by Aline Ash
Chapter 18
Becky
I’m still reeling from what S’oraj said – Queen? He called me ‘Queen’... – when the four armed guards from before reappear outside my cell. Three of them level rifles at me while one opens the door, handcuffs me again, and shoves me out into the corridor. I don’t resist in any way – the last thing I need to do is provoke these guys and get myself killed – but they still manhandle me all the way to what I assume must be some kind of command center of this base.
It’s not a long walk from the brig I’ve been kept in. The room is like an anthill; Raxian soldiers moving from station to station, relaying information, making notes and calculations in every corner I can see. And at the big, illuminated table in the middle, on which I can clearly see lines and tokens that represent Orean bases, Raxian facilities, and the like, High Commander Griz turns around and, with him...
Fiari??? It can’t be!
It takes my eyes a moment to adjust, but once they do, I realize that while this Raxian with the High Commander looks almost exactly like the rebel prince, he’s older and more grizzled. Even still, the resemblance is uncanny. Then it hits me: King Kerx.
“Ah. You must be the Palian I’ve heard so much about,” he says calmly. Even his voice sounds like Fiari’s. “I’m pleased to see that High Commander Griz followed my instructions and has not damaged you yet.”
Yet? I should have known that things were going to go sideways sooner or later. I was just really hoping that it was going to be much, much later.
I need to think of something fast. If I can’t figure out a way to stall these guys, God knows how they’ll decide to torture me. If Urgan and Griz both already know that I’m S’oraj’s Fated Mate, then the king most definitely knows, too. And if he knows that, then he knows he can exploit the connection S’oraj and I share whether we like it or not. I’ve got to throw a wrench into the works right now, or they’ll use me and my body to manipulate him until I’m dead and Orean is destroyed.
“Your Majesty, I presume,” I say with a formal and courteous bow. Please buy this. Please buy this.
“Oh, and she even minds her manners. How quaint,” the king chuckles. “Save your formalities for your lover’s funeral, Palian. I know what you are. The only reason I ordered Griz to stay his hand until I arrived was so that I could witness, firsthand, the destruction of my enemy.”
“Your Majesty, there will be no need for any of that,” I say, bolstering my voice with as much confidence as I can. I’ve mowed through boardrooms of arrogant men before; I can do it again. “I have no loyalty to S’oraj or to Orean. If anything, I am grateful to your operatives and commanders for freeing me from the prison he’s held me in.”
Kerx and Griz exchange a quick glance that I’m sure they were hoping I wouldn’t catch, but I saw it clear as day. I have them off balance. Now I just need to go hard while their guard is down.
“Your Majesty,” I continue immediately, “S’oraj is an abusive phrung-head who has kept me locked in my quarters for months. He demands satisfaction of me, yes, using the excuse that we are bonded through the notion of the S’ulin Kara tradition, but his horrific appetite and endless abuse has been nearly impossible to bear.”
“No,” the king says flatly.
“No?”
“Yes. No,” he emphasizes it this time. “I refuse to believe this is anything other than a trick; a stalling tactic to prevent us from finally gaining the upper hand against Orean.”
I’m losing ground. I need another approach.
“Please,” I say, “you must believe me. While, yes, something beyond my conscious control has physiologically attacked me from within, my heart and mind are my own, and you must believe me when I tell you that getting away from S’oraj is the best thing that could have happened to me.
“And you also have to believe me when I tell you that your spies, G’rava and K’orx, do not have the full picture.” Another glance between these two men. Use specifics. Little truths lend credence to larger lies. “You know that they aren’t of high enough rank to be informed of every decision and plan. None but Commanders X’oran and V’orin know the full scope of Orean’s power. None, that is, except for me.”
“What are you talking about, Palian?” Kerx’s silver eyes narrow and I know I’ve got him now.
“S’oraj has let you believe that he has a countermeasure to your weapon, yes?”
“Yes...” That’s right. Keep eating it up.
