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Book 5
CHAPTER 1
Emerald
Emerald opened her eyes to find herself in complete darkness. The fire had gone out, leaving it pitch black. A stickiness between her legs made her shudder at the thought of what she would find there once the sun came up. Deep breathing, she heard next to her, letting her know her new husband was asleep.
Caleb’s breathing changed. He turned over and threw his arm around her, holding her to him. A loud clap of thunder crashed and the sound of rain, falling hard on the thatch roof rang in the air. Emerald stiffened as Caleb moved closer to her.
“It’s just a storm, don’t worry, Emerald. I’m here.”
“I’m okay. I feel safe here in your strong arms, Caleb.”
He pulled her up onto his chest, then wrapped his arms around her, protectively. The sound of his heart beating filled her head as she lay on his chest. His breathing fell back into a regular rhythm as he fell right back to sleep.
I’ll be able to hear the sound of his heart beating like this for the rest of my life. He smells like the forest. His skin is so soft on mine. His breath is warm on top of my head, moving my hair slightly.
Before she knew it she’d fallen asleep in the tight protection of her husband’s arms.
***
The sound of thunder in the distance brought Emerald back into a state of consciousness. No heartbeat met her ears. No soft chest rose up and down, slowly with the deep breaths of sleep her husband took. Looking over, she saw her husband was no longer in their straw bed. Then the door opened and in he walked, dressed and carrying a pail. “Good morning, sleepyhead. I brought ya some water to clean yourself up with.
Holding the blanket to cover her and blushing fiercely, she sat up. “Thank you, that was thoughtful of ya,” she managed to choke out.
He placed the pail down next to the bed. Sitting next to her, his long fingers reached out and touched her cheek, rubbing it as he looked at her. With his other hand, he brushed her hair back, then leaned over and kissed her cheek.
Emerald’s body responded to his touch immediately and she made a small moan.
Caleb made a little groan and pulled his mouth from hers. “I’m afraid we have no time for that this morning. We have to get to my parents’ place early. I’ll give you some privacy. Don’t take too long, I want to get going. We can eat breakfast with my parents if we get there in time.” He strode from the dark home, tiny slivers of gray light filtering in through the cracks in the walls, all the light she had to clean and dress by.
Emerald hurried as she washed, finding herself disgusted by the mess his attention to her had left. The dried blood was worrying to her, and she hoped nothing was permanently damaged. Dressed and hair brushed and braided, she walked out, finding her husband brushing his equine’s mane.
“I’m ready,” she said.
His eyes went wide as he took her all in, and then a smile flowed over his plump lips. “You look very pretty, Emerald. My brothers are going to be so jealous.”
“I’m glad my appearance pleases you,” she said shyly, pulling out the hem of her white cotton dress which went to her knees. A new pair of strappy white sandals she wore and a white ribbon held her braid in place.
Taking her hand, he led her to the side of the wagon. The touch of his hands on her waist sent a flurry of butterflies through her stomach, as he lifted her up, placing her on the seat of the wagon, then he climbed up next to her. Their legs touched, Caleb’s eyes went to them, placing his hand on Emerald’s knee, rubbing it gently. The butterflies flew higher in her stomach, threating to fly right out of her mouth.
Caleb tapped the reins and the equine moved, making the wagon he’d attached it to lurch forward. Emerald’s hand grabbed his leg to steady herself. Caleb grinned, then seized the moment to place a quick kiss upon her cheek.
Blushing, she removed her hand, rubbing her cheek where he’d left the tiny kiss and smiling with the memories of their wedding night.
How sweet he is!
Caleb chatted away as they rode the half hour’s ride to his family’s place. Emerald listened intently as he told her story after story of his brothers and their shenanigans.
The appearance of Caleb’s family’s home let Emerald know immediately why he considered the thing he built such an impressive work of architecture. His home was a series of small shacks, which surrounded an open area, where the family congregated to cook, eat and socialize with one another. It was dirty and completely unsanitary. A large carcass of some type of animal was hanging on a line at the edge of the ungodly circle.
There was a variety of people of various ages who lounged about the area, sitting or lying on different filthy pieces of furniture. No one had any real interest in the newcomer who was Emerald.
Except on old woman. She came up to Emerald, eyeing her up and down. Emerald looked at Caleb, realizing he was nervous. She wondered why he would be nervous. It was his mother after all.
