by Mel Teshco
His head swooped low, his mouth taking possession of hers for one long, lingering moment before he murmured, “The royal consort are about to eat. I think it’s time we joined them.”
He strode quickly through Ak ‘ Bella, then paused at a doorway covered by some kind of orange substance that looked similar to their alien clothes. He looked down at her, eyes somber. “Don’t ever go through this colored shield alone and without permission. It is our strongest defense against intruders.”
“So I can’t touch it?”
“To do so means instant death. The Ak ‘ Bella is off limits for almost everyone but the royal lineage.”
She held his stare as he brushed through the fabric—the shield—without a qualm. “So you’re part of the royal family,” she whispered, feeling all the old insecurities come blazing back.
What the hell could Renate want from her? She was a nobody, a Plain Jane commoner.
He looked all kinds of uncomfortable when he conceded, “I guess I am, if you count a bastard child to the king as royalty.”
She took little notice of the semi-dark corridor he carried her through, lit by the eerie glow of blue lights. All her attention was caught by the man—alien—she’d come to call her own. “Your mother not being queen doesn’t make you, or her, any less worthy.”
“I’d probably agree if she’d been a loving mother, a woman of high values.”
What the hell does that mean?
But then Renate was stepping on to a white substance—a shield?—that ferried them gently downward to the next level.
Even before he stepped clear of the shield and placed her on her feet, she felt the stares of the alien people. She turned around, seeing a good twenty or more of them sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Lillian smiled and lifted a hand in greeting. Dar and Maddox looked amused. Ezra looked…wound up. His eyes glinted with a whole lot of irate.
“Come,” Renate murmured into her ear, “dinner is about to be served.”
Lillian had some of the men nearby shuffle along until there was space enough for Ally to sit with Renate. The queen smiled. “I wasn’t sure you guys would make it,” she leaned closer, “if you know what I mean.”
Ally murmured something back to Lillian, but she couldn’t even recall exactly what she’d said. She was far too aware of Ezra’s dark stare on Renate, his hostility.
A long, narrow shield floated outward from an opened doorway, clearly Carèche’s answer to a conveyer belt table, not unlike what a diner would find at a Japanese sushi restaurant. The shield all but groaned under the weight of food offered in bowls that could have been the halved coconut husks from earth.
Despite the tension, Ally took a steaming bowl filled with meat and odd-looking vegetables. She breathed in its tantalizing scent and sighed appreciation.
Renate grinned as he took a bowl filled with something that looked similar to pumpkin soup. “You have chosen well. Caltronian meat is flavorsome and full of energy. The intergalactic herbs and vegetables are also rather tasty and aid the body’s immune system.”
She raised a brow. “Not unlike our earth food.”
“Yes. Only most of what you’re eating now stores roughly ten times more nutrient and energy value to what you’re used to eating from earth plants.”
“Really?”
He took another generous sip and nodded. “Eat up, kitten. Maddox thinks a human’s lifespan might well be doubled, even tripled, by partaking in our food.”
Wow.
With no cutlery to be seen, she picked out a juicy, golden piece of meat and popped it in her mouth. She closed her eyes as the spiced flavor all but melted in her mouth. “Mm. This is good,” she murmured. “Even better knowing I could be actively increasing my lifetime.”
Renate chuckled, causing her eyelids to spring apart. She grinned up at him and his eyes darkened with passion, with possessive need. He leaned close, his lips touching hers in a brief kiss that spoke volumes.
Ezra abruptly shoved to his feet and Ally jerked away—like a guilty teenager caught out in the act. Ezra’s nostrils flared even as Lillian reached up, placing a hand on his arm before she said, “Please, don’t—”
Ezra’s muscles jerked beneath her hold, but he didn’t shrug her off as he growled, “I see no reason to sit here and watch my brother get preferential treatment once again.”
Ally turned to Renate. He appeared calm, neutral. She clasped his nearest hand and squeezed, feeling every locked tendon and sinew that told her he wasn’t.
