The Dark Prince's Prize (Curizan Warrior Book 2)

by S. E. Smith

She looked up at him and nodded. “It was like this hazy swirl of red with green dots.”

  Hope flared inside him. “Get dressed,” he suddenly replied.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  Grim determination filled him. “With any luck, to catch a Changeling.”

  “Anything yet?” Ha’ven asked.

  Samara shook her head. “No, they all look like people on a monitor,” she replied.

  Adalard shrugged his shoulders when Ha’ven glanced at him. Samara leaned against him and he slid his arm around her waist, pulling her close. He gently squeezed her waist when he noticed that she was worrying her bottom lip.

  “Let’s move to the next level,” Ha’ven suggested.

  The technician nodded and pulled up the next set of images on the screens. Samara studied each person as they went about their daily activities. There would be two shifts. This was the first one. Over the past hour, the four of them had been scanning each level.

  “Maybe this won’t work using a screen. Maybe it will only work if I see them in person,” she said.

  “Let’s try this first,” Adalard suggested.

  She sighed and shook her head. “This isn’t going to work. Don’t ask me why, I just know it isn’t. I need to see the person,” she said after they finished another level.

  “I fear she is right, Adalard. The shifts will be changing soon,” Ha’ven added.

  “It was worth a try. I’ll have each division chief schedule a time for all members to gather. We will go level by level. We need to find the person before they do more harm,” Adalard growled in frustration.

  The door to the security room pinged and slid open, revealing Crom holding on to a woman who had a flare of blood-red color with green dots swirling around her. Crom had his hand wrapped around the woman’s nape and was holding one of the woman’s arms behind her back. The woman lifted her head and glared at them.

  “That’s her,” Samara blurted out.

  Crom grimly nodded. “I caught her in the flight bay,” he said.

  “How did you find her?” Adalard asked.

  “I followed the stench,” Crom replied.

  “Filthy Moniker. Your people will be among the first to die,” the Changeling promised.

  Crom grinned and squeezed the woman’s neck. The woman bit back a groan and struggled against the pressure. Samara watched in silence.

  “We will take it from here, Crom. Can you escort Samara to our quarters?” Adalard asked.

  Samara wanted to protest, but something told her she didn’t want to see or know what was about to happen to the woman. Fear flashed through the woman’s eyes before they hardened. Samara stepped aside when Crom released the woman and pushed her into the room.

  “You are all going to die,” the woman scoffed.

  Samara paused in the doorway and looked over her shoulder at Adalard. She swallowed at the emotion—or lack of it—in his eyes. This was a side to him that she had never seen before, not even when he was dealing with her brothers.

  “Lady Samara,” Crom said.

  She nodded and turned away. As she walked away, her surroundings took on a new meaning. The glamour of being here, on an alien spaceship heading for an alien world, faded, and the reality hit her hard. That nagging fear in the back of her mind raised its ugly head, and she stopped in the middle of the corridor, suddenly feeling nauseated. Crom turned and looked at her.

  “Are you feeling unwell?” he asked.

  She swallowed and looked back at him. “Can you take me to the hologram deck, please?” she asked in a low, slightly unsteady voice.

  “If that is your wish,” Crom stated.

  She tried to smile before giving up. “It is.”

  He nodded and resumed walking. Samara followed him in silence, trying to quell the growing anxiety threatening to overwhelm her. She stepped into the hologram room, turned, and held out her hand to stop Crom from following her.

  “I’d like to be alone, if you don’t mind,” she said.

  A deep frown furrowed Crom’s brow, and he looked hesitant. “Adalard said I was to stay with you,” he reminded her.

  “And I am telling you I need my space,” she stubbornly replied.

  Crom released an unhappy grunt and stepped back. “I’m not moving from the door, and if I sense anything wrong, I’m coming in,” he warned.

  “That’s fine,” she acknowledged with a curt nod.

  “Human women are—” he muttered.