Looking back at the woman, whose hair was hanging in limp, oily, gray strands, around her deeply lined face, she realized his mother was a bit angry. “So this thing cost you two swine and a fowl? Your brothers never paid more than a fowl for any of their wives and that was good enough for them. You, though, you’ve always had to have things a little bit better than what we gave you. Ungrateful is what I’ve always said about ya,” Caleb’s mother said as she squinted her eyes at him.
Surprise filled Emerald as a giant smile found its way over Caleb’s face. “To answer your question, the wedding went great and we are deliriously happy. Oh and I love ya, too, Mother. Let me introduce you to my wife, Emerald. Emerald this is my mother, Matilda Booth. Is breakfast ready?”
No smile showed on his mother’s face, yet her eyes glistened a bit. “There're sausage and bread over there on the table, get your skinny asses over there and eat. Neither one of you has enough weight on you to keep you warm once the cold comes.”
Caleb took the bewildered Emerald by the hand, leading her to a filthy table, which had a plate with some pieces of meat on it. The same dark colored bread they ate the night before sat next to it.
Emerald found she was not hungry in the least. And saw three of his older brothers coming towards them, frowns upon their faces. The tallest of them said, “News has come about the uprising, Caleb and there has been talking about who they’d like to lead. It’s between you and one other man. Of course, we expressed our interest in you.”
Emerald’s eyes went wide. “Caleb, they want you to be involved? But I thought…”
The tall brother interrupted her. “Yes, he has told us how he wants nothing to do with it. The fact is here there aren’t many men on this planet with any military experience. You happen to be married to a highly decorated militant who is also a trained assassin.”
Emerald looked at Caleb, surprise etched over her pretty face. “Caleb, you’ve told me none of this. Why?”
“I’ve had enough war. I want only peace now. That life is one I left behind,” Caleb told her as he caressed her cheek. “I want a simple life filled with you and our children and nothing more.” He looked at his brother. “Jared, I don’t see the need for an uprising.”
The tallest brother, Jared glared at him. “Caleb, we live like animals! They think of us as one notch above animals. We are not allowed
to go into their cities and even trade, yet they can come out to us and trade things they think we need with the items they want from us. It’s unfair and we need to show them who we are.”
“I am not that man. I want simple things. It’s why I came here. I thought it’s why all of us came to The Euthenia Nebula. Not to take it over.” Caleb turned away and took Emerald with him. “I’m getting my things and leaving and want no more of this.”
He stopped dead in his tracks when he heard his father’s voice. “Caleb, have you turned to cowardice, son? After all, you’ve accomplished, have you forgotten who you owe your allegiance to? We need you, son. You are the only one in the settlement who knows how to make the plans to come together to accomplish this. And you are also the only man who has been to the capitol and met the king and prince at the castle when we arrived here. You are our leader, rather you want to be or not. Do you understand me, son?”
Emerald’s eyes met Caleb’s as he looked at her apologetically. “I suppose I must do this, please understand and forgive me.”
She nodded, but her heart felt heavy.
They’d ridden for two days to get where they were at. Emerald rode on the back of Caleb’s equine as he led the Earthlings to Capital City, the epicenter of The Euthenia Nebula. The place they were about to take over.
If everything went right.
Capitol City is where all the people from Earth had arrived when they came to the planet. Emerald had been there before, but it had been so long ago her memories seemed to have warped.
All immigrants were registered, physical images were captured and in the first three years of taking in the immigrants, implants were placed on their wrists to track them.
They stopped that practice as the Earthlings cut them out soon after getting to the settlement. Earthlings do not like to be tracked!
So only physical images and a little bit of paperwork are what’s filed for each person who came from Earth to make this planet their new home.
Once documented all who came in on the ship from earth were placed on a hover barge and taken to the settlement. The desolate area away from the last civilized town.
The same few sentences ran over and over again as we rode the eight-hour trip on the barge. ‘Do not leave the settlement for any reason.’ ‘Do not come into the towns for any reason.’ ‘Do not procreate irresponsibly.’
Seems like we’ve all done all these things. We’ve only been here ten years and have quadrupled our original numbers.
Emerald looked around and thought the streets looked shinier than she’d remembered. The silver dust sparkled in the sunlight. She looked at her husband, Caleb, to find the palace looming ahead of them.
It looked like a pearl in the midst of brilliantly colored flowers. The palace was surrounded by gardens, each with its own palate of colors.
On each side of the enormous palace were gardens of blue varieties of flowers. Right in front the color scheme was purple. All the flowers in that garden were various shades of purple.
The place was very beautiful and Emerald hoped nothing was going to be destroyed in their take-over. It weighed heavily on her, the attack they were on the verge of.
Things were too quiet as they entered the first city after they left the fields they weren’t meant to cross. No people were out and about as she thought they’d be.
