Rescued By The Warrior Lord

by Roxie Ray

  Bria stopped abruptly as she came up to us and spotted the message. Kloran was not far behind, pulling on his own robe. His face fell as well when he saw what had been written on the doors.

  “Blood,” he swore. “Who—”

  “We do not know,” I said simply. “But I intend to find out.”

  “Bria.” Kloran drew his wife near, kissed the top of her head, and moved her toward Sawyer. “Take Sawyer and Kali back to our rooms. When you get there, lock the doors.”

  “Are we in danger?” Bria asked, her pale face contorted with concern.

  “I do not know,” Kloran admitted, echoing my own words. “But I intend to find out.”

  Before I released Sawyer from my arms, I turned her face up to me and placed kisses on her forehead, both of her tear-wetted cheeks, and finally, on her lips. “Go with her, precious thing. Kloran and I will take care of this.”

  “You’re luh-luh-leaving?” This seemed to distress Sawyer most of all, but when I kissed her again, I felt the tension in her body relax by half.

  “Not for long. Just a few hours. By the time we return, you will not have to worry about this anymore—or ever again.”

  Sawyer nodded, then went to stand by Bria’s side while Kloran summoned guards to watch over them and a servant to clean up the blood on the doors. Lowly, I heard him question the guards, but none seemed to know who might have left the message. When he asked if they had seen anyone suspicious in the palace that evening, they all shook their heads no.

  It was a troubling thing to learn. That meant that whoever had left the message either resided within the palace itself—or they had somehow managed to evade all of the guards who were posted there for Bria and Sawyer’s protection. And if they had been able to do that…

  What else would they be able to do?

  Once the females were safely locked inside Bria and Kloran’s rooms, Kloran came to me with a look of fury tempered only with his own concern.

  “When the king said the lords and ladies were unhappy about Sawyer being here, I did not think he meant that it had come to this.” He gestured to the door, where a team of servants was already scrubbing the message away. “What I cannot determine is who would have done such a thing. It is as dishonorable as it is disgusting.”

  “I think the question is not who would have,” I corrected him. I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head. “If the king himself has heard the complaints of the nobility, then there are too many among them who bear ill-will toward Sawyer to count. The question is…who could have done it.” I growled, deep and low. “First the Rutharian boarding, then this…”

  “Do you still suspect Nion?” Kloran posed the question honestly.

  “No,” I responded with the same amount of honesty. “I spoke to Sawyer about him—she says he made no advances toward her. He only seemed to care for her wellbeing and safety, as he does for Leonix’s.”

  “We must check with his commanding officer in the barracks nonetheless. If he has been there all night, then we can rest assured. But yes—I agree that it does not seem like him to do such a thing. This is not the work of a jilted lover. If it was done out of desire for her, why would the threat-maker wish for her to return to Earth?”

  “It strikes me more as an act of jealousy than anything—but still, it is too great of an offense to ignore.” I nodded my head in agreement with Kloran’s assessment. “It is not just the other men and the lords who were clamoring to the king about Sawyer, though. You said so yourself that the ladies took issue with her presence here as well. Perhaps it was one of them?”

  “Then we are in for a long night, my friend.” Kloran sighed tiredly and clapped a hand against my shoulder. “There are few single females here in the capital that you have not turned away in favor of your little blonde human. Any one of them could have sent a servant along to do this—and whoever it was, they are powerful enough to have access to Rutharian blood.”

  “I will check the barracks for Nion. If we are correct and this was not his work, then he is likely to wish to help.” Quietly, I hoped that we were correct. It had felt wrong to accuse Nion of disloyalty in the first place. I feared I had only done so out of jealousy for the friendship that he and Sawyer had shared aboard the ship. Enlisting his help with this investigation would, if nothing else, allow the bonds of our camaraderie to strengthen once more. “Can you speak with some of your political contacts? Determine who was speaking most loudly in favor of sending Sawyer home?”

