The Alien King’s Pet by Loki Renard

11Missing Katie

Dominax sat upon the winged throne. It was what it sounded like it would probably be – a great chair with wings which extended the same way his own wings did when he was at his most dangerous. They arched up above his head, two golden extensions of pure power, and he sat below them, his own wings tucked tightly behind his shoulders.

He’d wanted a human pet because he was bored, because the universe’s distractions had become stale for him. He was not bored now. He was annoyed and concerned, and he was having to tolerate repeated audiences with officials who demanded his attention.

He should have listened when Archon warned him. But no, he had to disregard his fellow monarch’s words because he was too caught up in the exoticness of it all, and claiming a human as his pet.

“Crime has risen substantially in the city! Petty thefts now occur daily.” The Lord of the City Guard said. “We have been receiving multiple complaints about a juvenile crime gang, or perhaps aliens wearing the suits of juveniles. Pink clad, they run about the city stealing that which they are not entitled to, and which they have no intention of paying for. It is unprecedented in our history.”

“Perhaps the City Guard has become complacent,” Dominax suggested. “Perhaps being an interstellar hub cannot be all hugs and trust falls.”

His reply was uncommonly sarcastic. He almost heard her voice while he was speaking, as if the human had commandeered some part of him and was making her presence felt even in her absence.

“Perhaps the alien element is causing problems, as we predicted they would when you decided to open Golden City to the universe at large. It was so much easier when the city was open to Homelanders only. Now we have to have ramps and street access. It is unsightly, and they are being used to facilitate flightless crime.”

“Change is inevitable, Knax,” Dominax said. “If you are not willing to police the city as it needs to be policed, and catch criminals instead of complaining about them, there are many who would take your place, and your rank, and your title, for that matter.”

The Lord of the City Guard turned a bit ashen upon hearing that, though Dominax did not know what he had expected to hear. Had he truly believed that if he only complained enough, the king would reverse his position on having the city open to the universe and return to the days when only Homelanders were allowed to live on the planet?”

Probably.

“My apologies, sire,” Knax stammered, bowing deeply, his wings folded in contrition. It was not common for the king to threaten to remove a lord from service, but it was possible.

“SIRE!”

A fresh voice rang out, interrupting the king and his audience. There was only one reason anybody might be permitted to do that. Dominax was actually glad to be interrupted.

“GOT A PRISONER FOR YOU, SIRE!”

“You can stop shouting and come in,” Dominax said, gesturing the intruders forward.

“We found him! He was at home!” one of two very proud guards called out. They had a tall Homelander between them, a distinguished member of Dominax’s own guard — and a traitor.

Alf had disappeared on the same day and at the same time Katie did. At first it had seemed like something of a coincidence, or perhaps some evidence of foul play.

“Clear the court!” Dominax cried out. He did not want witnesses to the exchange about to happen.

The courtiers fled, not wishing to be caught in the king’s ire. Dominax had never been this furious, or this dangerous. When he and Alf were alone, he focused all that anger on the soldier.

“You,” Dominax growled. “You took something from me, something you had no right to take.”

The guard he had once trusted to keep his pet safe now kneeled in chains, though he did not have the good sense to look ashamed.

“I didn’t take her, sire. I helped her leave. She wasn’t a prisoner. And you were hurting her. I did what was right.”

“You are not here to do what is right. You are here to do what I tell you to do. Need I remind you that I am your king?”

“No, sire. You need not remind me.”

Dominax let out a snarl. He wanted to kill this soldier for his treachery, but Alf was not any mere soldier. He had served under Dominax's father. He was a literal war hero. Killing him would cause a scandal and potentially turn the entire court against him.

Being king did not mean having unlimited power without consequence. It meant being at the top of a grasping, desperate, greedy pile of maniacs who each wanted his seat.

Losing a pet like a careless child did not look good. It looked like weakness. Having had his pet stolen out from under his nose by his own guard looked even worse. When the old guard rebelled, that was the beginning of the end.

He needed Katie back. He craved her with every part of his being. Alf didn't understand how badly he had hurt his king by taking the female. But he would understand.

“You will find her, and you will return her.”

