Dorran ran up to me. “Hi Aunty Sri,” he said jumping up to my height. He pointed at my pocket. “Can I have a pop?”
“Of course.”
The rest clamored around, but I noticed now, so very carefully so as not to jostle me with their extraordinary strength. They had been learning.
“I want a pop!”
“Aunty Sri, your breath stinks bad!”
“You went first last time!”
“What about me? I never get to be first!”
I distributed more pops and hugs and sent them running off back into the field.
“So you’re staying here then.”
Red nodded her head; her eyes fixed on the children. I followed her gaze. “You know that Kanona has plans,” I said, watching as Dorran lifted a massive boulder that was at least three times his size and just as heavy, and start running with it. They were bred to be super-soldiers, and now they would be raised in House Stargazer. Their choices would be limited.
“She can try to have plans,” Red said with clenched fists. “It’s why I have to stay.”
I looked over at the children, laughing at bubbles in the sunlight. A blade twisted in me invisibly.
“I’m not going to let myself get bogged down too much by obsessing about the future or the past,” she said, glancing at my guard. “Life is fragile. I’m going to enjoy what I can, while I can.”
I knew that all too well.
“I’m going to go see if I can find another book to read.”
“Good luck. Don’t forget, you’re expected at the Hospitality Lunch.”
I cursed. “Of course it would be today, of all days.”
I’d just have to keep my mouth shut and make sure I wasn’t noticed. That couldn’t be that hard, would it?
My Dearest Beloved Daughter,
* * *
Is it so terrible that a father wishes to see his daughter happily wed? I will take care of everything.
* * *
I put down the screen without reading the rest of the letter.
I sat on the ends of a U-shaped table up on a dais in a room that was most definitely a throne room, even though it was called “The Hall of Auspicious Welcome,” or some other flowery thing. Kai and Kanona sat in the middle, while assorted courtiers drifted throughout in the room. Twice a week, it was the Stargazer custom to hold an open lunch, where everyone could “enjoy Stargazer hospitality.” The table was laden with the natural bounty of their estate: ripe fresh fruits and vegetables in all the colors of the rainbow and at least twelve species of avians, roasted, stewed, and poached with exotic spices from distant planets along with bizarre-looking sea creatures that everyone claimed tasted better than they looked.
It was a display of wealth, power, and extravagance, in an audience for people to air their grievances. As always, guests were garbed in gorgeous embroidered flowing floor-length robes of fire, azure, jade, dawn, and a dozen other hues, as if they were a collection of carnivorous flowers.
* * *
I glanced at the letter again.
* * *
My Dearest Beloved Daughter,
* * *
I could hear my brother Ral’s voice in my head, noting the use of the possessive, the lack of title. My father was still undeterred in his quest to use me as a political pawn.
I suppose I should be flattered. My father had been a dictator for most of his life and expected everyone to jump when he grunted. Ral had years of learning to handle him.
I hadn’t.
The injection site in my forearm itched, reminding me of the depths to which my father would go to get his way.
I hadn’t been born in the court, and I didn’t have the political survival skills. More importantly, he would have taken my child.
Not that it mattered now.
Three figures in Nightclaw colors stood in the center of the room. Two men, one woman, the emissaries who had brought me the letter. The dense light-absorbing fabric of their uniform signaled synth-armor, a clear sign that they came prepared to fight if necessary.
“The Lady Seria is a guest, free to come and go as she pleases,” said Kanona.
The taller man stepped toward me. Another handsome face, but one that had an air of familiarity. The guards announced him as a Lord Aralon, so he was probably another random cousin of mine. He turned to me. “Your father misses you and wants you to come home.”
I made myself lean forward, to show I wasn’t afraid. “Alzar-4 is not home.”
Aralon lowered his hand to his side.
To say the muscles were tense was like saying a tiger had stripes. And as if to show just how completely unprepared I was for this world, my innate reaction was to laugh.
Aralon looked at Kai. “It is not unprecedented for a House to deny an Alpha the right to his progeny. But consider if you would, what happened the last time.”
The room went silent.
The Evermore War.
This wasn’t happening. This was the cusp of insanity.
I clutched the arm of my chair, trying to stifle a giggle. Nightclaw couldn’t be threatening to restart a five hundred years long war over me.
Kanona glanced nonchalantly at her fingernails. Kai looked as if he were bored. “The Lady Seria is a guest, free to come and go as she pleases.” Kanona looked at the men, a cold smile spreading across her face. “But unfortunately you wolves are not guests.”
A whine of smart weapons rang through the air from the Stargazer guards and the Nightclaw messengers.
“Wait!” I said, standing up. They all looked at me. “My father wishes me to return because he wants to marry me off. Well, you can go and tell him the question is moot. Because I am getting married, but to a man of my choosing.”
Lord Aralon looked perplexed. He had not expected this response.
“To…whom?”
Kai leaned forward and smiled with white teeth. “To me.”
* * *
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Book List
The Space Shifter Chronicles
* * *
NOVELS
Wanted by the Werewolf Prince
Taken by the Tigerlord
Desired by the Dragon King (Spring 2018)
* * *
SHORT STORIES
The Boy Who Came Back a Wolf
The Lady and the Tigershifter
In Search of Skye (January 2018)
About the Author
Kara Lockharte is the author of the Space Shifters Chronicles. She loves writing romances with sexy alpha shifters and the strong heroines who can't resist them.
She lives on Planet Earth and LOVES connecting with readers!
www.karalockharte.com
[email protected]
Copyright © 2017 by Smartia Publishing
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Developmental Editing by Jodi Henley
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Proofreading by Dana Dierkes
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The Lady and the Tigershifter: Space Shifters Chronicles Christmas Page 7