Caine and Jupiter walked into the dining room as ordered. "Reporting for breakfast," Jupiter quipped. She took her assigned seat. "Mama, Aunt Nino," she addressed her family. Both women gave a silent nod, happy to see the two of them, alive and well.
"Did you enjoy your private tour of the Copper Peek Ship Yard?" Kalique spoke sarcastically. Jupiter sat at the table in a silent huff. Caine took his seat directly across from his queen, while Bob sat to her right. "I'm sure it was a surprise for all those standing around the repair yard, to see Her Royal Majesty—the Queen, waving from a motor cart, dressed in her pajamas." Jupiter exhaled aloud. "Yes?" Kalique inquired.
"It's nothing," Jupiter insisted.
"Come now. It's never nothing with you." Kalique informed her.
"I didn't mean to cause this much of a fuss," she began. "I only wanted to remember... back when it was just me and Caine. Before all the luxury rooms, the needlessly long dining tables, and 100+ people standing around waiting to KISS OUR ASS!"
"I see."
"It's too much," Jupiter confessed.
"Not to dowse your nostalgic memories with cold water, but it has never been just you and Mr. Wise. If you weren't queen, the relationship you share with him, wouldn't even exist. And if, by the slimmest chance, you both came across one another, after a tryst or two, Mr Wise would've been sent back to Legionnaire Central Command, awaiting orders. Until his superiors discovered his phasing—in which he would have been killed on the spot. Leaving you to raise his child alone on basic assistance, living within one of the communal housing projects on the outer moons of Orous. Viewed from that perspective, the luxury suites, long dining tables, and endless ass-kissing don't seem so bad."
Jupiter dropped her head. "Damn you, Kalique."
"As many have said to me, long before you," she mentioned, matter-of-factly. Jupiter looked longingly in her lover's direction, emotions pooling in her eyes.
"My queen, please don't cry," Caine begged.
"Ms. Kalique," Aleksa derided, "would you kindly stop making my daughter cry in front of her husband!"
"Mama, it's fine," Jupiter insisted. "I'm fine. Kalique is simply telling the truth, whether I want to hear it or not. And we can't blame her for that."
"I can."
"Mama?"
"These are women's issues," Aleksa snapped in Russian. "Ones that need to be discussed when it's just us."
"We can't continue to say, that these are women's issues as if Caine isn't sitting in the room! Creating a child is a two-person job. If I become pregnant... again, and Caine dies, then he needs to know what happens to his family after he's gone! As you, yourself know firsthand."
"Jupiter!?!" Aleksa screamed.
"Forgive me, mama," she spoke in Russian. "But it's not just a woman's issue." She turned to her lover, speaking in English. "Caine needs to know this, so he can choose to LIVE, FOR US! Which is a far harder choice for him to make."
"I don't completely understand how you feel, Jupiter," Kalique began, "since I was born into this life. But make no mistake, your position has allowed you to be... in love with Mr. Wise to the degree you have, as if there's no one else in the room. Without the last name of Abrasax, there's no way in hell, you would have been allowed near that shipyard, let alone climb inside one of the shuttlecraft to sleep undisturbed in the arms of your Lycantant Lover."
"Yes, Kalique. The point is made. The horse beaten."
"I only affirm this statement to show that your position has its perks."
YOU ARE READING
A Royal Privilege: A Jupiter Ascending Fan-Fiction: Book 3
Hayran KurguSix months have passed since Caine and Jupiter settled down at the farmhouse as an unassuming married couple. Yet there are still some unhappy about their union and seek to destroy all they've built--together. Can this unlikely couple survive what's...
