Dark Prince's Dilemma

by I. T. Lucas

  “Talk about what?”

  “I can sense your disquiet. What’s troubling you?”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, you know, girly stuff. He loves me, he loves me not, sort of thing.”

  “Lokan?”

  “Who else?”

  “Isn’t it too early to be pondering the L-word?”

  “Yeah, it is. I guess I’m just anxious to find out how the portrait drawing went.” She slung the strap over her shoulder. “Can you open up for me?”

  He reached for the carrier and took it from her. “You should commandeer one of the rolling food carts from the kitchen instead of carrying everything in a bag.”

  “Not a bad idea. Can you get one for me? You can leave it outside Lokan’s door.”

  “Will do.”

  As Arwel put the code in and the door started to open, Carol took the bag and pushed inside through the narrow opening.

  Lokan was at the door, waiting for her. “Oh, good, I’m starving.” He reached for the bag and carried it to the table.

  “That is it? I’m starving?” She followed. “No ‘I’ve missed you’ or ‘I’m so glad to see you?’”

  He put the bag down, turned around, and pulled her into his arms. “I missed you.” He nuzzled her neck. “And I’m glad to see you.” He tightened his arms around her and kissed her.

  Loads of nervous anxiety melted away as if Lokan’s body was a furnace and Carol had just come back in from the cold.

  “That’s better,” she whispered against his lips. “Everything feels right when we are in each other's arms.”

  He cupped her bottom and gave it a squeeze. “It would feel even better on a full stomach. Let’s eat.”

  And that was it. The romantic moment lost.

  Except, Carol knew men, and Lokan’s behavior was typical. He needed to be fed. It was true that lust was a stronger hunger, but then she’d made sure that Lokan was thoroughly satisfied in that regard. They’d had a quick romp in the shower that morning, then they’d somehow ended up in bed again, which had necessitated another shower.

  So, yeah, the sex was great. But what about the rest?

  As Carol set up the table, Lokan opened a wine bottle and poured some into the two plastic flutes. “Cheers.” He handed her one.

  She clinked it to his. “How did the portrait drawing go?”

  He grimaced. “Kian had the artist work with Annani first and then with me, so he could compare the two versions. The only similarity was the eye color and the sad expression. Not very convincing. But it was enough for Annani, so that’s encouraging. She also promised to make me copies of the portraits.”

  “Good. I’m curious to see what Areana looks like.”

  A dreamy look crossed Lokan’s eyes. “She is beautiful, of course. But what I found most appealing was the gentleness and the compassion in her expression. She looks like a pure soul.”

  “What does it even mean, a pure soul?”

  “Someone who will never harm anyone intentionally and will always try to help as much as she can. A giver.”

  More like a pushover, but Carol wasn’t about to throw mud on Lokan’s dreams.

  From all that she had heard about Areana, the goddess had no sense of self-preservation. In Carol’s experience, selfless pleasers like Areana often sought approval and recognition because they didn’t get any from their parents.

  Carol was a pleaser too, just not a selfless one. She loved feeding people and making them feel good in any way she could, but only as long as her giving was reciprocated in one way or another. She would never throw love and attention at someone who gave her the cold shoulder.

  Then again, her drive to accomplish an impossible feat like infiltrating Navuh’s harem wasn’t all that different from Areana agreeing to take Annani’s place. Just as Areana had sought to gain her father’s approval, Carol sought the same from her clan.

  18

  Lokan

  As Lokan dug into his ice cream, the cell door opened.

  “Sorry to interrupt.” Arwel walked in. “I’m just dropping off the portraits.” He produced a roll of clear tape from his pocket. “For putting them up on the wall.” He tossed it at Lokan.

  “Thanks.”

  Arwel put the two portraits side by side on the coffee table.

  “Would you like to join us for ice cream?” Carol asked.

  “Thank you, but I have a date with the dumb box.”

  “Oh, yeah? What are you watching?”

  “Harry Potter.”

  “Really? Why? I thought those were kids’ movies.”

  Arwel shrugged. “It’s fun. Goodnight.”

  “It was probably just an excuse,” Lokan said as the door closed behind Arwel. “He didn’t want to intrude.”

  Carol got up, walked over to the coffee table, and gazed at the renderings for a long moment. “I agree with Annani. The eyes are the same.”

  “The shape is not.”

  “That’s because you don’t remember the details. The expression is the important part. Even if you didn’t get the color just right, that would have been enough for me.”

  Joining her next to the coffee table, he wrapped an arm around her waist and looked at the two portraits, his eyes drawn to the one Tim had made from Annani’s memory. “Thank you. I appreciate your vote of confidence, but I’m trying to look at this as an impartial observer. If I had no stake in these portraits, I would have estimated the chances of them being of the same woman as less than five percent.”

  She leaned her head against his side. “That’s because you are a pessimist.”

  “I’m a realist.”

  “Let’s put them on the wall and then step back. Looking at them from different viewing angles might reveal something.”

  “Should I take Amanda’s picture down?” he asked.

