Alien Conquest: (The Warrior's Prize) An Alien SciFi Romance (16 page)

Lohar shrieked in pain and let go of him, and Vega scrambled off his back, crawling swiftly through the sand and around to grab Lohar by the hair. He wrenched the red-scaled cursu forward, blocking every hit Lohar tried to land, and then Vega made it off the sand and to his feet. In one swift, startling motion, he grabbed Lohar’s head and turned it sharply to the side, snapping the Errai cursu’s neck.

The crowd gasped as Vega let go of Lohar and his body dropped to the sand like stone.

Then the crowd screamed and cheered, people bursting up off their comfortable sofa seats, applauding and screaming with elation.

Alaina shoved Atticon’s arm away and got to her feet as well, finding that she couldn’t really breathe because she was so shocked. And so worried for Vega. For how hurt he might be even though he’d won.

Atticon got to his feet behind her, grabbing her roughly by the arm, and started pulling her through the crowd and towards the sands.

Gurun waded in, examining Lohar to confirm that he was dead, and Vega stood there catching his breath, shoulders hunched, blood seeping through the bandage on his side and from a cut on his face. There was blood on his mouth from biting into Lohar’s arm. Lennai stood to the side, arms still folded, watching with a reserved expression as Atticon walked Alaina forward.

“I stand corrected, sister,” Atticon said archly, his grip on Alaina’s arm still vice-like. “Apparently want of the donara does inspire the cursu to achieve greatness.”

He smirked, looking over at Vega.

“I told you as much,” Lennai said, shaking her head. “And now you’ve gone and lost us one of our best fighters.”

“A wounded man beat him,” Atticon scoffed. “He couldn’t have been one of our best.”

“And you’ve
also
further wounded our champion,” Lennai snapped.

“And proven that he can fight wounded.” Atticon shoved Alaina towards Lennai. “So there’s no excuse to keep him out of the next games. Give him his prize. He’s earned it.” Then Atticon turned to the gathered crowd, clapped, and threw up his hands. “Let us continue with the celebration! Music!”

The strings kicked up and Alaina stood there staring at Lennai, waiting to be told what to do. She wanted to run to Vega, but her instincts told her that would be incorrect and she couldn’t make a mistake here. Lennai would be looking for any excuse to deny them.

Finally, the domina looked at her and rolled her eyes. She waved her forward. “Follow me.”

“Yes, domina.”

To Alaina’s dismay, Lennai led her out of the garden. She looked back at Vega as Gurun went to help him off the sands.

“He needs to be cleaned up,” Lenna said. “Then you will be brought to him.”

“Yes, domina.”

“And you will be
gentle
with him, since he is still wounded.”

“Yes, domina.”

“I’ve half a mind not to let this happen. I don’t want him straining himself if my brother intends to have him fight in the next games.”

“Whatever you think is wise, domina.”

Lennai looked at her sharply. Alaina looked right down to her toes.

“Be careful,” Lennai said, voice suddenly threatening. “My brother seems overly interested in you. Try not to draw his attention so much. And, since he didn’t win you in a full day of games at the Arena, Vega will only have you for the night. That’s what I’ve decided.”

“All right.”

“You will see to his wounds, as well.”

“Of course, domina.”

Lennai gestured her into the glass elevator. Alaina went, then stood beside the domina, watching through the glass as Gurun helped Vega towards another exit. The elevator began its descent and Alaina strained to keep her eyes on Vega, heart pounding in her ears, until he disappeared from her view completely and they were speeding back down towards the servants quarters.

Vega felt like hell, and his heart was full of conflict.

He tried to stand up straight as Gurun led him off the sands and out of the garden, but as soon as they were out of sight of the crowd he had to grab the head slave on the shoulder, and his knees nearly buckled with the effort. Gurun caught him, hefting most of his weight as they passed from the garden into one of the palace corridors. Master Dyhar was in the corridor and he hurried forwards, taking Vega’s other arm across his shoulders. They helped him together, and he wasn’t sure he would have been able to keep walking without them.

“You fought well, champion,” Dyhar told him softly.

