Alien Conquest: (The Warrior's Prize) An Alien SciFi Romance (13 page)

When Vega took her hand, Alaina went with him into the little room, and closed the door behind them. Her heart started thundering in her chest. She didn’t know what was going to happen in that little room, but she knew what had happened the last time they were alone together.

He let go of her hand and turned to face her even as she closed the door, backing her up against it until his body brushed hers. He placed a hand against the wall beside her, and she looked up into his face. When their eyes met, a frisson of anticipation lit like lightning all the way down her spine.

“I said I wouldn’t touch you again unless you wanted me to,” he said softly, violet eyes flashing with desire. “But I truly hope you’ll want me to, Alaina.”

“We can’t.” She shook her head a little, but she did want him to. She knew it was a terrible risk, knew that she needed to be focused on anything else but him. “I can’t. You’re injured, you’re medicated, you’re upset and you’re not thinking straight. And the domina will kill us if you touch me without permission. You know that.”

“I came downstairs because I needed my brothers to see me strong, but I also wanted to see you,” Vega admitted.

“Why?”

He smiled a little. “Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” The smile faded. “And I need to get rid of that distraction, but I can’t. I don’t know how. Nothing works. I’ll just end up lying in this bed thinking of you.”

No man had ever spoken to Alaina like that before. Maybe it was just the human men she’d been with. Men who wanted to know she was more into them than they were into her. Men who wanted to fuck her but were coy about saying so. Men who wanted to love her but were intimidated by her. Vega was so sure of himself, so frank with his desires and direct in his admiration. It made her stomach flutter excitedly, and she’d have been lying if she said the danger of it wasn’t at least a little titillating as well.

After another long moment of gazing up into his violet eyes, she lifted a hand and settled her fingertips lightly on a swirl of black scales winding across his chest. Again she was surprised at how smooth and soft they felt. Not exactly like skin, but not as hard as the metal they seemed to be. Something between a snake’s skin and a crocodile’s.

He stood still beneath her touch, and she flattened her palm against his chest, just feeling his heartbeat and his breath move in his lungs as they looked into each other’s eyes. Apparently she’d had to come across whole galaxies to find the man of her dreams, and still she had no idea what she was doing, only that her body called to his, and her heart sang for his.

“They are called
qamalai
,” he told her softly. “My scales.”

“They’re beautiful.”

A smile sharpened onto his lips again. “You’re beautiful.”

He eased her back against the door and bent his head until his nose brushed hers. A breath caught in her throat, sticking there as she felt his breath against her lips, his heart beneath her palm, and the press of his desire against her thigh, through the thin fabric of her dress. An ache blossomed between her legs in answer, and when he finally kissed her it wasn’t like the first time. It was slow and sweet, a passion smoldering towards conflagration.

As they kissed, his hand skimmed up her side, cupping her breast through her gown and squeezing gently, and a moan escaped her. Her body arched into his, their hips met, and she felt the
clostrata
between them, barring pleasure. The moan turned into a frustrated groan and he leaned back, looking down between them in dismay.

“Lennai knows I desire you,” he muttered, frowning. “That’s why she’s locked you up like this.”

“She can’t know.” Alaina’s heart flipped with sudden panic. “I told her I didn’t want you. You’re her favorite. She can’t know or she’ll kill me. This was because they were putting me in the barracks during the revelry.”

Vega seemed to wilt back a little, nodding. “The domina is not a stupid woman, whatever else she may be. With no champion named after the games, many would’ve taken liberties without a deterrent like this. Or one like me.” He smirked faintly.

Alaina felt the fire in her veins start to cool. The
clostrata
had done its job, to her great disappointment. She let her hands fall away from Vega and he took a step back, running a hand through his hair, and then took more steps back until he could sink to a seat on the edge of his little bed. She stayed with her back to the door, frustrated and confused by everything she felt.

“I don’t know what to do now,” she confessed softly. “But I know that you need to rest if you’re going to heal. Pride and strength aside, you’re going to get yourself killed if you don’t rest. Please, Vega.”

He nodded, broad shoulders hunching a little. “I will. And you go back down to the barracks and get back in your chair before someone tells Gurun or Lennai you left. With me.”

