The Vampire King’s Virgin (The Vampire King Series #4)

by T. S. Ryder

  Gylden let himself drop, breathing deeply through the pain. The wound, while bad, was not fatal as long as the ship had a regenerator. He felt the ship's engines start up. Gravity tugged at his naval as they took to the air. When that tug was gone, he knew that they were safe in the reaches of space once more.

  Bianca joined him soon after. Her hands were tender as she looked after his wound, and he watched her silently. Without her, he never would have had the strength to fight back against the horrors of his life. He owed her far more than he would ever know.

  "We'll be at the Sanctuary soon," she said, her voice trembling. "This ship is fully fueled. We won't have to stop until we're there. And then these bounty hunters will stop. Zon will protect us, and you'll never have to kill again. We can be a proper family."

  Gylden suppressed a shiver. He had been avoiding thinking about that since they left the network station. He had been a gladiator his whole life… He was good at it, as he had just proved.

  If he wasn't going to be a killer, what was he?

  His hand drifted to Bianca's stomach, and he was bolstered once again. He was going to be a good mate to his mate, and a father to his child. He managed a small smile. There was no reason to be afraid… he was going to figure out who he was, and it would be glorious.

  Chapter Twelve – Bianca

  Would the warlord welcome them, or would he turn them away since they had the Rayne Five bounty on their heads? Bianca docked the ship, nerves churning in her stomach. Although maybe that was the morning sickness. Did it hit this quickly?

  "Regretting the decision to give up fame and public adoration for this?" Gylden asked, the stress in his voice making his joke fall flat.

  Bianca still smiled at his attempt. "Never. Well, it's time to face the music."

  Gylden nodded. He held his hand to her, and she gratefully took it. Her hands trembled as they lowered the gangplank. The gladiator's sword was strapped to his back, a sign that he didn't want a fight. But the sight that greeted them as they exited the ship had them freezing. Half a dozen T'shav stood in a circle on the docks, all holding broadswords.

  "Surrender your weapon and submit to a body search," one of them demanded, eyes narrowed.

  Bianca's own T'shav pushed her behind himself, drawing his weapon quickly. He planted his feet firmly. "Not a chance."

  "Gylden, please. They're our only chance." Bianca put her hand on his shoulder.

  He gave her a tortured glance, then reluctantly lowered his sword. As soon as the first T'shav on the dock started up the gangplank, however, the sword was back in an attack stance. Their 'welcoming' party all tensed. Bianca twisted her hands. This was heading towards yet another battle. And if they didn't find Sanctuary here?

  "Gylden," Bianca started again, but before she could plead for him to lower his weapon again, a seventh T'shav strode between those already there. He was tall and strong, with a few grays in his black hair. Bianca stared, but not at him.

  What surprised her was the human woman that accompanied him. The woman stopped at the foot of the gangplank, and the new T'shav turned to the guards. "Put away your weapons. These two are welcome here."

  To Bianca's surprise, the other T'shav sheathed their swords at once. The human smiled up at her and Gylden, taking a small step forward and raising her hands.

  "You don't have to be afraid of us. I'm Lisa, and this is my mate Zon. Welcome to the Sanctuary."

  Bianca moved past Gylden. He tensed, but she put a reassuring hand on his arm before continuing. She stopped just in front of Lisa. This was the first human to have been woken up as a human in this strange world. The first human to take an alien mate and have an alien child. Bianca swallowed, suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed.

  "Hi," she said. "I, uh… I mean we, we're looking for… sanctuary."

  Lisa smiled and put an arm around her. "We know. We've been following the events that the Rayne Five has been presenting. We were actually preparing our son and a few of his friends to go pick the two of you up."

  Gylden joined the two of them. He held his sword pointed downwards. When Zon stepped up beside Lisa, his hand held out, the gladiator reluctantly passed the sword to him.

  "This will be returned to you after your assessment," Zon assured him.

