“NOW THAT THIS UGLINESS is concluded, how long will you be staying on Aeldor?” Aziros posed his question from his position at the window where he stood gazing out.
They were finishing the morning meal the next day, conversation had been subdued and very minimal after the emotionally draining past few days. Aurelia noticed her father had left his plate mostly untouched. Considering him carefully, she noted he was far less animated than usual, and had a droop in his shoulders that only came with fatigue. She was about to inquire if, after being exposed to the extreme weather up north, he might be coming down with an ailment, when Darios answered his question.
“The Atagan was in space dock for maintenance twice in recent days. Cogar and Iyo have gone up to supervise routine checks before we leave.”
“We have technicians available who can assist,” the king graciously offered.
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
“Aziros, please, considering...”
He nodded. “One of my best engineers is aboard. He assures me the ship is in good order and only in need of a few minor adjustments. He just needs time, and to stay in one place long enough to complete them.”
“How much time?” Aurelia asked almost dreading to know.
“We leave in the morning.”
Having gotten his answer, her father turned quickly back to the window, but not before she noticed the shimmer of wetness in his eyes. She rose and went to him.
“We can talk every day just like always by video transmission, and I promise to come home to visit as often as I can.”
“When the babies come, you had better.”
“I’ll see to it,” Darios assured him. “This I vow. I want my children to know you, and of their mother’s heritage, as well as that of Voltarre.”
“Don’t look so sad, Papa, or I’ll start crying, too.” On impulse, she wrapped her arms around his middle, his thick robe acting as a buffer. Still, she felt a twinge of pain, stemming from his regret, mostly.
“I understand the decision you made long ago. You thought you were doing what was best for me and Axton, and our people. Don’t torture yourself about it anymore.”
He patted her back, ever careful to avoid her skin. She regretted going without her father’s touch, whether holding his hand as a girl without something between them, or, like now, when he needed it, being unable to give him a simple kiss on his cheek.
“To hell with it,” she muttered then stood on her toes and kissed his jaw, which was all she could reach.
She wrinkled her nose and laughed. “Your whiskers tickle.”
He smiled down at her although the sadness didn’t leave his eyes.
Next, she turned to Axton. “Come give me a hug, baby brother.”
Already on the move, he lurched to a halt. “That sounds downright strange. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.”
“I’m teasing,” she exclaimed as she rushed forward to meet him. “You’ll always be bigger than me and big brother is how I’ll forever think of you.”
He enveloped her in a hug tight enough to break ribs. Though he didn’t, nor did he let go, hanging on until Darios broke in softly. “Axton, she’s turning a bit blue.”
He relaxed his hold enough for her to draw air into her lungs.
“Are we saying goodbye now?” her beloved twin murmured into the hair on top of her head, a slight hitch in his voice. “We have supper tonight, and afterward.”
Aurelia leaned back and gazed up into the male version of what she saw in her mirror every morning. Her eyes grew wet though she blinked rapidly to keep the tears at bay. “Yes, and there’s the morning. I’ll expect griddlecakes with aeldorberry syrup for my farewell breakfast.”
“Done!” her father exclaimed sharply, making her jump. By the time she turned to him, he was on his way to the door. “I’ll tell the kitchen staff, immediately.”
Concerned, she watched him go.
“Should I go after him?” Axton asked.
Frowning, she looked at her brother. “Do you think you need to?”
“Yes,” he replied gravely “I’m worried he might get lost. I don’t think he’s ever been in the kitchen before.”
She laughed even as she smacked his arm lightly for teasing her.
Then, she grew serious. “I’m relying on you to look out for him, Axton. Better yet, find him a bride so she can.”
The suggestion surprised him because after a prolonged pause he asked, “Truly?”
“It’s been almost two decades, Axton. Don’t you think it’s past time?”
“Huh...” he grunted, as gazed at the door where they’d last seen their father as if he’d never considered such a possibility before. Then he released her. “See you at dinner, Sister dear?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, dear Brother.”
He flashed her a grin, nodded at Darios, and also took his leave.
Her husband quickly moved in to take his place, his hug just as big and warm but not nearly as crushing.
“That’s one myth dispelled already.”
She leaned back in his arms. “What do you mean?”
“Seeing you with your family, you are not cold at all.”
“People visit our world, and the chill lingers beyond their visit, and we’re distant out of necessity, but our nature, with a few exceptions like Sidrah, is as warm and loving as your people’s.”
His lips lowered to hers, but before he claimed a kiss, he spoke emphatically. “Which I will be ever thankful for, little one.”
THEY LINGERED OVER dinner then moved to the private salon where she and Axton relived fond memories of growing up in the castle. Her father took particular joy in regaling Darios with details of the mischief that, according to him, she forever got into. While she corrected several points, she could do little to stop him, and ended up listening, much to her husband’s amusement, with perpetually reddened cheeks.
It was late when they got to bed, and Darios, sensing her melancholy, simply held her until she at last fell asleep.
The morning of her last day on Aeldor dawned sunny and bright, a rarity on their snowy world. Leaving the bed with Darios still sleeping soundly, she crossed to the window to stare out at her mother’s summer garden.
