Captured By her Alien Mate by Ava York

Kator

Few things drag as much as staff meetings. Fewer still were the meetings that involved the king and his high command. Even fewer were those involving discussion of taxes, of all things.

And here was I. Caught right in the damn middle of it.

They didn’t even know how much I loathed all of them. Fools. One of their countrymen had been responsible for the destruction of my mother’s life, and I hated them all for it. Burying that hatred behind a mask of bland interest and loyalty to the king was the act of a lifetime.

“My lord,” said Aefir, the tax collector of the Aetam kingdom, “we must press even harder on this issue. Without new taxes, we will no longer able to give the Aetam forces the support they need in our struggle with the D’Tali.”

“Struggle?” snorted Jalon, commander of the palace guard. “I’d say calling it a ‘struggle’ is underselling it slightly.”

“What mean you by this, Jalon?” King Mofat said.

“My king, to put it bluntly, we had our asses handed to us by the D’Tali in the last conflict. The word amongst the guard is that the citizenry is getting tired of this endless war.”

As was I. The time and attention it took away from my true goal was beginning to grate. I had spent my adulthood seeking to avenge my mother, and as I drew closer to the truth of her capture and torture, I grew more determined to uncover the truth.

“Nonsense,” Aefir countered. “The normal complaints of the guard. Complaining is the soldier’s lot in life. Not to be taken seriously.”

Jalon glowered, holding his chin high in annoyance. He stepped right up to Aefir, towering over him. Aefir looked concerned, but, to his credit, he didn’t back down.

“Do not...ever...speak of the Aetam under my command that way again,” Jalon said. “These soldiers have all volunteered their lives in service of the king. Their loyalty is without question. And if they say the people are tired, they would know. When they finish a shift, they go home. To their families. Their friends. Their neighbors. They hear what the people are saying.”

Aefir buckled but did not break.

“My lord Mofat,” he said, looking around Jalon’s shoulders, “trust me on this. A decisive victory is exactly what’s called for to lift the populace’s spirits. And more taxes are the cost of that victory. It’s mathematics. Nothing more. Complaints will fade in the face of winning.”

Mofat looked as bored as I felt. I rapped my fingers impatiently, suppressing a yawn, my late night in the library getting to me. A library, and research, I itched to return to. It had taken years to weave my way into a position in the king’s inner circle where I would have access to the royal libraries, and now that I had for some time, my task should have been easily completed. But pouring through a castle’s worth of documents in between fulfilling my duties to the king took time. Doing it in a way where I left no trace of my search took even more time.

But soon, barring no further distractions, I would achieve my goal. I would know who had raped my D’Tali mother and fathered me.

I would know who to kill.

“Bored are you, Kator?” Aefir said to me with some snark in his voice.

“With you? Absolutely, Aefir. I find your prattling tiresome.”

“Hear, hear!” Jalon added.

Aefir feigned outrage and turned to the king. “My lord! How can you—”

“Enough!” Mofat shouted, slamming his fist on the arm of his chair. “I grow tired of you all. Jalon, while I hear you and what your sources inform you of, I must concur with Aefir.”

I wanted to slap the smug look from Aefir’s face at that moment. But the king handled it for me.

“We need a victory over the D’Tali. And we need it soon. However, Aefir, I will not permit you to dismiss the voices of my soldiers again. While you serve a valuable role for the king, you are not putting your life on the line. Is that clear to you?”

Finally, Aefir looked humbled.

“Yes, my lord,” he mumbled quietly.

“I don’t give a whit for the peasantry. They will do what they’re told. But, if I have learned anything in my years of rule, I have learned that if you disguise the poison in honey, they’re more likely to swallow it.”

“My king—” Jalon began but Mofat cut him off by raising his hand.

“No, Jalon. I will hear no more of this. I have registered your concerns and honor them to a point, but not beyond. We must defeat the D’Tali. Once and for all. Only then will we have peace. And greater power than before.”

There was a wicked gleam in Mofat’s eyes as he said that. I didn’t like the look of it. Not one bit.

He turned to his son, Hulat, who, after the death of General Mohad, he had named commander of all Aetam forces. If there was someone I liked less the Aefir (or Moffat, for that matter) it was Hulat.

He hadn’t earned his position. It was given to him. He had no respect for rank or service and the only thing he brought to the table that appealed to Mofat was brutality. Hulat was infamous for butchering children if they got in his way. Killing his own troops in the midst of combat if it somehow could give an advantage.

When Mofat made Hulat the high commander, I heard the rumor was he went home and beat his mate because he was so excited.

The fact Aetam females were as rare as D’Tali only made such a horrendous act worse.

The fact that my own mother had suffered violence at the hands of Aetam violence only made me hate them all even more. Especially more.

The gods above help us if he ever became king. However bad Moffat was, Hulat would be a nightmare. From which the Aetam may never awaken.

