Unfortunately, the trunk was not brimming with a bounty of rope. That said, at least there were clothes – sort of. How does anyone even put that thing on? Matrise wondered as she lifted an oddly shaped piece of fabric that was filled with holes…more holes than fabric. Anything that looked impossible was tossed aside onto the large bed. At the bottom of the trunk Matrise found a long robe.
Too long, but at least it will cover everything.
She shrugged into the heavy fabric of the robe. Feeling significantly less vulnerable, Matrise wandered through the room, examining anything and everything.
If I am going to be held captive by a couple of alien jerks, who are going to have a death match over who I will ultimately stab if he tries to touch me, I am going to check out what I can of this planet. I came here for that purpose…though what I need to do is get out of here and find the others.
Matrise picked up sheafs of a paper-like material and stared down at the hieroglyphs that marked the pages. She picked up various items and felt their weight in her hands. On one shelf she found a box that held the blank paper and a selection of inks and coal sticks.
As she wound her way around the room, Matrise eventually came back to the deep-set window. She shoved the curtain aside and knotted it out of her way.
She grabbed the case of writing materials off the shelf and a couple of the puffy pillows off the bed. Matrise tossed the pillows onto the deep, wide sill of the window. After arranging them for maximum comfort, Matrise crawled into her cozy seat with the writing case.
She pulled out a sheet of the paper-like material and one of the coal sticks and began to sketch what she saw of the world beyond the window of the tower she was trapped within.
*
Halden stepped down from the private cab of the bus and strode towards the hulking doors into the palace from the entryway courtyard. There were more people than normal bustling about. Palace staff scurried to fulfill the directives shouted by their superior, the Kalshat. Preparations for the Poyat celebrations were in full swing.
The celebration would not only be commemorating the Twin Kings’ rule for the last 600 cycles, but it would also mark a change to the existing Eon of Power. The Power would no longer be split – a single king would rule. Unfortunately, Halden suspected that the unification of power would do nothing to stabilize Rodnekow'E.
The planet emulated the aura of the king. The jungles had diminished. The air was too hot during the height of the day. The sky seemed to suggest that Rodnekow'E was bleeding – as it had since the Twin Kings had shaken the balance. The city had taken refuge on the side of the cliff instead of the sprawling old city that took up the mountain plateau above, Odnek.
Few R'kowe lived as long as those that either held the Power or had hope of claiming it, so many had come to believe that the old city was nothing more than a myth. Halden always mourned their lack of belief.
He had climbed to the plateau, and had strolled through the streets of Odnek. The heat had been incredible – oppressive as it hung over the city during the day and into the night.
It had been a challenge to breathe by the third day. Halden often wondered if when the Kings finally passed the Eon, whether the planet would once more be soothed. Would Odnek and her preceding city, Sidĕl, once more be inhabitable?
Sidĕl was Halden’s favorite place on all of Rodnekow'E. Fewer R'kowe believed in Sidĕl’s existence than in Odnek’s. While he might discuss the existence of Odnek, Halden kept Sidĕl to himself. Not even the Twin Kings believed in Sidĕl. There was something about the ancient Jungle Fortress that spoke to him, called to him.
Halden had found the fortress when he had ventured out into the Lower Jungle – the final test of his strength before he was titled the War Lord – to survive the wilds of Rodnekow'E for an entire cycle.
He had hunted, trained, and explored. The power that he had found in Sidĕl had been the force to keep him alive during the long cycle of loneliness and struggle.
Halden shook off his reminiscing as he approached the Royal Attendance Chamber. Taking a deep breath, Halden pushed through the door, and studiously refraining from commenting on the disarray of the room approached the center point between the newly moved thrones.
King Ediskrad’s had been moved to the far right side of the room. King Nikana’s was against the far left wall. Neither twin looked at his brother. Aiming perfectly straight, Halden bowed, affording neither King more of the bow than the other.
“My Highest Majesties. How may I be of service this most esteemed of days? Please allow me the opportunity to offer my honor at being permitted to participate in the festivities of the Poyat,” Halden intoned.
“The festivities will be delayed. They will not begin at the sun’s set as would be traditional. There is another event preceding the festivities of the Poyat. Your Kings will be determining superiority. This determination is for bonding rights of a superior female mate.
Your task will be to guard the woman. You will assist in her preparation for the bonding ritual.
That bonding ritual will mark the beginning of the Poyat.” Despite being at odds with each other, the kings spoke as a unit.
Halden tucked his tongue into his cheek for a moment before he finally spoke. “Wouldn’t it be more suitable for an honored matron to prepare the honored future Queen?”
“It is you that we trust. You will fulfill this role.”
“Yes Highest Majesties.”
“Tomorrow’s Queen of Rodnekow'E is in the bed chamber near the top of the private spire. You will go there as soon as you have collected the Royal Bonding Ceremony costume from Kalshat.”
“Of course Highest Majesties.”
Halden waited a moment before he turned on the tow of his boot and strode from the Royal Attendance Chamber.
*
By the time the Kalshat provided him with the case containing the bonding ceremony costume, climbed the stairs and reached the landing, turned through the receiving room and stood before the twin doors that closed off the chamber that had served as home to all of the Kings’ concubines, Rodnekow'E’s sun had risen to its zenith.