  "Why were you going to look for us?" Gylden snapped back, eyes narrowed in distrust.

  Zon's black eyes glittered with a look Bianca couldn't decipher. "It has been Lisa's personal project to stop the gladiator games for almost a decade now. I have a lot on my plate keeping this Sanctuary safe, but we both believe you could be useful in ending the games for good."

  "But only as far as you are comfortable with," Lisa added. She gave Zon a half-glare. "You are here first for your safety and peace of mind, not for my projects. You will be given time to adjust to life here before I present my proposal. And should you decide that you would rather not–which I would not blame you for–then we will find other ways for you to contribute to the Sanctuary."

  "I don't want to fight," Gylden said. "I'm not going to kill anybody again."

  "I'm glad to hear you say that," Zon said. "Because there is no fighting or killing permitted within the Sanctuary. If you do end up fighting, then you'll be exiled. It's as simple as that. But there will be time for you to learn all our rules. Right now, we need to get you both to our medical facilities and checked over."

  "And there are all the legalities we're going to have to deal with, considering they're technically slaves." Lisa looked disgusted when she said the word. "Not that we're going to hand you back over to them. But it is going to take some finagling to get the Rayne Five Network to back off without the threat of a warship or two going to sort it out."

  Zon smiled at Lisa as though she was the sun to him. It was the same sort of smile that Gylden always gave her. She leaned against him, turning to give her mate a smile. He squeezed her, and when Zon started away, Lisa at his side, they followed.

  ***

  The medical checkup showed that both of them were in good health and that the baby was strong and developing nicely. When the doctors showed her and Gylden the vague blob that the scanners picked up and told them it was their child, Bianca had nearly burst into tears.

  She had never really considered having children. There had been boyfriends in her past when she was certain that she did not want to have children with, but she had never thought about when she would actually have children. Now that she was pregnant, she was over the moon with happiness. And when she saw how happy Gylden was, well, that made it all better.

  "These quarters are just temporary," Lisa told them as she showed them to a tiny room with a bunk bed and nothing much else. "These are usually reserved for troops, but unfortunately we just don't have any other rooms available right now. But your assessments ought to be processed within a standard week, and various occupations will be suggested for you. And you always have the option of going back to school, if that's what you want. By that time, we should find a permanent place for you to live."

  Bianca smiled at her. "Thank you. For everything."

  Lisa nodded at her and slipped from the room. Gylden glanced around, looking a little wary, but when his gaze landed back on Bianca, a grin lit his face. In an instant he had her in his arms, kissing her deeply as he pressed her against the wall. Bianca giggled, kissing him back.

  "Not that I'm complaining, but what's brought this up?"

  "It just hit me. We're here. We made it. The network won't get their hands on us again, and we're free from being in the public eye. My life is mine. Forever and for good. It's mine. And I have a family. You and me and the baby. I have a family. And I'm not going to lose you again."

  His tongue breached her mouth and Bianca laughed, pushing herself harder against him. For the first time in a long time, she was utterly at peace.

  *****

  THE END

  Bought by the Barbarian

  Description

  His broadsword is his only love. Unt
il he sees her curves.

  T’Shav mercenary Ronan doesn’t want love. He wants a woman to take care of his ‘condition’, meaning raging hormones. And the bridal service is going to get him one. So where is the sweet, submissive wife he ordered?

  Paramedic Erica Chase is bored to death on her spaceship. Until she and her cousin Bethy are sold to a bridal service. There’s no way she’s going to submit to her new owner. But why does he have to be so mouthwateringly hot?

  What’s a gal to do? Just devour the sexy alien? Hell no. He says he’s not touching her until she’s on her knees begging for it. He must be joking.

  But Erica needs the hunky alien to find back Bethy. And Ronan has his own mission to complete. Space is a crowded place with enemies at every corner. It’s a good thing Ronan enjoys a bloody fight.

