The Xillian Trilogy (The Xillian Rebellion)

by Maia Tanith

  “Your mother is dying,” I say baldly. “She cannot have many days left.”

  He shakes his head, “She is my mother. I cannot abandon her to the mercies of her brother.”

  “Even to save the lives of others who also depend on you? The people who are starving outside these walls?”

  He shrugs but does not answer.

  I grit my teeth. I have no patience for people like him who close their eyes to reality and pretend everything is fine because they do not want to trouble themselves otherwise. “Are you happy living here like this?”

  “Like a rat in a cage?”

  “And yet you are too scared to try to break out of your cage. To make a better life for yourself. For everyone.”

  “And if I make it worse?”

  “Is there nothing that you want so badly that would give your life for it?”

  “Freedom, possibly. The knowledge that my uncle is gone for good. The opportunity to beat Yefrik’s face into a bloody pulp.”

  I grin at the last. I would like that myself, though I would prefer to knife him in the groin if I get the chance. “Then fight for it. You have your mother’s blessing, Caidgrath stands beside you. Stand up to your uncle. Do what you can, and fight for everything else.”

  “You are telling me to rebel against my uncle?”

  “I’m just telling you to get yourself on the right side of history, that’s all. To do the right thing.”

  Chapter Five

  Khan

  The human’s eyes are flashing with passion as she lectures me.

  I want to reach out and burn myself on her fire. To warm myself with the heat of it until the frozen core in my soul melts.

  I wonder how she does it. How she stays so brave when she is far away from her friends, from her family, from everything familiar to her. When she is a slave, with nothing.

  Or maybe somehow that makes it easier. It is easier to risk it all when you have nothing left to lose.

  Nothing left to lose.

  I have little left. My mother. A few friendly faces that I meet. No real friends. Those that I did have once were either sent away or punished for daring to hang out with me.

  I give in to temptation and reach out towards her. Her skin is soft, so soft under my hands. And her hair is like a waterfall of silk. “And if I was to join the rebellion? What then? Would you like me better then?”

  She holds herself still for a moment and then pulls away. “I’m not going to fuck you to try and convince you.”

  “Good. I do not want you to mate with me because you want something from me.” I stroke down her back, feeling the raised welts that still remained. She would be left with a crisscross of scars thanks to Yefrik. And thanks to my uncle. “I want you to mate with me because you want to. And because I want you, too.”

  Saying it aloud makes it more real. I want this human girl more than anything. I want her to look at me and see something is me that is worth having. Someone she could care for.

  It is ridiculous in a way that I should be so concerned with winning her over. I am a prince and she is my slave. She is the one who ought to be plotting and scheming to win me over.

  But I am not much of a prince, and she is so much more than a slave.

  Faye

  I always promised myself that if I escaped intact from Matteo, II would save myself for marriage. I would not give myself to any man who asked for me, just because he asks. I am worth more than that.

  Prince Khan cannot marry me. I don’t even know if they do the whole marriage thing here. Their relationships seem a bit more casual that all that ‘until death do us part’ stuff.

  But, to tell the truth, I am tired of waiting. I am tired of having nothing because I don’t want to settle for just a little bit.

  And I like Khan.

  Probably more than I should, given that he is a prince and I am a slave, and technically, he owns me. Well, there is nothing technical about it. He really does own me. Not that I feel owned. I am a human, after all, not a possession.

  I reach out for him and stroke my hand down his shoulder. I wanted to do that ever since I first saw him. Claw men have such beautiful shoulders, wide and muscled, as if they could do anything. Khan’s are the most beautiful of all. I feel them ripple under my fingers, as if they are shivering with pleasure.

  He is making a noise in his throat almost like purring and his head angles down over mine in a kiss.

  His lips are warm on mine as he takes my mouth.

  I’d never thought much of kissing before now. I’d been so focused on escaping Matteo’s kisses that I’d not thought about how nice kissing someone you really liked could be.

  Nice? No, that is way too pathetic a word for what I am feeling. Amazing. Terrific. Like I want to jump him and rip the rest of his clothes off.

  When he finally lifts his head, his eyes are dazed. “I have wanted to kiss you since the moment I first saw you,” he says. “You are so beautiful. I was filled with sorrow that you would never be mine. And then my uncle gave you to me.”

  I pull away, not liking the inference. “I am not yours for the taking, even if I am officially your slave.”

  His eyes fill with hurt. “I never thought you were. But, once you were mine, you were not his, either. He forfeit the right to take you to his bed.”

  “That is what happened to the other women who were with me?”

  He nods. “He thought you were defective,” he says with a smile. “As if you could be anything other than perfect.”

  He’s pretty damn perfect himself, if you ask me.

  I stand up from my chair, bringing him with me. Then I slide my hands down his side to his pants and tug them over his hips. Yep, he’s definitely perfect. And right now, he’s all mine. “Take me to your room,” I whisper. “And let’s find out how perfect we are together.”

  That is all the invitation he needs. With a fluid motion, he picks me up and tosses me over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold.

  He lays me gently on the bed and comes to lie beside me. His hands stroke my breasts and I shiver under his touch. I kick off my own loose pants and pull my shift over my head.