The king with the long black hair—Dar?—shifted forward, his odd golden eyes narrowed. “Enough, Ezra.”
Ezra didn’t back down. He stared at Dar and Maddox in turn. “We’re kings, and yet we have to share the woman we each yearn to have as our own?” He twisted to face Ally and Renate. “Meanwhile we’re seriously considering granting my bastard brother exclusivity with a female? It’s insane!”
Lillian’s face whitened. “We discussed this.”
Ezra’s expression grew fiercer still. “Renate gets all the advantage of his diluted bloodline while royalty get none!”
Ally’s headache returned with a vengeance. Damn protocol.
She pushed to her feet, eyes burning. “Perhaps I’d like a say in all this?”
Maddox raised an amused brow.
Dar nodded. “Go ahead.”
Thank you.
“Even if Renate were able to choose his parents, I imagine it’d mean little now, what with our nations all but dust under our feet.” She turned to the other aliens sitting cross-legged around her, seeing the different eye colors in each one that spoke of their origins. “Renate is loyal, courageous, loving and generous to a fault.” She turned to Ezra and held his narrowed stare. “As far as I’m concerned, those are the attributes of a great man, a great leader. Not genetics.”
“He’s brainwashed you,” Ezra growled.
She tilted her chin. “No. I’m with him of my own free will.” At the murmurs around her, she added, “Seems like you’d know that since I passed your damn test.”
Ezra’s stare glittered. “It was a necessary evaluation.”
She tilted her head. “Why?”
“Let’s just say my father found out firsthand the skills of deception undoubtedly acquired by Renate.”
Renate bristled beside her, but remained seated. “Your father was seduced by my mother. End of story.”
Ally frowned. “Last I heard it takes two to tango.”
Ezra’s fists clenched. “My father’s weakness cost him the throne, his family. To this day I have no idea if he survived his exile into the desert—while his one-time-lover grew fat and coddled by royal staff because of my father’s seed.”
“Then you’ll be happy to know my mother is dead now, along with all the women of our planet,” Renate snarled.
Ally blew out a breath. She caught Lillian’s eye and they exchanged a taut smile. Clearly the queen was at just as great a loss as she to fix the problem. Ally broke the thick silence. “Surely there is a solution—”
“There is,” Ezra rasped, turning to her. “You will leave this ship with Renate—on the condition your firstborn daughter will be promised to our queen’s firstborn son.”
Lillian sucked in a startled breath. “Ezra, this is hardly the time to ask—”
“Yes,” Ally said to Ezra. And though Renate had stiffened beside her, relief of unimaginable proportions filled her.
“Ally, no,” Renate said hoarsely.
She ignored his objection—she’d explain her inability to conceive to him later. Right then she’d never been happier of her sterility. “On the condition,” she echoed in turn, “that I am never subjected to my other four intended. And you turn this ship around and we’re taken back to where we were found.”
“That’s two conditions,” Ezra said with a smile, “but agreed.” His eyes glinted triumph even before he turned his attention back to Renate. “We will come for your daughter when the appropriate time
has come to pass.”
Renate shot to his feet and glowered. “I will have to refute my lover’s claim. She doesn’t know that oaths exchanged right now will be irrefutable.”
Lillian stood with inherent grace, though her stiff body language revealed her suspense as she breathed, “Ally, now that you know, do you accept our terms?”
Ally swallowed back a shaft of guilt at her deception. It was clear Lillian wanted the future union too, for obvious reasons. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
Renate’s breath hissed in disbelief.
Ezra’s gem winked under the lights as he bent and raised a cup. “Kas’lios.”
As Lillian, Dar, Maddox and the remainder of the aliens each lifted their cup, Ally took hold of one too and pressed Renate’s hand around her own. “Kas’lios,” she echoed.
Renate pulled free. And she watched almost numbly as he strode stiffly from the group…from her.
