did not want to have Cullum breathing down her neck.
He might be a very good looking male specimen but his attitude ruined every thing. While she understood, to an extent, his animosity, she did not want to have to face it again. She had more important things to deal with.
“So, Alestra, what are you in the mood for?” Trellyn’s voice shook her out of her thoughts.
“I have no idea. I have a craving for some thing sweet, but I also want some thing that will fill me up.”
“Then I have the perfect thing for you,” a quiet and al-most voice said. Alestra looked up to see a beautiful female, with pale pink colored hair with dark purple streaks, flowing past a face that had the most gorgeous almost lemon colored eyes, and a Cupid’s bow mouth. The woman’s skin was an olive color, and looked soft and was completely flawless. She smiled at Alestra, showing off perfect teeth, and a set of fangs. Alestra sensed, as all Vampiric Humans would have been able to, that this woman was not a Vampiric Human, but a full blooded, tried and true Vampire. Their bloodline relied on the blood of their own race to survive.
“Trellyn!” The woman exclaimed happily, coming from behind the table she had been at, and wrapped her arms a round Trellyn.
“Trinity! What are you doing on Cullum’s ship? I thought you had opened up a restaurant on the main land?”
The beautiful woman, Trinity Atestranda, smiled happi-ly. “I have underlings to keep an eye on things. When Cul-lum offered me a chance to feed his ship for a few months, I figured I could not turn him down. I did not realize that you were going to be on the ship as well.”
Trellyn looked at Alestra, nodding her head. “Yeah, I am here at Temper’s request. It seems that Cullum was ordered to keep Alestra here safe. Oh, Alestra! Oh my gods, I am so rude! Alestra, this is Trinity. She and I, along with Temper, grew up together. She is one hell of a fine cook.”
Trellyn looked at Trinity. “This is Alestra. She is the one I was telling you about, the one with the amazing shop full of too perfect clothes, and the attached café.”
Trinity held out her hand to Alestra, who shook it po-litely. Alestra was a little nervous be cause she had never met a pure blooded, True Vampire. Her family had always told her to keep away from that, that one bite from them could covert her to a True Vampire. There were all sorts of stories related to the True Vampires.
“How do you do, Alestra.” She smiled brightly, an ob-viously happy and effervescent person. “I can just imagine what you are thinking. We have stories about the Vampiric Humans as well. I suspect that your stories are just as out there as the ones for my kind. I promise you, I am not going to bite you, nor if it did happen, accidentally, you will not convert and start craving blood. The same as, I suspect, if you bit me, I would not longer require blood. They are just stories to keep little children in line.”
Alestra smiled, instantly charmed by Trinity. One could not resist being pulled in to her charismatic personality. “I guess you are most likely right. The things that are told to children, and the things that are hidden.”
Trinity nodded, in agreement. “That is too true, Alestra, too true. I think every culture has that, though, no matter how you look at it.”
Trinity walked back a round the table, and picked up a plate of food. It contained a nice helping of pasta covered in a delicious white sauce, that looked to contain mu-shrooms, one of Alestra’s favorite things to eat. On the side was a jelly-like substance, some thing that made Alestra’s stomach growl in anticipation. “I do believe this will wet the palette and satisfy your hunger,” Trinity told her, handing it to Alestra.
Alestra’s face lit up with pleasure. The food was some thing her father would have had prepared for her, before he was killed. Tears of happiness in her eyes, she looked at Trinity. Trinity smiled back, genuinely pleased to have ex-actly what Alestra was wanting, even though Alestra had said not a thing. “It is my pleasure, my dear. You just enjoy it. No thanks are necessary at all. Just enjoy your dinner.”
Trellyn grabbed a plate of some thing she would like. It involved many types of meats and pastas. She always said that she needed more protein than the average female be cause she had to have the balls her brother never had. She always said it with a laugh, but it was some thing that Tem-per had never found amusing. Alestra now wondered if it had to do with her Faery digestive system, since Temper also ate a great deal of meat.
Trellyn and Alestra grabbed a seat at an empty table. Alestra opened up the silverware, and immediately began to dig in to the pasta. She nearly sighed out loud when the taste hit her taste buds. It was so amazingly delicious.
She held her hand up to her mouth, as she chewed, and said, not caring if some one found it rude, “Oh my gods, Trellyn, your friend … can cook! This has got to be the best thing I have ever had in my life. I have never tasted any thing more delicious.”
Trellyn laughed. “She has had a lot of practice. When I said we grew up together, I do not mean that she grew up with us. She was considered an adult when Temper and I were born.” She waited until Alestra had swallowed before she continued, be cause she knew what she said next was going to make her choke if she had not swallowed. “And, if you want an idea of how old she is, Temper and I lived near her over three hundred years ago.”
Alestra dropped her fork to her plate with a clatter. Her jaw wide open, and face reddening, she picked her fork up. Closing her mouth, she looked a round quickly to make sure no one had noticed. No one had, thankfully.
“You are three hundred years old? You sure do not look like you are.”
Trellyn laughed gleefully. “I am actually a bit older than that. An exact number would be three hundred twenty six.”
Alestra placed her hands on the table, bracing her self, so that she did not fall out of her chair. She looked at Trel-lyn with an extremely incredulous look on her face. She was not sure if Trellyn was just pulling her leg or if she was being completely serious.
“I am perfectly serious. I am over three hundred years old. Why would I want to lie about that? You know how we females are. We love to lie our age down, not up. So why would I lie about it this way?”
“I do not know, Trellyn, but holy shiz. All the stuff you must have seen in your life. I can not even begin to im-agine.”
Trellyn looked at her, a small frown on her face. “I would advise you not to ask or wonder. Some things are just not worth remembering, and some incidents are ones that I do not want to recall.”
Alestra nodded her head in under standing. She scooped up another bite of the pasta, making sure she got a few mushrooms. She exhaled such a sigh of divine pleasure that Trellyn could not resist laughing out loud.
“Sounds like to me that The Princess at least enjoys my favorite chef’s cooking. At least I know she will not be com-plaining about that any time soon.”
Alestra gasped, and sucked in her food, choking. She started coughing, hard. She winced as she felt a smack on her back, and carefully swallowed. She picked up her glass and took a few big gulps of water, in between coughing fits.
“Are you okay?” Cullum asked her, worriedly. He might not like her, but he sure did not mean to startle her and cause her to choke.
Alestra put her hand to her mouth, coughing painfully. Her face red, she looked at Cullum, who had sat in the chair next to her. She nodded, coughing on last time. “I think I am okay,” she told him, hoarsely.
“I did not mean to startle you. I have just never heard some one enjoy food quite in that way before. It must have really been good.”
Alestra laughed. The red blush had been fading but re-turned to full bloom knowing that Cullum had heard her reaction to the food. She was beyond doubt a woman who appreciated her food, but it some times embarrassed her when some one overheard her intense reactions to some foods.
Cullum laughed softly. He looked at her for the very first time, really looked at her. Her noticed her eyes, which he had thought they were just a boring grey, but now he noticed that they were more of an almost silvery color, which gold flecks swimming through the sea of silver. Her nose had a slight upturn, and when she was embarrassed, little freckles seemed to almost flash across her nose. Her mouth, while small, was perfectly shaped, her bottom lip perfectly plump, and almost kissable.
He shook his head slightly. He should not be thinking of her mouth as kissable or noticing the color of her eyes. He should be ignoring her, but he just could not bring him self to do so any longer. In a very short amount of time, she had wormed her self under his skin, with out even trying. The fact that she did not try and did not have to grated on him, but not enough to make him move.
Neither one of them noticed when Trellyn quietly got out of her seat and snuck back to the room. She wondered how soon she could find Temper and tell him about what was going on between Alestra and Cullum. She was also unsure how Temper would react. Maybe she should not tell him. She shook her head and decided that, yes, she was going to tell him. He needed to know as soon as possible that he had no shot with Alestra, unless she missed her guess.

Alestra twisted a bite of the pasta, and offered it to Cul-lum. “Here, try this, and you will see why I could not avoid making some sort of moment over it.”
Cullum opened his mouth, and took the bite, looking deep in to Alestra’s eyes. As he chewed, he watched her. He saw her eyes fall to his mouth and smiled inwardly. At least he knew that he was not the only one whose feelings might be changing, one way or another.
Alestra watched Cullum’s mouth chew the food. She stared at his mouth, wondering how it would feel on hers. The thought of it made her warm and tingly, a feeling she knew but rarely felt. She had never stayed a round a man long enough for the feelings to develop, good or bad. She tended to avoid relationships with the opposite sex, except as a friend to friend basis.
Closely watching Cullum’s mouth, she did not see his eyes flicker at the intense stare she was giving him. He leaned forward, and pressed his lips to hers. When he heard her sigh, he took advantage of the situation, and gently pressed his tongue in to her mouth. She gasped slightly when she felt him flick his tongue lightly against her fangs purposefully. She gently put her hands on either side of his face, and returned the kiss.
Cullum gently removed one hand, and hooked it a round his neck. He gently pulled her closer. They were so completely wrapped in each other that they did not hear the sound of some one clearing their throat.
When Cullum felt some one tapping on his shoulder, he softly pulled his mouth from Alestra’s and glared at the person tapping. His eyes widened when he realized it was Temper, and he did not look too thrilled.
Cullum removed Alestra’s arms from his neck, attempt-ing to ignore the soft, glassy look that was in her eyes. He was just thankful that his pants fit just the right way, so that no one would see how affected he was by that single kiss. He stood up, and faced Temper’s anger, knowing how protective he was of Alestra.
He braced for the fist that he saw that Temper had raised and prepared. It never connected be cause Alestra had stood up and stepped between Temper and Cullum.
“Temper, cool it please, and do not do some thing you will regret, eventually.” Alestra had her hand resting on the fist, trusting and knowing that Temper, no matter how angry he was, would never harm her in any way.
“You have no idea about the things he said, Alestra. You trust too easily; you are too sweet, too kind. He is not one you want to be getting involved with.”
Alestra dropped her hand as Temper’s arm relaxed. “I am not getting involved. A kiss does not equal attachment. It never has, or you and I would be much more involved than we are, would we not?”
Cullum’s face darkened at the mention of any sort of involvement of the romantic kind between Alestra and Temper. He might not completely want her for him self but he sure did not like the idea of any one else kissing, or being together with, Alestra. He most definitely did not like the idea of that person being Temper.
Temper noticed the look in Cullum’s eyes when Alestra mentioned being involved in some way with Temper, and he seemed to relax visibly. The man definitely did not like the idea of Temper and Alestra being involved, which meant that there were deeper feelings than Cullum was willing to acknowledge. In addition, if one took in to ac-count, the still flushed cheeks, and slightly swollen lips of Alestra, it would seem that Alestra also might have some deeper, hidden feelings about Cullum.
Temper gently grabbed Alestra’s hand, and held it closely to his heart. She tried tugging it back, but Temper refused to let go. Cullum growled in an almost sinister way. He reached a round Alestra, and pulled her fingers from Temper’s hand. He then pulled her to his chest, and held her there. He smiled when she relaxed against him, in a very unquestioning style. Temper held up his hands in false admission of defeat. With a broad grin on his face, he walked away, in search of his own woman; the one who was carrying is child.
Alestra slowly pulled her self out of Cullum’s arms, as-suming he only did it to convince Alestra that it was okay to trust him with her. She did not think it could have been be cause he actually wanted to hold her.
Cullum slightly protested her leaving his arms, but rea-lized that she was right, and that they did need to break up their little ‘party’.
Alestra turned a round and looked at Cullum. She was not sure what to say or what to do. All she knew was that she wanted to feel Cullum’s mouth on hers again.
Cullum saw the flash in her eyes, and knew immediately what she was thinking. He was thinking the same thing but they needed to slow down. While he would love just to jump in to bed with Alestra, he also wanted to get to know her. Maybe Temper was right; maybe he did need to give Alestra a chance. Maybe he would actually like her.
?
Alestra stretched as she woke up. She had one of the best slumbers she could recall ever having had. She smiled broadly, as she remembered how her night had ended.
She and Cullum had finished eating. He shared a few bi-tes of the plate he had chosen, which had been a seafood medley. One bite had gotten a little sloppy, and had caused some melted butter to drip on the tip of her chin. Cullum had reached towards her, and wiped it off with his thumb. He had then licked his thumb, almost making Alestra melt.
After dinner, he had walked her back to her room. He had given her the sweetest, most romantic kiss that she had ever experienced in her life. Just thinking about it made her feel all warm and fuzzy. She felt hot all over when she thought of Cullum’s mouth on her, in any way, form, or fashion
She wondered, though, how Cullum could from hating her one moment to kissing her the next. Then again, she had to wonder why she her self was actually behaving the same exact way.
She shook her head, and headed towards the in suite bathroom. Flipping on the light, she headed towards the sonic shower stall. She loved baths more than any thing, but she was in the mood for a sonic shower. The bathroom quickly filled up with steam as Alestra deftly removed her clothes. She stepped in to the stall with a deep sigh. The sonic showers never failed to rejuvenate her spirit and take away so much of her stress.
When she was finished, she walked to the sink. Grab-bing some towels off the counter top, she wrapped one a round her hair, and another a round her body. With one of the available small hand towels, she wiped a spot on the mirror, so she could look at her self. She did not look any different, though she did feel that some thing had changed in her. She smiled, and proceeded to brush her teeth.
When she finished in the bathroom, she headed to-wards the closet. She opened it and smiled happily. Her clothes were all there. She was grateful for that, be cause she did not want to continue going a round in the clothes she had been wearing yesterday.
She pulled out a pink and grey plaid designed button down shirt. She also grabbed a pair of dark wash jeans. She slipped on a pair of plain, solid colored underwear and a lacy bra, and then added her clothes on top, leaving the shirt unbuttoned.
