Betrayed Page 6

  Both of the guardians stared at me, as though they were waiting for me to say something else. They were obviously waiting for more information about the situation at hand. I wasn’t exactly giving them a lot to work with.

  “Your highness?”

  I sighed and motioned for them to come all of the way into the room.

  “Close the door,” I said. “Grab a drink. Let’s talk.”

  “Is this going to be a slumber party sort of situation?” Lion asked, chuckling. “Because I’ll grab my pillow and blankie.”

  “No,” I said. “But I do need advice.”

  “Do you want me to fetch one of your counselors?” Alixei asked seriously.

  “No.”

  “One of your therapists?”

  “What? No?”

  “Shall I contact your brother?”

  “No! Sit,” I gestured. “I want you. Only you.”

  “Sounds a bit romantic,” Lion chuckled again.

  I looked over at Alixei. “What’s going on with Lion?”

  “Lion is drunk,” Alixei told me honestly.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because it’s the middle of the night and we thought you were asleep.”

  “I’m sorry for interrupting that.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Tell us how we can help you.”

  “You said you ate,” Lion reminded me. “That’s the part of the story you’re at.”

  “You know I’m being forced into marriage,” I reminded them, as though they didn’t know, as though they hadn’t heard me moping about the castle for weeks.

  “Yes, we know.”

  “And you know that Lane was the one who delivered the news.”

  “Yes,” Alixei said. “That was quite good of her.”

  “Without that heads-up, you’d be fucked,” Lion added.

  “Lion!” Alixei admonished his friend.

  Lion only shrugged.

  “I like this side of you,” I said carefully.

  “Good. It’s the only side I have.”

  “You’re normally a bit stuffy,” I pointed out.

  Lion didn’t seem to mind the comment. Instead, he grabbed a glass and a bottle of petal juice and started pouring, obviously ready to continue drinking.

  “She told me some other things tonight,” I commented. I filled them in quickly on some of the things she’d told me. Mostly, I wanted them to be aware of this guy, Claw, and the risk he posed to our people.

  What if he showed up?

  What if he hunted her here?

  I didn’t want to give him that chance at all. I didn’t want there to be an opportunity for him to break into the inner-circle of my world and hurt Lane or my future spouse.

  “He sounds like a dick,” Lion said.

  “I agree with Lion’s assessment,” Alixei murmured.

  “What should we do?” I sighed.

  “What is there to do?” Lion asked. He looked around the room, waving his hands. “We can’t do anything about it now. It’s nighttime.”

  “Ignore my friend,” Alixei said. “Your highness, you’ve trusted us with your entire life. Will you trust us with this, too?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then let us add extra precautions at the ball.”

  “Like what?”

  “There are many ways we can confirm the identity of people attending. We also won’t allow anyone inside without an invitation.”

  “That seems fair.”

  “It’s standard, but we’ll make sure there are no exceptions made.”

  “There are going to be a lot of visitors to the planet in the coming weeks,” I pointed out.

  “True. They’ll be coming from all over to try to win your hand.”

  “Are you nervous?” Lion wanted to know.

  “About getting married or about meeting new people?”

  He thought about it for a moment, scratching his chin, and then he nodded. “About getting married. Are you nervous about that bit?”

  “A little,” I admitted.

  Both of the guardians were silent. I knew why. As the king, I wasn’t supposed to admit weakness ever. I certainly wasn’t supposed to admit it when it came to relationships, but that was the truth. I wasn’t ready.

  I was terrified, if I was being honest.

  The idea of being bound to another person, of being responsible for them? Well, it kind of scared the hell out of me.

  “How many potential mates are coming to the ball?”

  “Lane ran the numbers with me,” I told him. “There will be about 100 potential mates, as well as their own guards.”

  “That seems like a lot,” Lion pointed out.

  “It is a lot.”

  “Out of all of the different planets and all of the cities on Malum, you only have 100 suitors. That’s not that many,” Alixei said.

  “It is short notice,” I reminded him. “If this were up to me, I would have started planning eons ago.”

  “With how many suitors?”

  “A lot more than a hundred,” I muttered.

  “So how will you choose now?” Lion asked.

  “What do you mean? I’ll meet them at the ball.”

  “Yes, but that won’t tell you much. They’ll be putting their best feet forward, so to speak, won’t they?”

  Lion did raise a good point. The people I met at the ball would most likely have ulterior motives. They’d be working hard to make sure that they came across as likable, beautiful, kind...anything they thought I might want in a partner.

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “If you’re going to find someone to be your mate, maybe it should be more of a contest.”

  “A bridal contest, is that what you’re actually suggesting?”

  “Yes.”

  “No,” I shook my head. “Having a ball is bad enough. Trying to make people compete for my affections just seems downright horrible.”

  “It’s your life,” Lion shrugged.

  “Apologies. He’s been drinking,” Alixei said.

  “Yes, you’ve mentioned that a few times now,” I said dryly.

  “Well, he has.”

  “I don’t mind it,” I said. “I rather like this more blunt side of Lion.”

