“Please, enter.” Rurik’s hoarse voice preceded her father’s entrance.
Nadiah turned, and seeing her father, raced into his arms.
“Oh, gods, Nadiah. You’re safe now, pumpkin. Safe and sound. Daddy has you.”
She clung to her father’s towering, dark presence for a moment, then stepped back. She looked over at Rurik. His face was frozen, impassive. A nerve ticked on the side of his jaw. What was he thinking? The two men equaled each other in stature and strength, one a dark demon and the other a pale angel.
Her father turned to Rurik.
“Prince Rurik, I want to thank you sincerely for the rescue of my daughter from those rogue kidnappers. I’m sure she is safe and whole today due to your fortunate presence on the ship. And I thank you for ending your undercover operation early to save any further danger to her.”
“How did you know I was undercover…never mind. Captain Galen, it was my pleasure to rescue her. And there is an additional important matter on which I’d like to speak to you, regarding Nadiah.”
Her father stiffened next to Nadiah and tugged her tight against his side. He growled and suddenly seemed to be holding in his temper with the shakiest of restraints.
“I won’t agree to it, Rurik.”
“Daddy?” Nadiah looked up at her father, puzzled. She could only imagine what information he’d suddenly picked up from someone’s thoughts, possibly Rurik’s.
Her father looked down at her with a fierce, inquisitive expression. Then she guessed that he knew. She felt the tickling in her mind of his searching. She hated when he tried to snoop through her mind. He wasn’t supposed to do that. She wasn’t an easy target, of course. Her half-human mind usually managed to shut him out. But sometimes she broadcasted her thoughts, like when she was stressed. Still, her mother was going to punish him when Nadiah told on him. The grimace on his face told her he’d caught that thought too. She’d wanted him to.
But at the moment, her mother was not here. She stared back at him defiantly. He probably knew everything anyway, since he’ll have read Rurik’s or Krat’s minds before he even boarded the warship. Then her dad actually sniffed her and she flushed with embarrassment. He’d recognize the mating scent because it was undeniably strong now in the presence of her lover. He stroked her cheek paternally.
“I’m not angry with you, pumpkin. You’re an innocent. You’ll always be my baby girl.”
Nadiah groaned and rolled her eyes. It just wasn’t fair, being the daughter of a powerful psychic.
She pushed away from her father.
“Well, I for one, who cannot read minds, would like to hear Rurik out.”
She knew her chin trembled slightly as she stuck it out challengingly towards Rurik.
Rurik stood ramrod straight and proud. He looked directly at her, and his gaze softened with affection.
“I wish to be bound to Nadiah.”
Nadiah felt her chest swell with joy. Her father’s next words wilted it.
“That’s a problem. Several impediments, I believe. First, I understand that you are already currently betrothed to someone else on this ship named Beatrice and the nuptials are set to take place in less than two weeks during your planet’s Julan celebration.”
Rurik’s cheeks reddened in discomfort. He was so big and strong, it was hard to remember that he was also much younger than her father and therefore less experienced. Realizing that his thoughts were likely open to his prospective father-in-law had to be off-putting as well.
“Captain Galen, I have just been cleared from the medical center after two days of being unconscious and have not had a chance to address that concern. It was next on my agenda, when you hailed our ship.”
Nadiah tried not to, but she pictured what she and Rurik had been doing when her father hailed the ship.
Nadiah’s father clasped his hand possessively over her wrist and scowled at Rurik.
“I don’t believe it was the immediate thing on your agenda, but perhaps it was something you planned to address eventually. Let me make myself clear, Rurik. I am willing—barely—to overlook some aspects of my daughter’s rescue, but I do not like when someone toys with her heart. Perhaps, someday, when you are not betrothed to another female, you may come calling. You’ll find us in the A’Tron sector, on the planet Illysia. Good day.”
With that parting shot, Nadiah was unceremoniously hauled away towards the door by her father. She stumbled trying to keep up. She tugged on his hand.
“Daddy! Stop!”
“No, don’t leave,” Rurik called, striding after them, his entourage following them all down the hall towards the docking level where her father’s hopper must be waiting.
She couldn’t imagine never seeing Rurik again. She turned to look behind her and Rurik reached out and caught her other wrist. She was suddenly stretched between the two men. Her father looked back, furious, and stopped.
“Unhand her, now, or I’ll make you do it. I’ll make you forget you even met her. You don’t want to see this escalate into a diplomatic disaster, so I suggest you go clean up your house before you think about any kind of life with Nadiah. Do not test the limits of my patience or my powers.”
Rurik did not let go of her wrist. Nadiah’s eyes widened as she feared that her father was about to cross a boundary she’d never seen. He could enter someone’s mind stealthily and painlessly or he could rip through it like a violent Kraur Storm. She’d heard stories whispered of the destruction he could wreak on a person’s memories, on their sanity. She could feel his anger towards Rurik radiating off his body.
“No,” she cried. “Daddy, don’t do it.” If her father entered into Rurik’s mind, she didn’t think she’d ever forgive him that violation.
“I believe I love her.”
Nadiah turned to stare at Rurik in astonishment.
“That is irrelevant—” her father began.
