Abducted By The Warrior Prince

by Roxie Ray

  “It is for your safety, and the cub’s. Please.” Her eyes were pleading.

  And when she put it like that, just like everything else that had happened to me here—I guessed I didn’t really have a choice.

  When the ship finally landed, it wasn’t Leonix who came to take me out of the protective harness she’d sat me down in. It was Kloran—who I wanted to see even less.

  “Bree-ah,” he said softly, keeping his distance. “Are you…well?”

  “As well as I can be since some asshole forced a baby into me,” I snapped back at him. But the straps were starting to chafe against my bad shoulder, and I didn’t know how to undo them on my own. “Will you get me out of this thing? I’m starting to get claustrophobic.”

  Kloran nodded and approached me slowly. He was careful not to brush his fingers against my skin as he undid the straps, which was a blessing. At least he knew where we stood.

  Only…I wasn’t sure I even knew where we stood now. I was still having his baby. Because of it, I’d never be able to return to Earth again. I supposed I’d be able to give birth to it, leave it with the Lunarians, and finally take them up on that mind wipe and trip home I’d been promised, but…

  But the idea of giving up the child that was growing inside me wasn’t one that sat well with me. My own government had torn my parents away from me. I didn’t think I could just abandon my own child like that. No matter what Kloran had done, it wasn’t our baby’s fault. That was the only thing I was certain of anymore—I could hate Kloran, I could be angry with Leonix, but I couldn’t hate the child in my womb.

  I already loved it too much. I knew it sounded crazy, but when I slept, I could already feel it there with me in my dreams.

  “My people are gathered outside to welcome us home,” Kloran said once I was free from the straps. “They are…excited to meet you. For obvious reasons. But if you do not wish to be paraded around, I will not force you. We could slip you out of the ship’s exterior doors, keep you out of sight.”

  His purple eyes glistened with sincerity. And at least I’d already thought a lot about this part.

  “No. It’s fine.” I bowed my head and shook it. “I know what this means to your people.” I forced a smile on my lips when I looked up at him again, but I knew it didn’t look anything short of grim. “I guess let the parade commence.”

  When we exited the ship, I was dressed in the richest Lunarian finery I’d ever laid eyes on. My neck, wrists, ankles, and even the crown of my head were dripping with purple jewels inlaid with gold. A long golden cape hung around my shoulders with a train that took a dozen of Kloran’s warriors to carry. Kloran himself was in his full military regalia, bright white and studded with medals.

  I supposed he’d get another one for knocking me up. What I really thought he deserved was a punch to the dick while I spat in his face.

  Still, as the hush that held the crowd in tense awe broke into a thunderous roar of cheers and applause, I knew we must have looked good together. When I scanned the horizon, searching for an end to the crowd, I didn’t find one.

  “There must be thousands of them out there,” I whispered.

  Kloran nodded and offered me his arm. “All here to see you, Bree-ah. As I told you when you first arrived here…the female to carry a Lunarian cub would be treated as a goddess. And here you are.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, I took his arm. I’d never been a goddess before. Growing up in Sector Six, I’d always kind of figured I’d die in some trailer somewhere, if the government didn’t pick me up and ship me off to a work camp first. But now, as we moved through the crowd and they parted, dropping down to their knees and bowing low while we passed, I was beginning to realize there were pressures to being worshipped, too.

  These people needed me. They needed the baby that Kloran and I had conceived together. They didn’t care how it had come about.

  Now, I was their race’s hope for a future. And no matter how I felt about Kloran at the moment, I knew I needed to act the part.

  As Kloran guided me toward a massive golden palace in the center of the crowd, I forced a tight smile on my lips and tried to make it look genuine. I matched him in step and held my head high. I might have been born in a Sector Six dump, but Kloran was a prince of these people, which made me a kind of a princess, I supposed. I wasn’t going to do a disservice to the sector I’d been born in by looking anything short of regal now.

