“You do not fear us, as your captain does?”
Her eyes widened. He had noticed her captain’s fear just as she had during their journey here. Half of the crew feared Varkans and didn’t want to be working with them.
She shook her head. “I have no reason to fear you.”
His smile widened and a glimmer of bright red flashed across his eyes. “There are reasons you should fear me.”
Her chest heaved with her breathing and her throat felt tight. She held his gaze, desperate to show him that what he spoke of didn’t frighten her either. Sophia had told her about what had happened when Regis had been in the grip of his bloodlust. He hadn’t hurt her. It was only others that needed to fear him.
Just as it would be only others who would need to fear Van.
He wouldn’t hurt her.
At least that was what she told herself.
“Not you... others perhaps,” she said, “but not you. I have no reason to fear you.”
He tilted his head to one side, his dark gaze penetrating hers. She continued to hold it to show him that she was telling the truth—she had no reason to fear him. He really didn’t frighten her.
“I am pleased to hear that,” he said and then looked to his left. She looked there too and saw the two escorts had rejoined them.
Van held his hand out, intimating the door. Stood just inside the room were two young females. They were beautiful, their pale faces framed by long soft black waves of hair. Their deep red eyes were rimmed with black, their long lashes making Amerii envious of their looks. They nodded to her and then looked to Van. Van said something she didn’t understand and the two women smiled and nodded again.
Amerii’s feelings moved beyond envy to jealousy, especially when Van continued to look at them for long seconds.
“We are ready for you,” the women said in unison and bowed.
Amerii swallowed her anger and all feelings with it. She had been foolish to let herself get caught up in Van. He wasn’t the reason that she was here and she shouldn’t have let herself behave so openly with him. His easy conversation and manner with her had probably been the result of him taking his cue from her and not because he liked her in anyway.
He was Varkan.
She was Lyran.
It was best she remembered that and why she was here.
She had a duty to do, a task befitting of royalty, and she was going to do it well and get back to her ship.
Amerii walked into the room, sat in the chair that the two beautiful females drew out for her, and stared at the contract. She read every word that was written in her own tongue, ignoring the Varkan translation. It seemed fair enough to her. They could create a base station on Varka Two but ownership of the planet remained with Varka.
With a trembling hand, she picked up the electronic quill, and again swallowed her feelings. Her duty here was to Lyra, not to her heart, no matter how much it protested and tried to make her change her mind.
She signed the space below the Lyran translation.
Princess Amerii Lyra.
That was who she was. It was foolish to let herself get caught up in a fantasy. Her dreams of Van were just that—dreams. They weren’t reality. She didn’t know him and he certainly didn’t know her. She frowned at the contract, wondering what was wrong with her. Was this all jealousy speaking or were there other emotions at play too?
Disappointment.
That one rung truest of all.
She had been starting to think that Van might like her, that his words about her being frightened of him had been because he felt a hunger for her and desired her blood. The two females now flanking her were a reality check that she had badly needed. She realised now that she had been wrong.
Amerii pushed the contract across the table to Van. The second he had finished signing it, she stood, bowed and walked out of the door.
The corridors passed in a blur as she hurried through them, breathing hard and struggling to get a grip on her feelings. They burned inside her, a heady combination of disappointment, jealousy, anger, and self-reproach.
The metal floor of the corridor rang with each heavy step she took, her pace swift with the intent of reaching her destination—the shuttle.
Another set of boots rang out on the walkway.
Amerii pulled on her top, breathing faster in an effort to stop her head from spinning. Her clothes were too tight. She tugged at them, pulling a face when she found no relief. Her chest heaved against the jacket. Her temperature rose. She frowned and pulled at her jacket again, desperate to breathe.
She couldn’t breathe.
Idiot.
“Princess Amerii!”
Van.
She doubled her pace and her head felt heavy as she burst through a door onto the docking level.
“Princess Amerii,” he called again, his footsteps closing in.
She silently called him an idiot too and then her anger rose again, breaking through the restraints that had been holding it inside.
He grabbed her arm. She spun to face him, yanking his hand off her and pushing it away with all of the violence burning inside her.
“Get your hands off me!” Amerii shoved him backwards, a small part of her aware that she was damaging relations between Lyra and Varka but the larger part controlled by the maelstrom of her emotions. She blinked and tried to focus.
