“Yes, I am coming with you, el’kota.” She squeezed harder and forced herself to meet his golden stare. Eye to eye, they warred for dominance. She finally won. He even let her ride him this time, holding out until she came with a wild scream, head thrown back and lost in passion. Later, much later, the familiar argument began again, just where they had left off. Vadyn would dictate, and Cayla would obey. She snorted vehemently. Not bloody likely. This time, she knew he no longer unconsciously compared her to her mother. She had been successful in establishing her own identity, different in every way from her mother’s. But he wanted her to stay on Kasara where she would be relatively safe, protected. Well, she had other ideas. “If I am truly your mate, I’ll remain at your side.” He growled back at her.
“I am warlord, and I say you stay.”
With an effort, she made herself smile, a sly little lifting of her lips. “I am the warlord’s mate. Where he goes, I go.” Again, she stroked his flaccid sex between her palms. And, immediately he lengthened, but he shook his head at her and pulled back, holding her wrists. He chuckled softly.
“Now I know how your father felt when he tried to reason with your mother.” He jerked her close, holding her in a loose hug. In the faint moonlight, she could see that he still scowled, so she softly traced the faint wrinkle between his eyes with the tip of her finger. Under her soothing fingertips, the frown lines on his forehead eased. He tightened his arms around her. Normally she would have felt trapped, but, tonight, she snuggled into his chest so close her words were muffled. His warm smell soothed her. Tonight, he seemed truly hers, but self-doubts still plagued her. Her thoughts kept jumping from one subject to another. Vadyn. Her mother. Her father. Her brother.
“Mother never knew she was beautiful, did she?” Vadyn stiffened, but, after a moment, he relaxed, purring carefully neutral, his inner thoughts effectively hidden from her.
“No, little one, she didn’t. I guess, like the rest of us, on self-examination, we find the flaws first, overlooking the beauty.” Well, that was certainly non-committal. But she was still proud of herself for trying to pry loose his thoughts. Lately, she had even grown brave enough to wander more and more in his memories, even those he held of her mother. It was so strange to find out that the person who always seemed so self-assured and confident in your youth had experienced the same fears and doubts that plagued you. Her mother had been beautiful but obviously never felt it from what she had discovered through the mind-link. Overlapping front teeth had annoyed her, along with all those spotted freckles across her nose. She had felt plain and homely, only beautiful when Logan made love to her. She sighed at her mother’s misconception but prowled further in Vadyn’s memories. How strange it was to know your mother’s love for your own father. Distressingly intimate. Incestual. Forbidden. But despite knowing she shouldn’t delve so deeply, she felt drawn to her mother’s memories. Logan’s love made Elizabeth feel beautiful, but she never gave it a thought outside of the bedroom. She thought Logan was the most handsome man in the world—and later in the universe. No one compared to Logan, not even Kasara’s warlord. Cayla suppressed a shudder, but that didn’t stop the thoughts that continually tormented her. This mind-link was troublesome to say the least. Sometimes one had to sort through the trash and toss it out. Tonight, she gladly accepted Vadyn’s thoughts just as he knew hers, but in comparison to the warlord’s vast knowledge, she knew next to nothing. Not how to run a country, how to win the affection of their people, or most of all, how to show her growing affection for this male who had made her so sexually happy. She was certainly not the same awkward, ugly duckling she had been before Vadyn. But she still felt lacking. A warm hand stroked down her back, and she arched into his touch as his fingers with their sharp talons traced the bones of her spine. She shivered.
“Do not take on so, love. You are beautiful.” Vadyn kissed the top of her head, expelling his warm breath onto her scalp. Gods, he was there with her and her doubts! Was nothing private? But this time instead of withdrawing, she felt his sincerity surface, warm her with its truth. Some of her tension drained away. Sometimes, she was finding it easier to accept his strange invasion into her thoughts. Easier to accept a lot of truths. Easier to admit some. But, not all.
“Do you really think so?” She twisted her face up to his. The soft down of velvet surrounded his lips, invited her with its golden glow, so she nipped the corner of his mouth then ran her tongue over his upper lip. Tremors rushed down the length of his long body. Strange that she could affect such a strong warrior so. She felt rather pleased. Vadyn gave her a long look before answering carefully.
