Daughters of Lyra: Heart of a Prince

by Felicity Heaton

  Anything.

  “What do your kin call you?” he said and a flicker of shock crossed her face followed by a crimson blush that stained her cheeks. Beautiful. He had never seen a female react to him the way she did. He had never seen a female react like her to anyone. Were all females like this on the other side of the barrier? What was she like compared to them—strong, weak, loving, tender, cruel? He wanted to know. He was so tired of being trapped on this side of the barrier, surrounded by darkness and loneliness.

  “Renie,” she whispered, as though ashamed to tell him.

  Perhaps not ashamed. She cast her eyes downwards into her lap and twisted her fingers around themselves. Embarrassed? Awkward? All new emotions to him. There was none like her on this side of the barrier. Meeting her and experiencing this wondrous array of feeling had only strengthened his resolve to leave the Black Zone.

  He moved to the bars and knelt in front of her.

  “Tres,” he said and slid his hand between the bars, holding it out in what he hoped was a Lyran gesture of greeting. His knowledge of different species’ formalities had all collided in his mind and become tangled over the years.

  She stared at his hand as though it was going to attack her.

  Perhaps he had been wrong.

  Her hand slid into his.

  Tres’s entire body jolted and tensed, a sweep of tingles racing through him, fanning out from the point where her skin touched his. She closed her fingers around his hand, her soft skin brushing his, creating smaller waves of pleasure with each tiny caress. His heart beat hard in his chest, pounding in his ears as he stared into her eyes, absorbing the divine feeling of her body against his. For a moment, he forgot himself, lost in the feel of her hand in his, her gentle touch. He had never been touched before, not skin on skin. It was forbidden for anyone to touch him. As a child, those who’d had to touch him had worn gloves, and since then he had always been wearing his thermal suit when he had been touched.

  Not that he had ever been touched as intimately as this. Anything more intimate than touching his arm or shoulder was forbidden also.

  His fingers slowly closed, clasping her hand, and he never wanted to let it go.

  “How do you know a Terran form of greeting?”

  His eyes had almost closed when she voiced that question. They opened slowly and ambled over her body and then her face to meet hers.

  Terran. One of her species then. To think the Vegans and Lyrans had almost destroyed the species that had created her, a stunning dark rose, a flower so delicate he wanted to hold her gently and savour her scent.

  “Education,” he said as an answer and reluctantly took his hand back, sliding it carefully through the bars.

  He could have held hers forever.

  His entire body felt warm from just that brief touch but the heat quickly faded.

  “Your hands are freezing,” she said with a smile that he supposed was meant to make him feel as though that wasn’t a bad thing.

  She was trying not to offend him.

  He smiled at her, showing that he wasn’t at all offended. He knew that he was cold compared to her. His species relied on the strong sun of their planet and thermal suits to keep them alive. In deep space, and with his suit broken, he was so cold that it was difficult to move. Painful.

  Still, as he looked at her, he found that he didn’t feel the cold. He didn’t feel the pain. He felt only warmth. A strange warmth that suffused his entire body.

  “Tres?” she said and his eyes half-closed on hearing her soft voice speak his name.

  He managed a nod in response and clawed the scattered pieces of his mind back together. Something about her made him lose all reason and control. He wished that he was able to get closer to her. He wanted to feel her body against every inch of his and needed to help her get away from this dark place. The Black Zone was no place for her and the Vegan commander of this vessel was intent on hurting her, or at least damaging relations between Vega and Lyra. He had to stop that from happening. He looked around him at the cells. Trapped here, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.

  “Do you think my brother is going to be all right?” She leaned back against the wall near him and pulled her knees up to her chest.

  The vulnerability in her look made him frown and a dark feeling filled him, an urge to escape the cell at any cost to set her free and take vengeance on the commander who had captured her. Her near-black eyes shifted to meet his, sending another bolt of warmth through him. She gave him another little smile, a faint curving of her lips that spoke of hurt. Her brow furrowed.

  “He will be all right, won’t he?” she whispered, her look almost pleading him to lie to her.

  He didn’t need to lie.

  “Nothing will happen to him,” Tres whispered in return and moved closer to her. He leaned his back into the wall and kept his head turned towards her, watching her closely. She was beautifully unguarded with her feelings and the depth of her love for her brother stunned Tres. He was sure that his sister, Tesia, loved him, but it couldn’t possibly extend to this. Renie looked as though she would die if anything happened to her brother.

