by Raven Dark
Super high ceilings with gorgeous murals of fantastic looking worlds stared down from all angles. Marble floors gleamed in white-gold hues, and every piece of wooden furniture was thickly cushioned in deep blues and gold.
“Cael Raul.” A man in thick blue and gold robes with the same wolf emblazoned on the breast rushed up to Raul, looking ridiculous as he carried a thick, gold garment that trailed on the floor. “You can’t go in there without—”
Raul pushed past him without a word, and we kept walking at a brisk pace through lavish room after lavish room. Others rushed up to him, whispering, clearly trying to get him to follow protocol, but he ignored them.
“Back off, all of you,” Malek ordered, and they—what I could only assume, by their stark uniforms and lowered eyes, were servants—backed away hastily.
“Do you want us to wait out here, Raul?” Z’pheer asked, stopping a few paces away with me at another set of wooden doors.
“No.” Raul’s voice was clipped, ignoring the salutes from the guards there.
I swallowed, getting the feeling something huge was about to happen and that Z’pheer had asked that because of me. Their nayna. The lowly slave not fit for such luxury.
Malek shot Z’pheer a surprised look, but shrugged and followed him in, indicating for us to do the same.
We entered a large, dimly lit room, and the guards quietly closed the doors behind us. The room was just as gorgeous as the others, in dark wood and gold trim, with dark carpets and weapons mounted on the walls, giving a look of wealth and pure maleness. Four men, two in guard uniforms, two in thick gold and blue robes, were seated around a large bed that dominated the left side of the large room.
No one spoke, and a hush lay over everything.
It creeped me the hell out.
Raul headed directly to the bed, and someone drew back the thick curtains that surrounded it. Malek nodded to Z’pheer who stopped several paces from the bed, holding me back.
Apparently, Malek and Z’pheer thought I shouldn’t be allowed any further, but Raul obviously thought differently, because he grabbed my wrist and brought me to the side of the bed with him.
What the fuck?
His grip almost pinched, and I jerked back without thinking, suddenly struck with the urge to stay as far back from that bed as possible, if only because Raul seemed so intent on putting me there.
His hold tightened.
The men near the bed bowed to Raul in their seats.
Bowing? Ohhh my God.
Raul knelt beside the large bed, pulling me down so that I had to do the same. I almost gasped at what I saw there.
A giant of a man, as big and as powerful looking as Raul but much older, lay across the satiny blankets, unmoving except for a massive chest that rose and fell on weak, ragged breaths. He had on what looked like gold pajama pants, but his broad chest and shoulders were bare, except for an elaborate gold necklace with a fat red stone gleaming from its setting. He was the spitting image of Raul, but with white hair and wrinkles. I could tell he’d been a powerful warrior once, but now it looked like his days were numbered.
The sickly, pale look of his face said it all.
He was dying.
“Father.” Raul drew the hood solemnly down around his shoulders, his head bowed.
The old warrior turned his head toward Raul, his golden eyes glazed with sadness and pain.
“Rau…Raul.” He swallowed heavily, his voice deep but soft. His lips pulled into a smile I just knew had been as gorgeous as Raul’s long ago. The sadness lifted from his face as he raised one huge palm and set it on Raul’s cheek as if to see if he was really there. “My boy. I knew you’d… you’d make it… in time.” He gave shallow, ragged breaths between his words.
Raul looked down at his father’s arm and grabbed his wrist, studying the long, winding vein that traveled up the inside of his arm, its blue color a sharp contrast to his tanned skin. It traveled all the way across his shoulder and was creeping slowly to his chest.
My heart leaped into my throat. That was the same lacey, vein-like pattern I’d seen on Gwen’s arm, only I’d thought it was a tattoo.
“You were bit,” Raul growled. “Where? When did this happen?”
Raul’s father swallowed again and showed him the back of his other hand which was wrapped in a bandage. “Three nights ago… during the attack.”
Raul glared at a white-bearded man who sat on the other side of the bed, leaning forward in his chair. “What is being done for him, Sashel?”
