Royal Heiress (9 page)

Pallid noticed Katherine’s startled gasp. He
lifted an eyebrow in surprise. She was apparently wiser than her
younger sister to the lifestyle the people on Atlantis enjoyed.

“Oh, no. I am a virgin,” Amanda protested,
not realizing this would appeal to the man’s lustful desires even
more.

“We really must be going,” Pallid interrupted
as he took her arm and started walking away.

“Why? Shouldn’t we get to know the people who
live here?” Amanda asked, her eyes wide in surprise.

“You should let her interact with the people
of this city,” the man agreed, stepping in front of her and Pallid.
“I don’t mind sharing her with you, if that’s what you’re worried
about. I am very open-minded.”

“Are you implying what I think you are?” Jake
asked in disgust. “Is this the kind of society Atlantis
enjoyed?”

“I don’t understand.” Amanda shook her head,
bewildered.

“Just because you’re an outsider, it doesn’t
mean you have the right to judge us,” the man spat at Jake,
clenching his fist.

“I think it’d be best if we stop before
things get ugly,” Pallid said, glancing at the man’s tight jaw. If
he didn’t speak up, things would get bad…and fast. “As an Infer, I
am regarded with more esteem than a civilian like you,” he told the
man. “The leaders will side with me if I bring my case before
them.”

The man understood Pallid’s threat. Turning
to Amanda, he said, “If you decide to leave your group of friends,
I’ll be around.”

“She won’t be looking for you,” Pallid
blandly replied as he walked past him, holding firmly onto Amanda’s
arm so she wouldn’t protest.

The man left, aggravated.

“What is your problem?” Amanda snapped,
yanking her arm out of his grasp. “I can make my own decisions you
know.”

“You have no idea what that man wanted,”
Pallid said. “He wanted to have sex with you.”

She gasped. “No, he didn’t. He just wanted to
talk.”

“It was obvious, Amanda,” Katherine said,
losing her patience with her sister. “We all saw it. Not every man
you come across is going to treat you with the respect that men on
Raz will. This is a different planet, and there are different rules
here. Mom warned us of these things. Weren’t you listening?”

“But I’m the Queen of Raz. I can defend
myself if I need to.”

“You’d be surprised at how quickly things can
get bad,” Pallid warned. “Sometimes events catch you off guard and
you’re not able to react in time. Bad things do happen, even to the
Queen of Raz. You must proceed with caution.”

“I have been trained to fight since I was a
little girl. I won’t be caught off guard,” Amanda replied.

“I seriously doubt that.”

“I don’t think I like you,” she decided,
crossing her arms.

“Did I ask you to?” He waved aside her reply
before she could make it. “My job is to save Earth from possible
destruction, and the Augurs told me you were a part of that. If
what I hope to do can prevent the fact that you have to be here,
then that’s all the better.” He turned his back to her and began
walking.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked. “What
are you planning?”

“Something to keep you off guard,” he
replied.

Katherine laughed.

“What is so funny?” Amanda demanded.

“For the first time in your life, you finally
met someone you can’t win over by your good looks and charm,” she
said.

Katherine and Jake walked past her so they
could keep up with Pallid.

“Wait for me!” Amanda cried when she realized
they were willing to leave her by herself in the busy city. She
quickly ran up to them.

“Jake, would you mind doing me a favor?”
Pallid asked.

“What is it?” he wondered.

“Would you ask someone what today’s date is?
I need to know what day and year it is so I can recall what
happened at this time in history.”

“That’s simple enough,” Jake replied.

Pallid slowed down long enough for him to ask
an attractive young woman the date.

She smiled widely at Jake as she told
him.

Pallid heard the woman tell Jake it was the
28th day of the month of Zeus, 1588 in the year of Atlantis. As she
was still talking to Jake, Pallid’s attention shifted to a group of
women who were pointing to Katherine. Uh oh. This meant
trouble.

“I’ll be right back,” he told Amanda and
Katherine.

They didn’t say anything as he walked up to
the group of women. “Greetings, ladies. I noticed you’ve taken an
interest in my friend. Perhaps I can ease your curiosity?”

