Chapter 4
Raevu
The woman from the image haunted me every moment of the two days it took for us to get through quarantine. T’ral had his best people looking into how my life mate could possibly be a human woman, but their research had turned up no results so far. I didn’t know whether this Eva had stuck in my mind because of the shock of seeing the mark on her, or because we truly were meant for each other. Either way, I had to know more about her.
Too bad I had to go through that shifty, incompetent ambassador to do so.
I faced the main communication screen directly. I’d spent time with humans before. The lower ranks were easily impressed and easily overwhelmed by appearances. From our greater height and muscle mass, to our weaponry and armor, to the hairlessness of our fertile males, we were exotic to humans, and thus both exciting and a little frightening.
To placate the humans, we all wore human-styled clothing. I had my uncle Baelon and an elite squad of handpicked soldiers, who had all trained with me, dressed in identical black outfits, similar to Earth military uniforms.
On our planet, uniforms were unnecessary. Individual countries had been unified under our rule, so we only battled against dangerous beasts or aliens from other planets. But humans seemed to have a respect for extreme conformity in clothing, so we had chosen to take advantage.
As for T’ral and me, our uniforms were business suits. Pants, jackets, and shirts, in somber shades of gray and black—paired with bold but useless strips of cloth the humans called “ties.” The tailor we had seen on Earth on our last visit had called them “power suits.” I didn’t feel any particular power resting in the suit, but it would serve well to help us blend in a bit when walking around Earth-side buildings and markets.
Kymptar signaled that the transmission was ready to come through, and I nodded to let him know to go ahead. Immediately, Reynauld’s face appeared larger than life on the huge screen. I suspected he was using a tight close-up to try to appear intimidating and hide his fidgeting hands.
But that close up, his nose looked like a massive, pasty mountain, and his eyes squinted into slits to focus on us through the view-screen. After a murmured comment behind me, several of the squad chuckled. I fought down a smirk, keeping my face composed.
I motioned to Kymptar to attempt to zoom out so that Reynauld’s face wasn’t looming over the lot of us and asked, “What news?”
Reynauld looked as nervous as he had sounded on the communication two days earlier. Of course, he was looking at a conference chamber full of soldiers in their prime and the two most powerful males of a planet. I brushed that thought aside and waited.
He blotted perspiration off his balding head with a handkerchief and pulled at his collar. Two telltale signs of discomfort my father and uncle never would have allowed me, and I’d never allow from one of my soldiers or other underlings. “Your Majesty Raevumon, we look forward to seeing you this evening.”
Dryly, I replied, “The miracles of modern advancements in your quarantine procedures ever astound us.” It had taken twenty times as long as a bioscan back home, but we had held back on that technology upon discovering that Earth was suffering so many…setbacks. “Now, please, an update on the female?”
He cleared his throat and pulled a data pad in front of him to read from. “Her condition is stable. No changes. She still has flu-like symptoms, although we’ve tested her for the flu and it’s come up negative. We’re not sure how to treat the symptoms since it isn’t actually the flu. What we’ve tried so far just isn’t working.” He scrolled through information on his pad. “All other vital signs are fine and normal. The female subject…”
I started slightly when he said “subject.” Yes, I had been calling her the female, to differentiate her from a woman of my race, but I certainly didn’t like her to be referred to as a subject. We did not understand why yet, but the mark on her indicated she was to be my life mate. It still didn’t sit well with me, but given that I had never expected to have a mate outside of a laboratory auto-womb, I wanted to give this experiment a chance. If there was any possibility that she was mine, I needed to make certain she was not mistreated.
Reynauld continued, “…is handling isolation fairly well. Her appetite is meager, but she could stand to lose a few pounds anyway.” One nostril quirked in a brief expression of disdain that really annoyed me.
“Stop. What did you just say? Isolation? Losing weight?” My back stiffened. What are they doing to my mate?
“Well, yes.” Reynauld blinked his eyes at the communication screen. “Due to the unknown nature of the flu-like symptoms and the strange rash on her neck and shoulder, we thought it best to keep her quarantined. And, as she is nauseous, the doctors put her on a bland diet. She just isn’t eating a whole lot of the food. Not to worry, though, Your Majesty, she is under constant video surveillance, so we will know at once if there is any real problem.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “You have her under constant camera observation, with no privacy?”
Behind me, I heard T’ral and Baelon exchange a few hurried words. Baelon muttered an order to one of the soldiers, who hastened off to do his bidding.
The ambassador breezed on, not seeming to notice my increasing anger. He talked about treating one of his own people like a laboratory animal as casually as if it were something that happened every day. “Oh, yes. Doctors and scientists are watching her every move. They do so in day and night shifts. If they believe they’ve missed something, they just have to rewind the recordings and review past data.
“I’ll open the live feed right now for you.” Reynauld turned back to his screen and tapped a few buttons. His image was replaced with that of a sterile hospital room and an empty bed. There was no window, no images on the walls, and the flat-screen monitor in one wall was dark and lifeless. The only furniture sitting beside the bed was a nightstand and a very uncomfortable looking chair.
“It looks like a prison cell,” I observed with an edge to my voice. Out of sight of the communicator, I clenched a fist hard.
