Queen's Ransom: The Golden Bulls of Minos

by Isabel Wroth

  "Zavir, what's the problem?"

  "There are only so many humans to ask, so I asked Angel Eyes why Jalia would be upset by her sister having cut her hair.

  Angel Eyes tells me human women cut their hair for three reasons. They feel the need for change, they're changing for a man, or they're trying to find relief. Emotional relief.

  "In the context of my question, Angel said 'self-mutilation,' when a person isn't willing to cut into their own flesh but needs a physical release from emotional pain.

  Jade has isolated herself on purpose, allowing everyone to overlook her, hoping they will, as we're all so busy being present for Jalia and the baby.

  "I had a theory and asked my spy to ensure your name came up in conversation. Each time it did, Jade excused herself from whatever was being done, and when she returned several hours later, my source claimed Jade had been crying and refused to eat until she had finished the monumental task she set for herself that day.

  "She was exonerated by whatever court she brought her testimony to and was asked to return to her job at OmegaTech. She was forgiven, but she chose to retire to an outpost so remote, no one has been there in fifty years, and taken it upon herself to make it habitable once again."

  Zavir didn't have to clarify whose forgiveness Jade was seeking, and before his brother could speak another word, Nivir was already heading for his shuttle.

  Myrminth was not yet programmed into the planetary map, because no one went there. He knew the way, and in less time than it would have taken him to dress, he was lowering the sleek craft onto a bare patch of earth.

  It took him longer to find the small, sparsely furnished room Jade had claimed for her own than it had to fly here.

  The room was smaller than some of the prison cells below the palace and had about as many creature comforts as a cell. She had a palate on the floor when three doors down was a thick, comfortable bed surrounded in gauzy curtains.

  Her clothes were neatly folded into three small piles, and the most she had of anything was medical supplies. Bandages and silver canisters of the healing solutions used for deep cuts and scrapes.

  He quickly searched and found no evidence of a cutting tool she could use to mutilate her beautiful body or a reason as to why she would need so many canisters, but there were faint smears of blood on the hard backs of the scrubbing brushes she was using to clean the manor.

  She had hurt him, so now she was hurting herself in this ridiculous penance ritual.

  Nivir struggled to draw in a deep breath, listening to the rush of water and wasn't sure what to do. What to say. He was drawn to the bathing room, his stomach shriveling to see Zavir had not been wrong.

  Her hair had flirted around her thighs the last time he'd seen her. Now it was no more than a cap of golden curls barely touching her ears.

  A travesty that allowed him to see every inch of her as she stood there, nude and glistening in the flow of water that sluiced down over her.

  She had lost an alarming amount of weight; instead of lush and curvy, he could see a hint of the bones in her hips and the underside of her ribcage.

  He thanked the gods Jade hadn't lost the sumptuous mounds of her abundant breasts, but it was only a matter of time before her body began to cannibalize them as well.

  The bones in her face were sharper, and as she thought she was alone, she hadn't bothered to hide the sadness in her expression.

  Nivir wasn't sure how long he stood there, aching to reach out and touch her, but terrified if he did she might shatter.

  He discarded so many things he wanted to say, intending to speak gently to her, but what came out was an angry growl,

  "You've lost weight."

  Jade shrieked violently, her terror so stark it caused her to flail and lose her balance. Nivir leaped toward her, the chill of the water on his flesh not even an afterthought as he caught her and held her tight against his chest.

  The breath heaved out of her once she realized it was him, a ridiculously adorable scowl twisted her too thin face,

  "Nivir! You nearly scared me to death! What the hell is wrong with you, sneaking up on me in the shower?"

  "You cut your hair," he rasped, his tongue feeling thick and clumsy between his lips.

  Her spiky lashes fluttered, her cheeks washing pink. He felt her tense, holding herself stiffly in his arms like she was afraid of him. "What are you doing here?"

  It felt like a blade across his heart, the way she flinched away from his touch when all he'd meant to do was brush a wet lock of hair from her forehead.

  "I needed to see you."

  "W-why?"

  "To tell you, I'm sorry." Her eyes rounded, her soft, beautiful lips parting in surprise. "I'm sorry I didn't turn around and put you over my shoulder, then my lap. I'm sorry I didn't spank the truth out of you and had to hear it from my brother that three times, someone tried to kill you, and all you wanted from me was safe harbor.

  “I'm sorry I allowed my pride to keep me away when my instincts were screaming at me to turn back. Can you forgive me?"

