UNWANTED

CHAPTER 10 - J3.7.8 - ILYAAS

It was early morning the next day when I opened the door of Lesya's room to find her gone. Jazzy was there, lying on the bed as if she was the empress of Eurasia, greeting me with one flick of her tail.

It took us a year of hunting and yarn balls for her to finally like me. When she arrived in a golden cage as a cub, she took immediately to guarding Lesya. For the first month or so, no one could touch the princess, and the Lesya couldn't even get to the bathroom without the tiger with her.

Even now, Jazzy wouldn't take orders from anyone except Lesya. I could only give suggestions which she usually ignored or did the opposite of, deliberately.

"Dearest queen Jasmine of Lesya's bed..." I said, nearing the gigantic tiger. "Do you know where Lesya is?"

She looked at me for a minute, wondering if I was worthy of her response. If I was any other person, I'd be mauled already. "Jazzy, is she in the closet?"

I heard her rumble what I could only think was a tiger's version of annoyance, as she stood to her full height and led me to the bathroom. "Thanks." I gave her a pat on the back.

"Lesya, I'm coming in, I hope you're decent!" I opened her door to see her submerging herself in the tub, fully clothed with her tattered pajamas. Sleeping with a tiger all these years, even getting licked would tear the cotton.

Her head was covered in a thin nanosheet protruding from her ear, and she was talking to Raza with her eyes closed, probably seeing text projected onto her closed eyelids. "Hey, Akim Ogamras from the privy council is here to brief you."

I couldn't hear her, but her mouth shaped the words "I don't care if you're in Nepal, you'll seal it before the queen comes."

She couldn't hear me, so I walked to look over her and knocked at the nano sheet. The moment she opened her eyes, the sheet folded itself back into her ear, and the contact flopped and disappeared into the water. Lesya caught it though.

My hand stretched out to her, and she took it.

"You should have knocked." She coughed, as she emerged from the water. Lesya then started jumping with her head cocked to the right. "I think I have water in my ear."

I got a towel around her. "Well, you have to change. Jazzy needs to hunt today, and we'll be moving around a lot."

"Are we going to China?" She asked.

"No. We're setting up the bots in Russia. China is dense in Siberian Tigers right now, Jazzy might not want to hunt with their pee all over the place."

"Why is Ogamras here?"

"She'll be briefing you about the tributes you'll be meeting today."

She stopped walking towards the door the moment I said the plural word. "Tributes?" Lesya looked at me. "How many will there be today? Uncle is busy?"

"Yes. The Antarctican, he'll meet you in Russia. Then you'll be meeting Japan this evening."

"Okay. Two. I can handle two." She said, nodding to herself. She didn't like it at all, but at least she was ready to meet them.

"Of course, you can." I smiled.

She went to her closet, happy that Antarctica didn't give her a dress to wear. I didn't tell her yesterday, but queen Aridni truly knew how to dress her. Tino, the prince probably didn't know what hit him when he saw her. I surely didn't know what hit me when I did.

Lesya always thought she was paler than she was, frizzier than she was, uglier than she was. Her skin was the color of coffee with a little too much milk, her hair was a halo of curls in white and the lightest of sun rays, her eyes weren't pink, they were a deep purple in the outer ring, fading into white with a dot of a small golden circle in her left eye. When I told her she was a goddess, I didn't mean her status.