  Carol looked behind her shoulder at the large screen television. “How about you tape them to the screen? That way we won’t damage the paint on the wall, and we can then sit on the couch and look at them while eating ice cream.”

  Lokan was more concerned with damaging Areana’s portrait by attaching tape to it, but without a frame there was no other way to put it up.

  Once he was done, he joined Carol on the couch and lifted his ice cream bowl. “I love her face.”

  Carol leaned against him. “Of course you do. Every boy loves his mother.”

  “I wish I could share your confidence that Areana is indeed my mother. But it’s doubtful. I look nothing like her. Not even a single feature.”

  “What about the lips? Yours are fuller than Navuh’s. I think they look a little like Areana’s.”

  He chuckled. “Nice try. I look exactly like Navuh. The only difference is that my face is a little rounder and less angular than his. I have his eyes, his nose, his lips, and his coloring. In fact, I look more like him than any of my brothers. Maybe that was the reason he favored me for a while.”

  “When did he stop?”

  Lokan rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I guess he always favored me a little, but that was because of my compulsion ability. I was valuable to him. That’s also why I got the cushy post in Washington. I could achieve more with less money spent on bribes.”

  For the next few minutes, they gazed at the portraits while eating their ice cream in silence. It was top quality, and the chocolate syrup and nuts added pleasant flavors, but Lokan could no longer enjoy the tasty treats Carol was making for him without wondering what else she was putting in them.

  His gut and his brain were at constant war, with his gut urging him to forget his suspicions and accept that he’d been granted an incredible gift, while his brain insisted that he had to be smart about it and not let his raging hormones blind him.

  If he had access to the internet, he could research whether pheromones could be added to food, or what kind of drugs created an addiction to another person.

  Or maybe it wasn’t in the food at all? What if Carol had put on a special kind of perfume or lotion an
d that was the culprit?

  Except, what was the point in dwelling on conspiracy theories when he had no way of proving or disproving them?

  It was easier to focus on the motive.

  The benefits to the clan were obvious, and the method was ingenious. Whoever designed it should get a medal.

  Instead of trying to torture information out of him, which had been proven ineffective even on a civilian like Carol, the clan adopted a modified version of the coercion interrogation technique used by the Chinese. Convincing prisoners that they were doing the right thing for the right reasons worked better.

  If Lokan accepted and internalized all that nonsense Carol was feeding him about fated mates and how devoted they were to each other, he would be more inclined to cooperate and disclose information he otherwise would not. And by showing him examples of two Brothers who had supposedly crossed over for love, they sought to reinforce his conviction.

  Not only that, suggesting that Areana was his mother might be just another ploy to lure him into crossing over.

  That seemed less likely though, mostly because of Kian’s attitude. He’d dismissed the similarities Annani had claimed to see. Then again, he might have been playing the bad cop to her good one.

  What a mess.

  Right now, the only way he could think of testing his theories was to meet up with Dalhu and get him to talk about his bond with Amanda.

  Hopefully, the guy wasn’t an accomplished liar.

  The question was how to get Dalhu to visit him, preferably together with Amanda. Observing them together could provide him with the answers he needed. Because if they behaved in the way Carol claimed true-love mates did, and if he was convinced that they weren’t acting, it would be proof that she hadn’t been lying about it.

  “You seem transfixed by her,” Carol said.

  While thinking, he’d been staring at Areana’s portrait, but he hadn’t been really looking. Nevertheless, it provided a good excuse for his prolonged silence.

  “I was trying to jog my memory, but it’s no use. I want to believe that she is my mother, so I’m not objective.” He rubbed his chest. “In here I feel she is. But in my head I know it’s wishful thinking and that I don’t recognize her.”

  Carol reached for his hand and clasped it. “Maybe we are looking at it the wrong way. What you’ve inherited from her were not your looks, but your goodness. We know that it couldn’t have come from Navuh, so it must have come from Areana.”

  He arched a brow. “My goodness?”

  “Yes.” She looked into his eyes. “The things you want for your people, those are not selfish or self-promoting. You want to give them a better life. That’s goodness.”

  19

  Carol

  As Carol waited for Lokan’s answer, she gazed into his eyes, seeking to distinguish truths from lies.

  Lokan smiled. “That's a nice way to think about it, but my motives are not entirely selfless. Without my father's compulsory hold over the Brotherhood, it couldn’t have existed in its current form. There would have been too much resentment. A different ruler, one who doesn’t rely on compulsion and scare tactics, will have to offer his people a good reason to stick around.”

  That was an honest answer. “Meaning you, of course.”

  He nodded. “Ultimately, democracy is the best form of governing people. Not that the Brothers are ready for it, but in time and with better education they might be. Changes like that cannot happen overnight.”

  “Yeah, but you have a problem. Without taking your father out, change is not possible. And if he’s eliminated, you don’t have time for the gradual transition you described.”

  He sighed. “I didn’t claim to have a solution. I have a vision for the end result but not the means of getting there.”

  “Unless you can find a way to influence your father.”

  “Right. But after five thousand years, I doubt he can change.”

