Chapter Eleven
Rhaegar was cold, wet, and fast becoming extremely tired of hiding out in these woods. The king’s men had been in the woods for the past several days, searching for them, and he was so exhausted he was almost ready to give himself up. Almost.
They’d had to run for their lives to get away from the landing party, and they had made their way through the deep forest back in the direction they’d come from, as nearly as Rhaegar could figure, for the better part of the night. It had been Rhaegar’s idea to move only at night and find a place to hole up during the day, and it had worked pretty well, though hiding twelve men had proved difficult in the extreme. Rhaegar had spent one whole day inside a hollow log, already occupied by a very irritated small creature with glowing red eyes and an unfortunate tendency to pass gas. He couldn’t leave to find another hiding spot, because he could hear the search craft passing by continually overhead, so he launched a counter attack and the two of them had eventually come to a kind of détente.
The moons had cooperated the first two nights, waning to just slivers in the sky, but the past couple of nights had been new moons, and they had lit up the pathways not only for Rhaegar and his crew, but also for the king’s men. The soldiers had wised up and realized the escaped prisoners were doubling back toward the prison itself, and they had begun using low flying craft with scanning equipment that could detect body heat.
They were going in this direction for two reasons—one, Rhaegar thought it would be unexpected, and two, he was hoping to run across the ship the Lycans had flown here. He had heard talk that it was somewhere in this general area, which made sense, because this was where the Lycans had made their ill-fated escape attempt.
At any rate, once the Tygerians began using their scanning equipment, they’d found Rhaegar and his men fairly quickly, and they’d had to make another run for it to get away before they could land and chase after them. Still, it would only be a matter of time until they caught up with them, and they all knew it. It was during that last frantic, desperate run that they’d finally had a bit of luck.
One of his men had stumbled onto some steps going down into the sandy soil. Thinking he might find a good hiding spot, he had dug for a moment or two and uncovered more of them. One of the other crewmen came to help, and by the time Rhaegar had noticed them missing and came to look for them, they had uncovered the entrance to an ancient tomb.
The people on this planet that the Tygerians now called Tveir, had died out a long, long time ago, but Rhaegar remembered an old pirate’s stories about them. This had once been a world populated by Hunter Clans, and the Clans had disappeared when an apocalyptic plague had destroyed them, maybe as long as a few centuries before. Rhaegar couldn’t remember the name of these people, but he knew a few things about them, thanks to the old pirate who had been a member of his stepfather’s crew.
When Rhaegar was really young, he and his mother had lived on a pirate ship with the Nilanium captain, his stepfather, as was the Nilanium fashion. His real father had been a full-blooded Lycan, a soldier, his mother had said. But he had been long gone by the time Rhaegar was born.
Rhaegar’s mother’s name was Drucilla, and she had met the Lycan soldier on her home planet of Leeria. One thing had inevitably led to another. Inevitable because she was an exceptionally beautiful woman, and a Leerian, who were known for having the loosest morals of any species in the galaxy. Drucilla often told Rhaegar that she had no regrets as the Lycan was handsome and a fine lover, and she hadn’t been his true mate anyway. If she had, he would have taken her back to Lycanus with him, and she’d never have met her pirate, who was the real love of her life. When a Lycan found his true mate, she’d explained, he had an immediate and often violent reaction and felt compelled to claim the mate right away.
Drucilla had married his stepfather when Rhaegar was nine, and the man had thus mostly raised Rhaegar. He had been really good to Rhaegar in his gruff way, and as a boy, Rhaegar had decided he wanted to be just like him and live the adventurous life of a pirate.
On his father’s ship there had been an old man who was old even by Nilanium standards, and they often lived to be well over two hundred. The old man was too old to do much work, but his father let the man do a bit of mending for the crew, and he worked, when he felt well enough to do anything, in the kitchens as well. It was there, as Rhaegar ate his meals, that he would listen to the old pirate’s rambling stories, ancient tales that had been handed down to him through the man’s family, as he peeled vegetables or stirred a big pot of stew. Sometimes, he had talked about this place, Tveir, which had been his family’s home planet. Rhaeger hadn’t known he was talking about Tveir then, of course. The old pirate had used a different name for it, and one that Rhaegar couldn’t remember now.
But over the last few years, since Rhaegar had been trading in this area, he’d realized that Tveir had to be the planet the old man had told his stories about. It was the only planet that was habitable in the area, and it had the twin moons and vast forests and crystal seas the old pirate had told his stories about.
The man’s people had been from this place, though his family had fled the dying planet when the old pirate’s grandfather had still been a child. The people who had once lived here had buried their dead in underground tombs. It had something to do with their religion—Rhaegar hadn’t paid that much attention—but he remembered the old man saying that some of the older burial places could be really deep under the ground. Deep enough that the Tygerian’s scans wouldn’t be able to detect his crew’s body heat.
