Captured By her Alien Mate by Ava York

Kator

Istared at my love for a moment.

She was trying to keep herself from showing fear. She was trying to be tough, to be strong, for me. But, as the king pushed the knife to her neck, I knew there was only one thing for me to do.

I dropped my sword.

“No!” she cried as the metal hit the stone and the sound echoed throughout the hallway. “Don't!”

But I knew I couldn't risk her life. Not for anything, including my quest for revenge against the king. I loved her too much. She was my mate, and I would not risk her life. Not for anything.

“I knew you were weak,” the king sneered. “That weak blood ran through your veins, half-breed. You had no right to my throne. And you just proved it by refusing to fight because of a woman. A woman of a different species.”

“You're just proving how weak you are,” I fired back. “Holding yourself in the highest regard doesn't make you strong, it makes you vermin. A parasite, feeding on others, never giving anything back. That's not strength. And I think you have those confused.”

“Kator, don't do this. I can handle this; I swear I can.”

Tears were starting to form, and it broke my heart. Riley deserved so much better than this. She deserved more than a knife to the neck.

I didn't see a way out of this. Not without losing her for good. And that was worse than losing my revenge. She was worth everything to me, and it didn't matter what slights took place in the past.

“I'm sorry.” I looked her straight in the eye, wanting nothing more than to hold her, wanting nothing more than to keep her safe. “I'm sorry I brought you into this.”

Riley cried.

“It's not your fault, I always want to protect you too. It’s not your fault he got behind me. It's not your fault—”

“Stop your babbling!” Mofat screeched. “I grow tired of this. Your animal's crying, you're begging. You don't deserve a throne. Frankly, neither of you deserve your life.”

“You kill her, and I kill you,” I spat at him. “You let her go, we leave. And we never come back.”

“I'm the one making the decisions here,” he said with a laugh. “I don't know if you noticed, son, but I have a knife to your mate’s throat. You're not making any decisions.”

Riley tried to struggle, but the king wrenched an arm behind her back. She moaned softly, and I knew she was in pain.

The anger I felt for Mofat tripled. I knew I was going to kill him. I knew someone had to. But I couldn't figure a way out of this conversation without Riley dying.

And I didn't care about my anger anymore. I cared about her being in pain and wanting nothing more than to stop it. Wanting nothing more than to save her.

The thought of her being taken away from me before anything could start, really start, hurt my soul. I couldn't actually look at the thought, because the emotions that welled up inside were too much for the situation. I couldn't lose her, not today, not tomorrow.

Not ever.

“I'll get us out of this,” I said to Riley. “I swear I will.”

“The only way you're getting out of this hallway is in chains, holding her head in your hands. Because I'm going to take it off her body as soon as I get a guard in here.”

“I took care of most of your guards for you,” Riley said through the tears. I wanted to hug her as she showed such a disdain for the king. She was able to make jokes of the tears, and that made me love her even more.

“But I'm sure one or two decided not to come in here when they saw their dead friends.”

The king wrenched her arm tighter and dug the knife deeper into her neck. I saw the blood dribble from the tip of the knife. Riley gasped in pain.

“I'm so sorry,” I said to her. “Riley, I'm so sorry.”

“It's my fault,” Riley said. “I shouldn't have let him get behind me.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Mofat almost screamed it to us. “I'm tired of hearing your love story. If you can understand me, know this: Your man is going to die, don't worry. I'm going to kill him slowly in front of you, will you watch him bleed out and beg for you to die instead of him. Because I will make him beg for the end or for you to take his place. Then, before he dies, he can watch me rape you over and over. He'll die knowing that I had you. All of you.”

He sniffed her neck, and it sent shivers down my spine.

What had I done? What had I brought Riley into? What fate was she going to suffer because of me? Because of my quest for revenge, because of being trapped in the past?

Riley shuddered at his touch, but she couldn't pull away. Not with a knife so deep in her throat.

“I seem to have found a weak point,” Mofat said. “For both of you. Not making your little animal noises now, are you, bitch? I'm going to take your fucking whore in this hallway, half-breed. And I'm going to love doing it while you scream for her. Maybe she'll like it, maybe she'll beg me for more by the end.”

He smiled at us. “I like it when they beg.”

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to make his anger turn towards me. I didn't know how to free Riley from this doom that I had brought down on her.

All because I couldn't stop living in the past. Because I couldn't stop with my revenge.

Something was going on outside, I could hear the sound of masses chanting and marching. They were too far away, and I was too focused to know exactly what they were saying.

Too focused on Riley's white face as she realized what her future held for her.

Too focused on how I was going to save her.

I didn’t care that Mofat would force me to watch her death, even though I knew it would be exceptionally painful.

It would tear me apart, and that wasn’t the worst of it.

Riley was going to go through that pain knowing that I was so close, but I couldn’t do anything to help her.

The chanting grew closer, and I saw King Mofat look towards one of the windows of the hallway.

“You hear that? What is that?” he asked. “What are they saying?”

I shrugged, still trying to figure out a way to get Riley out of this.

Still trying to figure out a way to save her. I needed to direct the king’s anger towards me. Maybe that it would give Riley enough of the distraction to leave. To escape.

To suffer a different fate than my mother.

I would have to watch another woman go through that. I would have put the only woman I loved through that.

I needed to save her from that fate.

Even if it meant killing her myself.  To save her from him. To save the pain. To save her.

The chanting grew closer, and the word started becoming clear to me.

My name. The crowd was chanting my name.

“Kator! Kator! Kator!”

What was going on? How could anything that has happened in the castle gotten out to the crowd already? Are they coming for my head? Do they want me to die because I threatened their king?

Mofat looked as confused as I did, his eyebrows furrowed as he looked out the window.

Then he smiled. An evil, twisted smile that only he could come up with.

“The people are speaking,” he said with a sneer. “They want you dead as much as I want you dead. They don't want you in the throne room. They want you dead.”

“That doesn't sound like a crazy mob,” Riley said, able to speak because the king had removed the knife slightly from her neck at the distraction.

There was going to be an opening soon, and it didn't matter what the motivations were of the crowd outside the castle walls.

I just had to watch. I just had to be careful. And I knew I had to keep my focus entirely on Riley.

But the chant was getting distracting. It was my name, over and over. And Riley was right, it didn't sound like a mad or angry mob.

It sounded like a crowd cheering a victory.

I couldn't help but wonder what was going on.

My attention was split, and I knew I needed to focus on Riley. It didn't matter what the crowd was saying; it didn't matter if I had to fight our way out of here. I needed to save her.

I needed to save the woman I loved. No matter the cost.

As the king and I looked at each other, confusion over our faces. I knew that one irrefutable fact.

There was something going on outside, and I was going to use it to save Riley.