“And your men have been working to redouble the strength of your weapon in order to punch through whatever countermeasure it may be, correct?”
“What has this to do with your bond or what strength S’oraj possess?”
“Your Majesty... It’s all been a lie.”
His brows furrow intensely, and a snarl appears on the edges of his lips. There we go... Let that anger drive the train. Let it cloud your judgment.
“G’rava and K’orx were fed misinformation to throw you off the scent of the truth: Orean doesn’t have a defensive countermeasure, it’s an offense.” I pause and take a deep breath for dramatic effect. Bring it home, kid, you’re killing it. “Orean’s military has been working on a secret weapon that only the top military commanders and scientists are aware of. S’oraj has been stupid enough to trust that our bond will prevent me from telling anyone else what I know, so he’s told me all about it. What he doesn’t understand about how the S’ulin Kara bond works is: while I can’t lie to him, that doesn’t stop me from telling the truth to anyone else.
“Your Majesty... High Commander Griz... With the weapon you have, you cannot beat him. The Orean weapon has been complete for months. The only reason S’oraj hasn’t deployed it has been to lure you out into the open, to get you to attack with your weapon first. Once you’re exposed, he’ll destroy the weapon you’ve worked so hard to build, and swiftly obliterate your entire force along with it. He simply needs for Rax to be the aggressor in order to maintain the upper hand morally and politically. If he’s seen as a killer, his people and the people of your world, let alone the Intergalactic Council, will turn against him. But if he’s seen as the savior who only acted in defense of life? At that point, whether you live or die is irrelevant. His victory would already be secured.”
I stare him hard in the face and refuse to show even a flicker of doubt on mine. We stand there in silence for what feels like an eternity before he blinks a few too many times and shuffles his feet almost imperceptibly.
“Regardless,” Kerx says far too emphatically for anyone to believe that he thinks I’m lying, “our research into the S’ulin Kara phenomenon has shown that you ought to be physically incapable of betraying him. I cannot take you at your word. Not like this. However... Under duress of a certain kind... I would be more inclined to believe you...”
He starts to move toward me, his fingers already curling and aiming toward my pelvis. My story shook him, but it hasn’t stopped him. I’ve got to hit him with something else before he gets his hands on my—
“Wait, for your own safety!” I say with as much urgent concern as I can fake. “Please... You don’t understand... Doing that could kill you.”
His eyes screw up again and he turns to look fully at Griz this time. Not even trying to hide his confusion anymore.
“She’s lying, Your Majesty,” the High Commander scowls.
“Believe him if you want,” I say cavalierly, “but you’ll find out quickly what I’m talking about.”
“Explain!” Kerx explodes.
“Your Majesty... Being S’oraj’s S’ulin Kara is not something I chose. Yes, there are physical changes that have manifested, such as my inability to lie to S’oraj ever again, and the pain of being any distance from him. But those physical changes cannot make me loyal to him. Not in my heart at least. In my body, however...” I check in quickly with both of their faces. They’re on tenterhooks. Even some of the nearby soldiers and officers have stopped their work and turned fully to hear what I say next.
<
br /> “King Kerx, the physiological changes in my body are at a chemical level. That’s how the bond causes me this physical pain I’m in now – though it’s nothing compared to the pain of S’oraj forcing himself on me night after night. But beyond what you already know, those chemical changes inside of me, over which I have no control—they cause the fluids of my body to be a lethal toxin to anyone who I encounter sexually other than my Fated Mate.
“Trust me, I don’t want this to be the case either, but if you were to touch me, you would quickly find out exactly how horrific this bond is.”
This is a huge gamble and I know it. I don’t know where I got the idea, but as my chest heaves for air and my heart slams against my ribs while I stare back at this lecherous creep, all I can do is hope that I’ve infused enough truth in and around the lies to make him believe it. If he doesn’t, I’m fucked. Literally.