“I will do no such thing. If you want her, you should earn her. You should woo her. You should…”

Dominax’s growl cut Alf’s speech off mid-way through. “I do not need lectures from you, old man. I am king, and I take what I will.”

“You are a spoiled child.”

Dominax’s brows flew toward his hair, and his eyes became even darker. “You realize that speaking to me this way is disrespect punishable by death?”

“I realize that I am an old man. I have performed my duties and given my service. But I will no longer serve a crown acting like a spoiled child. You amuse yourself with distractions and you take the spoils of your position without thought for the consequences. That girl you took from the other planet, she is innocent. Or was, before she spent hours being ravaged by you. I heard you beating her, and I had to help her escape. I doubt she is anywhere near where I left her. I doubt she is on this planet. But I don’t know. She went off on her own.”

“So you think taking my disobedient pet and setting her free without any kind of help is kindness, while my discipline of her was cruelty? Do I need to begin to tell you how ridiculous that is?”

“I gave her choice.”

“The last bloody thing she needs is choice. The last thing you should ever have done was taken pity on her. Do you not realize what is happening? I have every lord and dispenser of justice calling for blood because of a pink-clad, one-human-crime-spree taking place in the city. It’s her. I know it’s her. Taking her was one thing, setting her loose, that was a far greater cruelty than my discipline. You can return home, Alf. And you can stay there. Your retirement has come early.”

“Don’t be so hard on the old man.”

Dominax looked up as a new voice landed nearby.

“Not now, Darma,” Dominax snapped at his younger brother, who had chosen to enter the otherwise sealed room by coming down the chimney.

“It’s about the human.”

“Have you found her? Are you going to bring her to me?”

“Well….”

“If you don’t have the human, I don’t want to hear from you,” Dominax snapped, irritated. “How many times have I told you not to fly down the fucking chimneys. They’ll be lit one day and you’ll be burned to cinders.”

“They haven’t been lit since the ocean turned to lava. Anyway, Dominax…”

Dominax wasn’t listening. He could not believe that the human had been on the run from him for all of thirty days. He had been certain that she would be found. The city was large, but she was a helpless female on a planet she did not know. He had imagined she would be begging for help and recapture within a matter of hours.

But she hadn’t.

Dominax was furious. He was certain someone had her. She couldn’t possibly be out there on her own. Someone had to be in possession of his pet.

“Make yourself useful and issue an edict. Anyone found in possession of a human will forfeit their lives,” he growled. “And any information leading to the capture of the human will earn a personal favor from the king.”

“Dominax, did it occur to you that there’s a reason Alf helped her escape? And another reason why she hasn’t been found?”

“What are you getting at?”

“You’re suffering from an outbreak of disloyalty. Or, put another way, at least one Homelander has chosen to help the human rather than obey you. Alf was a good guard.”

“Again. What are you getting at?”

“Having this human has turned you into a monster.”

Dominax shot a dark look at his younger brother. “Go away, Darma.”

“I’m not going to go away. You don’t have anybody to tell you what you need to hear. You’ve been getting more and more out of control. You banned my mate, you’ve alienated your guard, and you managed to make a human who was dependent on you for everything, someone you could have spoiled to the point of worshipping you, want to escape. You need to work on yourself.”

“Or I need to weed out the weak and the ill-disciplined until nobody is left but the obedient.”

“You never choose the obedient. You choose the exceptional. If Alf betrayed you, he did it for a reason. And if the human you picked ran away, she did it for a reason too.”

“Is this your way of trying to get your mate allowed in the palace again, Darma?”

“No. Although. Yes. He should be allowed here. I miss him.”

“You should have thought about that before you disobeyed me.”

“Great, Dominax. You sit there on your fancy throne and you tell yourself everybody is obeying you, while one by one they defect from you, because every decision you make lately is for your happiness, and not theirs. Did you even consider what kind of a life you were giving the human? Did you think to find out if she was happy living here? Or did you just assume you could tell her that she was happy, and she’d just go ahead and be happy?”

“This is a very long-winded way of calling me a tyrant because you can’t see your lover,” Dominax drawled.

Darma was forced to bite his lip to avoid exclaiming something he would regret.