As she was brushing her hair, she heard a knock on the door, and then it slid open. She turned a round, smiling at Trellyn as she walked in.
Trellyn laughed when Alestra grabbed her shirt closed, and quickly buttoned it up. “Let me guess. You were ex-pecting some one else to show up? Some one with, oh, let me guess, black hair and dreamy green eyes?”
“Oh, just you shut up, Trellyn. No, I was not expecting any one, especially not Cullum.” She could not keep the blush from blooming on her cheeks nevertheless.
“Okay, if you say so, Allie, but I am guessing by the bra, that you are at least hoping he will see you in it later.”
“What ever, Trellyn, be cause you know as well as I do that most of my bras are like this. Even if no one sees me in them does not mean that I can not be hot and sexy, even if it is in my own mind.”
Trellyn smiled, looking Alestra up and down. She was dressed casual, with her hair pulled up in to a neat pony-tail, but she still looked like sex on a stick. Trellyn had al-ways been a little jealous with how easily sexiness came off for Alestra. For Trellyn, who believed her self to be on the unattractive end of the attractiveness scale. In her a round three hundred years of “hooking up”, she had yet to really meet any one who was worth her time, or really wanted her for her, instead of getting him in contact with her brother or some one else in her family.
Alestra smiled at Trellyn. She was dressed as she nor-mally did. She was wearing a plain black tank top, which, as always emphasized that she had large breasts that never failed to make Alestra a little envious of her friend. She was also wearing a pair of grey colored camo cargo styled pants. Instead of her normal combat style boots, she was wearing a pair of plain black thong styled sandals, showing off her black painted toe nails. She had her short hair spiked, as normal. When she lifted up her arms to stretch a little, a little horned devil tattoo was exposed on the left side of her abdomen. It was Trellyn’s one and only tattoo and the one she was the most proud of. She always flashed it when she was in an evil mood. Alestra wondered if the flashing of it meant that she was in one now.
“So, any reason you are stopping by my room so early in the morning? I do not ever seem to recall you being up before the crack of lunch,” Alestra asked with a laugh.
“Oh, you are the regular comedian this morning, are you not, Allie?”
“Not really, not that I know of. I am just wondering what you wanted this early.”
Trellyn looked at her sheepishly. “Okay, if you must know the actual truth, I wanted to see if you and Cullum had decided to knock boots, or what ever.”
Alestra burst out with a small laugh. “No, Cullum and I did not have sex. Oh, it could have definitely lead that way, but no, we both abstained. I am not sure that I wanted to stop, but I am glad that he did. I think,” she added with a small laugh.
“You think? You are not sure if you wanted him to stop or not? Good gods, Girl, you need to get a fix on those priorities of yours.”
Alestra stuck her tongue out at Trellyn. “Oh, just bite me. So I am not completely sure. I want to be sure before I take that step. I want to make sure that it is right. I want to know that I am not making some stupid mistake all over again. I do not want to rush in to any thing that I am not sure that I am ready for.”
Trellyn held up her hands in surrender. “I give. You win. I will shut up on this issue, for now. For now, I will leave you alone on that subject, but not for long. Now, let us go and get some breakfast. I am starving. I need food, like now.”
Alestra shook her head, and followed Trellyn out of the door.

Alestra and Trellyn walked in to the dining hall. It was more crowded than it was before, and Trinity was not there. There was a wide selection of pastries, such as do-nuts, rolls, biscuits, and the like, out for those who pre-ferred those. There were also a bunch of cereal boxes, and bowls, along with a mini refrigerated bowl holding single servings of milk products, as well as a wide assortment of fruit and vegetable juices. Alestra happily went to the cereal boxes, each one of individual size, and chose one. It was a childish choice, one chocked full of sugar and lacking in any thing of substance, but it was a favorite of hers, one she did not usually partake in very often. Grabbing up a bag of milk, a bowl, a spoon, she stood to the side, waiting while Trellyn filled a plate stacked high of pastry goodies. She decided, when they got to a table, that she might just have to snag one of the donuts dripping in chocolate and covered in nuts. If she was going to be stuck on this ship, she might as well learn to enjoy it a little.
“Alestra, Trellyn, come sit over here.”
Alestra looked a round, and spotted Temper at a corner table. She grinned broadly when she noticed that Cullum was sitting at the table as well. Trellyn looked at her, and cocked her head towards Temper. “So, do you want to sit with the guys?” At Alestra’s small nod, they headed over to the table.
Cullum, when they came to the table, stood up, and pulled out a chair for Alestra. He would look absolutely amazing no matter what he wore, but he wowed Alestra with how great he looked. He was wearing a almost skin tight black long sleeved shirt with pockets on the sleeves, and a pair of black cargo pants, similar to Trellyn’s, but they hugged his thighs like a lover would. His feet were decked out in a pair of black combat boots. He was definitely a man who could pull off the color of black as if it was made just for him. Smiling at him, she thanked him. She grinned shyly, though, with a full on blush blooming, when he kissed the top of her head before he sat back down.
“So, did you sleep well?” Temper asked the girls.
Trellyn snorted unhappily. “It was weird. I am too used to having my own bed, and my own room, and my own crap.”
Alestra rolled her eyes at Trellyn. That woman never had been able to sleep any where but her own space.
“Personally, I slept amazing. I have to say, though, the best part was the sonic shower this morning.” She looked at Cullum. “I have never felt a sonic shower that worked that well in my life.”
Cullum laughed. “I am glad you enjoyed it. I worked with the designer. It actually has three extra jets to make the cleaning more efficient and more pleasurable. You have to make sure you try the bath, if you enjoyed the shower that much. I have a feeling you might never want to get out once you do.”
Alestra sighed at the thought of a bath, but she never noticed one in the bathroom. “Um, there was not a bath in the bathroom.”
Cullum laughed softly. “You did not do much investigating. To make the ship more efficient, certain things be come ‘fold-away’. In the bathrooms, they are hidden through the showers. The shower transforms in to a tub. Maybe I can show you later on how it works,” he added softly.
Temper cleared his throat. Alestra laughed, and opened up her box of cereal. She dumped it in to the bowl, and then easily tore open the milk and poured it on top of the cereal.
Temper, pointing at the cereal, asked, “You still eat that crap? Good gods, I thought you quit that shit.”
Alestra took a bite of her cereal, chewing deliberately at Temper. “Mmm, this is just oh so good,” she said after she swallowed.
Cullum laughed, watching Temper roll his eyes. “Well, at least she gives as good as she gets with you, Temp.”
Temper flipped off Cullum smoothly. Then looked at his sister, who was pretending to innocently eat her donuts. Reaching over, he snagged one, and took a bite. Trellyn’s eyes narrowed. “Boy, that had better be the last donut you steal, or it will be the last thing you ever eat. You know I do not tolerate people taking my food.”
While she was telling Temper this, Alestra slowly slid her fingers across the table, and slipped a donut off the plate. She quickly took a bite, knowing that the only thing Trellyn hated more than people taking her food was eating some thing people had already taken a bite of.
“Alestra Seraphim Silvergust, you rotten sticking bitch just stole a donut!”
Alestra laughed as she swallowed. She loved to work up Trellyn by stealing some food. She knew that if there was one person or being that could get away with it, it was her, but it was still so much entertaining.
“Ooh, say it again, please. I love it when you use my middle name. I feel like a little girl in trouble.”
Alestra laughed harder at Trellyn’s growl of frustration. She took another bite of the donut and then offered it back to Trellyn.
“Would you like it back?” she asked.
Trellyn made gagging noises and shook her head vio-lently, making Alestra snigger some more. Just as she had thought, Trellyn definitely did not want the donut back after a bite had already been taken out of it.
“Just fuck you all. You guys are just serious shit heads, you know that right?”
Alestra attempted to sober up and soothe her friend. “Oh, come on, Trellyn, I am only kidding, you know that. I would never deliberately do any thing that would hurt you. You are just so easy to tease. You leave your self open with your lack of variation.”
“Oh, now you are going to call me boring,” Trellyn asked with a very un-Trellyn like pout.
“No, I would not go that far. Considering you are pout-ing, and I do not believe I have ever seen you pout since I have known you.”
Temper piped up with a “She has never pouted in her life,” which made Trellyn pout even more. Her pouting actually got the table to laugh more, which did not make Trellyn any happier.
Alestra stopped laughing, and reached over and touched Trellyn’s hand. “Hey, hon, we are just joking. The ability to know exactly what makes you tick is what makes us great friends. Come on, you know you like to pick on my strange personality quirks. Including the one we were discussing in my room when you showed up.”
Trellyn smiled and laughed lightly, remembering their discussion on the subject of Alestra’s bras. “Yes, I do believe you are right. It is still not nice to take some one’s food though. How would you feel if I started stealing your bras?”
Alestra laughed lightly. “Truthfully, I do not know why you would want to do that. You with out a doubt would not fit in to them. You are several cup sizes larger than me.”
Cullum rubbed his chin thoughtfully, pretending to mentally measure the size of each woman’s breasts. “Yeah, I will have to agree. Trellyn definitely has the gift of larger breasts.”
Alestra looked at Cullum with a mock glare. “Oh, now you are looking at another woman’s breasts, and comparing me to them? Wow, you are a very finicky man,” she added with a laugh.
Cullum held his hands up in mock surrender. “Hey, I was just adding a male’s perspective. If Temper would have said some thing, you both would have been running away, be cause that would just be super creepy.”
Alestra laughed, thinking that what Cullum said was most likely true. Temper commenting on the size of Trel-lyn’s breasts would just be insanely weird.
“Okay, I will give you that,” she told Cullum with a smile. “But, next time, if you are going to comment on another female’s breasts, you might want to try doing it a little better,” she added with a laugh.
Cullum leaned back in his seat, and laid his arm across the back of Alestra’s chair. He was enjoying this moment between his friends, and really seeing Alestra in a new light. He was starting to see how completely and totally wrong he was about her. She might be a Vampiric Human, but she was not like the Vampiric Humans that killed his family. She was more than just her breed. She was sweet and kind. She had a sense of humor. She had a sense of honor and she was extremely loyal to her friends. He would be lucky to be on the receiving end of that loyalty. He in some ways wished he could take back what he had said, what he had thought, but he could not. He hoped he would at least be given the chance to make up for the things he had done and said.
Temper and Trellyn finished eating quickly and left the table. Temper headed towards the front of the ship, to get things prepped and ready for their leaving. He had to work with Lasiandra some more, so he was hoping that that time together would force her to at least listen to him. If all else failed, he would at least have a chance to spend some time with her. He was worried that she was doing too much and taking too much on, and he did not want to risk her health or the health of their child. He just had to find a way of doing so, with out her really realizing it, or else he would be in for a world of hurt and pain.
Trellyn headed back towards her room. She had a few work related things that she had to do. She was a freelance writer, and had a few assignments that she was able to pick up. She preferred to have them completed before they left the planet, just in case they ended up out of range for her to send them off. It was not likely, but there was always that chance, and Trellyn was never one to leave a thing to chance.
Alestra had also finished her breakfast, and leaned back against the back of her chair and Cullum’s arm. She smiled brightly at the young teen that had come a round and picked up the used dishes. Cullum chuckled quietly at the young man’s quick flush that was brought on by Alestra’s smile. He had been on the receiving end of that smile a few times already and he knew what the boy was feeling. That smile was powerful, and could knock a person off their feet if they were not paying attention.
Cullum began to fiddle gently with some strands of her gorgeous red hair. It was the color of fire, and Cullum had almost expected it to burn him. It suited her personality though. She looked quiet and innocent on the outside, but she was definitely a wild card who possibly could be incredibly unpredictable.
Alestra turned her head and looked at him. She blushed at the look in his eyes. He was looking at her as if she was the juiciest desert, and he was a starving man. Well, starving man might be an apt description. She definitely understood completely what he was feeling. She wanted to be any where but in this room. She wanted to drag him to some where more private. She wanted to peel off his clothes, slowly removing each article and kiss and lick each and every inch that was exposed.
Cullum watched Alestra’s eyes flare, and had a feeling on what she was thinking. He wanted to just flash them to her room, his room, an empty hallway, any where, and strip her down. He wanted her naked, and he wanted her now. He could not remember the last time he had wanted a woman as much as he wanted this woman. He would kill to have her, he knew. He would die to protect her.
Cullum quickly stood up and grabbed Alestra’s hand. Getting out of her seat, she followed where he lead. They made it to an empty hallway, and he stopped. He released her hand, and then he reached up and cupped her face. Pressing his lips to hers, he gently forced her back towards the wall. He easily pried her mouth open, and speared his tongue in, flicking it against hers. She moaned and reached up her arms, locking them a round his neck, and driving her hands in to his hair.
He released her face, and slid his hands down her neck, to her shoulders. He slid them down to cup her breasts through her shirt. She jumped slightly, releasing another moan, as her skin goose bumped from the sensations. He tore his mouth from hers, and placed them on the side of her neck. Her head fell back, resting on the wall as she pulled gently on his hair, and his fingers moved to the but-tons on her shirt.
When he had worked a few buttons loose, he reached down and cupped her hips. Gently, he lifted her up against the wall, and held her up with his hips. He pressed his lips to the swell of her breast over the bra cup. Alestra gently grabbed his hair, pulling his head up towards her.
“I think we should head to a room before this gets too far. I am all for public places, but this is a little too public for my tastes,” she told him, gently kissing his lips.
Pressing his lips to her, Cullum willed him self, and her, to her room. They landed gently on the top of her bed, with the covers already pulled back.
She withdrew her lips from his with a gasp. “Those are some powers you have there,” she told him with a grin. Her grin broadened when her clothes completely disappeared, along with his. She gasped at the feel of his naked body against hers, loving it.