“I know you are beautiful. I do not have to think it.” His purr deepened over each word, and he drew her closer into the warmth of his arms. Such strong arms. Another tremor went through him, and she relished the power she held over him—a mighty warlord who trembled beneath her touch. Her throat felt tight against her words.
“How long have you known you lo—cared for me?” Her voice sounded shaky to her ears. Funny how she stumbled over the words.
“I’ve known that I’ve loved you for a long time.” He kissed her forehead and tucked her head into his shoulder, obviously wanting to sleep instead of talk. He probably thought to distract her about Dara V. She persisted.
“How long have you known that I—I cared for you?” She drew back and searched his glowing eyes; her breath held. He stared back at her intently as if seeking a deeper truth. Finally he smiled faintly and again tucked her close. She couldn’t help feeling that she had disappointed him somehow.
“I think I knew of your affection for years. Even your mother knew. She once warned me against hurting you, but I never believed it more than just childish infatuation until that day.” For a few moments, they both relived that awful day at Omajar Oasis. Grief flowed and shared, the burden lightened. Her voice sounded stronger than she felt.
“Did you really care so much for me before that day?” She swallowed against the lump that still rested in her throat and shied away from thinking too deeply about love and its loss. She ran her hands possessively over his chest. Velvet rippled and dipped over the warm definition of his sleek body. Perhaps she could learn to accept him and his strange ways someday. For certain, she wasn’t brave enough yet to admit to herself, let alone say, how much she cared. He was more courageous, but then, he always was. He growled softly.
“I think that I have been in love with you since the day I first held your baby softness in my hands.” His faint sigh echoed in their room’s stillness. “I just never knew how much until the day we lost them.”
“I think they would have been happy for us.”
“Yes, I feel that they would have.” Once again, Vadyn let her lead into the arousal that was stirring them. He may have still felt some of her doubts, but they had greatly lessened. She didn’t think that he knew the depths of her feelings—yet. She wasn’t even sure of them, but they had time.
After their passion burned to fulfillment, they lay, sweating in the afternoon’s late heat, resting like spoons. She curved against Vadyn’s protecting strength, and, for once, she slept secure against him. She never knew that his dreams were disturbed with the savage images of Xeetag reptiles.
VADYN DIDN’T TAKE an entire Kasar regiment with them to Dara V. Instead, he ordered just his personal lieutenants to accompany them. The towering four were always his best warriors, at least that was usually the case. Reluctantly, he had substituted the veteran Batla into Tallas’s absence. The old warrior was glad to be back on staff and strutted about with importance. From one of the oldest surviving warrior clans, Batla hadn’t enjoyed retirement. Due to their fierce, competitive natures, most warriors didn’t make it to retirement’s peacefulness. And Batla had been worse than most. Quiet days were not to his likening. As one from the old regime of warring clans, he had chaffed under the el’kota’s insistent orders for peace. Vadyn had been glad to se
e him gone and was now more than a little apprehensive at bringing him back, but he needed a fourth. Watching the old, grizzled guard strut and snarl at the crowds, Vadyn mused that, perhaps on Dara V, Batla would prove his usefulness after all. The teeming masses drew back from the old one’s yellow-fanged snarls and quickly let their group pass.
Vadyn was proud of how all of his golden lieutenants strode majestically through the swarming, odorous crowd, clearing a path with their broad shoulders. Dara V’s space-port was jam-packed with the galaxy’s representatives and traders. Foreign dignitaries abounded with their own personal guards jousting among the general crowd. Foot travel was difficult and slow in the heavy atmosphere. But Kasara’s warriors’ bold, hard stares along with their lofty, wide shoulders created a protective cage around Vadyn who had Cayla pulled against his side. The massive broad-shouldered guards kept curious gawkers away, but the brilliant-colored, flowing silks that he insisted all of them wear drew just the attention he had hoped.
The vivid red, gold, purple, and green robes alerted the Alliance Council of their arrival, which should assure their safety. Still, he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling of impending danger that tugged at him. Cayla’s doom-filled anxiety became his own prod of a different nature. Something was going to happen. Something bad.
