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It would not only get Kalen out of the way and off planet, but Nerol would be exacting a subtle revenge. The Tygerian would probably try to put him in one of their traditional long robes, call Kalen his “nobyo” and try to make him have his children.
Kalen’s face burned at the idea.
No. Kalen would explain to this Tygerian why he couldn’t marry him as diplomatically as possible, and then he’d return to Loros to take back his throne and destroy his enemies. And if he died in the process, it would still be better than living under his uncle’s thumb. Or living the life of an obedient pseudo-wife to some Tygerian prince.
He’d go meet this Tygerian, because he had little choice. But he’d made a vow to avenge his father’s death on the day of his funeral, and he intended to keep his word, no matter the cost.
****
It was a few days later, as his uncle had threatened, that Kalen left for Lycanus on one of the fastest ships belonging to the Lorian Forces. Accompanying him were several of his most trusted guards and companions, as well as the “guards” his uncle insisted he take along. Kalen had insisted on his own guards and had assigned his uncle’s men to quarters on the deck farthest from his own, while keeping his own men close by.
Kalen spent most of the journey in his stateroom or on the bridge of the ship, trying to devise a way out of his uncle’s trap. He ate only the food he’d brought with him and drank only water from the taps, suspecting that his father might have been poisoned in some undetectable way. He’d advised his guard to do the same. He didn’t think his uncle was so stupid as to arrange their deaths in the exact same manner as his father’s, but anything was possible.
Time and again on the interminable journey, and to keep his mind off the coming interview with the Tygerian prince, Kalen discussed the idea of insurrection with Dartan, his captain of the guard and closest friend, as the quickest way to get rid of Nerol. His uncle had the King’s Council in his pocket, so they were useless to him. The only problem was that if and when he tried a direct attack, his uncle’s mercenaries would overwhelm his own small guard and kill all of them and Kalen too, before the rest of his army could even arrive to back them up.
The bulk of the army was still loyal to Kalen, but his uncle had moved them out of the capitol city, so they were useless to him. Kalen suspected the only reason he, himself, was still alive was probably because his uncle hadn’t quite figured out a way to make his death look accidental. His idea then about getting him off-planet by marrying him to someone his people would be impressed by might just be genius, as much as he hated to admit it.
Lorians looked like humans, and the Tygerians were known to like humans. His uncle must have used that to help entice the Tygerians to consider Kalen as a mate for their prince. It was well known that both King Davos and Prince Mikos—hell, even one of the Battle Commanders, General Haggoz—were all married to handsome human males. His uncle probably surmised that if this young Tygerian prince took Kalen as a mate, he would lock him down on Tygeria, effectively getting rid of Kalen forever, with the added bonus of getting Tygeria’s help in the coming attack by The Pton.
His uncle had sent him the correspondence with Prince Mikos about his son, Mikol, including a few images of the man. Kalen thought he looked a great deal like his famous father, the Bloody Prince, though all the Tygerians greatly resembled each other. Tall, large-framed and muscular, Prince Mikol had red-gold hair and striking green eyes. His skin was a pale golden brown with black stripes running faintly under the skin. He looked exotic and though Kalen hated to admit it, he really was extremely good looking, though there was something cold and savage and predatory about his eyes.
Kalen had no experience with males at all, and didn’t want any, but he assumed good looking males were as hard to get along with as beautiful females. They’d probably want constant admiration and attention. Especially someone like this Mikol, who had no doubt been fawned over all his life.
The person he one day married didn’t need to be a beauty, and he’d always expected that person to be female. Ideally, his future wife would have a father and brothers who were soldiers and she’d be from a warrior class. She’d be someone who had been taught to be strong and brave; someone who knew how to take care of herself, so Kalen didn’t have to worry about her. He already had enough people in his life that he had to protect.
He’d never dreamed of marrying a man, however—a warrior in his own right. And not just any warrior, but the Battle Commander of the entire Supreme Axis Forces. The idea of saying no to such a man was maybe a little daunting, though he could barely admit it, even to himself.
He had brought several members of his personal guard with him, including Dartan, who was his oldest friend. Too bad he wasn’t sleeping with Dartan like his uncle had implied. That would have perhaps been an ideal solution and made this current situation with the prince much easier. After all, princes who wanted heirs also wanted their intended spouses to be virgins, so they could be assured of who the child’s father was. Kalen knew he would have expected that of any future wife he might have.
As for Dartan, Kalen and his captain of the guard had been best friends since boyhood, and Dartan had shown him great loyalty over the years, and especially since his father’s murder. But Dartan had never had any interest in him romantically. Likewise, Kalen had only ever thought of Dartan as a friend and brother, and nothing more. He was glad Dartan had accompanied him on this journey, which promised to be tense and stressful. He knew the rest of the contingent, his despised uncle’s men, were there to spy on him and report back on his every move. That’s why he was planning on giving them the slip as soon as he could, leaving them behind so they couldn’t attend him on the moon he was headed for.
