Sarra slammed her fist into her palm and jabbed out her finger accusingly at her reflection. “Stop it!” she whispered vehemently. “I am the Princess Royal of Adriel! I am strong—I will survive this day like I have all of the others! He is only a man! No spell will conquer me!” She nodded, determined. “I’ll just ignore him and show the nasty sorcerer that his charms don’t work on me ... anymore.”
With her eyes flashing and her cheeks hot, she showered and changed into the pink dress, swearing that she would face him, vowing that she wouldn’t hide. Still, hearing him moving about in the next room, she lingered in the bath.
When she finally braved the cabin, her fear was confirmed; he had become bored with the helm. He was on the lounge, lying on his back with his reading tablet in his hands, his eyelids heavy over the brilliant green. He wore a sleeveless black shirt, his tanned arms rugged, and he had one knee up and bent, his dark leggings clinging to his powerful calves and thighs, and narrow hips. She liked how he had his hair, having swooped it up away from his brow and tying it tightly back to accent his perfect features. His lips were shapely in a masculine way, and they had been so warm upon hers once, under the star-dome ... his firm tongue pleasurable ...
She must have made a sound, for he quickly looked her way. His eyes lit up, clearly imagining what was beneath her dress. Distraught, she was nearly overwhelmed with the urge to run back from whence she came, but she caught herself and kept her dignity. The warmth flowed throughout her belly, the tingling rushes of her adrenaline warning her ...
Resolutely, she moved, refusing to acknowledge his hot stare that trailed her to the console. She took up a computer tablet and then moved toward the nook. She winced. The beds were still there!
He came up behind her. “Why don’t we just leave them?” he asked quietly. “The poor nook—table, bed, table, bed ... ”
Wisely, Sarra skittered away. Her hand shook as she motioned at the threat. “Change it!” she demanded.
It seemed like he would obey, but then he cursed. He proceeded to stalk around the cabin, not unlike a caged animal. He tossed her a glare and moved for the bridge, but then he stopped, mumbling to himself. He wrestled with a complicated predicament, glancing at her as if only she could solve it.
Her heart pounded violently as she reached for the wall panel to make the nook change. Before she succeeded he was there, knocking away her hand. She paled, and tried to bolt for the safety of the bath. He leaned his hand against the wall, blocking her escape. She backed away from his intense green eyes and her thighs hit the mattress. His gaze dropped, burning into the soft swell of her breasts.
“Don’t you touch me!” she cried.
Panicking, Sarra commanded herself to remember who he was—a savage. But, her bewitched psyche retaliated by reminding her that he really hadn’t been so brutal—had he ever truly harmed her? In her dreams he had been gentle ...
“Princess,” he wooed, taking her shoulders into his hands. “What would be the harm? I’m a man. You’re a woman.”
“You’re a savage!” she choked, her tears falling freely.
“A savage would have had you long ago, no matter what the consequences,” he clarified matter-of-factly.
“You rape me—my father he will kill you!”
He scowled, and then grew calm again. “I know you want me, Princess—I see it in your eyes. I won’t hurt you, sweetheart—you’ve nothing to fear. We’ve only a few hours left before we land. After today we may never see each other again.”
He slid his arm down across her back, and she was struck by a wave of dizziness. She fell against his breast and weakly pushed on his shoulders. His hold wouldn’t yield. He savored her, breathing in her scent ...
“But, I can’t ...” she pleaded.
Raine nudged her down onto his bunk. The remnants of his pride screamed at him that he leave her be, but his body was demanding otherwise. He’d been able to entertain himself with his sexual fantasies about her, but now he was certain that he couldn’t live his life through if he didn’t have her. This may be his last chance. A royal had reduced him to this! Damn his lust and damn the king and damn Adriel—she would simply have to cry ‘rape’ if she must! Let the war begin!