“I believe I love you, too,” Nadiah whispered.
“Ah, damn, Nadiah,” her father groaned, some of his anger waning. “Never admit something like in front of other people. And, sweetheart, you can’t know that after a day or two. You were together under duress. That’s not real life.”
“I wish to marry Nadiah immediately. She may be carrying a royal baby in her womb even now as we speak.”
Everyone around them gasped, especially Lady Beatrice who had just stepped forward out of the crowd to witness the interchange.
“Rurik,” she called to him, her voice ice cold. “Surely you are mistaken and misguided. The conditions of your entrapment must have clouded your memory.”
Rurik turned briefly to her. “I apologize for the circumstances under which you had to hear of the termination of our betrothal, but I tried to tell you I would speak to you in the morning.”
Rurik’s intended—make that ex-intended—covered her mouth, threw a hateful glare at Nadiah and hurried away. If Nadiah stayed, she’d probably have an enemy to deal with from the get-go.
Nadiah tugged on her father’s hand. “Can we please go somewhere private to finish this conversation?”
Her father turned back to Rurik.
“Lady Beatrice is not the primary reason Nadiah is not staying here.”
Rurik stepped closer to her and her father, his grip tightening on her wrist.
“What is your true reason for refusing my offer? I know I’m young but I’m wealthy, titled, and completely capable of caring for and protecting Nadiah from any harm.”
“What kind of man cheats on his intended with an innocent? Your position means nothing to me. It’s your integrity that matters. It would appear that you have none.”
Rurik drew himself up to his full height and took another step towards her father. Nadiah waited, holding her breath, trapped between the two huge, powerful men.
“I did not intend to dishonor Lady Beatrice. I tried to be honorable, but…Captain Galen, I could not deny my response to Nadiah’s mating call. I knew she was my destiny the moment she was placed i
n that cell with me.”
Nadiah’s father stared at Rurik, studying the younger man’s face.
“Let me read your full mind, including your unconscious thoughts.”
“No, Daddy!” She was accustomed to her father’s methods of making mental visits without invitation. But doing it to Rurik, it was an insult. Rurik was a member of the royal family. To demand access to even the thoughts Rurik was yet unaware?
“Go ahead and try,” Rurik spoke. “I have nothing to hide.”
Nadiah doubted that truth. Surely nothing could be more embarrassing than one’s father reviewing the memories and desires of a loving-making session between his child and her lover.
“Daddy. If you do this, if you insist on entering Rurik’s mind, then I am never speaking to you again.”
“I must vet his honest intentions, even the ones he is blind to seeing.”
She stamped her foot. Childish? She didn’t care.
“I will not have my father witnessing private moments and thoughts with the man I love!”
Her father finally seemed to realize the potentially embarrassing nature of what he’d find in Rurik’s mind and sighed, acknowledging her concerns.
“Okay. You can have your way. But you will not go to his bed again until you are bound though.”
Happiness flooded Nadiah’s whole being.
“We will bind as soon as possible,” Rurik announced.
Nadiah’s father smiled like a cat who’d just cornered a mouse. “Nadiah, your mother will never forgive us.”
She frowned. “For what?”
“For missing your binding ceremony.”
Nadiah shook her head. “I’m not binding to Rurik today.”
Rurik caught hold of her shoulders and turned her to face him. His face darkened in frustration.
“And why not?”
“Because, we’re just getting to know each other?” She realized her confidence sounded strained and uncertain as she also noticed all the people standing behind the prince.
“To a private room,” her father agreed. People hustled out of the way and the Nadiah was tugged down the hallway by both her long-legged father and Rurik.
***
“Pumpkin. Rurik is correct. You might be carrying his child, a future member of the Anskarian Royal family. You can’t refuse his suit.”
“Five clicks ago you were dragging me away off this ship and now you’re throwing me into Rurik’s arms?”
“I saw the logic of his claim on you.”
“Ooof! I wish Mother was here.” Nadiah stomped to the other side of the room, away from both her father and Rurik. Rurik was relaxed now, leaning against his command desk, watching the interplay between father and daughter. Clearly he thought that two men against one woman was sufficient to settle the deal.
“I am not marrying anyone today.” The issue with Lady Beatrice still bothered her. Would his people even accept her? A runt among Amazons. Sex was one thing, a life-long commitment another. Plus, Rurik just told her father that it had been her mating urges that had caused him to couple with her. What if this was all just physical? What if it went away when her mating urge died down, once she was truly pregnant?
“Tomorrow then,” Rurik interjected. She glared at him.
“I suppose you would like your mother here?” Her father sighed.
“Yes, but it’s not that…ugh…I may not even be carrying Rurik’s child. We can run the test in medical.” At the way her body was on edge around Rurik, she didn’t seem to be pregnant yet. The urges were supposed to be relieved once conception happened.
Her father smiled grimly at her. “If you stay on this ship, you will be pregnant soon enough. You must mate. The sooner, the better.”
Rurik crossed his arms and grinned. Clearly, he liked the implications of that prediction.
Her father threw a dark look Rurik’s way, and the prince shifted his face into a more neutral expression.
