His To Steal

by Taylor Vaughn

  “No, the announcement was met with much cheer.”

  I wait for him to continue, not sure where this is headed if he does not need me to assist him with quelling the New Terrhans.

  “Our Qel’s distress has to do with the death of her closest friend. Apparently, you are on official record as the warrior who administered her punishment for non-compliance. Our Qel has questions she would like to put to you. Now.”

  My hearts freeze as my brain scrambles to come up with good answer. “Of course,” I eventually reply, keeping my ridges carefully neutral. “I will come to the palace now to answer any questions she may have.”

  “There is no need for you to come to the palace. We have decided to come to you.”

  What? “My Kel, please do not trouble yourselves. I am standing next to my flyer at this very moment and will come to—”

  My words are interrupted by the blast of electronic sounds all interstellar space craft issue to let those below know that it is about to land. I look up to see Kel D’Rek’s large personal spaceship at the same time he says, “No need, my friend, we are already here.”

  My mind rushes as I watch it land. I must board the craft as soon as it sets down, I decide. Intercept them before they step a foot outside.

  “T’Kan…?” a voice asks behind me.

  My chest seizes when I turn to see my treasure, now dressed in her crude sleeve covering, limping toward me.

  “What’s going on?” she asks, looking over my shoulder at the ship landing behind me.

  I can only stare at her, the answering lie stuck under my tongue.

  Then I hear another voice. That of a hu’man female who does not belong to me. “Zinnia? Zinnia? Is that you?” our new Qel asks.

  At the same time Kel D’Rek demands, “My friend…what have you done?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  T’Kan

  What have you done?

  That question rings in my head as I once again find myself headed toward my Kel’s royal office for an audience.

  It has been three weeks since I’ve seen her, touched her, held her. Three weeks since she let our Qel and Kel guide her to the royal spaceship.

  She had said not a word to me as she passed by me with her best friend on one side and my best friend on the other. But when she reached the top of the landing strip, she suddenly whipped around and raised a fist with her center finger pointed upwards.

  I have no idea what that gesture meant, but if the rage burning in her brown eyes was any indication, the translation was not good.

  I had tried to explain to her, make her understand why I had done the things I did. But she refused to listen and the Qel had quickly gotten between us, acting as a buffer, so I could not pull Zin’nia aside to talk.

  I was left with no choice but to watch the flyer take off, carrying away my hopes and dreams of the future, carrying away my hearts. My treasure. And I have not seen her since.

  To make matters worse, though I have been fully reinstated as Xar of our troops, I have banned from the Palace. Not granted an audience with my Kel until this very day.

  To say I have been frantic for news of the female who has so diseased my heart with love is an understatement. But today I will not be denied.

  Instead of waiting peaceably in the antechamber as I did six months ago before my arrest, I stride right past the green secretary.

  The Kel is working on a holoscreen when I arrive, but he quickly swipes a hand to erase it when I burst into his office, my chest heaving with anger.

  “T’Kan, my friend, I hope all has been well with you and our troops are in good order just in case the Kaidorians do attack,” he says, clasping his arms behind his robed back.

  I touch a respectful hand to my ridges. Then: “You must let me talk with her.”

  Kel D’Rek lets out a sighing hiss. “I have spent much time, convincing my mate that this one infraction in an otherwise illustrious career is no reason to, as she puts it, fire you. I remain your friend and, of course, you can keep your post, but the subject of our Qel’s dearest friend is off limits.”

  As Zin’nia once said to me, fuck that. “You suffer from this love disease, too. You know how it feels to love someone so much that it is almost physically painful to be away from them. Yet you banned me from the palace. You kept me away from her. Would you truly call me your friend?”

  Kel D’Rek’s ridges flatten at my aggressive hiss. “I understand your frustration, but you will maintain a respectful tone when talking to your Kel…and you will understand this situation is very complicated.”

  “I have rights!” I assert. “She is pregnant with my babe, if it is a boy….”

