Her Alien Warrior Prince Page 9

  But I couldn't.

  Protecting her – even from my own bloodlust – was too important, especially now that I was just starting to appreciate her companionship. She was mine. I had to take care of her, regardless of the cost to myself. What if I started to drink from her, and the bloodlust overwhelmed me until I’d consumed every last drop? No. I could never put her in such danger.

  Still, my veins ached, and my mouth was as dry as the sand on the desert moon of Sha'Hara. My head was filled with a horrid buzzing, like a swarm of Gruulian venom-wasps stinging my brain to death.

  I needed to do something. I needed to feed. Now.

  As I made my hasty exit from Carly's bedchamber, I worried that she would find the manner of my sudden departure rude, but it was more important for me to regain complete control than to spare her feelings. I resolved to make it up to her as soon as I'd cleared my head and filled my stomach.

  I walked to the platform over the sheer marble shaft and stepped off, allowing my wings to catch the air and gently carry me down to the bottom. Then I hurried to the lower levels of the Ruby Stronghold.

  The dungeons. I laughed bitterly.

  To be fair, that little falsehood had been a cruel joke to play on Carly when she first arrived. Certainly, the subterranean chambers had once fit that description – especially under the earlier Blood Rulers, who enjoyed keeping their blood slaves chained up in filthy cells and torturing them when they weren't feeding on them. Even the great, good-hearted reformer Kochak kept the slaves in harsh conditions during his rule. He didn't see the point in coddling them and dedicating resources to their comfort when they were simply a food source, nothing more.

  No, I was the one who had decided that, although blood slaves were a necessary element of the Stronghold – a vital source of nutrition to all who lived and worked here – and although I had the ultimate say in their fates, there was no reason to treat them abominably. I'd removed the chains and torture devices, cleansed the lower levels of mildew and vermin, converted the cells to small and Spartan bedchambers, and insulated them to ensure that the occupants were kept at a comfortable temperature. The more well behaved ones were even given a chance to borrow books and games from the leisure suite.

  True, I'd continued to keep them on a diet of nutrient pastes – they were still prisoners, after all, kept here against their will because they were enemies of the Valkred in one way or another. And beyond just keeping them alive, the pastes added important vitamins to their blood and gave it a more robust flavor.

  Still, I considered it to be progress. A sign that as a species, we were continuing to evolve and reject the more barbarous elements of our own past. Whoever the next Blood Ruler turned out to be – hopefully not for many, many more years – I fervently hoped that he or she would continue these practices.

  I saw that there were a handful of servants who were in the process of feeding off the slaves. I met their gaze and cleared my throat, indicating that I was waiting for them to finish. Sure enough, they nodded their understanding, concluded their meals quickly, and left me alone.

  Some previous Blood Rulers had happily joined their servants in drinking from the slaves, but that had never seemed quite right to me. I didn't like to fraternize in such a way, to turn a basic survival need into an excuse for debauchery.

  I preferred privacy while I fed.

  I walked past the rows of chamber doors, contemplating my options. A handful of Krote pirates, a Drekkir pickpocket, a Xehrulian couple who'd been caught spying… none of them appealed to me at the moment. And naturally, Carly was the only human blood slave the palace had seen for years.

  Ah. A Mana. One who'd been taken prisoner after a particularly gruesome battle near Nanryr.

  Not perfect. But he'd have to do.

  I approached the open door of his chamber, peering into the darkness. He looked back at me with his fishy eyes, too pale and weak to stand, his expression unreadable. As I stared at him, it was difficult not to be reminded of M'ruvev – and suddenly, I was filled with a horrible rage.

  Damn M'ruvev.

  Damn him for being under attack by Krote corsairs when my ship happened to be passing by, so I'd end up making “friends” with a sworn enemy. Damn him for insisting that we meet at The Vein, for exploiting my hunger when he owed me his life. Damn him for giving me five days to find out who assaulted his ship, for putting me in an impossible position, for making my own people turn on me, for making me suffer through my hunger, damn him, damn him…!

