The Ritual Pt. 04

She cursed herself for letting it get this far, she should have never let him have sex with her without it being strictly part of the ritual. But the way he could touch her and make her melt was difficult to fight against. She realized she needed to have PEDi with her at all times to make sure he wouldn't touch her breasts, she knew that once he did she would let him do whatever he wanted to her. Which would make nurturing difficult but it had to be done.

PEDi came into the room breaking her thought process. She had to make PEDi understand and somehow convince it not to tell the council. But that was for another time, she had asked the droid to let her know when Louis came back, she had to talk to him and firmly lay down boundaries, and PEDi was going to make sure nothing would get out of hand.

"He has returned your highness." It informed her in the harmonic voice.

The queen hung her head low feeling the sorrow of what her duties were forcing her to have to do.

"Thank you PEDi, let me change real quick and we'll head out." Zulara answered in a mournful tone.

Louis was out next to his semi, getting ready to hook up the second trailer of corn to the truck, he had on a brown carhart jacket when he looked up momentary and saw both Zulara and PEDi coming towards him. She looked absolutely amazing, her hair was straight and parted down the middle, she had on an elegant red dress that reminded him of something out of the Victorian era that beautifully contrasted with her teal skin. PEDi looked the same with her black torso and shinny metallic arms and legs. He stood up to his full height and couldn't help but smile because of the feeling that washed over him in her presence.

When they came close to him he walked over to kiss her but before he could PEDi stepped in front of her, he was taken a back but calked it up to maybe Zulara didn't want PEDi to know about them.

"There something I can do for you ladies." He said, pulling a rag from his pocket and started to wipe his hands clean.

"Louis we need to talk." The queen pleaded to him, while she looked to the ground almost too ashamed to look at him.

"Hey, what's wrong?" He whispered reaching for her hand. But before he could take it PEDi grabbed his arm, which made him look at the droid puzzled.

"This whole situation has gone too far, I never meant it to reach this point but I am sorry, we can't continue the way we have been for the past day." She conveyed to him.

"My oath is to my people and I haven't been true to it, the fault is mine so please don't take this too harshly because it has nothing to do with you personally, I think you're a wonderful human being. It just isn't proper for a queen to get this close to another race." Her voice was light and anguished.

He snorted out a laugh before speaking. "What the hell are you afraid of? That you might actually start to feel something for me?" He questioned backing away from PEDi, as the droid released his arm.

"Yes exactly Louis, I've told you before that it is forbidden with my people. We can't be emotionally attached to each other." She answered him sternly, trying her best to sound in control of the situation.

She walked away from them and looked out onto the horizon, knowing that she had to gather the strength she needed not to let him turn the tables on her, she knew that PEDi wouldn't let him touch her, but he also had a way with words, and she had to be vigilant.

"And what would be the harm in getting emotionally attached, of actually feeling love for someone?" He asked as he took a step forward but suddenly was shut down from moving any closer to her when PEDi stepped in front of him.

Zulara turned around and faced him, he could see something in her eyes, an emotion she was trying to keep hidden.

"It is easy for you to say this, Louis, in a few days you won't remember me, you won't remember any of this, but I will. If I were to get involved with you the way you want me to then I will have to live with the feeling of never being able to see you again, knowing that I found someone to love but couldn't return that love. How would you handle that in my position?" She answered stepping closer to them but still keeping PEDi in between.

Louis took a moment to think about what to say, she was right. It was a hell of a lot easier for him. Would he be pushing her to love him if he knew that he had to live the rest of his life knowing he fell in love with her only to never see her again?

"Then stay here with me. We can make this work." He said trying desperately to reach for her hand. But it was swatted away by PEDi again, and he finally figured out that the droid was here to make sure he couldn't touch her, so he couldn't sway her by messaging her breasts.

Zulara smiled faintly before speaking. "And what would our daughter's life be like here? We would have to keep her a secret from your world; does she not deserve the same opportunities that I had? This is one of the reasons my society preaches logic over emotion. If I were to give into what I felt I would be jeopardizing the future of my child for my own selfish reasons."

He knew that she was right. It wouldn't be fair to the child. But that didn't mean they still couldn't love each other.

"Well I could come with you I have nothing here that I care about as much as I do with you." He paused a moment and looked her straight in the eyes before saying, "I love you Zulara. Please, let me come with you."

The words he spoke to her made her heart flutter and she tried her best to keep a smile from coming across her face. She realized that some part of her was eagerly waiting for him to say those words. She enjoyed the feeling for only a moment. She turned away from them again before talking.

"Sometimes I wish it were the case too Louis, but my people are not ready, maybe my calling as Queen can change parts of the society, but it couldn't happen overnight. And not with you showing up with me once I arrive back on my home world."

"Well I think you just don't want to face the truth. I think you love me and will not admit it! So you just wanna come here and use me, then leave me with no memory of anything that has happened!" He shouted out angrier than he meant it to sound. He realized he just laid his heart out to her and she rejected it, he had to keep his cool he told himself.

Zulara was looking at the ground through his whole out burst, and stayed like that for a few moments before her head came up and tears were running down her face.