She frowned. “A roomful of crusii saw me leave with you. They’re going to find out.”

He shook his head. “But it won’t matter if you go back quickly enough. You’re in the
clostrata
and they know you’re a healer. Blame my foolishness.”

Alaina didn’t want to leave him. It felt so strange. She’d wanted to avoid him, to stay away from him, so recently. But now she didn’t want to leave him. She wanted to crawl into that little bed with him and have him hold her in his arms even if they couldn’t make love. She wanted to linger, to be near him, to learn more about him. But he was right. A punishment from Lennai for this would not be something as minor as armored underwear and she knew it. So with a reluctant nod, she turned and opened the door, slipping out into the hallway without looking back at him as she did so.

And then she came up short.

Because there was Lennai, waiting, arms folded, with Nyssa standing behind her.

Nyssa
. Again. Alaina swallowed a curse for that stupid girl’s yellow-scaled face. Every time she turned around, the cleaning slave was getting her into more trouble.

“I didn’t believe her at first,” Lennai said, scowling at Alaina now. “I thought, the donara cannot
possibly
be so stupid as to leave her place during revelry, to go with my wounded champion to his healing room.”

“Domina,” Alaina tried, shaking her head. “I was just bringing him back to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself coming downstairs.”

“I could have done that,” Nyssa said softly. “But they sent me away, domina.”

“You
went
away,” Alaina snapped. “You liar!”

Nyssa arched her eyebrows. “The cursu sent me away because he favors you, donara.”

“No,” Alaina insisted. “No, he doesn’t.”

Alaina heard the door creak wider at her back and there was Vega in the doorway, leaning against its metal frame, expression grave. “It’s my fault, domina.”

“I think you’re both at fault,” Lennai said flatly. “And I am at fault for not putting a stop to this nonsense with a firmer hand at the start.”

“There’s nothing to put a stop to,” Alaina said.

Lennai’s eyes flashed with anger when she looked at her, and Alaina followed her instincts and just sank down to her knees before the domina.

“Do you think me a complete idiot?” Lennai hissed.

Alaina didn’t say anything, just bowed her head and hoped the display of submission would earn her some mercy.

Lennai made a frustrated little noise. “I have been
so
generous to both you,” she said, voice clipped with anger. “I have taken such good care of you. And Vega, I have given you every opportunity, I have favored you, I have given you all the luxury I could. And still you betray me.”

“It wasn’t my intention to betray you, domina,” Vega murmured. “I went downstairs to put on a show of strength for my brothers. The donara is a healer and wanted to see me safely back to my bed.”

“To
join
you in it,” Lennai snapped.

“No,” he said softly. “No, she is not for me and I know that, domina. I swear.”

“You both are disappointments,” Lenna said, furious. “And I wonder if I didn’t waste money on purchasing you.”

Alaina heard the heavy footfall of house guard down the hallway, and sure enough a half dozen red and gold helmets marched into the small corridor outside Vega’s room. Alaina felt her heart drop right into her stomach and shrivel there. She wasn’t getting out of this mistake unscathed.

“Domina,” Vega said, his voice soft and plaintive. “Please don’t punish the donara for my mistakes…”

But Lennai’s voice, by comparison, was steel. “I think that is exactly what I shall do,” she said simply. “Guards, put the donara in the cells.”

Alaina’s voice dried up in her throat. She wanted to argue, to shout, to fight, but she knew none of that was going to get her anywhere. Because she had no autonomy here, and Lennai’s word was the beginning and the end. Her plans of escape were evaporating all around her, as the guards pulled her to her feet by the arms and she stumbled as they started hauling her down the corridor, away from Vega.

“Let’s see how she does away from all these kind luxuries I’ve given her,” she heard Lennai call, as the guards dragged her around the corner, past the gate that led down to the barracks, further down the corridor than Alaina had ever been before.

The palace changed around her as she tried to keep up with the guards drawing her along, her bare feet slipping as she tried to keep pace. Every time she fell behind, their grips on her arms just tightened and they all but carried her. At the end of that long hallway there was an elevator. The rest of the aesthetic of the servants quarters was somewhat rustic, more earthy despite the metal walls and ceiling, the automatic lights and occasional sliding door. But the gates, she thought, the locks, all helped her forget she was on a space station. The elevator was marked by foreign symbols and Alaina was starkly aware again that she was surrounded by aliens.

