A shrill beep sounded, and I stood, balling my hands in my hoodie pockets. In walked an alien who was taller than me or Kal, with swampy green skin the same texture as leather, yellow eyes, and a jutting jaw. They wore a tight brown vest, allowing me to see the black tattoos swirling up their bulging arms. They were muscular to the extreme; Urgg would put the buffest bodybuilder to shame.
“You’re Prince Kalvoxrencol’s mate?” Urgg asked, their voice smooth, yet halting.
“That’s me. You’re Urgg?” I asked.
Lucy took one look at our guest, hissed, and ran off, darting into my bedroom.
“That’s an interesting creature. Friendly like,” they commented, sitting on the couch.
“It’s my cat, Lucy. Kal let me bring her when he abducted me.”
Urgg guffawed, smacking their wide thigh. “It's an unfortunate word choice, but I don’t think you can call it anything else.”
“Not really.” Pressure tightened my chest and sweat made my palms slick. I peeked at the open doorway of my bedroom. Safety sat right out of reach, though Urgg didn’t seem to be a bad sort of person. I took a deep breath and tried to be honest. Urgg was here to help. “It’s all been a lot.”
“I can imagine.” Urgg’s stubby fingers scratched their arm with blunt nails, catching on the leather and beaded armband they wore. “Iwasproperly courted, but I’m not from an unsanctioned planet.”
“And he couldn’t reveal himself to me?” I asked, my voice deepening. “He had to kidnap me?”
With a pat on my arm that sent me rocking, they said, “Prince Kalvoxrencol couldn’t do anything else. The Coalition doesn’t allow fraternization with underdeveloped planets. The most youcan do is take samples. Some humans have been taken for examination, but their memories are always wiped when they’re returned.”
“So you abduct people?” Maybe all those crackpots weren’t actually crackpots? What a terrifying thought.
“Not me personally or my species, but others, yes. Actually, funny tale. There’s this planet, Vveek, whose goddess resembles a tarantula. They traveled for years to your planet on a sacred pilgrimage in search of these mythical creatures. When they found Earth, they took a number of tarantulas as well as other spiders to populate their planet. In fact, there’s an illegal trade on spiders from your planet that the Vveki have been trying to end because they view all spiders as children of their goddess.”
I was still reeling from the fact aliens abducted people for samples to worry about spiders in space, though that wasn't great either. “So,” I started, “he couldn’t talk to me or see if I even wanted to go with him because of this coalition?”
“The Drakcol Empire is a part of the Coalition of Planets, and they won’t go against the regulations. Even if they weren’t, we don’t socialize with unsanctioned planets.”
“Why? With all this technology, you could solve so many problems. Or do you not want to change our evolutionary path?”
“No one cares about that. Like at all,” Urgg said, grunting in what sounded like amusement. “And yes, we could solve some problems, but in the past when people have contacted unsanctioned planets, it hasn’t ended well. You usually want weapons and won’t share resources. One time, a people destroyed the entire planet trying to kill an enemy country. Most of the time, it’s a pain in the ass for little reward.”
Urgg made it sound like humans were irrational animals, though I doubted they meant it that way. “So he had to take me?” I persisted.
“He did,” Urgg said, giving me another bruising pat. “Once the Crystal reveals their soulmate, the drakcol has to complete the journey. They meet, court their intended for as long as it takes, bind together, and return home to reaffirm the bond or break it apart.
“There are other things, like you two can’t talk or see each other once you’ve decided to be bound and between the actual binding, a weird leftover tradition. Also, you can’t be too far from each other. I think it’s to keep the intended from fleeing, personally. Apparently, the link used to be no more than an…” I didn’t understand the measurement they specified, but NAID supplied three yards and two inches in my mind. “That changed, thank the gorgg.”
God, rock, and, oddly enough, goat rushed through my thoughts.
“After the bond is reaffirmed, you still can’t be too far away from each other because of the genetic link. Crystal-bound drakcol mates can also mind-speak.”
“NAID mentioned that, but she wasn’t exactly clear on how it works.”
“I’m not sure either. The mind-to-mind thing doesn’t work for me and Talvax. Most other species can’t because of brain chemistry or something.”
“Ah.”
“All in all, that’s it,” Urgg finished.
“It’s a lot.”
“When Talvax showed up to court me, I was flummoxed. Why would she want me?” they asked, gesturing to themselves. “It was odd, overwhelming, and scary. She kept going on and on about this crystal and being soulmates. Honestly, I thought she was a nutter and tried to avoid her like she had a transmittable disease. But we had weeks of courting before we actually decided to be together.”
“But you love her?” I asked, then gaped at my bluntness.
Urgg grinned, exposing their thick teeth and two small tusks that curled over their top lip. They smacked my arm, and I grimaced.