  “There’s plenty more where it came from,” Lion muttered.

  I started mulling over what they had suggested, though. Perhaps they weren’t entirely wrong. In fact, what if they weren’t wrong at all? What if they were...right?

  Maybe having other activities aside from the ball would be a good idea. If Alixei and Lion were correct, it could give me a chance to get to know my potential mates better.

  “What kind of activities would you be considering?” I asked Alixei.

  “For a mate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m not married.”

  “Yes, I’m aware.”

  “But if I were to marry someone, I’d want to make sure that the person was friendly.”

  “Good point.”

  “And kind.”

  “Understood.”

  “And not afraid.”

  “Not afraid? Are you suggesting I try scaring my potential suitors in an attempt to see who happens to be the most brave?”

  “It’s only an idea, your highness,” Alixei said.

  I looked at the warrior guardian. He was a good man, a good person. I knew that Alixei had been hurt by the world on more than one occasion, but he’d never let that get him down. Despite the pain in his life, he had served me with kindness and grace for years.

  At the heart of the matter, I respected his opinion very much: probably too much.

  “Thank you,” I said to him. “For everything.”

  Alixei nodded, understanding the cue to leave, and he grabbed Lion.

  “Where are we going? We only just got here.”

  “Bedtime for you,” Alixei told his friend. The two of them left and headed down the hall back to their own quarters. I felt bad for calling them out of their rooms in the middle of the night, but I was thankful they’d come to offer me some advice and assistance.

  I had so many huge decisions to make that I didn’t really know where to start. Moving to the center of my room, I stripped out of my clothes and climbed up onto the hover bed that rested in the center of my room. Mine was exactly waist-height, so I could easily climb up on it. It was also the perfect height for making love to a sweet alien woman who might want to climb on my bed.

  Someone like Lane.

  Fuck.

  I shouldn’t have been thinking about her like that. She didn’t think of me like that, after all. Neither one of us had talked about the fact that I’d kissed her that first day or that she’d let me play with her tail. The tail! Oh, I was damn obsessed with it, and I kind of hated that.

  I needed to get over the fact that she was here. The truth was that Lane was her own person. She was strong and brave and dealing with her own shit. She’d saved kids for her job, for fuck’s sake.

  I still couldn’t picture that.

  As children, Lane had always been bold, but this seemed downright brazen. She’d gone to Dreagle, of all places, and she’d gone to rescue kids who had been kidnapped. Without her, those kids would have been murdered. Slaughtered. Hurt. They would have been tortured and killed and worse.

  She’d gone, though.

  When there was nobody else around to fight for the children, Lane had gone. She’d been brave. She’d been too brave.

  And now she was sleeping just a few doors down from me in the castle where I was supposed to take someone else as a bride.

  What the hell was I going to do?

  Chapter 10

  Lane

  The next few days flew by in a haze of planning, taste testing, and organizing. I had to organize flights, arrange rooms for all of the incoming visitors, and screen the intended guests. It was an incredibly hard job, yet I had both Arleigh and Brianna to help me. They both turned out to be incredibly valuable assets, and they both turned out to want to attend the ball as potential mates for Andy.

  I wasn’t sure if he knew how his staff felt about him, how many of them wanted to be with him. If he did know, he was polite enough to keep it all to himself. That was kind of interesting to me. He didn’t seem to be interested in making a big scene or a fuss. He just wanted to live his life and to have others do the same.

  Arleigh, Brianna, and I were supposed to test cakes for the ball one afternoon. We sat together, squished in a small local bakery that was known for offering delicacies from many different planets.

  “This cake is from Mirroean,” the little baker said. She was very short and plump with big, wide eyes that seemed to stretch almost the entire length of her face. Two little horns poked out from beneath her hair. The deep purple hue of her skin hinted that she was born on Malum, as I was.

  I wondered if she’d traveled the world finding the best recipes to try.

  “We want something for everyone,” I told the baker. Her name was March.

  “It’s not a problem, dear.”

  Arleigh reached for a bite of the cake. It was formed in small balls so each guest could simply grab one and bring it to their mouths. There would be no utensils needed: no mess. The cake was soft and smooth enough that there would be no crumbs at all.

  “It’s perfect,” she said, chewing it.

  “Very soft,” Brianna agreed.

  I reached for a bite myself and sighed when the cake started to melt in my mouth. I’d never had cake from Mirroean before. I hadn’t even known what I’d been missing. It was delectable. It was wonderful.

  “Delicious,” I murmured.

  “It’s good, yes?” March grinned, satisfied.

  “March, how did you learn to make all of these different kinds of cakes?” I asked her.

  “Yes, I was wondering that, too,” Brianna murmured. She reached for another bite, glancing over. Obviously, she was hoping no one would think she was being greedy or rude.

  Nobody did.

  “I traveled a lot as a young girl,” she told us.

  “Did you travel just so you could learn to cook?”

  “I traveled for the boys,” she laughed, shaking her head. “Ah, to be young.”