The five women looked startled he’d actually
confronted him, so he gave them time to recover.

“We don’t mean to be rude, Infer,” a brunette
said after clearing her throat. “We were wondering if that poor
unfortunate woman with the green dress has had a chance to receive
beautification treatments?”

“It’s not that we’re saying she’s ugly,”
another brunette clarified. “We just want to maintain our standards
of perfection here.”

Pallid glanced at Katherine. She was pretty,
but she wasn’t up to their standards. He already knew Jake and
Amanda were adequate. How he wished he had thought to cover
Katherine’s face.

“Plastic surgery might work well,” the woman
suggested.

“My friend is not a resident of this city,”
he quickly assured them. “She is merely a visitor who will be here
no longer than a couple of days. I will find a veil for her and
cover her face as soon as I get to a clothing store.”

“A beautification treatment might help her
anyway. That way when she returns to her home, she will be much
happier.”

“The poor thing really needs it,” another
woman added.

“I will make the suggestion to her and let
her make the decision,” he lied. “And thank you, ladies, for your
concern for her. I’m sure she will appreciate it.”

They seemed pleased with his words, so they
left.

He breathed a sigh of relief. He walked back
to Jake, Katherine and Amanda.

“What was that about?” Amanda asked. “Were
those women trying to get you to have sex with them?”

“No,” he replied. “The rules are different
for Infers. We are only allowed to be intimate with the Infer the
leaders pair us up with. If we had relations outside our kind, then
our line wouldn’t remain pure.”

“But my mother said your kind was incapable
of reproducing among yourselves,” Amanda said.

He considered her comment. It was true. That
was the glitch in the leaders’ design. “Some things are more
important.”

“Like?”

“Love.”

“On Raz, the queen’s top priority is to have
a daughter,” Katherine said. “If there is no one to replace her,
then the planet will die.”

“So you’re saying survival is more important
than love?” Pallid asked.

“The queen’s first duty is to her people. Her
feelings come second. Sometimes she has to sacrifice her desires to
save the lives of others.”

“That is a very noble attitude. I sense your
father taught you that.” Pallid subconsciously touched the Stone of
Immortality that was carefully hidden in the tip of his cane. “But
isn’t it even better when you can have love and save the
world?”

She didn’t say anything, but her slight nod
told him she agreed.

“Your mother and father had that privilege,”
he reflected. “Come. We need to find a veil for you.”

Startled by the change in subject, Katherine
asked, “A veil for me? Why?”

He paused. He didn’t want to upset her, but
he didn’t see that he had a choice if he was to be honest with
her.

Jake’s eyes lit up with understanding. “She
would be one of the people condemned to the Underworld, wouldn’t
she?”

She blinked. “The Underworld? What’s
that?”

“Katherine,” Pallid began, “the leaders who
rule this place are extremely superficial. They force their idea of
beauty upon all of their citizens.” He could tell she was
struggling to make sense of what he was saying. He hated to do
this. She seemed like such a sweet person. “It’s nothing against
you,” he softly told her. “If anything, it’s a reflection on the
leaders. They praise beauty and shun any type of imperfection. You
are an attractive woman, but you don’t quite meet the leaders’
requirements for their idea of acceptability.” The hurt look in her
eyes made him wince.

“The leaders are also the Olympian gods and
goddesses,” Katherine replied, stunned.

He nodded.

She turned to Amanda, and her voice took a
sharp edge to it as her bitterness surfaced. “I can imagine their
relief when you became queen instead of me.”

Amanda’s eyes widened.

“She passes their qualifications, doesn’t
she?” Katherine continued. She glanced at Jake. “And he does, too,
doesn’t he? So I’m the only one who needs to hide my looks.”

“This is ridiculous,” Jake said, shaking his
head. “There’s nothing wrong with the way you look.”

“I agree with you,” Pallid responded. “But I
didn’t make the rules here. There is Hestia’s Code, and it
specifically says that if you are a visitor staying no longer than
a week, you may pass through Atlantis, but you have to wear a veil
if you do not meet the leaders’ guidelines on beauty. The veils are
free.”

