N'ashtar The Alien Prince Read online

  I did wish I had someone to share the burden with, someone who understood the mystery of human females. O’Rrin would have understood. He had Hetta and had successfully wooed her somehow, but he was back in N’Akkar since she was newly pregnant. Between that and her recent kidnapping, he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight any time soon.

  The thought of my deceased brother sent regret and rage rippling through me. As the oldest of two males, I was the heir, and Yrrix had simply been an afterthought. He had been kept around, of course, but only as someone to replace me if something had happened. We N’Akron were bound by honor, and it was not a chiefly thing to do to leave your people to fight while languishing in the back and not risking yourself. No, if we fought, I was in the middle of it.

  Yrrix, angry over the rules and how our father had treated him, had stolen Hetta under O’Rrin’s nose and fled with her to Kohta, the Caterri capital, to present her as a tribute and a sacrifice for a small Caterri squad we had taken out a few menlin back. Although it had been Hetta ordering us around that time, it had been easy to see that Dana was right behind her. They banded together, the small human females. It made sense, given they had no proper male protectors.

  The honorable thing would have been to face the Caterri head-on, but Dana had indicated she did not wish that to happen. She had suggested something much less honorable, traps and tricks and attempting to catch the Caterri the same way we caught prey. It was not done, nor was lecturing the N’Akron war chief on fighting techniques. Whether it was clever or not, it wasn’t right, and I hesitated to move that far from our tribe’s ideas. The humans were changing things, but I wasn’t sure if it was for good or not.

  It was especially difficult that her suggestions were good ones, ones I would not have thought of on my own. They were clever and likely to work, but dismay itched under my skin. I wanted to rescue Dana, of course. But was it worth acting dishonorably? Then again, I already had been disowned by my father, according to him, so did it really matter?

  Fighting twelve Caterri on my own was nearly impossible if I did it the way I was used to, spear and sword at the ready as I charged into their camp. Even with the element of surprise on my side, I didn’t think I could take out more than two or three before getting overwhelmed by the sheer numbers. They didn’t seem to be the best warriors, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t hurt me. Even the strongest fighter could be taken down by the number of fighters if they did not stop coming.

  Then there was the Caterri that had been talking to Dana, feeding her food. Jealousy surged through me, the desire to storm in there and rip the Caterri to shreds threatening to override my sense of control. I couldn’t. It wasn’t what Dana wanted, even if it was what I did, and I was doing this for Dana, wasn’t I? The Caterri was likely talking to her, being kind to her, as a lure. Maybe they knew I was behind them, or knew someone would come for her, and were pretending they had let their guard down and were vulnerable to attack. I wouldn’t have put it past them.

  I thought about what it would take to trap them, the travel I would need to do, the holes I would need to dig. There would be thin strips of sinew to trip them, sharp bits of sahtor wood at the base of pit traps. I didn’t think I would be able to kill the Caterri with these, not on such short notice, but if I could hurt them in any way, it would make it easier to rush into the camp eventually. I just needed to shift the odds in my favor.

  And really, I had been willing to charge out of the camp at a moment’s notice when I had gotten word of Dana’s whereabouts. Was this really that different? She wasn’t N’Akron, no, and even though she was female, my father had been skeptical about saving her. But if R’Asha was right, she was a gift. Her arrival and that of her tribemates signaled a necessary change for our people, so why did I continue to hold onto the past?

  A loud hiss cut through my thoughts, and I turned immediately, surprised to see N’thim walking over. The hiss was how we greeted each other sometimes, because it allowed us to scent the air with our tongue and make a noise that was audible for us, but not always for our enemies. Adrenaline ran through me, because N’thim was one of the first contacts I had tried to make for our plan, and if it went awry, it was another blow to whether or not I would be able to rebel against the Caterri at all.

  “Brother,” N’thim said with an incline of his head. He remained standing, which made me get to my feet. It was always best to be on equal standing, no matter how important the other was.

  “Brother.” I hissed at him in greeting, watching him carefully. His face was blank, his eyes a neutral yellow-gold. “Do you come bearing news?”

  N’thim nodded, taking a step forward. His chin was raised proudly, his face blank, and I could not tell what that meant for my people. “I spoke to our chief,” N’thim said.

  When his pause continued, I realized he was waiting for an acknowledgment. “Good. What did he speak?”

  Something akin to amusement flashed in his eyes, something that set my scales on edge. I didn’t think that was a good sign. “Without proof, our chief does not believe your outlandish claims and we do not wish to entertain this folly any further.”

  I did my best to not let my despair show in my expression. “I see.”

  “There is a way, however, you could secure our tribe’s support.”

  From the way N’thim was speaking, I couldn’t tell if he actually supported the idea and went against his chief, or if that was something his chief had asked him to say or do. The whole situation also emphasized how difficult it was going to be to get the tribes to work together in the first place. I truly did not have visible proof of the Caterri’s methods, just the evidence of their long subterfuge. I believed me, and some of my people did, but the other tribes did not know me. What reason would they have to believe me?

  “What can we do?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral. I wasn’t certain what he was going to ask for, and I made no promises.

