The Commander's Warrior Mate

by A. R. Kayne

  The Commander’s Warrior Mate

  The Vitruvian Chronicles

  A.R. Kayne

  Copyright © 2019 by A.R. Kayne

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact A.R. Kayne at author@arkayne.org.

  This document is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by T.A. Brown

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A Few Last Notes

  CHAPTER ONE

  Jess

  “Hello, Jess. I’m Captain Pryce Adamson. Tell me about yourself and your son.”

  The speaker, a massive black-haired man with whiskers ridging his mouth and jaw, sat across a metal table from her. He wore a black uniform that was severe in its simplicity, ornamented only with a group of bars and some gold squiggles. His eyes danced and the corners of his mouth twitched, as though he found her or life in general amusing. Something about him made a weird longing course through Jess’s body. She didn’t trust the sensation at all. She glared at him and pulled the child sleeping on her lap closer.

  “I won’t tell you anything,” Jess said, her jaw firm. “Why would I? We were asleep, causing no harm. Your thugs crashed into our home, tore it apart, and took my son away from me. Do you have any idea how frightening that was? We’ve been grabbed and groped and left to rot down to our bones in this jail. I demand that you release us at once.”

  The man’s smile vanished. “I’m very sorry they frightened you. That was not my intention at all. I do have a few questions, though. I can’t let you go until I have some answers.”

  Jess feigned a look of frightened innocence. “Could you could free me from this chair first? I’m sore and bruised from being attacked, and the restraints are awfully tight.”

  The chair she sat in was immobile, apparently secured to the floor. The only parts of her body not bound to it were her hands and forearms, just enough to allow her to cuddle the child. How she was going to escape, she didn’t know, but if she was free, she stood a much better chance. Perhaps the man had something weapon-worthy in his pockets.

  He leaned back in his chair, folded his arms over his chest, and grinned at her. “Maybe in awhile. My staff warned me not to get anywhere near you. Just so you know, I don’t have any weapons and my pockets are empty. I’m not even wearing shoes, so you can give up any fantasies about ramming one down my throat and choking me to death. If you attack me, we’ll both be gassed and put to sleep. After that, you’ll be stripped naked and thrown in an isolation cell without the child.”

  “You’d do that to a poor woman who’s simply trying to protect her son?” She tried to force tears to her eyes, but she feared that her expression was closer to a glare. He seemed unmoved.

  “Jess – your name is Jess, isn’t it? – what’s your son’s name?”

  He waited a couple of moments. When she didn’t answer, he pressed on.

  “You seem young to have a child his age. How old were you when you birthed him?”

  “It’s none of your business. I demand that you release us immediately.” She bared her teeth at him in a feral smile.

  He also smiled, but this time the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “Ah, Jess. I’m trying to be polite and understanding, but the fact is that you aren’t in a position to demand anything. Do you even understand where you are?”

  She shrugged. “In one of your Imperial dungeons, I imagine, somewhere in the city by the great water. A child and his mother can be of no possible interest to you. Open a door, let us out, and we’ll find our own way home.”

  He braced his arms on the table and leaned forward, his eyes drilling into hers. “No, Jess. I’m not with the Imperials or the Ghul and we aren’t on your planet at all.”

  Goosebumps broke out on her skin. What did he mean? She and the boy had been taken only a few hours ago. If they weren’t on Draco, where were they?

  He watched her closely and nodded when the true magnitude of the situation dawned on her. “That’s right. This isn’t a situation you’re going to walk away from. Even if you somehow broke free of that chair, overpowered me, and got out of this room, there’d be many kilometers of vacuum between you and your home. If you want to ever see home again, I suggest that you give me some answers.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Pryce

  Pryce watched the woman, Jess, absorb the fact that she was on a spaceship. Her appearance attested to a life of hard work and privation. She wore only a ragged, stained tunic that reached to mid-thigh. Her hair was dusty, bound in a thick, messy braid that extended to the seat of her chair. Dirt was ground beneath her ragged nails and into the soles of her bare feet.

  Despite her attire and the obvious power imbalance, she was proud, angry, and clearly determined to tell him nothing. However, her thoughts were transparent, refreshingly so. He could see shock and panic flit across her face: She was in outer space! Her only way down to ground was on a craft she couldn’t pilot! How much those facts would motivate her to cooperate, he couldn’t say.

  “So. Let’s try again. How old were you when you birthed the child?”

  She stared him in the eye and slowly shook her head. “You’ve eyes like a fire snake’s.”

  “I take it that isn’t a compliment.”

  At least she was speaking to him. That was progress of sorts, far better than having her shriek or try to kill him. She’d gone through both of those stages with his security team.