Cullum slid his hands under her hips and gently lifted her against him. At her sigh of intense gratification, he grinned broadly. He pressed his lips to the nipple on one of her breasts and suckled gently.
Alestra cried out slightly, overcome by the sensations of his mouth on her. She was not sure how much more she could take.
Cullum released her hips, slid his hands up, and re-leased her breast from his mouth. He slid his hands up to cup her face. He pressed his lips to hers, nibbling on her bottom lip lightly. She lifted her body gently off the bed, wrapping her arms a round his waist.
Cullum growled lightly, loving the feel of her pressing her body to his. She felt just absolutely amazing, and he could not believe how freely she gave of her self.
Alestra focused on the sensations that Cullum was creating in her body. He never kept his mouth in the same place for long, and the sensations of his mouth moving was driving her completely insane, or so she thought. He continued to drive her crazy, working her up, and slowly bringing her back down before she could complete a single thought.
Finally, she felt her self starting to slide over the edge. Finally, she felt him gently nudge her opening with the tip of his arousal. He stopped, and looked at her, a question in his eyes. She smiled at him, in reassurance. “I am safe. I am protected. You have not a thing to worry about with any thing like that,” she told him with confidence.
When she said that, he slid completely in, and she al-most screamed at the sensation. She focused on the feeling of him gently rocking her. She felt the pressure building and buried her face in Cullum’s neck. As the pressure con-tinued to build, she opened her mouth, and gently bit his neck, and then alternately licking where she bit, soothing the spot. Cullum growled, rocking harder.
When the pressure culminated in to a fierce orgasm, Cullum followed her over, both of them shuddering in the aftermath of an explosive reaction.
Cullum collapsed on to the bed next to Alestra. He pulled her to his side with a sigh. She wrapped her arm a round his waist and rested her head on his chest. She kept her chin on his chest and looked up at him, with a wide smile on her face.
“Oh my gods, wow,” she said with a sigh, and a hint of a laugh. Her brain could not quite function after such an intense reaction.
Cullum laughed gently, and lifted his hand to gently brush her hair out of her eyes. He loved her hair, but he did not want it blocking his view of her beautiful green eyes.
Alestra laid her cheek down on Cullum’s chest, just lis-tening to his beat of his heart in her ear. She could not believe that she was here, in this bed, with him. She could not believe that she had slept with him after what he had said, and what he had believed, but she knew, deep down in her heart, that he no longer believed the things that he had said. She knew, with out a doubt, that he definitely regretted what he had said, and that given the chance, he most likely would apologize and ask for her forgiveness. If not a thing else, she knew that he would at least not say some thing of the same ilk to her again. If he did, it would be out of another emotion other than the ones he had felt when he had said them to her the first time.
Cullum looked down at the top of Alestra’s head. He could not believe they had slept together. No, they had not slept together. They had not had sex. It had been more than that. It had not just been absolutely amazing sex. It had been making love. There was no other way to describe what had happened. They had made love. They had be come one person in that moment of fulfillment.
Cullum slowly slid up the bed, sitting up against the headboard. He pulled Alestra with him. She rested comfortably against his side. He bent his head down and kiss the top of her head. She sighed contentedly, and snuggled closer against him.
Cullum cleared his throat, and Alestra sat up a little straighter. She started to pull away from him, but he held her to him. “No, do not leave. I just need to say some thing.” He took a deep breath. It was obvious that he was not quite sure how to begin.
“Cullum, please, just say what ever you need to say. If you want to leave, feel free. I will not hold you to any sort of commitments.”
Cullum growled, and turned his head towards her. “No, that is not what I am wanting to say. I am wanting to apo-logize for what I said when we first met. I want to apologize for the things that I have said since. You did not deserve to have any of that said to you. You did not deserve the way I treated you.”
Alestra shook her head. “While the things you said were completely cruel, I do under stand the reason you were so hostile to me. As you know, Trellyn did tell me about your family. I am so sorry for what happened to you, and to them, and for the Vampiric Human part in them. The only thing I did not under stand was why you hated me for it, but you were friends with Temper. That was the only part that had me confused.”
Cullum leaned his head back against the headboard. He took a deep breath and thought about his answer carefully. To be truthful, even just to him self, the reason he had acted with such hostility towards Alestra was be cause of the instant attraction that he had felt for her, and his dislike of it. Looking down at her, he wondered why he had hated the attraction. Considering where it had led, maybe if he had not acted like a complete fool when he had first met her, maybe they would have ended up here a lot sooner, a little faster.
“I do not really under stand it either. I have no idea why I acted as I did. Okay, I need to be honest, completely honest. I acted like an ass be cause I was instantly attracted to you. I wanted you so badly I could not see straight, and I do not under stand why, but it bothered me. It pissed me off. I know I am an idiot but that is the totally honest and complete truth.”
Alestra leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “As long as you never treat me like that again, I will not hold it against you.”
Cullum lifted his hand and held it her cheek, holding her to him. He was amazed at how forgiving and generous Alestra could be. He had no idea what he had done to ever deserve to even breathe the same air as some one as gener-ous as she was, but he was not going to do any thing to knock it. He was just going to accept it, and relish in how fortunate he was.
He happened to look up and gasped at the time. He had to get up to the front of the ship, be cause they were going to be leaving the space dock in less than three hours, and he had a large number of prep work things that he had to do, along with making sure the rest of his crew had every thing set and ready to go.
“I do not want you to take this the wrong way but I have to go. As you know, I will not be going far, but I do have to get things ready for us to take off.”
Alestra eased her body away from him, shivering slightly when the cool air of the room hit the parts of her that Cullum’s body had warmed. He leaned over and kissed her lips. She slid down the bed, lying completely down. Cullum climbed over her, his body hardening again, and rested his body on to hers. She wrapped her arms a round him, and lifted her hips, nearly begging him to enter her, and to bring her another amazing release.
Cullum groaned as he heard the pager device in the pocket of his pants, which had materialized on the floor when he had removed them. Grumbling under his breath, he climbed off the bed. Alestra leaned on her elbow, watching him walk, gloriously naked, to his pants.
Flipping open the device, Cullum responded, harshly, “What the hell do you want, Temper? It had better be so fucking important that it happens to involve some one dying. If not, it will be you that will be wishing that you had been dead.”
Alestra heard Temper clear his throat through the ear-piece but not a thing else. She watched Cullum attempt to put on his clothes while talking to Temper. She wondered why he did not just poof them on like he had poofed them off, but she figured that he had a good reason. On the other hand, it could be possible that he just was not thinking completely clearly.
“Yes, Temper, I will be up there soon. I am hoping that you would have enough brains to be able to figure out how to walk through the pre-flight shit. You are always telling me that I should let some one else do some thing. Well, now is your chance to prove me wrong that I am the only one who can do it correctly. Prove to me that I do need to take a step back and maybe, just maybe, I will let you have some more power.”
He closed the device and looked back at Alestra, who had not covered her self. He visibly shuddered as he looked her over, the burn of lust bright in his eyes, and visible in his well cut pants.
“Good gods, Alestra, but you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
Alestra blushed and sat up in the bed, breasts proudly exposed, and nipples tight. Cullum groaned in frustration. All he really wanted to do was strip his clothes back off and climb back in to the bed with Alestra. Sadly, though, he had things he had to do. He had to do his job, and he had to get Alestra to her assigned destination.
“Gorgeous, you are a temptation that I can just barely resist. I really do not want to leave your sexy self but I have to. I might have given Temper the impression that I trust him with the pre-flight stuff, but he has a few things on his mind that just might make him a little forgetful and I can not risk any one’s safety on a half assed pre flight plan.
Alestra slowly slid the sheet up to cover her self, with a broad smile on her face. No man had ever even hinted that she was practically irresistible, and she enjoyed it.
Cullum walked over to her, and leaned down. He kissed her quickly on the mouth and practically ran for the door, as if the hounds of hell were on his heels. On the other hand, as if he did not leave, he was going to continue what he had started before Temper had interrupted them.
Alestra leaned back on the pillows and sighed happily. She was amazed at how well she felt. She could not believe how relaxed she felt. She also could not believe how com-pletely turned on she was still was. She closed her eyes, feeling exhaustion begin to take hold. She must have been more tired than she had thought be cause within minutes, she was out, sleeping hard and sleeping easily.

She looked a round, wondering where she was. This was not the room she had fallen asleep in. She looked a round again, trying to figure out if she recognized where she was. It looked like her room before her mother had redecorated her room after her father’s murder. She had loved the way that room had been decorated, but her mother had hated it. Her mother had hated every thing her father had done. She had honestly believed as a child that it was her mother’s fault that her father was murdered.
She sat up quickly when she heard two voices outside of her room. It was her mother’s, but the other voice was not her father’s. Her mother and her father were the only ones who were supposed to be home at this time of night, and her father was not at home, be cause he was out of town. Who was out there with her mother? All Alestra knew and understood was that it was male, and he was speaking the language of the Elven Humans, some thing her mother had said Alestra was too young to learn, though other classmates had been taking courses in it at school.
She slowly and quietly climbed out of her bed, and tip toed to her door. She cracked it open, and quietly gasped when she saw her mother. She was wrapped a round a male who was not her father. She had her legged wrapped a round the male and he was pressing her to the wall.
She heard her mother say, “Oh, yes, there, push right there,” and Alestra quickly closed the door. She had heard things in her school, and she knew what her mother was doing. She was cheating on her father. She was going to break his heart.
Alestra climbed in to her bed. She huddled under the covers, crying. She soaked her pillow with her tears, and had teeth marks on her hands from shoving it in her mouth to muffle her tears.
She awoke, completely aware that she needed to tell her father what she had seen, but he was not going to be home for another three days. He was away on business, and would only be home early if it went better than ex-pected. Since that happened very rarely, Alestra worried that he would actually be home later than expected rather than early.
She went over to her desk and pulled out her laptop. She loved that her family was able to let her have one, especially since it was an easy way for her to keep in con-tact with her father during his very frequent business trips.
She frowned as her computer turned on. She opened up her contact mail program, and frowned when it said it was blocked. She considered throwing it, be cause she needed to contact her father, but throwing it would do not a thing. It was not the computer’s fault.
Why could she not contact her father? Did her mother know what she had seen? She had not thought so, but it was possible.

Alestra was woken from her dream with a knock on the door. She had not dreamt that dream about the life that she had had before her father had died often. She tended to block out that life, be cause it seemed to bring her not a thing but heart ache.
She walked to her closet, naked, and grabbed a robe out of it. Quickly walking to the door, which the person on the other side was still knocking at insistently, she opened it. Standing on the other side was Trellyn, with tears in her eyes, and they were swollen and red.
Alestra gasped at the sight of her friend, especially the condition that she was in currently. She had never seen Trellyn cry. She had some times wondered if she actually ever did.
Trellyn walked in to the room, and flopped in the chair right in side the door. She looked at the bed, noticing the disarray of the sheets, and correctly guessing what had occurred.
Alestra sat on the floor at Trellyn’s feet, taking great care that her robe stayed closed. “Trellyn, what is wrong? I have never once seen you cry. Seeing you doing so really scares me, and I do not like the idea of some thing bothering you enough that it makes you cry.”
Trellyn hiccupped and then the story poured out of her, almost tripping over the words as she forced them to come out.
“I do not know what is wrong with me. I find a guy that I like, and instead of flirting, I attempt to kick his ass. I al-ways have to act tough and strong. I never let him feel like he wears the pants. I always treat them as if they wear skirts. I always treat them as if they are morons.
“Okay, maybe most men are morons, but I should not treat them all like that, right?”
She did not let Alestra say any thing and instead just plowed on through, and continued talking. She was con-tinuing to surprise Alestra time after time, be cause Alestra had never seen Trellyn show emotion, nor had she ever seen her act like her lack of a relationship with a male bo-thered her, or that she was unsure of how to do any thing to make a relationship work.
“I have no idea what to do. I have no idea how to be ‘female’. I am an idiot when it comes to that. As you know, I grew up with all males, minus Trinity. Trinity was just, well, she was Trinity. She was there, but she was much older, and was not really an example for being female. Any ways, I do not know what to do. I feel like an idiot when I am a round a male of worth, one that I want to be a round for any significant amount of time.
“I do not know what to do, at all.”
Alestra rested her hand on Trellyn’s knee, in comfort. “But why are you stressing on this now? Did some thing happen that I do not know about? Did you meet some one that you might want to spend a significant amount of time with; some one you deem worthy?”
Trellyn nodded sadly, more tears trickling out of her eyes. She looked so defeated that Alestra wished she could just wave a wand and make her more comfortable a round males.
“Do you know any thing about him? Maybe you can find some common ground on things you both like to do. It helps to start things off a little slow. You do not want to rush in to some thing.”
Trellyn looked at Alestra, eyeing the robe and nodding at the bed. “Do you mean how you and Cullum took things slow?”
Alestra laughed, as Trellyn had intended. “Cullum and I probably should have taken things a little slower, but I do not regret how things ended up. I think that might be the difference between us, and what has happened with you. Speaking of, what did happen to you?”
Trellyn closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. “That is the thing. Absolutely not a thing has happened. I met him after we arrived on the ship. He is a friend of Temper’s and I had seen him before. Temper told me that he was a great man, and very loyal. You know the kind of male that a brother would want his sister to date. I thought maybe he was hinting that I should check him out.
“Well, I did that when I finally met him. The man blew me off. He took one look at me, and literally just walked away. I have no idea why he did that though. I want to know why he did that.”
Alestra slowly and carefully stood up. Trellyn lifted her head and opened her eyes. She looked at Alestra, who had a smile on her face. Trellyn knew that smile and smiled one of her own back. She got up, and quickly hugged Alestra, surprising her. Another thing Trellyn was not known for was being affectionate. She definitely was not a hugger.