  For some reason, that made him a little jealous.

  Jealous.

  It was a new feeling for him. He had never had a reason to feel it before.

  He held a high position within society, so admired and feared that he wanted for nothing. Only his family could refuse him something. Yet he craved more. He stared into Renie’s eyes, reading all the love in them. He longed for a life where he was treated differently. An existence where there was more. More. He didn’t know exactly what it was that he craved, but he knew that he would find it on the other side of the barrier, away from the Black Zone.

  Freedom. Feelings. Life.

  All the things he had ever wanted but had never had. The things that he couldn’t ask for. The things that were denied him.

  He wanted to live. He desired to see how others lived. He longed to experience life in a place less dark than the Black Zone.

  Something dawned on him, something that made him feel the depth of his loneliness and the hollowness of his existence, something that made him despair at the thought that he might lose what he had found. He didn’t want to go back, didn’t want to continue his old life now that he had discovered what was missing from it.

  He wanted to live. He desired to see how others lived. He longed to experience life in a place less dark than the Black zone. But he didn’t want to do it alone.

  He wanted to do it all with a female like Renie.

  She was everything that he had ever wanted.

  ****

  Chapter 4

  The door opened.

  Renie’s heart leapt into her throat when the Vegan commander walked in, flanked by two soldiers. He still frightened her. She stood, unwilling to let him see that fear, and walked to the bars of her cell, coming face to face with him.

  “We have contacted your family,” he said, his eyes showing a smile that his lips hid. He seemed pleased with himself. Renie’s heart pounded at the thought that her family were coming. She hated the position she was in, but the knowledge that her father was coming for her lightened her heart and made her feel better. The commander’s gaze raked over her and then met hers again. “It will be a while before they reach us. You would be wise to make yourself comfortable.”

  Renie glanced back at the bench and then at Tres. He was still sitting with his back to the wall, his strange eyes fixed on the commander in a venomous stare.

  “You will eat,” the commander said.

  Renie looked at him, shaking her head. He wasn’t going to order her around. She might be his prisoner but she wasn’t about to let him take all her strength from her. Tres had refused to eat and she was going to as well. She wasn’t going to make things easy on the Vegans. It could be days before her family arrived. When they did, she wanted them to see exactly how poorly the Vegans had treated her.

  “What do you intend to do with
myself and my brother?” she said, straightening her back and standing tall. She was a princess of Lyra. This commander wasn’t going to frighten her.

  But her heart thundered in her ears and her palms sweated as she stood before him, staring up into his golden eyes and waiting to hear her fate.

  The commander smiled, thin-lipped and evil. “We have discovered something most interesting about your brother. It seems he is in line for the throne.”

  Renie didn’t like the way his smile widened, his eyes narrowing with it. It scared her. She frowned and stepped right up to the bars. She could see in the Vegan’s eyes what he was thinking and she wasn’t going to let that happen. Rezic didn’t care about the throne. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want to be Lyra V.

  All of the malicious thoughts crossing the Vegan commander’s face frightened her. They confirmed her fear that he was thinking of hurting her brother. He was going to punish Rezic for being in line to the throne of Lyra.

  Her resolve melted away and her brow furrowed. She stared into the commander’s eyes, no longer able to hide her fear. He grinned when he saw it and that only frightened her more. The idea that he was feeding off her fear only increased it. Would he hurt her brother just to make her suffer?

  “Please,” Renie whispered, hating herself for showing such weakness but needing to protect her brother. He couldn’t fend for himself. He was already injured. He had been so close to death. If they tortured him for information, he might not survive. “Don’t hurt him. Please? I’ll do anything you ask of me. Please... just don’t harm my brother.”

  Tears blurred her vision. She couldn’t bear the thought of them hurting Rezic. She could almost feel his pain already. If they tortured him, he wouldn’t tell them a thing. He would die before he revealed any of Lyra’s secrets. She didn’t want him to die for a throne that he didn’t want. Without him, the galaxy would be an empty soulless place. He was everything to her.

  “Please?” she whispered again, reaching up and wishing she could take hold of the bars, could get closer to the commander so he would see that she truly would do anything for her brother. “Take me instead. Don’t hurt him. If you want to hurt someone—”

  “Enough,” Tres snapped in a firm voice, making her jump.

  Her head shot around to face him. He was on his feet and approaching the commander.

