This wasn’t a modest garment. No. I had to go as I planned to proceed. Trinity might be the heir apparent, but no one should fuck with the runner up.
My hair was pulled away from my face, matching Aleran flower pins sparkling in the mass of curls that fell down my back. I’d told Trinity to go bold with the makeup as well, and my lips were bright red, my eyes dark and dramatic, lined and piled with more layers of eyeshadow than I’d ever worn in my life.
Ridiculous, yes, to fawn over my looks when Alera should respect me for my brain and the blood that flowed through my veins. But it was a publicity stunt. Not for the Aleran people, but for Lord Fucking Wyse and any of the others who messed with my family.
I stood looking in the small compact mirror Trinity had handed me and looked at an alien staring back. A beautiful, fierce, frightening bitch who looked like she’d be just as happy to kill me as invite me over for tea.
Good. Trinity was blonde and beautiful and perfect. I didn’t need to sell that model. I needed to scare our enemies into making stupid mistakes.
Where was Destiny when I needed her? She was dramatic for all three of us. She could pull this off without even trying. This was so not my department, but for Thor? For him, I’d do anything.
“You ready?” Trinity asked, taking the compact and tucking it away into some hidden pocket of her dress. She looked fabulous as well, but her gown was light and sparkling, golden and feminine and soft. Her hair fell in soft waves around her face, making her look young and innocent. Angelic. Fragile. Delicate.
As if. But that, too, was part of our plan. The planet at large had only seen her once in person. Heard her speak once when she originally introduced herself. And she’d been perfect. At the royal reception, where a select group celebrated with her, she’d again been perfect. Beautiful and diplomatic and well-spoken. Everything a princess should be.
Time to put a little rattle into the masses and shake things up. We might be sisters, but we weren’t clones. And yeah, Destiny and I were twins, but wait until they got a load of her. Inwardly, I laughed.
Prior to our arrival on Alera, there had been battles for control of areas outside the capital city. Leo had told us of raids and skirmishes for control of outposts and towns. Not full-out war. Not yet. Luckily, our arrival seemed to have stopped all that as everyone reassessed their positions. Their standing. There were new power players in town, and not just our mom, but the three of us. And as long as we weren’t afraid to play, we were pretty much guaranteed to win. We had the spires to prove it. The blood in our veins, too. Time to start acting like it.
“Ready.”
“You look like a vampire goddess with blood flowers growing out of your skin.”
Only Trinity could make me laugh at a time like this. “Sounds perfect.”
“Yep.” She grinned. “Leo’s got Thor. He’s safe and he’s watching.”
“Him and everyone else on the planet,” I murmured, taking a deep breath.
“That is what you wanted, resident badass.”
She was right. No second thoughts. Not now. “Let’s do this.”
A quick hug and we walked out of the building, side by side, to face the cameras.
4
Thor, The Royal Palace
The worst part about being knocked unconscious by some kind of pointed… dart by two males I considered friends wasn’t the fact that they’d been ordered to restrain me. Naked. To Faith’s bed. That, I found bittersweet, for I could still smell her in the sheets and her scent was driving me half mad. And that was the worst part. My cock was rock hard as I stared at the large screen on the wall, Faith a vision in red. She looked more beautiful and fiercer than I’d ever seen her. She looked like a queen, and goddess help me if seeing her glowing with power and intent didn’t make my cock harder than it had ever been.
She was mine, that magnificent female. My mate. While the royal consort who was with me as attendant—babysitter more like it—had put a towel over my waist as a ridiculous attempt to protect my modesty, it was tented so much that it looked like a family of zebcats could set up a den beneath. I looked like a fool. Obscene. And the restraints around my wrists did not improve my mood. My mate was out there, facing the entire planet alone. I couldn’t be with her, not anymore, but I could protect her from the shadows, watch over her and make sure she was safe.