Once Rhaegar discovered the site where his men had been digging, and chastised them for risking getting caught, he remembered the stories of underground tombs and he and some of the others who had joined them by this time, began to dig in earnest. The sand could be dug with just their hands, and not all that far down they uncovered the ancient rocks that had been stacked across the entrance. They pulled enough of them aside to crawl through and found themselves inside a large burial room. They entered the dark, musty smelling interior chambers of the tomb, finding the walls still miraculously intact, the rock and timber construction still standing after all those years. And more steps inside the tomb, leading down.
Quickly, Rhaegar directed some of his men to gather some dead fall limbs and underbrush, while he and some others hurriedly recovered the steps leading down to the tomb. They left only a small space in front of the entrance, covering that with the deadfall when his men returned with it. They stacked some of the rock back, leaving only a small opening for air…then descended the interior steps and waited. Though at one point they heard the king’s men nearby, no one found their hiding place, and the soldiers passed them by.
That night they explored the deeper chambers, finding a rock sarcophagus inside one of them and ancient writing on the walls. Rhaegar figured it must be the final resting place of some kind of ancient chieftain or king. They left the stone sarcophagus strictly alone, all of them far too superstitious to defile it by disturbing it any further.
They all decided they should stay hidden underground, going out only in small hunting parties at night to try to gather food and water. At least until the intensity of these search attempts was over, and the soldiers gave up on the area and moved on. Beyond that, they didn’t have much of a plan.
The weather was growing colder and rainier outside, which slowed down the search efforts, and Rhaegar and his men, though cold, were nice and dry inside the tomb. Finally, after seeing and hearing no search craft for almost three days, Rhaegar decided that they could build a small fire, both to warm up and to cook some of the game they had managed to trap in their crudely made snares and traps. They were all sick of the raw fish, along with roots and berries that they’d been eating up to that point. That night they feasted on some of the game and fish they cooked over a small campfire they’d made just inside the entrance the first burial chamber. Rhaegar knew how far light could travel at night, and he hoped the smoke would be hidden in the rainy mists that came down to envelop the trees when darkness fell.
That night, after he ate, he went out to a stream they’d found in the woods close by, and took off his clothing to wash it. It would be dry by morning if he hung it inside the burial chambers, near the fire that they’d keep going all night. He bathed himself too, despite the icy water, and then sat on a rock for a short time, shivering in the cool night air, but needing to dry off a little before he started back. He looked up at the night sky, admiring how big and bright the moons were, even though they weren’t even full.
And his thoughts went—as they always seemed to—to the Tygerian, Derrick. He thought his mind must be embellishing his memories of how beautiful the boy was. No one could really look so good. He’d first seen the boy in the midst of battle when he and his men were captured, and had noticed his beauty, of course, but had been far too busy fighting for his life to do much more than that.
Once he’d seen him again in the prison, however, he’d really looked at him and hadn’t been able to believe just how handsome he was, with his high cheekbones and straight little nose above those luscious, full lips. The tiger stripes under his skin lay in a faint, fascinating pattern that ran across his cheeks and angled down toward his mouth, making him look exotic and rare.
If his memory wasn’t playing tricks on him, that is. And he had to believe it must be. No one could have smelled so sweet, for one thing. The scent of him had hit Rhaegar hard. He had wanted to inhale his scent until it clouded his senses and in the holding cell below decks, when he’d finally been allowed to get near him, he’d found that the closer he got, the more his blood heated, until all he could think about was sweeping the young man into his arms and making love to him over and over again.
Damn it! How could he have let such a prize get away from him? Ever since that ridiculous argument they’d had on the shore of the lake, when he and his human father had tried to get him to agree to take the boy up into the Never Never, he’d been miserable, wondering what had happened to Derrick.
He’d been shocked at how devastated he felt when he left him—like he’d lost a vital part of himself. He should have had the presence of mind to agree to anything just to get him to go with him, consequences be damned. But he hadn’t been able to bring himself to lie to the boy. And how ridiculous was that? Rhaegar had a long history of lying to get whatever he wanted. Why had his decidedly loose morals suddenly decided to take that most inconvenient moment to tighten themselves up? It was intolerable.
If he’d had only a little more time before those fucking Tygerians had arrived on the scene, he would have regrouped and told the boy and his father whatever it was they wanted to hear. He was sure of it. Then later on, he could have made Derrick see reason and understand that there was no way in four hells he would risk their lives by ever going back inside that blasted, treacherous wormhole again.
But time had run out, and he’d lost him. Sitting here under the same stars Derrick might be looking up at too, Rhaegar wondered if he’d ever find a way to see the boy again. Or would he live the rest of his life wondering what might have been?
In the end, he decided if it had only been him, he’d have gone to find his Tygerian, but it wasn’t only him he had to worry about. His crew was relying on him to get them out of this mess and he had an obligation to do it. He had no idea how he was going to do that at the moment, but he owed his loyalty to them first, no matter how it was tearing him up inside.