  I saw the flicker of fear in the Mana slave's eyes just before I closed the distance between us, a blur in the darkness, a flash of fangs in the gloom as I sank my teeth into his wrist. He knew not to bother fighting back – he'd been drank from far too many times already for that – but still, something inside him clearly understood that there was anger behind my bite this time. I heard his heart rate quicken, and I even got a brief flash of his thoughts in my mind:

  Is this it? Is this the last bite, the one that will finally kill me?

  His blood spurted against my tongue, brackish and briny, and I gorged myself on it greedily. I wanted to drink from his throat – as many of my servants had before, based on the previous bite marks – but I couldn't trust myself to do so without finishing him off, which would be a needless loss of life, not to mention wasteful.

  I swallowed. And swallowed. And swallowed.

  I felt the oxygen carried in the Mana's blue blood cells flowing through my own veins, giving me strength, power, control over myself again. The buzzing in my head faded, replaced with a magnificent silence that allowed me to hear my own thoughts once more.

  “Nnnh,” the Mana grunted quietly, closing his eyes and leaning his head back with a soft shudder.

  My attention returned sharply to what I was doing. Had I gone too far? Was he close to death?

  With great effort, I pulled my fangs out of his wrist, withdrawing from him.

  As I retreated to the door, the Mana opened his eyes again, heaving a sigh. “I wish you'd finished it this time,” he gurgled faintly.

  I raised an eyebrow. “You would prefer death, then, to your life here?”

  He gave a feeble nod. “By the stars, yes. Anything… would be better than… this.” And with that, he fell over onto his cot, passing out.

  I slammed the door to his chamber and stalked back through the lower level corridors, feeling fresh anger surge inside me. All of my reforms, all of my attempts to show respect to these prisoners, all the criticism I'd endured for “treating them like guests instead of slaves” – and they wished for death instead?

  Such a lack of gratitude!

  “Many of your predecessors felt the same rage toward the blood slaves in their charge,” Torqa's voice interjected behind me. “Would you like me to show you how they chose to express such hostilities? I believe we still have some of the old implements of torture around here somewhere. We can use them on the prisoners together, if you wish. It would be… fun.”

  I turned to her, curling my lip furiously. “No. Thank you.”

  She barked a humorless laugh, leaning against the stone wall. “I thought not. I must admit, I'm surprised to find you down here drinking from the same dirty wrists and necks that your servants have been sucking on, instead of upstairs feeding from your untouched blood slave.”

  “The way you spoke to her earlier was wholly unnecessary,” I said through gritted teeth, “and will not be tolerated again.”

  “Really? How odd. I've said far worse to the other blood slaves in this castle without drawing your ire. Unless, of course, it is as I suspected,” she went on: “You don't consider her to be just a ‘blood slave,’ do you? No, despite the number of noble Valkred women who would be eager to share your bed and your life, you prefer to think of that squealing pink creature upstairs as a mate. How disgusting, not to mention disappointing.”

  “Your disappointment matters little to me, Torqa. And whether I consider her a mate or not is none of your business. You
will obey me in this matter.”

  Torqa gave me an exaggerated bow once more. “Very well, Blood Ruler. Your word is law, as ever. I only came down here to let you know that M'ruvev has been attempting to contact you.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “He wanted you to know that he's doing his best to honor the deadline he gave you, but that he's been facing a lot of pressure from his own people. He's not entirely confident that he can keep them at bay for much longer.” She took a deep breath, then added, “He also said that his people managed to recover some wreckage from one of the Valkred ships that the Aquavor fired upon before it was destroyed. They weren't able to gather much organic matter, but the fragments they did retrieve appear to contain Valkred DNA.”

  “So it was our own people who broke the treaty.”

  “It seems that way, yes,” she answered. “They've sent the data to us. I'm cross-referencing it against the organic materials we keep archived for our warriors. Hopefully, a match will turn up soon.”