Vega did not feel like a champion. He felt beaten down and broken. And it had been different, fighting Lohar in this tiny ring. It was not like in the games, where certainly he had fought and killed men. This had been pointless. It had not served the effort of keeping peace in the systems, or touched on the fates of occupied planets. It had been for sport, for Atticon’s pleasure, and Vega felt disgusting even on top of being in pain. He could still taste Lohar’s blood.

“I need to go to the baths,” he told Dyhar.

The old cursu master nodded. “The domina has said that the donara will tend your wounds.”

“I need to bathe first, Dyhar,” Vega insisted. “Please.”

He couldn’t bear the thought of Alaina seeing him right now. He needed to wash away the worst of it before he could face her. And he knew he should be feeling wild with anticipation, but all he really felt was pain. He suspected that was to Atticon’s purpose, and one of the only reasons Lennai was letting him
have
the donara at all. He hated to let them win, but he just felt so defeated.

Gurun went ahead of them and fetched a hover-lift for Vega. There Vega spilled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling as it rolled by, the hover carrying him through the palace halls. Down to the entrance to the baths on the servants level. Vega closed his eyes as the hover passed through the arched doorway into the baths, the steam and heat from that cavernous room already ghosting against his skin. It felt like small relief, but relief all the same.

They’d cleared the baths for him, and Dyhar helped him off the hover-lift, out of the bloodied linen pants he wore, and down into the piping hot water in one of the pools. Vega sank right down beneath the surface, and when he emerged he gasped in a breath that was both burning and sweet. The hot water scalded his wounds, but felt good all the same. Relaxing his muscles and softening the worst of the aches and pains in his bones. Dyhar rubbed lightly at his shoulders as Vega settled back to a seat against the side of the pool. Eventually he closed his eyes, and actually nodded off for a few minutes. He came awake when Dyhar stirred him lightly.

“It’s time to see the donara,” the cursu master said softly.

Vega’s heart constricted. But he nodded and lifted himself up out of the water with a small modicum of renewed strength. The hot waters of the bath and the herbs infusing pools had restored his body somewhat. Well enough that he could at least walk on his own. His spirit still felt raw and exposed, a nerve out in the open, throbbing fiercely.

Slaves arrived to dry him, to plait his hair back from his face and dress him in fresh linen trousers. They pulled the soggy bandage from his side, exposing the ugly wound there, but he swatted them away when they came to rebandage it, knowing that Alaina would want to do it herself. And at least that would give her something to do other than watch Vega drown in his own sorrows and shame. He had wanted to win her, but not like this. When he was dressed and dried, Dyhar walked with him from the baths, leading him back down the servants quarters hallway towards his room.

“I’m afraid this honor marks you worse than before,” Dyhar said quietly. “You must be very careful now, Vega.”

“I thought I was trying to be careful before,” Vega muttered.

Dyhar gave him a sympathetic smile. “You’ve been caught in the power struggle between brother and sister. Atticon doesn’t like that Lennai is more respected in the Arena. He wants to see you fall to prove to her that he is still lord of the house.”

“Seems petty.”

“It is, but now you are his chosen weapon. And Lennai doesn’t want you to have the donara. You would do well to act as though you don’t want her.”

“I can’t,” Vega admitted. “I do want her.”

“You’re going to lose focus if you don’t tune out that desire, Vega.”

“I have already lost focus, master,” Vega sighed. “And if Atticon makes me fight in the next games like this, I’ll die. I’m not strong enough.”

“Get stronger.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

Dyhar clasped him gently on the shoulder as they arrived at the door to his room. “You are stronger than both of them. Believe in yourself and glory will gain you freedom.”

Vega nodded but felt doubt like a creeping vine strangling his heart. He’d believed that for so long but he just kept getting knocked down of late. Ever since the donara arrived, in fact. But he couldn’t regret knowing her. Seeing her. Feeling her. He couldn’t regret any of that, only that he wasn’t worthy of her. Or, it seemed, worthy of fighting his way to freedom at all. It seemed so much further away than it had only days ago. Out of reach, at the last.

Dyhar left him. When Vega opened the door went into his room, he found Lennai sitting on the edge of his bed, one leg crossed over the other, waiting for him.

