The Golden Heart: Alliance Book One (Alliance Series 1)

by Jessamyne Hunter

  “Don’t be ashamed,” he whispered when Kellan wanted to turn away. “Even though you can’t smell it, you have noticed my scent. You’re in heat and I’m not making it easier for you, being aroused by your scent. We’re influencing each other. Go, take a shower. I’ll be in the garden, setting up our dinner.”

  With those words he turned sharply on his heels and stalked out on the porch, leaving a highly confused and embarrassed mate behind.

  Kellan had hurried to get washed and dressed in another morning robe. He was still scandalized by his indecent behavior earlier.

  What in hell’s name had ridden him to throw himself at the prince like a cheap whore? Had he really begged him, to…to touch him?! He couldn’t believe what his own mouth had said. Only thinking about it made him wish the ground would open and swallow him up. How was he supposed to look his husband into the eyes again?

  Devastated, he paced up and down in the bathroom, not sure whether to leave the room or just stay inside it forever. But then it was likely, Sartak would come down here to look after him. He didn’t understand it. The man barely talked, but when he did, he was always so sweet and understanding. Kellan couldn’t get his mind on it.

  He winced when he heard someone call his name. Maybe he had been down in the bathroom quite longer than expected.

  Wringing his hands, he sighed and left the bathroom. The stairs that led up to their bedroom felt longer and steeper than before. To his right, water ran down the wall from a basin above. To his left was the golden ironwork of the broad staircase which also circled the hole in the floor, where the stairs led down from the wall behind the bed.

  Laying his hands on the stair-rails, he looked into the room.

  Someone had made the bed, which just sat there in the middle of the room. The sheer curtains swayed in the light, warm breeze. He heard the clapping of dishes coming from behind the curtains to the right and followed the noises.

  Just behind the curtains, he halted, watching Sartak carefully placing the plates and silverware on the little dining table. He had also gathered some bright blue flowers - which weren’t’ from their garden- that now decorated the table.

  His Phy’vohranian husband still wore the dark green tunic- which complimented his auburn hair and reddish shimmering facial scales quite nicely- only his sleeves were rolled up.

  Kellan felt colorless next to his husband. His hair was a silvery ashen blond, just like his eyes and skin were of a pale color, while his husband was…his husband was autumn and fire, majestic and handsome.

  Once, Sky had joked that they’d be devastated if Kellan ever got lost in a snowstorm. Everyone had laughed about it, but actually, the joke was quite mean and Kellan, who had never thought much of himself, had been sad and hurt by his housemate’s words.

  Shit, he was again thinking about Sky, though he had forbidden himself to ever think of that man. It was enough to drive one to despair. He really needed to forget about the bad stuff that had happened to him. He needed to forget the grabbing and dragging him around. He needed to forget those disgusted words that Sky had spat at him on the last day. He needed to forget all the lies and all the taking advantage of Kellan and his heritage. He needed to forget the jokes that had made a hall full of people laugh, but had him crying himself to sleep because they had hurt him.

  Forcing a shaky smile on his lips, he parted the curtains and stepped outside. Sartak had just finished arranging the plates to his satisfaction.

  “’tis food from Earth. Salad and Pasta and Salmon and some sweet dish made from Vanilla… It is bouncy and sticky. Quite weird,” he said, making a disgusted face which made Kellan chuckle.

  “It’s delicious; my all time go-to dish when I want something sweet but not too sugary,” Kellan corrected his husband while seating himself on the chair with the pillows.

  His husband regarded him with doubt but restrained from commenting on the matter.

  Kellan spooned his vanilla pudding, smiling with content. Kellan had recounted the story of the purple duct tape robe because Sartak had been again quiet and serious looking. He didn’t mind that his husband was not really a man of words. He hadn’t expected poetry and grand speeches anyway, but it had felt at least a bit weird, that he was the only one speaking the whole time. On the Pra’vs-kwarana it had been Jarvan who couldn’t stop talking, but now it was Kellan.

  “Come on. Eat it!” Kellan said teasingly, when Sartak poked his pudding with a fork, wincing whenever the dish bounced.