“I am going to find this bastard and find out why he walked away. If he does not like me, that is perfectly okay, but I want him to tell me to my face. I want him to tell me why he walked away, and I will not leave him alone until he gives me a reason. Not until he gives me the real and true reason.”
With that, Trellyn left the room. Alestra shook her head as her friend left. She was glad that she, even with out say-ing much, was able to help her friend with her problem. She hoped that Trellyn would get the answers that she wanted, or that she would at least get the truth she so de-sired.
Alestra walked over to the pile of her clothes and picked them up. Placing them on the bed, she slipped off the robe, and placed it on the bed as well.
She quickly pulled her clothes back on, and stripped the sheets. She tossed the down the laundry chute that was in the room. She rummaged a round the room, and finally found a drawer that had sheets and the other necessary bedding items.
She quickly made up the bed, smiling as she did so. Her mother would so just be having some sort of conniption fit if she saw the work that she was doing that her mother always considered ‘beneath’ her. She shook her head. Her mother had always been a stuck up bitch. She was glad that she had taken after her father. She was thankful for the influence of her grandmother.
Her grandmother had been level headed. She had taught Alestra how to be self sufficient and how to do things that her mother would have flipped if she knew that Alestra knew how to do them. Courtesy of her grandmother, Alestra was able to cook. She knew how to do her own laundry. She did not have to rely on paying some one to do her cleaning. She could do what ever she wanted. She was proud of her what she had accomplished.
Her grandmother had left her money when she had died, which was how Alestra was able to open her store, including the café. Her grandmother had been the only one who had believed that she could make it work. Thinking of her store, she wondered what would happen to it. She had no idea how long she was going to be gone, and she worried about how hard it would be for her to recover when she came back from the lost business. If she happened to be closed for too long, even her repeat customers would be reluctant to come back, considering she disappeared with out a trace, pretty much.
She sighed sadly as she thought of the idea of losing her business. She did not want to think of it, but she did not have much of a choice. Some thing was going to happen, and not in a good way, if her worst fears were realized.
She thought of her store. It was her pride and joy. She spent most nights there, instead of her house, be cause it was a lot of worthwhile work. Every thing basically revolved a round the store and the running of it, and at the time, she did not mind. She hated that she some times had to cancel plans with Temper and / or Trellyn, but her business was all she had. She had no real relationship with her siblings. They wanted not a thing to do with her be cause she worked for her money, instead of relying on some one to hand it to her. She had not a thing in common with them, be cause of that. Trellyn and Temper understood, though, at least they claimed to have. She some times wondered if they were only saying that to just ‘keep the peace’ but she doubted it. They also worked for their own livings, so they did at least under stand that.
She looked a round the room, thinking about her office at the store. They were both painted in similar colors. Even the bed had a similar bedding and sheet set as what she had at home. She was actually amazed at how well suited the room was to her. She wondered who had decorated the room, and she wondered if it was colored and done in a way that suited her tastes so perfectly for a reason or if it just happened to be one big coincidence. She did not dwell too hard on it. She was not too worried about a painted wall and some bedding. She had other things she was wor-ried about that were more important.
She could not under stand what she was going to do while she was on the ship. She had not a thing really to do. She did not want to just wonder a round like an idiot, but she did not want to just hang out in the room all day. She remembered seeing the door for the gym on her way to the mess hall this morning, so maybe now would be a good time for a work out. She was used to working out on a daily basis, even when she was at the store, courtesy of a treadmill and a shower in her office.
She quickly stripped off the clothes that she had put on twice already, quickly folded them, and placed them on the bed. She found a pair of her folded top, black and pink yoga pants and slipped them on. She stripped out of her bra, and found the matching pink and black sports bra. While putting it on, she went on the hunt for a basic tee to toss over the bra, so that she was not walking a round the ship in just a bra and pants. Finding it, she tossed it on the bed. She grabbed a pair of socks, and slipped them on quickly. She almost did a happy dance when she saw that her running shoes had been brought aboard, along with her cross trainers. Trellyn always mocked her for her having several pairs of tennis shoes, but she had her reasons. They each had a specific purpose, and she was not about to risk injury just be cause it was easier to have one pair of sneakers.
Slipping on the shoes, making sure they had been tied tightly, she grabbed up the shirt, and headed out the door. Slipping on the shirt as she walked out the door, she head-ed towards the gym. Before she left, she made sure she grabbed her music player. There was not a thing worse than having to try to run with out having some thing to listen to, or some sort of beat to keep one moving.

She walked in to the gym and proceeded to drop the music player on the floor. Standing between two treadmills was Trellyn, and a male. At least Alestra thought it was a male. Trellyn was so wrapped a round the person that Ale-stra could not tell the exact sex. Considering that Trellyn and the person were kissing, Alestra just assumed it was a male. She was not going to stick a round and find out for sure. She quietly picked up the music player and backed out of the door.

Alestra wondered what she should do, since the gym could now be considered occupied. She shrugged her shoulders and headed back towards her room. She had no idea how to keep her self entertained. She was already completely and totally bored out of her mind.
She arrived in her room, and nearly screamed from fright. Standing in the room was Temper. What was the deal with the Faery siblings coming to her today? She wondered what he wanted.
Before Alestra could ask what was wrong, she felt a vio-lent shaking of the ship. It felt like they had run in to a wall and been repelled backwards. Temper rushed out the door, with out saying a word to Alestra. Dropping the stuff she carried, Alestra followed him at a run, needing to know what was going on.
She followed him down several corridors. She knew, that if she had to look back, she would not remember where she went, or how she got to where she was.
They arrived in the cock pit area, out of breath from running so hard. Alestra stopped in the door way and stared in open mouth shock. She could see, on the view screen, that there was another ship, small but obviously well armed, sitting right in front of them. She also noted that they were no longer docked. She idly wondered when they had left port, but brushed that thought away.
Cullum noticed her in the door way and cursed slightly. He walked over to her, avoiding Lasiandra who speed walked to a set of instruments. He easily guided her, since she was still in shock at seeing the chaos, he assumed, in to a chair and sat her down in to it.
“Alestra, I need you to just sit here and please, stay out of the way. I do not want to see you hurt, nor any one else and I can not leave to take you back to your room.”
Alestra nodded, quietly sitting in the seat and watching Cullum and his team work in a very organized and in a very precise way. She could tell that they had trained for this, and that each and every person and being knew exactly what they needed to do.
Temper sat at one end of a long console. His chair, co-lored in a dark red, almost maroon, looked comfortable, even though he seemed to be barely sitting in it. Lasiandra had dropped in to a matching chair at the opposite end of the area, at another long console. Alestra watched as the two avoided each other, even avoiding talking, unless forced to. Some thing was going on between the two of them, and Alestra had a feeling that was why Temper had been in her room before the attack.
Alestra watched as Cullum headed towards what she assumed to be the piloting area. He was giving orders to his crew while attempting to back the ship away from the still firing ship.
She braced her self as one blast hit the ship. She heard a computerized voice overhead say “shields down to seventy five percent.”
Cursing Cullum hollered over at Lasiandra “are they fully operational? Did they get repaired fully?”
“Yes, sir, they are up and running. We can survive with seventy five, as long as we do not get a direct hit.”
“At least we have some piece of good news. Temper, get us the fuck out of here. Not in the mood to deal with Alameda’s bull shit today.”
“I am working on it, Cullum. We have cloaking up to ninety percent. She is just shooting blind right now.”
As if to prove his point, there was a cursing heard com-ing from some where. The same voice who did the cursing yelled out, “Damn you, Cullum! I will get that bounty for that chit, even if I have to destroy your ship.”
With that, the ship Alestra was on disappeared com-pletely from radars. It took off and headed towards the big black abyss that seemed to sparkle, in an almost gorgeous way, with the speed they were travelling.
Once they were a good distance away from Alameda’s ship. He had Temper fire off a few charges in weird places, at least in Alestra’s eyes. He explained to her that it was to throw Alameda off the trail, making it harder to find them, be cause even though they were technically invisible on radar, it did not mean that there was not a way of being able to track them when they did come back on to the radar systems.
Alestra was fascinated with every thing that she had seen. She almost wished that she had been able to do some thing with ships and things when she was in school, but she loved her shop so much, so she was not too disappointed.
Cullum walked Alestra out of the cock pit area after they had settled far enough away, and he felt it was safe to leave. He wrapped his arm a round her waist as they walked, pulling her close to him.
“Who was that woman, Cullum? What did she mean by the bounty? I am assuming that she meant me.”
Cullum nodded, though Alestra was not looking at him when he did so. “Yeah, she meant you. The Bad Faeries that want to see you killed have hired Assassins. There are two types. The decent ones, you could call them, have a soul and only accept bounties for those who deserve to be found, dead or alive. The not so decent ones are the ones who will do any thing they need to and for whoever will pay the largest amount. So, Alameda is one of those not so decent types who will take money from any one for any thing. She is not above destroying a whole ship and killing every one on board if they do not surrender the person she is after.”
“Then why do you not just give me to them?” She was not sure she wanted to know the answer to the question she asked, but she needed to. She had to know the truth from Cullum, and she knew he would tell her it. Somehow, she knew in her heart that he would not lie to her.
He pulled her a little closer, and dropped a quick kiss on the top of her head, attempting, hopefully in some way, to offer a small amount of comfort. He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.
“Just yesterday, I am quite sure that I would have just handed you over. Or else I would have at least made that threat. I do know that I would not have done it with out at least a few regrets. In all honesty, most likely, I would have done so with more than just a few regrets. Right now, though, if I am going to continue to be completely honest, I can not just give you up. You, for the time being, and maybe longer than that, are stuck with me, just as I am stuck with you. This is more than just an assignment for me. I am completely and totally stuck on you. You get under my skin in a way no one has been able to, and I want a chance to see how things will work out. I want to see if there is more to this and us than just an extremely intense attraction. You drive me wild, but you also make me think about things.”
Alestra laughed and blushed at the same time. Her heart swelled with his words, and the meaning behind them. She heard the sincerity in his voice as he spoke, and she could have danced with the happiness and joy almost over flowing from her heart.
They had stopped at the end of a hallway. She had no idea of exactly where she was, but she did not care. She leaned in to him and he pulled her close. Cullum looked down at her, and grinned. She saw his eyes flare up with desire, and while she felt her own body do the same, she shook her head.
“No, not at this moment be cause we, mainly you, need to keep a straight head. You need to be able to think straight so that you can get all of us out of this situation safely.”
She looked at him with a worried look on her face. “Speaking of the situation, how will this end? Does it end when I am dead?”
Cullum looked at her, and sighed, quite unsure on how to respond. He wanted to be truthful but he did not want to freak her out or scare her.
Alestra looked at Cullum’s face, watching the play of emotions. She figured out what that expression most likely meant. It was not going to end prettily. No matter how much she would like to think it would not, some one was most likely going to die. She hoped that it was not some one she loved and cared for, but she was not sure she would be able to get her wish.
Cullum sighed as he looked at her face. She had most likely guessed what the answer was going to be. He wanted to offer her comfort, but what could he actually say. How could he tell her that every thing was going to be just fine when it was most likely not going to end up that way? There were so many variables, too many ifs, ands, and buts to consider before even hazarding a guess on what the out come was going to be.
“I do not want to lie to you, Alestra. I do not know what is going to happen. I can not predict the future. I wish to the gods that I could. All I can tell you is that my team, and of course I as well, will do every thing in our powers to keep you safe.”
“I do not want every one putting their lives at risk for me, though. Do you not under stand where I am coming from with this? I do not want the lives of others to be con-sidered less important than mine.”
Cullum pulled her close to him, with her cheek resting on his chest. She heard the beat of his heart, and wrapped her arms a round his waist.
“It is not that one life is more important than another. It is that when we join the Spirit Council, we take an oath to protect those who need protecting, as well as keeping the Spirit Council a secret. We protect you not just be cause we are ordered to, but be cause you need it. You are not able to defend your self.”
He held up his hand before she could make a significant protest to the statement of her not being able to defend her self, some thing more significant that a slight growl and the lifting of her hand to smack him. With the hand he lifted, to stop her protest, he softly grasped hers and pulled it towards is mouth. He gently placed a tender kiss on the knuckles before he lightly released it.
“No, do not get your self all up in arms, Alestra. I did not mean that the way it came out. I meant it as you do not have the training that we have. We are trained almost as soon as we are able how to fight, how to protect, how to lead and how to defend. It was not an insult towards you, just a statement on your lack of training. I swear, that was all that I meant by it.”
She rolled her eyes at his explanation, but did not say any thing else opposing to defend her self, though.
“Come with me, Alestra, and I will take your mind off of what is going on right now.”
He quickly set her away from him and headed towards the holo deck, a room that can be come any thing and every thing that a person desires it to be.
He stopped at the entrance. He swiveled a round and looked at Alestra. “Okay, if you could go any where that you wanted to go, where would you most desire to be?”
Alestra’s mind went blank. She had no idea. There were so many places to choose from, and she could never nar-row it down to just one. She looked at Cullum. “You should choose. Let me in and find out some thing about you. I do not know a lot about you, and I would love to know more. So, why do you not show me your favorite place to be.”
Cullum hit a few buttons on the control panel outside the door. He looked at Alestra with a wicked smile on his face. He pulled out a bandana from his pocket and held it up. She looked at him with a frown on her face.
“Oh good gods, you want me to wear that, do you not?”
Cullum smiled broadly. “Yes, I do want you to wear this. This is a place that is very special to me, but I want to submerge in it first, before I let you see it. That way you will be able to get the full picture and maybe some understanding all at once, instead of a little at a time.”
Alestra sighed but let him tie the bandana a round her head. He dropped a quick kiss on the side of her neck be-fore he let go of her to push the command to open the door. He grabbed her hand and gently led her through the opening in to a world that made him who he was, and had helped him realize what he could do, and exactly who he could be come.