The weather was warm enough for flowers only six weeks out of each solar orbit, but her mother always insisted on having them. Her father continued the tradition—gardeners doing the work, of course—in honor of her passing. It was past time for that now. The beds had already been raked clean as the temperatures dipped low with the impending winter.
As she stared down at the barren, rather gloomy sight, a flash of sunlight reflecting off an object in the center amid the benches caught her eye. Squinting against the brightness, she tried to make it out. “My sundial,” she exclaimed softly as she suddenly remembered.
During one of her visits, her aunt Akira had given it to her upon seeing her interest in the gardens. It was dear to her, and she didn’t want to leave it behind.
Grabbing her robe and shoving her feet into soft-topped, hard-soled slippers, she headed down the back stairs to retrieve it.
Once outside, she immediately regretted not getting dressed, but this would only take a few seconds. With her robe clutched closed at the neck, she dashed down the garden path.
Seconds turned to minutes as she struggled to release the pedestal base from the stakes in the ground, and she was shivering by the time she worked it free. With her cherished gift in one hand and keeping a hold of her robe to prevent the chill wind zipping down her front, she turned to race back inside.
After a few steps, she became quite dizzy and staggered as her head spun. Her muscles suddenly refused to work and, with a crash, her cherished sundial fell to the ground.
While she stared down at the shattered crystals strewn in tiny bits across the flagstones and tried to keep from falling, she noticed she could see the ground beneath her feet. Not around her slippers, but clear through them. A sense of dread
filled her because something very like this had happened before.
As she began to panic, but couldn’t move, her feet and legs and hands turned translucent, the same way they had in the lab that day.
“Help,” she cried, but it came out weak and whisked away on the wind.
The next instant, she wasn’t in her mother’s garden any longer.
Her consciousness didn’t fade, that she knew of, but the sense of disorientation was very real. She rubbed her eyes, trying to get her vision to clear along with her head. When she opened them and saw metal bars, her heart lurched from a flood of bad memories.
“Not again,” she moaned.
Was she dreaming? She pinched herself, hard, which felt very real.
“I’ve waited for you, Princess,” a man with a gruff, gravelly voice stated. “You’ve caused me no end of trouble, but you’ll pay very soon for that.”
Her head snapped around, but she didn’t see anyone beyond the bars. Convinced it was a nightmare, she dropped her face in her hands and prayed it would pass quickly.
“Face me when I’m speaking to you, slave!”
Slave?
She dared a glance behind her. Upon seeing the red eyes that haunted her nightmares, she screamed.
The devil didn’t react, only stared at her, his blood-red arms crossed over his chest, his lips, a deeper shade of crimson, twisted into a malevolent smile.
“This can’t be happening!”
“I’m afraid it is.” He held up a data stick. “Contained within, is a receipt for purchase of one adult female, untouched. I don’t suppose that’s the case anymore after living on Voltarre for a week. They are known throughout the galaxy as immoral and promiscuous.” He shrugged, dropped his arms, and slowly drew closer. “Despite being slightly used, you are paid for, and I mean to have you.”
“You had no right to buy me. I am not a slave, but a free woman!”
“Quiet! One hundred thousand credits gives me the right.”
“No. I do not accept that.”
“I do not care. You are captured, caged, and female which means you have no rights that I recognize.”
“Who are you?”
He straightened his shoulders and stared down his beak-like nose at her. He was hideous and had so much going on—horns, red eyes, fangs, ruddy skin—she had trouble suppressing a shudder.
“I am the royal prince and heir apparent to the sovereign nation of Sovnia, on Bartook, the third major planet in the Omega galaxy.”
“You are from one nation of many on your planet?” She wrinkled her nose in disdain. “I’m the High Princess of Aeldor—all of Aeldor.” She wrinkled her nose in disdain. “No wonder I haven’t heard of you.”
He visibly bristled, and she questioned why she was being so bold and antagonistic. While locked in a cage, he had all the power.
Perhaps she was tired of being used and manipulated by these cretins.
“Haughtiness and defiance. I like both in a perspective bride. You would have made me a fine mate, and one day a queen. Too bad you’ve been sullied and will no longer suit. I’ll enjoy having you as a plaything, and beating out of you the traits I admire in a bride, but are unwelcome in a slave.”
“If my husband doesn’t beat you first. You’ve heard of the warlord, I’m sure?”
“Yes. A pity he saved you and had a hand in foiling Sidrah’s rise to the crown. She would have made a good ally. We think the same.”
“She sold you a prototype,” she accused.
“If you mean for the portal, no, I acquired that handy device from a different associate. But enough chatting. I need to get us out of Aeldorian airspace before we are noticed. The ingenious portal works like a charm. The highly touted veiling device I purchased through back channels from Sidrah doesn’t come close.”
She had no idea what device he meant but wasn’t surprised her traitorous sister by marriage had a hand in him getting it. When the devil turned to leave, she slumped in relief, grateful for a reprieve from his insufferable presence, but for how long?
