by Selena Kitt
In contrast the crowd greeting them on Eros was loud, rowdy and colorful. Everywhere he looked Boone saw painted faces, gaudy costumes and outrageous hairstyles. Both men and women wore make-up and jewelry aplenty. The whole scene reminded Boone of old vids he’d seen of Earth-that-was documenting an ancient street celebration. What was the name of it again? Oh yes—Marti Gras.
Suddenly an elaborate gold and purple coach rolled to a stop a few hundred feet from the ship’s gangplank. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, right down to the prancing white horses with plum colored plumes attached to their bridles. The animals snorted and stamped their hooves which glittered in the bright Eros sunshine. Boone stared at them—did they actually have on golden horse shoes?
Before he could consider the extravagant display, two footmen in gold and purple livery jumped down from the back of the coach and put long silver trumpets to their mouths. A trilling fanfare rang out and the crowd’s babble fell to a dull roar as a sense of excited expectation filled the air.
Boone couldn’t take much more. “Loki,” he muttered in his pilot’s ear. “What exactly did you bring down on us? What is all this pomp and circumstance bullshit?”
“Isn’t it amazing?” Loki looked at him, his eyes shining. “I have a cousin who works in the royal palace who knows the under-gardener, who fucks the chambermaid, who’s best friends with the empress’s hairdresser, who of course, has the empress’s ear. So I was able to get word to her almost at once.”
“Get word of what?” Boone wanted to strangle his friend out of sheer frustration. “Just what the hell did you tell them?”
Loki frowned. “Why, that K is the lost princess, of course. What else?”
“Lost princess? What are you talking about?” Boone demanded. But just then an officious little man with a pointed blue goatee which matched his elaborately tailored waistcoat and trousers came prancing up the gangplank.
“Ahem.” He came to a stop in front of Boone and nodded his head. “I am Pontillius Grabar, her majesty’s Grand Viceroy and I am here to see the one claiming to be the lost princess.”
“Nobody’s claiming anything,” Boone growled. He could feel K shivering behind him, overcome by the noise and the crowds, and a wave of protective possessiveness washed over him. She hadn’t asked for any of this, damn it!
“Oh, yes they are—we are, I mean.” Loki stepped forward and made an elaborate bow which the little man with the blue beard barely acknowledged. “I believe that this female...” He pointed to K who was still standing behind Boone. “Is in fact and indeed the princess who was stolen from her room in the royal palace so many years ago.”
“Is that so?” The little man frowned. “You had better be correct, my dear fellow. The empress had been searching for years for her one and only daughter and she does not take disappointment well.”
Loki went pale. “You won’t be disappointed, your eminence, I swear it. Just look at her—look at her eyes.”
“Very well.” The Grand Viceroy beckoned to K. “Come here, my dear. Come out where I can see you.”
For a moment Boone thought she wasn’t going to come. Then she stepped out from behind him, head held high, and took a step forward.
“I am no princess,” she said clearly, her voice rising above the murmur of the crowd. “I am a fourth class Paladin.”
An excited murmur ran among the crowd, people picking up K’s words and passing them along. A Paladin—she says she’s a Paladin. What—you mean like a Purist? Oh my Goddess, the lost princess is a Purist!
The Grand Viceroy stared at her for a long time before speaking.
“You may have been raised as a Paladin, my dear, but you most certainly were not born one. We will have to have some DNA tests to be for certain, but I believe that you are the one we have been looking for.”
Before Boone could protest, the Grand Viceroy turned to the gold and purple carriage and nodded. The two footmen in livery blew another blast on their trumpets and several of the soldiers quickly rolled out a lush purple carpet which started at the steps of the carriage and reached all the way up the gangplank of the ship right to Boone’s feet.
The carriage opened and a tall female with long black hair done up in an elaborate style that involved golden braids and expensive looking diamond netting stepped slowly down. She had the same strong but delicate facial features as K and her eyes were the same violet with a triple golden ring. Her elaborate, jewel encrusted dress rustled richly as she strode in a slow, stately manner down the purple velvet carpet.
“What’s the matter with you?” Loki hissed at Boone, breaking his contemplation of the elegant female who had to be the Empress of Eros. “Bow before her majesty! And never look directly at her—especially not her face!”
Boone suddenly realized that everyone in the crowd, including the soldiers and the footmen and even the Grand Viceroy, were bowing low, their foreheads nearly touching the ground as the empress approached. Only he and K were left standing in what was probably a huge breach of Erian etiquette.
Reluctantly, he got down on one knee and tugged at K’s hand.
“C’mon, K. When in Rome.”
“No.” K shook off his hand, refusing to get down or even to bow. Instead, she faced the approaching empress head-on, a look of fierce concentration on her face.