  Kel D’Rek raises a hand. “Stop, my friend. Stop.”

  “…if it is a boy, he will be the only heir remaining to the Neixal and Trexos lines!” I remind him. “I would like her compelled to stay here, so that she will be given more than the rudimentary medical care she would receive on New Terrhan.”

  “I understand your anxiety. I did not wish my Ki’Ra to return to New Terrhan upon discovering she was pregnant with our next Tel.”

  I nod at the mention of the boy our Qel will bear for him soon. The Tel, as we call the son of our sovereign. “Good, then you will grant my request,” I insist.

  “Yes, I might have considered such request if the hu’man you stole was pregnant with your son. But according to her medical scans, she carries a daughter.”

  This news hits me like a photon ray to the chest.

  A girl…she is pregnant with a daughter.

  Exactly as I wished that morn three weeks ago at my cabin.

  But instead of buying me another chance to breed my treasure, it has removed any leverage I might have to keep her here.

  “Please, D’Rek,” I say with a quiet hiss, using our Kel’s informal name, so that he understands I am asking, pleading as a friend. “You must let me see her. I must…speak to her. Convince her…”

  His ridges ripple sympathetically but he answers, “It is not that simple.”

  “Just tell me where she is.” I hiss even more aggressively than before, despite my Kel’s earlier warning. “I will go to her right now.”

  “I am afraid that is not possible,” he answers.

  “Why not?” I demand, my hearts beating furiously with the need to find her. “Why is that not possible?”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Zinnia

  Stars zip by all around me, blurring and leaving colorful streaks in their wake. Before I left for my return trip to New Terrhan a few hours ago, Kira told me all about the faster than light drive to distract us from our sadness of having to part again.

  Apparently the vibrant star blurring caused by FTL travel is the reason even the most humble of Xalthurian interstellar conveyances are built with 360 degree windows.

  Not that the promise of the amazing space view had worked for her kind but faint-hearted parents. When Kira had invited them to come live her at the royal palace, Joel and Gloria had taken one look at the Kel’s personal ship, laughed and told her there was no way they were getting on that thing—not after the first space craft they ever stepped foot on crashed on a barren red planet.

  “Now I’m losing you, too,” Kira had told me sadly at the palace field where interstellar spaceships set down and take off. “Make sure you at least enjoy the view.”

  She’s right. I’ll most likely never make this trip again. I should be enjoying the one-time view. Right now, I should be standing at that window now, completely mesmerized..

  But I can’t stop staring at my legs.

  A couple of days ago my best friend Kira helped me climb into something she called a “fix it” machine. It put me to sleep, and when I woke up I had better-bordering-on-bionic vision, blemish-free skin, and most shocking of all, two matching legs.

  I turn my now smooth legs this way and that, using my newly bionic vision to scan for any imperfection at all. But I find not a one.

  I have legs.
That look the same. That work the same. There was a time in my life when, like the Little Mermaid, I would have paid any price for a perfect set of human legs. Up to and including my voice.

  These legs should erase the last seven months. I should be overjoyed, bordering on ecstatic.

  But no matter how hard I try to conjure joy for my windfall, my heart lays like a chunk of iron ore in my chest. Ugly and misshapen.

  It’s been three weeks since the Kel (that’s what they call kings on Xalthuria) set down at T’Kan’s cabin. Three weeks since the alien who turned out to be my best friend’s husband of six months, revealed that everything T’Kan had told me after injecting me with that translation trip was a carefully crafted lie. Three weeks since my first “real” relationships dissolved into a pile of ashes.

  I shake my head at my two perfect legs. Kel D’Rek had also taken Kira from the planet, but he’d ordered Kira’s poor vision corrected before she’d woken up from her sleep disc. T’Kan hadn’t even let me know such technology was available.

  I do not mind your slow speed, Zinnia. It gives me good reason to walk slower, as well and savor our time together. I also like this human hand convention very much.

