Page 8 of Seeded By Two

There was no disguising that she, if no one else, recognized me.

I supposed it should have come as no surprise.

After all, she had carried me for fourteen months (as was the typical gestation period of a Krev baby) and there would always be some form of link between us.

“Phisia?” my father said, noticing her sudden change in countenance.

She snapped to attention but didn’t look at me again after that.

She hurriedly filled two glasses with an ice-cold drink that I could still recall the sweet tang of from my childhood, and continued cooking whatever she had in the oven.

“Will you be staying for dinner?” my father asked.

I would have loved to but I didn’t have the time to spare, nor they the food to waste. “No, thank you. I need to be on my way soon.”

My father left only once during the conversation and when he did, the silence in the tiny space between Mom and me seemed to engulf the both of us.

I no longer felt like the full-grown Krev I had become but the tiny little boy before the Royal Guard had taken me to train me to be the Prince’s Decoy.

There were so many things to say that we each ended up saying nothing at all.

But we both understood.

There would forever be that bond between us, between mother and son, and even if I had lost everything else — every memory I had of my childhood home — then at the very least, I would always continue to occupy that small corner of my mother’s heart.

When it was time for me to leave, my mother embraced me in a way that no doubt confused my father, but he didn't say a word.

She squeezed me hard and couldn’t bring herself to look at me as she turned away, wiping at her face.

My father led me to the front gate and shook my arm in the traditional Krev manner.

But he didn’t release it immediately the way he would have with an unwanted government guest and instead held on tight.

Just a moment too long, but it was enough.

He nodded his head and said:

“Feel free to come back on here an’time you please.” Son.

He didn’t say the last word but I heard it on his lips all the same.

My thoughts were deep and heavy as I returned to my shuttle and continued my journey to the Seeding Facility.

Thoughts of family and longing, of love and loss, of wishing for a connection I had never truly had before — not even with the Prince.

And it was perhaps for that reason that I acted the way I did when I first met Beth…

* * *

Now, I was sitting in a side room in a Seeding Facility, gazing through the monitor at a line of gorgeous female specimens from all four corners of the galaxy.

The Prince liked common females and couldn’t stand the fake personalities he had to face at the palace on a daily basis.

And as they came into the room, I ran my eyes over each of them.

The human snatched my attention immediately.

She was shorter and dumpier than the other females, with cream skin that did not shine but instead seemed to absorb the light, and hair that spilled about her shoulders in a haphazard way that had none of the preciseness of the other females.

---