Rise

by May Sage

  The question had been purely rhetoric until Calden’s arrival.

  His old friend was dejected, disheveled, distraught as he’d never seen him. First, Cedar wondered if something had happened to his mate; but in a way, it was even worse.

  “Alek is turning.”

  Alek, the Wild Prince. He was twenty-eight now – he would have been considered a man in most civilizations; but he was still Calden’s only son.

  There was a chance that Cedar might have considered the matter, and possibly even refused to help in any other case, but when Calden came to tell him his son was in danger, there was no alternative: he had to leave his walls.

  The colorful vegetation of Magneo had always blinded him, but after two decades in the dark, his eyes hurt so much he had to shade himself with his hand.

  “Would that help?”

  Calden was handing him his own sunglasses; yes, they would have helped. They would have made him comfortable.

  Cedar shook his head and dropped his hand. He didn’t deserve comfort.

  “You’re going to have to forgive yourself, one day. Yes, you believed humans were underneath you. So did I, at one time, remember? And yes, you were part of a horrible movement. But you turned your back on it. Thanks to you, we’ve recovered over ninety-five percent of the breeders who had been abducted.”

  He closed his eyes and didn’t say a word, like he did every time that subject was broached.

  Nine-five percent were safe, yes; but one hundred percent of them had been abused and he’d been a part of it.

  “You have to move on. If you don’t do it for you, do it for her.”

  Cedar’s gaze returned to the Emperor, narrowed into slits. No point asking who her could be. There was only one her for a Klint: their mate.

  Calden was speaking of Willow. His beautiful, witty, strong, precious Willow. The one he hadn’t protected against one of his friends.

  Cedar hadn’t banned that subject; there was no point. She was and would always be branded in his mind, making him sick and filled with self-hatred.

  “Willow is better off without me.”

  The Emperor snorted.

  “Sure. Of course she’s happy without her mate. Totally logical.”

  He just glared in response.

  “You’ve made her practically immortal, Cedar. She’s forty three, now, and she may live another thousand years. That’s a long time to be alone, and feel abandoned by the one person who should be next to you.”

  Cedar shook his head, wishing he could ignore every word he’d just heard. Unfortunately for him, he was too logical and intelligent to ignore the truth when he heard it.

  Nothing much had changed, yet everything was different in the palace. It was quieter, gloomy, tense. No point asking why: everyone loved their Wild Prince and they knew that if his mate wasn’t found soon, he would have to die. There was no way around it. The beasts they turned into were too powerful, too dangerous to be allowed to live.

  They had six months – a year, tops. Most of those who got to that point without so much as a clue as to where they should look generally didn’t stand a chance.

  Cedar recalled the last time he’d see Alek – he’d been a bouncy little purple haired boy, then. Now he was a man. He had some dark stubble on his chin, purple, while the hair on his head was black.

  “You’ve been to Earth, recently,” Cedar guessed.

  Earth was the most recent system they’d annexed; the others didn’t really blink at the sight of a Klint, but humans were still awed or fearful, so those who took trips there often chose to go for dye jobs to fit in.

  “Four months ago,” Alek stated somewhat grumpily.

  The guy was grouchy, quite understandably.

  “Good. You’re half human, so it’s entirely logical that your mate may come from Earth. We’ll start there. Did you encounter any particular female?”

  A slow grin spread on his face.

  “Well, there were those three girls from the club…”

  Cedar sighed. Well, he’d asked.

  “But frankly, I can barely remember their faces, let alone their names.”

  They had to turn every stone, so they’d consider them if they needed to, but Cedar crossed them out of his shortlist. Mates generally did stand out, if his personal experience on the matter was anything to go by.

  “I also saw my fair share of politicians, two or three were female; then there’s the usual – random waitresses, passersby in the street.”

  It could have been anyone he’d crossed paths with and there laid the issue.

  “Although…” the Wild Prince hesitated, before carrying on. “There was a girl. She worked at the hotel. A brunette – pretty, I guess.”

  It was said almost reluctantly, and with a frown, too. Pretty, but not his type, obviously.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. She was kinda familiar. I think she looks like an actress I’ve seen in some movie,” he shrugged, satisfied with his explanation.

  Cedar was more than satisfied: he was delighted.

  They had something to go on.

  “Cool. Did she have a nice rack? I do love the curves human girls manage to pack…”

  Alek growled, jumped up and threw the table to the wall.

  Bingo.

  The Wild Prince took in Cedar’s smirk and stopped snarling, his expression changing from anger to bewilderment.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe we have a winner. Let’s get a cerebral scan on that, just to make sure.”

  Alek

  Alek woke up sweating, and snarling like the monster he was turning into.

  It was a live nightmare; his mind was there, he could think things through and contemplate exactly what he was doing, but he had very little control over his body, now. When someone said the wrong thing, or pissed him off by breathing too hard, he attacked. He destroyed.

  His father had been against the imprisonment, but unsurprisingly, his hardass of a mother set him straight.