  From the palace’s steps, I spotted Kloran’s parents descending toward us. His mother was dressed in finery similar to my own, though she wasn’t baring her midriff like I was, and no one had forced a cape on her. She embraced me as soon as she was close enough, laying a kiss on my forehead and another on my cheek.

  “Welcome to Lunaria, Bri-yuh.” She was beaming as she stared down at me. Her smile was almost infectious, and for a moment, I didn’t even resent the fact that apart from Healer Adskow, it didn’t seem like any one of the Lunarians could actually pronounce my name.

  “And welcome to the family!” Kloran’s father was in a ridiculous-looking purple and gold set of robes. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, now that I could see him from an angle where he wasn’t trying to smoosh his face against the monitor of the communication screen. I guessed that was another plus, for the moment—Kloran obviously had good genes.

  We moved up the palace’s steps as a unit. To my embarrassment, they’d obviously been built for legs longer than mine, and I had to cling to Kloran to keep from falling at points. Ever the gentleman—when he wanted to be, anyway—Kloran held me steady. When we reached the top, he helped me turn to face the Lunarian people without tripping over the edge of my cape until his warriors could arrange it behind me.

  “They will be expecting a speech, son,” Kloran’s father reminded him. “I hope you have prepared one!”

  He passed a small device over to Kloran. I figured it must have been a microphone. When Kloran held it up to his mouth, his voice boomed across the crowd.

  “Three years ago, I left this planet in search of only one thing: a female who could provide our species with a future. One worth having. But along the way, through all our struggles…I ended up with something somewhat unexpected.”

  He glanced to me, looking slightly nervous. It was little annoying, but I knew exactly what he needed. I slipped my hand into his and gave him a little squeeze of encouragement. In return, Kloran breathed out and gave me a grateful nod.

  “Now, I come to you with something even better than what I had been searching for. I present to you the human female Bree-ah of the planet Earth. She carries my cub in her womb. And someday soon, I hope, if she will have me—” he cast another glance in my direction, “—My princess and my wife.”

  Another cheer exploded throughout the crowd, this one even louder than the first. I still didn’t know about princess, let alone wife, but it was encouraging.

  On Earth, I’d been no one. Nothing. But here on Lunaria, I actually could give these people a future.

  It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  And even though I was still furious, I couldn’t help but smile a little bigger in pride as I stood by Kloran’s side.

  Inside the palace, the magic of the crowd’s cheers faded a little. It was easier to remember that I was still angry at him inside it—but even then, I couldn’t help but stare in awe at the rooms he’d brought me to.

  “This is where you live, then? It’s even nicer than the embassy.” I plucked at the leaf of a vase of flowers that had been shaped completely from gold, thorns and all. “No wonder you feel like you can do whatever you want without consequences. We’ve got people like you on Earth, too.”

  “Bree-ah…” Kloran’s voice rumbled. He raked his fingers through his thick silver waves in frustration. “How long are you going to continue being cold to me? I am doing all I can to make this right.”

  “For as long as you kept your dirty little secret from me, I guess.” I shrugged. I didn’t feel any sympathy for him—he�
��d gotten himself into this mess, and I was done pushing myself to forgive people who had hurt me at my own expense. “Maybe longer.”

  “I did not keep the secret out of malice, Bree-ah. I wish you would try to understand.”

  “Yeah, and you injected me with get-pregnant fluid because you thought it was a good thing to do, huh?” I didn’t want to hear it. I understood why he’d done well enough. But that didn’t make it right. “You didn’t think about me or what I wanted. You only thought of your people and yourself.”

  “I hoped—” Kloran began, but I stopped him with a glare.

  “You hoped I’d let you do whatever you wanted to my body without my consent. I might have fallen into bed with you willingly, Kloran. I might have even fallen in love with you. But in the end, you didn’t treat me any better than one of your breeding slaves. Worse, even.” My glare deepened. “At least they signed up for it.”

