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

by Jessamyne Hunter

  It pained Kellan to see the man so unhappy, so sad and broken.

  He really wanted to help him, and so he decided he would.

  “Kalik, Jorax? Look around the manor and make a list of rooms and buildings that need rebuilding and the ones that only need some renovation,” he ordered abruptly, earning frowns from his guards.

  Still, they nodded and did what Kellan had asked them to do.

  That left him and Eryon alone in this room where the man had seemingly lived ever since his children had betrayed him.

  When he turned around, Eryon was watching him with wide eyes.

  “Does that mean…,” he started but didn’t dare to speak the full sentence, too afraid Kellan would say he had misunderstood it.

  “Only if you will allow me to come here whenever the high court annoys me,” grinning he accepted the cup of steaming hot purple tea.

  “Of course…but it seems still not enough to repay you. I have no income. All I had was our family fortune. I wanted to repair the manor and start to make wine again, just like my family did before,” his shoulders slumped, gaze dropping to his hands which were wrapped around the small cup.

  “Oh, well…It is the fortune I inherited from my mother. What shall I write into the contract…You would be mad at me if I just paid everything for you,” a short glance showed him Eryon was nodding enthusiastically, cheeks slightly pink. “Let’s say- besides making your manor my holiday residence- we become business partners. I invest the money in repairing the manor and the vineyards, you find servants and I’ll pay them. And later- so we don’t cause a room full of councilors to raise their eyebrows at me- I’ll get sixty percent of the profit the first few years, and then we change it to thirty percent.”

  “No! You must demand more! I’m already indebted to you!” he objected strongly, but Kellan waved him off.

  He wouldn’t take the man’s manor and make a profit from it.

  Not ever would he do such a despicable thing so similar to what Eryon’s children had done to him. Even asking the old lord to share his home with Kellan from time to time was rather a lot. But he already liked him.

  “I’m quite fine with it, though. Eryon, please listen. I like your place. I truly like it a lot. You see, I spent my childhood on the governmental ship. The same walls every day, not always the same people, though. It felt…cold. Here I feel like I can breathe. I do love the palace and the surrounding city, but I think that sometimes it can get a little too much. This place, though…it looks like a refuge, a sanctuary. Everything’s so calm and beautiful. I would love to just escape sometimes. My child…I fear I won’t be spending a lot of time with my son if I don’t break away from all the politics now and then. I can video-call Leylos if I must, but other than that…I can focus on my son growing up. I don’t want him to feel like I did back home…if one can call it like that. Home is a term to good for that steel cage I grew up in,” voice trembling, he stood up and paced about the cramped room.

  Suddenly he felt a cold shiver.

  Thinking about his childhood was no good memories, at least mostly.

  There were just a few events he remembered that had made him happy- Blake giving him piggy-back rides, Luke smuggling him to the navigation bridge and mother singing to him.

  His father, though…Kellan couldn’t remember a time when the man hadn’t expected anything in return for the time he had sacrificed for him.

  Whenever his father had taken him with him somewhere, it had been business related or soldier stuff.

  When he had been born, a baby much smaller than ordinary, the doctors had feared for his life.

  He had been so little, so sickly.

  That was probably when his father had realized he hadn’t sired another strong soldier again.

  He had been disappointed…even more when General Weber had told him that Kellan was of no use in the army. That hadn’t been true, though.

  Kellan had told General Weber that he wanted to become an ambassador and the general had helped him.

  It was true that he knew shit about shooting with guns, but he had been extraordinarily good when running the courses.

  No, the truth was, General Weber had asked him if he wanted to become an Executioner and Kellan had politely declined the offer. The general hadn’t been mad at him; he had rather looked satisfied with Kellan’s answer.

  The Executioners were a special order- the governmental assassins so to say.

  His father would have burst with pride, but it hadn’t been what Kellan wanted for himself. Even though he hadn’t known back then, he had secretly wished and sought a way to leave that wretched place, just like his mother had wished him to.