  Kloran glanced out at the darkness through the window beside us. “It is late—but yes, I believe I can. Some of the lords will still be awake, drinking and avoiding their wives. I believe I know who to speak with first.”

  We pressed our palms together in parting and separated. I headed for the barracks. Kloran headed for the bars.

  The only amusement I found in this matter was that Kloran may have been tasked with the worse job for once.

  In the barracks, Nion’s commander brought me to his bunk as soon as I explained the situation to him. We found him there, as expected, gambling with his fellow soldiers and laughing as he swept a pile of gold toward himself.

  “I wish you better fortunes on the next round, brothers,” Nion said with a chuckle. It died in his throat, though, when he looked up and saw me standing there.

  “Good evening, Nion. May I have a word?”

  Nion scowled at the imposition, but he obviously had not forgotten that I was his general. His scowl only deepened when I took him aside and told him what we had discovered on Sawyer’s door.

  “Cowards,” he snarled. “How dare they. They all should know by now that Sawyer was taken from a Rutharian ship. If we hadn’t arrived when we had—”

  “I know.” I placed a hand on his shoulder. “I appreciate your anger, Nion, but I would appreciate your help right now much more.”

  “Are you certain that you trust me, General? Last we spoke, you were heavily implying that I had helped Rutharians board our ship to reclaim Sawyer for themselves all over again. I am not sure what has changed since.”

  I bit my lip, then sighed. “There are politics at work here, Nion. An intrigue that I fear has been going on under our noses for longer than we know—perhaps, even, since Bria’s arrival on Lunaria. When it was only her and she had already all but promised herself to Kloran, I do not think that the person behind this felt threatened enough to act…”

  “But now that Sawyer is here as well, and with the implication that more human females will arrive on Lunaria shortly…yes. I understand your meaning.” Nion crossed his arm over his chest to lay his hand atop mine. “You know I am fond of Sawyer, General. She is funny. Kind. A good match for you.” That bit, it felt, Nion had added more for my benefit than anything, but I appreciated it just the same. “Together, we will hunt down these cowards. We will make this right. I only…”

  “What is it, Nion?” I sensed a worry in his gaze, which was unlike him. Normally, Nion was fearless. He had clawed his way through the fighting pits as a cub without any training or instruction beyond his own instincts and his desire to win. Bravery was not something he had ever lacked before.

  “This is not my world, Haelian. I am a soldier. Not a spy.” Nion shook his head. “I will fight for you wherever you point me—but currently, I do not know how I can help.”

  In this, at least, I had a plan—or the beginnings of one, at any rate.

  “First, gather Gallix and Ronan for me, if you can,” I instructed him. “Send them up to the palace, to Kloran and Bria’s rooms. The guards there can help them find their way.”

  “Do we trust the guards at the palace?” Nion asked, tilting his head to one side.

  Blood. I had not even considered that yet. After Bria’s kidnapping just before her wedding to Kloran, we had agreed to stop using alien work slaves to protect our families. They were too easily replaced by unknown agents. But what Nion was proposing was an even more troubling possibility—that perhaps within the ranks of our own Lunari
an guards, there were those who had turned against us. Or had been turned against us. It would have explained why no one had seen any out-of-place individuals in the palace that night. A guard would not have been out of place at all.

  A guard would have been exactly where he needed to be.

  And now, the man who had left the message on Sawyer’s door could be watching over Sawyer, Bria and Kaliope even as we spoke.

  “I must return to Sawyer and Bria right away,” I said, snarling at my own boots. How could I have been so naive? Was there no one I could trust anymore? “But, Nion—”

  “Yes, General?”

  “After you gather Gallix and Ronan, I need to you to find Apex for me.”

  I knew it was much to ask—and Nion’s face paled reasonably at the request.

  “Specters are not easy men to find, General,” he said.

  I patted his shoulder in parting. “I know. That is why I am asking you to do this—not Ronan or Gallix.”

  The hint of a smile appeared on Nion’s lips. “Of course. Consider it done.”

