Chapter 98—Maxx

We waited.

It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, waiting for someone to read Mosely’s email and blast it across the universe, even though it had only been last night when he sent it, or for someone to find the bugged scale Pete had planted to see if they’d sell it.

I wanted to pore over Earth Space Fleet’s highly classified documents myself, but instead, I was stuck on a reality TV show.

Still.

Not on my honeymoon with the most stunning, perfect bride. Not anywhere but here while much more pressing matters demanded my attention. No, I was sitting on the platform in my hover chair while watching Pete lick one of the lenses on a camera drone.

Fuxx my life. Fuxx it with a rusty spoon.

At least Pete was upright and not muttering his one-liners that he thought belonged in action movies. He wore his Aviators and a loose-fitting shirt to cover the bruises his makeup team couldn’t hide, and if you paid attention, he still walked with a limp, but he appeared to be back to the normal camera-licking Pete we all loved…and wanted to strangle.

“Can I just kill him?” Next to me, Miekil had his green arms crossed over his chest tightly, as though restraining himself from doing just that. “I know where to hide the body.”

“I’ll help,” I muttered, then much, much louder, I added, “Stop it right now, Pete, or you’ll be wearing your tongue as a scarf.”

He stopped to stare at me like I was the crazy one here. “It’s called helping to fill forty-four minutes of airtime,” he hissed.

But he did stop. Thank the goddess. Really, I was glad the deranged man was okay, though.

“Please tell me you bought the camera dinner first, at least?” one-eyed June, on the other side of the platform, asked.

“He has a kink for cameras. I get it,” Judge on my other side said. “I used to be into axillism.”

Rico slowly turned to face him, pushing his glasses up his nose. “A sexual attraction to armpits?”

Oh my fixing goddess. And I had to sit next to Judge?

“Start the show, Pete,” I gritted out.

“Just sayin’,” Miekil muttered. “Murder is a viable solution to a number of problems.”

“Don’t tempt me.” I was considering a little light murder, though, in the form of Mosely. If his Comic Sans email didn’t force news stations to open it, then what?

We’d be back to square zero.

To ease my growing irritation, I looked to Nera on the other side of the platform, my new bride. I’d been staring pretty much nonstop since she’d climbed the steps, looking so radiant that she glowed. She wore a long green dress today with the slightest silver shimmer, but it was her smile that lit her from within, so big and carefree and…happy.

The sight of it riled my pulses and locked a promise within my hearts—I would spend an eternity to ensure her smile stayed there. Because if there was anything Nera deserved, it was happiness. There was no greater honor than just witnessing it, let alone offering it.

She fidgeted with her brand-new wedding ring, twisting it with her thumb this way and that so the sunset sky danced and sparkled inside the rare metals and crystals. Her other hand rested on her belly protectively, still flat, but that would soon change. Xenoxx gestation was short, and the thought of her with a swollen stomach, growing our baby, charged my blood into a stampede.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat while my kaxxui slithered out uninvited to subtly stroke my balls and tease my already hard cock.

As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, Nera looked up from the light show in her ring, and her smile brightened impossibly more when she caught me staring. But then her eyes widened toward Pete at something he was saying.

“…is the last episode. I know, I know, our time is so short!” Pete held his arms out to his sides. “This might come as a shock to you all, but this show has been slightly derailed a time or two. We were supposed to rendezvous with new contestants in the luxury cruise ship, but we couldn’t because of the detour to Xenoxx.” He looked to me and put his hands up defensively. “Which was lovely, and I’m not complaining in the slightest, but we were also supposed to vote several contestants off, but we couldn’t because of our little, tiny crashlanding. You know how it is! It’s madness, I tell you, and that’s the joy of reality TV!”

I sat up straighter, willing my kaxxui back into their homes to keep from distracting me. Could this really be it? The last episode? Finally? The end of this experience I never signed up for, never wanted to do again, but somehow led me to find the perfect wife and queen anyhow?

