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I appraised the man on his cot. Vaughn hadn’t asked for much since the crash. Only accepted what little was offered. Zarek thought humans weak but deceitful, and yet, this one hadn’t tried to fool me. He sat there…cleaning his boots.
“I can send you back,” I told him. “We’re working on finding you transportation.”
His eyes, the hues of the Typas waters, rose to mine. He did not fear me. Not once did he cower. Yet, he did not try to lay claim to my throne or to my people. Whatever he wanted, I could not tell, but the strength of his presence quickened my heart. “And what if I stay?” he said.
“Stay?” I nearly laughed. It was so strange to hear a human speak the Thebulan tongue. When we first met, I asked him how he came to be proficient, and he said he studied many languages upon many galaxies.
“I’m an explorer,” he’d told me. “This isn’t a bad place to land, though, is it?”
“You flatter me,” I’d said, still skeptical.
He’d grinned, then eyed my world. “It is the truth.”
In the lush cave, he stood off the cot. “Yes, stay. I have nowhere else to be.”
“It’s dangerous for humans,” I cautioned.
He came forward, a smile alight in his eyes. On his lips. Across his face. It breathed something new in me that I did not understand. Something indescribably bright.
He whispered, “I have experience with danger. In fact, I think it follows me.” His fingers brushed a tendril of my white hair, then slid down my arm, causing my purpled skin to radiate an iridescent green.
“Wait, wait,” I say aloud, sitting upward. My heart races at the strangest turn of events. “This isn’t right. This isn’t supposed to happen.” I keep reading. Page after page after page. I bite my thumbnail to the bed, my heart catapulting and plummeting as Solana is wooed by Vaughn, the human.
Ever since I was little, Zarek was always Solana’s greatest love. Soul-matched. Together throughout all eternity to rule the two mightiest planets in the known solar system.
“I don’t…understand,” I whisper, reading more and more and more. Getting late into the night, my jaw drops as the story pulls further away from Zarek, and I hunger for the next parts to the saga. The Hunt. The Good Fortune. The Revelry. I lie back on my pillows. “They’re kissing,” I tell Orion, my eyes welling with a flood of emotion. “Vaughn and Solana are kissing.”
I can’t believe I’m rooting for them to kiss. I wrote their romance with a deep, cavernous longing, but it is so, so effervescent. Solana is lighter and freer with him. Her worries melt into mesmerizing moments, and I need more.
I flip a page after they kiss.
It’s blank.
No. No. “It can’t end there,” I say, frantic. I search through the heap of manuscripts for the next part, but I labeled them in order. This is the most recent story.
It’s the last one I wrote for the series.
My pulse hasn’t slowed. “I don’t understand,” I say again, manuscripts strewn haphazardly around me on the bed. Why would I change the direction of the entire saga? This isn’t a teeny tiny plot twist. It completely alters the trajectory of Solana’s life and her future.
Fumbling through my sheets, I don’t think—I just find my phone and call someone who’s read my fics. It rings and rings.
He answers on the third one. “Luna,” Charlie says groggily—a rare feat to catch him tired. “It’s four a.m.”
“Is it also four a.m. where you are?” I wonder.
“Yes, because I’m home.”
Duly noted. He isn’t traipsing around Paris or Montreal. “My fics, you read the entire Human Him, Cosmic Her portion of the Thebulan saga, right?”
“Of what you gave me,” Charlie says, clearing his throat to rid the groggy rasp. “I’m almost positive I read everything or else the story wouldn’t have made sense.”
Okay, good. “Did she—I mean, did I ever explain why Solana would distance herself from Zarek?”
“We talked grammar. Your story was yours. You didn’t bounce ideas off of me or brainstorm with me in the dead of the night.”
I’m quiet.
He pauses, then tells me, “It’s called Human Him, Luna. Human. Zarek isn’t the human.”
“I know, I know,” I say quickly, my pulse in my throat. “I just didn’t plan for her to get with the human. He was an antagonist, not the love interest.”
Charlie lets out a long sigh. “And why do you think you changed the story?”
I grip my phone tight, my eyes welling again. “I have to go.” I hang up on him, not rationalizing what I’m doing.
I need to see Donnelly.
Bouncing off my bed, I charge through the empty bathroom and wiggle the door to his adjoining room. Please be unlocked. It is, yes. I spring inside. Orion excitedly follows at my heels, and I’m surprised to see the lights on and Donnelly wide-awake.