  “The treaty of Espacia forbids this kind of action.” Tres stepped right up the bars of his cell, his dark blue eyebrows knit tight into a frown. He was taller than she had expected and when he looked like this, so commanding and confident, she realised how handsome he really was. She moved closer to him, her eyes fixed on his face, wondering what he was going to do.

  What could he do?

  They were both trapped here. Mentioning the treaty wouldn’t change a thing. They couldn’t stop the Vegans from hurting her brother. She felt helpless. Useless. Rezic was hurt and there wasn’t a thing she could do to help him.

  No one could help him.

  “You are in no position to speak,” the Vegan commander said to Tres.

  The determined look on Tres’s face didn’t change. He held the commander’s gaze, unwavering in the face of a man she found so frightening.

  “We have contacted your family too,” the commander whispered and a flicker of something crossed Tres’s face. Anguish? Fear? She couldn’t determine the emotion. It was too brief, nothing more than a flash. In less than a heartbeat, it was gone, replaced by a glare so murderous and dark that Renie almost stepped back.

  Tres slammed his fists against the light bars, making them crackle and fizz. The commander retreated a step. Tres hit the bars again, his eyes narrowed into dark blue slits. Not a trace of pain touched his features although it must have hurt him to touch the energy bars.

  Renie watched in silence, witnessing an unspoken exchange of threats between the two males. She glanced down to see that Tres had his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. They were steady, not trembling in the slightest. The control he had over his obvious anger was incredible and stunned Renie as much as the hatred in his eyes. He had known what he was doing when he had hit the bars and he hadn’t cared about the pain it would cause him. Had he wanted to scare the commander?

  Or was it the thought of his family coming for him that had made him react so violently, had made him want to fight?

  Tres heaved a sigh and visibly relaxed. Renie’s gaze shifted to his face again. He looked calm at last, his head tilted back and his shoulders lowered. His blue pupils remained fixed on the commander though.

  The commander grinned, as though Tres’s change in temperament was a victory for him.

  Tres frowned and then relaxed again.

  “If I eat,” he said slowly, his voice smooth and calm, “you will leave her brother alone.”

  Renie frowned now, confused by the exchange. How was Tres finally eating important enough to the Vegans that they wouldn’t hurt her brother? If it was true and they would do as he had asked then she didn’t care about the reasoning behind it. She looked at Tres and then at the commander. No. Tres hadn’t asked the commander. He had told the commander that he would leave Rezic alone.

  Was Tres of high standing within society on this side of the barrier? High enough that he could order the Vegan commander? She almost laughed at that. Given their current situation, he couldn’t be that important. If he were then the commander wouldn’t have been holding him in the cells. If this ship was anything like a Lyran military vessel, then it would have guest quarters. They would have held Tres in one of those if he were that important. Perhaps he was trying his luck. Perhaps he had only risked it sounding like an order to force commander into making a decision.

  But still.

  How was Tres’s offer of eating equivalent to the safety of her brother? It didn’t seem like an equivalent exchange to her.

  Renie looked at the commander to see what he would do. He looked pensive for a moment and then nodded.

  “Bring food for him, and make sure that he eats it.” The commander’s gaze slid to her and she stepped back, away from him. “If he doesn’t, then we go ahead as planned.”

  Renie swallowed and glanced at Tres. He was looking at her, his expression serene and unwavering. If it was supposed to reassure her, it did, but she still wasn’t about to trust these Vegans with her brother.

  “You’ll leave Rezic alone as promised, yes?” she said as the commander went to pass her.

  He paused and looked down at her, across his broad shoulders. There was something in his strange yellow irises that looked like reluctance. He nodded and then stormed out of the room. One of the guards followed him. The other remained in the corner, watching her, his expression empty.

  Renie turned to Tres. He had sat down again in the same spot that he had occupied before, leaning with his back against the wall between the light bars of her cell and the bench in his.

  She walked over and sat down too. Her hands slipped from her bent knees to the floor and she looked down at Tres’s hand. Carefully reaching through the bars, she tentatively stroked the burns on his hand, black marks against white skin.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered and looked at him, tears trembling on the brink of falling again. She cursed them, wishing to Iskara that she wasn’t so weak. The thought of them hurting her brother made her sick though and she couldn’t stop the tears from coming whenever she thought about him. She couldn’t lose Rezic. “You’re hurt.”