by Roxie Ray
It was like being a phantom. A ghost.
The scents of the feast made my stomach feel worse than ever, but thankfully, it didn’t seem imperative that I eat anything during it. Instead, I stood in front of the high table while all of King Brixta’s guards and warriors came up to me.
One by one, they each knelt before me and pledged their undying loyalty and protection. I felt dizzy and lightheaded through all of it, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t grateful.
If worst came to worst and the rebellion really did overthrow my new husband from his position on the throne in the coming months or years, I trusted their vows of protection far more than I trusted the king’s.
“Good evening, Your Highness.” Finally, I found a familiar face kneeling in front of me. “Happy wedding?”
“Thank you, Orion. It’s good to see you. Really.” I smiled down at him and allowed him to take my hand.
Given what King Brixta—my husband now—had done to Orion’s family, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had been reluctant to offer me his vow of allegiance. But Orion returned my smile, friendly as could be, and gave me a wink before he bowed to me and pressed his forehead to the back of my hand.
“I vow to you, my queen, the protection of my blaster, my blade and my body, from this moment until I breathe my last.” Orion raised his head so he could kiss my hand, then grinned up at me again. “Here’s hoping that it won’t come to that.”
“Agreed.” I lifted my hand, gesturing for him to stand. “Rise, brave warrior. You have my thanks.”
“What a gracious gift, my queen,” a soothing voice called out as Orion stepped aside.
“Ronan!” Suddenly, I didn’t feel like I was sleepwalking anymore. One look into Ronan’s purple eyes and the awful churning in my stomach stilled. The buzzing in my head quieted. All around us, the feast was still noisy as ever. I could even hear my new husband smacking his lips as he tore his way through a hunk of raw meat.
But it didn’t matter. None of that did.
As Ronan knelt before me, the rest of the world faded to watercolors and whispers.
I could have kissed him, just out of sheer joy that I was actually seeing him again. If I hadn’t remembered myself just in time, I might have done it, too.
“I am sorry I missed your vows,” Ronan said as he took my hand. “I rode all day, but it seems I am too late.”
“You’re never too late.” I leaned in and lowered my voice with a soft smile. “It’s not like you could have stopped anything anyway.”
“No? Are you so sure about that?” Even though the wedding ceremony was long over, Ronan looked like he was still willing to give breaking it up a shot.
“Yes,” I promised him. “I have my duty to my people to think of, Ronan. It had to happen. I’ve come to terms with my fate.”
I didn’t bother mentioning how tenuous those terms still felt—lest Ronan decided to take it as a challenge. I thought—I hoped—we both knew better than that by now.
“I’ve already made my vow of protection to you,” Ronan said as he gave my hands a squeeze. “What should I vow to you instead, Your Highness?”
“Well…what do you have to offer me, brave warrior?”
“Hmm.” Ronan turned my hand over, so my palm was facing up. When he bowed his head down, he pressed a quick kiss to the mound of flesh just beneath my thumb. “Anything you wish for, I suppose, my queen. Anything at all.”
“There are many things a queen in my position might wish, warrior.” For the first time all day, I felt the sparkle return to my eyes. The way a bride’s eyes should sparkle on her wedding day.
It was just a shame that I couldn’t give that same sparkle to the groom.
“Such as?”
I laughed. It was almost ridiculous, that I would be flirting like this with a man who wasn’t my husband on the day of my wedding. But there was something so natural about it, so exciting…I couldn’t help myself.
Not with him.
“Perhaps…” I began. But my voice trailed off as another figure came to stand behind Ronan.
My eyes rose to meet Jaix’s black irises, so dark I could almost feel them stealing the light from my gaze. Like two black holes consuming galaxies.
That would be the end of the flirting, then.
“Is it my turn yet, or do the two of you need a moment still?” Jaix asked.
“I am done,” Ronan said as he rose. His gaze flicked up at me, still full of light. “For now.”