  “Alek is a danger to himself, first,” she’d argued. “If he ends up actually killing someone, he’ll never forgive himself. Lock him in.”

  He wasn’t really a prisoner, but every night, he slept under locks and keys. He was trailed by two guards, just like he had been in his youth, but these weren’t there to protect him: their presence was a constant reminder that people needed to be protected from him.

  That, more than anything, made him angry. He loved people – socializing was as natural to him as breaking a wall with her bare hands was to his mother.

  “Any news?” he growled at the smallest of his guards.

  It was damn annoying to have Stel, his little eighteen year old cousin trailing his ass, but there had been no way around him: no one could even hope to slow him down for more than thirty seconds, save from Stel and his mother’s own guard, Seran.

  To his surprise, the kid was smiling, for the first time in months. No one smiled at him anymore.

  They had all been relieved when they’d managed to pinpoint the girl they needed to find.

  Alek had immediately left for Earth, booking right back in the same hotel.

  “What do you mean, she doesn’t work here anymore?” he growled at the poor manager who somehow managed not to wet his trousers.

  “She left quite suddenly – no notice, no details. Didn’t even collect her last check. I couldn’t give you her personal details if I had them, sir, but in truth, I just don’t.”

  Alek had narrowed his eyes and taken a step forward; he wasn’t quite certain of what he may have done if Stel hadn’t held him in place.

  “Sorry, man,” his cousin said apologetically. “They kinda had a thing – you know, without protection. She promised she’d call to tell him whether there were… consequences.”

  The human was understanding after that, but he still had nothing to say.

  Nothing but her name. Ava. Ava Williams.

  “Yep, we think we have her. She’s been admitted to a hospital yest
erday so her blood was tested and BAM. Ninety-nine percent match, cuz.”

  Alek should have been relieved, but he frowned, confused.

  Ninety-nine percent?

  Every pair mated by the system he’d ever heard of had a hundred percent compatibility.

  “Yep. She was obviously going by a pseudonym at the hotel: meet Ana Williams, twenty-two. Arrested four times, terrible credit rating, and a distinct taste for luxurious clothing.”

  Stel couldn’t quite disguise his grimace, when he handed the electronic tablet to Alek.

  He took it; he didn’t even have to read the file. One glance was enough.

  “It’s not her.”

  Alek couldn’t have said whether his little sister’s hair was strawberry blond or ginger; he wouldn’t have been quite confident as to whether his curtains were blue or green, but he knew the exact shade of his girl’s eyes, the exact shape of her mouth, her little turned up nose, and he definitely knew that she wasn’t a DD. She might have been a B, a C at most – and all natural.

  She might have had the boobs done within the last five months, but he wasn’t inventing the other subtle differences.

  “Al, the tests might have just…”

  “It’s not her,” he repeated firmly. “We’re looking for her twin.”

  Thirty-Four

  We rule

  Ava

  Flipping burgers was probably the worst job she’d ever had, so far: minimum wage, no tips, and it had made her formerly clean skin greasy even after ten exfoliations. To add insult to injury, she was flipping good burgers, so the size of her butt had also expanded over the last two months.

  Not for the first time, Ava was wondering whether plastic surgery was the solution; nothing much, but having a different nose and mouth might have sorted out her problem.

  Well, a moot point, as she couldn’t afford anything like that, but a girl could dream.

  Daydream number two generally was being able to actually leave the planet; surely, if she wasn’t in the same stratosphere, Ana’s shit wouldn’t follow her, right?

  It was a silly dream. Twenty years ago, that might have been possible, but since the Empire had stopped allowing human females to volunteer as their incubators, it was practically impossible to get off planet; it wasn’t even a question of money – the Klints only allowed for a very, very limited number of individuals, and they seemed to be chosen at random. There had been a public toilet cleaner one year, and the last one had belonged to a royal family – if they discriminated, it was pretty tough to guess on what grounds.

  A shame. Ava might have liked to see the other words she’d only had a glimpsed of on TV. Back when she’d thought that she had a future, she’d studied astrophysics, eager to at least work with the aliens she was so curious about.

  Then, Ana had happened.

  She hadn’t always been as much of a problem. In their youth, she’d been a manipulative little shit, always up to no good, but even then, somehow Ava had always ended up in trouble. People liked Ana, the social butterfly, and they didn’t particularly warm up to her.

  Things had become complicated after high school. Like many girls, Ana and Ava had been awkward in their teens then boom, at twenty, they’d grown three inches up, and the baby fat they’d never managed to shed disappeared on its own.

  Ava still hadn’t adapted but Ana had seen her appearance as power, right from the start and she’d used it. She’d skipped town one day, and the next day, Ava was getting arrested.

  The case was open and closed, when it became clear that the guy who’d accused her didn’t know a single fact about her. He even pointed out the only real difference between Ava and Ana at that point: Ana’s beauty spot just above her hip bone. But in the meantime, she’d lost her scholarship.

