Princess for the Alien Commander by Tammy Walsh

Sofia

The kauah territoryand its inhabitants emitted a completely different energy to the humans back on the other side of the river.

Where the humans seemed dour and slow and lethargic and generally depressed while they went about their business, the kauah were always smiling, singing, and dancing.

The way they acted was closer to the way I recalled the human townsfolk did before I escaped with my mother.

It didn’t take long to realize that at some point my memories had scrambled the two cultures together.

It was the kauah culture that liked to sing and dance, the kauah who laughed and cheered among themselves.

It was the kauah who sang deep heartfelt songs that vibrated deeply in the back of their throats.

Maybe humans had been happier on this moon at some point but it hadn’t been any time recently.

It was still early in the morning as we drew up to Ikmale’s castle, the morning light catching the modern and ornate facade and making it glow.

The design was sleek, more comfortable, and meant for longer term living than the dark and sinister craggy recesses of the palace.

All the servants were curled-horned kauah and smiled politely at Ikmale and me as we drew up to the front entrance.

“Young master,” the head of the household said. “Should I prepare the kitchens for breakfast?”

“Yes, Bakerfield,” Ikmale said. “And see to the princess’s every wish.”

The only member of Ikmale’s staff that wasn’t kauah was his head of the household.

He was a demure but pleasant-looking fellow with oiled hair and stiff gait.

Bakerfield looked me over and smiled broadly.

No fake smiles here, I thought, no hidden thoughts and secret agendas.

With the kauah, what you saw was what you got.

“Of course,” Bakerfield said.

No bows here, no curtsies.

They were far more informal than the palace, and that was no bad thing.

“You’ll not touch one hair on her head!” a heavy-set female kauah said, slipping her arm through mine and leading me up the steps and into the castle. “I’ve waited many a long year for a mistress of this house and I’m not about to let you snatch her from me!”

Ikmale grinned at her.

“Good morning, Ejana.”

Ejana turned on him.

“Good morning! Good morning, he says, as if he didn’t forget to give me a front-row invitation to his wedding! After all the endless chores I’ve completed for him!”

She leveled her gaze at me.

“Never let a male take control of a situation! He’ll never fail to mess it up!”

“You didn’t miss much,” Ikmale said before scooping an arm around her and planting a loud wet kiss on her bulging cheek. “Only the kiss!”

Ejana waved him off.

“Away with you, child! And pay no attention to his affections for me, young mistress,” she said, leering at me. “He’s tried to take me for his wife many a time and my constitution hasn’t failed me yet! Now, let’s get you into a nice hot bath and out of this ragged dressing gown!”

Her voice lilted upward at the end of each sentence as if she were surprised by how each of them ended.

I glanced over at Ikmale who smiled and nodded at me.

He’d promised he would protect me, would do everything he could to ensure no harm came to me.

I could trust him with his servants, couldn’t I?

Had it all been a lie?

Or had he really meant it?

Frankly, I was too dog tired to care.

If he intended on beating me as my father had only the day before, I couldn’t have put up much resistance.

I let Ejana lead me inside.

At this point, she looked capable of doing more damage to me than anyone else if I didn’t do as she said.

The water washot and steamy, a tonic for my aching muscles.

As I eased beneath the water’s surface, it spilled over the edges of the bath and across the floor.

The temperature was perfect.

The bedroom was less ornate but cozier and warmer than the room I’d occupied at the palace.

I was so tired when I slipped into the water that I took no notice of Ejana being in the room while I was naked.

“Did you take a tumble, lass?” she asked, staring openly at the bruises across my back, shoulders, and stomach.

Crap!

I jerked my arms up to cover myself but what was the use now?

She’d already seen them.

“I… fell.”

Ejana showed no emotion and only nodded.

“If you say so, miss,” she said noncommittally. “In future, you should be more careful.”

She didn’t believe me.

Who would when it was so obvious the injuries were too sporadic to have been something as simple as a fall?

I caught the flash of concern on her face—she was too slow to conceal it.

“The young master,” she said, gathering up an armful of shampoo and other ointments. “Sometimes he doesn’t know his own strength—”

“Ikmale?” I said, meeting her eyes. “You think he did this?”

“Male kauah are sometimes too big, strong, and cumbersome.”

“It wasn’t him! He never touched me!”

Ejana looked at me askance, her doubt palpable.