He bent and kissed her, unleashing his passion. Sarra’s halfhearted protests were lost in her throat ... and the fire spread throughout her, his ardent tongue probing hers until she kissed him with equal and enthusiastic fervor. She slid her arms up, wrapping his back, becoming lost in his commanding presence, caught within her dreams ...
A sound, one obnoxious and loud, jolted her back to reality. He drew away, groaning like he was being tortured. She realized that the rhythmic bell was the helm warning the pilot that the destination neared. Bewildered, she sat up on her elbow.
“No!” he groaned out. “It can’t be time yet!”
The helm continued to say that it was.
Raine shot up to his feet, his snarling animalistic and mingling with the foulest of curses. He was needed on the bridge—if the ship crashed they both would die. He debated on whether or not to take his chances, wondering how he could have miscalculated the time—and if he should head back out—but when he saw her curled up in the corner, her blue eyes defiant with the mood having been broken, he found his moral fortitude and left her.
Sarra shook, bewildered by what had almost happened. She hadn’t the time to compose herself before he returned, grabbing her arm and making her stumble along after him into the bridge. He nudged her down into the passenger seat and strapped her in. Out the window before her, a misty-green planet was coming into view.
“That looks like Myrrh,” she managed to say.
He sat in the pilot seat beside her, his face thunderous.
“We have traveled in a circle?” she asked, totally confused.
He offered no explanation.
As they rapidly neared the world, he scowled, flustered. “Dammit!” he cried, working the helm. “Can’t anything be easy?”
Sarra didn’t know what was wrong, or what was happening. But she knew that this landing—if she survived—would change her life for forever.
PART II
THUNDER PALACE
Chapter 10
“Have you ever done this before, Princess?”
“No!”
“No?”
Sarra caught the worry on Raine’s face before he placed reassurance there instead.
“There’s nothing to it—a child could do it.”
She didn’t believe him. Her eyes were as big as blue moons while he dressed her—like she was a child—in the black chute-suit. He finished fastening her boots and thrust her back into her seat, and strapped her in. In a matter of moments he was ready in his protective gear and he went about preparing the spacecraft to eject its passengers.
“When eject occurs, you simply—”
Her heart drummed in her ears, drowning out his voice. Panic gripped her such as she had never known. She swallowed rapidly to keep from screeching her hysteria. He planned to shoot her out of the ship. Never had she been allowed to participate in the dangerous sport of parachuting—but she had never wanted to! It terrified her. She’d fall toward the ground, and she had no wings. She would die ... she would die ...
When his hold on her arm became like a vice, she turned. She didn’t even care that he saw her fear that was so clear in her eyes. He didn’t mock her—instead he was trying to encourage her.
“Listen to me, Princess. The parachute will open automatically—the ground sensor will not fail. Just lean up against the headrest, here. At eject, the chair will drop off instantly, all but the back part that you’re strapped to, the container that holds the equipment. The crisscrossed belts will tighten to you and lock you in the casing—you cannot fall out. Lay yourself out on your front. You’ll feel like you are dropping out of control—that’s natural. When the chute opens, you will jet far up into the air. The grips will come near your hands ... ”
He took her cold, wet
palm and placed it on the side of the chair up near the top. “Hold on to them. You will simply sail down to safety. Relax yourself, fall easy—meet the land gently. I’ll be with you soon after.”
He took the jetpack receptacle, a motoring device, off the top of her seat. “We don’t need this—can’t have you flying away ... ”
He pulled her suit’s hood into place and put a pair of goggles on her, and returned to the pilot seat. He reached out and squeezed her hand for moral support.
“It’s almost time.”
Sarra quaked as she looked out the port. The craft sliced turbulently through the clouds and then the mist was gone—except for her hazy vision. She blinked back her tears and saw the ground, dim and ominous, far below.
“God! Why? No! I can’t!” she sputtered.
“You can and you will! Princess, I’ve chuted countless times and am still around to tell about it. It’s safer than space flight. It’s really quite exhilarating—look down. You’ll love the view.”