Ronan stepped back and Jaix took his place. Jaix’s touch was cold and clammy as he took my hand in his. His claws brushed against the soft underside of my wrist…
Then, I hissed in pain as his claws dug into me, breaking skin.
“I pledge nothing,” Jaix snarled. He jerked me forward and reached for his blaster with his free hand. “Nothing but retribution.”
It happened in beats, like flashes of movement in the brightness of a flickering strobe light.
Jaix drew his blaster.
I stumbled back, tugging my wrist away from his grasp.
Jaix snapped the point of his blaster up towards me, shooting from the hip.
I let out a scream.
Jaix squeezed the trigger, and—
The air was forced from my chest as something large and heavy shoved me aside. Something hot seared across the side of my face, catching a stray wave of my hair. The sulfurous smell of burned keratin sizzled up as the lock singed and curled.
“Stay down,” Ronan growled at me as he pushed himself off of me.
I nodded quickly. He didn’t need to ask me twice.
“Long live the revolution,” Jaix spat over us as he lifted his blaster to fire again. “Moons damn the king and queen.”
Before Jaix could fire again, Ronan was on him. Ronan knocked Jaix to the floor and the two of them wrestled for control over the blaster. Orion dove in front of me, his blaster drawn as well, before I could see if Ronan or Jaix would win.
“Stay behind me, Your Highness,” Orion called over his shoulder. “I’ll—aah!”
Orion dropped to his knees as something whistled and glinted through the air. He brought his hand up to his shoulder, where a dagger was sunk to its hilt in his skin. When he pulled his hand away, it was red with blood.
“Orion! No!” I cried out as I scrambled forward. His heavy weight slumped against me hard enough to make my knees buckle. He was just a teenager, and I wasn’t exactly short, but he was still bigger than me. We dropped to the floor together. I only managed to soften his fall.
I couldn’t have moved at a better time. A second dagger sliced through the air from somewhere across the feasting hall. I turned my face to the side to assess Orion’s wound just at the right second. My cheek stung as the edge of the dagger sliced across it.
If I’d moved even a fraction of a second later, the dagger would have lodged itself right into my eye instead.
Behind me, I could hear King Brixta’s plate clatter to the floor as he called for his guards and waddled away to safety. So much for the vow he’d made to me—his protection was worth even less than I’d initially thought. Chaos erupted throughout the rest of the hall as the guests screamed and fled.
We were under attack. The revolution against King Brixta was finally upon us—
Just in time for my life to be on the line as well.
12
Ronan
I struck hard and fast. There was no other option. No other choice. Jaix was a specter, highly trained in individual hand-to-hand combat. On top of his fighting skills, Jaix’s body had also been biologically altered during his specter training, giving him heightened senses and improved reflexes.
He wasn’t stronger than me, no, but he was faster. More agile. Better trained for this type of fight.
I brought my fist down on his face anyway and relished the sickening crack of his nose crumpling beneath my knuckles.
Jaix had his advantages over me, but in this scenario, my advantages over him were greater.
My blood boiled in my veins. Fury coursed through my body, amplifying my superior strength tenfold.
Jaix had already stolen one Lunarian’s mate. Now, he was trying to kill mine. I would die before I let that happen.
Even as Alora’s so-called husband fled, abandoning her and his promise to protect her as well, I knew that there were only two ways for this to end.
Either I would kill Jaix, or he would have to kill me first.
Currently, the former was looking far more likely than the latter.
I drew my fist back again. Beneath me, Jaix turned his head to spit blood. I took no great pleasure in killing, but this was not for sport.
The moment Jaix had drawn his blaster on Alora, his fate had been sealed.
“Long…live…the revolution,” Jaix rasped again as I brought my fist down for what I hoped would be the final time.
But before I could follow through with the blow, a scream cut across the ballroom, stopping me mid-punch.
