Kidnapped By the Alien Prince by Tori Kellett

Chapter Seventeen

Zak had just gotten his old battleship in the air when the firing stopped. He’d seen N’ameth get in the skies first in his own, and then the three massive ships had just stopped. There had been a second of stillness, then all three ships had turned tail and entered subspace where they couldn’t be caught, making zero sense. They should have known N’ameth was barely a threat against three with superior weapons. Unless they didn’t know. Unless once they had spotted N’ameth, they had decided not to risk a confrontation. Zak had gotten on the communicator to order his brother to stand down. He knew N’ameth would want to at least try to follow.

“What was that?” He recognized Voren’s voice on the communicator from one of the small, old fighter planes. That he had managed to get it to take off the ground was incredible. “Where’d they go?”

“My queen?” Callie. His heart beat her name like a tattoo.

“With H’adaar as ordered, my king.” Zak sighed. Callie knew Voren was a pilot and would have ordered him to leave. Azlaan confirmed he was treating some injuries, but none were fatal, and confirmed all civilians had been taken to the cellars. First Prince Kaleth was coordinating the search for any casualties. After another few minutes of liaising with N’olaan, Zak had landed his ship. His first calls had been to the Alliance, but every planet had responded immediately with indignant and swift denials. N’olaan and Vedur were taking to the skies to be on the watch for the unseen enemy that might target their own planet.

He jumped from his seat before the engines had even powered down and was met outside by Voren and D’estaan. “My king?”

He shook his head. “I can only think that as soon as they saw we had space flight technology, they decided we might not be such an easy target.”

“Except surely they had the scanning ability to determine our weapons,” Voren argued.

“I agree, it makes no sense.” He didn’t like any of it at all. He didn’t bother with the older cats, just picked up his pace and ran back to the palace. Voren and D’estaan kept pace, and soon they were joined by another ten guards. As they emerged from the trees, he winced at the damage to the south wall. One of the east turrets looked like it had been completely demolished, but he almost stumbled in relief as he took in the untouched residential quarters to the far-west side. That was unbelievably lucky.

“That is incredibly lucky,” D’estaan murmured, echoing his thoughts, and a prickle of something he couldn’t name slithered up Zak’s spine. Zak put on a burst of speed and took the steps four at a time. He ordered D’estaan to the healing quarters and to find Kaleth. Voren kept with him as with an unspoken agreement they headed to the cellars. He needed to see Callie.

Voren called out a warning before he pushed at the thick wooden door, and Zak walked in, immediately searching for a small, dark head. His heart picked up when he didn’t see it. “My queen?” He stared at Neela, who was holding Gye.

Neela shook her head. “I haven’t seen her since the attack started.”

“H’adaar?” Voren barked out to the guard standing with them, but he hadn’t seen them either. Zak ordered everyone out to the kitchens to await instructions or to the healing ward if they were injured. He wheeled around and ran to their suite, pulse pounding and the fear of something he didn’t like trying to force itself into his brain.

She wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the healing area or any of the other immediate places. Neither Il’yaa nor Kaleth had seen her, and Gye was quickly becoming inconsolable. The guards he could spare after making certain everyone was accounted for joined in the search. At least, wherever she was, she had H’adaar with her.

“My king?” Zak stiffened at the urgent call and looked over at R’orsch. He met fearful eyes, and his heart lurched.

“Tell me.” But even as he said the words, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. If he had lost Callie, they might as well finish him, because she made his life worth waking up for every damn day.

“We found H’adaar.”

Zak snapped his head up and began to run after R’orsch. “But not Callie?”

“No, my king.”

Zak and Voren raced after the guard down three small corridors behind the kitchen to the end door which led behind the courtyard and was hardly used since they barely had anyone to need a back entrance to the kitchen. He came to a screeching halt just as he ran outside. H’adaar’s body, twisted grotesquely in death, lay with a large blast hole piercing the plate on his chest. Either from a powerful weapon or at close range, or both. Another five guards all appeared from the trees and shook their heads.

Voren straightened up. “There were cats here.” Zak looked over at the darkened marks where the overgrown vegetation had been flattened. “At least six, my king.” Voren looked up. He didn’t have to point out that they didn’t have six cats. “I think they took her.”