Cullum gently guided her in to the room. When she tried to feel a round for where she was, he put her hands down, and gently told her, “No, you need to wait a few moments. Just relax, and pay attention to the sounds that you are hearing, to the smells that you can smell. Just focus on the other senses that you have, first, before you look. It will make the reveal that much more better.”
Alestra listened carefully. She heard the chirps of birds. It was a calm and peaceful sound. Some thing she had not heard in a long while, making her realize that she spent way too much time indoors, even when it was dusk and not as much sun, making it safer for her to be out for extended periods of time. She also heard the sound of the wind russling in what sounded to be leaves. She felt the wind brush against the exposed parts of her skin, and it was warm, and soothing. She felt the sun, warm and soft, caressing her skin. She had never been able to feel that with out having to worry that her skin would break out in a hideous rash, or develop welts be cause of the burns.
She smelled grass, like it had been freshly cut. Taking another sniff, she smelled Cullum, and nearly sighed. The smell was strong, and it meant that he was still near by, even though he was no longer holding her hand.
She started when she felt a hand on the small of her back, propelling her forward. She took a few steps and then realized her shoes were gone. She was walking on what felt to be almost like silk, but she guessed it was just well maintained grass. It felt so good to feel her toes in the grass. She felt a change in the ground, and wondered why. It started to feel gritty, and almost like sand. She then started to hear the sounds of waves, crashing along the shore.
She took a sniff of the air, and smell crisp air, with a hint of salt. She smiled, a happy and broad smile, one that lit up her face, and if her eyes had been exposed, would have been readable in them as well.
She felt Cullum untie the bandana. When it fell away, she gasped at the view. She saw the two suns of her home planet. The suns and the single moon had never looked more beautiful. The sky was a myriad of colors. There were smatterings of red and gold, along with some blues and even a few hints of purples and oranges. The waves of the ocean were crashing gently along the shore, almost as if inviting Alestra to dip her feet in to the water. She would have resisted, if she had not felt the wind brush across more exposed areas. She looked down and noticed that she was no longer in the work out gear that she had been wearing, but was instead in a pink and purple paisley two piece bikini. It fit her like second skin, almost as if it had been made for her. The suit felt good on her skin. She had never been able to visit a beach when she was a child, and as an adult, she had never had time, even if she had been able to. She looked at Cullum, a look of wonder on her face, and he smiled at her.
“One of the many perks of being on a ship. It is nearly the same as being at the shore, but with out the risk of sun exposure, especially for those who have delicate skin.” He ran a finger down one of her arms, causing her to shiver, but in a good way.
“It is more than that, Cullum. This is like a dream come true. I have always wanted to visit a beach but I was never able to do so. My father wanted to take me, but it was too dangerous be cause of our biology. You have literally given me the ultimate dream, but I wanted to know your favorite place.”
Cullum laughed softly. “This is my favorite place. I used to come here with my family all the time. There are many happy memories on this shore line, and I am hoping to build more, eventually, when I have my own family.”
Alestra’s face dropped, along with her heart, when she heard him mention a family. If he had dreams of bringing them here, that would not include her, be cause she would never be able to, unless it was in a situation like this. She could not imagine that this would satisfy some one like Cullum, who had experienced the real thing. He would want his children to be able to come in to contact with the same as well.
Cullum gently grabbed her chin, and lifted her face up to meet the gaze of his. “What is this? Why the sad face?”
Alestra averted her eyes, or at least attempted to do so. Cullum was having not a thing to do with it, and was not allowing her to just avoid his gaze. He wanted her to talk to him and not to hide away from him. He definitely did not want her to retreat in to her self as she was prone to be doing.
“Tell me what is bothering you, Alestra. I think, after all of this that has gone on, I deserve the truth. I have been completely and totally honest with you, and not it is time for you to do the same for me.”
Alestra sighed unhappily. She did not want to tell him and ruin the mood of the moment, but since she had al-ready ruined it to some extent, she had not a thing else to lose, so she told him, honestly and point blank.
“You will be finding some one to take to this beach, and it hurt. I would not be able to join you, which means you did not mean me.”
Cullum laughed, not in a derisive or mean way, but more of a self mocking, I am a complete idiot, kind of way. “No, Alestra, there will be no one else that I bring to this shore line. If I brought some one else, it would be cheating that person, and cheating my self. This beach is now filled with more than just memories of my family. Just bringing you here makes the memories also contain you. Can you imagine attempting to try and bring some one else here, when the first thought I would have up on seeing it would be memories of you. There would be memories of you in that absolutely gorgeous bikini. There would be the memo-ries of watching you take in the sight of the suns, knowing you had most likely never seen them like this. There is so much of you now connected with this area. I could not share that with another. I would not want to share that with another. This beach is now some thing I will only share with you.”
Alestra’s eyes clouded up with emotion and tears at what he said. With out coming right out and saying it, he basically told her that his feelings for her went deeper than physical and far exceeded being just about becoming and staying friends. If they were given the chance, his feelings could easily and quickly turn in to feelings of love. Her heart filled with joy, and it spread to her face. She nearly choked with happiness.
“Oh, wow, I have to say that that is most likely the most I have ever heard you speak, all at once.” She blushed, her cheeks blooming with color. “Thank you for what you said though, be cause you made me feel as if I do mean some thing to you, and I think I needed to hear you say that.”
Cullum pulled her in to his arms. He was not sure what he had exactly said that put that bright smile on her face, but he wanted to say it over and over just to keep it there. It put him in extremely high spirits to know that he could cause such a beautiful smile to bloom on to such a beautiful face. It made her so expressive eyes just sparkle in a way that he could not even begin to attempt to describe.
Alestra wrapped her arms a round Cullum’s waist and squeezed tightly. She laughed when he made an exagge-rated grunt be cause of the squeeze. She loved that he did things like that. She loved that he made her feel like she could do some thing that could make him grunt in any sort of way. She admitted to her self that she loved him. She loved so much about him, and while she did not know how things were going to work out between them, she was going to treasure each and every moment that she was able to spend with him. She was going to live each moment to its fullest, and be thankful for each second that she got to spend with him.
She laughed inwardly at her self. She was acting like one of them was dying. If she was completely honest with her self though, there was a very good chance that one of them could be dead at the end of all of this. If it was not her or Cullum, it could just as easily be Temper or Trellyn, or any one else that she had met, or had yet to meet.
Cullum wrapped his arms a round Alestra, and pulled her even closer than she already was. He rested his head on the top of hers, and took a deep breath. He smelled oranges and strawberries, and knew that that was a smell he would never forget. That was Alestra’s smell and it would always be so.
?
Alestra stretched lazily the next morning. She and Cul-lum had spent a few hours at the simulated shore. They had talked until Alestra felt that she would be hoarse this morning. She was learning so much about Cullum, so much in such a short amount of time. They had left the holo deck area when Cullum had been called back to the cock pit area be cause some thing had shown up on radar. She had not found out what it was be cause she had fallen asleep before Cullum had been able to come back.
She looked be side her, and smiled when she saw Cul-lum. He was lying on his side, facing her. She just lay there on her side, watching him sleep. She felt that she could continue to do so for hours, if he did not wake up. There was not a thing more that she could ever want than to just lay there and watch the man she loved sleep.
She smiled as she thought back to the evening before while they were on the shore line. He had chased her in to the waves, and laughing, she had fallen, going under. She had come up out of the water, spitting out water, but laughing as she did so. She had never felt more free in her life. She could not remember a time when she had felt the ability to just let go and forget the world.
Then she had screamed loudly when she had felt some thing brush against her leg. Considering she was staring at Cullum, she knew it was not him doing it. She looked down, down in to the crystal clear water, and had gasped, lifting her hand to her mouth, mouth open wide. Next to her, and swimming a round, was an animal that had flippers instead of arms and a strange looking tail, with a very broad and very round nose. He had the strangest color skin, though, at least in Alestra’s mind and opinion. She had never seen one in a light purplish tinted color before. She had also never seen one that had black and white spots smattered along the back. The ones she had seen were usually only in a muted gray color, or shades of browns.
Cullum had looked down and laughed with gusto. “You can blame Temper for that. I can almost guarantee you that he is the one who coded a purple seal in to the program. He is always pulling shit like that. I do not know why he does it, but he does. He seems to find it highly amusing. Personally, I find it to be annoying, and am extremely tired of finding weird animals in my programs.”
Alestra had chuckled, knowing that Temper most likely find more enjoyment out of seeing Cullum’s annoyance than the sight of strange looking animals. She was just hap-py that he had not made them disfigured or any thing of that similar line of thinking.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt a hand run up her thigh. Dragging her thoughts out of the past, she forced her self to the present.
She looked up at Cullum, who was grinning at her with a wicked gleam in his eyes. She knew that gleam well by now. She noticed that he had pushed the blankets and sheets off of him self, show casing his beautifully sculpted body in all its glory, showing in more ways than one that his eyes were not the only ones with a wicked thought.
She grinned wickedly right back at him, feeling her body heat up at the thought of being held in his arms, at the thought of being made love to by him. She knew that if any thing were to happen to her, she would treasure these moments with him. To her, these times spent with him were more valued than the most precious of jewels.
Losing her father the way she had, finding him by her self, had taught her to hold the moments of life that are precious and treasure them as they are meant to be done. She had always refused to let life just lead her, and instead had decided to make sure that she controlled her life. Right at this moment, she might not have control of where she was, but she had the control of being with the one she wanted, and the ability to make the choice to walk away or stay.
She leaned off of her arm and towards Cullum. He reached over and pulled her to him. He reached behind her head and pressed her mouth down to his. He easily slipped his tongue between her lips, twining it a round her tongue. Sighing, she ran her hands down his chest, rubbing her fingers across his nipples. The corners of her mouth turned up slightly when she felt his body shudder slightly. She pulled her mouth away and laughed heartily when he easily flipped her on to her back and followed her down, pressing her down in to the bed.
Her back arched up off of the bed when he ran his fin-gers down the sides of her, both tickling her and exciting nerve endings. She sighed and arched again when he pressed his mouth to the side of her neck, nipping slightly with his smaller fangs. Excitement raced through her when he continued down until he reached her breasts.
She nearly jumped off the bed when he sucked a nipple in to his mouth. She felt on fire, and the fire was not going to be put out until he completed the act.
She reached down and grabbed his hips, arching up in-to him. She told him exactly what she wanted with out hav-ing to say a word. When he slid in to her, she nearly screamed in ecstasy, instantly releasing a moan of satisfac-tion. He continued to rock, building up the sensations again, until they both reached their climax.
While still in side her, he smiled down at her, his fangs flashing. She smiled back and for the first time, actually flashed her own fangs. He made her have enough confi-dence in her self to show some thing that she had never been able to show before this very moment.
Cullum brushed his fingers along her cheek, realizing how much she must trust him at this moment, and how comfortable she must be with him. He knew, be cause of things that Temper had told him, that she never flashed her fangs. She never showed them to any one. He bent down and quickly kissed her on her lips, attempting to keep it light. She wanted not a thing to do with that, and turned the kiss in to more.

A long while later, Cullum laid on his back with Alestra’s head lying on his chest. He idly played with some strands of her hair. Her hair curled, he had found out. He was amazed at the little things he was picking up from Alestra. She had flashed her fangs for him a few more times, not knowing that she was doing so.
Alestra was idly running a finger up and down his chest, causing goose bumps to pop up across his skin. It tickled but he did not still her fingers.
She turned her face towards his chest, and dropped a kiss right where his heart would be. She then laid her head back down and placed her hand where she had dropped the kiss. He reached up with a hand and covered hers, inter-locking their fingers.
He kissed the top of her head, just content to lie here with her in his arms. There was no where at this moment that he needed to be. There was absolutely no where that he wanted to be at this moment in time. He was exactly where he wanted to be.
Cullum did not want to break the silence, but he wanted to find out a few more little unknown facts about Alestra.
“Okay, time for a few more questions, I think. How about I ask one, you answer, and then you ask one? Does that work for you?”
Alestra nodded against his chest. “As long as I do not have to move from this spot, I will answer any thing you ask of me.”
Cullum chuckled. “I would be careful saying some thing like that. I just might take up on it. Okay, now it is time to get serious. First question will be this one. What is your favorite color? I have seen you wearing several different ones, so I am not sure which you actually prefer.”
Alestra thought hard be cause if she was honest with her self, she was not quite sure which color she preferred. “Um, I am not really sure, actually,” she told him with a laugh. “I do not discriminate against the colors, but if I had to choose just one, it would have to be all shades of the color red. It can be such a bright color; it can be dark and moody; it can also be light and happy, or even romantic. It is one of the few colors that can get away with being all of those.
So, what is your favorite color? I’ve seen you wear a lot of black, but I just assumed it was be cause it is more of a uniform kind of thing, since every one else here seems to also wear a lot of black.”
Cullum laughed. “Good choice on the color; red defi-nitely suits you. I think only you could get away with wear-ing red considering the shade of red that your hair is. You pull it off so beautifully.”
Alestra blushed prettily at Cullum’s words. She smacked him lightly on the chest. “Answer the question, Cullum. What is your favorite color?”
“My favorite color is actually navy blue. I do not know why, but I have always liked that color. It is one that I have liked since I was a child. My brother and my sister always teased me about it, saying I was such a dark person be cause of my choice but it is not like that. I am not a dark person; I just like the color,” he defended him self.
Alestra scooted up on the bed slightly, and kissed him on the mouth. “I do not think you are a dark person. You might have some dark moods, but that does not make you a dark person. You do not have to defend your color choice to me, nor any thing else, honestly. Now, ask me your question,” she told him with a smile while readjusting her self back on to his chest.
Cullum thought. He had no idea what to ask her next. “If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?”