  21

  Kloran

  Bree-ah’s words were like a punch to the gut. Not because of her venom, though of that, there was plenty.

  No. They hurt me, because they were true. I wanted to make things right, but I did not know how. And obviously, despite the display she had so generously put on for my people, she was not ready to forgive me yet.

  Perhaps she would never forgive me at all.

  “I love you, Bree-ah,” I said simply. We were speaking in truths, after all, and that was the greatest one I could conjure. “I know I have not acted as lovingly toward you as you deserve in the past, but I seek only to prove myself a better man for the future. Whatever I must do to show you this, however much time it takes…I will do all I can.” With a nod, I moved toward the door. “These rooms are yours. Mine are down the hall. But I will not enter here again without invitation. I will not burden you with my presence any longer. It is clear to me you do not wish for it.”

  I reached for the door, but Bree-ah called after me before I could leave.

  “Kloran—wait.” When I turned, she was chewing on her lower lip. She looked suddenly uncertain, dwarfed by the large jewels she had been draped in and by the massive gilded room surrounding her. “I…you’re just going to leave me here then? All alone?”

  I shrugged. “My presence distresses you. I do not wish to cause you any further pain.”

  “But…” She looked around the room anxiously. “But I don’t have anyone here. I don’t know…”

  “I could send for Mother, if you like. I know she is eager to become acquainted with you. She was unfortunate enough to only have one cub—and I have brought disgrace on our house by hurting you so. Already, though, she sees you as a daughter. Perhaps you would do her the honor of spending time with her instead.”

  Bria hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “That, um. Yeah. Okay. That would be all right.”

  I wanted to linger for longer, but I felt I had overstayed my welcome already. With a word to a servant in the hall, I sent for my mother to spend the afternoon in Bree-ah’s rooms. Unfortunately for me, I had matters to deal with greater than Bree-ah’s hatred for me—though, only barely.

  “Your scouts have apprehended a member of one of the ships that attacked them as they retreated from Jeorkanian space,” my father informed me as I entered the war room. “There were no other survivors. Unfortunately.”

  A sinister glint in his eyes told me that the word unfortunately was not one he truly meant.

  “Rutharian?” I asked. My jaw clenched at the thought. Having a Rutharian prisoner here on Lunaria was not a concept that brought me joy. Rutharians took no prisoners. If he were to escape, I doubted our generosity in sparing his life would change that fact.

  My father shook his head, though. “Obarian. A mercenary, we think. Will you interrogate him?” The glint returned to my father’s eyes. “You always did excel at that.”

  I knew his meaning well. Beyond my time in the fighting pits, I had also been trained in other, less straightforward arts of war. During our simulations, my rage had always been an asset when it came to intimidating my subjects. In true action out in the galaxies, it proved to be one of my greatest talents.

  I entered the prisoner’s holding cell with a snarl on my lips. It was not difficult to conjure up. I was doing my best not to lash out at Bree-ah while she acted so hatefully toward me, but all of those frustrations as I fought my anger back were quick to build up.

  “Let us get right to it, then.” I placed a claw at the prisoner’s translucent throat and pressed it against the bulge of a bright red vein. With but a flick of my finger, I could slice it open. He would bleed out within minutes. The sourness of his fear and the quickening of his pulse told me he knew it, too. “Your ship attacked that of my warriors as they were called from their posts. It was an act of great cowardice—but I sense you have already determined as much.”

  “H-hilarious,” the Obarian sneered up at me. He was trying to summon up courage, but bathed in fear as he was, it did not ring true. “I did not realize that Lunarians so enjoyed retreating. Which of us are truly the cowards, when it was your men who were running away from the fight?”

  I pressed my claw deeper into his neck. A mere flinch from either of us, and it would puncture his skin. As I drew my face so close to his, his thin, pointed nose was nearly touching mine, I smiled a grin that said just try me.

  “You tell me,” I growled through my fangs.