The royals were away and most of their guards, but a few had to have remained. She wondered where they were.
Why wouldn’t even the regular citizens try to stop them?
It was all too easy and too easy is like too good to be true. Things just don’t work out like that.
Town after town seemed to be deserted. Not even the bark of a dragon-dog or the purr of a lion-cat could be heard.
Birds still flew overhead now and again. Other than that, no form of life was showing its presence.
The men and women of Euthenia were more muscled than the people from Earth. Though none of the citizens were allowed weapons, she was sure they could find ways to make some.
The need to see someone, anyone was making her wheels spin. Something wasn’t right.
Emerald wanted nothing more than to live a simple life with a man she thought wanted that as well. Instead, she found her new husband was a military leader back on Earth and the people who wanted to take over the planet wouldn’t take no for an answer from the military hero.
Only one week had passed from the day they were married to the day they were about to engage in what would surely be a battle to gain the palace. She still barely knew the man she was married to.
Their nights had been spent making love, and he was a passionate man. She knew that much about her husband. His touch set her body on fire and she would do anything to stay with him.
Emerald supposed it was love which held her to him. She told him it was anyway. With not any real love in her family, she knew little about the emotion.
Caleb was her family now, and he came with a pack of brothers who followed just behind the couple. Hundreds of settlers were behind them.
Her father and his cohorts were even back there somewhere. All knew they were not to bother Caleb and Emerald. They were the leaders and were to be listened to, not spoken to.
Caleb made the rules, and all followed. Even his father and brothers, both older and younger, did what he told them to without saying anything more than, ‘yes, sir.’
Some of the men carried weapons they’d fashioned from metals and woods they found. A few had managed to obtain some of the Euthenian weapons.
That in itself concerned Emerald as not even the citizens of Euthenia were permitted to have weapons. Somehow they’d gained them from guards and that meant there was a problem with the royals themselves.
Caleb had made for himself and for her a matching set of swords. And Emerald had fashioned them each the protective clothing they wore. They matched in their black and white ensemble.
Belts held their swords around their waists, near their left hips. Caleb had taught her to use the sword to defend herself. Emerald was no fan of the sharp weapons.
To slice a chunk of Euthenian flesh from their perfect bodies wasn’t a thing she wanted to do. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t do such a thing if at all possible.
She prayed for an easy take-over. One which would end peacefully. Emerald was no idiot though and knew it would be the greedy Earthling’s who wouldn’t be able to come to an agreement with the people born to the planet of Euthenia.
And the possibility of an easy take-over was getting more and m
ore unlikely. It had occurred to her that the inside of the palace might well be filled with the people who seemed to have disappeared off the face of the planet.
There just was no place else they could be, in her opinion.
She’d found out at the last meeting just before they left that the royal armada was three weeks away. Someone was corresponding with the main ship. The one the King and Prince were on.
The new Princess as well. The news was she was being held as the King was afraid she had everything to do with the uprising.
Truth be told, Emerald and Caleb had no idea who all was behind the uprising. Caleb just told her they were the best people to head it as he had no intention of taking over the planet, just co-existing as he and Prince Kerr had discussed at length when he stayed with them at the palace.
Left in another’s hands, the fate of us and our children would be at risk. Emerald felt a bit better knowing her husband was a good man with good intentions. She would support him and risk her life with him for what he believed in.
He helped her to form a belief in his vision as well, but she wasn’t as convinced it would work as he was.
The first sun was nearly setting, leaving the smaller one to light the sky. It became a different color once the first, large sun left the sky.
The odd peach color always had brought a sense of anything could happen to Emerald. Not in a good way, though.
In the sense of things
weren’t right, things could change things you never expected could occur.
She half-expected to see the royal armada drop out of the sky and annihilate them all with powerful weapons they must have on their ships.
Emerald had no idea what kinds of weapons they had. They were by far a peaceful people in that regard. The only real downfall the civilization had in her opinion was the belief men and women were not created equally.
Women had to obey men. All men. When not married they must do as their father says then once married do as their husband says. But all men must be obeyed.
To show their obedience, a woman must stay a step behind any man she’s walking with. It wouldn’t be so bad if the physical punishment weren’t included.
The hook and strap are in every home. That included the childhood home of Emerald. Her father, an adamant rebel, used the strap and hook often in their home.
Alien Romance Box Set: Romantic Suspense: Alien Destiny: Scifi Alien Romance Adventure Romantic Suspence Trilogy (Complete Series Box Set Books 1-3) Page 121