“Cael Raul, the healer has done all he can. There is nothing left to do but make you father comfortable.” His voice was low and resigned.
“You’re his spiritual advisor, Sashel. You’re supposed to—”
“Boy, be still.” The old warrior grasped at Raul’s shoulder. “They have done all they can. You know there is no cure for a Rith bite.”
“Where the fost were your guards when this was happening?” Raul demanded. He fired a look at the two men in guard uniforms, and they stiffened.
“They did what they could. There were too many of them, Raul. I lost Tavik and Saul. They gave their lives for me.”
Raul bowed his head, shaking it. He fisted the blankets in a white-knuckled grip.
After all that Raul and his men had done to me, perhaps I shouldn’t have cared, but my chest tightened for him, nonetheless.
“Listen to me, boy. Listen.”
Raul lifted his eyes to his father’s.
“I need to know that you will be happy, and that when I’m gone, this world will be taken care of. That my legacy will not die with you.” He smiled sadly.
“Father—”
“Heed me, my son. Laric will rule in your place if you still wish to… abdicate. He is a good—”
“Laric!” Raul spat.
“Hush, boy.”
Raul put his head back and his shoulders dropped, his eyes closing.
“Laric is a good man, and he knows how to rule. I had to make a choice when you decided to join the Order, and he was the best candidate. But you know I always wished it would be you who would wear the hammak in my place.” His hand closed around the pendent on his chest, his eyes pleading, begging to have his dying wish fulfilled. “I am proud of your service to the Order, but there are other soldiers to fight this war. The world needs you to rule more than it needs you to fight.” He swallowed hard. “Will you be Hadu in my place, Raul?”
Raul bowed his head, squeezing his father’s hand. At last, he nodded.
The old warrior’s eyes filled with gratitude. Then with shaking hands, he took off the chain around his neck and handed it to the white-haired man who now stood at his side. “Sashel, it is time.”
Sashel murmured something, bowed, and took the jeweled chain.
Raul’s father coughed wetly. “Tell me, son,” he said, looking at Raul once again. “Tell me you have been given your prize for your service.”
His prize…
“I have.” Raul nodded to me, setting his hand on the back of my nape.
His father lifted his head slowly, giving me a quick look that immediately made me bristle. That expression reminded me of a man assessing livestock. He nodded. “Take…take her linel’e and the hood off. Let me see her face.”
Raul pulled my hood down and loosened the muzzle’s strap enough to remove the rubbery piece from my mouth, then lowered the muzzle to my neck.
“Oh, Raul, she’s beautiful.” Approval shone in the warrior’s gaze before his eyes closed, his shoulders sagging. With relief. He laid his head back down, his eyes on Raul. “My rule over the Xandari people has now passed to you, Cael Raul.”
In the blink of an eye, Sashel placed the gold chain around Raul’s neck with a ceremonial care. “It is done, Hadu Haruuk,” he said with a bow to the old warrior.
“Good. Raul, son. Look at me. Is she…will she give you an heir?”
Wait, huh? Who was the man talking about? Was Raul married or engaged? Oh my God. The whole ti
me he was fucking me, he was cheating on some poor woman?
Raul looked at me and petted my hair. “She will, Father. Your palace will be filled with the first sounds of children since I was a child. And as you can see, her beauty is unmatched. She will produce a child fit for any throne.”
The blood fled from my cheeks. What, from me? An heir!
Horror slid through me, making my stomach roil. Raul’s hand snatched mine as if he’d somehow sensed I was on the verge of bolting. He shoved the muzzle’s tongue piece into my mouth and tightened the strap before I could say a word.
I tried to yank out of his grip, but he seized my wrist in a vice-like hold.
His father cleared his throat. “I know you will protect this world, son. With the Rith, there is one last hope. There is… a weapon that will kill them, Raul. All of them. You must find it and save this world.” His throat worked.
“What weapon?” He looked at Sashel, who shook his head mutely. “Where is it, Father?”
