Chapter Two
Just Outside Khan-Gori Airspace
Zyrus Galaxy, Seventh Dimension
6049 Y.Y. (Yessat-Years)
“I’m so fucking tired,” Kari Gy’at Li muttered to herself. “Why can’t I fall asleep?” Sighing, she stood up and padded over to the viewing portal inside her bedchamber and stared at the ominous ice planet looming in the distance. She couldn’t shake the bizarre feeling enveloping her that whatever secrets lay in waiting down there would impact more than Dari and her—it was going to have an effect on everyone. Or at least everyone who mattered to her.
“Or maybe I’ve got a good, old-fashioned case of space dementia,” she said unblinking. “I’ve been aboard ship too fucking long.”
Whether or not Khan-Gor ended up holding the key that would unravel the mystery surrounding the evil one was likely debatable, but either way, she was looking forward to transporting from the gastrolight-cruiser to the alien terrain below. Standing on any landscape was appealing at the moment—even if said planet turned out to be as nightmarish as she assumed it was going to be.
Kari needed sleep. She knew she would be no good to Dari without it. Dari might have been claimed by Gio, but he was a fool if he thought he could stop his bride in her quest to protect him. “I’ve got a newsflash, Gio,” Kari murmured. “Women will fight to protect the men they love the same as warriors will fight to protect their Sacred Mates.”
Kari would know. Protecting the only man she’d ever loved had more than a little bit to do with why she was standing here now. She might not be able to give him everything he wanted from her, but he’d always own her heart and soul… even if it was from a faraway distance. And even if he didn’t exactly know it.
Isar K’al Draji—the warlord everyone save Kari called Death. He was big. He was brutal. He could crush most men with his massive, bare hands. She could understand why he was referred to as Death; she just didn’t agree. The only thing Isar had ever brought to her was life.
A knock at the door should have snagged Kari’s attention, but it practically failed to register. The knock was too harsh to belong to Dari’s hand, which could only mean that one of the plethora of warriors who had boarded ship wanted to talk to her. Well, damn it, he or they could wait. She wasn’t in the mood to get bitched out by Dari’s father, uncles, or anyone else for that matter. She harbored no regrets in helping the princess—her niece—escape.
“Go away,” she said in a monotone. “I’m too exhausted for Trystonni bullshit right now.”
Again, a knock. Kari semi-rolled her eyes.
“Do you speak Trystonni?” she asked in Trystonni. “Or Galian?” she asked in Galian. “I said to get the fuck lost.”
Turning around, she padded away from the viewing portal and climbed back up onto her bed. Falling on her back with a groan, she closed her eyes and tried once more to fall into ever-elusive slumber.
“Kara,” a deep voice softly reverberated. “Open the doors, pani.”
Pani—little one.
Kari’s eyes flew open. She gasped, her heart rate kicking into overdrive.
Isar was here. He had come for her.
Panicked, Kari jumped off the bed and frenetically glanced around for a method of escape. She may have missed him—hell, she may have even loved him—but she was not the type of female who could accept Trystonni mating as a way of life. Her adoptive sister Klykka had seen to that.
“Y-you shouldn’t call me by my birth name!” Kari said dumbly as her gaze continued searching for a route to freedom. Of all the shit to focus on! “You’ll get into trouble.”
Silence. Thick, repressive, and more unnerving than anything he could have said aloud. Her skin felt slick with moisture.
“Open the doors, Kara,” Isar calmly instructed. “Leastways, do not force me to break them down.”
She swallowed roughly, her ice-blue eyes wide. Her wine-red hair whipped around as she frantically searched for a non-existent escape. This can’t be happening! This isn’t real!
Yet she knew that it was very real. Isar K’al Draji had come for her. Kari highly suspected he’d never again let her out of his sight. While such an outcome held definite appeal to her weary self, she owed it to Dari to be there for her when it came time to venture down to the alien planet below. And then there was the other part. Namely, her freedom.
“I can’t do this, Isar,” Kari said. Her breathing was heavy, her voice cracking. “I can never be who it is you want me to be.”