  He’d said that on our second trip together to the hot spring waterfall. The one where I’d decided to teach him the human custom of holding hands. And my heart had just about burst out of my chest, because I couldn’t believe someone like him could be so into someone like me.

  But now I’m sure those declarations were lies, too, just like the rest of it.

  He wasn’t a sincere and humble soldier, but the lone scion of one of the richest families on Xalthuria, and the Xar or general of the entire Xalthurian army. He didn’t have access to one interstellar flyer—he outright owned four. He’d said he was in “love disease” with me. He’d offered to raise a family with me in that cabin of his. But what he’d really meant was that I was too human and crippled to bring home and claim as his wife.

  But I guess he’d liked fucking me well enough, because he’d kept me at his cabin, helpless and crippled long after Kel D’Rek overturned the Breeding Ceremony guidelines and declared that human women now had the right to choose who they mated with.

  Bitter shame fills my chest as I remember how turned on I’d been by his demand for me to share in his love disease. How much I’d wanted to say yes to starting a family with him beyond the baby he’d put in my womb.

  Thank the moons it was a girl. I don’t know what I’d do if after all of that, I had to give my baby over to the alien who’d abducted me, then had me this close to believing it was true love.

  I’d missed old planet entertainments and books while I was stranded in Xar T’Kan’s cabin. But my penchant for romantic comedies and dramas—that was done now.

  My lifelong devotion to romantic books and entertainments is probably why I ended up so gullible. First I’d let Phil trick me at the Harvest Festival. Then I’d wanted to believe T’Kan loved me so bad, I hadn’t been able to see past all his lies. When I get back to New Terrhan, no more romcoms. From now on it’s only going to be dark comedies, slasher movies, and twisted dramas for me.

  “I have a proposal. Kill the pilot and the human who won’t stop looking at her legs. Then we can run off together to the Amnesty Station.”

  Wow…

  Since getting my translation chip, I’ve learned that it’s nearly impossible to distinguish which Xalthurian is speaking without looking at them directly. The translator renders their clicks and hisses as an aggressive monotone, which makes them all sound pretty much the same, at least to human ears.

  But it’s easy to guess who’s pitching my and the pilot’s death. There’s only two other people in the back of the transport ship with me. A purple Xalthurian soldier with a photon gun strapped across his chest and the Xalthurian female prisoner. N’Maryah—T’Kan’s recently convicted cousin.

  I doubt the soldier who’s been charged with escorting us back to New Terrhan, would decide on a sudden whim to rebel against his orders. So that leaves N’Maryah, the Xalthurian female, who tried to enslave Kira to the Kaidorians. The one leaned forward in her seat opposite the soldier with her head tilted in the universal angle of “I’m flirting with you.”

  N’Maryah is outrageously gorgeous. With delicate features, moonstone skin and a silky waterfall of white hair that makes Kira’s husband’s own glorious white locks look like they don’t know jack about conditioner.

  She possesses the kind of mesmerizing beauty I’d only seen in old planet entertainments. And she honestly seems to think she can flirt her way out of anything. Can she flirt her way out of anything?

  I bring a protective hand up to my belly, worried that this guard just might agree to her crazy plan.

  But then he says, “I do not believe my mate would like that. He is piloting the ship, and would be gravely disappointed if I ran off with the treasonous female who had done such vile things to our Qel.”

  I smother a snort of laughter as that flirtatious look falls right off the beautiful alien’s face. Yes, N’Maryah had probably flirted her way out of a lot of situations. But not this one, apparently.

  She recovers with the haughtiness of a female who really thought she was going to be named the planet’s Qel before Kira came along. “I cannot believe any true Xalthurian would be willing to call that human his Qel.”

  This time the soldier ignores her, refocusing his attention on the star show going on outside the ship’s 360 degree window.

  “Approaching New Terrhan!” an overhead voice clicks and hisses, just as my small red planet appears in the distance.