Leo and Nix robbed me of that right. Left me buck naked and tied up… and without my mate. We’d fucked as I’d been restrained before and that had been hot. But this? Torturous and miserable.
“I’m going to kill Leo and Nix,” I muttered to myself.
Even in my drugged haze, I remembered their tone had been filled with humor when they mentioned tying me to Faith’s bed. Apparently, they’d been serious and I’d awoken with my arms tied to the headboard of a thick, sumptuous bed. Faith’s bed. Naked and with the fucking royal consort in a chair he’d pulled up beside me. The fact he was stuck supervising me burned my pride more than my current state of undress. The large video screen on the wall showed Faith, larger than life, gorgeous as fuck. Regal, confident, commanding.
I wasn’t embarrassed. Fuck, no. That was my mate on the screen and my cock throbbed to be back inside her. Just this glimpse was enough to make my balls ache, to have pre-cum spreading a wet spot on the fucking towel.
The consort heard my threat, of course, and deigned to take his hungry eyes off my female long enough to issue a warning. “I wouldn’t mess with either of them, Lord Jax. I assure you, I am just thankful to be alive. Captain Turaya could have killed me with his bare hands for touching his mate.”
I turned my head, looked at the male in his fancy royal robes. It was his job to satisfy the females of the royal family. He wasn’t keeping himself busy with Trinity and there was no fucking way he would satisfy Faith, so I would have to assume their cousin Radella received his services. Instantly, I felt sorry for him.
“You could at least cover me with a blanket,” I muttered.
I was bare except for the towel. Leo and Nix must have dumped me, stripped me and tied me up without getting the covers out from under me.
The consort stood and went to a cabinet, pulled out a white sheet and spread it over me. It did nothing to hide my obvious desire for my mate.
“That female is lovely,” he commented. I growled. He held up a hand and was about to say more, but Faith spoke. In perfect Aleran.
“Citizens of Alera. As you all know, Queen Celene was attacked twenty-seven years ago in a coup to overthrow the royal family. She escaped. Her mate, Princess Trinity’s father, your king, did not.”
Trinity stood behind Faith’s left shoulder wearing a golden gown that sparkled with every bit of light that found the dress. Behind Trinity? The citadel itself, the spires brightly lit far above them. No one else stood upon that sacred ground. There would be no argument as to Faith’s identity, nor her royal bloodline. The sisters were almost too beautiful to be real and I was held in their thrall, hanging on every word Faith spoke, as, I was sure, was the rest of Alera. When Faith looked back over her shoulder at her sister, Trinity nodded and Faith too a deep breath, as if fortifying herself.
Here it comes. The truth. The downfall of my family. And even that could not make my desire for Faith wane. My cock didn’t care about titles or wealth or honor. It wanted one thing, and one thing only – the same thing I wanted—Faith.
But to protect her, we would never have her again.
I hadn’t allowed emotion to overcome me when my mother’s betrayal broke something inside that would never heal. When she’d accidentally murdered my father and then suffered remorse so keen that she’d taken her own life. I had not shed a single tear.
But now, watching Faith, my beautiful, kind, intelligent, courageous mate, I had nowhere to go, no activity with which to occupy my mind, and the tears streamed silently from the corners of my eyes to soak her pillow. Pain gutted me, ripping my soul into pieces. I would let her go, because it was the honorable thing to do. A
nd I would have nothing.
So be it.
Her smile made me forget to breathe. “What you do not know is how our mother, Queen Celene, escaped that night with the help of two loyal guards, one of whom stands among the royal guard today, Captain Travin Turaya. He was a young man at the time, and he protected our mother, escorted her to a secret location where she transported off Alera to protect the one thing that mattered to her above all others—the future of Alera. What you do not know is that Queen Celene was already pregnant with Princess Trinity that fateful night. But she knew her enemies would not stop searching for her. She was young, and alone. So she fled to a distant planet, a planet so small and insignificant that no one would think to search for her there. That planet has been my family’s home for the last twenty-seven years.”