  “You’re sure it’s safe to eat?” Kellan had stopped counting the times Sartak asked him this question.

  He rolled his eyes: “Safer than that weird squid with the buttery taste I believe.”

  The mentioning of the Phy’vohranian delicacy made his husband shudder.

  “Goddess, I’m not eating that when you compare it to that nasty stuff. You might be pregnant, so I won’t judge your weird eating habits,” he announced magnanimously, shoving the dish as far away from him as he could.

  Kellan harrumphed, not willing to dignify that with an answer.

  “Yeah, whatever! DERSHRA!” he called for his little wyvern who was somewhere in the garden as he had left him there an hour ago.

  Immediately the sound of fluttering wings became audible nearby. Dershra chirped and landed on Kellan’s shoulder; nudging his head against his cheek. Kellan gave him a small kiss on the head and pointed to Sartak’s mostly untouched dish.

  “You want that, sweetie?” he asked and his pet answered with a loud chirp of joy.

  Dershra hopped on the table and dipped his head in the bowl, eating up the contents enthusiastically.

  “See, he appreciates it,” Kellan teased, continuing to eat his pudding.

  Sartak only grimaced at both of them.

  8

  He sighed deeply. That was not what he needed now. Not at all.

  When his father had sent a guard to tell Sartak he was summoned to the king’s office this morning, he had been quite surprised to find Kellan sleeping curled up in his arms.

  Quietly, so he wouldn’t wake him, he had exited the room, only to get told that there were unrests on Cjon’vaii and attacks on Cjon’vaiian cargo ships.

  There were also reports saying that the Phy’vohranian Reconnaissance-Cruiser that was originally sent to RT-5 had been sighted on a small planet near Cjon’vaii. It seemed to have crashed there. As the Warlord, it was his responsibility to investigate what had happened to the ship and what was going on on Cjon’vaii. The blue aliens had been their alliance partners even before the war with the humans had started, so there was no way they wouldn’t help them. Sartak was just in a bad mood because he had to leave Kellan here.

  He had been looking forward to spending more time with his mate. Sartak had planned so many things: a walk through the city, a visit to Phoxor, a cruise on their river and a flight through the flower fields. But those plans had been forfeit by this mission…

  If his mate was truly pregnant, then he couldn’t risk exposing him to the slightest dangers…even though it sounded like a boring routine mission to him.

  It was probably just some outlaws causing trouble on their way through space. It was always the same. Criminals liked to take advantage of chaos.

  Since the peace treaties were signed, more and more battle-cruisers and warships started to return to their home planets.

  Now everyone had to figure out where to put all the ships without getting them in the way of regular transfers and trade. So basically, tons of ships were waiting around their home orbits for further instructions. Only trade- and passenger cruisers, as well as transients, were allowed to actually pass through the orbit. Everyone else, though that really was only soldiers, had to wait until they got the permission and an allocated place to park the ship. The military bases alone couldn’t hold the amounts of cruisers and gliders anymore since during the war new ships had been built while the old ones were still in use. Phy’vohran was lucky to have several military airports and the Black Mo
on, which was also assigned to the military for their use only.

  Sartak knew that now, that the war was over, the military would split up into the several mercenary guilds that had joined the war as their own units. They’d still follow the crown’s orders; the mercenary lords had taken oaths to house Nexvrin, which was convenient because Sartak had just the right group of people in mind to take with him to this task.

  They were the four best suited to accomplish this mission fast and efficiently. It was two women, one man and a kmer which was rather unusual.

  Sartak and the kmer were friends. They first met, when they’d both served on a warship stationed near the orbit of the Earth’s alliance planet Edea- home to hulky, but very rude bird-like humanoids. Those fuckers were aggressive as hellhounds and could make noises that caused your ears to bleed.

  Sartak still had nightmares about the high-pitched sounds they had made when Sartak’s little group had tried to infiltrate one of the Edean camps. It had been successful in the end, but some of them had still been injured.

  Anyway, the kmer- Aoran- and Sartak had maintained a weird friendship where they had sex whenever Aoran got into heat…and on other occasions. It had been quite convenient since Sartak had gotten some fun and in return, no one had dared to bother the kmer. In the other soldiers’ eyes, he had been the crown prince’s lover and only a few weeks later the lover of General Sartak because Sartak had taken down the Edean base and arrested the Edean’s royal family.

