Kidnapped By the Alien Prince by Tori Kellett
Chapter Five
Callie patted Lexie’s hand and sat down. The girl slurped the rest of her gava juice, which seemed to be a mix of something tasting like orange and pineapple, and leaned back. The lights surrounding the tent all clicked on, and Callie breathed a sigh of relief. At least they had power.
“You look tired.”
Callie winced and eased the crick out of her back from bending over pallets. All six of them were awake now. She liked Sascha, and she had rallied immediately. At thirty-three, Sascha was closer to Callie’s age. She had been made a widow two years ago when her husband had died of pancreatic cancer. Parents she was estranged from and no other family except her husband’s cousins, who she wasn’t going to miss, and she frankly seemed intrigued with the whole thing. Isobel, however, was a different kettle of fish as her gran used to say. She was the late unexpected child of older parents that had since died, but she had a career and friends. She wasn’t—quite understandably—happy with the current situation.
Lexie was only twenty-one. A product of the foster system, she had just finished college and was floundering a little to know what to do with the rest of her life, but had seemed almost ashamed of her earlier behavior. Madison seemed to be in shock, and she knew Azlaan was concerned. She seemed to be least afraid of Brey, so she had stayed with her in as quiet a corner of the tent as possible. Madison hadn’t volunteered any information. Callie had also seen how she jumped whenever Azlaan came anywhere near her. Rachel she wasn’t sure about at all. She’d remained quiet, not exactly scared, but not at all friendly to the other women and definitely hadn’t offered to share. But then, everyone processed things in different ways, and the circumstances they had all met were hardly fair to base an opinion on of someone’s character.
Marina, who apparently was Voren’s aunt, was trying to bustle them all to come and eat. Lexie got off her pallet and stretched. “Where can we grab a shower?”
Callie knew this but waited until all the females had been gathered up. Marina smiled at them all. “We are waiting for each of our host families to come and collect you. You will all be placed in pairs so you will have contact with someone. The village we are going to isn’t very far, and we would like to get everyone settled before final meal.”
“When is someone going to explain what’s going on?” Rachel asked in a clear voice.
Even Callie was surprised. Rachel stood. “I call bullshit on helping to repopulate this planet.”
“My prince hasn’t told any falsehoods,” Marina answered calmly.
“Lies by omission are still lies,” Rachel shot back, and Callie understood what she meant. The explanation hadn’t been very detailed, but she had held off grilling anyone else until she saw Zak later.
Rachel pointed to the forest. “Why are we in a tent for starters? If this is a kingdom with a prince and I’m assuming a king, then where are they? Why are we expected to stay in a village? It’s like we’re being hidden away, and I for one want to know what the hell is going on.” She folded her arms defiantly.
“Then it would seem I have arrived in good time.”
Callie looked over with the others, but she knew who she was going to see, and a shiver ran up her bare arms, even though she wasn’t cold. Zak stepped out of the trees. She recognized Voren and N’ameth. She also saw Madison shrink back behind Lexie, which was ridiculous as Lexie was barely a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet.
“If you would all like to sit, I will explain everything.”
Rachel—still seeming suspicious—sat cautiously along with everyone else.
“You have been told our world is dying because females aren’t being born but not why. Many cycles ago in my elder-sire’s rule—”
“What’s a cycle?” Sascha interrupted.
“A cycle is approximately one and a half times your year. Perhaps a little less. A lunar phase is one of your months, and a full daylight is one of your days and a night,” N’ameth answered for him, and Sascha nodded, even gave him a hesitant “thank you.” He beamed, and Callie rolled her eyes. N’ameth was like a giant puppy, but a giant puppy that was trying to hide his fascination for Sascha.
“So, we’re talking about your grandfather?” Callie clarified as much to keep them all on track as anything else.
“Yes,” Zak replied. “At that time, Ishtaan was plentiful. We grew a rare flower that was sought by healers in other lands, and that, along with our other assets, made our people strong and our lands wealthy.”
But, thought Callie perhaps a little too fatalistically.
“There were mistakes made. In our arrogance, we thought we could bend others to our ways until we picked on the wrong people.”
Isobel chimed in dryly. “Earth has done that a time or two, except all their fighting is just on one planet.”
Zakaarir inclined his head in acceptance of her statement. “We were losing. The war decimated our lands and killed many. The race we fought were superior in every way, and our wise ones suggested we could become the same, so our warriors agreed to genetic alterations.”
“So you’re like a regular Bruce Banner, huh?”
Zak, of course, didn’t understand what Rachel meant, and Callie was thankful she didn’t pursue it.
“We won, but at a great cost. Within a few lunar phases, our fighters began getting sick—the ones who had accepted the alteration. We didn’t understand what was happening because it only affected our females, and they would often recover for many phases, sometimes cycles, before they got sick again and eventually died.”
Callie’s heart ached for Zak. What a responsibility, and he was accepting it as if it had been his decision, which she knew wasn’t so.
“That was bad enough,” he continued, “and it is true that any warrior accepts that death may sometimes be a consequence, but the female young that were born after all suffered the same sickness, and the actual number of females even being born seemed to dwindle overnight.”
