To Love a King [The Reformation 1] (Siren Publishing PolyAmour)

by Samantha Lucas

  The scarred wreckage of the third floor mocked her as burned and twisted metal reached out, looking as if it wanted to grab at the other buildings or perhaps even at her. As she squeezed between pieces of metal, trying to get inside, the fabric of her dress caught and tore. The entire building looked like it had been on fire once. The smell lingered and many of the surfaces were charred black. There was no one evident inside the structure, but it was so very dark she could not be sure. She only went in so far as to be hidden from anyone passing outside. Clinging to a cold metal wall, she crouched down on the floor, not able to fight back the tears any longer, and they began to spill down her cheeks.

  Looking around, there only seemed to be empty shelves and large metal barrels. Ventilation shafts had been torn from the ceiling, and the walls had been attacked by sharp implements, leaving scars on the metal.

  It was cold and the rain continued to fall outside. Thunder and lightning like she had never seen in all the years she had spent on Vaturia told her there was something seriously amiss, but even though her mind told her to fear this coming storm, her heart could not get past the tortured look of agony on Nikolai’s face, or the one of betrayal on Antares’s.

  She curled herself into the tightest ball she could manage and sobbed. How did one’s heart ever mend to wholeness again after something like this? She understood now why Earth had outlawed sentimental unions and why no one fell in love anymore. If this was how most of those unions ended, how could a society not outlaw them for the sake of the sanity and welfare of its people?

  She loved both men more deeply than she had imagined it possible to love. Maybe her mistake had been trying to ignore her love for Nikolai, in trying to shove it to the side and not give it the validity it deserved. But if she had not, how would she have been able to give herself to Antares? And that was what she’d given her word to…Oh it was all so complicated now, but at the same time, none of it mattered. She knew she would never again see Antares, despite the promises they had made to one another.

  How is it possible in one moment for so many words of love and kindness to flow, and in the next, those same words turn to weapons and all the things someone claimed to love about you seem to evaporate as if they’d never really been there to begin with?

  She smiled, even as she cried, remembering their times together and all he had taught her and shown her. How she loved him. His raw passion spoke to the deepest parts of her soul, and she believed in him endlessly. She could have spent the rest of her days happily in his arms, but then there was Nikolai, and there was no point in denying it any longer.

  Yes, their relationship was very physical. The things he did to her body were unlike anything she’d ever felt in her life. The way they fit together was unreal. It was almost as if they had been formed for one another, and in his tenderness she always felt excruciatingly cared for. Whenever she was with Nikolai, she knew nothing bad could ever happen to her. This was a man who would protect her and fight for her and never allow anyone to hurt her, but in the end, in truth it had been he who hurt her the most.

  She rolled to her side, lying in a puddle on the floor. While she tried to avoid thinking what the sticky fluid could be, a new flood of tears began to fall. Even though she loved Antares, she also loved Nikolai, and now she’d lost them both. She felt adrift, confused. Most of all, she felt alone.

  She cried herself into an unconscious state, hovering somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. She was cold, uncomfortable, and bereft. The desolate feeling in one’s soul after the devastation of heartbreak is something no one should ever experience.

  “Well praise be the gods. They’ve brought us a new toy.”

  Naveenah opened her eyes, unsure what had awakened her. Pain gripped her spine, but all her senses seemed on high alert. There was still no sunlight, and the stench of something dead made her stomach turn. A second unfamiliar voice grated against her fragile nerves.

  “What is it, Kot?”

  “Not sure, but I think it’s female.”

  She felt a sharp jab to her hip and realized she’d been kicked. The voices made sense now, and in a jolt she remembered where she was, and all that had happened, and most of all, realized that she was no longer alone. She looked up to see two disgustingly filthy men, she assumed, but they were so hairy and dirty and their teeth were jagged like a cat’s. They were unlike any of the other Vaturian males she had seen, but she had never seen any of the city dwellers. Antares had always forbidden her, but that didn’t matter now. Here she was, and the way they were looking at her made the hairs on her arms tingle and stand on end.

  She shimmied back toward the wall as close as she could get for all the good it did her. The men laughed at her and stepped close enough that she realized the stench was them. She covered her nose with her arm and tried to shrink as close to invisible as she could get. She should have been terrified, but her heart had died in the night, and in that moment, she honestly didn’t care what they did to her.

  One reached down and grabbed her arm, pulling her awkwardly to her feet.

  “She’s small.”

  “You sickly?”

  She couldn’t be bothered making conversation and looked away. If they were going to rape her, kill her, eat her, she just didn’t care.

  “Female, I’m speaked to ya!”

  “She ain’t got no manners, Kot. Gives her ’ere. I’ll teach her some.”

  The first man literally tossed her to the second. She let out a wail so high-pitched it hurt even her own ears. The second man dropped her so that she hit her head on the hard ground. The first one picked her up by the front of her dress, tearing it at the seam all the way to the skirt, baring her breasts, because when she’d dressed so frantically back at Antares’s, she hadn’t thought to put on any of her underclothes.