Fury careened through Zak so hot he expected his plates to ignite. “Which they wouldn’t have done if you had been with her. You had no right to disobey my orders no matter what Callie said.”

Voren paled and stood. “But—”

“Don’t you dare try and excuse yourself.”

Voren swallowed hard and brought himself up tall. “I have never disobeyed an order given to me by my king. H’adaar himself—” Then he cut off his words and turned to gaze at the body of H’adaar. The guards were lifting him onto a ceremonial pallet. The ones they used for fallen warriors. Zak didn’t even know where it had come from. Voren snarled and stopped the guard. He turned to Zak.

“H’adaar met us just after we heard the first explosion. I was taking my queen to the cellars, but he said you had ordered I go because I can fly the shuttles. H’adaar had been ordered to replace me. He told my queen he had Gye with him, so she followed without question.”

Voren bowed his head, slowly took out the blaster from his weapons belt, and laid it on the floor. “I didn’t question him, my king, and I should have.” He knelt on the floor, hands behind his body in a traditional surrender posture.

Zak watched Voren, images flooding his mind. Then he looked over at H’adaar, the hole in the plate. He’d been shot execution-style. The head shot was always performed as it was instantaneous and at that range would have been impossible to miss. The heart shot was an old mark of disgrace, done to signify deceit and betrayal. That the warrior didn’t have a pure heart, so it must be destroyed. It was always fatal, but often not instantaneous, the idea being that the warrior had agonizing seconds to understand his punishment before death. After the genome editing, the plates were only able to be punctured by a high velocity weapon at close range.

Zak closed his eyes for a second in shame, then bent and took hold of Voren’s arm, helping the shocked warrior stand. “The mistake was mine. H’adaar played us both. Call a meeting of all available warriors in the assembly hall.” Zak picked up Voren’s blaster and handed it to him. Voren took it, thumped his chest in respect and obedience, and then hurried to do as he was asked.

He looked up at the footsteps and saw N’ameth rushing toward him. “Callie?”

Zak felt his question like a punch to the heart. “H’adaar lied. He told Voren I had ordered him to the shuttle area, and he told Callie he was taking her to the cellars where Gye was.”

“And this is nowhere near the cellars. Could they have been ambushed?”

“They could, but then why would he lie?”

“You are thinking the heart shot isn’t a coincidence?”

Zak shook his head and finally voiced what was beginning to be his worst fear. “What if the ships were a diversion? There was no damage to the living quarters which is where the Ishtaans would be.”

N’ameth paled. “Are you saying Callie was the target? But who—” N’ameth stopped as horror struck him. “No,” he whispered. “But it means he has help. Expensive, powerful help.”

“Maybe help to which he has promised the exclusive right to the Azteen crystals if they put him back on the throne?”

N’ameth paused for a beat, then pulled out his ceremonial dagger, and solemnly Zak held his palm out. N’ameth cut first Zak, then his own until black blood flowed, and Zak turned his hand over and pressed their palms together. They each whispered a promise. Killing a king was an automatic sentence of death, but neither cared.

“How did he approach without our knowledge?” N’ameth asked. “There isn’t any way his landing could be hidden. It would be noted.”

Zak frowned. “He was—” Draks. “This morning when the delegates came.”

“But we counted all the vessels. The same number left as arrived.”

“Which means one of them brought him,” Zak said grimly. “It also means he is still here.”

“And more importantly, that your queen is.”

Yeah, thought Zak grimly. But in what condition? Callie was independent and spirited. His father would want meek and obedient. And they had hell-cats, which meant they could be miles away, and he could be doing only knew what to teach her how to behave as he required.

When Zak got his hands on his sire, death would be too good for him. He just had to make sure it was before he hurt Callie.

Zak strode into the assembly hall. Ptorean stood talking to Corlean and Reave, and they all hurried over.

“Is it true?” Kaleth and Il’yaa came rushing in, demanding to know the same. Azlaan appeared a moment later.

Zak looked at him. “Injuries?”

“Minimal. Mostly when people fell trying to hurry. We have had some nasty cuts with glass, and I want two servants to remain in the healing area until we have managed to regenerate enough replacement blood. What do we know?”

Zak took a deep breath and a step back. All talking stopped as everyone looked toward him.