“Renate, wait!” Let me explain.
But her request fell on death ears.
Ally glanced back at Lillian. The queen flushed a little and looked away. Ezra’s triumph had slipped just a little. Dar and Maddox were unreadable, their thoughts well hidden.
“I…thank you,” she murmured, then spun away and ran after Renate.
He’d stepped onto the shield and waited silently for her as she joined him. As the shield moved upward, she clasped his taut forearms and looked up at his shadowed face. “It mightn’t seem like it right now, but I do know what I’m doing.”
His voice was despairing when he said heavily, “You would have our future child given up for Bonnie.”
The shield stilled, hovering at the next floor. She barely noticed. She shook her head. “No. You know I’d never do that.”
His eyes hardened. “And yet you just did. And in front of many witnesses.”
“You ask me to trust you and yet you don’t trust me,” she whispered feeling a hundred kinds of upset.
“Don’t you understand?” he said hoarsely. “There’s no going back from your word. They’ll be coming for our daughter, and they’ll find her.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand,” she said shakily, somehow hating him for his doubts, hating herself for being unable to give him the child he deserved. “I can’t give you the child you want. I’m infertile.”
Chapter Eight
Renate’s eyes darkened as he studied her. “The miscarriage?”
She nodded. “Yes.” She let out a heavy breath. “I fainted and I…I fell heavily on the bathtub. To this day I’m not certain if that or shock caused me to lose my baby.”
“Ally, I don’t think—”
“But even beforehand I had trouble conceiving with Luke.” Once unable to talk about her pain, now it was as though she couldn’t wait to share. She shrugged, trying for nonchalance and failing. “The blow to my uterus kind of finished any more baby-making plans.”
Renate pulled her to him and she sagged against his strength with something close to a sob. And listening to the steady beat of his heart, all she could imagine was how beautiful a daughter would be with this man as the father, how handsome a son.
His arms tightened around her. “We need to…talk,” he murmured.
Talk? She bit into her bottom lip. Oh, god. Did he not want her now she was unable to conceive? Was that all she was to him?
Despite trusting him implicitly, she couldn’t shake off the horrible thought.
“But not just yet,” he added. “You’ve been through a chaotic few days. Let me take you to my quarters so you can get a few hours’ sleep.”
She nodded. When her belly suddenly rumbled, he let out a strained laugh. “But first I’ll have someone bring us up some food.”
The shield beneath tilted a little, moving with the mother ship. ”We’re changing route for our destination,” Renate murmured, serious again now. His large hands stroked up and down her spine. “I should oversee its course.”
She looked up. “I’ll be fine.”
He frowned, his hands moving to cup her face. “I’m not about to leave you here alone.” He took hold of her hand and stepped onto the floor. “Come, let’s get you settled in.”
He led her through a maze of semi-dark corridors before he paused at a doorway with a blue shield. “You will always be able to pass through my shield defense.”
“Okay.” She narrowed her eyes. “What about for those who aren’t?”
“They’d be dropped in their tracks by a shock powerful enough to paralyze their every muscle.”
“Oh?” Her stare swiveled between Renate and the blue shield. “How does it work?”
“The lucky few of us considered of high worth,” he raised a brow as though he despised the term, “had our cells meshed to the rare substance now called a shield. It created a life force that reacts to our subconscious, our commands.” He pushed through the shield and Ally followed close behind as he continued in a matter-of-fact tone, “The three kings enmeshed all their cells together, a process which then allowed them to share a mental bond.”
“Truly?” At his nod she added, “Then I’m grateful you didn’t share your cells with theirs.”
He turned to her, clasping her other hand and pulling her close. “So am I. Everything I feel for you, I don’t want to share with anyone else.”
When he kissed her she opened her mouth on a sigh. This was where she belonged, in Renate’s arms while all her doubts, her insecurities and problems faded into obscurity. She pulled back and searched his fathomless stare. “Thank you for believing in me, for risking so much for Bonnie.”