His father rasped a wheezing breath, his eyes pained. “Save…save our people, Raul. Fill my palace with many children.”
Babies. Lots of them… Fuck no…
“Rule… my son, rule them well…” With a last shuddering breath, Raul’s father dropped his hand heavily out of Raul’s. His eyes slid closed, his big chest going still.
My heart lurched. Oh my God, the old man was dead.
Raul’s head lowered and his shoulders dropped. His hand on my wrist tightened until I almost cried out. I swore his shoulders were shaking, with rage or sadness I couldn’t tell.
“Hadu Raul,” Sashal said quietly. “Please stand.”
Oh, God. Now I knew why the hell everyone was behaving as if Raul were some kind of visiting deity and why he had a bodyguard. His father had been a freakin’ king. And now, since the king was dead…
Raul’s head was shaking as he lifted his eyes and stood, his hand covering the hammak around his neck.
As soon as he’d stood, every man in the room dropped to one knee. Raul just scowled at them and shook his head.
I glanced behind me when I heard feet shuffling, the guards there kneeling as well. Malek and Z’pheer did the same.
“Rule well, Hadu Raul,” Sashel said, drawing my attention. “Long may you reign.”
Raul shook his head again. He hauled me to my feet by the elbow and spun on his heel, marching to the doors to the room.
He muttered something to his men as they stood, and then released me and stalked out. Z’pheer’s heated palm slid around my nape.
The anger pounding off Raul had me almost trembling. He was scary as fuck when he was like that.
Instinctively, I moved to follow him out, not to be near him, but to get the hell out of the room. Malek seized my elbow, holding me in place.
“Let him go, nayna,” Z’pheer rasped. “He will have use for you later. No one should be near him now.”
Use. Use for me. His father’s talk of babies and heirs thundered through my thoughts, and a cold chill raced up my spine while my mind spun with a sickening rage.
Raul was the king of Xandar, and he wanted an heir. No, he expected one. Fuck, he expected me to be the mother of a future Xandari generation.
My fists clenched until my fingernails dug into my palms. I’d be damned if I’d let that alien son of a bitch breed me like a fucking cow.
It looked like someone was about to lose their nut sack.
Fuck, you alien bastard, why didn’t you tell me? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?
21
Always a Slave
How the hell did I get myself into this situation? How the hell does this even happen?
Minutes after Raul’s father had died and the king’s guards escorted me out of the room, they’d taken me toward a bathing chamber in the royal suite. Malek had ordered that I be taken for a bath—without a word to me—before he and Z’pheer left, talking about going with Raul to see to the citizens staying at the shelter. Following the two uniformed men down hall after hall, my thoughts raced, numbed with fear and spinning in shock.
I’d been kidnapped by three aliens from a barbaric world at war with an even more barbaric species, and one of my masters was the ruler of this world. A ruler who expected me to give him a child without so much as asking me if I wanted one myself.
To make matters worse, his two closest friends were completely on board with him strong-arming me into having his kid as if he was telling me to make him his morning breakfast.
This whole situation was so messed up, I could hardly wrap my head around it.
Following behind the guards on my damn leash, I hardly noticed the extravagance of the halls or the army of servants that rushed this way and that. I felt like I was lost in a dream, a surreal nightmare from which I would never wake.
The guards said nothing, one of them having clipped my leash to the bracelet he wore. Perhaps it was a good thing they didn’t say a word to me. It was taking every ounce of willpower I had not to bolt for every door we passed like a spooked horse. Or march through this place, find Raul, and throat-punch him. Only the knowledge of what would happen if I did either of those things—that he’d probably have me beaten black and blue, or worse, killed—kept me from putting one foot in front of the other two paces behind my silent guard detail.
Strangely, a stab of fear shot up my spine at the idea of being left alone with the guards. For all that my barbarian captors had done to me, Z’pheer and Malek’s leaving me in the hands of the royal guards made me feel as if a tether I had grown so used to had suddenly been cut, leaving me adrift in an unknown world I didn’t want to be in.
