Page 26

His lips curl back in a smirk of triumph. He withstood the Mating Rage, while I could not. He forces the ring on his finger, panting, his breath slowing, but his cock still stands straight in front of him, hard as rock.

His bright blue eyes focus as he steps back, giving me room to breathe.

“I am not a beast, Adriana. I am only what I need to be. I will bring peace to the universe, peace that can only be won through blood.” He’s regaining his ability to speak, his words crisp and clear, ringing out like hammer blows.

Thankfully, blessedly, his cock slowly softens, the obscene rod tenting his robes slowly lowering.

The shame roils up in me, the complete and utter humiliation of having my naked need drunk by the Aurelian Prince making my cheeks flush. He sniffs, smelling my emotions, and his smile fades.

“Do not be ashamed, Adriana. You are our Fated Mate. It is natural for you to be a bitch in heat for me. Stop hating your true self and accept it. It will not make you less. When you beg me to claim you, you’ll become more powerful than you ever could have imagined.”

My mouth widens in shock. “I will never beg you.”

“You will. The more you suppress what you need, the more it grows. Do not let it consume you, Adriana.”

I smooth my uniform, getting a hold of myself, when my smart-watch blinks, urgent red. He glances down at it in curiosity.

“Your spy network is very good. We got the news only moments before.” His voice still has the low, growly edge to it, but he’s regained control over himself. “Shall you go back to your ship to get whatever incomplete report your network has, or would you like the truth, from us?”

“The truth. If you will share it.”

“You will be our Princess, Adriana. It is best you see the universe for exactly what it is.” He turns, striding back towards his thrones, but stops, waving his hand, and the tapestry of stars appears once more.

He goes from a brutal, savage beast filled with the urge to rut me to a general in a flash, his moods quicksilver, his control over himself making me look at him with new respect.

His back is to me, but the toga only covers half of him, and I see the huge trap muscle, the broadness of his back, the width of him.

It is not just that he is eight feet tall.

He’s broader than humans, his entire body covered in corded muscle.

He could hold me down with a single finger, controlling me as easily as he controls his own moods.

I stand beside him, facing the other two of his triad through the maps, as he flicks his finger, pointing to a planet, which grows bigger in the display. I see the ruins of a huge factory.

“Obsidian struck. Four different targets, in quick succession, destroying four of our most valuable Mark-10 production plants.”

“Four? In what timeframe?” My voice is like a stranger’s. A strategic question, asked by my lips, but I am wearing the mask I put on when I became Prime Minister. Cold, aloof, distant, managing a thousand moving parts.

“Less than an hour.”

“Impossible. What game are you playing with me?” And with that, it’s no longer a mask, sinking back into the constant push and pull of democracy.

The Aurelians can switch moods like lightning, going from inflamed with Mating Rage to discussing strategy in a blink.

They have no shame in their sexuality, no self-consciousness in immodesty.

“I wish this was a game.” He flicks his fingers, and four red marks appear over planets on the tapestry of glowing stars in the three-dimensional map in front of me.

“If you wish, you can verify the Mark-10 footage yourself. Or you can trust me,” he says, glancing to the side and down at me, his blue eyes inscrutable.

His Empire and Pentaris are rivals, and yet he is sharing classified information, and I know he would not lie to me. I felt it, in that moment where time stretched onwards, when I truly knew the alien prince.

It makes all the deliciously dark promises all the more frightening, because he believes them…

And I am starting to, as well. It’s hard to keep focused with eight-foot-tall of muscled, primal strength to my left, and two huge beasts across from me, sitting in their marble thrones like they are an extension of them, as if they were sculpted from the same block of marble.

“Something has changed. Either the War-God was hiding his abilities, or he has gained new ones.” I look up at Doman, my eyes tracing the contours of his side profile.

His thick, blond mane cascading, a rebellious tumble that he pushes away from his eyes as he stares into the planetary map.

His face is chiseled, all hard lines and strong, warrior features.

“You knew. That’s why you were so generous with your offer.