“How generous of them,” Katherine spat.

“I don’t blame you for being upset. We just
have to bide our time for a couple of days until I can take care of
business. Then we can get out of here.”

“But in the meantime, I will be a social
outcast.”

He shrugged, not knowing what to tell her.
Nothing he could say or do would help.

“Maybe I should send you back to Raz,” Amanda
offered her sister.

“Why? I’m not exactly popular there either,”
she replied in frustration. “I don’t belong anywhere.”

“That’s not true,” Amanda began. “You can be
of great service to me.”

Katherine blanched.

“I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I just
meant you’ve been trained, as I have, to rule Raz. If something
happens to me before I have a daughter, you will rule in my
place.”

After a long and tense moment of silence,
Katherine asked Pallid, “Where is this Underworld?”

“You don’t belong there,” Jake protested. “No
one belongs there.”

“That’s where undesirables go. Of course, I
belong there.”

“Don’t do this,” Pallid pleaded. “Just take
the veil.”

“I won’t. I can’t,” Katherine said. “I won’t
hide who I am.”

“Take her back to Raz,” Pallid told Amanda.
“The Underworld is a horrible place.”

Amanda nodded but Katherine was quicker and
more determined than they could imagine. She took out the Book of
Spells. “I can get there without your help.”

“Then take me with you,” Jake spoke up.

“I don’t want your protection.”

“Maybe I need someone to protect.”

Pallid was surprised by Jake’s insistence,
but given what Jake had just been through with the discovery of his
mother’s secret, he could understand why Jake wanted to think of
someone other than himself for a change.

Katherine looked as if she was ready to
protest, but then she relented. “Alright.” Turning to Pallid and
Amanda, she said, “Come for us when you’re done.”

Amanda began to argue, but Pallid put his
hand on her arm to stop her. “We’ll do as you say,” he agreed. “But
if you’d rather go to the Underworld without that book, you can do
so. Jake, you remember where I said the entrance is.”

Jake nodded. “I remember.”

“Using any type of magic might create a
disturbance in this city since the leaders frown upon it. They
prefer to be the only ones with the power to do anything.”

“I don’t care much for this place,” Katherine
said as she put the book safely back into her pocket. “And I care
even less for the leaders.”

Pallid and Amanda watched as Katherine and
Jake left for the Underworld.

“You shouldn’t have stopped me,” Amanda said
when they were alone. “I am the queen, and I can do more for her
than that Earthling can.”

“He cares for her,” Pallid told her. “I think
it would be good for her to be appreciated for who she is for a
change.”

“I appreciate her. She’s my sister.”

He sighed. She didn’t understand. He guessed
she’d spent her entire life outshining her sister, and further
more, he guessed no man had ever chosen Katherine over her before.
From the brief time he’d spent with the sisters, he was well aware
Katherine had been used to being second best. The reminder that she
wasn’t as pretty as Amanda must have been a blow to her ego. She
needed someone who could make her feel important.

“We have to go to the arc,” he finally
said.

“Fine,” she reluctantly agreed as she
followed him.

***

Present Day

At the Top of the Arc

Imitation of the city of Atlantis

Planet: Aug

Gaius frowned at the latest development on
Earth. This wasn’t what he had anticipated for the Infer to do. He
didn’t realize the Queen of Raz would send her group to Atlantis’
past. He realized her magic took them there, and for some reason,
this would help her destroy the city, but it became apparent that
the Infer’s plans were no longer in line with the queen’s.

Gaius walked over to the large mirror, which
was a bigger version of the mirror the Infer carried with him.
Gaius needed to see the implications of what the Infer had just
decided to do. Touching the mirror, he asked, “What will happen now
that the Infer has changed his plans?”

The scene that appeared on the screen
displayed Atlantis, still a flourishing civilization.

“What Earth year is this?” he spoke
aloud.

The answer showed him 2048 AD.

“What are the conditions of the other
nations?”

The screen displayed a global view of the
Earth, and it was obvious the other nations followed the lead from
Atlantis. Every other leader on Earth was in submission to the
leaders on Atlantis, who remained immortal while everyone else went
through the natural course of life and death.