  Her letter, he carried with him in his pocket right now…and well, Phy’vohran might be just the place where he belonged.

  Only now, he noticed that Eryon had taken his hands, holding them in a warm and firm grip.

  “Kellan, of course, you may come here whenever you wish to. I’d very much like your child running around the estate. I miss the times when my own children had still been little,” he gently smiled at him.

  “My kmeran always wanted to have more children, but when the birth came, he would swear like a dockhand, yelling at me he would never let me touch him again. Of course, it had been an empty threat. He would ask me if I was willing to try to make another child. Lyrn had been of no good health all his life, it was difficult for him to conceive and even more so to keep the child. He had been pregnant again when his illness took him and the child away from me. My children blamed me for it, saying that I had forced the pregnancy upon their poor, ill kmera. So, it took us a while to well…reconcile, and I had really thought everything was fine again…now I know it wasn’t at all,” Eryon sighed and took a big gulp from his cup before he refilled it again.

  Tears collected in his eyes.

  Talking about his deceased kmeran had to be painful for him, but still, whenever he mentioned Lyrn his lips wore a dreamy smile.

  “I would join him, but Lyrn would kick my ass while telling me it was not my time yet and that I better return at an instant or he’d give me hell,” he chuckled, shaking his head mournfully.

  “I would have loved to meet him. He sounds like a sensible and blunt person. I quite like that,” Kellan mused, eyes closed as the evening sun-kissed the skin of his face.

  They sat in the inner courtyard on the steps of the broad stone stairs.

  The wooden tray sat behind them, so they just needed to reach back to get some food or tea.

  “And I know, he would have loved to meet you too,” he responded.

  They had spent the day talking about their lives, and now they knew quite a lot of rather intimate things about one another.

  When he’d decided to come here to visit the old lord, he had hoped to find a new friend, but it was so much more than that.

  Kellan imagined Alois, whom he had never met, to be just like Eryon.

  The old Phy’vohranian himself had told Kellan how much he had admired the old president's accomplishments concerning peace and that he had been shocked, almost sick about the mad king’s decision to execute him. He had no idea how the king had tried to justify it, but Eryon had also not cared about the weak reasons that had been stupid excuses for his actions, really.

  The sun was almost down when they heard footsteps approaching.

  Kellan turned his gaze to the direction from where they seemed to come from, only to find two sweaty and dirty guards smile at him and wave a few sheets of paper.

  Kellan was surprised to find that even Kalik smiled, dirt smeared all over his face and cobwebs in his hair.

  “We are done, and we even have added some recommendations concerning security, servants’ quarters and storage rooms. The old stable could be changed into a storage room, and some new stables build behind them, facing the fields. Just some small things like that. Of course, if your Highness doesn’t wish to be bothered by our recommendations, we will rewrite the lists,” Jorax said expectan
tly.

  Kellan reached out a hand and accepted the lists.

  Thanking his guards, he offered them the food tray and they immediately dug in.

  Having successfully prevented Jorax and Kalik from starving, he turned his attention to Eryon again.

  “I’d like you to come to the palace with me. Be my guest until the manor is inhabitable again,” he asked quietly, hoping Eryon would see reason and accept his help.

  Instead of a refusal, the lord’s face grew soft.

  “Of course, just let me pack my things first. I fear a ‘no’ might break your heart,” he winked at Kellan and stood up.

  His joints made awful sounds as he rose, but with a crooked smile, he went into the manor.

  While he waited, Kellan watched the two remaining men clear the plates with happy faces.

  Even Dershra who had gone for a flight around the property was here again.

  The tiny beast had returned half an hour ago and was now trying to get his share from the plate.

  Jorax laughed, tossing a piece of meat into the air where the little wyvern snatched it with a chirp.

  He had brought the food tray back into the manor when Eryon emerged from the room.

  Now they were sitting in the glider on their way back.