You’re going to set up military bases in Pentaris, where you are protected. ”

He waves his hand and the map disappears. “You suspect me at every turn. I have been nothing but fair with you.”

“You manipulated me into a marriage proposal.”

“I manipulated you? I’ve heard there has been non-stop drinking on Frosthold since the deal terms were revealed. Everyone in this sector thinks you’re a genius who made us bow to your wishes.”

“I didn’t feel like such a genius when you leapt over the magma and kissed me in front of the universe.”

Doman gestures to the empty middle throne. “Sit up there, that we can speak eye to eye.”

“Oh? It won’t bother you to have a human on your Aurelian throne?”

“No one but I has ever sat on that throne. I would have you be the first.”

The throne towers, somehow both hard, edged lines and a strange, molded softness. I walk up to it and look up at the huge marble strength of it. Doman walks behind me.

“May I?” he asks, and I nod, ever so slightly. He grabs me by the waist, lifting me like I am weightless, and turns me, placing me on the throne. Then he steps back, down the steps, until we are eye to eye.

Silence stretches for a few long moments, while I feel I am perched in a giant’s chair.

“When I first felt your aura, you did not hate us so.”

“I was too surprised. One moment, I was taking a shower, the next I was… somewhere I didn’t understand, across from the three most famous Aurelians in the universe. I never once thought I went mad. I knew it was real, and I knew I could never tell anyone.”

Titus and Gallien shift in their thrones, leaning against the backs so they are turned towards me.

“What is it about us that burns you so?”

“Because you have no right. But you believe you do. That’s what I felt in you three. This… this unwavering certainty that the entire universe is owed to you.”

“You have my word. When the three years are finished, no Aurelian ship will infringe your territorial rights.”

I shake my head. “It is not infringement I fear. There’s drinking and huge feasts in Frosthold.

Virelia has declared the day of our betrothal ceremonies will be a national holiday.

Terosa has named it the trade deal of the millennium.

They’re making a statue of me. I fear my people will welcome you with open arms. This security…

it comes with a cost, and I don’t mean the protection taxes.

We can’t live as slaves. We cannot be your vassal states, or we will wither away and never become what we were meant to be. ”

Gallien leans in, his slate-gray eyes sharp. “When your species first took to the stars, you were nearly wiped out. Scorp hunted you. Toads enslaved you.”

“And Aurelians, too. Or do you forget that part of your histories? When the Priests ruled, and the Old Ways reigned?”

“That was a different time,” says Doman. Titus is silent, simply watching us.

“But the Old Ways still live. An entire third of your species harbored those desires. To own women. It is inherent to Aurelians. And that is what you have no right to.” I wave my hand.

“It is true. Humanity would have suffered great losses if it was not for your species when we first took to the stars. But that is our history. On Old Earth, a million years before the Oil Age, homo sapien was reduced to a few thousand. Our population was nearly wiped out. We were nearly eradicated from the universe, but we built empires, we took to the stars, we lived. My species’ destiny is to be our own masters. ”

Doman is listening to every word I speak in rapt fascination. “You’re right, Adriana. Except for one thing. The desire to enslave is not inherent to us. Or to me. I don’t want to own you by force, Adriana. I don’t want to enslave you.”

“And now you lie. That is what I felt, flowing from your being, in that moment of the vision.”

He smiles, but not with the cocky arrogance that makes my blood boil.

“I want you, Adriana. But I want you deeper than ownership. I don’t only want your body.

I can feel your primal instincts aching for me.

But there is a part of you that cannot be conquered, a part of you that can only be given. That is what I crave.”

“That part of me, you will never have.”

“We shall see.”

Titus stands from his throne, taking his place at the right of Doman. That is where he looks most natural. Though he is a head shorter than the crown prince, he is broad, towering over seven feet tall, but for the first time, he looks unfinished.

The massive beast, the killing machine, with a black, unruly mess of hair that makes him look like a barbarian warlord.

But his eyes are slate-gray, gleaming unknowably against his marble skin, and only Bonding us together will change that, only I can add the splash of color that will complete him.