  Stuck on the same spaceship, Ronan knows one thing for sure. Anybody who thinks they can lay a finger on his mate and his unborn child will find another thing coming.

  What Ronan wants, Ronan gets.

  Chapter One: Erica

  The medical bay of the USC Battleship Sidhe was probably the most impressive one in the United Species fleet. It was full of the most up-to-date medical equipment, including DNA scanners that could tell a person what diseases they were genetically predisposed to in under a minute. It was also connected with real-time updates on scientific breakthroughs on various species: Dibat, Aphrosian, Suesue and many more.

  Erica Chase could remember vividly how she had felt the first time she came aboard the ship. She had been in medical school back on Earth before waking up one day to find she had been abducted and kept in a stasis chamber for hundreds of thousands of years. Almost everything she had known was ancient history. Even now, if she stopped to think about it, she was overwhelmed, feeling like she could easily have a mental breakdown. So she simply didn’t think about it, focusing on her job as a paramedic relief aid worker.

  Erica stood at attention, waiting for the chief medical officer, a green-skinned, winged Odap, to address the gathered paramedics. The translator chip implanted behind her left ear was buzzing. She'd have to get someone take a look at it soon.

  "Teniscore can be a dangerous world," the CMO said, glaring at the volunteers. "It’s been hit by a small asteroid, causing extensive worldwide damage, and as such it's the responsibility of the United Species Corps to step in and help the residents out. But the denizens of Teniscore are mainly T'Shav mercenaries, so you need to keep your wits about you. Especially the females among you. Understood?"

  Erica nodded, though she had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. T'Shav were thought of nothing more than mercenaries across the galaxy. The males were considered especially dangerous because of their musth, a hormonal fluctuation that made them more prone to violence, but that also produced pheromones that made any woman exposed to them go crazy with sexual lust.

  But Erica had met several T'Shav, and they were perfect gentlemen towards her. In fact, she had been rescued from a medical corporation that wanted to perform experiments on her by the T'Shav warlord Zon and given a place in his human sanctuary, until she decided to explore the galaxy.

  "Some of you might not take me seriously," the CMO continued, flapping his wings so he lifted a few inches from the ground. "But for your own good, you must not stray from the Corps officer assigned to your group. Do not leave the regulated safety zones. The USC cannot protect you if you don't follow the rules."

  Beside her, her cousin Bethy shifted, snickering under her breath. She brushed a strand of impossibly fine hair from her face. It was always falling out of the bun that United Species Paramedics were meant to keep their hair in. Erica's own brown bun was still tightly in place. But then, it had always been thick and coarse.

  "The way he's going on you think that these uniforms were negligees," Bethy muttered.

  Erica snorted loudly, which caused a few of the others to give her dirty looks. The uniforms were shapeless things, designed for comfort and maneuverability rather than looks. Erica had needed a size larger than what was commissioned to accommodate her extra-sized curves. She wore it as baggy as possible, but sometimes she still thought that she might as well walk around naked. Back on Earth, she had been self-conscious about her size. Everything about her was curvy, from breast to butt to thighs to stomach.

  Out here, though, curves on women were highly sought after. Not like on Earth where the ideal seemed to be big boobs, big butt, stick-thin everywhere else. In this new world she found herself in, they wanted curves everywhere. Flat stomachs were unattractive. 'Thigh gaps' were a cause for medical concern. When she first mentioned wanting to lose weight to her doctor, the Dibat had been horrified at Erica wanting to 'starve' herself.

  The downside was that Erica now found herself the center of unwanted attention, and she didn't know how to handle it. Going from being the girl nobody looked at to the girl everybody wanted was tough to get used to.

  The CMO grunted from where he stood and shook his head. "Take a look around you. Some idiot in this group will be certain to leave the safety of Corps protection and won't come back. Do you want it to be you?"

  "Oh, just shut up and get to the actual medical rescue already," Bethy muttered under her breath. "We get it, dangerous world."