His parting, “Don’t go anywhere,” made her hate him even more.
Eyeing the metal bars, Aurelia didn’t find him or anything about this waking nightmare the least bit funny.
The prince, however, laughed at his own hilarity as he left her to wait, for who knew how long, in another gods bedamned cage.
UPON WAKING, DARIOS reached for the warm, soft body beside him. Finding the sheets cold and empty, he sat up, instantly alert.
“Aurelia?”
She didn’t answer.
He threw back the covers and started toward the bathing room when something made him change his course. He veered to the window and looked out, instantly homing in on something broken beyond recognition on the garden path.
A lump the size of a boulder formed in the pit of his stomach.
“Aurelia,” he repeated, this time with an overwhelming sense of dread. He whirled and strode to the door. When he flung it wide, he halted, finding a very distraught king with his fist raised to knock—or perhaps pound.
“Aziros, have you seen your daughter?”
The older man speared his fingers into his hair in an exact imitation of his son. “That’s what I’ve come to tell you, man.” His hands dropped to his face rubbing it in agitation. “Holy mother of the gods,” he uttered. “How could this have happened, again?”
“What’s happened,” he demanded sharply. “Where is my wife?”
“She’s been taken.”
Darios turned sharply and stared out the window to the back gardens, knowing before the man said anything more.
“One of the guards saw her walking in the back,” the king rushed to explain. “Then, without warning, she staggered as though she might faint. He started toward her, calling out to offer assistance, but she doubled over, dropping something onto the ground. He said he rounded a hedge, and that fast,” he snapped his fingers for emphasis, “she disappeared. If not for the glass on the ground, he says he wouldn’t have mentioned it, thinking he’d be accused of being out of his mind.”
“There’s another portal,” Darios stated grimly.
Aziros agreed with a curt nod. “That is my fear.”
“Could this be Sidrah’s handiwork as well?”
The king shook his head. “It isn’t her this time. She’s still in custody.”
“How many of these damn things are out there?”
The older man’s face blanched, and his mouth flattened into a hard line. “Seven, including the one that traitress gave to the Ophigs as payment for ending my daughter’s life.”
A glimmer of hope rushed through him. “Then it must be something else. That portal was destroyed when the slave barge exploded.”
“Are you certain?”
Lotho’s reference to his captain in the present tense came to the forefront of his mind.
“No,” he uttered grimly. “Fires of hell!” He walked away with short, angry strides. At the window, he gazed down on what looked like the city police, combing over the garden. “Can you trace her to see if she’s still on Aeldor?”
“Yes, if she’s wearing her identicode bracelet.”
They both turned to the table beside the bed. As soon as he saw the black-and-silver wristband, Darios’ let out a roar so loud it rattled the glass in the windows.
“She is always so lax with her security,” her distressed father whispered.
“A flaw I mean to correct when I get her back.”
His comm sounded an alert. When he crossed to the table and jabbed it on, her bracelet resting uselessly beside it fueled his rage.
“My lord,” Cogar answered.
“Whatever your news, mine takes precedence.”
“There is a disturbance. Something we haven’t seen before.”
“That happens almost daily of late,” Darios retorted, “so you really need to stop saying that.”
“Yes, but this appears to be a ship. Then it’s not. We’re having trouble tr
acking it because it flickers on and off our scanners. Whatever it is, it’s leaving Aeldor at high speed.”
His gut instinct told him his bride was on board.
“Frozen flames of hell,” the king groaned.
“Let me guess, this is more Aeldorian technology?” Darios snapped, not at all impressed. Their gadgets seemed to be revolutionary though half-baked ideas which malfunctioned more often than not.
“We call it a veiling device,” the older man disclosed with a ragged sigh. “This one, I promise you, is not as far along as the portal. The lack of consistency with intermittent flashes of visibility has been a problem my scientists have yet to overcome. This time it will work in our favor to help track Aurelia. Have your man map them. They will follow a predictable pattern.”
“Did you hear that, Cogar?”
“Yes, my lord. I’ll advise the ship’s commander.”
“I’m shuttling up right away and we’ll give pursuit,” Darios ordered.
“We’ll ready a ship and accompany you,” Aurelia’s father informed him when he signed off.
“Unless you have one prepared to go now, we cannot wait. The Atagan is ready. If you or Axton, and a contingent of your men would like to come with us, you are welcome.”
Aziros hesitated only a fraction of a second. “I will accompany you, but I must alert Axton. He is at the detention center, pressing Sidrah for more information. It’s on our way.”
The wind was picking up and snow had begun to fall as they made their way toward the shuttle port. As they approached where his wife was being held, Axton descended the stairs and joined them.
“Where are you headed?” he asked.
“We’re going after your sister.”
All color drained from his face. “What do you mean you’re going after her?”
“She’s been abducted, again, which means there’s no time to stand around and explain,” Darios insisted. “Walk with us.”
“Did Sidrah tell you anything?” the king asked the prince, the older man having no trouble keeping up with the pace.
“It’s not good news.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Darios growled.
Claimed by the Warlord Page 29
