Raevu Read online

  “Leave us,” Raevu barked. Immediately, all but Baelon and one other left the room. “Baelon, T’ral, you as well.” This was spoken less harshly but with just as much command.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the other figure leave, but the wall against my back hadn’t budged. Come on, Baelon, don’t be an asshole. Raevu and I need to hash this shit out in private.

  Raevu broke eye contact with me and glared over my head at him. I could feel the rumble of Baelon’s deep drawl through his chest against my back. “Begging your pardon, nephew, but I am now Queen’s Guard. I will do only what I think best for her or what she orders me to do. She is trembling, so I know she is not comfortable in your presence right now.”

  I shut my eyes in mortification. Shit. Betrayed by my own weakness and, it seems, my staunchest supporter…Baelon.

  Raevu frowned but stepped to one side, waving his arm toward a chair. “By all means, let’s make her comfortable.”

  His dry tone did nothing to ease my discomfort. Baelon nudged me a bit to get me moving and chuckled at the glare I threw over my shoulder at him. I wasn’t sure how knowing him for an hour made me feel at ease in his company. But I did know that the big male across from me, Raevu, made me decidedly nervous. This was the most intense case of pre-date jitters ever.

  I lowered myself onto the couch in the seating area. Raevu settled his bulk into a chair that had been made for someone of much smaller dimensions. He didn’t seem worried about its creaking under him as he leaned back and crossed one ankle over his knee. Baelon moved to another part of the room, and I heard the clink of glassware from that direction.

  I refused to let my symptoms render me weak in any way. Instead of resting, I spoke up. “I have some questions for you.” Maybe if we spoke for a while, I could find some glimmer of the male I’d seen on the live-stream and the gentle one from my dream, instead of the hard, unemotional blue alien sitting across from me.

  Raevu nodded. “As do I, for you. For one, who gave you that mark that you bear on your body?”

  My hand flew to the welted area where my right shoulder met my neck. Of all the questions he might have had for me, this one surprised me. “Gave me? No one gave me this damn mark. It appeared out of nowhere after the experiments began.”

  His feet thumped as they hit the floor. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “Are you sure? Is it a burn? A tattoo?” His tone was piercing, as were his bright gold eyes. Now, I was starting to get offended by his tone.

  “Don’t you think that I would know if someone burned or tattooed me?” My eyes narrowed. “Let’s get one thing straight. I do not lie. So, what I said is true. No one fucking touched me. This is not a burn or scar from a cut or heat, and it certainly isn’t a fucking rash.” My voice got louder with each sentence. “Whatever experiments were done resulted in disfiguring my neck and shoulder with this damn port-wine looking birthmark. Besides, what the hell business is it of yours where it came from anyway?”

  Baelon chose that moment to hand me a glass of water. I thanked him as I took it, but I continued to scowl at Raevu. There was no way in hell that I was going to be bullied by the likes of him. Baelon handed Raevu what looked like a strange purple-colored beer and kept another for himself.

  Raevu’s voice remained calm. “What I’m asking you is important, Eva. Very important.”

  Now, I was intrigued by the worried expression on his face. What the hell is going on?

  “Is it as important as the fact that one day I was part of this alien science experiment and the next I was brought here and told I was your fiancée?” His eye twitched at my last statement. I was onto something, so I continued my interrogation. “Is it as important as the fact that I thought, when I signed up for this program, that I would be one of dozens, if not hundreds, from around the planet—only to find out later that I’m one of five?” His eyes narrowed. I pushed on. “Hmmm…maybe I’m the only one who survived, but perhaps you can shed some light on my theory. Am I the only survivor of this alien experiment?” I looked between the two of them, and I stilled at the expression of dismay on Baelon’s face.

  Holy shit! I’m the only survivor.