The air feels like it’s being drained from the room as every eye, from Griz’s to the nearby soldiers’, are turned to Kerx, waiting to see what he’ll do. Finally, after an absolutely interminable pause, he cries out with frustration.
“Blast it! Fine! Griz, put her back in her cell and get someone to look into this. Actually, no. I’ll look into it myself! Get her out of my sight, and someone get me a shuttle back to the palace. Now!”
He turns on his heels and vanishes down a corridor, I assume leading back to the flight deck. Griz turns to me like a snake slithering toward a mouse and gets his nose just inches from mine.
“If this turns out to be false, Palian,” he breathes. How is his breath so sweet? “If one word of what you’ve told us turns out to be a lie... No power on any planet will save you from what I will do to you.”
I stare him down, not giving up an inch. “Do the research,” I say coldly. “Find out for yourself. I have nothing to lose here.”
“That’s what they all say.” He snaps his fingers and the four guards grab me by the arms and lift me off the ground, hauling me like a piece of luggage back to my cell where they throw me against the wall hard enough to rattle my head and, I’m sure, leave a few bruises. They slam shut the door and lock it before retreating to the outside of the doors at the ends of the corridor.
For some while, I just sit on the floor and shake. Finally, all the adrenaline that’s been keeping me going floods my bloodstream and, with nowhere to go, has me panting and crying uncontrollably, quivering on the floor. I let the feeling pass and try to breathe through it. I know that, sooner or later, all these lies will catch up with me. I sort through them one more time just to make sure I remember everything I’ve just said. Eventually, they’ll catch the lies, but I’ll be damned if it will be from my own slip up.
Finally, once I’ve got my story straight with myself and I’ve stopped shaking like a gazelle that just escaped a lion, I crawl onto the small, hard bed and lie down. As long as they don’t figure it all out before S’oraj can rescue me—
S’oraj!
Somehow, the coms device had faded into the back of my mind in all the terror that I’ve just been through. I scramble up, make sure no one can see or hear me, then hail him on our private channel.
“B’ecky? B’ecky! What’s happening? Are you okay?”
Instantly, the sound of his voice drops my heartrate in half. Just hearing him makes me feel like I’ve just gone from running for my life to sliding into a hot tub with a martini.
“Yes. Yes, I’m okay,” I manage to say. “But, oh, S’oraj, I wish you were here.”
“I wish I was, too, my dear,” he says. I instantly flush and get a little chill all at once. “If I was, I would wrap my arms around you and hold you until the end of time.”
“Just hold me?” I say with a wry giggle.
“Well, maybe not just hold you,” he coyly replies. I’m surprised to find my heart rate already increasing and a certain area of my body getting warm and swelling with anticipation.
“Oh yeah? And if you were to do something other than just holding me... what exactly is it you’d like to do?”
“Oh, I can think of a few other places I’d like to have my hands... and fingers... right now.”
“Oh, really? You know,” I say, “just because we’re not with each other physically, that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy at least a little pleasure...”
Chapter 19
S’oraj
“Pleasure does sound good,” I croon back over the line. Even unable to touch her, just the sound of her voice and the suggestion of what she might do to me, and let me do to her if we were in the same room, is enough to make my trousers begin to swell.
“If you could touch me right now,” she whispers into my ear, “where would you want to start?” I can hardly believe that we’re having this kind of conversation at a time like this, but the pull of our bond is far too strong for me to resist. And besides, I know exactly how I’m going to answer her question.
“I’d start at your malus... At first just with my fingers, but in not too much time at all, then with my mouth.”
“Really?” Her voice is like golden wine, both intoxicating and arousing me in equal parts. “You know, I’ve enjoyed how responsive yours are, too.” My body reacts automatically at the mere suggestion, but she’s not done yet. “I wouldn’t mind having my tongue on yours right now. But it wouldn’t be long before I’d want my mouth to be somewhere else.”
“Is that right?” I ask, trying to hide how hard I’m breathing. “Where’s that, exactly?”