  It was much more comfortable and the old Phy’vohranian had fallen asleep on his plush seat, which he had turned into a bed, right away.

  He looked very peaceful, but still, there was sadness in his features. Kellan hoped that this lingering depression would soon fade.

  He didn’t want Eryon to think about his treacherous children all the time. Hopefully, he could provide some diversion so the emotional wounds might heal faster.

  Kellan shifted around on his own seat as he tried to get comfortable enough so he could read a bit.

  Dershra decided that Jorax was more fun right now, so he took off from Kellan’s shoulder to join the guard who was watching a movie.

  Kalik, for once, was relaxing in the pilot’s seat. He lazily watched their surroundings while the craft flew on auto-pilot. He looked ready to doze off anytime soon.

  Smiling, he drew his attention back to the book on ancient Greek mythology and started to read.

  Aoran was watching him with a blank face while he paced up and down on the navigation bridge.

  The prisoner had woken up a few hours ago and was now waiting for Sartak in a dark, cramped cell…and maybe someone had dropped a bucket of ice water by accident. Oh, and the Edean scorpion had run away…Sartak would send someone to catch it but everyone was busy, so…the prisoner had to simply just endure it. It wasn’t even poisonous, but its bites still stung.

  For now, they were welcoming the Lady Evelyn on board. The ship from EVE-4, carrying their shipment of weapons had just arrived a while ago.

  So while he waited for the ship to finally finish the docking process, he got more and more impatient to make a short visit to the prisoner.

  He wanted an answer, badly.

  Sartak wanted to know why they had tried to kill him instead of capturing him and then demanding a ransom from his father. It would have been the ‘sensible’ thing to do. Killing him seemed to be a bit exaggerated.

  But instead of dragging the prisoner up into the court room again, he paced around the bridge.

  Sartak wanted to get over the whole weapon-fetching-and-dividing-business as soon as possible.

  He was eager to get some answers, but even more so to go home and hold his lovely kmeran. He yearned to be with him again, and this time he would grab him and take him on vacation, not caring about their pirate problem anymore.

  This whole business had grown to tire and he didn’t have the nerves to deal with it any longer.

  He was angry, annoyed and about to burst into a rage fit.

  Hell, his kmeran was with child and Sartak should be there for him. Instead, he had to deal with a fleet of pirates and fucking assholes underestimating the power of Phy’vohranian destroyers.

  The Pra’vs-kwarana was a hybrid- parts luxury cruiser and parts battleship but classified as a Star-Cruiser.

  The buzzing of the signal came like a rescue.

  It meant that the Lady Evelyn had safely docked.

  Sighing in relief, he left the bridge and took the elevator down to the docking station.

  The matte black cargo ship was pretty big for a normal trader’s ship, but when the doors opened with a hiss, he saw that it had several layers of protective hulls and shields. The whole ship looked like an onion this way.

  Chuckling quietly, he walked towards the rather tall black haired human, but when he was about ten feet away from him, he only then realized the man had slit-shaped pupils.

  The man, of course, noticed Sartak’s surprise and smiled at him, letting his thin snake-tongue slip through his teeth- two of them, the ones next to the middle incisors, were long, sharp and slim.

  “Poison glands,” he answered Sartak’s unspoken question.

  “You are not human then?” the Phy’vohranian prince wanted to know, confused with the man’s scent that clearly said he was…with a sour undertone of venom, though.

  “Oh, of course, I am. I’m just from EVE-4, and people from there are barely just ordinary humans. I’m a heavy splice. A viper and a human, as you might tell from my looks,” again there was that smug grin on the black haired man’s lips.

  “My…you’re really going for the gentleman-pirate look. You’re missing a big hat, though. Still, you look…err nice,” whatever he had wanted to say first, he had seemingly changed the words the moment Harok had appeared behind him, calling him your Highness.

  But despite Harok regarding him with a narrow glance, he still wore that smug grin.