  “I cannot sit idly by and hope for a match!” I roared. “You heard what happened in the town square earlier? Events are moving too quickly! Enemies are everywhere, even in our own ranks! I've waited too long already for others to bring me answers, instead of finding them myself!”

  The corners of Torqa's lips twitched with amusement. “You're welcome to try, but you won't find better answers than the ones I'm already providing. You know perfectly well that I maintain the finest network of spies in the entire galaxy. I have informants on every civilized world.”

  “Not every civilized world. Not Yuluna. Theirs is a race of seers. If anyone can give me the information I seek, it's the Lunians.”

  “They can, perhaps, but they won't. You know our diplomatic relations with the Moon People are strained, to say the least. After our last visit to their planet, and the fiasco involving that damned missing book…”

  “True,” I replied, “which is why I shall rely on back channels. We may be at odds with the Lunians, but the Drekkir are not. If I have the First Minister of Drekkis reach out to them, perhaps under the guise of collecting data for their own Ministry of Information regarding the balance of power in our sector, I might be able to find out what I need to know.”

  Torqa shrugged. “Very well. If you feel you'll be able to achieve results that way, so be it. Oh, and Akzun?”

  I waited for her to continue, annoyed.

  “It may interest you to know,” Torqa went on with a nasty smile, “that your ‘mate’ is currently on your private docking pad with Lun and his work crew. Not that it's any of my business, of course, as you said.”

  “What the blazes is she doing there?” I roared, feeling a spike of jealousy drive through me.

  Torqa's grin made her resemble a Truvilian Gore-Shark. “Why don't you go and see for yourself, O Wise and Noble Leader?”

  I marched to the docking area, seething. Damn it, didn't everyone in this infernal palace know that Carly was mine alone? And now I find out she's fraternizing with my servants?

  Just another ungrateful blood slave, throwing my kindness back in my face, cursing the hospitality I offer. Well, we'll see about that.

  The door to the castle grounds opened before me and I stepped through briskly, hearing laughter echo across the tarmac. Sure enough, there was Carly: sitting on the wing of my private shuttle, surrounded by Lun and his workers.

  “So you mean to tell me,” Lun cackled, “that on your world, the Earthlings take a great sense of accomplishment in squeezing into the tiny waste disposal chambers on these… these air-planes you speak of, and mating in them mid-flight?”

  “Yep!” Carly replied cheerfully. “They call it ‘joining the Mile-High Club.’”

  “Mile-high,” one of the other workers scoffed. “As though that's something to be proud of, ha! Well, I suppose if most of them ever get a chance to ride on a ship that leaves orbit, we know the first thing they'll probably try to do.”

  “Join the Seventy-Mile-High Club!” Carly and the others giggled in unison.

  I couldn't believe my ears. “What the hell is going on here?” I demanded.

  Everyone immediately fell silent.

  11

  Carly

  I turned to look at Akzun, surprised by the anger in his voice. What could I possibly have done wrong? He'd made such a point of not treating me like a slave or a prisoner. Wouldn't he want me to make myself comfortable, to make friends with the people here, to try to settle in and have fun?

  “Hi Akzun,” I chirped, trying to sound as casual as possible. “Is everything okay? You seem a little –”

  “Get down from there,” he interrupted coldly. “Now.”

  I glanced at Lun, and saw that his bloodshot eyes were full of fear. “We should go,” he murmured to the other workers quietly, scuttling down the side of the shuttle. The others quickly followed suit, clearing the area.

  “My apologies, Blood Ruler,” Lun said as he passed Akzun, giving him a wide berth. “We meant no offense, I assure you. We were only –”

  “You were only having unauthorized and inappropriate contact with my mate, and telling ribald jokes in her presence,” Akzun snarled. “I will deal with you later, Lun.”

  Lun nodded, vanishing into the shadows and leaving me alone with Akzun. I slid down the bulkhead of the shuttle, landing easily on my feet and walking over to him.

  “Why would you talk to Lun and the others like that?” I asked, the early embers of anger lighting up my belly. “They seem like nice guys.”