  I went on, “Truth be told, when I signed up for the Peace Opportunity Program and went through all the screenings and let myself be injected with whatever mad scientist concoction they put inside me, I suspected I’d end up being treated like some kind of soldier or lab rat for the rest of my life. I certainly wasn’t expecting to be told I was now engaged to a king of an alien planet. A king? For fuck’s sake, that type of fairy-tale shit only happens in movies.” I ran out of steam and took a big gulp of my water then clasped the glass as if it was a life preserver.

  Belligerently, I glowered at Raevu, who was staring at me like I had two heads. This was certainly not the male I’d offered myself to so freely the night before in my dream. Maybe I was looking for some Prince Charming to sweep me off my feet, whisking me off to happily ever after. It was a stupid dream. This was balls-to-the-wall reality, and this fucker was not interested in anything but saving his people using any means necessary…me.

  Angry and utterly disappointed, I fought to stay stoic as overwhelming emotions threatened to sweep me away in a fit of hysterical crying. Pull up your big girl panties, Eva. You knew full well what you were signing up for. I felt like an idiot. The dream had given me hope for something more…a relationship that was less cold and clinical with Raevu. It had shown me what I’d desired most…true chemistry and romance with him.

  His voice was infuriatingly calm when he uttered, “I agree. A fated mating doesn’t happen. Soul mates—I believe humans call it—is something from a children’s story.” He paused. “That aside, do you know what the mark on your body is?”

  My energy was spent, and I was done with this alien. For that’s just what he was, an asshole alien who didn’t believe the word of a woman. Seems like males are males, no matter what planet they originate from. I leaned forward and placed my glass on the low table between us. I mimicked his posture, feet solidly on the floor and slightly apart, elbows on knees, tilting forward. I spoke in my lowest, calmest tones. “I’ve answered your damn question once. So, if you’re going to continue to ask me the same question over and over again, it’s going to be a long night—for you. I’m out of here.” As gracefully and steadily as I could, I rose to my feet. Before either male could move, I spoke again, praying to be answered, “Geoffrey?”

  My personal computer concierge answered immediately, “Yes, madam?”

  “Would you open the door to my room, please? I’m exhausted and need to lie down.” It had definitely reached the point of a need. My legs were so wobbly I feared I would collapse to the floor.

  Immediately, a door nearest the windows swung open. “Thank you, Geoffrey.” I tried to sweep gracefully from the room, but I began to stumble before I could make it across the space. Baelon caught my elbow and walked me the rest of the way to my door. My cheeks burned with embarrassment, but I didn’t pull my arm from his grip.

  “Eva,” Raevu called from his seat.

  I paused, shaking harder. I was starting to hurt, and it was putting me in a fouler mood. “Yes?” I snapped.

  “In my dream, you said that because you were part of the program, you believed you’d have many mates. This is wrong. You will only have one mate. Me.” His eyes were glowing again, his desire smoldering toward me as he looked me over.

  I stared back at him, using the last of my resolve. “Maybe if you earn it, I’ll be interested. But as of right now, you’re not doing a very good job of showing that you deserve me.” I turned to smile my gratitude at Baelon for his help.

  “Well played, my queen.” Baelon winked at me, seeming amused by my standing up to Raevu.

  Without another word, I simply withdrew into my cavernously large bedroom, locking the door behind me.

  Chapter 13

  Raevu

  I drank down my qua in one long swallow as Eva made her grand
exit, and I cursed under my breath. I hadn’t gotten the answers I needed, and we were stuck here waiting on her for at least another day.

  There was no doubt in my mind that I should have been thinking more of her physical and emotional welfare, instead of doing nothing. The fact that I didn’t did not sit well with me, but when I was around her, I had trouble thinking logically. All common sense escaped me in her presence…and my baser urges pressed to the forefront, with strong urges to claim and mate her in the most animalistic manner.

  She’s mine. My life mate…to hold, touch, stroke, and claim.

  I sat there, bewildered. But for the life of me…I didn’t understand how our interaction had gone so wrong, so fast.