Pushing down the thought that the woman he had once thought to be his mate had lived out her life span claiming this room, Halden lifted a hand and unlocked the doors.
Why did they feel the need to lock the woman in? She isn’t a claimed concubine. She is to be a bonded mate…the Queen.
Halden pulled the door wide and quickly scanned the room, grimacing at the heavy style of the room. It was obvious that the Kings had had the room outfitted to showcase themselves. In the corner, to one side of the bed there was a large window. In the un-shuttered light of high sun, Halden got his first glimpse of the woman the Kings were scheduled to fight over – looking at her, he could understand their competition.
*
Matrise heard the shift of the lock from the outside of the pair of doors. She had been sketching for a couple of hours, and had blissfully found a closet intended for seeing to more private needs shortly before. It had taken her a few minutes to find the release valve on the alien commode, but now that that chore had been managed, Matrise was ready to fight off whichever of the egotistical copies now waited outside the door.
One of the doors was pulled wide. A man stepped into the room. He was carrying a large case and scanned the room with the same alertness that Matrise had witnessed from seasoned members of the Militarized forces.
However, this man was neither of the two she had met before. Where the jerks from when she woke up had cut close to the line of pretty, this man wasn’t pretty. He was compelling.
Built like a brick wall, his frame filled the doorway. His shoulders brushed both the door frame and the edge of the matching door. If they were standing next to each other, he would doubtless tower over her.
Where the twins had been gold on gold, this man looked as if his skin had been cast in dark bronze. And like the golden jerks, his skin sheened as if it was metallic.
Fitted pants of a dark brown clung to his legs and appeared to have been made from the hide of a partially scaled, partially feathered beast as scales glimmered in the muted light while shadows were caught on the dimpled hide where feathers might have been.
The pants disappeared into the tops of a heavy pair of rustic, thick-soled boots that rose midway up his calves. A heavy belt was slung around his hips and was spangled with large dangling rings nearly the same tone as his skin.
One of those rings sported a broad sheath that continued down at least 10 inches to be further strapped to the man’s thigh. The pommel of the large knife clicked against the belt as he stepped into the room.
A loose sand-colored shirt hung from his shoulders, wrapped around his arms and hung to wrap around the man’s waist before tucking beneath the belt. A deep V down the front caused the shirt to gape and flash the broad, grizzled, heavily muscled expanse of the man’s chest.
As dark a bronze as the man’s face, his chest rippled with every movement, the made Matrise think of a heavily muscled tiger as he prowled into the room.
While not pretty, this man was interesting, and his looks had no trouble catching Matrise’s attention. His face was square, his forehead broad and brows dark and straight over deep set eyes.
Like the golden twins, this man had eyes the likes of which Matrise had never seen before. Antique gold irises seemed to glow in the black scleras around jet black pupils. A gold haze lingered in his eyes, clouding them was the light passed over his face.
The man’s nose was strong, the tip slightly blunted and the bridge just off center as if it hadn’t been quite perfectly reset after a significant break. His cheeks were flat planes and barely sloped down to the squared-off jaw and strong, clefted chin.
His mouth was wide and his upper lip a slightly sloped bow, the lower was slightly fuller than its mate. It was an intriguingly, stern mouth. His hair was the shade of polished mahogany and he bore the zigzagging sideburns; however, he had shaved away the rest of his beard recently as it was only just growing back in, darkly shadowing that square jaw.
No, he had no trouble catching Matrise’s attention.
*
He scanned the room as he stepped through the door and almost missed her. The red robe and gilt hair matched her to the room, but the flash of the eyes, the pale skin, and soft, gentle looks separated the woman sitting in the window from every other R'kowe woman as clearly as the breadth of space could have. She was so obviously of a world not Rodnekow'E, it was little wonder she had immediately been brought before and offered to the Kings.
The woman turned on her seat and the robe parted to flash more milk-pale skin in the light. Her knees had been pulled up toward her chest; the too-big robe gaped, baring supple, curved thighs as pale as the rest of her.
Even obscured by the heavy fabric of her found fitment, Halden could tell that the woman’s body was much more bountiful than he was accustomed to seeing on a female.
R'kowe women, where whip thin and could disappear behind a post at will (an excellent trait when dealing with Rodnekow'E’s larger predators); but this woman had more curves on her than a tangle of vines in the forest.
Halden stared into the woman’s eyes from his position across the room. They were a brilliant blue – the color of the sky before the Twin Kings took the throne.
Her face was round, but for the pointed chin that suggested stubbornness as much as her shrewd eyes. Her cheeks were full and rounded, and pinked across the crests. Beneath a small, narrow nose, the woman’s mouth sat in a plump pout.
The hue of her lips was a deep blush several shades darker than her cheeks. A smattering of festive copper-colored marks speckled across the bridge of her dainty nose and from what he could see around the fabric of the robe, the same markings were scattered across the pale skin of her body.
