Page 41 of Claimed By her Alien Prince

"Took over?" I drew my eyebrows together and nibbled on the jelly crepe I had rolled up, alternating between feeding Seth and myself.

"Ishtar isn't Behlial's first bride," Seth said, swallowing a bite down. "This is really good."

"Right?" I suppressed thoughts of Ishtar being an alien who looked like Queen Nefertiti, even though, I supposed she really wasn't an alien, she wasn't a Daemon, she was a Nayphyllym like me… Which made me an alien as well, at least in the eyes of the people from Earth, the humans and… I shook my head. Nope, I wouldn't think about that either. Not today.

"So who was Behlial's first… bride?" To distance myself from the harsh reality I was in, I would just look at it as if Behlial was a despicable man who happened to be Seth's adoptive father and who got divorced a few times.

"I'm still trying to figure that out," Seth said and reached around me to grab his tablet from the table. He opened it to a scripture-like text. "But I have never seen this language or these symbols before."

"Let me see." I put the crepe down and rubbed my hands on the sheet draped around my body to get rid of the stickiness from the jelly.

I took one look at the writing. "This is demotic script."

"Demotic what?" Seth asked, picking up the crepe I put on the table.

"The ancient Egyptians, a race who lived on Earth thousands of years ago, used demotic script for a while."

"And you can read this?" Seth asked.

Among many other old languages, I nearly bragged, but kept quiet. I had had way too much time growing up. Not having a social life did that to a girl.

It was a stroke of luck, I supposed, that this was written in demotic. Because I had been given a choice between learning that or hieratic script, which I could read only a little.

Stroke of luck or something else? An inner voice whispered, but I ignored it.

"Yes," I said simply. "Let me see."

While Seth finished the crepe and reached for another to fill with fruits this time, I concentrated on the text and felt a chill go through me.

The same chime I had heard before sounded, and Seth looked around me and barked, "Enter."

A servant came in, holding a tray in her hands from which the most heavenly aroma emanated. "Coffee," I squealed and jumped off Seth's lap, tablet momentarily forgotten.

I clapped my hands and jumped like a little girl, vaguely aware of the precarious knot by my chest holding the sheet in place.

"This must really be special," Seth remarked and sidled up to me.

The servant put the tray down, and to my utter happiness, I found not only a carafe with coffee, but an assortment of creamers, milks, and sugars. Two cups took up the rest of the space.

"Anything else, my prince?" the servant asked.

"That will be all for now," Seth said, and the servant left.

I had already noticed that Seth liked sweet things; he had fawned over a honeyed banana last night and now the crepe, so I put a good amount of sugar and creamer in one cup before filling it with the heavenly black liquid. I stirred and handed it to him. "Be careful, it's hot."

He grinned and watched me prepare my cup similarly to his. Usually I would have gone for artificial sweetener, but I was already in hell and decided the calories didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things right then.

Seth watched me take a sip, close my eyes, and sigh in pleasure. This was one of the best coffees I had ever had.

His reaction was predictably not quite as enthusiastic as mine. "It's an acquired taste," I informed him.

We resumed our positions back on the chair. Seth eyed the cup of coffee skeptically, but here and there he took a tentative sip.

"What does the text say? I've been trying to decipher it for years," he demanded impatiently.

"You guys fly through space and have no translators?" I asked.

"You guys have planes but can't fly through space?" he retorted, and we both laughed.

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