Royal Defender: Her Space Guardian (Celestial Mates Book 9)

by Therron, Marla

  Rachael scowled at him and pulled herself back to her feet. “It really is that intolerable, yes,” she spat. “Your people are absolute barbarians. You-”

  Tavaayn put a hand over her mouth, halting her speech. “You'll want to be careful who can hear you speak like that, or you could make your time here—however long it may be—incredibly uncomfortable. Why, the only people who would be permitted to speak like that are the queen, myself, and...my future mate, I suppose.” He gave her a strange look at that and reached out to smooth back some of her hair. “I understand, of course, that you're upset. I understand your loneliness. But-”

  “Don't touch me,” Rachael snapped, backing into her room.

  The Lord Commander sighed but bowed at her. “Whatever you wish,” he told her. “Sleep well, and I'll see you tomorrow.”

  “Do we have a time to begin negotiations?” Rachael asked before she pressed the button to close the door.

  Tavaayn shrugged at her. “It will depend on when your sleep cycle finishes, won't it?” he asked. “It doesn't matter to us. Saveithyans don't have days, per se, and we don't sleep like humans do.”

  Rachael frowned at this unexpected knowledge, but she was tired, and the last thing she wanted to do was discuss the Saveithyans' view of time or anything like that. “Have a good...evening, then,” she said, lip curling in distaste as she remembered the scene from the banqueting hall.

  The Lord Commander grinned at her. “Oh, trust me when I say that I will.”

  Chapter Four

  But they didn't begin negotiations the following day, as Rachael had thought (and hoped) that they might. She was still of the mindset that the sooner they concluded this awful business, she'd be able to return home.

  The first problem with this plan came when she tried to call Earth that following morning to give her initial report of the planet and to ask for more details about what she was meant to be negotiating for.

  The problem was, the transponder didn't appear to be working. In fact, none of the mechanical equipment that had been brought in from her spacecraft appeared to be working. She dug around it for a long time, grumbling to herself. She wasn't sure if it was carelessness or deliberate sabotage that had caused the Saveithyans to destroy her equipment, but either way…

  Only closer inspection showed that there was nothing wrong with the instruments—nothing wrong, except that they weren't working at all. It was as though they were still factory-new, just as they'd been when she'd left Earth with them, but they seemed to be missing some sort of vital component to their operation.

  She thought back to Tavaayn's assurance that the human scientists had known that she wouldn't be able to return to Earth once she set foot on Saveithya, and she started to wonder whether the mechanical problems were in fact due to deliberate sabotage done by the humans.

  But that was insane, wasn't it? No one hated her enough to do something that horrible. And okay, it had been Damien who had chosen her for this mission, but she just couldn't see him…

  Sure, they'd had their differences, but what couple didn't? Nothing they'd argued about had been major enough that he would have stranded her alone on this foreign planet with no means of contacting home and no means of ever returning. Of that, she was certain.

  It must have been the Saveithyans, she finally concluded. That was the only thing that made sense. It must have been in retaliation for her impertinence. But surely it was something they would be able to fix. There must just be some sort of error that she was missing. Whatever it was, she'd figure it out eventually; of that, she had no doubt.

  There was a noise at the doorway, and she turned to see one of the Saveithyans standing there meekly, holding a tray of what must contain some sort of food. She moved towards the alien, keeping her face carefully neutral. The Saveithyan shifted the tray into one hand and pointed to the small black box at its throat. “You should understand me,” she—it was unmistakably a woman speaking—said, and although her mouth clearly wasn't forming English words, all Rachael could hear was the translation of what the woman was saying.

  “Does it work for you to understand me too?” she asked.

  The alien blinked slowly and shrugged a little. “I won't understand you,” she said. “I'm Vox. Here is your breakfast.” She thrust the tray at Rachael, and when the earthling had accepted it into her hands, the Saveithyan left the room just as suddenly as she had come.

  Rachael blinked after her for a moment, feeling even more lonely than she had the previous day.

  She took the tray of strange-colored food over to the window and sat there staring out at the stars that twinkled in the perpetually dusky sky far above. Of course, there were none of the constellations that she might have seen on Earth, and that coupled with the silence and the strange food had her appetite totally withered away.

  She put the tray of food aside and buried her face in her hands, trying her best not to cry. None of the Saveithyans could see her crying; they would only think her even weaker if they caught her like that.

  But she was close to tears all the same, and no amount of rationalizing would keep them away.

  “You didn't sleep well,” the Lord Commander observed from the doorway. He looked critically from the tangled sheets to the dark circles beneath the human woman's eyes and shook his head. “I know it is strange to sleep in such a foreign place, but you know you need to,” he said chastisingly, as though he were speaking to a child.

  Rachael bristled at that and stood quickly, dashing away the tears that had threatened to fall. “I'm not an idiot,” she said. “And you don't have to treat me like a child. There's more to sleeping than just wanting or needing to sleep.”