I started breathing again, my lips numb and tingling. The consort shifted in his seat, staring with rapt attention at the screen. This was more information than anyone had received so far, and the media and camera teams broadcasting live across the entire planet were silent. Dead silent. No one wanted to miss a single word of explanation. We’d been starving for the truth for almost thirty years.
“As you all know, Queen Celene was young and beautiful. When she arrived on Earth, she met and fell in love with another man, my father, an amazing, strong and honorable man named Adam Buchanan. My mother told him the truth about her past and he chose to hide her by assuming a new identity. Adam and Celene Jones. He knew, as we did, that the day would come when we would return to Alera and right the wrongs committed against the royal family and the people of this beautiful planet. He adopted Princess Trinity as his own and together, he and Queen Celene lived a peaceful life and had two more daughters. We were taught about duty and honor, about what it would mean to return and claim the throne. We were taught to speak the language of our home world and value the history and traditions of a proud people. I am honored to stand before you next to my sister and introduce myself to you. I am Faith Jones Herakles, of both Earth and Alera. I am Queen Celene’s second daughter, Princess Trinity’s sister. I am Princess Faith.”
The crowd clapped and cheered, the reporters began to shout questions at her all at once. The chaos was astonishing, but the barrier surrounding the citadel easily held them back as none wanted to die crossing it. And when Faith held up her hand, silence fell quickly as we were all hungry for more.
She paused then, the camera zooming in close. I’d never seen her with makeup. It only made her eyes even more striking, her lips look fuller. More kissable.
“We lived in peace for many years, planning our return. But true to Queen Celene’s fears, our enemies never stopped looking for her. And a few weeks ago, they finally found us. My mother was dragged from her bed and taken. Kidnapped. Princess Trinity and I transported to Alera to find our mother, our queen, and to bring those criminals who masterminded not only the original attack, but her recent kidnapping, to justice.”
She paused again but there was no eruption of questions this time. It appeared everyone was in shock. The consort turned to me, his eyes huge in his face and I realized just how young he was. “Is it true? Was the queen kidnapped?”
I nodded. “Yes.” I knew that much. Faith had told me much in our time together
“People of Alera, we call upon you now for assistance. Our mother, your queen, is still missing. We fear she is being tortured, or worse, although her spire is still lit.” Faith looked up into the sky as everyone else did, seeing the truth of those words. “But now, we finally have information on her perpetrator, on those behind the attack twenty-seven years ago, on a male among you who wanted the crown for himself.”
The crowd gasped, as did the consort next to me, as if such a thing were beyond their imagination. “Who?” The consort asked aloud. “Who would do such a thing? A king? We do not want a king. We have never had a king. Males protect their mates and their people, they do not rule. If males were meant to rule, the citadel would not have chosen the females among us.” He was mumbling to himself, so I ignored him, imagined that many watching were having the same reaction.
The image panned wide and I clearly saw that Faith and Trinity stood within the Citadel’s perimeter that only those of royal blood could pass without being killed. I had recognized their placement before, but this would show people all over the planet, those who had never set foot in the royal capital of Mytikas, exactly where these two powerful women stood. It proved their royal status without having to say a word. Those in the crowd—and it was a large one—gazed at her with rapt attention. I didn’t blame them. I couldn’t look away either. She was about to destroy my mother, my family, in front of everyone.
No. Not Faith. My mother had done that to herself. To us.
“Prior to our arrival on Alera, it was decided that I would remain hidden, a secret, so I could move freely among you and discover these traitors. They have now been identified and I will announce who they are. Once I do, I expect every citizen of Alera to assist us in apprehending these murderers. They tried to kill Queen Celene, murdered her mate, and have caused countless deaths among you during the resulting battles for power in the queen’s absence.”
She tipped her chin up and smiled, not a brilliant smile, but a kind smile. The type a mother bestows on her innocent child. Magnanimous. Very, very royal.