  “For the boys?” I took another cake ball, too. “Why, March, were you a bit of a player?”

  She laughed and blushed, but nodded.

  “You could say that,” she told me.

  “Tell me more,” I murmured. I missed traveling. I’d been locked on Malum for only a few weeks, and already, I was itching to be back in the skies. Andy traveled a lot as the king, so he was able to get the urge out of his system whenever he needed to.

  With me...

  Well, right now I was scared to fly. I was scared to go anywhere. What if Claw tracked me somehow? What if he found me? I couldn’t deal with the idea that he might be after me. I hated thinking about the fact that he could potentially hunt me down at any moment and...

  No.

  I couldn’t think about it.

  “Well, I met a boy from Mars long ago,” she told us.

  “Mars?”

  “Yes. He was an Earthling who had been raised on Mars. Long story. Anyway, he invited me to travel about with him, so I did.”

  “Where did you go?” I asked.

  “Everywhere. Orchid. Sapphira. We even went to Dreagle,” she lowered her voice.

  I tried to keep myself from shivering, but it was impossible. I didn’t even want to think about Dreagle. I didn’t want to think about any of it.

  Every time I heard someone mention the name of that planet, I thought of the child I had saved and what it had cost. For me, it hadn’t been much. For Ox...

  Well, it had been everything.

  My dear friend had sacrificed his entire life to save someone he didn’t even know.

  Nothing could ever compare to that.

  “Wow,” Brianna said.

  “What was that like?” Arleigh wanted to know.

  Inwardly, I sighed. I didn’t want to talk about Dreagle. I didn’t want to talk about Hawk, either, or any other planet that was dark and deadly. Dreagle was the worst planet I’d ever heard of, but Hawk was a close second. It was the kind of planet you only went to when you were looking for trouble. Both of those planets had tons of horrible memories.

  “It was not very fun,” March admitted.

  “Did you learn any interesting recipes?” Arleigh asked.

  March turned to me and raised an eyebrow. She seemed to want to ask something, but she wasn’t sure how.

  “Go ahead,” I urged her. “You can ask.”

  I didn’t know what her question was, but I’d be happy to answer it.

  “Your menu,” she said.

  “The menu for the ball, yes,” I urged her on.

  “You didn’t say anything about Dreaglans.”

  “There will be no one from Dreagle in attendance,” I said firmly.

  I was surprised that so far, no one from the Dark Planet had tried to come. No one had tried to infiltrate the event. I’d expected that someone might try. Of course, there was always the lingering fear that Claw might resurface...

  I didn’t want him to.

  I didn’t want anything to do with him.

  If I never saw him or heard from him again, that would be the best. If I heard he was dead, then I’d be a happy person.

  “No one?”

  “No one,” I said firmly.

  “Lane,” Brianna murmured, reaching for my hand. I looked down to see that the piece of cake I’d been about to eat was squished in my hand. I’d completely destroyed it. I hadn’t meant to.

  Apparently, the idea of someone from Dreagle showing up was more horrifying to me than it should have been.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  “It’s fine,” March assured me, offering me a little plate. I reached my hand out and dropped it over the plate, which seemed to absorb all of the crumbs. I’d seen tech like that only in very fancy and upscale restaurants on other planets. I’d never seen anything like that on Malum.

  I looked at March again sharply, wondering who she was or where she’d really been all of these years, but she avoided eye contact.

  “Like I said,” I whispered. “No one from Dreagle.”

  “Well, that’s quite all right,” March cleared her throat. “I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t forgetting any important cuisine in my planning.”

  “You want something from every planet with people present?”

  “Absolutely. We’ll have fruit from Mirroean on the cakes. The Sapphirans will send blue vegetables I can use in a soup. That’ll be an appetizer.”

  “Sounds good,” I murmured.

  “Very good,” Brianna and Arleigh echoed. They both sounded really, really happy about the food. They sounded like they were really looking forward to the event, but suddenly...

  Well, suddenly I was dreading it.

  Chapter 11

  Andy

  “Sir?”

  “What is it?”

  “The visitors have started to arrive.”

  I looked over at Alixei. He seemed to be dreading telling me this information, and I knew why. It was because I was dreading hearing this information. I didn’t want to hear any of it.

  I didn’t want to go meet potential mates. I didn’t want to go pretend to be someone I wasn’t. I didn’t want any of it.

  Meeting new people was a regular part of my job. That’s what being the king was to me: a job. It wasn’t who I was, not at my core. I knew I’d been raised a royal and I’d been raised with certain responsibilities, but I’d never really considered myself to be the type of person who became the crown.

  Now, though, it seemed as though that was how people viewed me.

  I didn’t like it very much.

  The idea that people would look at me and just see a throne bothered me.

  The idea that women or men would come to Malum in hopes of winning my heart so they could be powerful, too, didn’t sit well with me.

  I much preferred the romanticism of days past, where you would try to win someone’s heart because you like them or enjoyed them. I liked the idea of trying to win someone over because you were in love with them and not because they were powerful.

  In fact, the idea made me slightly nauseous.