  She sneered. “They’re dangerous, wily creatures. People underestimate them because they’re so beautiful. I’ve no trust for fire snakes. What does it matter how old I was?”

  Ah. Good. She’d finally bitten at one of his questions. “Just idle curiosity. You seem young to have child his age.” Actually, she didn’t, but he wanted to see what she’d say.

  She ducked her head, avoided his eyes, and fiddled with her braid. “Yes. I was very young. I don’t like to talk about it. It brings back bad memories.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Did you lose your partner?”

  “My partner?” She furrowed her brow, bewildered.

  “The child’s father.”

  “Oh. Him. Yes, he’s gone.”

  Pryce nodded in feigned sympathy. “I’m sorry for your loss. What happened?”

  “He, uh …” She looked panicked. Her eyes flitted around the room and came to rest on a picture of a forest, one of th
e bland images the Psych group insisted on putting in rooms like this one. Her expression brightened. “He died. It was a wood cutting accident.”

  Of course it was. Pryce suspected that if they’d been in a room with a picture of a lake, her partner would have drowned instead.

  He nodded sympathetically. “That’s terrible! I hope it was quick, at least.”

  She shrugged and smiled. “Yes. Quick. His axe slipped. Blood squirted everywhere and he screamed a little, then he passed out. It wasn’t the worst death. It wasn’t as good as slipping away in your sleep, but at least it was better than a firesnake bite where you shit yourself, puke a lot, and go blind. Or having your head bashed in with a big rock. I did that to a man once and it was horrible.”

  She looked suspiciously happy for someone who’d just killed off an old love. Pryce didn’t believe a word she’d said, other than the part about bashing a man with a rock. Somehow he could imagine this delicate, half-feral creature doing just that.

  “Did you have to go through the pregnancy alone?”

  She bowed her head and affected a sorrowful expression. “Yes. He died not long after the stinging.”

  “The stinging?”

  Jess frowned at him with a hint of impatience. “You know, the way babies are made. The male animals knock the females to the ground, hold them down, and pierce their skin with their two mating parts. I tried not to scream when he did it. It hurt so bad I thought he’d bitten my butt off.”

  Pryce’s jaw dropped but he swiftly recovered. “I’ve heard that it can.” What the fuck? Was she serious? It sounded like a scene straight out of a nightmare! “Uh, does your son have the two mating parts?”

  “Not yet. Right now there’s just a floppy skin tube he uses for peeing. I figure the other one will grow in when he’s older, and his pee-tube will get barbs.” She eyed him with open curiosity. “You’re a man. You must know about this. When does the other one appear?”

  Pryce wondered how in the actual hell he’d gotten in a discussion about nightmare dicks. At this point, the interrogation was so far off track that he’d need a map to find his way back. “His body will change later, when he’s old enough to mate,” Pryce replied. He decided not to mention that the change wouldn’t involve growing barbs or a second phallus. “Was your partner a large man? Some women are pregnant for a couple of years if the father is large.”

  “Yes. Almost two years. By myself. In the cave. It was … hard. Lonely.”

  She attempted her sorrowful expression again. This time it looked like a cross between indigestion and a facial palsy. Pryce started to laugh, then turned the sound into a cough when she squinted at him suspiciously.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said in grave tones. “Here on the ship, women have access to scarifiers and trepanation kits during delivery.”

  She avoided his eyes and nodded sadly. “The trepanation kit would have been helpful. Things like that weren’t available after the Ghul invaded.”

  Pryce bit the inside of his cheek, desperately trying not to howl. Usually interrogations involved yelling, threats, and maybe a little violence. Who knew that one could be so much fun?

  “I notice that your son looks a little different from you.”

  That was a massive understatement. The child had skin of the deepest brown imaginable and tight clusters of black curls, while Jess was on the other end of the human skin color spectrum. The child was also quite a bit cleaner than her. She’d obviously gone to some effort to take care of him.

  “Yes.” She smiled, clearly proud that she’d thought of acknowledging his statement without expanding on it.

  Pryce couldn’t hold back any longer. He clutched his stomach and doubled over laughing. It took several minutes before he could quit gasping and speak again.

  “Jess. Honey. You’ve got to do better than that. So far you’ve told me a bunch of lies. I need facts so I can help you and the child.”

  She stiffened. Her nostrils flared and she clenched her jaw. She pulled the child tight against her body, shielding him with her forearms.

  “I’m not your honey, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t trust you,” she hissed. “I don’t need or want your help, other than a quick trip back home. I don’t know what game you’re playing or why you’re so curious, but this boy is an innocent child. Innocent. Blameless. He’s seen bad things, things that give him terrors and make him piss himself at night. I won’t have people scaring him. If you or anyone else tries to lay a finger on him, I’ll fight you to the death.”