“Why did you have to come looking for us though? Callie explained about the wormhole,” Isobel asked.
“Because the six planets in our galaxy all signed an alliance and decided to punish us by keeping us contained. We are officially prohibited from moving outside the Alliance’s marked zone. If they had seen N’ameth’s cruiser, it would have been forcibly boarded, and all the warriors would have been killed. None of their females are allowed to come here, and we would be executed if we tried to land on one of their planets.”
Even Rachel didn’t seem to have a rejoinder to this.
“So they’re just all waiting for you to die?” Lexie asked in a horrified voice, and N’ameth answered for Zakaarir when he seemed unable.
“Rachel was correct when she thought there was something else we weren’t telling you.” Zak made some sort of noise, but N’ameth spoke up before he could. “You are all here because of a decision I made, not my brother.”
“N’ameth—”
“No.” He stood and turned to Zak. “You have kept us together for cycles. You have saved countless lives and kept hundreds from starvation. I will not let your queen think you ordered this.” He looked at Callie. “Zakaarir didn’t know about the passage. The first he knew about you was when I returned with you all, so if you’re going to dishonor someone, it should be me.”
Callie stilled. He didn’t know? Oh dear god, the names she had called him. Liar. Vescht was their greatest insult, and he hadn’t even known. She looked at his face, knowing the apology would be stark in her eyes, but he was staring at the floor. He made a frustrated, bitter shout and without warning strode into the forest. When Voren went to follow, he snarled, and Voren paused.
“What you need to know is that my oldest brother, Zakaarir, had fought tirelessly for his people for cycles against the bastard who is responsible for all of this,” N’ameth continued as if Zak hadn’t just gone.
“Who?” Lexie asked. Callie was glad because she didn’t think she could get her voice to work.
“Our sire. His sire was responsible for the war and the genetic alterations, but our current king has made everything worse. Our elder sire died just as the war ended.” He waved a hand to the forest. “And I’m afraid the poverty you will see when you go to your host village is a result. Zakaarir was First Prince up until five days ago. Our laws dictate on his thirtieth cycle, which is in another two days, he is named king. But because he doesn’t have a queen, by the same laws he is unable, and my sire has removed his title. He is helpless to save our people until he finds a queen.”
Which was why they were here. Callie gazed at the trees. She owed him an apology at the very least. Quietly, she stood and picked her way to the tree line. Voren and H’adaar flanked her, and she smiled tremulously at Voren. That he didn’t return it showed her exactly how he felt, and shame and regret rushed through her. Yes, she had been taken without her consent, but from what? She was working two jobs and living in an apartment that should have been condemned as a health hazard, with debts around her neck so tight it was a wonder they hadn’t choked her.
And Zak hadn’t done the taking. He was just trying to save his people.
“I seem to have misjudged your prince.” Voren didn’t reply. Maybe he didn’t think it needed a reply, or maybe he agreed.
H’adaar put out an arm to steady her as she strode over a fallen branch. “It is hard to imagine,” he said solemnly. “But we have all been lonely a long time.”
She walked farther into the trees hoping she was going the right way and wouldn’t meet anyone or anything that disagreed with her. Voren didn’t seem to be complaining or stopping her. He hadn’t exactly expressed an opinion either way. After a moment, when she was just deciding it was too dark to go any farther, the small boots she had been given hardly meant for trudging through a forest, the trees cleared above her and moonlight shone down. She looked up in surprise, and her lips parted at the sight. Not only could she see a sky full of stars, but there were two moons.
She looked ahead and saw Zakaarir immediately. He had his back turned but also seemed to be looking at the skies. “Leave us.”
For a moment, Callie thought he meant her, but Voren and the other guard immediately stepped back into the trees. Callie shivered. Maybe it hadn’t been that great of an idea to come and find him. At least on her own. Then she remembered why she had. “I owe you an apology.” She sighed. “I seem to be following a pattern.”
He turned and looked so lost, so alone, Callie’s breath caught, and her legs carried her closer before she even thought about it. “I’m sorry,” she said again, knowing, wishing, she could find it in herself to be a little more eloquent.
“It is I who should be apologizing. You said nothing that wasn’t true,” Zak said carefully.
“No, it isn’t.” She huffed. “I’m doing well so far. I’ve hit you and then called you a liar. I—” But she couldn’t finish her sentence because her lips were abruptly covered by another pair, a warm, smooth pair of lips that hungrily caught her mouth and seemed to devour her. It was fortunate the lips were accompanied by a strong pair of arms because her knees wobbled with the force of the utter lust that slammed into her along with the hot body.
Before she even knew what was happening, she was on the forest floor, her body pillowed on his, his hands already freeing her jeans. She broke away for oxygen and had just recovered her wits to protest, but then he touched one finger to her clit and her whole body went up in flames.