“Hmm. Maybe she’s in the bathroom,” Reynauld’s voice came through loud and clear over the live-stream. He did not seem to have noticed my comment or to have a problem with the analogy if he had. The display on the screen flipped to one of a woman in a small bathing chamber, and I felt the ship surge beneath my feet. We were now breaking out of orbit and preparing much more hastily than usual for landfall. I’d instructed Baelon and T’ral to get me to the heathen planet Earth to collect my life mate as soon as possible—our safety be damned. My female needed me.
With rapt attention, I watched as the female stooped over slightly and kicked off her foot coverings. I was overcome by a need to see her face. My wish was granted after a moment as she straightened up and glanced about the room, as if she could sense me watching her.
“Hello?” Her voice was scratchy but still low and sweet, and her face stunning, surrounded by a cloud of black hair. Her skin was the color of the honey trees back home, and her eyes a dark, rich-soil brown. Over plump lips sat a broad, adorably shaped nose that turned up slightly at the end. Her cheeks were high and flushed with color at the moment.
I wanted her to look at me…to see me to know that I was watching. Abruptly, she glanced up at where the camera must have been placed. Our eyes held. It was as if we had eye contact even through the camera connection. I couldn’t look away, even if I had wanted to.
She faced the camera squarely and moved her hands to the fastenings at the tops of her covering. Enticingly, she untied the lacing while my eyes slowly widened, and then she pushed the garment off her shoulders.
My breath turned shallow. A flood of desire washed over me. I licked my lips, mouth suddenly dry. The covering was now held in place across her breasts by one arm, then she moved her arm to her side and the covering puddled onto the floor.
Baelon barked a command. I heard all my soldiers, T’ral, and Kymptar turn and face away from the communication screen. None would look at the bare body of the woman who had the mark of my mate upon her.
My jaw dropped. She was beautiful—flawless dark skin, large breasts, and generous hips. I wanted to run my hands over her skin and feel how soft it was.
Almost as if she could hear me, she began to run her hands down her naked body, from her shoulders to her breasts, where perfect nipples were already pebbled. She cupped her breasts, and I could almost feel their delicious weight in my own hands.
She smoothed her hands over her ribs and across her belly to where her thighs met. The movement pushed her breasts together and caused her to arch her back slightly. My shaft stirred in response to her gesture of invitation.
At the juncture of her thighs was a tangle of curls that she covered teasingly with one hand. Slowly, my temptress straightened and stepped backward into the shower and under the streaming water.
I caught my breath at the sight of the water making her skin glisten. She trailed one hand back up her body to a breast. To my surprise, she rolled one responsive nipple between the fingers of one hand and slipped one finger of the other hand between the folds of her sex. Her plump lips parted, and I heard a moan escape.
My own breath emptied my lungs in a burst, and my arousal could no longer be hidden. My erection strained the fabric at the front of my trousers as I temporarily lost the ability to blink. She brought a finger, now shimmering with evidence of her passion, up to her lips and placed it in her mouth, and then she snapped the curtain to the shower closed. I’d been concentrating so much on the one finger I hadn’t seen her other hand move. She’s beautiful and amazing. I blinked my eyes a few times and cleared my throat.
Reynauld’s oily voice came over the intercom. “Well, that was unusual. I can assure you, Your Majesty, she has never done that before and never will again. We will take steps to let her know that such behavior is unseemly.” His face replaced the live video feed.
Immediately, my lust was quenched, and my anger flared. “No, you absolutely will not.”
He blinked several times and peered at me. “Beg pardon?”
“Ambassador Reynauld, you need to remember that this female is under the protection of our agreement. There are several things I expect to be taken care of before we arrive at your Medical Ward in…” I paused briefly to be updated on our ETA.
T’ral filled in for me, “Four of their hours, sire.” T’ral and Baelon had gotten the captain to halve our expected arrival time. If I hadn’t been so angry, I would have been impressed.
“Four hours. In the meantime, my adviser, T’ral, will be sending a docket of our expectations regarding her treatment, and they will be carried out.” I locked eyes with the ambassador, whose gaze wavered, and he nodded mutely.
I went on, “To begin with, she will have new accommodations that are worthy of habitation by an intelligent being, not a prison cubicle.” I stared at him coldly. “And no more isolation.”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness, I don’t understand the problem. She has been treated just like the other subjects of the program—”
“Well, no wonder she’s sick and the others are dead. Whose idea was it to treat the women we are seeking as compatible mates worse than we treat murderers? Or have such poor quality controls on your experiments?” My voice was rising.
“Your Majesty, I assure you that we have done as much as we can within budget limitations—” He was probably nervous about the possibility of losing the treaty and, with it, any chance at the rest of our technology. If that happened on his watch, I could only imagine the trouble he’d be in, and he would most definitely deserve it.
I folded my arms, scowling. “That ‘rash’ on her back is part of our heritage. That symbol marks the life mate of the royal heir. This ‘female subject’ of yours will be my queen. Treat her as such, and get the damned cameras off of her.”
Leaving Reynauld gaping like a fish, I stormed from the room and to my quarters. I needed to change clothes and return to the training room. Too many emotions were roiling through me. Baelon and blade practice would help me work them off.
But what I really wanted as I walked away was to storm the Medical Ward and rescue my mate from the humans. Not just because of my disgust with any regime that would treat medical patients in such a fashion, but because I had told the truth. Now that I had accepted it, I knew. She is mine, and I would not allow the humans to continue harming her.