  "Nivir—"

  "I'm not above begging, but you know how I feel about that. However long you make me wait, that's twice as long for you."

  The shameful pink of her cheeks darkened, her pupils dilated, and her lashes lowered to half-mast,

  "Nivir—"

  "Jade, please. Can you forgive me?" he whispered, his lips a breath away from hers, feeling how they trembled.

  "You didn't do anything wrong, Nivir. I wanted more from you than safe harbor about five minutes into our meeting. Yes, you made me feel safe, but more than that, you made me feel alive, loved even. It was my fault everything went so wrong, my brothers—"

  Nivir couldn't bear to listen to another minute, regret so thick he felt like he couldn't breathe,

  "Tell me you'll forgive me, Jade,"

  "I forgive you," her body softened, her head tipped back expecting his kiss, squealing when he whipped her out of the shower and up over his shoulder, gasping when his hand cracked down on her previously perfect posterior and commanded her to settle.

  "Nivir!"

  "I will have not a single minute more of this madness, Jade!" he marched down the hall to where the thick mattress in the comfortably appointed room waited.

  "Madness? What are you talking about?" Jade shouted, kicking her feet, squirming to get free, trying to hold back the hungry moan that escaped her pouty lips when he spanked her again.

  He dropped her on her feet, towering over her, glad to see the hint of fear in her wide, uncertain gaze. "You, punishing yourself by hiding out here in the middle of nowhere. Working yourself half to death, starving yourself nearly all the way there, sleeping on a palate on the floor of a closet!

  “Cutting your hair because you hurt, not hunting my ass down to make me listen, letting me leave you alone to face the people trying to kill you! So help me, woman, I will not have it! I forgive you, and you will never, never sleep on that palate again. Neither will you ever spend a night in a bed that I am not in, am I understood?"

  The fear and uncertainty bled out of her eyes, her hands released her own arms where she'd crossed them protectively over her chest, looking from the finger he was drilling her way, to his face and rolled those gorgeous, soft, pillowy lips of hers together to poorly hide her smile and the amusement that brightened her eyes.

  "Yes, Nivir."

  "Mouth. Now."

  "Yes, Nivir," she whispered against his lips.

  Forgiveness had never tasted so sweet, or so precious.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Angel Eyes sat with her feet up on the flight control dash, blinking to cut off the sight of her very powerful, very unique eyeballs.

  It was quiet in space, everything shrouded in shadows, which meant her brother had no problem moving to and fro. She felt the disturbance in the air along the metal of her arm, the tiniest of electric shivers that tickled her nerve endings where skin met metal at her shoulder.

  It caused he
r nape to prickle and that sensation to spill down her spine.

  "Any problems?" she asked, not bothering to turn around.

  "None," his voice was like the darkness, soft and deep enough to make one wonder what monsters lurked just out of sight.

  "Dysis and the youngest brother are dancing around one another, they both feel love and obligations don't mix. They will come together in seven days."

  Angel spun around and scowled, hating it when he did that, "You know you can't keep speaking this shit into being. You're edging on messing with their free will,"

  Tom gave his signature blink. The one that said he could care less and she was wasting her time giving him another lecture. He also arched his right brow, not his left.

  The left brow was reserved for the 'I told you so's' his right brow was for communicating those times when the pot was calling the proverbial kettle black.

  Angel rolled her eyes, her extraordinary eyes their father had spent so much time perfecting, making sure they synced perfectly with her natural abilities and amplified her sight.

  "I never told Jalia what to do or interfered in her relationship with Dhega." Tom blinked again, his right brow remained peaked, his gaze penetrating and steady.

  "Okay, so maybe I gave her a little extra nudge to get her interested in the contest. But I didn't speak reality into being, you know dad would be pissed—"

  "Our father is dead, Angelica," Tom stated coldly, both brows meeting in the center. Scary face. That was his scary face.

  "I'm quite aware of that, Thomas," she shot back, giving him her pissed off face. Tom was a man of very few words because his words had the power to create realities. If he willed it, it happened and depending on how much focus he put into that will, the results could be disastrous.

  Balance of the universe, derailing fate for good or ill—usually for ill—disastrous.

  Angel saw so many thousands of different futures, had spent what felt like eons searching for the one thread that would allow her to fulfill her father's dying wish, to protect Minos from the vicious monsters who had created it.

  "Bring justice to Minos, Angel,"

  Those were his last words to her, and for so long she thought he'd meant it literally.