“I know he would never do it on purpose, dearie. I’m just saying it’s easy to accidentally hurt someone much smaller than he is.”

“It wasn’t Ikmale,” I said pointedly, feeling like I needed to vindicate him. “He’s been nothing but a gentleman with me since we got married.”

Okay, so that was a bit of a stretch, I thought, recalling the furious look on his face when he thought I was part of my father’s sinister plot to capture him.

The fire had been deep and impenetrable, threatening to knock me off my feet.

Although I’d been afraid, there had been a small part of me that’d found it exciting, reminding me of the complete lack of control I’d suffered when he drew me to him in his tent in the forest.

He’d placed his lips on mine and I was powerless to stop him.

Almost overcome with fear as he tore at my dress, that sense of excitement had still been there nonetheless.

Buried deep within me was the desire for him to plunder me.

I shook my head and was thankful for the hot water that drew the blood to the surface of my cheeks.

It was easier to blame my blush on the water than my raging hormones.

Ikmale had been a gentleman every moment after he cooled down.

Ejana relaxed, finally believing what I was telling her.

She scooped up a box of bath salts and added a handful to the water.

She pulled a stool up beside the bath with her foot and set to scrubbing me.

She was very gentle around the bruises and focused on the unblemished skin.

She washed my hair with fingers and by the time she was done, I felt brand-new.

“The kauah people seem quite happy,” I said, searching for a topic of conversation. “Happier than humans anyway.”

“Things are a lot simpler in our territory. We don’t have a power hungry king sucking us dry every minute of the day—”

She froze before glancing at me and looking away again, embarrassed.

“I’m sorry to speak ill of your father, lass. I didn’t mean anything by it. Trust old Ejana to spout hearsay. Forgive my ignorance of such matters.”

But she wasn’t ignorant of such matters.

Ihad been.

Camila had warned me about the king’s true fiery nature.

I had ignored her, thinking I knew better, a naive little girl desperate to be loved by her father.

Fool.

Boy, do I wish I could have found Camila before we escaped.

God only knew what the king would do to her if he thought she had something to do with our escape.

When the king entered his signature blind and manic rage there was no getting through to him, no way to appeal to his better nature.

I feared she would be the one to suffer his wrath the same way I had on his study floor.

I hissed through my teeth and jerked away from Ejana.

She’d poked one of the more sensitive bruises on my back.

I glanced at her hand and noticed her fingers were coated with some kind of cream.

“For your injuries,” she said softly.

Her expression was sincere and I had no doubt in my mind that she hadn’t meant to cause me pain.

I leaned back for her to continue.

As she smoothed it over my bruises, the pain intensified before giving way to a sweet soothing warmth.

It seemed to absorb the pain somehow.

But it had another side effect:

It took what remained of my energy with it.

I didn’t remember Ejana drying me off or her helping me to bed but I remember slipping into infinite darkness.

My exhaustion wiped any sounds or images I might have had during the night.

I was grateful for that at least.

I didn’t want to recall what’d happened the previous day or imagine what might happen next.

I awoke sometimein the early evening with the sunlight already blotted out by massing clouds and kauah singing outside along the bank of a narrow winding stream.

It took me a moment to recall where I was.

I’d been hopping from one bed to another lately—not in that sense!

When I recalled I was in Ikmale’s castle, I was overcome with relief.

Anything had to be better than being stuck under the king’s bootheel.

“Easy there,” a soft voice said from the farthest corner.

The shadow moved, vibrating toward me.

I shimmied to one side of the bed to call out and yell for help but a thin and spindly shape stepped into the golden light cast by the streetlamps outside.

“It’s only me.”

Her voice was as much a salve on my emotions as the cream had been on my wounds during my bath.

“Camila?”

Relief flooded my system and I leaned forward to embrace her.

She squeezed me, careful not to press too firmly on my bruises.

I wouldn’t have cared if she had, I was so happy.

“I didn’t think I would see you again!” I said, tears streaming unbidden down my cheeks. “I left you a note. I didn’t know if you would see it or not. We went to your room. We thought… I thought—”

“I found it,” Camila said, smiling warmly. “You must know me pretty well to put the note there. It was the first place I looked.”

I grinned and wiped the tears from my eyes.

“And the king? He didn’t punish you?”