Silence. And the sound of strange footfalls running toward Isar.
“I’m sorry,” Kari continued. She backed up against the viewing portal until there was nowhere left to go. “You deserve better than me.”
The sleeping compartment’s large doors whizzed open. A warrior foreign to Kari bowed to his giant commander before placing the override key in his palm. That done, he ran off to wherever it was he’d come from.
The giant slowly turned to face her. Her teeth punishingly bit into her lower lip. A familiar, golden gaze found her frightened one. He said nothing as he determinedly entered her private chambers. The doors whizzed closed—and locked—behind him. She gulped.
“Isar,” Kari breathed out. She didn’t need a bridal necklace to surmise the myriad emotions waging war within him. Anger, relief, a sense of betrayal, and what could only be described as longing. “You’re here.”
* * * * *
King Isar K’al Draji drank in the sight of his bride-to-be. All these Yessat-Years later and she looked more beautiful to him now than she had back then. He could see the fear writ across her lovely face. He mentally chastised himself again for having been a fool to let her escape in the first. Clearly, an unclaimed Sacred Mate’s natural fear of the unknown had grown exponentially worse within Kara to the point where she shook even now. Her eyes were wide, her breathing was labored, as her gaze anxiously searched for an exit. Unless the Galians had learned how to teleport without teleporters, there would be no leaving him this time.
That last thought caused him to momentarily pause. Had the Galians learned such a thing? He grimly conceded ‘twas possible. Never would he have believed afore witnessing it that Galians could speak to each other with naught but the power of their minds, yet they could. ‘Twas this worry that caused his next words to come out overly harsh. “Cease your search for an escape that does not exist. Leastways, there is nowhere you can run to where I will not find you.”
She swallowed heavily. His gaze narrowed.
“I do not wish to fight with you when you have been so many years removed from me, pani, yet will I die afore I permit you to leave my side ever again.”
“Isar—”
“Enough.” Again, he realized his tone was overly gruff. “I would hear no excuses.”
Her back straightened and her eyes narrowed. “Fine. If your name on my lips displeases you and you wish to speak to me like a commander leading his forces into battle then by all means let it be so, High Lord Death.” She affected a mock curtsey.
“’Tis my title no more,” he informed her, refusing to take the bait. He would not engage her in arguments. “I am the former and restored Isar K’al Draji, the newly crowned King of Xaerja—” She gasped. “—and you will become my Queen the soonest.”
Her lips worked up and down, but nothing came out.
He quirked an eyebrow. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from goading her a wee bit. “Alas, you have naught to say?”
Her nostrils flared. “Xaerja is Galis’ dominant moon and as such falls under Galian sovereignty. You can’t just claim a moon that belongs to other peoples!”
“I did not claim it, pani. ‘Twas given to me by the Emperor.”
Her ire was obvious, her voice filled with disdain. “He fears the matriarchal clans of Galis so much that he sends his fiercest warlord to rule over its dominant moon?”
“Distrusts is a better word than fear.”
“Whatever. It’s pathetic!”
Isar took a step toward the viewing portal she had smashed herself up against. Her eyes rounded. “You should not speak of your Emperor, your own brother-within-the-law, in such terms.”
“He means nothing to me!” She slightly amended her heated statement. “I would give anything to see my sister again, yes, but her husband is nothing to me. Her husband took my name, took my—”
“He gave it back.”
“Huh?”
“Your name. He issued a command that your name be restored to you.”
Silence.
“You are,” Isar said softly, “the former and restored Kara Summers.”
He could see the emotion in her eyes. Most would mayhap have missed it, yet did he know her too well. She had long craved to taste her birth name on her lips again. Now she could.
“I am grateful for that,” Kara said stiffly, “yet my loyalty still lies with the Gy’at Li. It does not lie with your Emperor.”
“Leastways, he is your Emperor too.”
“Klykka took me in, raised me, made a warrior out of me, and gave me a name to call my own.” Her chin notched up. “I will never turn my back on her.”
Isar sighed. “Nobody is asking you to, pani.”