  Through the Obarian’s skin, I could see his heart racing. Good. He was even more scared now—and I wanted him scared.

  “I…I…” The Obarian glanced down at my claw, then shuddered.

  “Who ordered the attack?” Now that I had him where I wanted him, it was best to keep my questions short and to the point.

  He drew in a sharp breath. When he breathed it out again, long and slow, I knew I’d broken him.

  “You ask me questions you already know the answer to.”

  “Say it.”

  Another breath, this one ragged, and then a nod. “Queen Lieja of Jeorkana. When you withdrew your troops from Jeorkanian space, she called upon my commander to make you pay for it. Her own payment was too generous to turn down.”

  As I mulled over this information, I nearly nicked his vein anyway. Lieja. Of course it was. He must have felt my fingers twitch toward acting on that urge, because his eyes widened in terror and his mouth opened again.

  “She wanted you distracted! She told us there was a human female aboard your ship, one that you valued greatly. We were to eliminate your returning warriors, then storm your ship to finish off the rest.”

  A cold pit of fear swelled in my stomach. “And the human? What were you to do with her?”

  “You, we were to incapacitate. The female, we were to bring back to Jeorkana.” He blinked at me, shuddering. “I am sorry! She seemed obsessed with the female, and furious at you, but that is all I know!”

  I tore my claw away from him with a roar. It took him a moment to realize that I had not sliced his throat. When he did, his body slumped with relief.

  He could relish that sense of relief in the palace’s dungeons. I was done with him—for now.

  I stormed from the room, my head swimming with calculations. We had been lucky to escape the full force of Lieja’s wrath and the attacks of her mercenaries. Luckier still that they were not able to board the Avant Lupinia before we were able to return to Lunaria safely. Here on my home planet at least, I had no reason to doubt Bree-ah’s safety. My people were loyal. None would dare betray me—or injure her. Especially not now that I had presented her to them as the fruit of my mission and the salvation of our race.

  But then, outside the interrogation room, I heard it. A scream, then a groan and the pattering of feet.

  I broke into a run toward the end of the corridor. Before I could make it there, my mother skittered around the corner, her hair disheveled and a dagger in her hand.

  That was not what worried me, though.

  What worried me was the way her finery was splashed red with blood.

/>   “Mother! Are you—”

  As I took her into my arms, she was shaking, but when I lifted the bloodstained skirt of her gown, she shook her head.

  “Not my blood,” she reassured me. “But Bri-yuh—we were having tea in the gardens, and the worker slaves there fell upon us—”

  I took her wrist in my hand and turned it over to examine the dagger she clutched. It was made of obsidian. Sharp, jagged black stone.

  “Obarians?” I guessed.

  She nodded, the tears in her eyes smearing her eye-paint down her cheeks. “I was able to fight the first off and take his weapon, but another—he came for me, and I had to flee.”

  I peered down the hall, where the translucent body of her Obarian pursuer was slumped in a pool of his own blood. That did not surprise me. Leonix may have trained me for the fighting pits, but my mother had trained her.

  “Bree-ah. Where is she, Mother? Is she safe?” Even as I asked, my heart hardened to stone and sank in my chest.

  “They grabbed her, Kloran, and I could not protect her. There were too many, and our guards—I do not know where they were.”

  From behind me, I could hear the feet of more guards racing toward us. I kissed my mother’s forehead, glad for her safety, before I left her with the warriors and took off toward the gardens.

  They had been instructed to take Bree-ah alive. That gave me some hope.

  It meant that when I found them and killed them, she would be alive to see me tear through every last one of their throats beneath my claws.

  I could feel my eyes burn red as my feet pounded the marble beneath them in a sprint. I had not felt a war rage like this in quite some time. I let it consume me, drive me forward, my will set on blood.

  When I was done with Lieja’s mercenaries and Bree-ah was safe, I would seek Lieja herself out next—and by the time I was done with her, she would wish she had never been born.

  22

  Bria