“Hulat, I want plans organizing a new assault on the D’Tali as quickly as possible. And just blundering it like a battering ram will not get it done. So, think a little this time,” Mofat said.

“Yes, Father,” Hulat replied, nostrils flaring.

I chuckled. Hulat spotted it and gave me a sneer. “What troubles you, Kator? Does the head of the Assassin’s Guild find all of this tiresome?”

I stared Hulat down, expression deliberately bored. “Not at all, Hulat. But to think of the Aetam army being anything other than a battering ram give me pause. Seems a bit out of your purview, that.”

“And what you would advise us to do, Kator?” Mofat asked me before Hulat, whose face had turned bright red, could try tear me apart. The king gave me his peculiar half-speculative, half-penetrating stare. I had been the subject of his scrutiny more and more lately and t first had worried he may have discovered my secret…but if he had, I would no longer be alive, and he was incapable of playing long, deep games.

I shrugged.

“My lord, I’m not a military expert by any means, but if you want to win a decisive victory, it should be small. Quiet. Strike when they least expect and strike silently.”

Hulat laughed, eyes wide with pleasure. Mofat joined him.

I stared at them both and turned to Jalon, who was more often than not an ally for me in this council meetings. He shook his head. He didn’t know either.

At that moment,a messenger came running into the chamber, bowed quickly and got to one knee.

“What news?” Mofat asked.

The messenger stood. “My king, the word is the operation was a success.”

“What operation?” I asked.

Now it was Hulat’s turn to chuckle at me. “You’re not as clever as you think, Kator. Nor do you give enough credit where it is due.”

“What are you talking about, Hulat? I have no time for your riddles,” I countered.

“What he means, Master Assassin,” Mofat said, “is that we had taken your advice before you had even given it.”

I looked to Jalon again, who was as confused as I was.

“What does that mean, my lord?” I asked.

“It means that we sent a small party of Aetam soldiers out to the wrecked ship crash site, to sit and wait. Knowing full well the D’Tali and their humans would be coming back there soon enough.”

Alarm prickled up my spine. “Meaning what?”

“What would you say, Jalon, is the biggest discrepancy right now, between the forces of the D’Tali and our own?” Mofat asked, this tips of his fingers dancing on the edge of the table.

“Ah...” Jalon said, looking to me and then back to the king, “I would say it was a technological advantage, my king.”

Mofat nodded. “And that technology arrived with the humans.” A menacing grin spread across his face, and there was nothing pleasant about it. “So we set out to capture one.”

What was going on here? And why didn’t I know about it?

Mofat turned to the messenger. “The human is in custody?”

“Yes, my lord. A yellow-headed female. She had tried to flee from the crash site, but we were able to capture her as she ran through the forest. The assault team is bringing her back here now.”

Yellow-headed! They had her. They had Isabella! The Aetam had her. Of all the damn luck.

Aefir spotted something on my face and cocked his head at me.

“What troubles you, assassin? Surely you’re not sorry that we were able to capture this human. This is precisely the advantage we have been looking for. We can now force her to share her knowledge of this technology with us. With their weapons the tides of this war will change.”

“I’d advise you not to presume to know my mind or where my sympathies lie, tax collector,” I said. “I have little time for your nonsense.”

“He raises a good point nonetheless, Kator,” Hulat said. “You look...crestfallen. As much as you can with that golden orange coloring of your scales that is.” His eyes narrowed in grim amusement.

I swallowed my anger at his crack and responded calmly.

“My concert, General, is that there were Aetam lives put at risk. If the Assassins’ Guild had been included in the planning, we could have taken this human without the loss of one Aetam warrior. When each one is worth ten of theirs. So, I think this operation foolish, regardless of the outcome. With all respect, my king,” I said, bowing low.

Mofat nodded and gestured for me to stand up. “You show honor in that, Kator. And it is understandable, your position. But this information came to us quickly and we had to move just as fast. No time for debate.”

“Or overly extensive planning,” Hulat chimed in. I wanted to punch his face and knock the smirk right off it.

“Of course, my lord. I completely understand,” I said.

Mofat stood then and walked over to me, putting his hand on my shoulder. Even at his age, I could feel the strength in his grip. He wasn’t king for nothing.

“In future plans, we will include you. Your counsel is always welcome and now, more than ever. We will be moving swiftly with the next stage of our plans. But now, let us celebrate this victory!”

He headed off towards the dining chamber, where food and drink had been prepared. Everyone followed him out. Jalon hesitated a moment, looking at me, head tilted slightly.

I nodded. “I’ll be with you all in a moment.”

He left and I was alone with my thoughts.

I walked to the window and looked out, frustrated.

How was I going to fix this problem now?

I sighed and shook my head.

Being a double-agent for the D’Tali was trickier than it looked.