Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 45050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
She was his queen.
Epilogue
“You gave up everything for a human mate? You’re not rampaging across space, setting off missiles into people’s lava oceans anymore?”
The question was understandably pointed, given it came from Dominax.
King Dominax of Homeworld, King Archon of Archaeus, and Konan were all speaking to one another on a video device which allowed communication at great distances. They called it Zoom, for reasons nobody understood or bothered to ask about.
“She changed me,” Konan admitted. There was no shame in saying what had happened, that he had met a human woman at the very peak of his rage and isolation, and that she had reconnected him with what truly mattered. His people. His planet. Those who were born, lived, and died under his rule.
“Mine changed me too,” Archon agreed. As did Dominax in very short order.
“We should meet,” Archon suggested. “The three of us. Form a league. If the humans have infected us with….”
“Empathy?” Konan attempted to finish his sentence.
“Yes. Empathy, then we may be at risk. We should form an alliance. One designed to protect humans, and also our own people.”
Konan would never have deigned to consider an alliance before meeting Elizabeth. He would never have had this kind of call. His communication had been limited to threats and declarations of war. Now he found himself open to the idea of becoming stronger collectively with others. Dominax seemed to have forgiven him for the whole missile incident.
“The Council of Kings won’t like it,” Dominax warned.
“They don’t need to know about it,” Archon smirked. He was an arrogant little upstart of a king, but he was also the first among them to see the value in a human mate.
“I could host,” Dominax suggested. “My mate is pregnant, so traveling is out of the question.”
“Wait,” Konan growled. “We can impregnate these creatures?”
“I can,” Dominax smiled. “We change them too, you know. As much as they transform us, they’re transformed by us.”
Konan wondered if he had changed his human at all. Pregnancy and the production of an heir sounded like fine things which would have to be attended to at some point, but he was more interested in the deeper changes. Changes of the kind he had experienced in the effort to rebuild the trust of his people and restore the nobility of Masih.
He was making good progress in both areas. The peasants no longer cried in fear when they saw him, not now that he made a habit of passing out food every day. Elizabeth said that he was training them like dogs, but Konan saw nothing wrong with positively reinforcing them.
Konan had also established a judiciary, independent of the crown, who made decisions about crimes and punishments, and saved him the need to go about murdering everybody who looked like they might cross him.
Masih was becoming civilized, and it was all because of the little human in the tower.
After he had signed off from his meeting with a promise to meet the other kings soon, Konan went to find his mate. She was not hard to find. She had taken up residence in the tallest spire of the palace, where she liked to scribble all over anything page-like, and compile it into small libraries.
She was writing away furiously, her pen flying over the paper at a great rate of knots. He wondered what words she was recording in the script he had not yet learned to read. That was a change he was yet to make.
Elizabeth let out a squeal as he plucked her from the desk at which she sat and propelled her over onto the window bed where cushions and pillows made for a nice place to lie and cuddle.
“What is it?” Her look was inquisitive. She curled her fingers in a lock of his hair and tugged at it playfully. He liked the way it felt when she played with him. There had been so little time for levity in his life before Elizabeth.
“Have I changed you?”
“You’ve stretched me beyond the use of any other male in existence, that’s a change,” she smirked.
Konan smiled, pleased as any male would be at the acknowledgement of his large manhood. “No. I mean, personally. On the inside.”
She bit her lip thoughtfully for a moment. “Well. Yes. I used to sit around and describe the events which unfolded for other people. Now I make them happen for myself. That whole crown incident… I’ve never done anything like that before. I’ve never taken charge of the story, bent it to my will. I like it,” she smiled. “You did that.”
“You and your stories,” he smiled affectionately.
“There’s nothing else, Konan,” she said, quite seriously. “Everything is made of stories. I’ve been collecting them from the courtiers… the ones you left alive. Did you know…”
“Mhm.” He closed his eyes and listened to her talk, half-listening, half-letting her words wash over him. Maybe he had not changed his little human all that much. But she had never needed to change. She had needed someone to love her — and she would have that until the end of time.