  Erica repressed another snicker. The Odap took a moment to look around again. "I would again remind our human recruits that laws on human sentience are not yet fully legislated. There are still corporations that would love to get their hands on your universal DNA, and species that are dying out that would love to use you as breeders. But you are all so very smart that I doubt you would listen to me. Get to your shuttles."

  Bethy and Erica headed to the station they would be manning together. It was their job to record which paramedics were going to the surface and to make sure they had the supplies they needed. They weren't even going down to the planet, which Erica thought was pretty cheap. She left Zon's sanctuary with Bethy to explore the galaxy, but so far all she had seen was the USC paramedics training barracks and the inside of this ship. Not to say that the technology that she was encountering wasn't awesome, but she wanted to breathe the air of a new planet, she wanted to actually treat more than a few minor burns.

  She wanted an adventure. But she wasn't going to ask to be sent to the planet, not until she had a better grasp on the first aid. After all, she and Bethy were still quite new to all of this. Right now, as boring as Erica found it, they were best suited for the job they had been given.

  "You know what's weird about T'Shav?" Bethy asked as they settled into their station. "Apparently their women don't ovulate like us. No periods. Must be nice. I wonder why it's only the males that go through musth. Do you think it works on lesbians?"

  "How should I know? You're the expert in that area, not me."

  Bethy shrugged. They started their work, which went smoothly. They had been well trained. Erica stared longingly at all the paramedics being sent to the surface but reminded herself that doing what she could do to save lives was more important than having her adventure. Soon, it was just her and Bethy left in the medical bay, keeping an eye on medical requests, making sure that the robots did what they were designed to do: essentially nothing.

  Several hours after this mind-numbingly boring activity, Erica's comm activated.

  "Paramedics Chase and Chase, you're needed on the surface!" The CMO's voice was strained. "Get to shuttle A-43 at once. The robots can take care of the processing."

  "Yes, sir." Erica glanced at Bethy to make sure her cousin also got the message and headed for the shuttle. "Why do you think he changed his mind?"

  "There must be more wounded down there than they anticipated."

  The shuttle was a small vessel that ran completely on autopilot. With the medical supplies crammed into it, there was just enough room for Bethy and Erica to squeeze themselves in. Erica's heart pounded with excitement, and she checked her belt three times to make sure she had everything she needed. Fleshseal, Bloodstore, regenera
tors.

  The flight down to the planet seemed to take forever, but as soon as the doors opened, Erica bounded down the gangplank, looking around for the CMO. She froze halfway down. They were in a large clearing, but on every side were giant twisted trees. They were blue-barked and had a sickly yellow moss of sorts growing over them. A small transport ship was also in the clearing, but it was the only thing.

  The ground around the shuttle was completely bare. No rocks. No grass. No wounded patients.

  Only the CMO, accompanied by several men with guns wearing Planchet Corporation uniforms. What was Planchet doing here? They specialized in livestock breeding. What would they want on a planet suffering a disaster?

  Breeding.

  Erica's stomach dropped.

  "Where is everybody?" Bethy asked, brows drawn in confusion.

  "Get back to the shuttle!" Erica grabbed Bethy's arm. She tried to drag her cousin back into the ship, but it was too late. The Planchet men bounded up the gangplank and seized them both around the waist. Erica screamed, kicking and thrashing about. She wasn't going down without a fight!

  "The Warlord Zon knows we're here," she shouted. "Do you think he'll just stand by while you abduct us?"

  "But you left the sanctuary voluntarily," the CMO replied. "Do you think he has the resources to keep an eye on every human in the galaxy? I did say that there are always some foolish individuals that leave USC-secured areas. Unfortunately today, it's you two."

  Erica continued to struggle uselessly. The Planchet men grunted as they hauled her towards their ship. To make it worse, Bethy was allowing herself to be carted away without so much as a whimper. Her eyes were wide, but she was silent. Erica threw a weak punch at one of the men holding her. He grabbed her wrists and tied them.