The guard backed her into a corner of the elevator and then it started to move, and Alaina felt her insides lift as the elevator car plummeted down. It felt a little like falling, and she wondered if the elevator would shunt them straight down through space. Eventually, though, it did slow to a stop. The car slowed by degrees, eventually coming to a gentle halt, and the doors slid aside. The corridor the guards walked Alaina into looked, finally, like what Alaina had always thought an alien space ship would look like.

The overhead lights were fluorescent-stark and hideous, the corridor itself just a long, narrow tunnel in steel gray, row after row of locked doors on either side. No exit, no escape, save for the elevator they pulled her out of, and no way of knowing what was at the end of the corridor. This was perfect, terrifying isolation and Alaina felt her determination and the hope of freedom dying in her heart side by side. How could she possibly get out of this place? And how had she let a
man
land her here? She cursed herself, and Vega, and whatever strange passions he had stirred in her. She should have just kept her head down and focused on getting free of all this. Now she thought she might truly die in this place. Alone. Far from everything and everyone she knew.

The guards opened one of the cell doors and shoved her in, and when they closed it again Alaina was plunged into darkness. She put her hands on the wall, trying to inch around the cell and learned it by touch, since there were no windows and no lights to guide her way. She was crying, she realized. Tears dampened her cheeks and she inhaled, trying to will the tears to stop, but they kept falling. She bumped into what she realized was a sleeping pallet on the floor, a sink and a small waste disposal apparatus, like a toilet but without being able to see it she couldn’t describe it as such. And there was nothing else in the room. The lack of light left her feeling even more bereft and alone that the realization that she might never get out of this dungeon if Lennai forgot about her. Certainly this was where the Chara family members put people to forget all about them.

She sucked in a breath and settled herself to a seat on the pallet, wiping at her face, trying to catch the tears as they fell, but she didn’t think she had any courage left to face this. To face all this darkness by herself.

Then she heard a, “Hssst,” from somewhere and nearly jumped out of her skin. She couldn’t see anyone, couldn’t see if there was something else in the cell, but thought she had walked the length and breadth of it and that she was alone.

“Hello?” she whispered.

“The air vent,” the voice replied, and she felt a soft metallic clanking, like someone tapping at a metal grate.

She felt around on the wall until she felt the air vent, and the clean air pumped into it. The vent in the cell walls must have all run parallel.

“I’m here,” she said into the vent.

“It’s Bathari,” the voice replied. Alaina’s heart leapt. The Jiayi from the revelry with the broken antler.

“What are you doing down here?” she asked.

“I tried to defend you, donara,” he chuckled sadly. “This is my reward.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, sniffling against a fresh round of tears.

“It’s all right,” Bathari insisted. “I needed a break anyway. I’ll get some good sleep down here, that’s for sure. But they won’t keep me here past the next games.”

“What about me?” Alaina wondered. “I may spend the rest of my life down here.”

She heard Bathari sigh. “Don’t lose hope, donara. You are still valuable to the domina. You cannot let your spirit fall to despair.”

Alaina struggled against that despair, but just knowing that she wasn’t alone helped bolster her spirits. She finished crying and wiped her face clean, lying down on the pallet so that she could speak into the air vent, to Bathari, without having to bend over.

“Tell me something hopeful,” she asked him softly.

“Ah,” she heard the Jiayi sigh happily. “Yes. I will tell you of the love of my life.”

Bathari spoke, his voice soft and language lyrical, and Alaina fell asleep letting the sound of his voice soothe the worst of the terror in her heart.

Vega watched with increasing agony as the guards hauled Alaina away. This was his fault, and he had to find a way to fix it. He met Nyssa’s eyes and the satisfied smile on her face as Alaina disappeared around the corner lit a fire in his belly. The betraying Errai slave was going to get hers, he was sure of it. Even if the universe itself did not see fit to punish her, Vega would find a way. And he wouldn’t let her manipulations destroy Alaina.