Princess for the Alien Commander by Tammy Walsh

Ikmale

The dungeon doorslammed shut and the lock clunked into place.

Bena was in the adjacent cell to mine and rattled the door viciously.

“Don’t bother,” I said. “I managed to escape once. They’re not going to let me do it again.”

Bena growled and spun toward me.

He sported a gash across one eye and his blood turned it red.

“We can’t just stand here and do nothing! They’re going to take over our territory! He’s going to use them for his own ends! He’s going to turn the kauah into a second class of citizen!”

I peered at my hands between my knees, still in shock from learning the truth about Sofia and her being part of the king’s plan.

I still couldn’t believe it.

I’d fallen for her and she had betrayed not only me but the good kauah people.

How could she do this to us?

We’d taken her in, given her a home.

I’d rescued her from her “kidnappers!”

My men had even suffered injuries from the dras’s attack!

And still, she thought to bring us to the palace and betray us.

I simply couldn’t believe it.

But I did believe it.

Had nothing we felt for each other meant anything to her?

The kissing?

The lovemaking?

The sex?

Bena must have seen the despair on my face as his eyes dropped and he fell onto his cot that ran adjacent to mine.

“What do you think the king will do next?” he said.

“Consolidate his power. Take out his enemies. Install someone in my castle who’ll follow his orders. That’s what I would do.”

I stared at my hands again.

I had blood under my fingernails from a palace guard I’d managed to take down.

Not that it made any difference.

“I trusted her,” I said, my voice so quiet it was barely above a whisper. “I trusted her and thought she would never betray us.”

Bena shifted position and leaned on his elbow.

“I know you did. I’d never seen you so happy.”

Despite all my best efforts, I had failed.

Failed my people, my friends, my family…

I have even failed the humans as they would continue to be ruled by a dictator.

If I’d just attacked the way I’d originally intended, we never would have ended up in this situation.

Many kauah and humans alike would have died but at least we would have fought, would have stood our ground and refused to let the king have his way with us.

Instead, I trusted Sofia.

I had fallen in love with her.

The human expression was right: Love makes fools of us all.

The soft tapping of feet approached my cell.

Bena stiffened on his cot, got to his feet, and headed toward the far corner of his cell.

A pair of slippers entered my vision.

I recognized them immediately.

Pink, with flowers spiraling along the sides and wrapping about the ankle.

I dragged my eyes up and took in every inch of her.

Her expression was broken and sad, and tears shimmered in her eyes.

“Sofia.”

Her name was sucked from me unwillingly and I was overcome with overwhelming anger, frustration, and downright disappointment.

“Come to bask in your victory?” I spat.

“What the king said wasn’t true. I was never part of his plan. He tricked us—he tricked both of us. Now he’s trying to trick us again. I never intended for any of this to happen. I would never do something like this to you. Maybe I would have before out of desperation for the king to love me, but not since we spent time together.”

How I wished those words were true.

How I wished I could believe her.

But I couldn’t.

Not when it could end up costing me and my people even more than I had already given up.

“Is this how you wanted to see me?” I said, spreading my arms out to the side. “Locked up in your father’s dungeon? Well, I hope you’re very happy. Your father will rule over the entire kingdom with you at his side.”

“I understand you might hate me right now but you have to trust me—”

“Trust you?” I snapped, bolting to my feet. “I can never trust you!”

“Please,” Sofia said, tears spilling over her cheeks. “I need your help. I can get you out of there! I can—”

My arm shot through the bars of my cell in a flash and wrapped about her neck.

Sofia gripped my arm in her hands and squeezed.

She had no chance of breaking my hold on her, but she could kick and scratch and struggle.

She did none of that.

There was no fear in her eyes, no sense of danger.

She released my arm and let hers hang by her side.

Taken aback, I strengthened my grip around her throat but didn’t squeeze hard.

I could have snapped her neck like a twig if I wanted to.

She only stared back at me, making soft choking noises as she struggled to breathe.