  Before she strode through the door, I had been replaying the dream in my head and her sweet words of encouragement and enjoyment at my touch. Yet, once she was actually in front of me, all I felt and heard from her was resistance to me.

  Were all human women this complicated and stubborn?

  All she seemed to want to do was stay here on Earth and tend to her wounds and illness, when I had the most state-of-the-art medical treatment on my ship. And why was she so resistant to leaving her fellow humans? Didn’t she know that they could visit her on my planet? It is my duty and privilege as her life mate to make her happy. Why didn’t she understand that?

  Had I made a mistake in thinking she was my mate? Was the mark just some bizarre coincidence?

  No. It couldn’t be. The pull toward her was too strong. I’d never experienced it before, but I knew it was the mating call my people talked about for centuries. It wasn’t just her beauty that attracted me, but it was her strong personality that drew me to her like a moth to a flame.

  Baelon came back over and sat in her vacated spot. He gave me a long, steady look and reached out to hand me his glass over the low table. I took it and knocked back its contents.

  It didn’t help fast enough. I shoved to my feet and started pacing the floor, then shucked my jacket and tossed it over the back of a couch. “I don’t understand. I didn’t ask anything inappropriate. I need to know how and from whom she got the mark.”

  Baelon nodded slowly, stood, took both our glasses, and went to refill them. His silence spoke volumes. He was disappointed.

  “What, Uncle? You obviously have an opinion. And what the Kyrpa was that ‘Queen’s Guard’ business? Since when do we have a ‘Queen’s Guard’?”

  He turned and walked back over to me and handed me another glass of the dark-flavored qua. “You, my king, are a fool.” Baelon’s words were quiet and emphatic.

  My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? I said nothing wrong.”

  “No, you didn’t. But in your desire to get information, you completely forgot what the female has gone through in just the last few days. Her illness. Her exhaustion. The trauma of her time as an experimental subject, and the trauma of being kidnapped, tied, and beaten. Even just how her life has changed in the last few weeks.” He shook his head sadly. “If my Amira were still alive, she would slap me if I ever made demands of her when she was that worn out.”

  I eyed him. “I have a whole planet at stake here, Baelon. All of my people are at risk. I thought this experiment, this genetic trade, could help ensure our prosperity as a people. But instead of dozens of females, we end up with one. And she somehow bears our family crest? Marking her as my life mate? How is that possible?”

  “I’m your uncle and your arms master, not a scientist. How can I presume to guess? Call T’ral back in. Maybe he has more answers.”

  I rubbed my hands over my smooth head and said aloud, “Geoffrey, would you tell T’ral to come back in here?” In exasperation, I unbuttoned my cuffs and rolled up my shirtsleeves. But even as I expressed exasperation with my uncle, I felt a tug of worry. Had I really made that much of an ass of myself with my future mate?

  The ever-present voice replied at once, “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  Within moments, a door leading off into another part of the suite opened and closed, and T’ral entered. Here were two of my most trusted advisers, military and political. Between the three of us, surely, we could come up with some answers on what to do about Eva.

  He must have seen our glasses arranged on the table in front of us, for he paused briefly at the bar area to fill a pitcher of qua and grab a third glass. As he sat down on the couch next to Baelon, he asked, “What have you discovered?”

  “Nothing,” I said dryly, “except that Baelon here has formed a Queen’s Guard for the soon-to-be queen. Our lady claims not to know how the mark got on her skin. It just appeared, according to her. And—” I held out my glass for a refill “—Baelon believes I am a fool.”

  T’ral unbuttoned his suit jacket and leaned back on the couch. “Well, all of that could be true.”

  “Thank you for your support of your monarch, T’ral.” My tone got even drier.

  The corner of T’ral’s mouth actually twitched in annoyance. “Raevu, a Queen’s Guard is actually a good idea. We know that, here on Earth, there are already factions that do not want a treaty between humans and our people. It was fine when we were trading goods and services, but when we wanted to include genetics in the mix…the opposition reared its head. She must be protected at all costs.”