The empress continued walking, never giving any sign that what K was doing was wrong, though everyone around them was bowing low. Boone watched, unable to help himself, as the two women finally came face to face. He kept expecting them to talk, to say something—anything. And there was certainly something to say—the resemblance between them was undeniable. K could have been a younger version of the empress they looked so much alike.
At last K spoke. “Mother?” she whispered, her voice breaking on the second syllable. “Are you... is that you?”
The empress’s expression remained stern but tears filled her violet and gold ringed eyes.
“Krissana, my darling,” she murmured. “You’ve come home.”
The next few hours were like a blur to K and not just because she was being bundled along with Boone—who she refused to let go of—into the elaborate gold and purple coach and taken to a ridiculously ornate palace. All of it—the jostling, shouting crowds, the overwhelming richness of her new surroundings, the strongly perfumed interior of the coach—was eclipsed by the memories that were pouring into her head, like water from a broken dam.
This road—I recognize it. I remember riding along it when I was little. But everything was so much bigger then. But the road hadn’t gotten smaller—it was just that she had grown, K realized. And it had been over twenty cycles since she saw the place.
When they pulled up in front of the Empress’s palace, a huge gilded affair with massive purple columns carved of some rich alien marble, she grabbed Boone’s arm.
“What, darlin’?” he asked in an undertone, casting a glance at the Empress who was sitting quietly across from them. “What is it?”
“The... the columns,” K choked, staring out the glazed windows of the coach. “I remember... I used to hide behind them and my nurse would try to find me. We made a game of it. Sometimes the guards played too if no one was watching. I remember laughing... laughing, Boone. I remember being... happy. So happy.”
“Yes, you always were a cheerful child,” the Empress remarked from the other seat. “Everyone in the palace loved your sunny personality.”
Loki, who had also been dragged into the coach along with them nearly choked. “Sunny personality?”
The Empress turned a cold eye upon him.
“Indeed, commoner. Does that amuse you?”
“Not at all, your highness.” Loki attempted to bow and nearly knocked his head against the ornately carved door handle of the coach. “Forgive me. It’s just that—”
“It’s just that K, well, she hasn’t had a whole lot of happiness in her life,” Boone finished for him. “Or, well, any emotion for that matter.”
“I am a fourth level Paladin,” K said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “I fear nothing, I feel nothing.”
“No, my darling—you are a princess. Stolen from your bed when you were only five cycles old,” the Empress corrected gently.
“Look, your majesty,” Boone said. “I’m sorry but this is all news to us. K is just a Paladin I captured to try and help me get my sister back from the pshalite mines on Midas. Her eyes were black on black until last night so we had no idea—”
“And why did her eyes revert to their true color?” the Empress cut in, her voice harsh. “What exactly did you do to her, giant?”
“Boone helped me,” K squeezed his hand tight.
“She, uh, started her cycle, your majesty,” Loki supplied. “She was growing desperate.”
“And you let her bond sexually with a non-Erian? With a giant?” the Empress snapped. “Why did you not at least try to help her yourself? True you are a grubby little commoner but even that is better than letting some alien—”
“There was no bonding involved,” Boone cut in quietly. His cheeks grew red but he refused to look away from the Empress. “I simply helped K, um, take the edge off.”
“Not that it is any of your business,” K interjected, lifting her chin. Purity but this would be so much easier if the memories didn’t keep crowding into her head like noisy guests all shouting for her attention. She remembered the woman across from her—remembered fearing her regal beauty, being forced to sit beside her at state dinners on a tiny, raised golden throne—always on her best behavior. Remembered—
“Of course it is my business whom you form a sexual life bond with, Krissana,” the Empress snapped, looking irritated. “Your consort must be of royal blood if you hope to rule the planet when I am gone.”
“I don’t want to rule anything,” K objected. “I don’t even want to be here.” She turned back to Boone. “We need to leave now. I may have come from Eros but I don’t belong here—not anymore.”
“Krissana, of course you belong here.” The Empress reached forward to touch her hand and K jerked away.
Contamination! She still couldn’t bear to touch anyone skin-to-skin but Boone, even though her newly restored memories insisted that the Empress, was in fact, her biological mother.
“K,” Loki hissed at her. “You can’t do that! You must never refuse the touch of the Empress. It’s a gift.”
“One I fear I bestowed all too infrequently when Krissana was little.” The Empress sat back, a look of sorrow in her jeweled eyes. “I always felt, you know, that your kidnapping was a punishment on me. For not spending more time with you. For allowing you to imprint as an infant on another female.”