  “Then perhaps you'd prefer to take up residence in the lower levels with the blood slaves after all,” he countered fiercely, “so you can spend as much time with them as you please, and let them mate with you and drink from you without my interference.”

  I stomped over to him, furious now. “Okay, just what the hell is your problem here? First you have sex with me while putting thoughts in my head about how I'm your mate, then afterward you leave so fast you practically fly out the window – and now you're getting in my face about making harmless conversation with the people who work here. Would you mind telling me what's going on? Because personally, I'm starting to think you're just confused and angry at yourself for not being able to decide if you want to drink me, fuck me, or marry me, and you're taking it out on me!”

  “It didn't sound like 'harmless conversation' to me,” Akzun snapped. “It sounded like you were flirting.”

  “Well, I wasn't. I was being friendly, and trying to find out more about your people and their ways so I could communicate with you on a deeper level. But if you're going to fly into some stupid jealous rage every time I talk to someone who's not you, I'm not sure I even want to.”

  “This is not the place for us to have this discussion,” Akzun growled, grabbing me and unfurling his wings.

  I struggled, but I knew he was stronger than I was. Still, I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me just give in and let him take me wherever he wanted. “Put me down!”

  “No. If you're going to live here with me, you need to learn the proper decorum. And if you don't want to live with me, then I suppose I'd better prepare accommodations for you in the dungeons.” He picked me up and took off, flying us toward the highest tower of the palace.

  I almost screamed for him to let go of me, then realized it would be a poor choice of words, given the circumstances. Instead, I maintained a stony silence all the way to the tower, then shoved him away as soon as we were inside his chamber.

  “I'm sick of all this confusion and uncertainty,” I told him hotly. “One minute it seems like you're trying to wine and dine me, and the next, you're pushing me around like you fucking own me. You want to treat me like I'm just a slave? Fine. Go ahead. I was a slave at Nos's place, and I can be one here, too. Lock me up, drink my blood, whatever. You want me to be your mate or your consort or whatever medieval bullshit you want to call a romantic relationship? Cool, okay, we can certainly give that a shot. But either way, act like a true Blood
Ruler and make a real decision.”

  I turned and ran out into the hall, entering my own bedchamber and slamming the door behind me. My impulse was to lock it – but then I remembered the original purpose of this room, and that it locked from the outside, not the inside. So I pushed the bed against the door, blocking it just as Akzun started to pound on it.

  “How dare you talk to me about what it means to be a Blood Ruler?” he yelled. “You don't have any idea of how things work here, or the responsibilities I carry!”

  “Yeah, and from what I've seen, I don't want to!” I shouted back, tears stinging my eyes. “You like to make grand speeches, but when it comes down to it, you're too chicken-shit to even admit to yourself how you really feel about me and fucking act on it!”

  “Open this door, Carly. Damn you! You know I can come in any time I choose!”

  “Hey, you want to break the door down so you can scream at me some more face to face? Knock yourself out, asshole!”

  “Do you even want to be my mate?” he challenged. “Or do you really want to live with the blood slaves below, and be food for my servants?”

  “I want to go home!” I shrieked. Now I was crying. I couldn't believe it. Just a short while ago, I'd been brought here under duress, and now I found myself caring enough about Akzun that his cruel behavior actually hurt my feelings. Christ, what a strange turn of events.

  “This is your home now, human!” Akzun roared. “Perhaps you'd better sit alone for a while and think on that before we speak again.”

  I heard him stalk down the hall to his own room and slam the door.

  I threw myself down on the bed angrily, wiping my tears on the pillows. No matter what planet you're on, Carly, the men are all the same: Instead of confronting their emotions and dealing with them, they yell and posture and stomp around. He's the psychic, but he treats me like I'm the one who's the goddamn mind reader. Terrific. Now what do I do?

  My thoughts drifted to the private shuttle parked right outside the castle. Lun had shown me so many of its systems and features. He'd babbled a lot of technical jargon at me glibly, thinking it would all be completely over my head.