  “Hmm,” the Lord Commander said in response. He shrugged a little. It seems like such an inconvenient project as it is. Imagine how productive you earthlings could be if you didn't have to sleep away a third of your lives.”

  Rachael didn't know what to say in response to that. “Is it time to begin the negotiations?” she finally asked. Even if she couldn't get in contact with the main team of scientists back on Earth, she could still try to make some progress. Then maybe she'd have some good news to tell them when she finally managed to contact them. At least, she could only hope so.

  “We'll wait on starting the negotiations,” Tavaayn said, looking amused at Rachael's flare of disappointment. “Today, I thought I'd show you around some of Saveithya, starting with the palace and its grounds. We have quite the extensive gardens, with plants brought here form all over our galaxy. I had heard that you humans might be interested in gardens and such things.”

  Rachael blinked at him and wondered whether this was meant to be his peace offering in regards to the events of the night before. Perhaps he had realized that he couldn't treat visiting humans the same way that he might honor visiting Saveithyans. That was some progress at least, wasn't it?

  She nodded at him and followed him out of her suite and into the rest of the palace. For the rest of the day, she trailed after him, steadily getting more lost in the palace as they went.

  “I can't believe you could ever keep all these rooms straight!” she finally blurted out.

  Tavaayn gave her an amused look. “I'm sure it must seem very confusing,” he said, sounding almost apologetic. “But things will get better for you, the longer you're here. You'll start to recognize different places—or at least, you'll start being able to find the places that you visit most frequently. I have a pretty good grasp on what's where since I grew up here alongside the queen, but most of the other inhabitants here, the ones who weren't as lucky as I was, just use teleportation devices to bring them from place to place when they have somewhere specific that they need to go. As for me, though, I enjoy the walk.”

  “It's amazing,” Rachael said sincerely, looking at the strange art that decorated the glowing and lightly pulsating walls.

  The gardens were even more awe-inspiring, though. She didn't think she had ever seen such an array of different types of f
lowers, hedges, trees, and plants that she couldn't even begin to identify.

  The Lord Commander let her set her own pace out there, merely following silently behind her as she explored. She wondered at the scientific properties of the plants that they were walking amongst, wondered how many lifetimes it would take to catalogue them all. If only she had a team of scientists there at her disposal…

  “What is it that you're hoping for?” Tavaayn asked suddenly, curiously.

  Rachael blushed and glanced over at him from where she smelled one of the more flower-like plants. It looked nothing like a rose, but it almost smelled like one, and the familiar scent had her longing for home.

  “I don't really even know,” she said in answer to his question. “On the one hand, I'd almost like to have a team of scientists here, to live here for a year cataloguing every plant you have here in your gardens and figuring out each plant's uses. But on the other hand...” She gestured towards the flower. “This flower has a scent that's achingly familiar, and I just...want to go home.”

  “Hmm.” They stared at one another for a long moment. “Come with me,” the alien finally said, breaking the silence. He beckoned to her with one of his appendages and led her to another part of the gardens, where there was a very familiar sort of hedge maze erected. “This is my favorite part of the gardens,” he told Rachael. “They say only the true-hearted can make it to the center.”

  Rachael snorted at that, but she allowed the Lord Commander to lead her into the maze, curious what a Saveithyan maze might have at its center. “You've memorized the way, though, haven't you?” she asked, hurrying to keep up with the alien's longer strides.

  Tavaayn glanced back over his shoulder at her, grinning broadly. “A long time ago,” he agreed. “Now I use it for much of my important business, since only a few people know the way to the center.”

  Rachael frowned. “Is this where we'll be holding our negotiations?” she asked, wondering if perhaps she should have been paying more attention to where they were going. If she had to find her way into the center every day in order to negotiate… Well, with her horrible sense of direction, it might be best if she got one of those teleportation devices that the Lord Commander had mentioned.

  The Lord Commander laughed, though, and shook his head. “I wouldn't do that to you,” he told her. “Not least because I don't especially want you memorizing the way to the center. It wouldn't do to have you stumbling into the middle of one of my more personal meetings...”

  Rachael blushed; she could only imagine what that might mean. “Oh,” she said in a small voice. She had thought he meant important political business, but clearly…

  “Are you a virgin?” Tavaayn asked, noting the woman's blush.

  Rachael blushed more brightly still. “I don't believe that's any of your business!” she snapped, sounding scandalized.

  The Lord Commander raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that something that you humans refrain from discussing?” he asked curiously. “Sex is such a natural part of existence, though. Why, I can't count on one hand the number of people I've seen-”

  “This isn't something you would ever discuss with someone you barely know,” Rachael interrupted, guessing that she probably didn't want to hear the details of the things that he'd seen.