“Zak,” she moaned, and as if that set him alight as well with the brush fire sweeping over her skin, he tore her jeans away completely and cupped her mound, sliding his middle finger back into her very wet folds. A deep ache seemed to start in her middle as pleasure deepened and robbed her of coherence. His lips fastened back on hers, and his tongue explored, alternating between licking and stroking, fueling the fire that was raging out of control. He pinched her little nub of flesh, and he caressed, then smoothed it better with his palm. She squirmed, panting as he worked his way down her neck, and pushed up her shirt to cup her breast. When he found that nub as well, her orgasm slammed into her so fast that one second she was lying on the ground, and the next she was flying.
“Zak,” she cried, unable to form coherent thoughts or words, and let herself be gathered very securely while her reality returned. When she realized where she was, she turned her head a little. He had tucked her head under his chin, so she lifted up, and he eased his hold. He gazed at her quietly, seeming content to just lie here. He wasn’t demanding she touch him. She didn’t know what to say. She had thought—well, she didn’t know what she thought. But they had to talk. It was clear she wasn’t going back to Earth.
“I wanted to ask you something else. A lot of something elses, but—” She hesitated. This was important, because while Gary had broken her heart, she had a feeling this warrior could rip out her soul. “I understand you need babies, preferably daughters, but I am considered old in human terms to be able to conceive, even if I was healthy and complete down there.”
Zak ran his palm almost absently over her back. It was a comforting gesture she could so easily get lost in, but he had to understand.
“I’m honored, but you need to choose one of the others.”
His hand stilled, and he gathered her close almost reflexively. The sound from his throat was as much pain as it was frustration. “You are my mulaa. I am yours. There will never be another for me, and I would kill any warrior who thinks to take you from me.”
Okay, so Callie was a little speechless. Even her translator didn’t seem to have a word for mulaa. The whole “me Tarzan, you Jane” was on the surface a little satisfying and a lot hot, but he had to understand. She pushed away and leaned up on her elbow. “I’m serious, Zak.”
He lunged for her and kissed her breathless, then leaned back just as quickly. “You honor me.”
Damn, the nickname. Callie huffed. “What if I can’t have children?”
Zak shrugged.
“Zak, I mean it. You need to have females. There are five other—”
“Who are I’m sure lovely in their own way, but none can match your beauty or your fire. Besides—” He shrugged again as if it were obvious. “—you are my mulaa.”
“Which is what?” Callie asked, trying to be rational but feeling her defenses slipping.
“I’m actually not certain what you would call it in your language. There doesn’t seem to be a direct translation, but all warriors know when they meet their mulaa. It is very rare these days and has fallen mostly into legend.” He kissed her forehead. “But I knew. I knew as soon as I saw you.”
“The chances of my getting pregnant are very slim.”
Zak cupped her cheek. “It is true that I would give anything to see your belly heavy and swollen with my young, but I have…three brothers who can succeed me.” She kissed him this time. She’d heard the hesitation, then the determination to include his lost brother. “It is more important I have a queen with the ability to stand beside me. The further population of my planet will take many years.”
“Rachel had a good point. Why are we here and not wherever you live?”
He smiled and leaped to his feet, extending his arm and drawing her up. “Because of my sire. I need to be in a strong position to be named by the elders.”
“I’ll say this one more time. You should choose one of the others.”
Zak pulled her close. “And I will repeat this one more time. You are my mulaa. It is done.”
But Callie had a feeling it wasn’t going to be that easy.
She got dressed slowly, and they picked their way back the way they had come. Voren and the other guard stood not far enough away as far as she was concerned. It was a good thing the trees darkened the woods because her face would be scarlet. She tried to think back on how loud she had been, and her skin heated even more.
“Status?” Zak clipped out brusquely as soon as they got close.
“The females have all been collected.” Voren glanced at Callie, and Zak tightened his hold on her hand. “The female Rachel doesn’t seem to think she needs protecting.” He said it casually, but Callie winced. Rachel seemed to like winding the warriors up.
“I want my queen secured.”
Voren and the other guard immediately straightened and bowed deeply. “It will be our honor.” Callie didn’t know what to say, and thankfully it didn’t seem necessary.
Zak led her back to the tented area. Azlaan had gone with the females since he was still concerned about Madison, but N’ameth was waiting for them. He took one look at them both and did the chest thump and the bow thing again. Zak merely inclined his head. “Callie will wish to be near the females, but she must be secured separately.”
“Why?” she blurted out. “I mean, if you want me to help you with them—”
“Because this night you will spend with me.”
Which of course shut her up.
“Brey has offered her cottage for you. She has accompanied the female Madison with the others. She says it is her honor.”
Zak nodded at N’ameth and glanced at Voren. “Who can relieve you?”
Voren shook his head. “I would never surrender this honor to another unless you ordered me to.”
Callie watched in fascination as Zak’s face softened, and he gazed at Voren. They were obviously close. “Then make sure you and H’adaar both eat.” He turned and smiled. “Brey’s dwelling is close. I am sure there will be food for us, but if there is anything else you need, you only need to inform me. Shall we go?”
Callie—heart hammering—simply nodded and followed her prince. She wasn’t quite ready to be Cinderella, but the thought did make her smile.