I turned my head to see Leonix, armed with only a steak knife held protectively in her one good hand. She was posted in front of a group of King Brixta’s cubs, who were sobbing and clinging to her. She looked completely petrified. It was strange to see my former commander again, the first time I had spotted her since I left Lunaria to fetch Alora. Even stranger to see her pregnant. She must have been three or four months along now, just beginning to show.
Strangest of all, though, was to see her looking so afraid. The Leonix I remembered was unflappable. Fearless. She could outfight nearly ever male I knew.
King Brixta may have taken her sword-carrying hand, but I did not believe he could have stolen her courage.
She had screamed for a reason. I needed to discover what it was.
I looked around quickly for other assailants. Jaix would not have made such a bold move if he was working alone. I was certain of it. Across the hall, a male with his face covered by a scrap of fabric tied to conceal his nose and mouth was being wrestled to the ground. A scuffle was taking place in the corner as well. But no one was near Leonix or the cubs she was protecting.
So why had she cried out when I was so close to putting an end to Jaix and his madness for good? Jaix had already stolen one lord’s wife in his lifetime. He deserved death for trying to take Alora from me as well.
I opened my mouth to call out to Leonix. My voice wasn’t even given time to leave my throat as the next thing I knew, the wind was knocked from my chest and my body was hurled to the ground.
I looked up, expecting to see Jaix’s white hair and broken face positioned over me. Leonix had distracted me for long enough to give him the opportunity to retaliate—though I still did not know why she had stopped me from dealing the death blow.
Instead, to my surprise, I found an even more familiar face snarling over mine.
“Apex?” The second specter’s hair was the color of a moonless night, with only a single white streak running through it, but his eyes were just as black as Jaix’s were.
“Ronan…” Apex let out a growl of frustration as he grabbed me by my collar and pulled my face closer to his. “Do not make me hurt you. You are fighting on the wrong side.”
“No,” I snapped back at him. “I am not.”
“Have it your way then, my friend.” Apex drew his blaster and shoved the tip of it beneath my chin. “I thought you had more integrity than to side with the king…but apparently not.”
“I do not fight for the king.” I turned my head to look at Alora behind me. Her cheek was bleeding as she cradled Orion, who was injured as well. Before them, Kali had taken up Orion’s blaster. She pointed it between Jaix and Apex, unsure of who to take aim at first. “I fight for the queen.”
I kept my eyes focused on Alora as I waited for Apex to pull his trigger. The pain in Alora’s eyes was heartbreaking. It told me that it would hurt her to lose me.
That thought gave me strength.
It would hurt me to leave her, too.
But as I took in Alora’s lovely lips, her shining green eyes, her narrow nose and her beautiful red waves for what I was certain was the last time, it struck me how long Apex was taking to finish me off.
“You are in love with her,” Apex hissed with realization, shaking his head. “Moons damn you, Ronan. I can see it in your eyes.”
He tossed his blaster aside. In the next moment, King Brixta’s guards rushed forward, tackling Apex off of me.
Just like that, the skirmish was won.
“Take care of my wife, Ronan. Should you see her again, she is your responsibility now. Take care of Atlanta—and my daughter, too.” Apex glared at me with hatred, then hung his head as the guards hauled him away. “Do not forget what I have done for you today. You owe me.”
“I will take care of them,” I said with a nod. “You have my word.”
As I picked myself up, I watched King Brixta’s guards collect Jaix and three other revolutionaries. I wished that I could feel like the victor in this scenario, but I could not.
I might have won this battle, thanks to Apex’s surrender. A surrender that would likely see him imprisoned for life, if not executed.
But in the war to come, though they may not have known it yet, these rebels and I were on the same side.
I may have succeeded in protecting Alora, but in many senses for me, this battle was really a loss.
“I’m sorry!” Kali cried out as she rushed to me. Her hands were shaking as she pushed Orion’s blaster into my palms. “I should have shot. I know I should have. But Apex was a friend of my father—he was your friend—”
“He still is,” I said quietly. “You were right not to shoot.”