  I rushed back to the hoverbike I had ridden to the barracks on as soon as Nion and I parted. I did not know what I would find when I returned to Sawyer and Bria at the palace. Perhaps it would be nothing. Or perhaps…

  My stomach turned as the thought of more trouble came to my mind. I could not allow myself to imagine any further issues with the evening, but…

  I pushed the hoverbike to its top speed as I tore through the capital’s streets.

  Something told me it was going to be a very long night.

  21

  Sawyer

  “Are you feeling any better?” Bria came over to the couch in the living room of her suite with Kaliope on one hip and a massive mug in her free hand. “Drink this. It might help, you know.”

  The mug had obviously been designed for a Lunarian man’s huge hands. It made mine feel impossibly small as I curled my fingers around its warm exterior.

  “What is it?” I asked, sniffing it. The steam smelled like hot fudge, cinnamon rolls and cheesecake all at once. I couldn’t decide if that was a lethal combination or just what I needed right now.

  “Just try it. It’s nice. My favorite, actually.” Bria sat down on the couch next to me while baby Kaliope reached for the mug with her chubby little fingers, transfixed by the tendrils of heat rising up from the cup. “And Kali’s, too—but it’s full of whatever the Lunarians use for sugar, so I never let her have more than just a little taste.”

  I sipped at the rich, cream-colored liquid. It was sweet, thick and pleasantly warm, but I couldn’t entirely decide what it tasted like. A dessert that I’d never had before—like something out of a nearly forgotten memory, or maybe a dream. Regardless, it was nice and sweet, just like Bria had promised. And no matter how ridiculous it sounded…it did make me feel a little better. Not completely, but at least I wasn’t crying anymore. Whoever said that all of life’s problems couldn’t be solved by dessert?

  “I feel silly for reacting so badly to the message on my door,” I admitted after a few more sips of my drink. “I must have looked like such an idiot, bursting into tears like that. It’s just—”

  “You don’t have to explain, you know.” Bria patted my knee sympathetically. “When I first met Kloran, I had such bad PTSD from my life back on Earth that I pretty much had a panic attack and fainted every time he so much as raised his voice at me.”

  “Kloran never raises his voice at you, though,” I pointed out.

  “Not anymore, no. But once upon a time, he had a real temper on him.” Bria smiled sadly. “Nothing like my ex-husband’s, though. That was the good thing about being abducted. It was a chance for a fresh start. A better life for myself—with a man who actually treats me right.”

  “Yeah, that’s…well, I guess that’s kind of why I got so upset,” I admitted. “Back on Earth, my fiancé never beat me or yelled at me. Nothing like that. But he cheated on me. A lot. And I definitely wasn’t happy there.” When I closed my eyes, the blood on my door was the first image that came to my mind. “I thought I could have a fresh start here too. But as it turns out, people here just hate me.” I sighed as I set my mug down on the little coffee table in front of the couch. “Maybe I should take Haelian up on his offer. He says the Lunarians have arranged it so I can go back home to Earth if I want.”

  “No! Oh, please, Sawyer, don’t do that.” Bria pouted in a way that I bet made Kloran’s heart melt when she turned that look on him. “It’s selfish of me, maybe, but I really like having you here. It was getting lonely, being the only human on the entire planet. And besides, if you like it here and you want a life here, then you shouldn’t let one whack-job get to you.”

  “Except it’s not just one whack-job. It’s every noblewoman Haelian and I pass in the street when we’re together. They look at me like I’m a piece of chewed gum stuck to their slippers.”

  “Only because all the lords look at you like you’re a prime rib they’re just aching to sink their teeth into.”

  “That’s it though, isn’t it? I’m either something that someone wants to own, or I’m some kind of homewrecker who’s here to steal all the good men away.” I sighed. “I don’t know how you put up with it.”