Two against one. If she gave into Rurik now, she might never be his equal in their marriage. If her mother had taught her anything, it was that the best relationships were built on trust, fairness and equality. Somehow, despite her father’s superior size and power, her mother held onto her own power in their marriage. How many times had Nadiah watched her mother set boundaries with her father? Sometimes those limits had been accompanied by lots of loud arguments and a furious male stomping around the ship or house, but in every case, her father had come around to her mother’s way of thinking.
Though she was 90% sure she wanted to marry Rurik, she didn’t want to rush into a binding that would be difficult, if not impossible to break, should things sour between them. She’d only set out to alleviate her mating urges, not move a galaxy away from her family’s home planet and everyone she knew. To be alone, the outsider among the haughty Anskarians ruling class, day in and day out? To give up the tropical Illysia for the frozen Dugar? What if the Dugaran people never accepted her as one of their own? As much as it hurt to turn Rurik down at the moment, including the risk of him reinstating his engagement to Lady Beatrice, it was better to know now than later. And there was no way in the world that her father would let her stay on the ship without the binding. The part of her that deeply respected her father could not in good conscience defy him on this issue.
“Fine. I’ll go home with you then, Daddy,” Nadiah capitulated, an ache blooming in the center of her chest as she said the words.
Rurik leapt up. All appearance of casualness disappeared.
“Wait! What? No, Nadiah. Your father has agreed to let you stay and mate me. You can’t leave.”
Nadiah stomped over to her father, grabbed his wrist and spoke into his comlink.
“Uncle Kugen, are you listening? I want off this ship. I want to go home.”
“Kugen, pay no attention,” her father followed. Nadiah heard an answering chuckle just as her father snapped the comlink off.
“Listen, young lady, you are not going to get your way on this. You made your decisions back in that captive cell.” He looked over at Rurik. “You both made choices and now you’ll do what is proper and officially mate.”
Why was her father changing his mind? Nadiah was so frustrated she wanted to scream. Why couldn’t either of these men see that she wanted to make her own choices? Was Rurik simply a younger version of her father, a male who would continue to treat her like a helpless female? Pregnant or not, she refused to be property to either man. She wasn’t like Rayna, content to perform her duties for her political family. She wanted love. And she didn’t want Rurik mating with her because of her mating call or because she was pregnant.
She crossed her arms and stared down both men.
“Let’s go to medical and see whether I am actually pregnant.”
Her father smiled and Rurik scowled.
***
She wasn’t pregnant. Both a relief and a disappointment. The mating hum was vibrating her body like trapped energy though and it seemed to be affecting Rurik too.
Rurik practically stomped his feet through the steel passage way floor beneath them, as he lead them away from medical. Her father was grinning with open glee. He always did enjoy watching other people’s discomfort. It was one of his less attractive traits. Nadiah slowed their pace and spoke in a quiet voice.
“Why are you enjoying Rurik’s disappointment so much, Daddy?
“He can stand to come down off his throne a bit.”
“He hasn’t been arrogant like that at all, as you well know.”
Her father sighed.
“Pumpkin. Have you considered what it’s going to be like, stuck on a planet that’s mostly cold and frozen over? You love color and nature.”
“We both know that the people on Dugar live inside large terraformed greenhouses where the environment is largely just like Illysia.” Hearing her father speak her own doubts out loud spiked an unexpected impulse to be contrary.
“You’ll be so far away from us, Nadiah. From your mother and your s
iblings. And being part of a political family caught up in intrigue and danger. If you mate with Rurik, his entire country and planet will get pulled into the military conflicts that are happening. You just escaped a slave trader’s ship, one run by people determined to enslave a member of a royal family and the daughter of a slave-busting family. The escalation of slaver activities is a great concern to me. They seem to want to push the Alliance into either universally outlawing or legalizing slavery across the entire galaxy. It concerns me that I don’t know which goal they are trying to make happen. Had I caught up to you while you were still on that slave ship, I could have scanned all their minds for the information. The fact that Rurik’s people had already rescued you meant I found you here instead. Even though Rurik’s people destroyed that ship, some of those slavers escaped. Who knows where they are now?”
She wondered why he didn’t know that the Anskarians had them locked up. Unless Krat had lied about what had happened. “Don’t you think that Rurik’s abduction during a diplomatic trip off-planet will already pull his people into the conflict?”
“Probably,” her father acknowledged with a sigh. “And that could make you a double target if you go with him.”
Nadiah stopped, pulling her father to halt next to her.
“How quickly did you know that mom was the one for you?”
Her father scowled. Then, he smiled ruefully. According to Nadiah’s uncle, her father had rarely, if ever, smiled before he met her mother.
“Right away. Within minutes really. Of course, I didn’t admit it to myself for a while. But it didn’t take long. I think when two such people come together so perfectly matched, there isn’t much of a delay in love.”
Nadiah chewed her lip. Is that what was happening with her and Rurik? Were they so perfectly matched that they were inevitable?
Rurik was stopped ahead of them, waiting for them to catch up. He looked so forlorn. She wanted to run into his arms and make him smile like her father smiled when he saw her mother.
Baby, it's Cold in Space: Eight Science Fiction Romances Page 40