  Angel had seen so much death, so much pain and destruction, her visions tinted red with blood.

  Thousands of little choices that made the future fluid and moving at warp speed, until one lonely little girl's fate had become the critical turning point.

  Angel had done everything she could to make sure she entered Jalia's life exactly at the right moment and used her sight to guide the tender-hearted, ferocious human to a destiny that would save an entire race.

  A little nudge here, an introduction to the right band of mercenaries there, a deal too good to pass up, and the wheel had turned again, the future traveling down a far less bloody road.

  Caring about Jalia had made Angel's job so much easier, and slowly but surely, all the thousands of threads came together to a more manageable handful. One hundred and fifty years ago, the Rir had gone corporate, creating the Onyx company, using it to create widespread chaos and pain.

  Her father's people had gone by many names over the centuries, the Rir being only one of them.

  Half were considered to be a benevolent race of being who did only good things for the universe, and the other half seemed bent on destroying it.

  Pollution, vice, crime, greed, evil, mass murder, the creation of a new species meant to be their slave labor and fodder for their love of blood sport...only a handful of the atrocities they'd committed.

  The nebula had been created by the last of her father's generation, a shield meant to protect the innocent lives within, to allow them time to grow into their own, to thrive, and they had.

  Those among the Rir who wanted to claim the Minoan bulls hadn't been able to get past the swirling, ever-changing, powerful clouds of electricity and hidden belt of asteroids within it.

  But they had been getting closer and closer to finding the way through.

  Now, with one girl, one family, one doctor, and the course of the future was changed.

  Now, Angel saw more happy ever afters, and less pain and suffering.

  Because of Jalia, Minos was moving forward into their own technological age, ensuring their survival and the protection of the Minoan people.

  Because of the Justus', the smiling mask was ripped away to reveal the monster that was Onyx, and those in power were brought down.

  Jared Justus and his deception had ensured Jalia would grow into precisely the sort of woman needed to stand beside a beast like Dhega, and when the time came for the truth to be revealed, Jared had been the catalyst to begin healing what he had broken.

  James Justus realized it was not enough to allow his wife to assure their children he loved them, and he gave up the career he had spent his whole life cultivating, to train the warriors of Minos, to teach them to fly and command battleships, to defend their home because it meant he got to be closer to his daughter.

  Jaclyn Justus would eventually uncover the history of the Rir, and by then everyone would be in their places, prepared for whatever the future brought.

  Jeremy and Joseph were devoted to making their terraforming empire the most successful in the galaxy for all the right reasons, which meant they needed exclusive rights to the emphrinite, which meant they had an invested interest in doing whatever they had to, to ensure the Minoan people were safe from outsiders.

  Jade Justus would ensure any viral outbreaks would never germinate within the population, and Jalia would ensure the most powerful king Minos had ever seen would never allow his people to fall.

  He had a family now, he knew love, and he would burn worlds to the ground to protect his family and his love.

  "Do we still need to keep our silence?" Tom asked, referring to their plan not to reveal their identities, their history, or how between the two of them, Tom and Angel had basically arranged a marriage and a family reunion.

  The new queen of Minos trusted Tom to protect her and wanted him close, Angel was her best friend, and all they could do now was wait.

  Little factions of Onyx would splinter off and continue to try and penetrate the nebula, to get to Minos and all its riches, but she and Tom would be there to help stop them.

  There would be dark days ahead, but Minos had a chance at happy ever after, and Angel had given her word, Tom had given his, to a father who had done unspeakable things in life and had spent his dying days trying to atone, to ensure those happy ever afters had the highest possible chance of surviving.

  "We do. Are you alright, staying down there, being her bodyguard?"

  Her brother's lips quirked in a sardonic smile, "Why do you even bother asking when you already know the answer?"

  Angel shrugged, smiling back, "Because it's still nice to ask."

  Tom grunted, gathering energy around himself to will himself from the deck of the ship, back down to the planet, but he paused.

  "Why does the baby have pink hair?"

  Angel couldn't help but laugh, the look on Dhega's face when he had first seen his son...oh that memory was never getting old.

  "Jalia's Nylalunae doesn't just change the color of her hair and skin at will, it responds to her emotions.

  “It might not have been love at first sight, but Jalia's Luna Patch identified the feeling of Jalia's love for Dhega with those pink moments.

  “David is the manifestation of their love, and it's the first emotion his Luna Patch knew."

  "But...his hair is pink."

  "Yes. Yes, it is."

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