“Aren’t you going to fight for your life?” I growled.

“You… are… my… life,” she sputtered.

The tears that amassed in her eyes slithered down her cheeks.

Her body began to shake and still, she refused to fight back.

Her eyes rolled back into her head.

Unable to punish her any longer, I released her.

She collapsed to the ground and gasped deep lungfuls of oxygen.

She ran a hand over her throat and loosened the top buttons of her collar.

I marched away from her.

“Wait,” she grunted, her voice haggard and rasping. “Wait! There’s a way… out of this! We can still… win!”

I folded my arms and didn’t turn to face her.

“There’s no way to win. The king holds all the cards. He’s never going to risk losing now.”

“No,” she admitted, “but there’s still a way.”

She got to her feet and reached into her front pocket where she’d tucked a handful of ut’ika flowers.

“The ut’ika are the emblem of House Brant,” she said. “They can be turned into poison, yes?”

“They can.”

“Then do it. Turn them into poison and I’ll give them to the king.”

I peered at the petals in her hands and then up to her face.

There was a strength of conviction in her eyes that I’d long since fallen in love with.

Was she being serious?

Was this still somehow part of the king’s plan?

Perhaps not to punish us but play games and make us believe there was a way out?

But what harm would it do to help her?

My men were as good as dead and I would be used to manipulate my people—a fate worse than death.

So what harm would making a little poison do now?

I took the petals from her.

“Can you do it?” Sofia said.

“I need the proper equipment.”

“Tell me and I’ll get it.”

I hesitated.

If she really was on our side, I didn’t want her taking unnecessary risks.

“You can move freely throughout the palace?”

“They’re looking for me in the tunnel. They’ll keep searching until they find I’m not there. Then they’ll start looking inside.”

“How will you give it to the king?”

I gauged her expression closely, looking for any sign she was lying.

“That’s something I have yet to decide,” she said with a wry smile.

Although I couldn’t bring myself to trust her, I couldn’t deny the love that still blazoned with the ferocity of a thousand suns.

“First, we need a small dish to crush the petals in,” I said.

“Use this,” Bena said, snapping off a segment of his dented armor.

“You can use the heel of my boot to mash it up with,” said Wem, another of my soldiers.

“And use what remains of the water in my flask,” said Krok.

Between us, we had everything we needed.

As I mashed up the petals and heated them over a low flame, I siphoned off the concentrated liquid.

“I need a container,” I said.

None of the soldiers had anything.

Sofia reached back, unclasped the necklace around her neck, and handed it to me.

The necklace was slightly concaved with an image of the ut’ika flower etched on the top.

I opened it, revealing a photograph of an aged version of Sofia.

“Your mother?”

Sofia nodded.

I slipped the photo out and tipped the poison inside the necklace, clasping it shut tight.

Sofia took the necklace and put it on around her neck again.

She reached for the photograph of her mother but I held it from her.

“I’ll hold onto it until you return.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, but the fact I wanted to see her again.

She must have seen the desperation in my face for this plan of hers to work, for it to be true and not just another ploy to manipulate me and my soldiers.

“Very well,” Sofia said, a little sad we hadn’t parted better.

To hell with it.

As she turned to leave, I reached through the bars and yanked her to me.

I pressed her face to the bars and consumed her lips.

She returned my passion with her own.

We kissed for what felt like an eternity, with my arm wrapped about her waist and hers on my ass.

I would have pulled her into the cage with me if I could.

Finally, we parted, just a few inches so we could look deeper into each other’s eyes.

“Be careful,” I said, beaming happily. “The king’s a very dangerous man.”

“I know,” Sofia said. “I am his daughter, after all.”

I released her and she took off into the darkness.

I returned to my cot and took a seat, doing my best to ignore the looks from my soldiers.

Did I trust her?

Maybe a little.

Did I think she would succeed in poisoning her father?

Possibly.

Did I think she would return for her mother’s photograph?

No question.