“So. Here’s what we’re going to do.” Pete clapped his hands together and rubbed them dramatically. “We find out what the voting situation is like, send two of you home right away, have some super sexy fun, and then find out who our winners are with real, live voting throughout this final episode. And your lovely host, who by the way has made this network billions, is going to hold your hands the entire time.”

The slightest bite in his tone made me think that Umo and the network wanted a fresh start for season two with a new host and new contestants, who could all be easily manipulated and take orders. In other words, not us.

“If you hold my hand,” a female crew member whispered solemnly from nearby, “then I’ll hold your dick, Pete.”

Then she made the sign of the cross, kissed her fingertips, and raised them to the sky.

Miekil groaned. “The cult of Pete is rather…”

“Demented,” I agreed.

“I was going to say culty. And devoted.”

I side-eyed him. “You’re saying you want your own cult?”

“It never hurt anyone to be loved.” He leaned over and propped his elbows on his knees, pressing his fingertips together as he squinted at the view screen rising up from the platform. “Until it does. Painfully. Endlessly.”

Coming from him, that truth carved into my chest even deeper. I felt for the Killian. If I’d begun to fall for someone who’d then betrayed me and shot me with poison bullets, dropping me at death’s front door, my heart would still be healing too. Probably for a very long time.

“I’m sorry, Miekil. For what it’s worth, I really am.”

He shrugged and glanced back at me over his shoulder. “This hasn’t been a complete waste of time.”

No, I was sure it hadn’t. Because whether he knew it or not, he’d gained a brother. So had I, and no one was more surprised by that than me.

Finally, the numbers next to our names on the view screen stopped shuffling and instantly reordered themselves from first place down for both males and females. First place for me, which meant absolutely nothing, and Miekil was fairly close behind. My gaze automatically skipped to the female side and found Nera in a tight second behind June.

“Now, don’t you fret if you’re not where you want to be, or if your favorite contestant isn’t doing as well as they should. Contestants’ places could easily change by the end of this episode. The number to call is at the bottom of your viewscreens, so make those calls, people!”

“Can you imagine,” Rico began, “if the universe showed the same excitement for doing actual good rather than for a reality TV show?”

Sal mock gasped. “We do not do that here. Ever.”

“If you don’t like it so much, why did you sign up?” Judge asked Rico.

A deep, deep sigh left Rico’s lungs. “It was my mother’s idea.”

Miekil dropped his head back to stare at the sky. “Same. Mothers, man.”

I remembered his mom on the view screen during one of the early episodes where she very publicly admonished him for not finding a mate yet while sewing a little baby hat with holes for Killian horns.

“Must be a lot of pressure,” I muttered to him.

“She means well, I suppose, and I am thankful I still have her.”

I nodded, my hearts splintering. I didn’t talk about my mom much, but she died soon after my dad’s murder. She withered away from heartsbreak, and there was nothing I could do but helplessly watch it unfold. The kind of love they shared was eternal, much like Nera’s and mine.

“I hear a lot of buzzing over here,” Pete hissed at us, “like pesky, gossipy flies who are about to meet their maker if they don’t. Shut. Up. Live show here, people!”

At that threat, Miekil’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. “Speaking of flies, yours is down.”

“FUCK!” Pete quickly turned and yanked his zipper back up to a chorus of snickers.

Poor Pete. I would’ve told him before we went live, but after him waxing poetic about his boners and about giving them enough room in his pants a few episodes ago, I generally avoided looking at anything in that general vicinity.

When he faced the camera drones again, Pete easily slid back into his smooth, cavalier host role. “All good, baby. Allllll…goooood… Now, time to get these contestants up on their toes in a last-ditch effort to win the audience’s hearts to propel them into first place. All they have to do…is—”

He broke off too suddenly, the tan color on his face draining too quickly to be anything close to natural. He stared at the jungle wall behind us with wide, unblinking eyes, completely frozen in place.

“Pete?” Nera and I whispered at the same time.

