Page 65 of Secret Twins for the Alien Dad

“Procuring a wife would be more trouble than it's worth,” I retort, letting my irritation show. “I’d have to select an appropriate female, formally court her, and arrange a royal wedding as well as the Queen's coronation. That does nothing to solve my current dilemma with Balak’s brats.”

“An heir though, King Kravath...”

“I have enough annoyances dealing with the ridiculous fact that my libertine of a younger brother is inheriting governance over Second Isle.” I stop in the middle of the hall and turn to my advisor. “There is plenty of time for me to wed and bed a female, Larim. I am in the prime of life, I do not need an heir anytime soon.”

“You did just say your brother was foolish not to prepare for all contingencies,” Larim points out.

I ignore that and resume walking.

“What I need is a dedicated caretaker for the children,” I say, ending the discussion regarding an heir. I’m sick of my entire council pestering me on that front. “That’s the answer. I’ll find and pay a female to keep the triplets content and out of my way.”

“My King, where would you find such a female?” Larim looks puzzled and a little scandalized, which regrettably I cannot blame him for.

He doesn’t need to tell me that no Kiphian woman works. The only paths open to them are as wives, priestesses, or sacred warrior maidens—not servants, even for the ruler of the Ocean Kingdom.

“The human quarter.” I permit myself a smirk of satisfaction at my neat solution. “All the humans work. Most of them are poor enough that they have to. So, it’s merely a question of finding the right one for this job.”

LIARA

Iclose the door on the last of the kids with a smile. It was a long day, but a pleasant one.

Tonn is getting good at reading whole sentences, and little Marie can finally count to ten with confidence. It’s hard to teach children from such a wide age range, but today at least, it was rewarding.

“Ouch!” I stumble as I suddenly feel a sharp pain in the sole of my bare foot. I catch myself on the side of my worn table and look down. There’s one of the tungsten alloy blocks that Adri so loves to play with. Its edges are rounded, but stepping down hard on it hurts anyway.

I groan. I guess this block is my reminder to clean up before I do anything else. We have tidying time at the end of the day, but something always gets missed. Several somethings, actually.

I’m on my hands and knees trying to sweep up the sand that always gets tracked into my little shack when there’s a loud knock. I sit up, confused. Sometimes the little ones forget things, but they would never rap on my door so forcefully.

“Yes?” I open the door a crack, peering around it. This part of the human quarter is safer than others, but there’s still trouble sometimes.

“Is this the home of Liara Zavier?”

“Who’s asking?” I push the door a little wider, and to my surprise I see a Kiphian soldier standing on the other side.

“His sovereign majesty King Kravath, exalted ruler of the Ocean Kingdom, requires your presence,” intones the Kiphian. I now recognize that he’s wearing a royal uniform.

“Um, there must be a mistake,” I tell him, confused and a little nervous. “Why would the King want to see me?”

“There is no mistake.” The Kiphian rudely pushes my door open all the way and folds his arms. “Do not keep his sovereign majesty waiting, human.”

Two other soldiers are at the first one’s shoulder. They all look stern and impatient.

“Oh, uh, okay. Let me put on some shoes, please?”

The first soldier gives a curt nod. I gulp and grope behind the door for my shoes. My confusion is threatening to become panic. Humans are of zero interest to regular Kiphians, let alone to the royal family, who’s ignored us from day one. I can’t think of a single reason why the King would demand to see me, which makes this kind of scary.

Truth be told, there are some humans on Kiphia who probably spend their entire lives without interacting with the natives. That’s the degree to which the two races are separated.

Twenty-five years ago, as the war between the Alliance and Coalition began to get even more brutal, our colony ship departed from Erebus. The colonists had come from all over the Interstellar Human Confederation. My dad had come from Novaria and my mom had come from Titanus Vox. They had met on the journey and by the time the colony ship had settled down on Kiphia, they had fallen in love.

The Kiphians had invited the humans to come create a base of operations on Kiphia. The various kingdoms had felt that it would cement Kiphia, on the edges of the League of Non Aligned Races and on the boundaries of the Frontier as a hub for interstellar commerce.

And there was some, to be sure. But the economic boom didn’t take hold the way the colony planners had hoped. The war focused the eyes of the galaxy away from the Frontier. The brutality of the battle of Horus IV shocked most sapient races into digging in and spending their resources protecting their core systems before venturing out.

And so, the humans on Kiphia sought to build out a life. The Kiphians had hoped at first the humans would herald economic growth. But when nothing happened, they began to impose a new order. One that called for separate societies.

And so, here I am, wrapped in curiosity as to why I’m dealing with a Kiphian at all.

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