He had been caught unprepared on Kasara, distracted by the gaiety of Cayla’s birth celebration. And that distraction had cost him the lives of her parents. Never again would he be so lax. Under the colorful, loose robes, his guards wore full battle gear and carried a complete armament of weapons. But once in the Council chambers, the members would be unarmed. That meant Cayla would be undefended if he took her with him—unprotected, that is, except for his anger. And, the stars help anyone who threatened her!
Even if he didn’t take her to the Council, he knew she still would be safe with his lieutenants. But the premonition of danger made him hesitant to be separated from her, and he fervently wished he had left her on Kasara. Damnation! His anger over the deaths of his friends, barely checked, would surely spill if anyone offended him or Cayla. And that ungoverned rage would destroy the diplomatic image he had worked so hard to perfect over the years. He watched the crowd through lowered lashes, keeping his face deceptively calm, hiding his agitation. In the jostling mob, he could not see even one ugly, green Xeetag let alone three. Where were they? Surely, they would answer the charges he had sent to the Council. They had been given time to refute them. The damned reptiles knew a meeting had been called. He had wasted nearly two months hunting evidence to convince the Alliance of the Xeetag’s guilt, but now he knew he was doomed to failure. No physical evidence existed beyond the armament taken from the two dead Xeetag—just the death of the Slytreen outlaw and his friends. What was to stop the Xeetag representatives from saying that the trio went rogue, joining the Slytreen and acting without the knowledge of the other Xeetag?
If he could prove the Xeetag had attacked another Alliance member with their leaders’ knowledge, they would be exiled from the Alliance’s protection. And all remaining Alliance members would become their enemies. And that would leave them open to his retaliation. Revenge would be sweet, indeed. But without better physical evidence, it was his word against the Xeetag leaders. Vadyn knew he wouldn’t succeed, but if he could plant sufficient suspicion, the Xeetag would be watched. He snarled. Where were those reptiles?
THREE LONG-SNOUTS turned. Three pair of reptilian-slit eyes watched in unison as the colorful group of Kasar warriors pushed through the crowd. From their hidden vantage point, high above the masses in a sheltered stone alcove, the Xeetag trio grunted in joint satisfaction. Their object had indeed taken the bait. The trap was tightening.
Hisses and snarls snapped from dripping long jaws as Slavortay, the trio’s commander, reported telepathically to the Supreme Ruler, Turathoom. The two guards, nothing more than drones, lent their weak mental powers, their eyes glazing with effort as Slavortay sent the link over the great distance to Dalhum, the Xeetag home.
Dalhum was a desert world that had been theirs for hundreds of years. The original inhabitants were long forgotten, killed off by the ancestors of the Xeetag. Just as now, Dalhum threatened to kill the Xeetag. It seemed as if Nature wanted her revenge at long last. They had to find another home. The desert world of Kasara would do. Slavortay sent his message.
“He isss here, Oh Mighty One.”
“How many with him?”
“Only four weak guardsss and a frail human female.”
“Bring them all.” There came a deliberate pause, and then a threat echoed. “Ssslavortay—no mistakesss thisss time. I want them alive.”
“Yesss, Your Royal Holynessss. I hear and obey.” Slavortay shivered and severed the mental connection with thanksgiving that Turathoom hadn’t yet ordered his death over his first trio’s mistake made with the humans killed on Kasara. After inadvertently stumbling over them while on a scouting mission, the humans were supposed to have been taken as hostages. They had been killed instead. Luckily that mistake had turned into a lure for Kasara’s ruler.
But when notified of the deaths, the unfortunate surviving Xeetag who reported the events on Kasara lost his head to Turathoom’s angry snap. Her time of fertilization was near, and any who displeased her risked their lives. As senior commander, Slavortay was responsible for his troops’ safety. He was also next in line to fertilize the queen’s eggs, not quite the honor she supposed, since it meant his death in the end.
He glanced with dispassion at the drained guards who fell at his feet in mental exhaustion. The dumb drones would take the rest of the day to recover, so the trio would be lucky to make the Council meeting on time. But Slavortay could not attend without the other two. He needed them for joint mental strength.