  As soon as Harok turned away, though, he winked at Sartak and thus caused the big Phy’vohranian to feel slightly uncomfortable because he only now got it that snake-man flirted with him.

  Sartak searched for words, having almost forgotten what this meeting was about when a small man- or woman?!- stepped up behind snake-man.

  He…she…they had even lighter hair than Kellan- Kellan’s hair had a slightly silvery tint, while this was blank white and almost translucent.

  They regarded him through creepy pale turquoise eyes that seemed so unreal, he wondered whether they were artificial or not.

  “Oh…let me introduce us first. This is General Byrn’s butler Vex- short for Venus Ellian Xandrius- he is the best butler and an android. And humble I am Valentine White or most people call me Trouble. Trouble because my mouth gets me into a lot of trouble, but you won’t find another person in the whole damned universe who is willing to make dangerous shipments. I’ll even deliver pizza to the center of a war-zone. But then I’m gonna use my own ship. This is a governmental mission,” more cheeky grins from the snake-guy.

  “So my kmeran...err husband employs you,” it wasn’t the most elegant way, but he had somehow needed to tell that guy he was married…to snake-guy’s sovereign moreover.

  “Okay, okay!” he lifted his hands in defense. “I got it. Stop flirting with my Ruler’s man. See, Trouble fits perfectly.”

  The Butler Vex rolled his eyes and stepped forth.

  “Prince Sartak, the shipment is being unloaded right now. It will only take a few minutes,” he informed them with a polite smile.

  “Let’s see and tell them where goes what,” said Harok and as he walked past Sartak, he gave him a hard shove by pretend-accident.

  Over there, at the Lady Evelyn, Kariary was already overseeing the work, bellowing orders to treat the cargo carefully.

  She ran around the cargo and opened all boxes to have a look before she told the workers the place where they should put them.

  When Sartak and the others arrived, she bowed to the prince and went back to work, reprimanding a dockhand who- in her opinion- wasn’t handling the caskets with great enough care.

  He gave her a nasty glare in return but proceeded to walk ostentatiously slower to her annoyance. Sartak, mea
nwhile, had to bite back his laughter, whereas Trouble didn’t even try to hold back.

  “Be nice to the Lady, lad, or she’ll demand you being whipped and you know I would never ignore a Lady’s wish,” he shouted mockingly and the dockhand spun around, mischief in his glance.

  “You meant to say you wouldn’t miss some good naked tattooed man-skin,” he retorted, showing his tongue to Trouble who spluttered loudly.

  “Oh well…so when all your hard, arduous work here is done, would you care to take a shower? I could lick clean all that naked tattooed man-skin you just mentioned,” he made a strange sound that sounded just like a purr while the dockhand chuckled.

  The butler was covering his face, shaking his head in disbelief and Sartak didn’t know what to say. He felt a little pissed because Trouble had forgotten about him so quickly, which was a good thing honestly, but his ego was still a bit hurt.

  “Only if you have the anti-venom at hand, only then,” the dockhand finally answered as he came back their way to fetch the next casket.

  “Always,” Trouble ensured with a waggle of his brows.

  “Oh well, at least someone’s getting some fun tonight,” sounded Aoran’s voice from behind.

  The kmer must have overheard that strange conversation.

  Hearing his best friend make fun was good and somehow soothing.

  It reminded him of his mission and that all of them wanted to go back to their families as soon as possible. He had almost forgotten that he wasn’t the only one eager to go back to their mate.

  Aoran surely missed Sirall and the girls, and Kariary surely missed her wife. That knowledge calmed down his impatience and strangely lifted his mood.

  “Does that mean no sneaky back-room-of-the-gym-fucking tonight?” Harok bit, starting Sartak with his bitter tone.

  His eyes grew wide when he realized what his uncle tried to imply.

  Angered, he frowned and shot him a glare.

  “Is that why you keep being nasty to me since the day had started?” Sartak practically yelled in his face.