  “We wish for a female.” N’thim’s tone was steady, as steady as his expression. “You are tracking one, and we could help in rescuing her.”

  I tried to not let my anger show, no matter how much it was racing through me. I didn’t share Dana. Not with him, not with his tribe, not with my tribe. She was mine. Dana was not currency, to be tossed around at the whim of my people. Nor were Jackie or Hetta or—

  It clicked, in that moment, why Dana and Hetta had been so upset over L’Anna’s tribute. Why Hetta had been so glad when the tithing had not happened and L’Anna had returned back to the tribe with us. In tithing to the Caterri, giving them the females they wanted, we were treating them like they were nothing more than currency. We were doing the very thing that N’thim was asking of me at the moment. Still, I did not want to tell him no immediately. I needed him to think about it, to wonder if we would do what he wished.

  “I will think about it,” I said finally. We N’Akron didn’t lie, either, and that was as close to a falsehood as I could go.

  The long look N’thim gave me made me wonder if he knew of my deception, but when he eventually nodded, I tasted the air in relief. There was no anger coming off of him, no sense that he had seen through my lie. “I will return to your trail in three days,” N’thim said in that weird monotone of his. I had been taught from a youngling to keep my face calm, but he was a stranger. “If you do not wish to present us with a female, we will have no choice but to travel to Kohta and report your actions.” Another lingering look. “If I am busy, a scout will meet you.”

  My back stiffened at his last two statements. That hadn’t been mentioned in his immediate plans, that he planned to hurt us as a tribe if we did not cater to his wishes. With a nod and a faint hiss, N’thim was gone, leaving me standing there and trying to think over everything that had happened. What I hated the most was that I was considering it, wondering if there was an eligible female in the tribe that we could gift to his tribe in exchange for our safety and their assistance.

  Did that make me any better than the Caterri? Maybe. I didn’t do it at the same level, or even think about it in the same way. They were controlling all of us. This was just one tribe’s attempt to control what they could in front of them. But that he was asking the very thing the Caterri asked for made me wary. Maybe he was already in their pockets. Maybe he was just looking for an excuse to return to Kohta and tell the emperor something that would gain his tribe much favor. Had I made a mistake by trusting him?

  Not that I really had the time to think about all of it, not now. No, my focus needed to be on tracking forward, finding time and space to set up the traps I needed to. Since the Caterri were sleeping, I could take advantage of their lax watch and circle around the camp to the other side with the goal of going ahead of them. If I was to injure them, it was not going to be from setting things behind them. No, I needed to get ahead of them, to predict the route they were going to go and how I could best cripple their people.

  I gathered my few belongings and spent some time scouting the path, my mind wandering even as I worked on determining which route the Caterri would take. Dana, at least, would be safe, provided she was in that strange metal beast that they seemed to tie to her to with strange metal circles. I could dig holes without worrying about her delicate human feet, at least. Faint memories of seeing O’Rrin tending to Hetta’s feet popped up in my mind. Did she wish someone to rub her feet when feeling ill? Was that something I should have offered to her when we crossed paths?

  Wishing I knew more about human mating customs, I skirted the Caterri camp, moving quickly and quietly in the dense brush. I didn’t want them to catch sight of me, but I also wanted to get another peek of Dana. Using the grass to hide and by sneaking, I caught sight of her, still chained to the metal beast and seemingly asleep. Uneasily, I thought of the tang of blood earlier, trying to catch it on the wind on my tongue. Was it really from a Caterri, as she had claimed? Either way, I could not smell it anymore, although I wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

  I was at least two hours ahead of the Caterri when I started digging. I disguised the traps as best I could, using patches of grass that shaded the stiff sahtor poles I carefully placed inside. If we were lucky, the Caterri would cut themselves. If not, the depth of the holes meant they would at least injure their strange legs. Next were the trip wires, although I struggled to place them above the ground. While I had set them for hunting back home before, it was different so close to Kohta when we needed to be invisible. I couldn’t use leather in that case, because the Caterri would see it and know something was going on.

  My people twined the sinew from animals into long lengths, so I used that, using small fragments of wood to hold them far enough off the ground and steady enough it would harm the Caterri in the event they stumbled into one. I did hope that it would come across as an accident, because the wood would give fairly quickly. Maybe the Caterri would think it was just bad luck.

  By the time I finished, the sun was nearing the horizon, starting to cast bright rays that illuminated everything. I was starting to tire, knowing I had to sleep at some point, but not yet. No, I needed to keep an eye on Dana first. I needed to see how the Caterri would react to the trap, and there was no way I could sleep that close to their trail.

  When I realized it would take another hour or two for the Caterri to arrive, I darted off the trail into a patch of grass that, although it was not comfortable, was tall enough to shield me, and that was what mattered. I needed the rest more than I needed it to be comfortable rest. I just had to wait now, wait and see what would happen.

  I hated waiting.

  8

  Dana

  I hated not knowing. I didn’t know if N’Ashtar had taken anything to heart about what I told him, if he had set any traps or just ignored me altogether. Were the Caterri about to have a bad morning, or would things go as fine as they always would?