  The closed door cut off the rest of his sentence. She turned and leaned against the door, running her trembling hands over her cheeks.

  “Com-computer, simulate Paul Grove’s ranch on Earth,” she requested in an unsteady voice.

  The walls, ceiling, and floor rippled around her and in seconds, she was standing outside the barn. She slowly walked over to the door and pushed it open. The soft neighs of horses and the fresh smell of hay hit her hard. She parted her lips, pulling in deep, gulping breaths as a wave of homesickness and uncertainty threatened to send her to her knees.

  She stumbled forward, gripping the door of a stall. A mare lifted her head and stared back at her. Pieces of hay stuck out from the sides of the mare’s mouth and she slowly chewed. Samara reached a hand out, craving the touch of the soft muzzle. Tears coursed down her cheeks as she picked up the brush next to the stall, opened the door, and stepped inside.

  “Hey, there. Did you miss me?” she softly asked.

  It didn’t matter to her that none of this was real. For a short time, she would lose herself in her preferred surroundings, doing a familiar chore. She ignored the tears coursing down her cheeks, blinding her. Leaning her forehead against the mare’s neck, she sniffed.

  “What was I thinking? I should never have left. This world—it isn’t for me. I’m not like Emma. Back home I knew how to fight. I still had a family. They may have been rotten to the core, but they… they were mine,” she whispered, closing her eyes and curling her fingers in the mare’s mane.

  She sniffed again and rubbed her cheek against the mare’s coarse mane. There was no doubt in her mind about what Adalard and Ha’ven would do to the Changeling. The stories Emma had shared were enough to alert her to the fact that justice was very different here in space. These were powerful beings capable of doing horrible things. In this world, Adalard wouldn’t threaten Jerry with a ‘man talk’. He would kill him without a second thought.

  She opened her eyes and straightened. As much as she wanted only to see the gentler side of Adalard, she had to acknowledge there was a darker side as well—and as much as she loved him, she knew she wasn’t ready to be a part of it. She wanted… needed to go home.

  “We’re still close enough to Earth, surely he can take me,” she said, wincing at the desperate sound in her voice. She stroked the brush along the mare’s side. “Tomorrow… I’ll talk with him tomorrow. When I feel calmer.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Samara kept her eyes closed early the next morning, listening as Adalard quietly moved around their quarters. He retrieved a change of clothing and entered the bathroom. Only when the door closed behind him did she drop her ruse of sleeping. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling through gritty eyes.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you,” Adalard said, standing in the doorway of the bathroom.

  She had been so lost in thought that she didn’t realize he was finished. She blinked and sat up. She studied him and noticed that he hadn’t shaved. The dark shadow of facial hair gave him an edgy appearance. She also noted faint shadows of fatigue under his eyes.

  “Are you going out again? Shouldn’t you get some rest?” she asked.

  He walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. She curled her fingers when he reached for her hand. Under his sudden, intense scrutiny, she bowed her head and forced herself to relax when he cupped her hand in his.

  “There are… things that I must take care of,” he said, caressing the back of her hand with his thumb. “You were very
restless last night.”

  She lifted her head and frowned at him. “How did you…?” she asked before shaking her head and looking down at their joined hands again.

  “Samara,” he murmured, caressing her cheek.

  She turned her head away. “What is going to happen to the woman?” she asked in a soft voice.

  He didn’t immediately reply. Samara looked up at him, noticing his averted eyes. Deep down she already knew the answer to her question. Still, there was a masochistic part of her that needed to know.

  “It is best if you do not know,” he finally replied.

  She shook her head. “Don’t you have laws, courts, ways of dealing with people, Changelings, whoever it is?” she insisted.

  He pulled away from her and stood up. “There’s much that you’ll need to learn about life in my world. I must go. We can talk later.”

  She drew her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, and nodded. “Okay.”