“Is it the Bond, Adriana, that you hate the most?”

I shiver. “The Bond scares me. I won’t pretend it doesn’t.”

Gallien moves like liquid, one moment on the throne, the next crossing over to stand to Doman’s left.

He looks strangely complete, assured of himself.

He may be shorter than the other two, but I’ve seen the dominance that flows from him.

The other two want to conquer me, but he craves something… darker.

“The Bond will not change you. It will only make you more… you. Every day we waste unbonded is a sacrifice. Your lifespan is human, Adriana. We can change that. Every minute you lose, every second, you can’t get it back.

Bond with us, and don’t let them slip away like sand.

” His voice has sorrow in it, and I understand his deepest fear.

It is not that I will refuse the Bond and he will die never bearing natural sons.

It is that I will refuse and my life will flicker out while he continues, each day wracked with the guilt that he could not convince me to link himself to me.

I have two great-grandparents alive yet, near a hundred years old, but even a century is a blink to these aliens.

They spent a hundred years in Academy alone.

“We were not meant to live so long. Your species lives thousands of years, but what do you create? What great art? You used to make things of beauty. Architecture, statues, these thrones. But Colossus was built so long ago, and you could not create it anew. You are a species in stagnation. Even the cryo-bays that bear your young. Each copy is a mirror of the last, but weaker.”

“Our greatest works came from the age of Bonding. There is a new one, now, and you are part of this.”

I tense. The three titans across from me are standing, shock still, but what I am about to say will enrage Doman. “Either it is the Bond, or the unnaturally long life, but humanity becomes… warped, when linked with your species.”

“What do you mean?” Doman’s striking blue eyes narrow.

“I do not believe that when Queen Jasmine was just a scrapper on Bugra, before the Bond corrupted her mind, that she would take a pregnant woman captive. Your family, and you, are keeping an innocent woman prisoner.”

“It is necessary.” His eyes harden, an icy wall between us.

It is subtle, but the three Aurelians shift ever so slightly, their stance widening nearly imperceptibly, their hands ever so slightly closer to the hilts of their blades.

They would not draw on me, I know that, but it is telling that at the first sign of tension, their instinct is the battle-stance.

“Necessary. Yes. Fay lets you keep track of Obsidian, and with his growing power, it has never been more necessary. So you agree with it?”

“I don’t like it.”

I search his eyes, trying to see if he knows the full truth.

If he does, I can never be with him. If he does, then he is so alien to me that even understanding every inch of his being will never bridge the chasm between us.

“Doman… you aren’t a liar. But you can’t accept the truth.

I have to believe you don’t know what’s going to happen, or else you’re as evil as she is. ”

His jaw clenches. I doubt anyone has insulted his Queen Mother in front of him. No one would dare.

“Speak,” he orders, his word a harsh command.

“Queen Jasmine is not going to let the baby live. When Fay bears Obsidian’s son, she will slit the child’s throat.”

Doman steps back. His eyes flash with anger. “Lies.”

I lean forward on the throne. “She made the mistake once before. Her triad slew General Asmod. That is how they took the throne. But she did not root out his seed, she did not salt the earth. And Obsidian grew. He threatens everything she loves. Deep down, you know it’s true.

When you win this war, when Obsidian is slain, she will not let another grow. ”

“That is my mother.” His hand is clenched around the hilt of his blade.

“You pride yourself on never lying. Tell me, then, Doman. Give me your word of honor, you are certain she will let that baby live.”

He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it, his bright blue eyes clouded.

“You’re complicit in this, Doman. You. When I felt your aura, I felt a man who would do anything to win his war. And whatever you think you are, that is your core. And that is why I will never give myself to you. I will never, ever be yours.”

I get up from the throne, jumping down, and suddenly the three huge beasts of Aurelians tower over me once more. I face their three hard, angry gazes, and I keep my head high. They break open their ranks, and I walk through them and to the doors.

Doman barks out an order, and the doors are flung open, and I leave the throne room, leaving the icy chill behind me.