Alestra laughed be cause this was one question she had no doubts about what the answer would be. “Do not laugh at me when I tell you this but in all honesty, the food that I could live the rest of my life on is sea food. I love every thing and any thing that is considered sea food. Just the thought makes me drool.” For dramatic effect, Alestra reached up and wiped her mouth as if she was actually drooling.
Cullum laughed. He had actually known that answer. Temper had told him a few stories about Alestra and her obsession with sea food. He had told him that one time, Alestra had actually tackled some one be cause that person had dared to take a plate of her food before she was fi-nished. She had told the person repeatedly that she was not finished with her meal, and the waiter had taken it any way. He did not blame her at all be cause he was the same way about the same food. He could not get enough of sea food. It was like air to him at times.
“I happen to love sea food as well. Temper refuses to eat with me at a restaurant that serves is be cause I suppo-sedly will order every thing on the menu and eat it all, snapping at any one who attempts to touch what I have ordered.”
Alestra laughed be cause she was known to do the same thing. She was a little luckier though be cause Temper had not made a similar threat to her. Trellyn, on the other hand, refused to even be near her if sea food was involved.
“Okay, now I get to ask you a question,” she told him. “What is your favorite type of movie to watch?”
Cullum ran his hand down the small of her back as he thought of the answer to her question. “It is a toss up be-tween a few different genres. I am in to the action flicks, but I also like comedies. If the two are combined in to one, I try to be one of the first in line so that I can see it early. I hate when some one tells you what happens in a movie, and talks about it as if you had already seen it. I hate when they will not shut up about it, no matter how many times you tell them to do so.”
Alestra turned her face in to Cullum’s chest and laugh-ed. “I am going out on a limb here and assuming that you are talking about Temper here. That man does know how to ruin a good movie. Hell, he knows how to ruin a bad movie as well.”
Cullum snorted in agreement. “Yeah, I was talking about Temper. I swear, he and I have fought more about his inability to shut the hell up about a movie than any thing in our years as friends.”
“How long have you two been friends?” Alestra had heard Cullum and Temper both mention their friend ship in ways that spoke that it was a long one, but she had never heard the exact time table for it.
“Well, I am not exactly sure how long we have been friends. Magickals’ bodies stop aging almost to a stand still and one can easily lose track how long they have been alive. I do think though that we have been friends for long enough to know that we do not discuss how long we have been friends.”
Alestra smacked him in the chest. He reached up to rub the spot while she said, “That is not an answer. Why can you not answer me this?”
“I am trying to be honest here. I really have no idea how long we have been friends. At least I do not have an exact number for the amount of years. It had been over fifty or so years, but under one hundred, I do believe. Is that a good enough answer?”
Alestra sighed. She had not meant to piss him off, but it seemed she had. Running her hand over the spot she had slapped, since he had dropped his hand while he answered her, she responded with “Yes, that is good enough. I did not mean to piss you off.”
Alestra started to climb off the bed, but Cullum’s arms tightened a round her, not letting her move.
“Where do you think you are going?”
“I am getting up. I pissed you off, and I do not want to risk making you even madder.”
“Alestra, you did not piss me off. Far from it, if I was to be honest with you. I just did not know the answer to it, and some times when you reach a certain point, you do not like thinking about how old you actually you are. I feel like some old pervert some times when I am with you, be cause I am quite a bit older than you are.”
Alestra cuddled against his side. “I do not care how old you technically are. Age in our world is just a number. If Temper can be with an Elven Human, and for the love of the gods, I know he is definitely older than you are, then you can be with me, I would assume.”
Cullum laughed, amused at her logic, but he was not able to find any sort of fault with it. “I guess you are right.”
Alestra laughed. “You had better to get used to it. As Temper will tell you, though not always happily, I am al-ways right. Even when I am wrong, I am right.”
Cullum laughed again, completely amused by Alestra, but amused in a good way. He could not remember the last time that he had laughed like this. He could not remember when he had felt almost like he was walking on air. He loved this feeling. He had a feeling that he would never get tired of feeling this way when he was with her. If he was honest with him self, he would admit how he truly felt about Alestra but he was not in the right frame of mind to be truly honest.
“I will take your word for it, be cause I know that Tem-per will say what ever you tell him to say be cause he would rather not be in the dog house with you.”
Alestra snorted. She was having a lot of fun with Cul-lum. She was loving this time she was spending with Cul-lum. She did not want to leave this room, ever but she knew that she was going to have to at some point in the near future.
As she had that thought, the ship jumped. It felt like it had before when they had been hit. Cullum cursed and jumped out of the bed. He looked at Alestra as his clothes immediately appeared on his body. “Please, I need you to stay here. You are safest here, and I need to know that you are safe so that I can concentrate on the things I need to do to keep every one on this ship safe, along with you.”
Alestra nodded, pulling the sheets up to her chest. Cul-lum leaned down and quickly kissed her lips before he flashed out of the room. Alestra knew it was serious be cause of the way he had left. He had only flashed out on her once, and that was be cause of anger.

Cullum flashed nearly right in front of Temper, who was running to Lasiandra. She was lying on the ground, and looked to be unconscious. At least Cullum hoped she was unconscious. He knew that his friend would not be able to handle her death if it happened.
A round them, several other crew members were rush-ing a round, doing exactly what they had been trained to do. Cullum would have smiled in appreciation if he did not have so many other things currently on his mind.
Cullum rushed to follow Temper, after easily moving out of his way. Temper leaned down, resting on his heels, and placed two shaking fingers against Lasiandra’s neck. Cullum relaxed visibly as he hunkered down next to Tem-per at Lasiandra’s side. As Temper pulled his fingers away, Lasiandra’s eyes opened, and she looked at him, confusion in them.
“What happened, Temper? Why am I on the floor?”
Temper sighed, and sat down next to her. He gently pulled her in to his arms, half sitting her on his lap. “The console exploded when we were fired up on.”
Lasiandra shook her head in disbelief. “How were we spotted? What happened? I double checked the whole sys-tem my self. They were all working perfectly, and not a thing had been shut down. I know this!”
Temper looked at Cullum with a frown on his face. He also was not sure how it could have happened either. He had just checked it him self only moments before the attack had happened.
Cullum looked up at his team, working frantically but very methodically to get things under control, as well as taking care of the tactical reactions. He had trained his team well, but he could not help wondering if he had some one who was not true to the team.
Temper spoke, though, shaking Cullum out of his thoughts. “I do not know, Lasi, but we will find out.” He looked down at her with a worried frown on his face. He was concerned that something could have happened to her to harm her or the baby. “Do you feel okay?”
She smiled at him, while she lifted a hand and gently placed it on her abdomen. “So far, I feel fine, but I would really appreciate it if I could go to the medical bay, just in case.”
Temper looked at Cullum, who waved him off. Temper gently lifted her up in to his arms, and left the cock pit area, heading towards the medical bay with his precious cargo.
“Temper, give me a holler when you know any thing but do not worry for the moment about coming back. Just take care of what you need to take care of be cause we will be here when you get back.”
Cullum watched as Temper left the room, hoping that Lasiandra and the baby were going to be okay. Considering Lasiandra was not fighting the fact that she was being car-ried spoke volumes for how worried she might be for the health of their baby.
Getting back to the issue at hand, Cullum walked around the room, checking and double checking each and every dial, all of the instruments, all of the readings, looking for any thing to explain how they had been found. It was nearly impossible for them to have been found that easily and quickly with out some sort of sabotage. When he found the person who had done it, may the gods have mercy on their soul be cause he sure as hell was not going to.
He looked at the view screen, recognizing the ship that was attacking him. It was not the same that had done it previously. This was one of whom he had actually once been a team member with. Travesta Joradean had decieved all of them, and he would not be surprised, considering she did still have cohorts on this ship, ones who had not been willing to come forward with their parts in the sabotage of the last time.
He motioned his team to leave the cock pit area. He did not want, in case one of them was the one who was betray-ing the ship, them to be in the room. He prefered to handle these things in private.
Pushing the button for the communications, he drawled out, “Well, well, well, who do we have here? Could this be the coward known as Travesta? Could she really be brave enough to attempt to take my ship, and to attempt to try and claim a bounty that she knows she will never receive?”
There was a bark of harsh laughter coming from the view screen as the face of Travesta showed up. As usual, her hair was in dread locks, the black color of it looking darker and more coarse be cause of it. Her brown eyes were so dark that they could almost be considered black spoke of an intelligence that she never got credit for be cause she made such stupid mistakes. One of her biggest mistakes being that she thought that she could actually take over this ship and take Alestra.
“As usual, Cullum, you are cockier than you should be. I will get Alestra, and I will get more than that. I will, while I am at it, kill the very spirit which makes you carry on.”
Cullum rolled his eyes at her dramatics. She always hinted at knowing some thing about Cullum that he did not know, but she had never revealed what it was, and he doubted that she ever would. She was a coward, through and through, and he knew that she knew nothing about him, at least nothing that would have any sort of effect on him.
“I would not be so quick to discount my words, Cullum. You have never believed a word I have said, and while I do not blame you, be cause I have lied many times, but this time, it is not a lie.”
She paused for a dramatic effect. Cullum was about to end the connection, when she started to speak. “Ten years ago, there was a massacre that you came home to. You found the bodies of your brother, your mother, and your father. You never found your sister. You have always be-lieved that she was alive, am I right?”
Cullum sat down in his chair, facing the view screen. What she was saying was common knowledge, known to most any one who had the ability to do any sort of search on him. The enemies of the Spirit Council also knew the story and usually attempted to use it in a way to harm him, or make him careless in what he was doing. He figured that was what Travesta was attempting to do now.
“Every one knows that, Travesta. You are not speaking of any thing that is new.”
“I do know and realize that, Cullum. I also know that your sister is actually alive. For the trade of Alestra Silver-gust, I will give you all the information I have on her. It will make your betrayal to the Spirit Council quite worth it, I would say.”
Cullum snorted. It was not the first time that some one had said this to attempt to get him to betray the Spirit Council and to hand over some one whom he had been charged with protecting.
“That is a very nice story there, Travesta, but not a thing will make me hand over Alestra. Considering how much even you have said your word is worth, why should I even begin to attempt to believe you?”
“I thought that you would say that, which is why I will share this free bit of information with you. She is no longer known as Trelani Katara. She now goes by the name of Iriknia Sarcovis.” She laughed evilly as she watched Cullum’s eyes widen. Every one knew who the Sarcovis’ were. They were one of the most prominent families in the Spirit Council. Their daughter, Iriknia, while the same age as Trelani would be, looked not a thing like how she would most likely have looked.
“You are full of shit, and you know it, Travesta.”
“You would like to think that I am, but you know that you have a few doubts. Where did she come from? She all of a sudden showed up as a daughter ten years ago. She had never been heard of prior to that. She is not their daughter.”
“Okay, let me just humor you for a moment. Why would she be with them, if it was really her? If she was really my sister, why would she not contact me?”
“From my understandings, she has no memories of her life prior to becoming their daughter. Any so called memo-ries that she has are what she has been trained to say. That is exactly how it sounds, as well. She sounds like a trained puppet, one who’s strings have been cut. She walks and talks on her own but it does not look like it of her own volition.”
Cullum nearly cut the connection right then, but did not when she spoke again. “She also does not look like she should have be cause she was injured in the attack that killed your family. From what I have been told, she has nightmares of that night, and has been told that it was some thing that she had dreamt up. She has no idea that she has had reconstructive surgery to fix her scars. She has absolutely no idea who she really is.”
Cullum looked at Travesta through the view screen. “Why are you telling me this? Why would you even care?”
She sighed, curling her long legs under her self in the seat she was sitting in. “I did not purposely betray you, Cullum. I want you to know that, even though I know you will never believe it. It was not a personal thing against you, or towards you. I never wanted to do what I did, but I was forced to, just as I am forced to tell you that I will take Alestra. It is more than just my life at stake here.”
Cullum sighed, knowing what he had to do, and not wanting to do it. “You are going to have to take her by force, and you know it, Travesta. There are more than just jobs on the line here as well. Alestra has a family that is in danger. If some thing should happen to her, her family will die. I do not know the whole story, but I do know that I will die to protect her.”
Travesta smiled sadly, hearing love in his voice for Ale-stra. “I wish you luck then, Cullum. Some one in this whole mess deserves a bit of happiness.”
The screen went black, and Cullum looked down at the radar and weapons detector on the console. He noticed that Travesta’s ship was leaving the radar, and with wea-pons off. He did not completely under stand what was going on, but he was assuming that he was getting a re-prieve for now. He was not sure why Travesta had left but instead of worrying on it, he called back in his crew, gave them their assignments to make the necessary repairs and to get them out of the area as soon as possible, and then left the cock pit area.

He was wandering the hall ways when Alestra bumped in to him. She took one look at his face and pulled him to a stop. He looked as if some one had shot his dog or some thing dramatic to that effect.
“Cullum, what is wrong? What has happened? Are you okay?”
Cullum just shook his head. He was not ready to talk about what he had just found out. He was not sure that he could believe what he had found out from Travesta. He was not sure he could even begin to think about if she was telling him the honest to the gods truth.
He had been looking for his sister for ten years. He had never believed that she was dead. If he started to believe that, then he knew that he would really have no true reason to continue to live on as he was. He knew that he would just give up completely. He had his friends, yes, but they amounted to nothing if he did not have his family.
He and his sister had always been like almost best friends. She had been, no, she was, be cause he refused to think of her in the past and gone, she was the sweetest person one could ever hope to meet. She was tall and slender, nearly as tall as Alestra, but slimmer. She had, last he saw of her, blonde hair. The woman that Travesta claimed was her had brown hair, dark mahogany brown hair. The eyes were a dead on match, though, from the glimpses of her that he had had. They both had the crystal clear lavender blue eyes. With such an unusual color, there was a chance that the woman could be his sister. He was not sure that he could make that a hope, though. He had finally accepted that there was a large chance that he was never going to see his sister again, and while he was not wanting to completely give up hope, he refused to believe that this woman was his sister, just lacking in the memory of him.
