Star Kissed by Lizzy Ford Read Free Book Online Page B

was blocking his path and raised her eyebrows, irritated he wanted her to move instead of going around her. Mandy stepped out of his way. He disappeared through the door. She reached out to it to find it solid again.
    “Damn aliens!” she muttered.
    She slapped it then felt another dizzy spell sweep over her. Without Akkadi to anchor her, she was close to being sick again after all she’d been through so far this day.
     
     

Chapter Four
     
    Akkadi strode through the halls to the uppermost deck of the space station, where his mother was in residence. He couldn’t help feeling surprised – and furious – at the human in his quarters. Other dwellers of the ship moved out of his path quickly and bowed as he passed. It was the same respect the human should have but didn’t.
    He reached his mother’s quarters and entered the antechamber, where two guards ten feet tall stood.
    They bowed their heads, and he waited for their transmission to reach his mother and return. One stepped aside, granting him access to her quarters. Akkadi entered. The quarters were much like his, with windows facing space and wide-open spaces filled with white furniture. The only exception was the colorful display of glassware in pink, green, blue, and amber that lined one wall of her quarters. The display of such wealth was extravagant. One plate would replace five times what he’d paid to buy the human back from the slave traders. His mother had hundreds on display. She’d told him once they were part of her dowry, a reminder of the world she left behind to marry his father.
    “Hello, son,” his mother said, emerging from her private chamber. Standing a full head and shoulders shorter than he was, her features were ageless, her deep blue eyes lined with smile lines and her ebony hair streaked with silver that matched her clothing.
    He bowed, as was customary to someone higher ranking, even knowing she disliked it when he did.
    “It’s not customary to see one’s son so often, I don’t think,” she teased. “What brings you to me this day?”
    “I am deeply sorry for disturbing you, my queen,” he said with formality.
    “You know I always love to see you. I would like to see you more often.”
    “My duties and our custom –”
    “I know, Akkadi. I can tease my son can’t I?” she asked with some impatience. “I’ll have to assume you’re not here for a social visit.”
    “I am not,” he confirmed.
    She gazed at him, waiting. He returned her look, always a little wary of the woman born to a time and place so far from his own. After his discussions with the human, he felt less comfortable around his mother than usual. His mother came from a similar time as Mandy, brought to the future when Akkadi’s father opened the star gate. It was tradition for each son and daughter of a Naki ruler to open the wormhole upon his or her twenty-fifth birthday. The fifth in his family to do so, Akkadi was the only to be rewarded with a craft of purebred humans from the past.
    Though right now, he didn’t think of dealing with the human in his quarters was particularly rewarding.
    “A craft came through the star gate,” he started. “I opened it, per your request, despite my objections to wasting so much energy.”
    “Tell me something new, son,” his mother said with interest. “You’re the youngest. Our last hope at finding what we need to preserve our bloodline. Did the craft survive intact?”
    “It did. It carried several hundred, but I was not able to save many.”
    “All your power couldn’t save more?”
    “No, mother,” he said with some amusement. “The power you think I possess doesn’t exist.”
    “Akkadi,” she chided.
    “It is my turn to tease, is it not?”
    “I want to know what happened!”
    Akkadi smiled. He had always been curious about his mother’s emotional outbursts. Trained to use his left brain rather than his right, he long since learned to control his human side and buried it under a sense of