As the jutting shadows of the land grew lighter, nearer, she took a deep breath to brace herself for the inevitable.
“To the sky!” he bellowed.
Sarra screeched when an icy blast of wind assaulted her. The bridge’s apex lifted and she was catapulted out. Behind the darkness of her eyelids her spirit was in chaos, as disoriented as the air that rushed around her. Her steady scream became a rasp in her throat while she fell, caught in the deadly force of gravity. Instinctively, she spread herself out, flat on her belly, with her arms out like a bird’s wings, but she didn’t know which end was up, having spun and toppled about. The force of her descent made it clear that this was the last moment of her life ...
A shriek tore from her as something snatched her and fiercely yanked her upward. A rippling pop sounded above her and she desperately groped, and her weak hands met the firm grips up at her sides, and clung.
The chute—it had opened! It gave her the courage to open her eyes. Nevertheless, she couldn’t look down. Surely her belly was lost somewhere up in the clouds, and she searched the four heavens distraughtly. Time moved as swiftly as the beat of her heart, but it seemed like she moved in slow motion. An event below caught her attention, a fiery, orange explosion that flashed far away in the distance—the spacecraft impacting the planet! There was another glow near the horizon—the sun. It was setting, or rising—she couldn’t tell which was east or west, whether it was dawn or twilight.
Bravely, she rolled her gaze across the panorama, and her spirit began soaring in her awe. The sun lit the cool, misty wilderness, splashing the fiery hues on the dense groves of trees and on the tiny and spotty patches of ponds that shimmered and steamed in the valley. Quietly she was gliding into the serenity, being enveloped in its magic. Beside her she saw Raine, unable to see his face in the space between them, but feeling certain that he watched her. She knew now why he had been so freehearted about chuting—one didn’t need wings, one’s spirit could fly! Free as the wind ...
But, this spirit was still in the flesh. Her fear began rising when her destination came nearer more rapidly than before. As the treetops grew larger and larger, she realized with a start that she would land on top of one.
Wildly, she flailed her arms in a furious attempt to move the air currents, to guide her toward an open area near the grove. The chute, equipped with a ground sensor, already had that plan. It swerved off toward the clearing to land its passenger, but Sarra, all tense and rigid, was in a panic. She cried out as her boot met the hard, rocky dirt at an unnatural angle with a jarring, painful force.
The chute billowed down upon her and she clawed the suffocating mass off of her, gasping from the sharp pain that was shooting throughout her leg. She pulled off her goggles and hood and wiped the wetness from her cheeks. After working herself out of the harness, she tried to stand; she fell instantly. She crawled a few paces before collapsing, gritting her teeth and grasping the boot that held her throbbing ankle.
When brushwood rustled behind her, she fell on her back. Nicks appeared, looking worried.
“Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.
She sat up, adamantly hiding her pain. “Yes,” she lied.
“What a ride, huh?”
He then saw the traces of her tears on her pale, dirt-smudged cheeks. “Well, I guess chuting isn’t for everyone,” he said. “Stay here.”
Raine was too invigorated to sense the agony that the proud woman concealed. He kept an alert eye on her whereabouts while he began gathering up her chute to make it small enough to self-destruct, as he had done to his own. So far, he had eluded their pursuers. The military-style, stealth parachutes were undetectable without the ‘liquid-light’ that one jettisons into the chute if one wishes to be found, those being destroyed in the jetpacks. And, the ground sensors are always difficult to detect, the weak beams lost within the enormous static that bombards a populated world’s atmosphere. Even so, he wasn’t taking any chances, certain of a massive search.
When he had approached Myrrh, he electronically contacted Darius’ estate and received their covert, predetermined danger code. King Ellis’ Royal FAS weren’t then in range of his ship, but it was being scanned by the USFC and it wouldn’t be long before interception. When he had left Myrrh, he had told Darius to tell all the Revolutionaries that there had been a change of plans—he would hide the princess on Adriel. He really intended to circle back. But, Darius warned him not to land. He put two and two together; there truly was a traitor who somehow knew about the princess’ and his return.