Van wavered in front of her.
She pulled at the collar of her jacket and went to move backwards but stumbled as her legs felt weak.
She couldn’t breathe.
Her damn clothes were too tight.
Panic shortened her breaths. Van wobbled in her vision and then suddenly he was close to her, his voice distant to her ears as he shouted. Her eyelids dropped and comforting darkness loomed up from below her.
She fell backwards into it.
****
Chapter 3
Van paced near the foot of the bed in his living quarters, wearing a trench in the plush black material that lined the floor. He pressed his knuckles to his lips, his eyebrows drawn in a permanent frown. The doctors had left a long time ago but Amerii showed no sign of stirring. She lay on top of the covers of his bed, her colour only a little better than it had been in the docking bay where she had passed out. He was tempted to call the doctors back again, convinced that their assessment had been wrong.
She couldn’t have fainted because of a panic attack. There had to be something more to it.
She had mentioned that she was feeling unwell. Perhaps she was truly sick but didn’t know it.
The doctors had removed her jacket and boots in an effort to give her the air she needed. She had been pulling on her clothes when he had followed her along the corridor. Perhaps their assessment was right. The jacket had been incredibly tight after all. Maybe it had been lack of air that had made her unwell.
This was all hideously new to him and it made him realise how fragile a Lyran was when compared with his species. There were no known illnesses on Varka and sickness was rare. His need for air was low so tight clothing like her jacket would not affect him. If it did feel too tight, he would have simply removed it.
Van closed his eyes when he realised that he had made a grave mistake.
Pressing the button on the collar of his jacket, he said, “Increase air density by point eight.”
“Yes, Commander,” came the reply.
Van took a deep breath of the cooler thicker air. He had noticed on Lyra Prime that the air density was higher than that of Varkan planets. The same thinness of air had been applied to Varkan vessels too, allowing them to travel further without need to clean the filters on the environmental control.
Effectively, it was his fault that she had fainted. He hadn’t recognised that bringing her, or any Lyran, onto a Varkan vessel without a period of adjustment would be dangerous. Sophia had travelled to Varka Prime on Regis’s vessel, where she had probably grown gradually accustomed to a change in the air.
Amerii had only
had a short journey from her ship to his in which to adjust. To her body, it would have been as though she had gone from walking on the ground of Lyra Prime to walking the highest mountain on the planet in the blink of an eye.
Anger at himself coiled tight in the pit of his stomach. His claws extended. How could he have been so foolish? His rush to have her onboard his vessel had placed her at risk. He should have thought things through, taking into account every factor about a Lyran, and then sent the shuttle for her. What if she hadn’t only fainted? What if he had hurt her?
She murmured in her sleep and Van went to her side, closely watching her face for a sign that she would wake this time. Her hair was shorter than he remembered, spread out across his pillow in straight chestnut waves highlighted with lines of gold. He hesitated a moment and then touched her cheek. She had cooled down and her colour had returned enough that she was no longer as pale as him.
Her lips parted in a sigh and he swallowed hard before drawing his fingers down her cheek, stroking it lightly. He trembled inside at the contact and the way it pushed at his control, urging him to let go and to make her his. She didn’t belong to him. She would never want to belong to someone as lowly as a count. He had no place wanting her, a princess, when he was below that level of rank himself. Her family wouldn’t condone such a poor match and he knew that they would expect her to marry well, as a princess deserved.
Her eyelids fluttered. Was she dreaming? He studied her face, taking in the subtle curve of her jaw and her soft cheeks, the fine arch of her dark eyebrows and her long eyelashes. The sensual curve of her full lips was tempting—angelic but devilish at the same time. Something as beautiful as her could never want a monster like him. He wasn’t Regis. He couldn’t love and he didn’t have a kingdom to offer to a beautiful maiden. He had nothing.
Amerii shifted and sighed again, her soft breath fanning his hand. He swallowed shakily and ran a trembling thumb across her lower lip. His eyes half-closed and he growled, on the brink of losing control. She was so warm and soft, so delicate. His teeth began to extend. Taking a deep breath, he clawed back control and shut down the emotions he had allowed to slip through the steel bands he normally held them with.
He wondered if her lack of oxygen had been the reason for her strange behaviour too. One moment, they had been on easy terms with each other and the next, she had become cold and distant. He frowned as he remembered her reaction to his touch. She had turned on him. Why? He couldn’t believe that it was purely her need for air.