She moans like she’s just taken a bite of decadent cake, then says, “I think you know exactly where. I’d love to feel you filling my mouth right now.” I can hardly stop myself from thrusting my hands down my trousers in this very instant, but then she says, “And you know what else? I want you to know that I absolutely loved it when you called me your queen.”
My breath hitches slightly, and I realize for the first time that I’d blurted such a vulnerable sentiment out in the heat of the moment. I try to recover, but I’m terrified of what such a confession might mean.
“You caught that, did you?” I ask in a poor attempt at sounding cavalier.
“Don’t sound so nervous.” So, she caught that, too... “I really, truly loved that.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because...” She’s nervous about this, too! “It made me feel like you’re really thinking of me as an equal now. Not like before. That’s a big change and... Well, it’s really important to me.”
“Of course, B’ecky,” I blurt out like a young one in his first attempts at courtship. “I... I wouldn’t have said – or even thought – something so significant unless I meant it. There is only one in the universe who the King of Orean could refer to in such a way; she is the shanin who has captured the king’s heart; his S’ulin Kara. There is no one else for me; there couldn’t be. You are my queen, B’ecky.”
I surprise myself with the openness of my confession — the ‘not able to lie’ piece to having a S’ulin Kara is nothing with which to trifle — and I can tell I’ve taken her off guard, too. After a pause, she responds.
“Oh, S’oraj... I wish you were here with me! I miss having you beside me. And... I miss having you inside of me, too.”
That flush I’ve been feeling instantly intensifies, and I can resist no longer. “Sons of Oraj, B’ecky, I miss that, too. I wish I could touch you... and taste you right now.”
She moans. “Me, too, S’oraj. Are you... Are you touching yourself?”
My breath catches again and my hand slips cleanly down below the waistband of my trousers. “I am now, my queen.”
She purrs in my ear again, and I can hear her breath accelerating and I know that she is feeling the same sensation I am. “Call me that again,” she sighs.
“What?” I tease. “My ‘queen’?” The titillating tone in which I ask the question elicits another moan and my hand seems to speed up instinctively. It’s becoming all I can do to simply breath and listen to her breath as well. Her little moans and squeals
are muffled and distant, but the sound of her pleasure elevates mine exponentially and I can already feel myself throbbing close to my peak.
“Oh, Oraj, B’ecky,” I manage to moan.
“Yes, S’oraj. God, yes!” She nearly stops breathing entirely as my own lungs clench around the air that they’re holding, dizzying my senses. She gasps out a crescendoing series of squeals as my eyes clamp shut and all at once, both of us cry out in muffled voices as we bring each other over our edges from across open space.
I sit there, leaning back in my chair, my hand still inside my trousers as the blood begins to rush back to other parts of my body once again. B’ecky mumbles out a little satisfied sound, then says, “Mmmm, I cannot wait to have you do that to me again.”
I blush like a young one again, but I calm my voice to reply. “Soon, my queen. Soon.”
We sit there, silently on the line, listening to each other breathe for some time, but a thought begins to crystalize and grow in my mind, and it isn’t too long before I find a way to probe toward the answer I seek without arousing too much suspicion or expectation.
“B’ecky... The only reason you long to return to Pal is to care for your mother, right?”
She sighs with forgiving exasperation. “S’oraj, you’re doing better at treating me like a whole person, but we have got to work on your jealous streak. You know that I couldn’t want anyone else, even if I tried. And... to be honest... I don’t want to try. As much as I’ve tried not to admit it, my heart belongs to you, S’oraj. And only you.”
I’m stunned. Too stunned to speak. In the silence, she goes on.
“Look, even back on Earth, there was only one major relationship. I’ve always been too busy for anything more than a hookup here or a hookup there. But even that one time – that one guy I let get close – even then, I was never fully invested. I always had one foot out the door. And when I realized that he was just never going to be able to keep up with me, I broke it off and was back on my feet that same day. I don’t even think I cried a single time.