He couldn’t just go back into deep space—the ship’s signature code was known and he didn’t have the time or equipment to change it. And he couldn’t just land, for the FAS would easily find them. He had but one escape.
He had sent out a computerized distress signal and made it appear like there was a malfunction. The spacecraft would explode in the wilds miles from here, and this would keep the FAS guessing and give him time to hide the princess. He knew that when Darius heard about it, the man would understand and anonymously send word to the king’s men, saying that the princess was still alive, that she wasn’t even on that ship. The ransom scheme would fail if the monarch thought that his daughter was dead.
The USFC’s search teams would find it painstaking to cover such a vast forest area and track them down. The chute-suits would conceal most of their body heat from infrared sensors, and they’d appear as normal thermal fluctuations against the rugged terrain—unless the FAS were low and near enough to literally see them on the monitors, which wasn’t likely. Still, darkness was falling and he had best get her to shelter ...
Sarra made it up to her feet, oblivious as Raine pulled the cords, the mechanism that made her entire chute and it’s casing go up in a fiery puff of smoke. He came near and took her wrist.
“Come,” he said. “We must hurry.”
She snatched her hand away, hoping that her defiance masked her condition. He eyed her briefly, shrugged, and began walking. She started out cautiously, but it was like any impact might jar her injured foot loose.
At first, she wanted to cry out with every step. It wasn’t long before her leg started to feel numb, as if her body was as stubborn as her pride, unable to yield to defeat. Raine glanced askance frequently, and as he did she managed to show an easy stride. But when free from his scrutiny, she dug her nails into her palms and fell a ways back. Night was coming fast, cloaking the trees in shadows. Soon she wouldn’t be able to see the fallen branches and vines that littered the forest floor. As she plodded onward, it came to be more than once that her toe met a solid tuft or a large stone, bringing tears instantly to her eyes. She began doubting that she would make it to his destination—if he even had one!
Dismayed, she saw the slope filled with jagged rocks. Ahead, Nicks turned around irritably and waved a hand for her to hurry.
The tears rushed down her cheeks and she dropped. She couldn’t do it. She had lost.
In a flash he was beside her. He b
ent on a knee, for a moment at a loss for words.
“What is it?” he asked hoarsely.
She motioned at her boot. He carefully pulled it off, and his fingers gently probed the swelling.
“When did this happen?”
“When I landed,” she confessed miserably.
Raine cursed. He had forgotten how headstrong she was. And he’d thought that the royals were too weak and soft to withstand any physical pain. “Princess,” he scolded. “You should have told me.”
Sarra struggled while he drew her into the cradle of his arms. “No! I will walk!”
“No, ma’am,” he replied.
Sarra accepted the inevitable while he began to carry her. She bit her bottom lip, overwhelmed by his presence. It was cruelly comforting, having his arms around her, and seeing the faint moonlight coming into being, and hearing only the soft thudding of his boots breaking the quiet, her trembling began. Her nose caught his clean, masculine scent, an intriguing musk, making her dizzy. Again she was caught in his spell, his enigmatic magnetism that wanted to draw her toward him.
She had to speak, to break the tension. “How much farther?” she managed.
“Soon,” he rasped.
“Where are ... we heading?”
“Princess, put your arms around me. You’re fighting me—my back ...”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, embarrassed.
Awkwardly, she slid her arms up, one across his breast and the other across his back, and cupped her hands on his nape. She wished she hadn’t, for one round breast was pressed boldly against him.
“No need,” he assured huskily. “You weigh no more than a feather. It’s just ... be comfortable. Rest against me.”
She swallowed nervously as she obeyed, placing her hot cheek on the smooth material of his thin suit. The fast and steady beat of his heart was oddly peaceful, and had a way to ease away her tension, leaving her tired. The day’s tumultuous events had been exhausting, and her internal clock was confused by the nighttime.
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