Angry at their weakness, he kicked their thick legs and tails out of his path as he thumped across the stone alcove, backing into the shadows. His eyes never left the Kasar group, watching them cross the crowded thoroughfare.
“Sssoon,” he hissed under his breath. “Sssoon, weaklingsss you will die ssso that the mighty Xeetag may live.”
IN DARA V’S spaceport’s hazy domed light, Cayla noted the short golden fur standing up on all the warriors’ massive forearms, Vadyn’s included. They were so much like the great hunting cats of Belieria when they sensed danger. And damned if their nervous jitters didn’t transmit to her. If they possessed tails, she was sure they would be twitching. But she admitted that the air held a wrongness factor, a weird expectancy. She gripped Vadyn’s clenched fist with a tighter squeeze. He smiled faintly, and his shoulders visibly relaxed. She even felt his mental effort at calm. His thin gesture was no more than a stretching of his lips, but the tips of his fangs showed, meaning that he wasn’t as unaffected as he wanted the Council members to believe. Or her, either. He cupped her elbow and steered her through the churning crowd. To questioning eyes, they were just another well-dressed couple on holiday with their royal guards. He ruined that thought with his sharp warning. Enjoy yourself, Cayla, but remember what you are and why we are here. He even risked a thin mind touch with her. She stiffened and gave him a hesitant nod, irritated that he thought she needed reminding of responsibilities as Kasara’s ly’teal, but she didn’t pull away. She was much too excited and much too distracted to feel threatened by his intrusion. Although she tried to maintain a bland, regal countenance, her jaw dropped open several times while they passed among the strange display of walking abnormalities. Never had she seen such creatures as the ones who crossed within feet of her view between the towering guards. Feathers, fur, fangs, and flowers adorned bodies in varying colors, varieties . . . and aromas. Whew!
One creature seemed as bare as a newborn babe, totally defenseless—she thought. Then Vadyn informed her that it could spit acid venom several feet, killing an enemy instantly. Disgustingly deceptive. Also disgustingly fragrant. The sour odors from unwashed bodies as well as nat
ural body smells assaulted her on a scale that ran from light and floral to heavy with heated musk. All her senses seemed heightened by the crowds. Since former enemies now crowded together by means of their treaties, a metallic smell of tense anxiety and even fear lingered over the masses. It left a funny taste in her mouth, and a difficult bout of unusual nausea assailed her before her stomach settled, adapting to the odors. Her studies on Kasara had never prepared her for actually meeting the unique races that made up their known galaxy. And she hated admitting it, but only her mental link with Vadyn kept her from making a complete fool of herself. As if he knew, he tightened his grip on her elbow, his talons half-extended. She glanced up at him, knowing her enthusiasm didn’t lighten his mood. A frown wrinkled his forehead. His restless gaze never stopped scanning the crowd. His vague unease transmitted to her, and she moved closer, searching the crowd through her own narrowed vision. What did he sense? Shadows hid in too many narrow alleys. Someone watched them; even she felt the chill of a hidden, malevolent stare. She shivered. A growl escaped Vadyn, then he bumped the shoulder of his nearest warrior. The slight movement would seem an accident but for the warlord’s subtle hand movement. The tour was finished—the lieutenants were to guide them to their quarters.
Tyrei, taking Tallas’s old position as Vadyn’s first lieutenant despite Batla’s re-enlistment, gave another slight hand twitch to the other Kasar guards, the twins. All now moved with new purpose through the crowds. Upon reaching their sector of the assigned dignitaries’ stone towers, Tyrei ordered a quiet search of their rooms. The lieutenants and Vadyn had been through this with every visit. No pictures, no artwork, no tapestries adorned the slate stone walls. Only the barest of serviceable furniture decorated the bland rooms. A variety of different species stayed there from time to time—too many to placate with fineries. But several scattered white fleece rugs did cover the cold granite floor, though they added their meager warmth almost as an afterthought. For this visit, the Kasars’ rooms were on the third floor of the Council tower. They should be relatively safe.
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