Page 85 of Game on Askole

I jumped a good foot.“Not funny.”

Detja clapped her hands sharply.“Adan.”

Presto. He was the wizard kid again.“My apologies.”

“Go to your room and wait for me,”Detja commanded.

To my utter astonishment, Adan obeyed her.

Detja smiled at me.“Adan is still a youngling.”

Huh? That would explain his fascination with the jukebox, Vegas slot machines, and arcade games.“How young?”

“In Earth terms, he is a teenager.”

“With a voracious appetite and immense power,”Zarek added.

Detja nodded.“Adan must be handled carefully.”

“You’re kinda his daughter and mother at the same time.”

“I am. I must spend more time with Adan, and I have the perfect job to keep you out of trouble.”

I eyed her warily.“Oh? What’s that?”

“Wulf and Lothel found their mates. I need help arranging the bonding ceremonies.”

“Uh. I can strip a jet engine, but don’t know anything about bonding ceremonies.”

“You will learn.”With that alarming statement, Detja teleported.

A grinning Zarek followed her.

Whoopee! I was going from fighter pilot to wedding planner. Didn’t that sound like fun?

Chapter Seventeen

Aunt Tess, Bree, Zoey, and Kaylee had also been drafted into helping with the ceremonies. None of us were pleased with the situation, but you didn’t tell Detja no. If she wasn’t happy, neither was the Overlord. Nothing good ever came from pissing him off. Just ask Bree. She made the mistake of mouthing off to Zarek and got stuck with latrine duty on a Coletti space station. She still has nightmares about it.

Detja’s office was high tech with a feminine touch. A crystalline desk was the centerpiece. Behind it was an ornate metal bookcase filled pictures, knickknacks, and a variety of crystals. A curved blue linen couch with colorful pillows filled one corner. A collection of willowy plants was scattered across the walls.

To operate the computer, I simply ran my hand over the desk. My biometrics had been keyed into the workstation. In an instant, the holoscreen appeared at eye level and a keyboard formed in the desk. Pretty cool.

We had all been assigned specific tasks. I got stuck with sending out thousands of wedding invitations, and if that wasn’t bad enough, I had to find and buy the bloodred Tar flowers. The Coletti considered them the symbol of unity, and no ceremony was complete without the flower. The planet they came from was smack dab in Askole territory and had been repeatedly bombed. I did a little research and found the Tar flower’s double on Earth. A Mystic Wonder Dahlia.

Aunt Tess was sure Detja would notice the difference. Me? Not so much. Adan was driving her nuts with his pranks.

The ceremonial chamber was a thousand feet below the city. Holographic devices had been implanted in the ceiling. During the ceremony, it would resemble a night sky blazing with stars.

My aunt and Zoey were blessed with supervising the candle placements and hanging of godawful tapestries on the walls. The warlords considered them romantic. All of us thought the bloody battle scenes and the graphic pictures of women being fucked by warriors didn’t belong in a wedding chapel.

Believe it or not, Zarek thought the graphic sex scenes would show the nervous “brides” what masterful lovers the Coletti warlords were. Yeah, right. Kaylee said the captured women usually took one look at the tentacles on the warriors’ enormous dicks and started screaming.

We Earth girls, not so much. We’re made of sterner stuff and usually armed to the teeth.

Bree and Kaylee got the fun job of the preparing the “bridal” suite. I had taken a quick peek. The room belonged in a Las Vegas brothel. A huge four-poster bed with red silk sheets dominated the chamber. The walls were covered by more of those naughty tapestries. The only things missing were paddles, whips, and chains.

A furious Detja linked with me.“Have you seen Adan?”

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