“Domina,” he said, bowing as far as he could without hurting himself further.

She seemed satisfied with his effort, and got to her feet. “The donara is being brought to you now,” she said. “But, Vega, I know you’re wounded. Please don’t overexert yourself.”

Her voice was tight with jealousy.

“I won’t, domina.” He grimaced. “I’m not sure I will do much more than lie down so she can tend to my wounds.”

“That’s not a bad way to spend the night,” Lennai said.

“The only way I would overexert myself tonight is if you stayed with me,” Vega added carefully. “Instead of the donara.”

Which was not at all what he wanted, but Dyhar’s warnings fresh in his ears made him say it. Lennai had to think he wanted her most of all. Then he might still have what protection she could afford him against her brother’s machinations. He kept his eyes low, but he heard her step forward and move around him, felt the edge of her gown when it brushed his legs as she came up close behind him. Then the touch of her hands on his sides, the brush of her palms across his back, before she slipped her arms around him and he felt her cheek warm against the skin between his shoulder blades.

“I want to stay with you,” she sighed against him.

Vega willed himself to relax. Let one hand brush hers where she had locked her fingers together across his abdomen. “Then stay, domina. Your presence heals me.”

She pressed a kiss to his spine.

She flattened her hands against the ridges of his abdomen, easing her palms up and over his chest, then back down towards his hips, careful to avoid the wound on his side. Vega exhaled, trying to block out the feel of her hands as they traveled over him. He didn’t want her. He had to somehow convince her he did, but not enough that she actually chose to stay. She eased her body against his back, kissed his shoulder, and he knew she wanted him to reach back and touch her, but he didn’t.

He was too tired. He didn’t have to pretend that he was too weak and exhausted to take her the way she wanted him to. He drew in a deep, calming breath as she bit lightly into the skin of his shoulder and then her hand slid lower over his abdomen, to the waistband of his trousers. She unlaced the front of his trousers and he tilted his head back a little, eyes closing as her hand slipped down into the front of his trousers and her fingers circled his cock, testing.

But he didn’t want her.

The touch stirred his passions because she was a beautiful woman and his body knew her, knew how to react to her. But she wasn’t the one he wanted. He just needed her to think she was the one he wanted but he was unable to fulfill those desires tonight. So though he felt that desire flare up, he struggled to keep his cock from lifting for her fingers even as she stroked him thoroughly, trying to get him hard with her hand. Vega focused on the pain of his wounds instead of the sweet release her hand promised. He had much stronger needs. And, in the end, he felt Lennai sigh against his back and she let go of him, easing back.

“Not tonight, I think,” she murmured. “You need to recover, Vega.”

“Yes, domina,” he murmured, relief flooding through him once her touch fled. “Thank you, domina.”

“When you’ve healed more,” Lennai said. “Then I’ll come back to you.”

“I hope so, domina.”

“The donara will be in shortly.”

“Thank you, domina.”

She didn’t say anything else, and Vega heard her leave and close the door behind her. He exhaled deeply and went to the bed’s edge, easing himself down, and took a moment to take stock of himself. He hurt, he ached, but now he had passions stirring and he knew he was in no shape for such things. Not for Lennai, and not for Alaina either. He wanted to make love to Alaina, not rut her until his stitches tore. He felt sicker in his heart than when Gurun had hauled him off the sands soaked in Lohar’s blood. The door opened again, however, and he looked up, watching Alaina slip into the room, her medical bag in one hand.

She stopped just inside the door and looked at him. Their eyes met, and Vega watched helplessly as she burst into tears.

Alaina hadn’t meant to start crying as soon as she saw him, but all the pent up terror of the evening just swept over her and she couldn’t stop it. She set her bag down and then went to him, and he opened his arms to her as she sank down into his lap, arms circling his neck, and hugged tightly to him as she cried. For a long time, they stayed just like that, holding onto each other while Alaina sobbed into his shoulder. He brushed at her hair, smoothed a hand over her back, the touches gentle and comforting, and she was amazed that he was the one comforting her under the circumstances. And that he could be so gentle after she’d just watched him snap another man’s neck.

Eventually she lifted her head, wiping at the tears dampening her cheeks, and looked into his face.