Kalen and Dartan had come up with the idea during one of their talks on the long, tedious voyage to Lycanus 2. Admittedly, they’d been a little drunk at the time. As soon as they’d arrived at the main port on the big planet, they were supposed to transfer to a smaller shuttle that would take Kalen and his guards to a space station located not far away from the Lycan planet. Just inside the neutral zone, the station, called Arkaan 673, was often used as a meeting place or conference center by the Axis.
Lycanus 2 had three moons—two were small and uninhabited; the other was known as a wild and lawless pleasure moon. It was called Belline.
Years earlier, the Lycan government “cleaned up” the moon by stopping illegal sex trafficking and closing down a half dozen or more bars, brothels and cantinas that were known havens for all manner of illegal activity. Lycanus 2 itself had once been called the Sin Planet, because of the large number of such establishments located there. Belline had just taken it to a whole other level, and though Lycan officials had cracked down on it in recent years, there was still a neighborhood on the inhabited portion of the moon called the Plaza that was supposed to still be pretty wild and wooly. Most anything you wanted to buy could be obtained there, including paid sexual partners, drugs, bootleg liquor and all manner of other illegal substances. Lycan officials closed them down, only to have them spring up again days later in another location. Visitors were warned to enter the Plaza only at their own risk. It sounded to Kalen like the kind of place his uncle’s guards would fit in nicely.
His plan was to “mistakenly” take a shuttle to Belline, and then strand his uncle’s guards there in the Plaza in one of the many brothels or bars. Then Kalen and his own guards could take another shuttle over to the space station in the neutral zone, where he was supposed to meet with the Tygerians.
Of course, it was only a stunt, guaranteed to infuriate his uncle, but also to show the man he would not be spied upon or “managed” in any kind of way. He could meet the Tygerian prince as planned and then as diplomatically as possible explain to him that marriage between them just wouldn’t work. There would be no betrothal. No marriage.
He had no desire to be rude—after all, none of this was Prince Mikol’s or the Tygerians’ fault. He thought he might even use a delaying tactic and offer some excuse or other about waiting until a later date to finalize this thing because of his recent bereavement. Perhaps he could use the unrest of the army after his father’s death to further justify the delay. Then he could make one excuse after another until Prince Mikol got tired of waiting and ended the whole thing. He had no wish to make the fierce Tygerians angry, so he’d have to be extremely careful not to offend them.
He had no great love for the Tygerians, though he felt no real antipathy toward them either—he had been only a small child when hostilities ended and frankly didn’t remember the war at all. He had no desire to get on the Tygerian’s wrong side, because he’d need their help in the coming attack by the Pton. That threat loomed over the entire galaxy, and according to reports, the Axis forces would be the only ones able to take them on and have any hope of winning the fight.
When they arrived on Lycanus 2, he loaded everyone into a hired shuttlecraft to take them to Belline. The driver gave him what sounded like a standard warning and Kalen nodded, already knowing about the dangers there. His plan was to go inside one of the bars, buy the guards a few rounds of drinks and then wait for them to do whatever men like them did, so that he and the rest ofhismen could slip away and get another shuttle to the nearby space station. Meanwhile, he had his own guards around him to provide protection, if he needed it. It all seemed so easy.
What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter Four
Mikol would be arriving a day early for his meeting with the Lorian prince and his advisors. He had expected to be tied up a bit longer on nearby Nevos 4—"nearby” being a relative term when you were traveling among star systems. Nevos 4, one of the several small moons of Leeria, was where Davos had been wounded in the skirmish with pirates a few weeks earlier and the investigation there was still ongoing. Mikol had been in contact with Rhaegar, his uncle by marriage, to see if he had any information on the group responsible.
But all Rhaegar had been able to tell him was that it hadn’t been any of his own people, nor had it been any Drex, so far as he could find out.
Drex pirates were almost all Nilaniums, but they were that segment of the population who had grown weary of traveling the universe in their ships like vagabonds, with no planet to call home. Many centuries before, Nilania, their home world had been destroyed when their sun, a white dwarf star, had been triggered into runaway nuclear fusion, completely disrupting the star and destroying it. They’d had plenty of warning of the coming apocalyptic event and the Nilaniums had made plans for almost a decade to leave the star system before the catastrophe, which was exactly what they did.
For the next centuries they roamed the galaxies, looking for a new home, but never finding one that fit all their needs. They became traders after a time, and that’s how the majority of the Nilaniums still lived, but there was a small faction that broke away from that main group, and they called themselves Drex.