  Now Aoran was married to some minor lord and that lord hated the idea that his kmeran had ever slept with Sartak. He could understand him. Sartak also wouldn’t be all too happy if Kellan was still closely in touch with a past lover. So the weird part of their friendship, which actually had been more sex than talking, had ended with Aoran’s wedding. They had tried to stay in touch, be friends and all that. For a time it had worked out for them until his husband had put a stop to their friendly chatting. Not that they would have cared. They still were in touch, just not as frequent as before.

  Aoran had resigned from duty when Sartak became Warlord. Now he had two children. Sometimes he sent Sartak pictures and videos of his two girls, updating him on their lives. He even got messages for his birthday where the girls would sing for him and call him Uncle Sartak.

  It was good to know that Aoran and Sartak still had something. He liked to have him as a friend more than he had liked him in bed. He even considered the kmer as one of his best and closest friends now.

  Of course, Lord Sirall had at some point found out that they still had contact. The man was insufferable whenever Sartak visited Aoran and his girls, but Sartak hadn’t said a thing about it. He understood that the man felt uncomfortable having Aoran’s ex-lover still around, only that both Sartak and Aoran had no interest in going back to the weird part of their former relationship.

  Aoran used to say, he still had hope that his husband would one day calm down.

  Asking the kmer to help him with this problem would probably result in Sirall disliking Sartak even more, but he couldn’t care less about a jealous man’s feelings right now.

  With the planet’s surrounding space stuffed with space ships, he knew no better pilot than Aoran. If things got heated, Sartak wouldn’t let anyone else than Aoran fly the ship he was in.

  He wouldn’t trust anyone else in such a situation. Sartak could fly and navigate a glider pretty good, but he was shit compared to Aoran. So Aoran it was, who he wanted to be part of his little crew. He only needed to convince…no, this time he would go all crown prince on Lord Sirall and order him to keep his mouth shut about Sartak summoning Aoran to the palace and just tell him he was his pilot now.

  He had no patience to argue with a lord who wasn’t of great importance at all. Sartak should start to put that man back into his place and finally, make him realize that he spoke to no other than the fucking crown prince of his planet. Sartak would one day rule over him, for fuck’s sake.

  Sartak sighed. At least he knew that getting Kariary, Gwyndea- both guild members- and his uncle Harok on this mission wouldn’t pose a problem.

  Harok was already beside him and started to talk about how they should proceed and what resources they’d need for this mission. He planned everything while Sartak nodded in agreement. His uncle was the best one could find for the job as Requisition Officer and Security Officer.

  Sartak would command the guns, shields, and lasers, while Kariary helped him out.

  Gwyndea was a Spymaster, hacker and knew everything about all the creepy technology stuff Sartak couldn’t tell which was for what. Sartak was still impressed by how she could build devices from any technological rubbish dumped somewhere.

  His face serious, he regarded Aoran for a long time. The kmer had brought both his daughters- the lovely five and three cycles old Tawila and Cyra.

  Tawila was being all big-sister-like and reprimanded Cyra whenever she did something weird, but Cyra was a baby, so weird was probably normal for her.

  Sartak grimaced when the two girls started to bicker; both could understand the universal language but barely knew how to speak it. The baby still sounded unclear when she spoke, seeming to eat her own tongue when forming words.

  Aoran smiled at him, moving his head toward the place where Kellan was sitting blank-faced.

  His mate hadn’t taken the news that Sartak needed to leave for Cjon’vaii for a while quite well. He wore a sad expression and hadn’t talked much since then.

  Sometimes he looked over to Aoran, who wore his dark brown hair braided, and his hazel eyes- warm and friendly- seemed to always smile.

  Sartak wished he knew what Kellan was thinking about the kmer. Anyways, he was pretty sure Kellan had noticed how close he was with Aoran.

  “Sirall is busy with the new merchants from Earth. He is also bad at watching the girls. I wouldn’t give them to just somebody. That fair beauty is your mate, is he not? I trust you. Thus I’m willing to trust him, too. Just say yes and I’ll talk to him,” Aoran said in Phy’vohranian.

