by Aria Bell
The robot jerked, froze, and then went still.
Melika shoved her fighting stick through a loop on her suit’s belt and stepped back to stand at attention, looking at me.
She wasn’t even breathing hard.
She was pleased. I could sense it. I could practically smell it on her.
“Not bad,” I grunted. I rolled my shoulders and stretched. “You are acceptable against robots. At least one old, primitive model.” No sense in letting her get a big head about her skills. Arrogance could be her undoing in a real battle. I looked her right in the eyes. “Now me.”
She immediately paled and looked down at her feet. “I’m sorry, my prince. I can’t.”
“Are you refusing me?”
She sank down on one knee and bowed her head. “I can’t, my prince. It’s not possible for me to attack the person I am sworn to protect. Not even to spar. I’m sorry. I cannot do as you command.”
“Disobeying a direct order from your prince means death.”
She didn’t answer right away. She didn’t look up from where she knelt with her head down. Finally, she said in a quiet voice. “Then I respectfully request that my remains be sent to my tsora kai for burial.”
Her refusal had angered me, but her clear dismay at the impossible position I’d put her in tugged at my heart.
I went to her. I took her hand and raised her back to her feet. Looking down on her as she stood before me, I brushed aside a stray strand of hair that had come loose from her braid. I let my fingers brush her skin, purely for my own benefit.
Her skin was even softer than I had imagined.
Melika stared up at me with those big brown eyes. Her lips were slightly parted. She was breathing faster than she had when fighting the robot.
“You have the heart of a Jardan,” I said and meant it.
I would never admit it to her, but the clear depth of her commitment to my safety touched me. She had been willing to die rather than go against her Ron-Zishu oath.
Fascinating.
I turned away before having her so close—staring up at me with those soft brown eyes and filling my nostrils with her feminine scent—drove me to do something totally inappropriate.
Namely, kissing her senseless and then fucking her senseless.
“Go,” I said curtly, turning to face out the window at the view of the city. I did it mostly to hide the evidence of the raging hard-on that sneaked up on me.
She did not immediately obey. “Prince Vorgyn…have I offended you?”
“No.”
“May I speak freely?”
I considered it a moment. I knew I should probably say no. I knew I wasn’t going to want to hear what she was going to say. “You may.”
“My prince, I am sworn to guard you with my life. But I can’t do that from my quarters on the other side of the fortress. Ionas is clearly a loyal servant, but I don’t believe he understands what my duties are. I think he’s quartered me with the kitchen staff.”
I couldn’t help but smile. So that’s where he’d put her. He could have put her with the household staff or the animal keepers or the techies. The kitchen drudges were the lowest insult he could have given her.
“I can’t protect you, my prince, if I’m too far away to prevent an attack. I need to be quartered closer to you. I understand my limitations as Angmoroh. But I also respectfully request to be made part of the existing security detail, at least within the boundaries of my status, so that I may at least be present part of the day to fulfill my oath and my duties and protect you.”
I didn’t turn around. “Are you questioning my strength as a warrior?”
“No, my prince,” she said quickly, with a slight tremble in her voice. That satisfied me. I would rather she slept beside me, exhausted from our lovemaking, with my seed drying in her pussy and on her thighs. But that wasn’t what she was asking.
She took my silence as hesitation and continued, speaking softly. “Even the strongest warrior can’t be on guard all the time. Please let those sworn to you do their duty.”
Sworn to me. Yes, she was sworn to me, wasn’t she? “Impossible. You aren’t ready to make the sacrifice that would require.”
“I am Ron-Zishu,” she said, heat creeping into her voice. I liked the fire, the feistiness. “Didn’t I just prove I’d make any sacrifice?”
I wheeled on her, no longer caring if she saw the outline of my hard cock pressing against my pants. “You proved you are fearless with your life. But you didn’t prove you would make any sacrifice.”
She paled. “I don’t understand…”
I took a deep breath and tried to drain some of the frustrated anger from my tone. “You are human. You are Angmoroh. But I am of the royal line of Mar’Don. Only Banmoroh—only blood of the clan—can continually stay in my presence outside of the throne room.” I gave a curt gesture at the robot she’d destroyed. “Even this is a violation of protocol, having you here alone with me. But I needed to judge your skills for myself.”
She stared at me, her skin even paler than normal. I resisted the urge to allow her a moment of comfort.
“That is one of the reasons why I rejected you when your Ron-Zishu master presented you to me.”
“But…the queen purchased my life contract. To serve as guardian to you.”
I snarled, wanting to drive my fist through the armored window. “That’s what I don’t understand. She knows the bindings of protocol and the court better than anyone. The only way you would be allowed to be near me is if you were blood of the clan. And the only way to do that would be to make you Banmoroh.”
She looked up at me, confusion on her pretty, heart-shaped face. “I don’t understand, my prince. Mustn’t all bodyguards and all who have access to your inner chambers be Banmoroh?”
“Yes. All Jardan bodyguards and others who have access to my inner chambers. Banmoroh means blood of the clan. You cannot be my blood if you are not Jardan.”