“You and Bonnie belong together,” he murmured. “I understand that now.”
She knew exactly what he meant, what comparisons he’d drawn. She’d been fighting the very thing Renate had understood from the first. The commoner human and bastard offspring to the king were only half of a whole apart. Together, no labels could describe the rightness, the sense of belonging.
He smoothed the one long lock of her hair back with a smile. “Go rest. I’ll return as soon as I can.”
“Okay.”
She watched him turn on his heel and retreat back through the shield, forcing her stare away from the sexy length of his back to take in the spartan room he called home.
Clearly the Carèche people lived simply and didn’t covet the need for luxuries the way humans did.
She walked over to the red fur on the floor. Caltronian? She recalled him mentioning the use of the beasts’ fur as bedding. Sinking onto its softness, she lay back with an appreciative sigh. No earth mattress could possibly compare.
Her eyelids grew heavy in the silence.
* * * * *
Ally pressed her brow against the office building, peering out to the empty streets ten stories below.
How quickly things could change.
The televised warnings to stay indoors had kept everyone but the insane or suicidal inside. She shuddered. Even so, people were dropping dead by the hundreds…the thousands, a panic sweeping the world even faster than the virus itself.
I guess my turn will be soon enough.
Funnily enough the thought of dying didn’t frighten her anymore, not in itself. No, other thoughts and weird emotions had taken over—relief she had no family to worry about and watch die—anguish that when she succumbed to the virus, no one would even mourn her passing.
She started at the chime of her cell phone on her desk behind her. Fewer people in the country must have freed up cell phone service? She retrieved the phone, holding it in the palm of her hand for a moment as she mused over her unemotional and all-too-practical thought processes.
It’s either that or curl into a fetal position and wait to die.
Ally flipped the phone open. “Hello.”
Her ex-husband’s voice filled her ear. “Ally, please don’t hang up on me. Look, I…I know we’re not together anymore, I know I did you wrong, but I’m begging you for forgiveness. The kids are asking for you, beautiful. Will you com
e over?”
She winced. First at his once pet name of beautiful and then at his purely selfish wish that entailed her to leave the safety of indoors and travel—walk—twelve and a half blocks to his city house.
What did I ever see in him?
She heard someone sniffling and hiccupping in the background.
“Please,” he pressed, voice anxious and desperate. “I know this is a lot to ask—”
“Fine,” she breathed. She hadn’t seen Sam and Katie for a little over three months, but she often thought about them, wondered how they were doing. “But I’m doing this for them, not you, Luke.”
“Of course,” he said in a rush. “I completely understand. Just please…hurry.”
The line went dead as the tears she’d been holding back sprang into life.
* * * * *
Shivers darted up and down her spine as goose bumps erupted over her skin. But it wasn’t from any vivid, real-from-life dream.
She woke quickly, opening her eyes to a very naked Renate spread over her, his head bent while his sexy mouth pressed kisses along her throat, before he drew the lobe of her ear into his mouth and gently suckled.
Her breath hissed at the prickling currents that caused her womb to contract and pool heat deep inside.
“Feel good?” he murmured, his breath warm in her ear.
Are you kidding me?
“Fan-bloody-tastic,” she managed, voice husky from sleep and a desire to forget everything but the now.
He kissed her neck again and more shivers ricocheted through her body. “This is exquisite torture for me too,” he growled.
“It is?” she squeaked.
He lifted his head, his stare unashamedly fierce, possessive, as he said, “Yes. Carèche men mark their women. And I’ve wanted to mark you from the moment we met.”
“You have?” she whispered, pulse fluttering wildly. “How does this marking work?”
He opened his mouth wide, fully revealing his long, sharp teeth toward the back. At her “Oh!” his mouth closed. He smiled. “Those teeth have one function only—to puncture my chosen woman’s throat and inject a pheromone that tells every other Carèche male you’re mine.”