tushberry juice. I just told you—”
“Calm down, princess.” I tap my head. “I have the codes in here. It’s CTFz89345. That’s a lowercase z, by the way. I’ll write it down for you, if you want. It’s a standard drink because it’s in a shit-ton of bar recipes. It’s just not usually on the menu.”
“How do you know that?”
“Ah… well.” I smile at her. “That is a very long story.” The autocook dings and her eyes track over to the machine with a look of lust. I grab the drink and place it on the bar in front of me. Then back away. Because I get the feeling she doesn’t trust me. “Go ahead. Drink it. I’ll stay out of your way.”
I can tell she wants to resist. She doesn’t want to approach the bar.
But the drink is a powerful draw. I’m sure she smells it. I sure can.
I’ve seen my share of Cygnian princesses badly in need of a recharge. Serpint and Draden always took care of the girls they brought in. None of them were starved when they arrived. But Serpint and Draden weren’t the only princess hunters in the galaxy. So I know what a light-starved girl looks like. Hell, Lyra came in to Harem in similar shape, but she was doing it on purpose. She wasn’t starving and while she did look pretty bad, she never looked… this bad.
The girl holds out for a few more seconds. But I watch her willpower disintegrate in real time and she walks briskly over to the bar—staying on the other side from me—and then picks up the drink and downs it in one gulp. The same way I did my whiskey just a few moments ago. “More,” she says. Out of breath and panting.
I make another one and hand it to her.
She downs that one too. “More, please.”
I keep making them. One after the other. She drinks every single one. And then, after several minutes of this, she finally begins to glow.
And change.
Right before my eyes she turns into a completely different girl. Her hair goes silver and begins to sparkle. Her skin changes from gray to white with a little bit of tushberry flush in her cheeks. Her body actually fills out. And even though I’ve seen hundreds of Cygnian princesses in all manners and states of health and sickness. I’ve never seen this. Ever.
For a moment, I hope... I hope that she will become my princess. She will become Corla.
But even though she’s silver, she’s not Corla.
She looks at me. And she is beautiful. Bright now. Glowing the way she should be. But suddenly sparkling silver tears run down her cheeks.
“What are you doing? Why are you crying?”
She puts a hand in front of her face and begins to shake her head. “I thought…” She has to stop and take a breath. And even though she is very clearly a true silver princess, and that means she has a power inside her that is pure destruction, she still looks weak and small. “I thought I was going to die. I really did. You just saved my life.”
She and I just look at each other. It’s a long moment too. And even though, at any other time, this silent staring would quickly become very awkward and uncomfortable, we do it anyway.
I didn’t save her life.
I just prolonged her death, that’s all.
Because I am not her soulmate, and she is not my soulmate, and that means this—whatever this is—it doesn’t matter.
This is what it means to be us.
We get no choice.
We get no say.
They made us this way.
I think about all the other girls I’ve met in the time loops.
They feel fake, but they weren’t fake.
They were real and this girl is real too.
The whole thing is real.
This scares the fuck out of me. Because this means that in some other loop Corla is hanging in chains on top of me. They are forcing us to breed.
And in another she is old, desperate to lie with young Akeelian men with violet eyes.
In yet another, she is a prostitute and I’m nothing but a paying client.
In my own reality she is half-dead inside a cryopod, waiting for me to blow her up so I can save ALCOR and my brothers.
And in this one… she isn’t even here.
“Did we make a deal or something?” I say. “Did we, at some point, agree to this? And I just don’t remember?”
“What?” the girl whispers.
“We’re all star crossed, aren’t we? That’s all there is