She considered my words. “Then why, my prince, did your mother purchase the life contract of a human?”
I ground my teeth together as the rest of my mother’s shrewd plan spun out and bloomed into my awareness. The woman was nothing if not the most devious, manipulative woman in the empire.
“Because she wants me to marry.”
The Ron-Zishu guardian, the weapon, looked up at me. “I still don’t understand. How is selecting a human bodyguard required for you to take a wife?”
“It’s not,” I said. “But if you’re to do the job she purchased you to do, you must have access to me at all times, as you’ve so astutely proposed. And in order to do that, you must be Banmoroh. And in order for someone without Jardan blood to become blood of a Jardan clan, they must become Jardan blood.”
She continued to gaze at me. “Forgive me, my prince. I do not understand your customs well enough to know the implication you are trying to make. But I am willing to do whatever your culture requires of me in order to uphold my oath and perform my duties to you.”
“Damn it, human! It means become my blood! Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh! Do you humans not have such rituals for mating?”
That did it. Her eyes widened in surprise for a moment, but only a moment, before settling back into their calm, emotionless gaze. “You mean, to be married?”
“Or course not! I’d never marry a puny runt of a human. It means to take you as my courtezhana—my mate.”
If my insults offended her, her expression revealed nothing. “You mean, a courtesan? A mistress?”
“Yes. My courtezhana. My mate. The female I fuck. Not my wife, not anything so elegant. My mate, the one who warms my bed and bends herself over whenever I wish. The one who jumps at my command. The mate who sucks my cock when I snap my fingers. The one I fuck every way it is possible to fuck a female, even those too base and vulgar to be endured by a wife.” I leaned toward her, angrier, with myself, with her, with the situation, I didn’t know. I already yearned for the simplicity of battle. Anythi
ng was better than this confusion of need and emotion. “The female I own.”
She said nothing. It was as if I’d just told her it was time for lunch.
Her lack of response disappointed me for some reason. I’d at least hoped she’d be as angry at my mother’s devious manipulations as I was, as angry at being checkmated at some political game by an old woman who should be out pruning her holoroses.
“I accept. Becoming your mate is an acceptable price to pay for being permitted to do my duty.”
I stared at her, at a loss for words. Price to pay? Being my mate, being pleasured by me, a Jardan warrior, a Jardan prince, was a price to pay?
“What do you mean, price to pay?” I said, louder than I’d intended.
She opened her mouth to speak, but I suddenly felt the ire rising in my blood and couldn’t contain it.
“Sleeping with me is a price to pay? As if sleeping in my bed, having me pleasure you, having me make love to your tiny little body until it sings with ecstasy is some sort of punishment? Do you find me ugly to look upon, human? Distasteful in some way?”
A look of panic crossed her face. “No, my prince. I didn’t mean it like that at all…”
I walked to where she was and put my hands on my hips. “I’ll have you know women find me very handsome! They desire me! I could go out into the street right now and snap my fingers”—I snapped them in front of her face to show her what I meant, and she startled—“and have twenty women begging me to take them home and fuck them blind! And when I do fuck them, they scream out my name in pleasure.”
Ha! That did finally it. Her eyes were round and wide with fear of me, the fierce warrior that towered over her as she stood there, cowering before me. The little human had turned red as the hide of a banzazia steer, her pupils dark and dilated, her breasts heaving as she sucked in air. She could try to hide her emotions, but she could not hide her physical reactions.
She feared me.
As she damn well should.
Her voice held a tremor as she swallowed, then spoke. “If there’s nothing else, my prince, I ask leave to return to my quarters.”
“What?”
“If there’s—”
“I heard you. Have you nothing else to say? No reply? No begging for me to reconsider?”
“No, my prince.”
“Then leave me,” I ground out between clenched teeth. Every muscle in my body was tense and needed to hit something. Or fuck something.
She turned and walked so fast to the door it was more like a sprint. She was so small, but my cock stiffened again seeing the way her ass moved in that tight outfit. Even her movements were alluring, with the smooth grace of a well-trained fighter. She held her head high, her shoulders back, and her braid dangled and bounced with her every step.
“Stop,” I commanded.
She stopped just before she reached the door, but she did not turn around.
“You will attend me at court tomorrow morning. Make yourself ready,” I ordered her. “I will declare you my courtezhana.” I suddenly closed my eyes, shook my head, and laughed. “We will shock the entire empire with such news. You will be the first human courtezhana on Avoloxa.”
Her shoulders rose as she took a deep breath, but she still did not turn to face me. “Am I not to stay with you tonight?”
My cock leaped in my trousers. But as tempting as that might be, I had no intention of letting the tiny human female lay in my bed with her eyes squeezed shut, paying the price for her delusion of protecting the Jardan prince.
“You will not,” I said to her. “When I take you to my bed, it will be because you begged me for it.”