  My eyes widen at the sight. I’ve never seen New Terrhan from anywhere but on the red dirt ground. It’s beautiful, even if it looks like a tiny red marble in comparison to the much larger Xalthuria with its tapestry of colors from every spectrum.

  It’s my tiny red marble. A rush of fondness floods my heart as we close in.

  However, my sense of homecoming is short-lived. N’Maryah suddenly flies at the soldier, choosing that moment to go in for the kill. Literally.

  She’s quick, I have to give that to her. So quick she almost gets to the photon gun strapped across the soldier’s chest. But not quite. He knocks her hands away and shoves her back before she can disarm him.

  Which is why by the time we land, N'Maryah has some new jewelry on her wrists. Two golden cuffs that completely immobilize her, so that she can’t move anything but her mouth and face.

  For a few minutes, I think the soldier walking out of the ship with a hissing N’Maryah slung over his shoulder like a feed sack will be the craziest thing about our arrival. But then the landing strip door descends and the crowd of humans appear.

  From the looks of it, every single settler in our village has come to greet the ship. They’re all chanting things like “TRAITOR!” and “MURDERER!” and “BITCH!” looking much like the angry mobs I’ve only seen in old planet entertainments.

  The noise is almost deafening, and I shake my head in confusion at the sight of them so riled up. Our High Leader, Henry Huang, always makes these ominous speeches about how we had to remain as subdued as possible, so as not to attract any unwanted attention before the aliens land. Kira used to call it his “slaves betta stay docile” speech.

  But this isn’t docile at all. What happened? Why would Jin-Hu’s father let it get this bad?

  “Quiet down! Quiet down!” a familiar voice yells out.

  Is that…? No, it couldn’t be. But yes, it is. I look up to see Dan, standing on a redwood dais, and wearing Henry’s bark cloth sash.

  Why is my brother wearing the High Leader’s sash? And standing on a dais that definitely wasn’t there when I left?

  “Bring her forward,” Dan calls out, like the Xalthurian soldier is under his command.

  The soldier looks back at him blankly.

  And the upside down N’Maryah lets out an annoyed hiss. “Essh! This idiot doesn’t have a translator chip! Their High Leader is asking
that you set me down in front of him. He probably wants to get a better look at me. You will come, too, Onyx Girl, and serve as my translator.”

  High Leader…Onyx girl…she’s talking about Dan and me respectively, I realize. And I think…oh moons…I think she might be right about Dan.

  But where is Henry? And even more disturbingly, how had my brother garnered enough power in the two weeks since Kira and Kel D’Rek concluded their diplomatic visit to be named High Leader.

  The angry mob parts for us but continue to yell and shake their fists at N’Maryah as the soldier carries her through. Not knowing what else to do, I follow after them, totally confused. This is not the New Terrhan I left, and this frothing at the mouth crowd bears little resemblance to the peaceful people I remember.

  N’Maryah appears a lot more unfazed than me, though. She doesn’t acknowledge the existence of the angry mob surrounding us, even after the guard set her down and takes off her immobilization cuffs.

  “Wait, where are you going?” I demand when he turns to leave, like his job here is done. “Look at this crowd! You can’t just leave her here with me!”

  But apparently, he can. He doesn’t understand me or the jeering crowd, and he appears way more concerned with getting back to the ship than keeping the prisoner who tried to disarm him safe from the angry mob.

  The guard disappears into the transport ship and it lifts off, like it’s racing back to Xalthuria for dinner. Only then does Dan motions at the crowd to quiet down. And to my surprise, they do, becoming as quiet and docile as they use to when Henry was the one calling out orders.

  Dan glances at me, but only for a few dismissive seconds, before casting his light brown gaze to N’Maryah. “You must be, Mariah, the Xalthurian female who tried to murder one of the most beloved members of our community. We were told of your coming.”

  I narrow my eyes. Beloved? Dan hated Kira, and while I agree kidnapping and gifting my best friend to the savage Kaidorians was criminal, it wasn’t murder.