The crew on the sand below the platform looked much the same way he did—with stark terror written all over their faces.

A cold prickle dashed up the back of my neck, and slowly, painfully slowly, I turned around in my seat.

A huge black panther was creeping out from the jungle wall on silent, stealthy feet. Even the thick foliage hardly swayed as its lithe hindquarters and tail emerged from the jungle. Its yellow eyes stuck straight ahead on a direct course toward Pete.

And in its mouth dangled a bloody, booted stump of a human foot.

The scream. The male scream we’d heard from the jungle a few episodes back… Was this what had happened?

“Pete,” Miekil said, barely a whisper, “don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t make eye contact. I’ve got you.”

Of course he did. Despite their constant brotherly bickering, the two adored each other.

To Pete’s credit, he didn’t do anything but stand there. To everyone else’s credit, they didn’t move a muscle either.

We all watched in complete silence as the gorgeous apex predator crossed the platform. I couldn’t help but admire its sleek black coat, soundless movements, and fierce-looking teeth gripping the human foot in its mouth.

It already had a snack. It didn’t need Pete too.

I hoped.

Subtly, not even a movement at all, Miekil reached for the machete he’d stashed underneath his hover chair for the obvious just-in-case scenario that by now all of us expected.

I had mine too, but I prayed to the goddess we wouldn’t have to use a machete on such a magnificent creature.

As it passed by us, I glimpsed Nera staring at it in wonder, while both her arms were crossed protectively over our baby.

Ignoring Pete altogether, the panther crouched at the edge of the platform and then leaped off into the sand below. Judging by the crew’s stares, it loped off toward the sea.

As soon as it was gone, a collective relieved breath stormed from everyone’s lungs. June and Nacket started sobbing. A shaky croaking sound came from Pete, and he took a single step and then crumbled to the platform in a dead faint.

In an instant, Miekil was there to catch him.

I surged toward Nera to make sure she was all right.

When she saw me coming, she stood shakily and leaned in to whisper, “The boot in its mouth was Earth Space Fleet.”

“It was.” I’d noted the same stitching as Nera’s combat boots.

Other than feet, I wondered if the panther was the reason there weren’t any birds here.

“Major.” She gripped my arms tightly. “I’m worried about Major. I didn’t realize there were bigger cats here, and he does not follow orders to stay put.”

“Then we’ll go find him,” I assured her.

The live show was fixed anyway after that scare.

But when we started for the stairs, we found Darc already there, her short pink hair fluttering around her face.

“I’m on it, Captain. I’ll report back once I know he’s secure.”

Nera pulled her pilot in for a hug. “How did you know that’s what I was going to ask you?”

“I was already on captain watch, and I’ve been watching you for a good long time. Your worries are my worries.” Darc looked up at me over Nera’s bare shoulder. “You’re on captain watch until I get back, Your Highness.”

I nodded once, grateful for her unwavering dedication to Nera. “Always.”

As Darc turned and ran in the direction of their ship, Nera scoffed.

“Captain watch. I’ve never been so thankful for a babysitter in my life.”

“With the list of things that can kill us on this planet steadily growing, the more captain watchers, the better,” I said, cupping her beautiful face in my hands.

“I’m kicking myself for not having pretty kitties on my murder Bingo card.”

I nodded and looked over my shoulder at the thick foliage. “We should’ve guessed that before we traipsed back and forth through the jungle.”

“I think we met our fair share of dangers in the jungle. Remember the snack hole you fell in? Or the falling flowers that made us pass out and then wake up in an escape room?” Shaking her head, she heaved a breath. “Good times.”

I laughed because she sounded dead serious and then wrapped her up in my arms. “The best.”

She snuggled more firmly against me, her cheek pressed to one of my hearts. “This has been quite the rollercoaster, huh?”

“It’s never a dull moment with you, my beautiful star.”

Sure, there were things I would change, but this moment right here, with my bride, made it all worth it.