I forced myself to turn away from her and walked back to the window, passing the wreckage she’d effortlessly made of the combat robot. I realized I was breathing as heavily as she was, my cock throbbing for release, and when I looked up and saw my own reflection in the glass, the look on my face made it clear she’d made the same wreckage of me.
“Leave me,” I growled.
I saw the reflection of her press the command to open the doors and walk through, then I exhaled sharply as the doors closed behind her.
She would beg for me. I would make sure of it.
CHAPTER FIVE
Melika Gendressa
I stopped just as the doors whisked shut behind me and I leaned back against them, as if to hold myself up. My heart was pounding in my chest. My blood running hot in my veins. My pussy aching with wet, hot, throbbing need.
Had he been trying to make me show my desire for him? He had to have been. It almost worked. It was all I could do not to beg him to take me right there.
I glanced around the hallway. There was no guard posted outside the doors, no cameras in the hallway. I flipped the electronic sensor in the sleeve of my kenvo suit and scanned the area. No hidden cameras, either?
That was the first thing we were going to have to change.
But not right now.
I unzipped the front of my suit and stuck my hand between my legs.
Found my clit with my fingers and started rubbing it, hard, fast.
Ohhhh…
I didn’t need the aranza stim to bring the image of the gigantic Jardan warrior to my mind, or the huge hard-on he’d been sporting as he’d stood before me, smelling of hot, male musk and glaring at me with those intense, green eyes.
It got away from me just that fast and a second later I was pulsing with the waves of my release, my back against the doors to the room where the prince—my mate?—was probably thinking of all the ways he could humiliate me in public tomorrow.
I pulled my hand from my pussy and zipped my suit. I could enjoy the afterglow on my way back to my quarters, where, with the edge taken off, I could take my time with the aranza stim and make—
The world turned upside down and I found myself freefalling backward, then landing flat on my back with a giant oof!
It took a moment to reorient myself and find which way was up.
Above me, the angry, sneering face of the Jardan prince was glaring down at me.
“What in the stars are you doing?” he growled.
I leaped to my feet, then immediately took one knee before him. “I’m sorry, my prince,” I said. “I was just…scanning the hallway for hidden electronics. Cameras, bugs, that sort of thing. I, uh, wanted to be sure you were safe until I could formally move my quarters into your compound.”
He glared at me. I offered a silent prayer of gratitude to my ancestors that I’d at least had time to zip up.
“Good work,” he said. “But there’s time enough for discussing surveillance equipment. Return to your quarters.”
I nodded, then turned and made my way as quickly as I could down the hallway, around the corner, and back through the fortress back to my small quarters.
His mate. I was to be his mate.
Damn him.
The possibility thrilled me and terrified me at the same time. Courtezhana. A mistress. But that could give me an edge. Enemies who saw me as nothing but a plaything for a Jardan Prince would underestimate me. Discount me entirely. Then I could destroy them if they moved against my prince.
I had accepted that condition immediately because I was desperate to get close to him. Without being able to guard him, I had no purpose. I was a rusting weapon. This was everything I had trained for my entire life.
It had nothing to do with wanting to bed him.
I’d known from the moment he’d rejected me that my task here would not be easy. Now he would be declaring the human female he’d rejected as his mate. His courtiers would probably believe he’d lost his mind. Or that I was some man-eating femme fatale who had used feminine allure to ensnare their prince. Even though being his courtezhana would allow me to do my duty, it also presented me with all kinds of complications.
I used the biometrics scanner to let myself into my room and locked the door behind me. Exhaustion hit me hard. It had been a long day, ending with a surprise fight against a combat
robot to prove myself worthy. Which I had. That was a point of pride for me.
I thought about his comment. When I take you to my bed, it will be because you begged me for it… I’d been certain a condition of being his courtezhana would be to share his bed. But apparently, for some reason, he wanted me to beg for it. I didn’t understand. Part of me had immediately wanted to get down on my knees and beg for it. Beg for him to pin me and fuck me until I screamed. And then fuck me some more.
But that was the part of me all stirred up with lust and desire and pheromones. The other part of me, the professional, was simply happy that I’d managed to get everything I wanted. I would have access to him, I would be around him at all times, and I could carry out my sacred charge to protect his life at all times.
My tsora kai would be proud.
The need to use the aranza stim had left me as I had navigated what seemed like miles of corridors to reach my quarters. I took another shower to relax and take my mind off my problems with some blessed hot water. Then I skimmed through the broadcasts on my viewscreen. The universal translator chips in my ears allowed me to understand both High Jardanian and the common version of the language. One broadcast was showing current events. There was vid footage of the fortress and of Prince Vorgyn attending some formal function. He was actually wearing a shirt. I smirked.
The Jardan female talking over the vidcast mentioned a growing political uproar over an abandoned trade deal between Avoloxa and Katal Minor. If I remembered right, Katal Minor was a populated moon orbiting one of the gas giants in this system. The deal would’ve led to a sea of Avoloxa being completely strip-mined of minerals to support Katal Minor’s urban development. There was more news about a war brewing on the outer rim. Scientists had successfully crossbred a sinewind feline with a blobfish.