Kali and I went to Orion and Alora. Alora’s hands were covered in Orion’s blood.
“Is he going to be okay?” Alora asked. “He’s bleeding so much…”
“He will live,” I assured her after running my fingers around the wound. “I believe he is merely shocked, is all.”
“This is a bad time to mention that this was my first battle,” Orion grunted through gritted teeth. “Moons. I knew I’d wind up hit someday, but…I didn’t think it would hurt so much.”
The knife in Orion’s shoulder, a specter onzil, was buried deep but had luckily missed anything vital.
Given that I knew Apex had thrown it now…it was likely not luck, come to think. He knew Orion was Nion’s son. As I looked around the feasting hall, it quickly became clear that Jaix, Apex and their gang had only harmed the few males loyal to King Brixta who had chosen to stand and fight in protection of the females instead of fleeing.
Well… and Alora.
It quickly became clear that the only individual they had actually targeted had been her.
“Let me see your cheek, my queen.” I shifted Orion into Kali’s arms and raised my fingertips up to the cut across Alora’s cheekbone. “You have been wounded too.”
“It’s only a scratch,” Alora said dismissively. But already, I was tearing the hem of my tunic so I could press the cloth against her face to stop the blood.
“It was brave of you not to run,” I told her. “Stupid, but brave.”
“There was nowhere to run to.” Alora folded her hand over the strip of my tunic and held it to her cheek. “First, you were fighting Jaix, then Orion was hurt—”
“Your husband fled,” I pointed out. Perhaps cruelly.
King Brixta had abandoned her. Even as Jaix pointed his blaster right at Alora, Brixta had run away.
“Yes,” Alora whispered. “Yes, he did.”
I turned to glare at two of the palace guards as they passed, carrying a wounded third.
“Cowards,” I spat at them. “Did you not just swear your oath to protect the queen?”
“The king’s orders supersede that oath,” one of them said. “He called us to him. Told us to leave her. We came back to fight as soon as the king was safe. What more were we to do?”
The other merely shrugged—and as he did so, the wounded guard
he had been supporting slipped to the floor, clutching his bloody abdomen.
The guard let out a pained groan as he fell forward. His hands slapped against the floor as he caught himself—but it forced him to let go of his stomach.
A sickly, wet plop echoed through the feasting hall as the guard’s guts tumbled to the floor as well.
“Look away,” I ordered Alora. I placed my hands on her, shifting my body in front of hers and moving her away.
But not soon enough.
“Oh.” Alora’s face was suddenly paler than I had ever seen it. Her jaw hung slack. Sweat beaded her brow. “Oh.”
In the next moment, her body slumped forward. I pulled her to my chest, then gathered her up in my arms.
“Is she going to be okay?” Kali asked, looking up from Orion to stare at Alora with concern.
“She has only fainted. This is no place for her right now.” But where was? I wondered as I gathered Alora up in my arms and rose. “I would be more worried about the warrior with his innards currently on the floor.”
I shifted through throngs of nervous-looking harem members and crying children toward the room which King Brixta had escaped to. As I passed with Alora in my arms, each female dropped to her knees and bowed her head in reverence.
“My queen,” one Lunarian whispered, reaching up to touch Alora’s skirt.
“Did they kill her?” a human female asked.
“Merely tired. It has been a long day for her,” I assured the human. “She is safe.”
No thanks to King Brixta or his guards.
I was touched at how quickly Alora had won over the king’s harem. Was it only because they hoped she would draw his attention away from them, I wondered, or had she managed to earn their love in just the few short weeks she had been here? Both were entirely possible, I supposed.
Alora was good and kind. Easy to love.
But I was also concerned over how easily this could have gone wrong. My mothers were supposed to be informing the revolution that Alora was not to be harmed, but word had apparently not reached Jaix or Apex yet. For as long as Alora was a target, how could I truly trust in her safety here?