  “Don’t you think I know this?” I barked.

  They both stared at me with doubt written all over their faces. I huffed in annoyance.

  T’ral spoke on, with the manner of a scholar giving a lecture. “So, as far as the mark goes, according to our history, it appears when the life mate to the king comes of age. According to archives, the mark on the female is accompanied by weakness or sickness, which can only be remedied by a mating ceremony between the king and his life mate under the Sopu tree, when it is in bloom.”

  “But that doesn’t explain how a human can be an alien’s mate,” I stated.

  “This is not a clear-cut answer. But in the past, the king’s female was always a distant relation, so there was a trace of the king’s family’s DNA in the female’s system. The only answer I can extrapolate from this current situation is that since it was your DNA sent for the experiment, and Eva is of age, that once she was exposed to your family DNA, her genetic material accepted you as a viable match, hence the mark indicating that she’s your life mate. But that’s just my speculation. There is no precedence for what happened between you and Eva.” He shrugged. “My theory is that if we continue with this program, exposing more of our people’s DNA to the human females, then we should expect to have more life mate matches. Now, whether that results in saving our race from extinction, well, that’s a whole other story.”

  Baelon and I both looked at him in surprise.

  “How did you find this information? You had several clerks looking into it when we left, and they’d had no luck as of last word,” I countered.

  T’ral loosened his tie, muttering something about human males liking nooses around their necks, and smiled ruefully. “They were focused on scientific logic and deemed the human females as inconsequential to this matter. That was their first mistake. I knew the humans were the key to unlocking this mystery, so I started there first. One thing the humans have done extremely well is create ‘search engines’ that sort through information for you. For all of our advances in other areas, this is their genius. I dumped our histories into Geoffrey’s data system, and within a very short time, he had used what he called keywords to find the information we sought. And two words kept popping up every time, ‘female choice.’”

  I frowned. “Explain.”

  “It’s strange, really. It is a form of mate choice, when females in certain species use physical or chemical mechanisms to control a male's success of inseminating them. Namely by selecting whether sperm are successful in fertilizing their eggs or not. I believe with the introduction of your DNA to Eva’s body, this is exactly what happened. Female choice. She selected you as her life mate.” T’ral sipped his qua. “Shocking, I know, but my clerks ha
d to read through each document. And due to the sensitive nature of the situation, I was limited in telling them exactly what to look for. Geoffrey just had to skim, and we have no worries about his allegiance or whether he’ll make a judgment against us. I am going to make a request of President Maeda, sire, that we be allowed to take Geoffrey with us when we leave.”

  Baelon shook his head. “Eunuchs! Always wanting new toys!”

  T’ral looked at him flatly.

  “Not today, you two. I need my advisers, not an additional headache.” I interrupted their usual derisive banter before it could even begin. I rubbed my temple and forehead with my free hand, as a headache had begun to form. I set down the qua and picked up Eva’s water glass. I couldn’t believe it. Eva chose me, and she didn’t even know it.

  “Raevu,” Baelon inquired, “what ails you?”

  “Nothing. I am fine,” I replied. It was probably just my immune system destroying some alien bacterium. “What else did Geoffrey’s search discover?”

  T’ral was looking at me curiously. “He discovered that, in many cases, the mating ceremony could not take place immediately. At one time, it was several years between the time the queen-to-be came of age and the king returned from war. The people couldn’t have a sick queen-to-be for an indeterminate amount of time, so a solution of sorts was discovered.”

  “Of sorts?” Baelon scoffed. “What is this ‘of sorts’?”

  “The solution is an elixir, but it doesn’t completely remove all of the symptoms, it eases them. It does have two side effects, according to the archives. One, that when her monthly cycle is upon her, the remedy will have no effect at all, and all symptoms will return.” At this point, T’ral began looking decidedly uncomfortable.

  “That sounds perfectly miserable,” Baelon commented. Of all of us, he would know, having actually lived with a woman at length.