  Both men looked at her differently now and Naveenah shuddered. Her instinct to fight awoke, and she began to wriggle and flail, trying to get away, but that only seemed to make the one holding her angry, and he slapped her hard across the face.

  “Stop fightin’ me, female. You never shoulda come inta my house if you didn’t wanta play my games.”

  “I didn’t know it was yours. I’ll leave. I won’t ever come back. I promise.”

  She looked around her, but it was still too dark to make much out. Even if she got out of his hold, she wasn’t sure where the opening she’d come in was, but when he reached out and cupped her breast with a dirty hand and fingernails grown so long they looked like claws, her stomach wrenched and she knew she had to at least try.

  She used the same old Earth trick she’d used on Antares that day in the field and jammed her knee into his dick, and when he doubled over in pain, he automatically released her. She didn’t get far, however, before his friend caught her by the hair. He turned her so she was forced to look into his face, and she realized her mistake. He dragged her by her hair across the room. Though she lost her balance more than once and fell against him, he showed her no consideration. He reached the other side of the room and flung her with great vigor against the wall. Her vision blurred as her head hit the metal. She felt dizzy and nauseous all at once.

  She had to keep her wits about her. She had to get out of this situation. The second assailant continued to roll on the floor in pain, moaning to wake the dead.

  “Damn, johoree. I’ll show you who’s in charge around here.”

  He began to unlace his britches. Naveenah had never been more scared in all her life. She screamed at the top of her lungs, not that she thought anyone would hear, but it was instinct, an instinct that received the back of his hand across her cheek.

  “Don’t fight it, or I’ll fuck you up so bad, your own daddy won’t recognize you.”

  Naveenah went still and actually prayed for death.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Naveenah shuddered as she inhaled the man’s stench. She hoped he would be quick about it and mercilessly kill her afterward. In many ways, that would be the kindest thing
for her.

  Since her first day on this planet—when she awoke to realize that she was no longer on the only world she’d ever known—she had dreaded this moment.

  During their captivity, though her freedom had been denied, her captors had not violated or brutalized her in any way. No man had shown her anything less than care and respect. The accommodations might not have been the best, but she had come to see that this did not signify harmful intent, but rather the planet’s wretched condition and the desperation of its leadership.

  When Nikolai and Antares had walked into the camp, the idea of accepting their deal had terrified her. In her mind, agreeing to their offer would simply give them permission to rape her repeatedly. However, despite her fears, they had treated her in a civilized manner.

  This moment, on the other hand, would not be civilized by any stretch of the imagination, and she had ultimately arrived at this dreaded moment through no one’s fault but her own.

  Just do it.

  As her attacker advanced, she closed her eyes, awaiting the repulsive touch of this loathsome vagabond. Tears streamed down her cheeks as much as she tried to stop them.

  A moment of deathly silence broke like a wave with a series of pops and the horrifying rasp of bone grinding on bone. The scent of exotic spices and sandalwood accompanied these sounds. She knew that scent. She opened her eyes just in time to see her tormentor release his final breath. Relief brought more sobs to the surface before she could stop them.

  Rising like a savior out of the nightmare, Nikolai stood with the lifeless body of the man who’d been set to attack her hung over his right arm. He dropped her assailant’s body to the floor. Naveenah observed his descent with a sense of detachment. As he fell, she watched his clothing ripple in the breeze his plunge created. Her trance-like state continued even after the body came to rest, lying still upon the cold flooring.

  “Nikolai.”

  “Sienta.”

  Her world was stuck in slow gear. She turned her head to look at Nikolai as he pulled her into his arms.

  “There was another…” She mindlessly pointed in the direction she’d last seen the other man.

  “He is gone.”

  She closed her eyes, wondering if this was a dream or a hallucination. Even if perhaps she had died and this was her afterlife. She pushed his cheeks with her fingertips, waiting to see if he’d disappear.

  “Are you real?”

  Her voice sounded strange even to her own ears. She cocked her head to one side and then the other, squinting, testing the mirage theory, but Nikolai just scooped her into his arms, pulled her torn dress around her, and began to move.

  “Yes, sienta, I am very real.”

  She closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest. Figuring out anything more was too much now. She was safe, and she just wanted to relish in that for a time.

  A sharp ringing in her ears began as soon as they squeezed out of the building. She burrowed deeper into his arms. She drifted in and out of consciousness as he placed her on a bright red single-passenger flying machine hovering off the ground with no apparent energy source. The front visor came overhead in one solid piece, making the vehicle nearly a complete circle. He sat behind her and adjusted her across his lap, holding her securely in place, then accelerated for a swift escape from the city.

  The ride was so smooth, and she was so exhausted, she fell asleep. When she awoke she was located somewhere in the woods. It was still dark as trees, taller than any others she’d seen her entire time on Vaturia, soared to the sky all around them.

  “Where are we?”

  He stepped off the bike and reached for her. “Can you walk?”