  He groaned as he leaned over and cupped her face between his palms. When he gave her a brief, hard kiss, she instinctively responded, wanting more, but he was already pulling away. She curled her fingers in the bedspread as she watched him turn and exit their quarters. Only when the door closed behind him did she fall back against the pillows. She squeezed her eyes closed and breathed deeply, fighting for control.

  “I will not cry,” she muttered.

  Throwing back the covers, she stood and made the bed. She grabbed some fresh clothing and headed for the bathroom. A hot shower and a little time alone were just what she needed at the moment.

  She stepped into the shower, trying to push away the vivid mental images she had glimpsed last night. Adalard had erected a wall between them to protect her, but a couple of times disjointed fragments of information had slipped through. The images had been disturbing. The Changeling was dead.

  She stepped out of the shower, dried, and dressed. The sound of a muted ding caused her to frown in puzzlement. The ding came again and her frown deepened as she searched for the source. Under a discarded towel on the counter, she found the source—Adalard must have forgotten his communicator device. Her thumb swiped over the screen, and she blinked when a woman’s face suddenly appeared.

  “Uh… hello,” she greeted.

  A flash of annoyance swept across the woman’s features before it shifted to curiosity. Samara waited for the woman to respond. She wondered if the woman could maybe see her but not hear her.

  “Hello, can I help you?” she asked.

  “Where’s Adalard?” the woman demanded.

  Samara instinctively looked toward the door before she returned her attention to the woman. “He isn’t here. Can I give him a message?” she politely asked.

  The woman laughed. “Yes, you can tell him Niria, Traya, and Doray are impatiently waiting for his return. You can also tell him that he will need a bigger bed if he keeps bringing women back with him,” Niria said.

  Samara gaped in surprise when two other women waved back at her. They were scantily dressed and draped across a bed. She held the screen a little farther away when the first woman reappeared.

  “Make sure you tell him that we miss him,” Niria instructed.

  “I’ll be sure to do that,” Samara replied in a tight voice.

  She stared at the blank screen with a sense of detachment—as if her mind and body were disconnected from each other. She wrapped her fingers around the device, her initial sense of despair changing to a slow burning rage.

  “Three? He has three fucking bitches in his bed!” she growled. “He’s nothing but an alien man-whore!”

  She turned when the outer door opened. Stepping into the doorway, she pursed her lips when Adalard entered the room. He stopped and warily studied her.

  “I… forgot my communicator,” he said.

  “Yes… you did,” she replied with a bite in her tone.

  She held the communicator up and slowly walked over to him. She thrust the device against his chest. He caught the communicator when she released it and stepped back.

  “Samara…,” he warily said.

  “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come. You said that if I wanted to return to Earth, you could make it happen. I’m holding you to your promise,” she gritted out.

  The wariness on his face changed to shock. “What happened? If you are upset about the Changeling—there are things you are not aware of.”

  She shook her head and wrapped her arms around her waist as pain gripped her. It wasn’t his fault. They were too different. Hell, they were literally galaxies apart. If anyone was to blame, she was for being young and naïve. Despite having shit-heads for brothers, her inexperience with men should have been enough to make her more cautious.

  “It is more than the Changeling, Adalard. I was stupid to think this could ever work. I… I want to go home,” she said, looking away from him.

  “Samara….” He paused when she shrank away from his touch. He dropped his hands to his sides. “Samara, talk to me. You have shut your mind to me, so I cannot see what has happened. Please… talk to me,” he encouraged.

  “Who the hell are Niria, Traya, and Doray?” she suddenly blurted. “If I had known you were planning on adding me to the notches on your bedpost I could have saved you the trouble! If you won’t take me home, I’ll find someone else who will,” she finished, angrily wiping a tear from her cheek.

  He opened his mouth to reply only to close it when the communicator in his hand pinged. She winced as a shaft of pain swept through her at the thought of the woman calling again. She didn’t bother to hide the vivid images of the three women that flashed through her mind. Adalard’s low curse told her that this time he did receive the full visual of her thoughts.