  Finally, some truth. Pryce steepled his fingers and studied her. He suppressed the thought that she was stunning in her anger, so smart and passionate that he regretted not meeting her under other circumstances. Not only was the idea clichéd, it wasn’t respectful. If his mother knew what he was thinking, she’d rip his ears off.

  “Yes. I believe you conveyed that message when my team picked you up. You injured half of them before they brought you on board.”

  Two of his men were in medical nursing knife wounds, swollen balls, and sprained egos. Despite their battle armor, Jess had managed to stab them. The third person had been lucky: she was a woman and didn’t have external gonads. However, she’d still taken a knife wound.

  According to Security, Jess had been a wild animal when they tried to take the boy away from her. The child hadn’t taken the separation much better. He was still weeping and begging for her when they reached the ship, so Pryce had ordered them put in a room together. It was an unpopular decision, one that made his Security Chief mutter and curse, but Pryce’s gut had said it was right. It made the boy happy, and Pryce had a feeling the child was safer with Jess than with almost anyone else.

  Just then, the boy in question woke up and rubbed his eyes.

  “Mata Jess?” He peered up at her and, when he saw she was upset, pressed a sloppy kiss on her cheek. “Mata Jess,” he repeated and, in Galactic Six, asked if she was okay.

  Pryce watched the exchange and saw that Jess didn’t understand. Right. It was time to move things along and get some answers. He stood and ordered treats from the synthesizer.

  “Ro? Would you like a snack?” he asked, in GalSix.

  The boy eagerly grabbed the food. Jess went pale and her shoulders slumped. Pryce understood that look. She was uneducated, probably, but not stupid. No, based on what the team had found in her home, she wasn’t stupid at all. She clearly understood the implications of Pryce knowing the child’s name and language.

  “How are you, Ro?” Pryce thought carefully about how to phrase his questions. He didn’t want to upset the lad. Fortunately, he had young nieces and nephews, so he was comfortable talking to children. “I’ve been talking to your Mata Jess. You’ve had quite an adventure!”

  Ro swiveled around and grinned at Jess, his mouth half-full of food, then turned back toward Pryce.

  “Yes,” Ro replied in GalSix, “Some bad guys had me. Mata Jess and I took care of them then she took me to her hole-house.”

  Pryce grinned at him. Talking to little boys about bad guys was familiar territory. Hell, talking to big boys and girls about bad guys was familiar territory.

  “What did you do? Did you trick them?” Pryce asked in an excited voice.

  Ro spun out a long narrative replete with pew-pew sounds, throat-clutching, and stabbing motions. That was followed by a description of life in the woods, including cleaning his teeth with a stick and peeing on trees. Pryce listened intently, inserting a question here and there, until the child ran out of words. At long last Ro lapsed into silence, reached for more food, and snuggled up against Jess. She pulled him close and kissed the top of his head, never taking her eyes off Pryce.

  Pryce leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and met Jess’s eyes. She clearly hadn’t understood a word of the conversation. She looked gutted and worried. He was sorry for that, but it had to be done.

  “So, Jess. Why don’t you tell me what really happened? Start at the beginning and tell me everything
.”

  She bit her lower lip with surprisingly white teeth and she told him what he already knew.

  “The Ghul had him. He was scared and they were hurting him, so I killed them.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jess, two months prior

  Jess stepped out of her small cave home and turned in the direction of her grandmother’s grave.

  “Bye, Grandma. I’ll be back later. I love you,” she said, then she shouldered her pack and started the half-day hike to the meadow beyond the tall trees. Realistically, she knew her grandmother was gone and couldn’t hear her. However, Jess felt better if she paid her respects each day.

  The days were long, lonely, and sad without Grandma Lilla. Sometimes Jess wondered if she’d ever hear another person’s voice again. It was more likely that she’d spend the rest of her life alone, huddling in a hole in the ground and scavenging for food. She was one of the lucky ones, though. She had a snug secure cave deep in the woods and enough food for her belly. Since the Ghul had come, there weren’t many who could say that.

  Jess rubbed her bare arms as she walked. The nights were growing cooler and the days were getting shorter. Fall was coming; it was time to gather and store supplies. Winters could be harsh, a time of starving if one didn’t plan well. But she would. She’d follow her grandmother’s teachings and she’d be ready. There was no reason to doubt herself. She’d taken on more and more of the work as her grandmother grew old. By the time Lilla grew ill, she’d been doing all of it.

  In the meantime, there was painbane to gather. She’d used the last of the herb helping Lilla die comfortably. With her monthly blood coming soon, she needed more. With luck, she could make the trip and be back before nightfall. Perhaps she’d even gather some lovely sweet bark grubs from the trees near the meadow. It took little effort and they were a good source of protein.