"I do love you, with all my heart Louis, that's why this was so hard for me to say to you, but it needs to be done. I can't stay here with you. And you couldn't come with me; my society just isn't ready for that. But please know I do truly love you." She cried out whishing she could just run and hug him, letting her cry on his shoulder.

Louis didn't know what to say. It felt like his stomach was twisted by a rotating auger. Then suddenly he felt a stream of exhaustion wash over him. He had a hard time standing. He had to go lay down, he mumbled something to them letting them know his frustration at the situation and then started to hobble his way to his house. PEDi was trying to console her when he left them.

His vision was going; everything was just a hazy blur, his head was pounding and his legs felt like jelly. Somehow he made it to his room and flopped down hard on the bed, his body going completely limp and his mind going unconscious as soon as he hit the mattress.

*********************************************************************

His eyes opened slowly and it took him a while to realize he was sleeping in a standing position, and that his hands were locked to a wall above his head. He looked around and all he could see was a window with bars on it that showed him it was night. There was also a wooden door on the opposite wall that he was on. There was a small hole in the door and he saw the flicker of fire lighting the outside hall. He looked to his clothes and saw they were old and ratty looking, as if they had been used a thousand times before. Where was he? He thought. It felt like he was dreaming about being locked in a medieval dungeon.

He heard whispers and movement from the door, then a key turning and the door opening. In walked in four figures in hooded robes, two had lanterns with them and he could see their skin wasn't like his. One was yellow and the others were purplish, The other two stood in the middle and were talking to each other, one had the keys and the other were holding metal shackles.

That one kneeled down and put them on his feet while the other one went up and used the keys to unlock his bonds. Once his hands were free the beings with the lanterns grabbed a hand each, making sure he wouldn't fight. His will to fight was gone, he felt completely drain of all energy. They then shackled his hands and pointed for him to follow one of the ones with the lantern as it walked out of the room.

They escorted him down a long and winding stone staircase that eventually led to the outside. The temperature was warm with a slight breeze; the air was slightly humid and smelled of lavender. There was a blood red moon that hung violently in the sky. Also there was nothing around them but trees and bushes and a pathway up a hill with stepping stones that seemed to have been put there many years ago. On top of the hill there was another building, this one looked like a temple. It had several dome shapes on it almost Russian in architecture.

The walk up the hill was difficult in the shackles and he asked them where they were going a few times but they either didn't understand him or didn't care to answer. As they were getting closer to the entrance of the temple he saw it had many windows, they almost looked like stain glass windows one would see on a church. The doors were enormous and made of wood and the handle bars were just metal rings, there were no locks. The two without lanterns took one metal ring on the door and they both opened the door at the same time. Louis just stood there looking into the darkness of the temple before one of the lantern holders went on a head in. He then felt someone push his back, singling to him to move inside.

Inside the temple were two rows of pews as they walked down the middle of them. Each side was lined with the windows he saw, the moon made them barely visible but it was reminiscent of catholic stain glass with portraits that depicted events. When they got to the head of the pews he saw there were three thrones along the back of the wall. They were atop of stone steps that led up to them. Next to each throne was a candle, one was red, one was green and one was yellow. Right in front of him at the bottom of the steps was a small pool of water. Above him was a high ceiling and what looked like a dome, it looked as it was made out of glass but something was blocking the moon's light from coming in. The dome was aligned perfectly with the small pool of water at his feet.

Louis watched as one of his captures went up the steps and lit each candle before returning to him and took his shackles off. All four of them left and closed the doors to the temple, leaving him in there alone with only the glow of the candles lighting the temple. He didn't know what they wanted of him or where he would even go if he tried to escape so he just stood there waiting.

He couldn't believe his eyes when the smoke of the candles started to swirl together, making an outline of three different faces. It was hard to make out exactly what they were but there was no mistaking that it was humanoid, with eyes, lips and a nose.

"You are Louis West of earth are you not?" The smoke forms said in unison.

"Yes." He answered.

"Do you know why you are here?" They asked..

"I don't even know where here is. Where the hell am I?" Louis replied.

"You have made our Queen break her oath; she has fallen in love with you even though her entire life she has spent in preparation for this event." The beings spoke to him in a mocking tone ignoring his question.

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was this some type of trick Zulara was playing on him?

"Who are you? What do you want with me? Is this Zulara's doing?" He questioned not knowing what else to say.

"Do you have anything to say in your defense?" They asked ignoring his question again.

Louis was getting tired of this. He didn't care what was happening or where he was, if they were going to judge him for falling in love with someone then let it be over with.

"I have no defense, because I did nothing wrong, the fault lies with your Queen, I love her and I will always love her for the rest of time, even if she robs me of my memory, some part of me will love her, so do whatever you brought me here to do, then return me to her. For I don't have enough time to spend with her and wish to enjoy every last moment of it" He said harshly while he pointed at them with his finger.

"Is this accurate? Do you truly love her?" The beings asked.

"Yes, there is no doubt in my mind." He answered.

