Page 5

“Dragons? Father, what are you talking about? Dragons aren’t real.”

“It’s what people call them. There was an Alliance Command base on Horvath during the war, full of humans, and that name got started back then when the humans noted the resemblance to the fictional creatures in their old legends and stories.

I’ve seen the drawings, and they really do resemble the things.

Their true species name is vetami. Your omak was stationed on Horvath during the war after the Axis kicked the Alliance out and took over, and he was able to ride the creatures with his friends.

I know you must have heard him talk about it. ”

“Those creatures that flew? I thought they were supposed to be kind of vicious.”

“The wild vetami can be, but not the ones who are properly raised and trained. I think Vannos would be thrilled to have one. Anyway, I’ve already made the purchase. I just need you to pick it up for me.”

“So, it’s an egg?”

“Yes. But it’s due to hatch soon, so we need to get it here before that happens.

They’re very valuable, but Travon gave me a really good price.

Anyway, I’ve made all the arrangements and all you have to do is just meet King Travon and take possession.

He might ask you to go to his ship for the meeting, and as long as you have your guards with you, that should be fine.

Then pick up the egg and bring it home.”

I shrugged. It sounded easy enough. “All right. Consider it done.”

He clapped me on the back, and I finally escaped back to my room to get ready for this journey.

I actually felt pretty lucky that it seemed to be an easy task, except for meeting this king.

I had no interest in that, but I figured it might be good to firmly shut him down before he got any more ideas.

I had no interest in getting married to him or anyone else.

I thought it was true that Omak probably would love having one of the flying creatures.

I would too for that matter. He certainly relived his time there on that moon often enough and told us all about it.

He’d been a teenager at the time though.

I thought he might be a bit old to go flying around these days, though I’d never say it to his face.

I went upstairs to pack a small bag in case we did get delayed and had to spend more than one night.

I made up my mind that I’d get through this and then I could take off with my friend Kareb on a little trip to the southern coast. It had been far too long since we’d been to the beach.

A few hours later, I was in my father’s ship headed to Lycanus 3. Kareb had gone along with me, as one of my personal bodyguards, and we’d been talking about our upcoming trip, when one of the other guards interrupted us.

“Excuse me, Your Highness,” he said from the aisle beside me. “The captain wanted me to let you know we’ll be landing in an hour or so. We’re coming across Lycanus 1 now, and we’ll be on the surface of Lycanus 3 fairly soon after that.”

I nodded my thanks and settled back in my seat. My father had sent more than the usual number of guards with me, though our ship wasn’t all that large. He was being careful, and not just to guard my virtue with old, randy kings.

We’d had kidnappings of some of our royal family members recently.

It hadn’t been long since my uncle Rakkur and my first cousin Jago were attacked and taken captive.

The kidnappings hadn’t been in this part of the galaxy, but King Davos insisted on taking extra precautions now, with all his children and grandchildren, so that none of us would be taken hostage again.

He actually wouldn’t like the small size of this ship, if he’d known about it, considering there were pirates said to operate around the three Lycan planets and their moons because of all the trading that went on there.

But King Stefan didn’t like to be told what to do with his family or much of anything else, for that matter.

My family’s drama earlier in the year had all worked out in the end, and my relatives had been recovered, but it had scared everybody.

This part of the galaxy should be safe enough, I thought, but it was still a little wild and wooly, as my omak would say.

Like I said, from time to time, some pretty vicious pirates were known to still operate in this area.

I felt a little shudder go down my spine but soon went back to gazing out the large porthole beside me and having a glass of Rother and visu punch as a little pick me up, as we soared past the largest of the three planets of Lycanus.

I was a bit nervous, because I wanted to please my father—all I had to do, he’d told me, was go to the Lycan trading offices and King Travon would be there to meet me and transfer the egg But I just didn’t want to fuck this up.

My father told me all the time that I was like my omak, by which he meant pretty but not too bright.

He denied it, of course, but I knew, just like my omak did, and we both resented it.

It didn’t mean that my father wasn’t crazy about my omak—about both of us.

We all knew that he was. Maybe the difference in their royal status bothered him more than he liked to let on.

After all, my omak, Prince Vannos, was the beloved son of King Davos, the head of the entire Axis Command.

He was powerful because of that and maybe my father was a bit jealous.

The long, terrible war had ended way before I’d even been born, but it had been so devastating that no one was even close to forgetting it, from what I’d seen, even after all these years.

Moravia had stayed neutral at first, though, but strongly Axis leaning and eventually agreed to join the empire, largely because of my omak.

Earth had been occupied only up until recently and strong resentments lingered both there and on the Lycan planets.

Others in this region felt the same way.

The Axis had briefly considered martial law on the Lycanus planets and moons, but quickly decided they’d simply be fighting the Lycans all the time and another war might even break out.

The Lycans didn’t like to admit they’d been on the losing side, as they didn’t admit defeat easily.

In fact, they still maintained that they had never officially surrendered.

Surrendering was what made things permanent—and official, I guess. At least in their minds.

Moravia was friendly enough with Lycanus, but we were too closely associated with the Tygerians for a close alliance, again because of my omak, Vannos.

This task my father had set for me certainly wasn’t hard, but any transactions with the Lycans could be tricky.

I wanted to do well and not screw any of this up.

My guards were all mostly my friends that I’d been in school and training with, and they thought it might be better if no one knew exactly who I was when we went for pickup of the vetami egg, because of the whole Tygerian thing.

I had agreed to dress in similar clothing to what they all wore, and I’d tied back my hair and wore a hooded jacket to help disguise the red-gold color, which was also closely associated with Tygerians.

I told everyone not to address me as “Your Highness,” which they rarely did anyway, to be honest. I wanted to remain as low-key and unrecognizable as possible. That was the plan anyway.

We were supposed to be meeting King Travon on the docks for the transfer of the egg, and I dreaded that.

I was ready to go meet him, be as nice as I possibly could to him, while not expressing any undue interest, and then get out of there.

My father had advised me not to go onboard his ship alone and without guards under any circumstances, though, which I thought was odd.

I still think everything would have been fine if not for what happened when we got to the warehouse.

I still think it wasn’t my fault that almost the first thing I did after we arrived was to get myself involved in a huge brawl.

It all began because as luck would have it, King Travon wasn’t the only other interested party there to meet us on Lycanus 3.

I was there at the agreed-upon time, and we had followed the directions my father had given me to the letter.

We saw the crate containing the egg on the floor inside the warehouse, with a group of men wearing green uniforms standing beside it.

I figured that the one standing in front of the men and gazing at me so intensely must be the king of Thalios, King Travon himself.

My first impression was that he was a handsome man. Not exactly my type, but still not too bad. He was regally and expensively dressed and had many badges and medals on his uniform. He gave me a little smile and inclined his head when he saw me. So far so good, or so I thought.

The crate was beside the group, and it was huge.

It was some ten feet wide, and about that tall.

I could hear my men behind me, discussing the best way to get the thing loaded when Kareb suddenly nudged me hard in the side.

I turned to see what he wanted and saw him looking across the big warehouse at another, even larger group of men.

They were also in uniform, though theirs consisted of red capes over leather armor.

They had been standing around at the back of the huge warehouse when we arrived, and they were now beginning to advance quickly on our group.

Their leader had a determined expression.