“He may have if I was still in the palace. When the bells rang out into the night, I knew one of only two things could have happened: Either the king had been slain—and I can assure you, I kept my fingers crossed in case that had happened!—or you and your new husband had managed to escape. When I heard the king bellowing loudly, not in pain as I had hoped, but his usual screeches of sheer anger, I knew you must have escaped.

“I ran to my room and gathered up my things. I decided to pray for good luck before hitting the road and discovered your note. I got out of the palace before the king thought to question me and managed to slip out of the city before they went into full lockdown. I hitched a ride on a kauah food cart and gave them all the money I had left. Thankfully, your new husband recognized who I was and allowed me into your room.”

“Could he have stopped you if he didn’t?” I said around a grin full of teeth.

“Are you kidding? Him and his guards wouldn’t have stood a chance!”

Camila flexed her non-existent muscles above her head.

I hugged Camila even closer before pulling back and kissing her on the cheeks.

“I made a deal with Ikmale. I used a secret passageway to escape the palace in exchange he said he would let us stay at his castle for as long as we need.”

“For as long as we need?” Camila said, momentarily thrown. “Why would we need to stay here a second longer than we have to?”

“So I could mount a rescue mission to find you!”

“I’m already here! Grab your things. We’re out of here!”

Camila grabbed her tiny bag and moved for the door.

“Wait,” I said. “We have to figure out where we’re going to head next.”

“Out of here and far far away! That’s where! We can decide where on the way. Come on!”

I didn’t move to follow her.

She’d reached the door before noticing I wasn’t beside her.

“What is it?”

“It’s the king,” I admitted. “We escaped him once. I’m not sure he’s about to let us escape him again so easily.”

“Trust me, when I escaped with you and your mother last time, it most certainly wasn’t easy.”

“That’s my point,” I said, taking a seat on the bed. “Last time it was difficult and we weren’t even a part of his plans. Now that we are, he’s never going to give up looking for us.”

Camila dumped her bag on the floor and fell into the arched armchair beside the bed.

“You make a fair point,” she admitted.

“Then there are the other issues.”

She looked up at me with the air of someone who didn’t really want to know.

“What about food and money?” I said.

“We managed last time—”

“We sold Mother’s expensive clothes and jewelry last time. This time, we have nothing. Besides… I’m not sure I want to go through the same hardship.”

“It’ll be even harder if Ikmale takes it into his mind to keep us prisoners for his own benefit.”

I shook my head.

“He won’t do that.”

“You can’t know that.”

“No, but I can feel it. I can sense it. I think he’s a good person.”

Camila leaned back in her armchair.

“Where have I heard that before?”

“He’s not the king,” I said. “He’s not cruel or unjust. He’s not driven by vengeance.”

“If you look deep enough, there’s always something dark driving a man.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“And every woman?”

“Women are built differently to men. We’re born to be mothers. Men are born to hunt and kill. We’re wired differently.”

The silence grew deep between us.

Camila was the one to break it.

“How long do you want to stay here?”

“I don’t know. But with the king out there after us? And the dras preparing to invade?”

I shook my head.

“As long as we need to prepare ourselves, I guess.”

Stay here.

With Ikmale.

Just the thought of him sent a shiver through me.

The hard press of his muscles against my back…

The strength of his body on top of me…

Perhaps being stranded in this castle with him wouldn’t be such a tough situation to face after all…

“You should speak with your new husband,” Camila said.

“Don’t call him that!” I snapped.

“Well, you’re married to him, aren’t you?”

“Yes but… but it wasn’t a real marriage!”

“That’s not what the kingdom thinks. That’s not what the dras think.”

The dras.

If they were the ones to discover us first, I hated to think the situation we would find ourselves in then.

Trapped between the dras, the king, and Ikmale…

A knock came at the door.

I shared a look with Camila.

“Who is it?” Camila said.

“It’s Bakerfield, madam. The head of the household. May I enter?”

Camila handed me a robe and I hastily slipped it on.

“Yes,” I said. “You can come in.”

Bakerfield entered and smiled politely.

“I’m afraid there’s an issue, one which appears to have completely slipped the young master’s mind.”

“What?” I said.

“It is traditional for the two kauah families to meet after the wedding. As you were in the palace at the time, the meeting has been scheduled for tonight.”

The words might as well have been written on Camila’s face.

You might not think you’re married to Ikmale but the Kingdom certainly does.

I hated when she was right.

I wouldn’t hear the end of this for days.