  She ducked her head a little. “I mean, I might talk about my sex life with my closest female friends”—if she had some, anyways—“but this definitely isn't something I would talk about with someone I had a professional relationship with.”

  “Hmm,” the Lord Commander said. “I suppose because we always know nearly everything about one another here on Saveithya, there is no differentiation between professional and private relationships,” he said, cocking his head to the side. He grinned at Rachael. “And since you are now here on Saveithya for the rest of your life, the question still stands.”

  “It's none of your business,” she insisted, hardly even realizing that they'd reached the center of the maze and come to a halt there. She put her hands on her hips and scowled at the alien, hardly even believing that he'd asked her such a personal question not once but twice—and that he still seemed to expect her to answer it, even though he must have been able to sense how uncomfortable she felt!

  Tavaayn gently stroked her cheek. “None of my business?” he asked her. He smiled. “Well, I suppose you might not think it is. However, I wanted to make a proposal to you. A marriage proposal.”

  Rachael blinked, desperately trying to process what he was saying. Surely, he couldn't be serious!

  “Think about it,” the Lord Commander said seriously. “You would make a wonderful wife for me.”

  Rachael thought she might faint.

  Chapter Five

  But it seemed the Lord Commander was entirely serious about this—and not only that, but he appeared to have given the whole ludicrous idea quite a bit of thought.

  Upon sensing her hesitation—which bordered more on panic—he began to lay out his arguments: “I have status here on Saveithya—status that could protect you for the duration of your stay here. And I know, you humans don't live for very long compared to many other species, but you live for long enough that I'm sure you want to ensure your comfort while you're here. Seventy years of torture would be a long time.”

  “I would hope you wouldn't allow me to be tortured, whatever my status here,” Rachael said faintly.

  “That's not something I can promise,” Tavaayn said dismissively, as though that wasn't something that mattered.

  He shrugged a little. “Beyond safety, my status would ensure that you lived a comfortable life here. You could have anything you wanted. You could have a team of scientists and catalogue the plants in this garden or whatever else it was that struck your fancy. You could have new clothes every season. You could live in your own suite here in the palace—one of the ones with a view over the whole city. You could dine and socialize and do anything that whimsy desired. You would be happy.”

  “I would be lonely,” Rachael reminded him. “And married to a-” She stopped herself just before calling the Lord Commander a monster—something told her that that sentiment wouldn't go over so well. She bit her lower lip, unable to look the alien in the eye. “Just, this isn't what I ever could have imagined for myself.”

  The Lord Commander looked impatient. “Well, of course it isn't,” he said. “You wouldn't have agreed to come here if you'd known you were never going to go home—and we'd never have agreed to negotiations with one of your kind if we'd known we would get such a temperamental… Well, I don't want to say that your presence here is a disappointment, but truthfully, we were expecting Earth to send us a real diplomat, someone who would take every pain to ensure the success of these negotiations. Instead, we got you, a woman who doesn't even seem to mind if she slights an entire species on her first night on their planet. Suffice it to say-”

  “Enough,” Rachael said, again feeling like she might cry. “I know that I...” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Maybe if I weren't such a disappointment, my ex-boyfriend wouldn't have sent me here on a mission that he must have known was doomed. Maybe I would still be back home in my lab where I belong, leaving all of this up to the people who were trained for missions like these. Maybe… But I'm here now, and we both have to deal with it. Now please, no more foolish talk about how it would be best for me to be mated with you for the rest of my life. I don't even know if I can get through tomorrow without going crazy.”

  Tavaayn stared at her for a long time, and for a moment, Rachael almost wished that she could read his emotions as easily as he could read hers. She wondered what was going on behind those eyes of his, wondered why he seemed suddenly to look at her so gently. But it wasn't long before his expression was back to neutral, his eyes shuttered off completely again.

  “There is a stipulation in Saveithyan mating contracts that if one party ever dies or disappears for longer than a year, their contract is void,” he told her, appearing to choose his words caref
ully. “That means that you could become my wife for the duration of your time here on Saveithya but leave as soon as you were able to—and eventually, our marriage contract would be annulled in all ways.”

  “What's in it for you anyways?” Rachael asked, shaking her head. She didn't want to talk about Saveithyan marriage customs, didn't want to know anything more about any of this. And she certainly didn't want the Lord Commander to feel that she was weakening, that she was actually considering his proposal. But she really did want to know why he was making the proposal to begin with.

  The Lord Commander shrugged a little, looking off to one side. “We believe, in our galaxy, that marriage brings status to a person,” he said.

  “And even though I am already one of the highest-ranking men in the galaxy, there are still some who see me as merely an unmarried man—reckless, ruthless, and lacking experience. Of course, I can't have them all thinking that. Beyond that—children. The physicians have done tests of every eligible woman here on Saveithya and have concluded that none of them would be able to carry my child, for a variety of reasons.”