Goddess, she was breathtaking.
The crowd was loud, talking with each other, then silenced immediately when Faith held up her hand.
“How do you know I really am Princess Trinity’s sister? Not a cousin?” She nodded and looked to Trinity. “We don’t look much alike, do we?” She pulled something from a pocket of her ruby red dress—it looked fucking stunning on her, highlighting every one of her curves I knew so well—and held it up. “As you can see, this is a med wand.” She held it over her finger and the blue light glowed. I saw her eye twitch from the prick I knew had happened and she pulled the unit away. “My blood.”
The video zoomed in close so there was no question what she was doing. It was as if I could reach out and touch my mate, to feel her soft skin, to breathe in her specific scent.
She moved the wand back in place. “As you can see, I passed through the citadel’s barrier safely. Should there be any doubt, the DNA data from this blood sample…” She paused, waited. “Is being displayed on every Aleran’s video feed now.” She turned the small unit’s display so it faced the cameras. “You can confirm that what you are seeing in my hand matches the data on your personal vid screens. What is also being shown is the DNA coding of Queen Celene, which has been public record for decades.”
Everyone could read the data analysis. It was obvious to me, and everyone around the world, that Faith was, indeed, Queen Celene’s daughter.
“She really is Princess Faith,” the consort said, eyes wide. “Two daughters? Goddess, she is beautiful. Princess Trinity has a mate, but perhaps my services will now be of use to her sister.”
I growled and glared at the male, although he was watching the screen and barely noticed, so entranced was he by the beauty on display there.
My beauty. My female. Mine.
No. No. No.
Not mine. Not anymore. And yet, even though the consort had no idea he was sitting next to Faith’s mate, it was a good thing I was restrained.
“It is my honor to be your princess,” Faith continued with a slight bow of her head. “While Princess Trinity has been filling in as royal leader of Alera in our mother’s absence, it has been my task to find the queen. To rescue her from attackers and bring her back to all of us, and to her rightful place as your leader.”
The crowd roared and began changing Queen Celene, Queen Celene, over and over. Faith let it continue for about a minute, then she held up her hands and an instant silence fell.
“I will not be answering questions today. I have introduced myself, and it is now time to tell you of the traitors and ask for your help in delivering justice to those that betrayed all of us.”
&nbs
p; Bile rose in my throat. The traitors were my family. I held my breath awaiting her next words.
“We have evidence that Lord Coburt Wyse, inspector Optimi of the Optimus Unit and cousin to Queen Celene, is the mastermind behind the murder of the Queen’s mate and the attempted murder of Queen Celene twenty-seven years ago. He is also responsible for the kidnapping of Queen Celene from her home on Earth and the recent attempts on Princess Trinity’s life.”
No one spoke. No reporter questioned. It was as if everyone on the planet collectively held their breath. Even the consort next to me was transfixed. I, on the other hand, was ready to throw up. Ready to accept the inevitable. The downfall of the Jax family, the end of my mating.
The end of my life, for it would not be worth living without Faith.
“Yesterday, Lord Wyse made an attempt upon my life. I have spent my time since my arrival on Alera within the Jax family. With Lady Jax’s history and decades of experience working in the Optimus unit, they were invaluable in helping me root out Lord Wyse.” She looked down, swallowed hard. “I am sad to announce that Lord and Lady Jax have both been murdered by Lord Wyse in a failed attempt on my life. They were an honorable pair, offering protection and assistance to an unknown princess despite the great danger to themselves and their great family name. They took me in as their own daughter and blessed my mating with their only son, Thordis Jax. I will miss them greatly. Please mourn with me and my mate, the new Lord Thordis Jax, in this time of grief for the passing of our family.”
The consort looked to me, wide-eyed. “Oh shit. Forget what I said. Don’t hurt me. I won’t touch Princess Faith, I promise.”
Ascension Saga, Book 6: Interstellar Brides®: Ascension Saga Page 4