  Bria shrugged and looked away from me. “It wasn’t like this when I first got here. Back then, everyone was just excited that Kloran had found a species in the galaxy that could mate with Lunarians. They saw humans as the solution to their population problem. And I guess in a way, they were half right.” She smoothed Kali’s soft little curls down with her fingertips. “They greeted me like I was some kind of hero when I first came off the ship—but that was before they realized that I wasn’t a breeding slave. That no human would ever be.”

  “I think it’s gross that the Lunarians were trying to keep slaves at all,” I grumbled. I didn’t like the idea of being a breeding slave for the Lunarians any better than I liked the idea of being a sex slave for the Rutharians. “It’s demeaning. I mean, what’s stopping them from turning us into slaves too, if tensions keep rising like this?”

  “It’s not like that,” Bria assured me. “Breeding slaves…they’re more like voluntary indentured servants who act as surrogates. They’re not really slaves in the way that we think of the word. And there’s some kind of galactic commission that oversees the slave trade, to make sure that people aren’t being kidnapped and forced into slavery against their will.”

  “Like we were,” I scoffed softly. “Guess the commission doesn’t do a very good job.”

  “The Lunarians decided not to bring the enslavement of humans to the commission for a reason, Sawyer.” Bria looked uncomfortable as she explained it to me. But then again, maybe she should have. There was no pretending that, no matter how good her life with Kloran had turned out in the end, she hadn’t been abducted just like I had. “The high council hoped that if Haelian and his men could rescue all of the humans who’d been stolen away like us, that there’d be plenty of women to go around. Of course, they didn’t ever ask the Lunarian women what they thought about that.”

  “And now I’m getting messages painted on my doors just short of death threats,” I grumbled.

  “What I’m saying is, this was never the plan. Look at it their way—they were expecting hundreds of human women to be brought to their planet. Instead, Haelian only came back with you—and since you’re rare, you’re in high demand.”

  “There were two other women that were rescued with me, though.” I blinked in surprise as I realized that no one had mentioned the other women to me yet. On the ship, they’d been in stasis so they could heal from their time with the Rutharians, but I’d kind of assumed that I’d hear from them now that it had been a few weeks and we were on land again.

  “Yes, but you were the only one who survived, which means—”

  Bria paused as she saw the look of horror on my face.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? That I’m the only one who survived?” This was
the first I was hearing about this. If the other two women that had been rescued with me had died…why had no one bothered to tell me?

  Bria bit her lip, then rose and handed Kaliope off to one of the guards at the door. “Could you take Kali into her bedroom and tuck her in? It’s getting late, and I think she might need a little more sleep.”

  The guard looked annoyed at the imposition, but if he was in Kloran’s employ, I guessed he didn’t have a choice. As he disappeared from his post, Bria came back to the couch and took my hand in hers.

  “Haelian really should have told you this,” she said, her voice just barely a whisper. “But something bad happened in the infirmary when the other two women were brought out of stasis. I don’t know all the details—Kloran wouldn’t even tell me, and I was a nurse back on Earth, for Pete’s sake. But from what I understand, it was some kind of murder-suicide thing. One of the women Haelian brought back with you was…I don’t know. Crazy or something.”

  “I know the one you mean.” I frowned at the memory of the madwoman in the cell across from mine on the Rutharian ship. There was no telling how long she’d been in there, but based on how she’d acted, it had definitely been for long enough to break her mind. “The Rutharians had abused her so badly…I think she must have gone insane just trying to stay alive there.”

  Bria shuddered. “That’s…that’s horrible. I’m so sorry, Sawyer. I probably shouldn’t have been the one to tell you that, but I think you had a right to know.”

  “No, I appreciate being in the loop,” I said honestly. “I know that I was really lucky Haelian and the rest of his men saved me when they did. I mean, on the other hand, I’m officially the most hated woman on the entire planet now, but…it could have been a lot worse for me.”

  “It will get better.” Bria squeeze my hand tight before she let it go. “Haelian seems to like you a lot. I still think he’s going to propose soon. Then, maybe all of this will smooth over.”