  I should feel embarrassed to be naked in front of him, but I do not. The two of us together feels right, like it is meant to be.

  We reach for each other then, gentleness giving way to passion, to desperation. His kiss grows deeper, and his hands stroke my breasts, my stomach, my thighs.

  I open for him in invitation. I want him to stroke me there, where I weep and ache for him. “Please, touch me.”

  I do not know where this shameless side of me has been hiding all my life. It is Khan who has brought it out in me. Khan who is caressing me, making me feel valued, making me feel like I am more than a slave. That I am real and important and that he cares for me.

  His fingers move between my thighs, teasing me. Tantalizing me with their promise of so much more. “You do not care that I am a prince.”

  “Should I care?” I am finding it difficult right now to care about anything other than the touch of his body on mine, the slide of his skin against mine as he moves to straddle me.

  He holds there for a moment, posed above me, the tip of his erection pushing against me, demanding entry. “You do not care that my uncle is the Emperor. You just care about who I am.”

  I look into his eyes, his oval cat pupils glinting gold in the light. “Do you care that I am a human? A slave?”

  His face is tight with the tension of holding on to his self-control. “No. All I care about is you. And whether you truly want this.”

  I angle my body so that I am ready for him. Ready to take him into me, to welcome him into my body.

  It is more than I have done with any man before. “Yes, I want this.”

  He pushes slowly into me, giving my body time to adjust to his girth. “You are so tight,” he mutters, sweat breaking out on his forehead.

  I wriggle under him. I want him inside me, I really do, but the reality is provin
g to be slightly uncomfortable. He is rather large, and I am built for making love with humans. Not with a huge, beautiful alien. “You are breaking new ground.”

  He freezes then. “I am your first?” His voice shakes a little as he asks.

  I grin at him. “You are. So you had better make it good if you don’t want to put me off for life.”

  “That means so much to me, to be your first. You are giving me a great gift. And I will try my best not to put you off. I would be sorry to ruin your first experience with men.” Then his expression lightens, and he grins back at me. “And I would be sorrier still if you didn’t want to repeat it with me.”

  I laugh. His gentleness has eased any discomfort I was feeling. Now all that is left is desire. I put my arms around him and draw him closer, further into me. His buttocks are taut in my hands. How come I never noticed before what an amazingly tight butt he has? “Let’s get through the first bout before we talk about a rematch.”

  He is all the way inside me now and I feel stretched. Full. I could not take any more even if he had more to give.

  He eases out of me and then back in, and I meet him eagerly. Yes, this is what I have been missing up until now. This is what closeness feels like.

  This is nothing like the violent coupling that Matteo would have forced on me, whether I liked it or not.

  This is an act of love.

  That momentary thought of Matteo makes my muscles tense. Khan stops moving inside me and looks at me searchingly. “Are you alright? Do you want me to stop?”

  I shift my hips against him. “A momentary twinge. It’s gone now.”

  “I’m glad of it.”

  He resumes his long, slow strokes, and I cling onto him for dear life. I want him to go faster, to take me over the edge into the orgasm that I can feel building inside me, but at the same time I want his languorous torture to last forever.

  We are too wrapped up in each other for words now.

  He pushes on relentlessly and I match him, stroke for stroke. Then, almost without warning, my desire peaks. I hold completely still for a moment, all my limbs stretched as if I am on the rack, and then my orgasm crashes over me. Wave after wave of pleasure washes over me, until I am left boneless, still tingling with the aftereffects.

  When I open my eyes again, all I can see is the satisfied look on Khan’s face. “Did I put you off for life?” he asks. He is holding still inside me, letting me milk every last drop of pleasure.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Good. Because I think if you pushed me off you now, I would spontaneously combust.”

  I summon the energy to push up against him and draw him further inside me, “Spontaneously combust inside me.”

  A few moments later, and he does just that. I’m quite sure his yell of completion could be heard halfway around the planet and into the stratosphere.

  He collapses on top of me, breathing hard. “Am I too heavy for you?”

  He is too heavy, but I don’t care. I love the feel of his weight pressing into me.

  When his breathing softens into sleep, I roll out from under him. He gives a murmur of protest and rolls over to spoon me instead, holding me close to him.

  I feel loved. Very well loved, indeed. But, even more than that, I feel heard. I feel cherished. I feel like I matter.

  I do not fall asleep. Litha will worry about me if I do not come back to the room I share with her, just as I would worry for her.

  Quietly, carefully, I extricate myself from Khan’s embrace and tiptoe from the room.

  I stop at the doorway to look back at him. In his sleep he looks so much younger, but even now he is not fully at rest. He twitches in his dreams like a cat dreaming of mice.

  Khan

  I do not stop Faye when she sneaks from my bed. I have always been a light sleeper, and her soft movements wake me from a recurrent nightmare where I am trapped in a room that keeps getting smaller and smaller until I know I am about to suffocate.

  I will not ask her to stay even though my heart cries out for her. The most respect I can show her is to give her a choice, and to respect the choice she makes even when it runs counter to my own desires.