Alestra leaned against the wall next to him and sighed. She had no idea what was going on, and she was not sure how to make him talk about it. She frowned, confused on how he could one moment be able to talk to her about any thing and the next not want to say a thing to her.
She did not how to make him talk, and she did not want to force him to do so. She wanted him to talk of his own volition, not be cause he was forced to do so.
She reached out, and grabbed a hold of his hand. If he did not want to talk, she was willing to accept that, but she still wanted to be there for him, in case he needed her. She smiled softly when he lifted their joined hands to his lips before he brought their hands back down. The smile stayed when he did not release her hand. The smile quickly turned to a frown, though, when he began to talk.
“There is a rumor from the one who attacked us. There is a rumor that my sister is actually still among the living and some one that I have seen her in person.”
Alestra frowned harder, unsure of what she should or could say. “Who is she saying your sister actually is, if she is not your sister?”
“Travesta, who is notorious for being a liar and so full of it, is claiming that Iriknia Sarcovis is my sister. She is claiming that she has no memory of her prior life.”
Alestra gasped. She personally knew Iriknia Sarcovis, be cause her father and Alestra’s step father were business partners. She and Iriknia were not the best of friends, but she did know that Iriknia definitely suffered from a problem with memory loss.
“I know Iriknia. The fact is that she does have memory loss. She only remembers the past ten years, and not a thing before that. She is the sweetest girl you could meet as well. She is very meek and mild. She reminds me of a pup-pet, though. She never says any thing with out permission from her father. At least he claims to be her father. She acts more scared of him than any thing. He moves his hand, and she flinches. She reminds me of some one who has spent their life being abused. She refuses to talk about it though. She claims that it is nothing and has to do with her accident more than any thing else.”
Cullum came off the wall and stood in front of Alestra. She would have backed up if she had been able to do so. Instead, she looked warily up at Cullum. His eyes are flash-ing at her, in anger, and in confusion. She could tell that even if Iriknia was not his sister, he did not like the idea of a woman, or any person, being abused and scared. That idea warmed her heart but it also scared her a little be cause if Iriknia was really his sister, heaven help Exavier Sarcovis, be cause he was not going to survive the confron-tation between him and Cullum, no matter how many guards and protectors he had around him.
“Do you know any thing about her past? Is it possible that she really is my sister?”
“I do not know, Cullum. Trust me, I would tell you any thing that I could if I thought it was possible, but I am un-sure on if she could be. That family has all of their bases covered on that aspect. They have definitely crossed all their t’s and dotted all their i’s. If it is true that she is your sister, then they have gone to great lengths to cover that up.”
Cullum leaned back against the wall and sighed. He hated thinking that there was a chance that his sister was alive, and he had not known about it. He hated the fact that he could not just rush in and take her back, and bring her back to him, whole and healthy. He hated the fact that he had not been there to protect her.
More than the fact that there was a chance that she was his sister, he hated the fact that there was a woman being hurt and he could do not a thing to prevent her from being hurt again. He hated that he might have to make the choice between his sister and Alestra. Right now, life just absolutely sucked, and he had no idea how to fix it. He wished, and not for the first time in his life, that life came with an easy button, one that he could hit and life would be easy, if only for a little while.
Alestra sighed and leaned back, unsure of what she should say. She knew, deep in her heart, that there was not a thing that she could say or do that would make things any better for Cullum. She knew that there was not a thing that she could do to improve the out look. All she knew was that she needed to stay by his side, so that he knew that he had some one who was there for him, just for him. She squeezed his hand, gently, letting him know, with out a word, that she was there, and that she would stay there as long as he needed her.
Cullum pounded the back of his fist, the one not hold-ing Alestra’s hand, against the wall, Alestra feeling the vibration of the hitting. He sighed, deeply, and slid down the wall, landing in a heap on his rear end. Alestra was close to being forced to follow him down, or else risk her arm being pulled nearly out of socket if she did not do so.
Alestra rested her head on Cullum’s shoulder, and rested her free hand on his thigh by wrapping it almost around her self. She quickly kissed his cheek, and just sat there, just being with him, offering quiet support, in case he had more he wanted to say.
Cullum opened his mouth, unsure of what he was going to say, but before he could attempt to even say a word, his communicator beeped, loudly. He chuckled lightly when Alestra jumped at the sound, glad that he could find some thing humorous, even if it was just the fact that she was startled by the sound of a communicator. Reaching in to his pocket, he pulled it out.
Opening it, he spoke in to it. “Yeah, this is Katara. What do you need?”
Cullum heard a deep sigh, almost a relieved sounding one, coming from the other end. “Cullum, it is Temper.”
Cullum sat up straight, nearly causing Alestra to hit her head in to the wall as he did so.
“Is there any thing wrong? Is Lasiandra okay?” It was clear that he cared about Lasiandra, even though it was only on a friend ship basis.
Cullum was relieved to hear a soft chuckle in the back ground of where ever Temper was. Cullum assumed it would be in the medical bay, but he could not be sure.
“Yeah, Cullum, every thing is great. Lasiandra is abso-lutely perfectly healthy, and the baby.” Cullum heard Tem-per give an almost giddy sigh. “The baby is doing just fine. Well, I guess I should say babies.”
Cullum nearly dropped the phone. He had to keep himself from jumping up from his sitting position, afraid he might hurt Alestra if he did so.
“Did you just say twins? Seriously? Twins? Oh wow.”
Alestra looked at Cullum. She could hear Temper’s voice through the communicator, but could not make out the words, until Cullum exclaimed the word “twins”. Her mouth was in a perfect “o” shape, as she stared. Cullum released her hand and held up one finger, signaling for her to not say a word at that moment.
“Oh, shit, there’s some one with you, is there not?” Temper asked, immediately a frown coming to his voice.
Cullum nodded, though Temper would not be able to see it. “Yes, Alestra is with me.”
“Oh, fuck me side ways and leave me for dead, please.”
Cullum laughed at Temper’s words. He always had a way of putting words together, but he had yet to hear him say some thing to that effect before this moment. “Nice way to string some words together there, Temp. I just might have to steal that phrase one of these days.”
“Oh, go please fuck off. Please do not tell Alestra. Please, man, for the love of the gods, do not. I was planning on telling her, but the attack happened the first time, and I never got a chance.”
Cullum shook his head. “Sorry, man, but I think she might have already figured it out, and basing it on the glare that I am getting, if I attempt to not tell her, I might not live to see another day. Yeah, sorry mate, you are on your own in this situation. I am going to have to tell her. I will let you explain to her why you wanted me not to, though. You can have fun with that.”
“Oh for the love of the gods, man. You must really hate me!”
“Nah, I do not hate you. I love you like a brother, and you know that. That is why I will not let you force me to lie to her. You should have told her a long time ago.”
“Yeah, I know, and I regret not doing so, but how the hell do you tell a person who is like your sister that you got some one knocked up?” Temper let out a yelp, and then said “Ouch, Lasiandra. That hurt. What the hell did you do that for?”
Cullum laughed heartily when he heard Temper’s words. He assumed, and most likely correctly, that Tem-per’s choice of words did not meet Lasiandra’s approval. It also made him smile a little to know that Temper and La-siandra were at least together. It made it easier to work out your problems when you were actually in the same room together.
“Well, Temper, since you were able to tell me the good news about Lasiandra, and your impending arrival of your bundles of joy, I need to let you go. I have a gorgeous fe-male looking at me like she is going to eat me alive with questions if I do not hang up now. Find me when you get a chance, as I do have some things I need to talk with you about.”
Cullum closed the communicator, blocking out what ever Temper had been about to say, and turned his body to face Alestra. Her eyes were definitely flashing at him, both with questions and with annoyance at being told to wait. He was pretty sure that it was rare that she was told to be quiet, and that she definitely did not like to be told some thing or any thing like that. He did not really blame her, though. He was not a fan of being told to shut up either, but this time, it could not be helped. He had no choice be cause he needed to hear what Temper had been telling him.
“Okay, Princess,” and this time, using the nick name not as an insult, but as an endearment, “feel free to pepper me with your questions. As I told Temper, I am not going to lie to you. I do not agree with that, and I had told him to tell you several times already.”
Alestra took a deep breath, knowing her lungs were going to need all the air they could get, and began her questioning.
“Okay, first question: is Temper pregnant?”
Cullum laughed. “No, Temper is not pregnant, but La-siandra is.” He saw the question that came in her eyes, and before she could ask it, he responded with, “Yes, it is Tem-per’s. Actually, they both are Temper’s.”
Alestra’s mouth nearly fell open before she regained control of her self and kept it closed, for the most part.
“Oh wow, Temper is going to be a dad. That is, wow, I can not think of any thing to say to that. Okay, does Trellyn know?”
Cullum shook his head. “As far as I know, he has not told either of you. I think you would only know be cause you happened to be sitting here with me.”
Alestra started to grumble, bringing forth a laugh from Cullum. “That is my little hell cat,” he told her with a wicked chuckle.
She reached out and punched him in the shoulder. He reached up to rub the spot, pretending to be wounded by her “attack”. She rolled her eyes at him, and then glared.
He held up his hands in mock defeat. “What did I sup-posedly do to piss you off now,” he asked her.
“Not you, dim wit,” she told him. “How could Temper not tell me? Why would he not want to? Why would he not want to tell his sister? She is his blood, for the sake of the gods. Does he not care that she would want to know? What the hell was he thinking? Wait a minute here, we are talking abut Temper. He was not thinking at all. He never thinks. He never has, and I do not think he ever will.”
She punched Cullum again, and this time, his slight yelp of pain was real.
“What the hell was that for?” He growled the question, seriously annoyed be cause he had done nothing, in his own mind, to deserve to get smacked this time.
“You knew, and you did not tell either of us. How long have you known about the baby, or babies as the case is now?”
Cullum glared. “I did not have the right to tell you. Plus, I had only just found out after you had arrived on the ship. I walked in to the middle of a screaming match between my defense commander and my navigation specialist. Trust me, that is the last thing I wanted to have found out.”
Cullum shook his head. “Okay, that is not completely true but I did not want to find it out that way. I also told him, over and over, that he needed to tell you and or Trel-lyn. He swore he was going to, but he never did. He did tell me, though, that he was in your room, before the first at-tack, and that was why he was there.”
Alestra remembered wondering why Temper was there. She also remembered the first attack. She remembered watching all of them at work. She also recalled who Lasian-dra was. She was the gorgeous Elven Human, whom she had admired for her quick and well organized work at get-ting them, the ship, and every thing out safely.
“Wait a minute, Lasiandra is pregnant and she is still working on the ship?”
Cullum chuckled. “If the console she was working near had not exploded, I can almost guarantee you that she would still be up there, working and working. She does not stop, period. I can tell you that she is most likely fighting Temper on staying in bed, or in her room, or what ever the doctor told her to do.”
Alestra snorted. She had seen the woman work, so she knew that Cullum was most likely speaking the truth. She also knew Temper. He would be fighting just as hard to keep her safe, and to do what ever she was supposed to do, to keep the child, or children as they had all just found out, safe, and secure, and where they were supposed to be. She knew Temper would do every thing in his power to keep his children safe, no matter what he had to do, or who he had to bribe for it to happen. He would lie and cheat, steal and kill, if it meant that he was keeping those who cared for safe and secure. That was one of the things that she loved about him, even if she did not agree with all the things that he did to do the protecting. She loved him, even if she did not always like being on the receiving end of that protection.
She shook her head. “So if Trellyn does not know yet, when is he going to tell her?”
Cullum threw up his hands and shrugged. He had abso-lutely no idea when or if Temper planned on telling Trellyn about Lasiandra and the babies. He personally thought he should have told her as soon as he found out, which he had told him.
“I have no frigging clue. I told him to tell her as soon as he had found out about the baby, well babies now, but he was all against that idea for some reason. I have no idea why, though.”
Alestra rolled her eyes. “Most likely, knowing him, it was because he thought he was protecting her, us, every one. He is big on that. Seems to think that us females are defenseless and stupid and need protecting from the big bad world and the big bad people in it,” she told him, derision in her voice. It was quite clear on what she thought of Temper’s idea of protecting her, and Trellyn, even if he thought it was for the best. “At least he was planning on telling me. It does feel good to know that, but good lords, how long has he known, do you know?”
Cullum shrugged. “I have no idea. Like I said, I have on-ly known for a few days, my self. I have no idea how long he has known though. I do not think he has known for too long be cause I do not think she is very far along. Then again, Elven Humans do not have long pregnancies, if I recall correctly.”
Alestra nodded. It was true that Elven Humans had shorter gestations than regular humans. In that same thought, Vampiric Humans had longer gestations, and the mothers usually had more complications than the regular humans. Elven Humans had more severe first trimester symptoms than the regular humans. They tended to end up in the hospital with dehydration be cause of vomitting, just like Vampiric Humans tend to end up hospitalized be cause they are in need of blood transfusions and dealing with pregnancy induced high blood pressure.
Cullum looked at Alestra, thinking along the same lines as she was. He wondered, if be cause of his mixed genetics, if she would experience the severe symptoms or if it would actually help her that way. He also wondered how Lasian-dra was going to handle carrying twins, with her Elven Human genetics, and how her children would be with the mixture of Elven Human dna and Faery dna. As far as he knew, there had never been a mix of the two, in to one humanoid.