“Unless we are provided with any more evidence, at the moment we believe the attack was made deliberately to distract the warriors so the queen could be taken. We believe K—” Zak stopped. He had been about to call his sire by his title, but he didn’t deserve that honor. “That Az’kye has taken my queen with help from someone from the Alliance. The only way he could have gotten here was in one of the ships that landed yesterday.”

Elder B’ordak frowned. “But surely, my king, that is a big supposition. Even if you accept she was taken by one of the delegates, you don’t know that it was under his authority.”

“I am happy to be proven wrong, Elder B’ordak. But who else could benefit from her kidnapping?”

He shrugged. “But we have five other females. You could easily—”

Zak didn’t realize he’d even moved until the elder was struggling to breathe around Zak’s grip and kicking his legs uselessly as Zak held him off the floor. “She is my queen,” Zak roared. He felt a female hand on his arm, and startled, he dropped the elder and turned to see Rachel and the four other females.

“What can we do?”

His first thought was to tell them to go back to their suite, but Callie would roast what was left of him after Rachel had finished. The thought that Callie might not get the chance nearly robbed him of all breath.

“We need to organize a search,” Voren said immediately. “If you can organize the command center, it will free up the warriors.”

“Of course,” Sascha said immediately. “I just need to see your communications equipment, and I will need maps.”

“I can also manage the healing ward,” Isobel said crisply and looked at Azlaan.

“You are a healer?” he said in awe.

She scoffed. “I understand the patients need just observing now, not brain surgery. I have two eyes. You’re needed elsewhere.”

Ptorean stepped up to Sascha. “If you come with me, I will show you where to set up.”

Lexie kept Madison with her. “If you’re searching, you’re going to need coffee. If someone wants to show us the kitchen?”

“I’m going with the warriors,” Rachel said defiantly.

Zak opened his mouth to object, but Voren stalled him. “She can stay with me, my king.”

In what seemed hours but was really no time at all, everything was organized. Zak wanted to just charge into the forest, but the others were poring over maps, and Sascha and Ptorean were calmly sectioning them off.

“Assuming this is your father, where would he go?”

Zak looked blankly at Sascha, then down at the map.

“It has to be somewhere with reasonable access. Somewhere he can expect to hide what he is doing,” N’ameth said slowly.

Zak pointed to the map. “Even with the cats, he wouldn’t want to be more than an hour’s travel away. Which reduces the area.” He chewed his cheek. “There are still at least fifteen different sites that could be used easily.”

He looked over the areas that would soon be swathed in dust as the Dry neared its peak and dismissed them as being difficult to find shelter. H’adaar. “If we are to assume H’adaar’s treachery was deliberate, then he may have been involved for some time. There.” Zak’s finger fell resoundingly on the settlement at the base of the Duran mountains. “He said the settlement Il’yaa came from was abandoned. That he had seen it on a recent patrol, but it’s quite far away from our regular patrols, and there was no one else that offered to corroborate.” In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced they were there.

“It’s a bottleneck,” N’ameth said and groaned. “We haven’t the time to scale the mountain and will be seen by lookouts from above. There is no way we can get to the settlement without them knowing we are there.”

Zak swore. If the blaster used on H’adaar was an example, they were heavily armed. They needed to surprise them. It was their only chance. “And there is no alternative?”

N’ameth shook his head. “The only way of getting to the settlement is straight up or straight down.”

“I can show you.”

Zak turned and saw Il’yaa and Kaleth. “There is a way through the mountain,” Il’yaa said defiantly.

“Show me,” Zak urged him to the maps, but Il’yaa shook his head.

“I cannot read. I would have to show you.” He looked at Zak. “Take me with you.”

“Take us both,” Kaleth added determinedly. “There is a chance you might not fit through the tunnels.”

“Come on, then,” Rachel said, and Voren and D’estaan all looked at him expectantly. Zak was torn. The very last thing he wanted to do was put a young in danger, but he couldn’t take Il’yaa and not offer his son the same respect. He was a warrior of Ishtaan. Zak would have wanted the same treatment. Besides which, he knew that if Zak said no, Kaleth would simply find a way to follow them, and that would be dangerous. He nodded.

“I agree.”

He just hoped she was there.