  The following morning I go to see my mother. Litha is with her, as always. She gives me an odd glance and returns to passing the scanner over my mother’s thin frame.

  My mother gives me a pale smile. The bags under her eyes are deep purple, but her voice, when she speaks, is surprisingly perky. “You are looking well this morning.”

  I am feeling well. Better than I have for years, I think. I have hope now, where before I had none. “Thank you, mother. As are you.” It is only a little white lie.

  “Caidgrath tells me your thoughts are in sympathy with ours. Yes, he still visits me now and then,” she adds testily at my look of surprise. “He was my tutor as well as my brother’s.”

  She, too, supports the rebel cause? Against her own brother? They are better organized and supported than I had ever guessed. Half the palace must be secret sympathizers, if not outright working against the Emperor. “I had not realized you were in contact. That is all.”

  She taps her nose. “I have not lived this long without keeping my a few secrets of my own. But Khan, it is time.”

  And with that, she shut her eyes and dozed off again, her energy exhausted.

  I go to find Faye. She is in the laundry humming to herself as she takes a load of freshly cleaned linen from the dryer and folds it into neat piles.

  She colors when she sees me but does not stop her work.

  I stand close behind her, my breath tickling the hairs on the back of her neck. “Was I such a shabby lover that I do not warrant a kiss of greeting this morning?”

  She turns her head and pecks me on the cheek. “I was scared you might not want to see me this morning. That you would be ashamed of our night together.”

  I shake my head at her. “There is no shame in our mating, little human—”

  “My name is Faye,” she breaks in.

  “—and I want to see you every morning. I want to go to sleep with you at night and wake up every morning with you by my side.”

  She looks sideways at me. “Are you upset that I left you last night?”

  “No.” It is the truth. “You may come and go as you please. But I want you to feel free to stay.”

  Faye

  Khan comes to visit his mother every day. When she sleeps, which is often, he comes to find me. Whatever I am doing, he lends me a hand so I can finish faster. We carve out time to talk. To kiss. To simply be in one another’s company.

  I visit his apartments every evening, but I do not stay the night. I am not quite comfortable enough in our relationship to do that just yet. Instead, every evening he walks me back to the Queen’s apartments, to the room I share with Litha. Those globes of light that follow him in the darkness are irritating, but they serve to light the way.

  Litha squeezes my hand one night when I come back later than usual and tells me she is glad I have found happiness. And please to continue to make Khan welcome, as I am getting through far more work with him there to help me.

  I am happy to have her approval. Other than Khan, she is my only friend here.

  Even in my newfound happiness, I do not forget Caidgrath. Whenever Khan is not with me, I haunt the palace gardens in the hope of running across him, but I do not see him again for some days. I want to tell the old man that I delivered the message safely to Khan, and that Khan is ready to make a stand. Most of all, I want to see that he is all right. He looked so ill in the corridor when he handed me the disc.

  When I do finally see him again, I wish I hadn’t. I come across him in the garden. He is sitting on a bench, his gaze vacant. His grey hair has gone completely white. When he turns his head towards the noise of my footsteps, I let out a gasp of horror. Both his eyes are gone. In their place are rough dressings, bloodied around the edges.

  I hurry to his side. “Caidgrath.” I do not ask what happened. It can on
ly have been the Emperor. Only he would have the power, and the will, to order such an unspeakable act to be done.

  “Do not grieve for me,” he says in his kindly way. “I have had a long life. And, I hope, a useful one. I am old and past my best. I will not miss what the Emperor has taken away for long.”

  “The disc?” I ask.

  He shudders. “No. If he knew about that, I would have lost more than my eyes.”

  “Then what?”

  “I am too used to relying on the affection he bore me once. Back then, he used to call me his conscience. I was able to speak out, just a little, to moderate his worst ideas.” He heaves a long sigh. ”I asked him again to reconsider his actions on Mei and he took it ill. He told me that my time is over. That I had grown old and wearisome and he no longer needed my counsel. Now his conscience is blinded, and the people of Mei are doomed.” His voice is somber. “But enough of my troubles. What did Khan say when you gave him the disc?”

  “He scolded me for bringing it to him at first. But it gave him hope. He will join the rebellion. As soon as he finds a way out of the palace, he will leave. He will stand openly against the Emperor and throw his lot in with the rebels.”

  Caidgrath bows his head. If he still had eyes, he would be weeping with thankfulness. “I am glad of it,” he says at last. “His people will be glad of it.”

  Khan

  “The human is no fit mate for you.”

  I blink at my mother. Her remark has come out of nowhere.

  She tsks with irritation. “Do not pretend to play stupid with me, Khan. I know you better than that. And I have seen you make eyes at the human girl. When she is in the room, you can barely see anything else. I have to send her away whenever you come to see me or share your attention with a human of all things.”

  She makes me sound like a lovesick kit. “I do not ‘make eyes’ at the human.”

  “I would mind less if she were a proper mate for you. A Kargan.” She extends the claws on one hand with some effort. They are brittle and yellow with age and with a sigh she retracts them again. “Some woman with pure bloodlines. Who is fit to sit on the throne at your side. To rule by your side.”