  Sartak saw Kellan scowling at that. His mate folded his arms in front of his chest, showing how much he didn’t like that he was excluded from the conversation in such a rude way.

  Since Sartak didn’t want his mate to be angry at him, he agreed to what Aoran had asked him and leaned back. Closing his eyes, he hoped Aoran wouldn’t talk about their past and only tell Kellan what Sartak had just decided for him to do while he was gone.

  Kellan glimpsed shortly back at the two girls being highly ecstatic about Dershra flying one looping after another. Both girls looked a lot like the handsome kmer who followed him to his private sitting rooms since this Aoran had asked him to speak in private out of Sartak’s and the girls’ earshot.

  When they reached the room, Kellan blushed upon glancing around.

  It was still a mess.

  Boxes everywhere and still unpacked. He really needed to do that soon. Because he had no actual furniture and thus no chairs in his sitting room, he gestured Aoran to go to the porch where he had a bunch of armchairs and two ottomans.

  Klaijvia silently danced around the furniture, arranging a plate with sliced fruits on a small table between the ottomans and filling two goblets of juice.

  “Thank you, Klaijvia. You may retreat now,” he told her while making himself comfortable on one of the ottomans.

  Aoran sat down too and picked up his goblet. He waved it a bit and then took a sip.

  “Your Highness, let me introduce myself properly now. I am Lord-Consort Aoran Maxiv, married to Lord Sirall Maxiv and kmera of the two wonderful girls we left with Prince Sartak. Their names are Tawila and Cyra,” he then said smilingly.

  Smiling back, Kellan answered: “Please, call me Kellan. Your daughters call my husband their uncle, so I believe you are a close friend of Sartak’s. You are family somehow, so we shall drop the formalities.”

  “Very well. I am indeed a good friend of your husband. We have served in the army together until I got married. Befo
re that, we were lovers,” he told but shook his head when Kellan’s face went blank after that announcement. “I tell you this because I think you should know about it- as well as you should know that both Sartak and I have no intentions to go back to that kind of relationship. And even then, you would have found out at some point anyway and I thought it would be better if I told you now. Sartak considers me one of his best friends, but let’s face it. I am his best friend. He asks me for advice and he has also done so now. He has told me your wedding night was rather…bloody.”

  Kellan was speechless. His gut clenched; he felt like he couldn’t breathe well. Aoran’s hazel eyes seemed to look right into him, making Kellan feel uncomfortable. How could Sartak just tell everyone what had happened last night- and out of all people tell it to his ex-lover? But…considering what Aoran had said just seconds ago, Sartak and him were best friends. Would Kellan tell his best friend about it? Yes, probably. He wasn’t sure if he really wanted to discuss this with his husband’s best friend. It was weird and Kellan felt…well, he couldn’t quite tell. Maybe…no, he shouldn’t think that he might have deserved it or that he was just a whiny little sob about things. That was not true because Sartak had been horrified about the wedding night too. So…

  “Yes,” he admitted quietly, grabbing his own goblet and throwing back its whole contents.

  “It must have hurt terribly. I know firsthand that he is big down there. For you, it must have been a lot more difficult than for me, and even I found myself struggling with his manhood sometimes. But believe me when I tell you to give him another chance. Not immediately, but step by step. Let him touch you a bit. Kiss him, caress him. He needs some intimacy with you. He’s still desperate because he had hurt you on the first night while he wanted to do everything as good as possible for you. The man worries you could never fall in love with him. Yes, love him, because he loves you. His instincts had recognized you as his mate. Don’t be ashamed, afraid or anything. Trust him and he will catch you. Can you love him back with everything you have? Both of you deserve happiness. First, I wanted to ask you to do this for Sartak’s sake, because he is my friend and I wanted to see him happy. But now that I’ve met you…I see the sadness and lingering hurt just under your skin. I don’t know who caused the darkness inside of you, but please don’t let it swallow you. Let him save you from the darkness, and you save him from his loneliness,” Aoran begged him, his eyes wet with tears.