When her eyes fluttered again, he took his hand back and waited.
Her eyes opened to reveal her rich aquamarine irises. The dark flecks in their depths had fascinated him when he had first met her. None of his kind had such patterns in their eyes. They were a flat colour, only darker around the edges. Hers were full of changes and warmth. He could stare into them, studying the subtle differences between each, for eternity.
“Are you feeling better?” he said, voice low so he didn’t startle her.
She blinked and drowsily looked around her at his room.
“I fainted?” she said with a small frown as though she couldn’t quite remember.
Van nodded. “Our air was too thin for you. I apologise.”
“Apologise?” She swallowed with effort and looked up at him. “Why?”
“I should have thought to change it for you. It has been adjusted now. I have informed your captain that you will rest here until you have fully recovered.”
Her frown stayed. “Not your fault.”
Her voice was quiet, almost beyond his hearing. He bent towards her so she didn’t strain herself by speaking to him. It would be another black mark against him if she did. As the commander of this vessel, he was responsible for her during her time here. He had failed to recognise the effect the air would have on her. It was his fault.
“I will make a formal apology to Lyra—”
Amerii touched his hand, silencing him and making him stare down at her delicate fingers where they rested against his. Hunger rose inside him at the light touch. The scent of her filled his lungs and his mind, intoxicating him. He breathed deep and struggled for control over his rising bloodlust. This wasn’t the time. He had already hurt her, put her at risk, and he wouldn’t allow that to happen again.
“No apology. I knew the air was thin. I... it was my fault. Stupid feelings. Sometimes they’re a burden.”
He didn’t understand but she didn’t look as though she would appreciate him asking her to explain.
She slowly sat up and cast another glance around his room, her gaze eventually coming back to him.
“It must be nice sometimes.”
He didn’t understand that either. She looked down at her white vest and then her feet, and then around the room again. Her gaze stopped on her jacket where it rested on a low square cushion beside the bank of windows.
“It must nice to be able to control what you feel,” she said as her eyes came back to meet his. “I wish I could do that.”
Van frowned at her and then stared pensively at the bed for a moment before bringing his eyes back to hers.
“I think it must be nice to not have to control your feelings.” He looked out of the window at the Lyran vessel, unable to say these things while looking at her. “You do not have to control what you feel, but you can if you put your mind to it. If I did not control how I feel, then the bloodlust would take control of me. It is a constant battle, but one I am learning to... I am trying to change.”
His eyes roamed back to her.
Amerii’s expression softened and then her mouth opened to form an ‘o’ as her eyebrows rose.
“Like Regis?” she said and he nodded. She frowned at the bed and was silent for a few seconds. Those seconds felt like an eternity as his heart beat against his chest, filling the dreadful stillness of the room. “You want to feel it too?”
“I have been practicing,” he said and paced across the room, coming around to stand in front of the window. “Regis has been teaching me but I am afraid that I am no good at it. Sometimes my bloodlust is too strong.”
“Perhaps it isn’t your bloodlust that is the problem,” Amerii whispered into her knees as she drew them up to her, wrapping her arms around them and hugging them to her chest. She looked at her feet, wriggling her toes. “Perhaps it’s fear stopping you.”
“Fear?” Van said. It was an alien word to his tongue. He had never uttered it in any context relating to himself before. Varkans didn’t fear. They were fighters. Violence and bloodshed came as easy to them as breathing. They were born soldiers.
“Fear is just another emotion. What if when you’re practicing, you fear letting go in case the bloodlust takes you?”
He had never noticed any such fear during his experiments with surrendering control of his emotions. He had only noticed an overwhelming thirst for violence and blood. He couldn’t discount it though. Sometimes he was less willing to lose control. Sometimes the consequences crossed his mind and they were horrifying.
Other times, his head was full of her. The bloodlust easily controlled him those times. His hunger was too strong to resist.
Just standing here right now was becoming increasingly difficult.
He looked out of the corner of his eye at her, watching her push her chestnut hair behind her ear. The action exposed her neck and his gaze travelled over her pale creamy skin. Perfect. Untouched. It could be his. She could wear his marks as Sophia wore Regis’s.
Daughters of Lyra: Heart of a Commander Page 3