Suddenly there was a bright flash of light that made him look away, and once he returned his gaze he saw three being sitting in the thrones. Everything stopped being dream like and he felt as if he was truly in their presence. They looked like Zulara expect they were the same color of the candles they sat next to, red, yellow and green. The red one had curly hair while the yellow one had short hair and the green one had spiked hair, they each had on white robes that made them look like ancient Greek goddesses.

They studied him for a while, finally the red one who was in the middle talked. "We are the Goddesses of Zulara's race. We chose her to be the Queen to help find the race that could be our equal. You see Louis our race only has a few more generations before we go extinct. You were her chosen human companion. We brought you here not to punish you, but to test you. We believe the humans could be that race, as evident to you standing here in front of us. This world is known to our people as the spirit realm. What you humans might call heaven. Few races have stood were you are now. They were tested as you soon will be, but ultimately they failed."

The three Kafkan descended from thrones and made it down to him. The red one continued to talk.

"I am Avaleena." She said with a slight bow, and then motioned with her right hand towards the green one. "This is Meliketh." Who was eyeing him with a frown on her face. "And lastly we have Seseno." She had a great big smile on her face and waved when her name was called.

"This puny human doesn't look that impressive to me." Meliketh remarked with a huff and folding her hands across her chest.

"I think he is adorable!" Seseno chuckled unable to contain her smile as she came over to him and held one of his hands and began caressing his chest with her other.

"Easy Seseno. We must test him and truly find out if he can be the one." Avaleena reminded her.

Louis studied them. Each one was absolutely beautiful maybe even better looking than Zulara, they truly were worthy of the title Goddess. He could also tell their tits must be massive from how their robes fitted their bodies. Avaleena had curly hair that was all black and had strands like Zulara, expect they were red and orange. Meliketh had pink spiked hair with black and white strands, while Seseno had short blue hair with stands of violet and red. He could almost feel their personalities; Seseno was giddy and bubbly, always smiling. Meliketh seemed stern, never taking her frown off her face. But Avaleena was warm and welcoming, almost motherly.

Seseno was still holding his hand and rubbing his chest, he could feel himself get aroused by her touch. He tried to take his mind off of it by asking a question.

"You said you wanted to test me? For what? Can you please explain what the hell is going on?"

"See how can he be the God-King? He can't even figure it out." Meliketh dismissed him, rolling her eyes and turning her head towards Avaleena.

"He is still a mortal being Meliketh give him a chance." She replied, holding up her hand. "Long ago our race was like yours, male and female. We even had male Gods, just as we are the female Goddesses. But one day a male God left this spirit realm and was tempted by a mortal female. Their coupling was forbidden. And to punish that crime we Goddesses deemed males unworthy of life. We gave their offspring a disease that would only affect the males of the species. All of the male Gods were unhappy and fought us, all except one. He saved us, the last remaining Goddesses by sacrificing his immortality. We deemed him the God-King and the ritual was started to try and find a male species that embodied his courage." Avaleena informed him as Meliketh started to circle them, he could feel her eyes inspecting every inch of him.

"Wait so the dreams I been having the past few days, that was caused by you? You three used the memory of my dead wife to manipulate me!?" He shouted freeing his hand from Seseno.

Seseno was taken off guard and yelled out a yelp by the sudden move as Avaleena stepped to him and rested a soft hand on the side of his face. She looked into his eyes and he could feel the warmth of her entire being start to calm him.

"No we merely watched you; everything that happened to you in this realm was your own mind. We wanted to see if you could get our Queen to fall in love with you." Avaleena said.

"I don't understand any of this, why not just tell Zulara to tell me all this, why forbid love in the first place, none of this makes any sense." He asked still trying to come to terms with where he was.

"Focusing on logic has served our people for a long time, we could not have them falling in love with a race that wasn't truly our equals, like you are. We could not tell Zulara the whole story for we are testing her also, as we are testing you. We see in her the potential to become one of us, a Goddess when she dies. And you have played a part in that," Avaleena raised up a hand and a small portal was opened up in her palm, showing a window onto earth, Louis looked into it and saw Zulara busy reading some type of scroll. "She now sees love and all emotion as something worth keeping; she will even try and convince her people to embrace them. But she has to come to this decision on her own and against our teachings, that is the final test, there are times when even us Goddesses must make difficult choices, ones that may go completely against our beliefs, in order to save our people. By showing us that she loves you and wants to be with you no matter what her teachings say, it will prove to us that she is a Goddess. You may still have time to convince her to choose you over us. Once we are done testing you, we will send you back to earth, you may choose to tell Zulara of this exchange but if you do she will fail her test and not gain entry as a Goddess" Avaleena explained all of this to him while rubbing her thumb across his beard.

Seseno came back to his side with a smile once again and took his hand. He looked at her and felt at ease. He didn't understand this; some of it was like the religions back on earth with cryptic writings and contradictions. But it didn't matter to him; he wasn't going to do anything that could damage Zulara's chances at becoming a Goddess, whatever that meant. He loved her too much.

He reached up and took Avaleena's hand from his face and held it as he spoke. "I will not do anything to jeopardize her chances to be a Goddess, I may not fully understand this but you have my word."