  It had been two years and everywhere she went, she somehow ended up mistaken for Ana.

  Alek

  The madness might be gone but Alek had never been as likely to murder those who surrounded him.

  “I’m so happy for you,” he heard again, from his mother, this time.

  Alek glared, his lips set in one firm line.

  “Alek, she said her sister is dead. The madness wouldn’t have stopped if she hadn’t been your fated mate, sweet. Things don’t always happen as we think and…”

  His mother was dear to him, he had to remind himself of that. Instead of biting her head off, he got to his feet and walked away.

  “Alek you have to accept…”

  “Don’t you dare, mother!” he yelled.

  The crowd celebrating around him dialed down; everyone turned to him, stunned, for some reason. They’d all heard his protests and no one had listened. Without his consent, against his express wishes, they’d brought that woman to his home.

  “I know what we are for our people: symbols. We don’t exist beyond our image. That was always fine, because I used to think that you,” he said, including everyone around him with a wave of his hand, “Cared about me, personally. Me, Alek, not your Wild Prince. That’s all that matters, though, isn’t it? The Wild Prince is fine. No matter if Alek is fading away.”

  Calden stepped forward, mouth open, but he didn’t let his father speak.

  “If what this poor excuse for a human being is saying is true, my mate is dead. And you throw a party. It is more than likely that she saw the delegation you sent and visualized all the money, the fame, the fashion we represent. So she lied. You know it. You all know it. Yet you force me to stay here and do nothing.”

  When he’d tried to return to Earth, they’d set his guards on him again. There was no excuse now; he was a danger to no one. The viper was close enough to his mate for his body to be tricked into believing it. His mind didn’t.

  To his surprise, it was an utterly unfamiliar voice who cut through the silence.

  He’d seen its bearer every day, but he really couldn’t recall an instance where he’d actually heard her speak.

  “He’s right. If his mate is dead, he needs to know. If she isn’t, he needs to be with her. Either way, this isn’t right.”

  He wasn’t sure why, as he’d said various versions of the same thing over and over, but there were nods all around; he supposed that people listen to those who never spoke.

  “Son…”

  “What would you have felt,” he asked the Emperor, cutting though whatever he’d been about to say, “If someone had suddenly told you, you know what, Lena’s dead, but hey, how about a wash-up, plasticky replacement instead? Don’t tell me this is different. You knew nothing of my mother for eight years, but the fact that she was your mate. I know nothing of Ava Williams but the fact that she’s mine. And I’m going for her now.”

  Cedar

  Seeing his mate had been a shock. She shouldn’t have changed – time would never have any hold on them now – but she had. Before, she’d been carefree, funny, even in her dreadful cell.

  The girl he’d known then was a woman.

  Her blond hair had been shorter, straighter – it fell in waves down her willowy frame now. How aptly she’d been named. Her brown eyes were full of angst and sorrow, something he knew he was responsible for. He’d done this to her.

  Cedar stayed far back, lurking behind curtains, like the lowly creature he was. He wouldn’t even be here, if not for a worry no one else seemed to share with him.

  Save for the fact that they were all welcoming of the slutty little gold digger who’d saved their prince from madness; he understood it, of course, but a niggling voice told him there was something unfinished there.

  Just like he thought he might, Alek recoiled from the woman’s touch and looked at her with nothing but contempt. There was no doubt in Cedar’s mind that Ana Williams wasn’t his mate.

  He watched without surprise as the kid exploded. Cedar was ready to give his own two cents, supporting his protests, when the voice rose, shocking him to the bones.

  Willow. He didn’t need to turn to her to identify it, he dreamt of it every day, every night.r />
  What came out of her mouth was a shock to the system.

  She believed mates should be together; those words actually crossed her pink lips.

  Cedar stood, lost for words, his brain completely numb for the first time.

  Part of him wanted to run and hide, return to his cell, ignore that any of it had ever happened.

  Surely, if it had been her, if Cedar had had a twin, a brother compatible to her, who hadn’t submitted her to unthinkable torture, she would welcome him with open arms. Right?

  But Cedar had no brother. He was the only mate she had. He had never considered that it might matter to her, because she was human; her race didn’t come in mated pairs, and what he knew of them had suggested that such a thing didn’t matter…

  There it was again. He’d let his experience with his mother cloud his judgement; because she had been heartless, he never thought to stop and think of what Willow might make of his absence.

  Now, he needed answers.

  Willow

  Willow was biting her lip, rather embarrassed as everyone around her was looking at her as though she’d suddenly grown a second head. Yes, she could totally do the whole speaking thing; when she had something to say, in any case. Admittedly, that didn’t happen often.

  The poor excuse for a party that should never have happened stopped abruptly after Alek’s departure. Willow stayed back, knowing that when they were less exposed, in a little while, the cold, intimidating, gorgeous redhead they called their Empress would need a good hug – and as Tania, her best friend, wasn’t there to give it, Willow intended to.