  Well. Fine for the Caterri, anyway. I grimaced down at between my legs. The cloth they had given me only did so much. However, I hadn’t seen Squire so far that morning, and I didn’t think any of the other Caterri were even remotely friendly. Then again, they did think I was dying of some blood-borne disease, so maybe they would have been amenable to providing what I needed.

  “Eat.” B shoved food and a small packet of water in my direction. “We are to leave soon.”

  “Can I get a new cloth?” I asked. “I need a new one for my disease.”

  B wrinkled his nose in an oddly human gesture. Was that something his people had picked up, or was that something they did innately? The diplomat in me was always curious about other people’s cultures, and that became even more important when you took into account we could go to other planets. “We do not have cloths to waste on you.”

  I let out a dramatic sigh. “I guess I’ll just have to bleed all over your fancy hovercraft, then.” I shook my head, glancing at the thing I was still handcuffed to. “Sure hope you’re not planning to reuse it after I disease it all up.”

  B looked like someone had shoved poop under his nose. “Fine.”

  “Also, I need to relieve myself,” I added as an afterthought. When he stared blankly at me, I hid an inward sigh. “Pee? Go to the bathroom?” Then I paused. “Do you even have bathrooms?”

  It was clear from B’s expression that he wasn’t picking up what I was putting down, but I’d survive.

  “I will have someone come escort you,” B grunted, stomping away without pushing the food or water close enough that I could reach it with my handcuffed hands. Instead I was left trying to grab them with my toes, and let’s just say, they are not prehensile digits. It was frustrating as fuck, lying there and trying desperately to get food close enough that I could eat it.

  “I am here to supervise you.” The familiar voice was almost reassuring, something I never thought I would have assigned to a Caterri.

  “Can you undo the cuffs?” I asked Squire, lifting my wrists in his direction.

  “They have given me a temporary key,” he answered. “I am to return it once you are secure again.”

  “So you don’t have the ability to remove them whenever you want?” Damnit. There was one hope for an escape plan gone.

  “I am afraid I do not,” Squire said. “I am merely an underling, not to be gifted with such things. They only allow me to supervise you because they are afraid of catching your illness.”

  Reminded of my lie, I watched him as he undid my cuffs and helped me stand. I massaged my wrists, watching as he did not balk and run away, or even look disgusted by me, even though the others did. Did he know I was lying, or was it something else? Did he just not care if he got sick?

  “Thank you for looking after me,” I said softly, not sure if that was against Caterri etiquette or not.

  Squire gave me a strange look, and I wondered if ‘thank you’ was even in their vocabulary. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it wasn’t. I dragged my mind away from those thoughts as he waited patiently for me to follow him. We’d come back for the food, because man, I really needed to pee. He took me a ways away from the camp, politely turning his back and giving me as much privacy as he could with the other Caterri not too far away. I was grateful for him, really. There was so much he could have done to make my life more difficult, but he didn’t.

  Ignoring modesty because who really gave a damn at that point, I stripped my pants off to change the cloth in my underwear. Thankfully, I’d never really had a heavy flow, and my periods were light, so I wasn’t quite bleeding all over everything. I know, I know. I was That Girl who was not only perfect, but had easy periods, too.

  By the time I yanked my pants back up, most of the Caterri had gathered at the edge of camp, watching me with hungry eyes. Even with my back mostly turned towards them so they couldn’t see between my legs, they still stared. Squire had turned back to me, probably because he couldn’t be caught not paying attention to the prisoner. He was nice, mostly, and I didn’t want him to get in trouble.

  “I will dispose of this,” Squire announced, pulling another type of cloth out of nowhere and using it to pick up the bloody rag.

  “Thanks,” I said again, earning me another strange look. At Squire’s nod, I followed him mostly back to the camp and where my food was, ignoring the stares of the others the best I could. Apparently they were impatient to leave, because I’d only finished half of my food when it was yanked out of my hand and I was shoved back in the hovercraft and handcuffed to it again.

  I was starting to get sick of sitting and doing nothing, let’s be real. I wasn’t made for that sort of thing. I was a doer, not a sitter. Squire tossed the cloths he’d been holding in the fire, although he didn’t glance my way. When we were among all of the Caterri, it was clear he did as little around me as he could. It was probably dangerous for him to be nice to me in the first place, and I wondered why he was so friendly when the others weren’t.

  Watching the Caterri pack up the camp, I sat with crossed legs and stared at them, having nothing to do but wander down memory lane. N’Ashtar, of course, was the first thing to pop up. His arrogant high-handedness, his bossy controlling, and his snarky attitude should have made me hate him. But for all of his faults, he didn’t force me, either. When I gave him as good as I got, he treated me like an equal, not like I was inferior. I should have torn him down every notch possible and left him shattered and ruined. Instead, I was wondering what it would be like to kiss him. Especially with that forked tongue.

  I wasn’t a virgin, nowhere near, but it wasn’t like I had a long list of bed partners, either. None of them had stayed, because who wanted to sign up to a life of constant travel and parties and dealing with shit no one wanted to deal with? Especially when it became clear we could leave Earth and that opened traveling even further. Earth boys just didn’t do that, they told me. But N’Ashtar was different in so many ways.