Alestra smiled at Cullum, though she was still a bit wor-ried about Temper, and was worrying over Trellyn’s reac-tion to finding out that her brother would be be coming a father soon. She wondered how Trellyn would react to the idea that she was soon going to be be coming an aunt. She did not think that Trellyn was going to handle the shock very well. She was going to be happy that there were going to be more babies, as their sister had recently had twins, but she was not going to handle the shock that her brother was going to be a father, especially with an Elven Human. Trellyn was not the type to be prejudice, but she definitely had idea on who his brother was meant to be with. Trellyn had been trying for years to set up her and Temper, which Alestra laughed at. She did not think that Trellyn would be laughing at this very much.
“I can not help but wonder how Trellyn is going to react to this,” Cullum mused out loud.
Alestra laughed lightly. When Cullum looked at her with a very confused look on her face, she laughed again.
“What is so funny,” he asked her, getting a little an-noyed with her.
“I was just thinking about Trellyn’s reaction to all this. I do not think this is going to go over well. I am sure she thinks Lasiandra is a lovely woman, but I can guarantee you that she will not be happy with finding out that Temper got her pregnant. She has not at thing against the Elven Humans, but I am pretty sure that she would not be thrilled. I think her reaction would be similar if you found out a sibling got a Vampiric Human pregnant.”
As she said the last bit of her sentence, she gasped, rea-lizing what she had said. Immediately, Cullum’s face lost all sense of humor, and closed up. She knew she had screwed up. She hated her self for bringing up his sister. She knew how worried he was about her. She reached out, and placed her hand on his thigh, squeezing gently. When it looked like he might be considering the thought of shoving away her hand, she removed it, and placed it back at her side.
“Cullum, I am sorry. I should not have said that. I did not mean it the way it came out.”
Cullum shook his head. “I know you did not. That is not what bothered me. It was the fact of how right you were. I would not like finding out that my sister was having a Vam-piric Human’s child, yet, while I was thinking of how La-siandra was going to handle being pregnant, I also thought of how you would handle it. That really weirded me out be cause I have never thought of children, or having them. I always just thought that I would be “Uncle Cullum” to Temper’s kids, but never “Daddy” to any, and I actually thought of it with you. Then you reminded me, no matter how accidentally, of how I felt about Vampiric Humans, and it made me think of that as well. I treated you like absolute crap, yet here you are, talking to me, and not acting like I am a total ass hole. I do not deserve it, and I do not think I deserve the idea of having a child with you.”
Alestra looked at him, with tears in her eyes. She had no idea that he had thought of that, while thinking of her. She would actually love to have his child; she knew that. She smiled brightly. “No, I would not say that you do not deserve children. I would never even consider thinking or saying that.”
She knew that, no matter what happened between them, a child would never be a mistake.
Cullum saw the smile and wondered what it meant. He reached over, and wiped away the tears. He wondered at those, but did not ask. He did not want to take a chance that they might have meant that the idea of having a child with him was abhorent. He knew that women had little qualm about sleeping with some one that they found attractive, but having a child with some one was a life long commitment. He was not sure how he felt with the idea of a commitment with Alestra, but he was willing to risk it. He was not sure how she would take it though. He was being incredibly chicken about the situation but he was not going to be the one to bring it up. He refused to even consider the idea.
Cullum stood up easily and offered his hand to Alestra, to help her up. She accepted it, and he easily pulled her to her feet. He wrapped an arm around her waist, and they headed towards her room. When they got to her door, he smiled at her and kissed her lips.
Alestra started to wrap her arms around his neck, and he shook his head. “I still have to go back to the cock pit and double check on every thing. I do not want to risk what happened happening again.”
Alestra shook her head. “No, you told me your self that you need to let your team learn to do things for them selves. You told me that you can trust them to handle things. Now is the time to let them. You got some pretty strange news, and you need to process it.”
Cullum shook his head. “Working will help me process it,” he told her shortly.
Alestra snorted. “That is what you tell your self, but ho-nestly, you need to take a break. If you want to talk to me, that would be fine. If you would rather talk to Temper, I would not be hurt. If you wanted to just sit here, and stare in to space, I would not care. One thing is for sure though, I am not going to let you go up there, so that you can brood.”
Cullum growled at Alestra. He was not used to people telling him what he could and could not do. He did not like it. “Excuse me, but the last time I checked, you had no con-trol over me.”
Alestra snorted again, this time in laughter. “My, oh my, Cullum. Did you know that you start to sound like a child when you are told not to do some thing? My neice, who is a little over four, has told me the same thing, except she at least has this adorable nasal quality to her voice that at least makes it charming.”
Cullum gripped her shoulders and pushed her against the wall, shoving his face into hers, their noses touching. Instead of looking frightened like Cullum had expected, she looked at him with an almost mocking smile on her face. It was more than obvious that she was not scared of him, not even in the slightest way. She also had easily learned which buttons of his to push, and that bothered him. It bothered him more than it should. He dropped his hands from her shoulders and started to walk away. Alestra was having none of it, and grabbed a hold of one of his arms. He roughly tore his arm from her grip and started down the hall way. Alestra pushed her self off of the wall, and went after him. She might not be in the mood for a fight, but Cullum seemed to be pissy about some thing. It was more than just the fact that she had told him no. She did not believe that was the reason for the on set of this anger. Some thing was truly bothering him, and she was not going to leave him alone until he told her what it was.
When he noticed that she was following him, Cullum spun around and glared at her. “Woman, what the hell is your problem? Are you a glutton for punishment or some thing? Do you have a death wish?”
Alestra placed her fists on her hips, and stared him down, refusing to back down. “Some thing majorly has your hackles raised. You remind me of a spitting cat that has a thorn or some thing stuck in its paw. What is wrong with you? I think, no, I know that you need to talk. I refuse to leave you alone until you do.”
“You know that I need to talk? What kind off bull shit is that? You have known me a whopping three days. You know not a thing. You only know what you think you want to know. Do you not get the picture? You were an easy lay, but I had it and now I am done.”
Alestra’s jaw dropped. She refused to believe that he meant what he said. He refused to meet her eyes as he said it, but the way he had said sounded like there was at least a grain of truth in it. Alestra looked at him, her eyes starting to water. A single tear drop slid down her cheek. Cullum watched it fall, his heart breaking. He could not believe what he had said. He had not meant it, but he could not make him self say that. He just stared as Alestra spun around and headed back towards her room. He started to follow, but stopped. There were some things that he could not fix, especially when he said some thing like he had just said. There was not a thing he could do to make the situa-tion any better. He hated that he had hurt her, but in all honesty, if he had not said that, he was going to end up saying som thing a lot worse, some thing that he would truly regret. He was scared to death that he was going to tell her how he truly felt. He was afraid that he was going to tell her how much he loved her. His life was not a safe life. She had lived a very sheltered life, if one ignored what happened to her father. Even if one took in to account what she had witnessed with her father, she still had not seen much. She had no real idea on how the world really worked. She had always been safe and sheltered in her own little world. The real world, the world he lived, was dark and dangerous. Enemies of his would have no qualms about using her against him. They could do all sorts of things to her that would cost her more than just her life. He would not be able to live with him self if some thing happened to her.
Cullum went to his room on the ship. He walked over to the picture of his family, the last one that had been taken before they had been killed. He found the face of his sister and studied it carefully. She always had a smile on her face, some thing that always had amazed Cullum. She, like him, was a Magickal. Their brother, Carter, had not lived long enough to find out if he had been one as well. Cullum sighed sadly as he traced his sister’s face. He walked over to his desk, and turned on his laptop. Quickly logging in, he looked up the Sarcovis family, especially their daughter. He found only a single picture of her smiling. She was with a group of children. His sister had always loved children. If their family had not been killed, he expected that she would be surrounded by a whole brood of children, all of them her own. He sighed, and the sigh nearly choked him. He noticed something on *name’s* face. There was a very tiny scar that was right next to her ear. He recognized that scar. That was the same scar his sister had. He remembered how that scar happened.
They had been playing out side when a storm had hit. They were too far from the house, which they knew they would get in to trouble for. They had hid in the tree house that their father had built them. A branch, from the tree next to the tree their house was built in to, had snapped, and come crashing through the roof. Cullum had jumped on top of *name* and covered her body with his own. It had stabbed through the meaty part of his bicep, and sliced across her cheek, right next to her ear. Cullum had nearly bled to death, waiting and hoping that some one would find them. During his stay in the hospital, *name* had never left his side. She read him stories. She had played games with them. He had taught her triple chess, which was chess played across three boards. She had picked the game up quickly and easily. By the end of his stay in the hospital, she was actually trouncing him at the game. She picked it up so fast that she had actually joined a club for kids her age at school, some thing that made their family extremely proud. He knew, that if they had all not been killed, that she would have been more than just a little ship runner like he was. She would be a commander or some thing like that, and one who never had to see combat. She had been so smart. If *NaMe* was really his sister, her talents were being wasted, and either these people knew it and refused to let her use her gifts to keep her in line, or they did not, and they were losing out, then. He prayed, though, that it was the latter, be cause he did not want to think of his sister’s gifts being used against her. She had not asked for them, and had actualy almost never really used them, be cause she had been scared of being mocked for being so smart. She had told him time and time again about the boys, and the girls, constantly teasing her be cause the teachers always asked her to answer the questions. Her ability to learn things so quickly had come to her benefit when they had started Magickal training. She was able to learn control of her powers so easily, and was able to move forward faster than most. She might have been younger than he was, but she had been in the same level as he. If she had been able to continue her training, he knew that she would have eventually surpassed him. She had already been close to doing so at the time of the murders.
Cullum shook his head. He still had no idea why Traves-ta had even told him about his sister. If she wanted to do it in exchange for Alestra, why did she give him so much in-formation. If it was true, he would not need to trade Ale-stra, be cause he could easily just go ahead and get his sister back. It was not like Travesta had any contact with the family. That much he knew, with out a doubt. Travesta might like to think she had some sort of control over things and that she knew more people than she did, but it was not true. She had delusions of grandeur, some thing every one knew about her.
With Travesta, there had to be more to the story than what she was telling him. There had to be some thing else there. There had to be more, but what else could there be. He recalled what Alestra had told him. According to Alestra, it looked like his sister might be abused by her new family. That worried him be cause that could mean that they really knew who she was.
Thinking of Alestra made him lose his train of thought about his sister. He hated that he hurt her the way he had, but as he had thought before, this was not some thing that he had much choice in. He had never wanted to her but he could not allow her to stay in his world. He could not risk her getting more hurt than she already was. It was better that they eneded things now, before things got too out of control and they were unable to end things. He hoped that he had not hurt her too much, though.
Shaking his head, he focused back on the laptop. He had a few things he needed to take care of while he was here, any way. Logging in to the ship’s back end logistical stuff, he did some checking on the radar and things, double checking what he had been told had happened and seeing if it could be confirmed by the data that the ship reported. He frowned when it all came back exactly as he had been told. He wondered why he had the feeling that he was being betrayed then. Not a thing had failed, exactly as he had been told. Not a thing was out of place. Every thing was eactly how it had been said it was. To him, that was more confusing than if he had been lied to. In all his years of doing this business, not a thing had ever been this exact and precise. Some thing else was up. Some thing just was not right. There was no way in hell that these readings were accurate. There was no way that they were correct.
Cullum dug a little deeper, and double checked a few extra things. The reported readings did not match up with the times. That was exactly what he had been thinking. Some one had messed with the data, even going so far as to edit them and make it look like every thing had been done the way it should have been.
He double checked the log ins. One of them was out of place, but he knew, deep in his gut, that they were plants. The reason he knew was because they were saying that it was Temper and Lasiandra who had done the tampering. Lasiandra, even if she had wanted the ship to be found and wanted to sabotage it, would not risk the life of her child, no matter how unplanned the pregnancy might be. He also knew Temper like he knew him self. Even if Lasiandra had not been pregnant, Alestra was like a sister to him, and for the love of the gods, his own sister, his fucking twin, was on the ship. There was no way in hell he would put either one of them at risk. There was no payment in all of the worlds that would be enough to compensate for the betrayal of family. He also know that Temper had a fear about doing some thing that was illegal. He had been accused of some thing that he had not done, before Cullum and he had met, and it left permanent mental scars on Temper. He was absolutely paranoid at getting caught doing some thing that he was not supposed to do. That irrational fear, while maybe not so irrational, is most likely why he had been leery, and nearly refused, to tell Alestra about Lasiandra’s pregnancy, and why he had almost begged Cullum to continue to lie about it. It was probably why Temper still, even now, did not want to tell his sister.
Cullum shook his head. No, there was absolutely no way it was Temper or Lasiandra that had done it. That left three other people, who had been logged in, and who had been scheduled to work. That left four other people who had been in the cock pit at the time of the attack. There was also at least thirty people who had access to the logs, and could have logged in from any where on the ship and doctored them. Any one on the ship, literally, could have done it. The number could only been shortened by a few, if he did not include Alestra and Trellyn in those numbers. Alestra had no access to the ships logs, and he doubted that she would risk her own life, or the life of Trellyn and Temper. He knew how scared she had been when she had found out the truth about what had happened to her father. He knew she was not going to be doing that to some one else. Trellyn, while she did have access, since she did free lance work for him at times, would not do it for the same reasons that Temper and Alestra would not be the ones who did it. He also knew, from Alestra, that Trellyn had been in the gym when the attack happened.
Speaking of the gym and Trellyn, it reminded him that they had not heard from Trellyn since before the attack. While Alestra had seen her, he doubted that Trellyn had seen Alestra. He contiplated calling Trellyn by communica-tor, but decided, just in case her lip lock with the man in the gym turned out to be more, he did not want to inter-rupt her. Instead, he looked it up, did a trace on her. It came back that she was in her room, and as expected, was not alone. Cullum frowned when he read whom she was with. Yovia Blackstone was not the man he would have expected Trellyn to end up being with in her room.

Tags: story planning, story posting, writing

Categories: NaNo 2009, Updates

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