“My nurse... Vanja,” K whispered as another memory rushed into place. “Is she—”
“She is still here in the palace.” The Empress nodded. “It was clear she had nothing to do with your disappearance and I couldn’t bear to let her go. She was the only one I could speak to about my lost daughter... about you, Krissana.”
“Stop calling me that.” K crossed her arms protectively over her chest. “I’m K. Just K.”
“Not anymore.” The Empress spoke with determination. “You are a royal princess of the blood—one possessing the rare triple golden ringed eyes. And you will conduct yourself as such.”
“Now wait just a minute,” Boone growled. “K is her own person. Just because she started out here doesn’t mean you own her now that she’s back.”
“Of course I don’t own her.” The Empress spread her hands. “Krissana is owned by the entire planet of Eros—as are all of us who rule.”
“Don’t you understand?” K said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “I was raised and trained to eradicate you—all of you. Your filthy Impure ways of sexual procreation—”
“Don’t seem quite so filthy now that you’re going through your own cycle, do they, my dear?” The Empress raised one perfectly arched eyebrow at her.
K opened her mouth and found she had nothing to say. All she could think of was the warm, delicious pleasure of Boone’s hands on her, of the incredible release he’d given her and the hotness of his mouth covering hers as he brought her to the peak. Purity! Even though she’d had a release just the night before, she could already feel her nipples and sex getting tender again, could already feel that hollow emptiness between her thighs growing, begging to be filled...
The Empress frowned. “Speak of your cycle, Krissana, I do believe you’re about to enter the second phase of it very soon.”
“You... but how can you know that?” K demanded, feeling suddenly naked.
“Your eyes—the golden rings are glowing.” The Empress gestured toward her face.
“Are they?” K looked up at Boone for conformation.
He nodded. “Afraid so, darlin’.”
K’s stomach clenched like a slick fist. “But that means... what exactly does that mean?” she demanded, speaking to Loki rather than the Empress.
“It means you’ll be experiencing the urgent need to mate.” The Empress spoke as though it was no great matter. “Don’t worry, though—we can have a host of acceptable candidates for you to pick from by early tomorrow morning.”
“Acceptable candidates?” K felt like she might be sick. “I don’t want to pick and choose from a bunch of strangers to contaminate me. I don’t want anyone but Boone!”
“Now, Krissana...” The Empress spoke as though to a small, willful child. “I understand that you went through a second infancy as it were after that horrible black suit thing the Purists put on you came off. And you imprinted on this... this giant at that time.” She nodded at Boone who was giving her a stony stare. “But we grow, my dear. We change. We do not choose to bond with someone simply because of an early imprint. That’s irrational—childish.”
“But—”
“We’ll speak of it later.” The Empress tapped on the ceiling of the carriage and one of the footmen rushed to open the door for her. “We cannot sit out here in front of the palace arguing all day. There is much to be done.”
Much to be done about what? K thought but the Empress—her mother—had already swept from the carriage and was making her way in a stately manner toward the vast double doors bound in gold and covered in silver script which led to the interior of the castle.
“Boone,” she said, turning to him. “I don’t like this. Being here, knowing who I am all of a sudden—these are the worst emotions I’ve had yet. I don’t want to be here feeling like this, knowing the things I know now. Can’t we go?”
He shook his head regretfully. “I don’t think so, K. I don’t think they’ll let us.” He nodded his head at the procession of soldiers who had lined up on either side of the carriage door as though to be certain they got out and went directly into the palace.
For a moment K was filled with frustrated rage.
“This is all your fault,” she stormed, turning to Loki. “If you were looking for a way to punish me for the death of your partner, you certainly found it.”
“I was trying to do you a favor.” Loki shrugged. “I mean, it’s like something straight out of a fairytale from Earth-that-was. Who wouldn’t want to find out they’re secretly royalty?”
“I wouldn’t,” K spat.
“Well I’m afraid you’ve been outed now,” Loki returned waspishly. “And there’s no going back in the closet, your highness. Now if you’ll excuse me, I do believe I have a hero’s welcome to collect.” He stepped out of the carriage, flashing predatory looks at some of the assembled soldiers as he strutted into the palace.
K watched him go and squeezed her hands into fists. If only she had her plasma gauntlets on right now she would carve a path through these Erian soldiers, all
dressed in their ridiculous, colorful uniforms with those foppish plumes on their hats and the useless metals gleaming on their chests. She would make a way to get back to the space port and leave, taking Boone with her.
Boone seemed to sense her frustration.
“Easy, darlin’,” he murmured, squeezing her hand. “I know it’s upsetting and unexpected but we’ll get through this.”
“Together?” K looked up at him, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “Because I can’t do this alone. It’s too much, Boone. I... I need you.”