“Then what do you want me to say? Thank your beloved Emperor for restoring a surname that no longer holds meaning because it’s no longer shared with my sister?” She shook her head. “I will retain my birth name, Kara, because it is meaningful to me, but my surname is Gy’at Li.”
“For the moment.” He shrugged. “The question of your surname matters naught for when you become my Sacred Mate you will forever be Queen Kara K’ala Draji of Xaerja.” He took another step towards her, making her eyes go wide again. “’Tis such a bad fate, this?” he asked with more vulnerability than he had a care for.
Her gaze softened a bit. “Isar—you know it’s not that.”
“Then tell me the way of it.”
She threw her hands up. “I see how Gio treats Dari. Does he love her? Yes. But does he give her freedom, room to breathe? No. I can’t live like that. Dari was raised with the expectation she would one day give her life into Gio’s hands. I was raised by Klykka to be a fierce, proud warrior. I might not fight in the same manner as you, but fight I can and fight I will when necessary.”
He slowly inclined his head. “I would have you no other way.”
She glanced away. “You’re just saying what you think I want to hear.”
His jaw tightened. “Do you call me a liar?”
“No.” Kara sighed. “I don’t know what to think.” She ran a punishing hand through her fire-berry hair. “The only thing I have to go on is the autocratic tendencies I’ve witnessed in warriors who visited Galis. That and the relationship between Dari and Gio.”
Isar took yet another step towards Kara. This time she did not cringe in fear. ‘Twas a start. A small one mayhap, yet still a start.
“’Tis true that Dari and Gio were raised with expectations of how life would be, but I was not. I was sold into bondage and raised as a slave.”
“I know,” Kara said quietly.
“What you don’t know is that ‘twas only the strongest of wenches who survived in captivity. Leastways, sometimes even strength was not enough.”
She searched his gaze. “What are you trying to say?” she murmured.
“That I have always admired fierceness in a woman. That I do not feel threatened by your capabilities, but intrigued by them.” He took another step towards her. “That a slave who becomes a High Lord and then a King has no expectations as to how his Sacred Mate should think and feel. He only knows that he needs her by his side to be complete.”
“Isar…”
“We can carve out our own life together, Kara. We needs not base our holy union on the expectations of others.”
Silence.
“Leastways, there is one part of destiny I cannot spare you from.”
One of her eyebrows rose warily. “What do you mean?”
“The formalities.” She gasped as he summoned off her clothing and it fell to the floor. She made to move, but could not run. Her body had literally been stunned into submission. He took off his bridal necklace and slowly walked towards her. “The claiming.”
* * * * *
Meanwhile, on Khan-Gor…
Jana F’al Vader, nee Jana Q’ana Tal, needed to find shelter. The pains were coming upon her regularly now. She knew naught of what species the child would be—a fact that frightened her as much as the harsh, wintry elements that were her surroundings—yet was she certain a child was indeed coming.
Her mind was splintering. She could feel it as surely as she could feel the harsh labor pains. Leastways, she had no time to mentally regroup for shelter was of the essence. Nay, she would not breach the Rah on this horrible planet at the far end of nowhere; she would die in her bed furs back in Trek Mi Q’an. She hated Yorin for stealing her away from Galis as much as she hated the crazed species his blood had forced her to become.
She was cold, tired, and broken, yet there was naught in this life that could move her to shape-shift into that hideous form that would protect her from the icy terrain. She was frightened of what she had become, terrified of the things she was now capable of.
A glint of red light emitting from Khan-Gor’s four blood moons shone down in the nick of time. Jana immediately espied the icy cavern and took off running towards it. Another pain hit. She doubled over and did her best not to cry out.
When the pain had passed, she brought herself up fully and made her way into the nearly hidden cave. Much to her surprise and delight, whilst the outside of it was pure silver ice, the inside of the hideout was warm and inviting.
Jana sighed. She would never understand the way of it on Khan-Gor. She could but pray to the goddess that her sire would come for her and she’d never be obliged to figure it all out.
Please, papa, she begged, sending out a wave of emotion, please find me.