  Carol tucked a curl behind her ear. “What if he doesn’t have a choice?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Leverage. What if the clan threatens to nuke the island if he doesn’t capitulate to our demands? We could start by demanding that he allow the dormant females to transition.”

  Lokan pinned her with a hard stare. “Did Kian tell you that this is what he plans to do?”

  Ugh. Apparently she wasn’t the only one with suspicions on her mind.

  “No, of course not. I’m just thinking aloud and throwing ideas around. You said that you didn’t have the means to achieve your vision, so I’m trying to be creative here.”

  The red embers glowing in his dark eyes indicated that he didn’t believe her. “Kian gave me his word that he would never nuke the island or even attack it with conventional means.”

  Exasperated, Carol threw her hands in the air. “He won’t! I was talking about threatening, not actually doing it. And besides, it’s not like Kian is going to listen to my ideas and immediately run to implement them. Why are you so suspicious?”

  Pushing to his feet, Lokan walked over to the bar and pulled out a bottle of beer for himself. Not asking her if she wanted anything to drink, he popped the lid and took a long swig.

  “Wouldn’t you be suspicious in my position?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “I wouldn’t jump to conclusions, that’s for sure. I was just trying to help.”

  One hell of a fated mate he was.

  Except, he probably wasn’t. If he were, he wouldn't be okay with sending her alone to the island, he wouldn’t attack her for every stupid thing she said, he wouldn’t blame her for things she had nothing to do with, and he would offer her a drink when he took one for himself.

  As tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, Carol got up, strode into the bathroom, and locked the door behind her. Not that it would hold Lokan out if he wanted to get in, but at the moment she had a feeling he needed some time alone just as much as she did.

  Sitting on the edge of the tub, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hands and took a deep breath.

  Perhaps she was overreacting.

  Being her mate didn’t mean that Lokan was the perfect partner. He had his own issues, and she couldn’t expect everything to always be great between them. After all, people came in all varieties, and she was sure that the other mated couples had their own problems and issues to deal with. Syssi had to deal with Kian’s stress, Wonder was mated to a joker, and Brundar was not an easy guy to deal with either.

  But what if it was more than that?

  Usually, Carol was confident in her ability to have any guy wrapped around her little finger with hardly any effort, but Lokan wasn’t any guy.

  For the first time in her life, Carol felt outclassed.

  Lokan was a powerful immortal, and he might possess other hidden talents besides compulsion and dream-sharing. Perhaps he could make himself irresistible, evoking emotions designed to convince her that he was her true-love mate.

  She’d been stupid to tell him about the fated mates phenomenon, giving him a weapon to use against her.

  How could the Fates be so cruel to her? Dangling two possible mates in front of her with neither being the real deal? After what she’d suffered, she deserved a reward, not further punishment,

  And why would they punish her? What wrongs had she committed?

  Were they angry at her because she’d sold her body for money and favors?

  It was a chilling thought.

  Carol had never felt guilty about her courtesan days. She’d had fun using her feminine wiles to lure rich men who’d been more than willing to pay for her favors. It had been a turn on, a power game that she’d enjoyed tremendously, but maybe it had been morally wrong, and that was why she was being punished?

  Her people didn’t have a religion, and the only moral compass they used was universal decency. Not to do harm, to promote freedom and equality, and to help humanity make life better for as many people as they could. Sexuality and promiscuity were not frowne
d upon like in the human religions.

  On the contrary, they were celebrated.

  Still, as far as Carol knew, she’d been the only one who had taken it as far as selling her sexual favors, so maybe she’d erred after all.

  One thing she was sure of. Lokan could never find out about her past.

  “Are you all right in there?” he asked from the other side of the door. “Can I come in?”

  “I need a moment.”

  “You’ve been in there for almost an hour.”

  She hadn’t realized it had been so long.

  “I’m sorry if I upset you. My reaction was uncalled for.”

  Well, that was something. At least he’d apologized.

  Pushing to her feet, Carol opened the door and let Lokan pull her into his arms.

  “I’m used to suspecting everyone. It’s hard to turn it off.”

  She rested her cheek on his chest. “I only want what is best for you, Lokan. That is what mates do. They support each other to the best of their abilities.”

  He sighed. “I wish it were as simple as that. But nothing about our situation is simple.”

  “Making love is.”

  “That is true.” He kissed the top of her head. “Am I forgiven?”

  Carol looked into Lokan’s dark eyes and smiled. “You’ll have to earn it.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Make love to me, and I’ll consider it.”

  20

  Kian

  Kian’s walk from his house to the office was usually uneventful. Seven o'clock in the morning was too early for most clan members to be out and about, but this time he had company, and it wasn’t coincidental.

  He heard Ella jog up behind him and then slow down when she reached him.

  “Good morning, Ella.”

  Since her regular running route didn’t go by his house, he figured she wanted to talk to him and preferred to do so outside the office.

  “Good morning.” She smiled. “Julian and I want to go visit Lokan, but Carol said that we need to clear it with you first.”