  She nodded and allowed him to help her down. She gathered the front of her torn gown closed and held it securely as she followed him. He picked up a stone and pressed it into the bark of a tree stump, exposing an opening where he proceeded to hide the bike.

  “What is that?”

  He didn’t answer. Once the bike was completely hidden, he turned to her and took her arm.

  “Come.”

  A shiver of apprehension slid down her spine, but she went with him across the woods on foot in the thick darkness. He remained silent, leading her to an enormous tree with bark that looked as much stone as wood and that reached so far into the sky that she could not see its top.

  “I think Earth once had trees like these.”

  “I know. Earth and Vaturia are not unlike in their origins.”

  He pulled a short blade from his belt. It was encrusted in blue, white, and green stones. When he raised it over his head, she hesitated and took a step away. He plunged the weapon into the tree with a mighty stroke, catching her completely off guard.

  “Nikolai, I don’t understand.”

  As the tree bark began to move, he took her by the arm and guided her once more.

  “I will explain it all, but first we must go inside quickly.”

  She followed him down staircases and dark, narrow corridors, through secret doors and along a crevice that seemed open to the planet’s core until finally they came to a room that was literally fit for a king. The room had no shortage of fine materials. However, it had a distinct lack of recycled metals, torn books, and broken furnishings like most of the other rooms she’d seen on Vaturia.

  The walls of his bed chamber were stone, and water flowed through the room, running down one wall and pooling at its base, then running backward, back under the wall before plummeting to some even deeper level below. She had no idea how far below the planet’s surface they were, but the scent of the minerals, from both rock and water, was stronger here than it had been along the way down.

  Nikolai sealed the door behind them and went immediately to light a fire in the large stone housing in the center of the room. She watched as he used only his words to light it. He spoke into the room, lighting the torches along the wall as well. The room became warm almost immediately, and she was able to see more now than she had at first. An enormous bed, with head- and footboards of black stone and painted intricately with gold sat directly in front of her. There was enough space for six people at least. It sat high off the floor, had a thick mattress, and piles of lush, deep purple bedding. She had seen nothing else like it in her life. In fact, she was certain nothing else like it existed on Vaturia.

  A large desk sat at an angle to three plush chairs and a settee just big enough for two, and on the ground wood planks fashioned a floor. Atop them several layers of richly patterned rugs kept the cold from seeping through. He went to a chest that sat at the bottom of the bed and rummaged through, pulling out a robe of purple and gold before returning to her.

  “Here, you can change into this. I will find something more appropriate for you later.”

  She took the robe, but there was nowhere private to change, which she knew must seem silly as he had seen every inch of her already. Still, in this moment, she was feeling modest, so as he moved around the room chanting in his own language, clearly not paying her any attention, she took the opportunity to slip out of her torn gown and into the robe.

  He almost seemed to sense when she was ready for his return as he came and took her gown. He dropped it down a deep cavern along the place they entered the room. It reminded her of the first day he had come to her and thrown all her clothing out. She smiled at the memory of that day so long ago now and wondered if it were possible to recapture that time.

  “This is my home.”

  He held his arms spread wide, a prince in his setting, yet he appeared so vulnerable.

  “Nikolai, I don’t understand what’s happening. Everything I thought…”

  “I know, sienta. I will try and explain, but it will not be easy. Come, sit here.”

  He directed her to the red velvet settee, which had high arms and a back and could have passed for a throne. She had a million questions about what exactly happened, but they were all so muddled in her head, she couldn’t extract even one. Nikolai went down on his knees be
fore her, placing his hands on her thighs, looking up into her face. She pushed her fingers through his hair and dropped her forehead against his, inhaling a shuddering breath.

  “This is complicated. And I’m not certain of your frame of reference, so I may say things that make no sense.”

  She could guarantee him it wasn’t going to make sense, as nothing had since he burst into Antares’s bedchamber.

  “That’s all right. Just tell me.”

  He took a breath, then he began. “From the beginning of recorded time on Vaturia, there were two races, the Vaturian, mortals who worked and lived from the land, and nay-chi, a spiritual people with special abilities given by the creator. The nay-chi are an ancient race that date back even before the time of Vaturia. They come from another realm called Chibelle, or so the legend goes. They spent much of their lives in study and the pursuit of knowing the creator better, becoming stronger in their gifts. For many centuries it seemed the nay-chi and the Vaturian lived in peace, each helping the other, but that all changed when the Vraigor invaded our planet.”

  He paused, clearly searching her eyes for some sense she was understanding what he told her. He took her hands into his, still resting on her legs.

  “The Vraigor took the only way of life the Vaturian ever knew, and they crumbled in the aftermath, but you see, for the nay-chi, their lives were not changed, because their lives did not revolve around who has the most currency or the newest technology. They have always believed in another realm outside our own that exists almost as if layered over this one. They believe one day the realms of Chibelle and Terra-li will be reunited as one and that their purpose is to hold the legend alive, speak of what is real to any who will listen, teach that love and perfection await for those who live true. Teach that this raging, desolate existence filled with constant war, hatred, anguish, and evil is not their only option.