  “Adalard, I need you on the bridge,” Ha’ven said.

  “I’ll be there shortly,” Adalard replied.

  He pocketed the communicator and reached for her. She backed away, shaking her head, and bit her lip. She needed time alone to get her emotions back under control.

  “The women mean nothing to me,” he said.

  She released a bitter laugh. “Yeah, I’ve heard that line about a million times. It doesn’t look like they got your memo.” She released a long, shaky breath. “Let’s just chalk this up to a lesson learned. Impulsive decisions are never a good idea, especially when based on emotions. I want—need—to return to Earth, Adalard,” she reiterated.

  He muttered a hoarse curse when his communicator pinged again. She remained still while he answered. Lifting her chin, she didn’t quite meet his intense scrutiny when he finished.

  “You are my life now, Samara. I would do anything for you,” he stated.

  She looked back at him. “Then let me go,” she softly replied.

  “This conversation is not finished. I need to take care of some urgent matters, but I will return as soon as possible,” he said in a tone edged with frustration.

  “Take care of whatever needs to be done. It’s not like I have anywhere else to go,” she said with a shrug, looking away from him again.

  He caressed her cheek before turning and exiting their quarters. Samara bit her bottom lip to muffle the sound of her sobs. She sank down onto the edge of their bed and buried her face in her hands. Rocking back and forth, she waited for the worst of the waves of pain to subside. Only when she felt more in control did she rise, return to the bathroom, and wash her face. As she did, she made the decision to find a place where she could think—in private.

  She stepped back into the bedroom, gathered a jean jacket, and exited the room. She turned left, wanting to avoid the main corridors. Crom had shown her and Emma a few lesser used maintenance corridors. At first, she thought about going to the lounge where she and Emma had lunch, but she soon found herself outside the Hologram room. The first two were in use but the smaller, third room was free. She entered and requested the door be locked behind her.

  Shoving her hands into her jacket pocket, she stood, lost in her thoughts. After a fe
w minutes, she walked to the center of the room. A lone tear coursed down her cheek and she quickly wiped it away.

  “Computer, show me a meadow on Ceran-Pax,” she requested in a soft voice.

  The wall panels rippled as if being turned by a roulette croupier, and the white walls changed to an alien landscape. She stood in a meadow of knee-high, purplish grass. Wildflowers of every color imaginable dotted the landscape. Twin mountain ranges, the peaks covered with snow, rose up on each side of the meadow. A winding river, three-car-lengths wide, meandered through the center.

  She walked along an animal trail, holding her right hand out at her side, gently brushing the flowers. She stopped when she startled a large deer-like creature that had been lying in the grass. The animal had thick blue hair with brown strips running along its side and spiraling green antlers. The creature stared at her with startled bright-green eyes before it twirled and bounded away. She followed the graceful animal as it crossed the river and disappeared into a stand of trees on the other side.

  The world was beautiful—but alien. The grass, the animal, and the twin moons gave the world a surreal feeling. She stopped and studied the meadow around her.

  The deer-like creature stepped out of the woods, followed by several more, and began to graze. She walked over to a nearby rock under a lone tree near the river and sat down. The scenery around her calmed the emotional rollercoaster inside her, and she reflected on the decisions she had made.

  As much as she loved Adalard, she recognized that coming here with him was a mistake. She was nineteen, what did she really know about the things she wanted in life? Ever since she could remember, she had been taking care of someone else—first her mom, then her brothers. She didn’t count her dad much, though she did all the cooking and cleaning.

  She never had much time for doing what she really wanted to do. Just as she was making plans, all hell broke loose and Adalard showed up. Now, she questioned if what she was feeling was really love or a flight response and a need to escape. She felt like a frog in a pot of water coming to a boil.

  “You’re supposed to wait for me to escort you,” Crom growled.