Her skin didn’t gleam like metal as that of the R'kowe. No, sitting there in the ruddy Rodnekow'E light she seemed to glow like a pale star. Halden would have rather the woman be dressed in a blue lighter than her eyes, or in a rich green to offset the bold color of her lips. Halden caught himself fantasizing what it might be like to pull that plump lower lip between his own, to tip at all that pale skin with his teeth.
Shocked, it had been a miserably long time since Halden had felt even an inkling of un-summoned need for a woman.
Its been how long? Now I feel a need for the woman I am supposed to be protecting…why would life start being easy now?
“Who are you?”
The woman’s voice snapped Halden back to the moment. Black and gold eyes met white and blue ones. One gilt brow lifted mockingly as he attempted to stare her down.
“Well? Who are you?” she asked again.
Halden would admit to himself, at least in the privacy of his own thoughts how surprising he found the woman’s voice. R'kowe women had high pitched voices and had always made Halden think of the sound of hard metal dragging across stone.
Ranat and his mother had been the only women whose voices had been tolerable to him. Apparently that grating pitch was not uniform to females from other planets.
The woman taunting him with that cocked brow and a slight snarl on her lips had a loser, husky voice, like the long wooden wind flutes he had found hung in the courtyards in Odnek. As her voice slipped between those tempting lips, Halden imagined the sounds of her breathless pants when she was in thrall of a mating heat.
Mentally shaking his head to push his lusty and inappropriate thoughts aside, Halden gazed at the woman and he felt it. For the first time, Halden understood – the difference between what he had felt for Ranat and an actual mating heat.
More than that, the way he felt the prickle of his flesh in the still air of the room and the potency of his need driven thoughts, he realized that it was a Bonding Need. The stubborn female he was assigned to protect for bonding to one of his kings was in fact his mate.
We all have to die sometime, Halden considered.
“I am called Halden,” he finally answered.
“Good for you – what do you want? I am busy.”
“Busy staring out the tower window…”
“Busy planning how to get down from here before I am forced to stab whichever one of those gold bastards comes back for treating me like an object or a piece of meat.”
Halden’s instinctive response was divided. Protect the Kings – King as the case would be – or protect the woman that he had been waiting for so many cycles he had given up hoping for her existence.
*
Maybe I shouldn’t have commented about my sharp implement plans.
“You don’t wish to be mated to a King?” He asked after a couple of minutes. Still, the compelling brick house didn’t wait for a response before continuing. “It is considered an honor to be the mate of the King of Rodnekow'E. Is it not the same for you on your world?”
“We haven’t had royals with power in a long time if at all.”
“I see,” he murmured, though by his expression Matrise could tell that he didn’t understand at all. Before she could clarify, he cleared his throat and spoke. “I have been directed to see to your safety and preparation for the bonding ceremony once the Power has been determined.”
“The power? And no, I’m not bonding with anyone.”
“The Kings have commanded that it will be so.”
“I don’t care.”
“It isn’t wise to argue with them.”
“I’m not arguing. I’m telling you – it isn’t going to happen. Whether I have to stab someone, slit their throat, or throw myself out this window – it isn’t going to happen.”
*
Is she serious? She would rather slay someone or commit suicide than agree to mate a King?
Halden set the chest he carried onto the bed and stared at the woman flabbergasted. The longer he looked; however, the clearer it was. This woman from another world was deathly serious. She would kill or she would die, but she would not be claimed.
&nbs
p; Another difference from R'kowe – I cannot think of a single female I have ever met that could be so resolute. Halden took a step back, reached behind him and pulled the door that he had entered through closed. He leaned back against it, crossed his arms over his chest and one booted ankle over the other. He leaned back and stared, silently looking for the answer to this newest development.
Chapter 5
Baltra would never utter the truth but he would admit to himself that he was irritated. He was irritated that the Kings had awarded Halden with the honor of guarding the future queen.
He was irritated that Halden had the honor of seeing the future queen when no one but the Kings and the hunters that had found her in the Lower Jungle had seen her. He was irritated that the Kings hadn’t given him, Baltra such an honor.
There was no other subject as loyal as he was. Thinking just that, Baltra stewed at his small desk in the Royal Attendance Chamber and waited for his next assignment, hoping that it would be much more suitable to a man of his loyalties to the Twin Kings.
And that was another thing! He was irritated that Halden had failed to show appropriate horror at the prospect of a duel between the Kings. They were his Kings! Not one or the other. Both!
A sound in the hall drew Baltra’s attention back to the room he was in. He straightened in his chair and waited. It wouldn’t do for someone to see him slouching. Baltra shoved back his shoulders; he was an honored representative of the Kings – just look at where he sat day after day…much closer than that worthless War Lord Halden.
*
Ediskrad glanced toward the doors of the chamber at the sound of footsteps in the hall. Halden had been dispatched to acquire the bonding ceremony costume for the woman – he didn’t know her name, and it wasn’t important, Ediskrad would call her whatever he desired and she would be honored – from there, Rodnekow'E’s most skilled warrior would have gone to the tower bed chamber to prepare the woman for the bonding ceremony. Those preparations would be well on their way by now if not complete. The blazing sun would set soon.
Alien Lords' Captive (Celestial Mates Book 6) Page 4