It pissed me the hell off to realize I felt any sense of dependency on Malek or Z’pheer, but I knew them and, like it or not, I felt safe with them. My only reassurance was that the guards wouldn’t hurt me. Raul and his men would probably kill them if they tried. I wouldn’t be harmed but hearing Raul’s promise to his father that I’d give him children, it was as if my life had suddenly started spiraling into a black hole of uncertainty and something close to terror.
I wouldn’t kid myself. The chances of my getting home had always been remote. From minute one, I’d known that. But now it felt as if whatever hope I had of getting off this planet had just been ripped away from me. That hope, however small, had been the one thing that had kept me going, kept me from falling into a pit of despair. It had kept me from breaking. If I had Raul’s child, he, Malek, and Z’pheer would no doubt go much further out of their way to ensure I never left. I wouldn’t be allowed to escape with the future of the Xandari race growing inside me.
My stomach roiled, and I swallowed the urge to puke. I wanted to be angry with Raul and the others for springing this on me, but I was too damned terrified. I was eighteen, for fuck’s sake. I’d never even thought about having children. Frankly, the idea of it had always freaked me out a little. On top of that, he was a fucking alien. The idea of having a child with a man from another planet felt akin to carrying the spawn of the creature from Alien or something.
Maybe I could ask Ellen Ripley for mothering tips.
At least now I knew it was possible to get pregnant by these aliens, and that made me even more thankful for my IUD. That meant I had time. Maybe once Raul knew I wasn’t getting pregnant, he’d find someone else to give him babies, and send me back for a refund. Not that I wanted anyone else to be taken.
Fuck me, what a mess.
Stopping at a set of double doors, the guards keyed in a code on a control pad. The doors slid aside with a hiss, and the guards tugged on the leash, heading into the room and leaving me no choice but to follow them.
Inside the room, my jaw dropped. The chamber was huge, with soft lighting glowing from domed lights in the high ceiling, a white marble floor, a massive pool of that strange gold water dominating the space. Candles surrounded the pool, and velvety purple petals from some exotic flower lay scattered on the marble, filling the room with a rich, almost cloying perfume.
&nb
sp; If the situation hadn’t been so terrifying, I’d have been thrilled. This was the royal bathing chamber. It had obviously been Raul’s father’s once. And now it was Raul’s. The King’s.
I held my stomach, feeling it clench.
There was a hiss behind me, and I spun around. The doors had opened, and in walked two slaves, both dressed in the same red dress as I wore.
Well, theirs were almost the same, except they each had a hood, pulled over their heads, and each wore a cloth over her face, covering all but their eyes. Neither had leashes, but both wore the same leather collar as me, with a loop at the front for a leash to be hooked onto.
My eyes widened. Other than Gwen, these were the first and only females I’d seen on this world, and for some reason, the sight of them was a relief. Stupid, since there was no guarantee that their being female meant I was any safer with them than I would have been with men. Experience living with the girls at Xandar had taught me, if anything, sometimes women could be crueler than any man.
“Pleasant day to you, Princess.” When the woman spoke, the cloth over her face made her voice sound muffled. Above the cloth, her eyes were a deep purple, like Malek’s, but lighter. “Turn around, please.” She set towels and a robe on a bench near the pool.
Princess! Oh, fuck, seriously?
Glancing at the guards behind the slaves, I froze in place. They’d taken up position at the doors, the one keeping my leash tethered to his bracelet. So I was going to have to get naked and bathe in front of them? Both looked straight ahead, silent. I had a weird feeling they were going out of their way to avoid looking directly at me, and yet if I made one wrong move, they’d leap into action. My eyes went to the swords at their hips, and I swallowed.
With nothing left to do, I turned my back to the two slaves.
The other women undid the ties on my dress. Gentle fingers, lightly wrinkled with age, slid the cloth from my shoulders with surprising care, as if I was made of the finest porcelain.