Taking his clothing, he trudged the short distance back to their hideout and stepped inside. All eyes swung toward him as he did, and with his black mood still hanging on, he scowled at his men. “What are you looking at? You’ve all seen me naked before. And it wouldn’t hurt the lot of you to go down to the stream and have a wash. The air in here is getting pretty damn foul.”
He spread his clothes out near the fire and turned to find the whole crew still looking at him. “Well? What is it? What’s happened? Why are you looking at me that way?”
“Begging your pardon, captain,” one of his crew said. “But we need to talk to you.” It was Smeet, a Nilanium, the oldest man among his crew, who’d spoken up. He was still a wiry man, though, despite his age, and as tough as the ancient iron nails the walls of this tomb had been put up with. He could still outwork Rhaegar any day of the week.
“All right,” Rhaegar said, folding his arms over his chest. “What is it, Smeet? Spit it out if you have something to say.”
“We’ve been talking things over while you were gone, Captain. And we’ve all noticed how out of sorts and mean you’ve been since you left that pretty red-headed Tygerian of yours behind.”
Rhaegar’s mouth fell open in surprise. He’d been a little ill-natured, sure. They’d been trying to outrun what seemed like half the damn Tygerian army since they crashed. But mean? He was never mean to his men! Well, almost never. And surely not so bad they had to have a damned meeting over him!
Narrowing his eyes, he growled at them. If this was some kind of half-assed mutiny…“What the fuck are you trying to say, Smeet?”
“It’s not nothing to get excited about, sir. We know you’re grieving over that boy.”
“What?”
“You heard me, sir. And we had us a vote.”
“I wasn’t aware this was any kind of democracy, but go on, talk! You’ve come this far.”
“We all think…” Smeet stopped and looked back at the others for encouragement. “We all think you should go back and get that boy and his handsome, human father. It’s not right for them to be trapped there all alone with all those Tygerians.”
“That boy Derrick is a Tygerian, I might point out.”
“That’s as may be, but he’s not like them, sir. You know he’s not. And that human is pretty different too. He was nice to all of us, and treated us just like we was regular. And that’s not a usual thing with humans. We were thinking…well, we decided that maybe you should do what they wanted you to do. Steal a ship and get us all out of here and go back with them up into that Never Never.”
Rhaegar didn’t often find himself at a loss for words, but this time he definitely was. He wasn’t sure he was even hearing correctly. “What? Go back into the Never Never? Have you all lost your minds?”
“No, sir,” Smeet said, jutting out his chin. “And we been talking about it. That was awful odd that human showing up like he did. And that boy was on the ship with us when we suddenly wound up on the Tygerian vessel. I saw him. We all did. Now just where did he come from, sir? He wasn’t a part of that Tygerian crew. They threw him in the brig along with the rest of us and called him a spy. I heard some of those guards talking about him too. They said he showed up the same time we did. They thought he was with us. So we been asking ourselves, just where did he come from? I heard some of the things him and his father told you. They said you two was mates, and we all come through the Never Never with him.”
Rhaegar made a sound of disgust. “Don’t you hear how crazy that sounds?”
“Yes, sir. But there’s a lot of crazy stuff I’ve heard about that place. This wouldn’t even be the worst.”
“But then why would you want to risk your lives going back in that thing? That—that hellhole! Even if we could find it again?”
“That boy and his father said you was a king in their world, captain. A king! Just think of it. And they said we had our own planet. Now wouldn’t that be something?”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“Sir, we know you’re suffering. You’re a Lycan…”
“Half-Lycan.”
“The biggest half, sir,” Smeet said with a grin. “That boy is your true mate, isn’t he?”
“Well, what if he is? I can live without him.”
“Aw, no you can’t, captain, and you and I both know it. We all know it. So we had us a vote and decided we want to go back after them. We’d like to have our own planet, sir. Someplace to settle down and maybe raise a few little ones. Someplace for them to lay our bones when we die and rest peaceful, like that man in the other room there. Not be thrown out of a ship like garbage to drift around in space like a big block of ice for all eternity. We want to go back with them and maybe find that planet. You being a king and all, you might even decide to make us all your dukes or some such. What do you say, Captain?”
Rhaegar straightened up and glared at all of them in turn. Dukes, by the gods! And a vote, his ass. That wasn’t how he did things on his ship, and they all knew it. He opened his mouth to tell them exactly what he thought.
“I say…” He looked directly into Smeet’s hopeful eyes and blew out a long, heartfelt sigh. “I say…oh fuck! Godsdammit. How soon do we leave?”
****
Derrick was feeling worried and a little frightened as he smoothed the hair off Blake’s hot, flushed face. He’d never seen Blake so ill—he was so sick, in fact, that Derrick was afraid he was dying. What would he do if his omak died here on this godsforsaken planet and left him here all alone with not even Rhaegar to be with him? The thought of his mate made Derrick feel a little ill himself. He’d had no idea it was possible to miss someone so much and still be so angry at them at the exact same time.
Blake made another soft, retching sound beside him, and Derrick wondered if he should go get Davos, even though Blake had begged him not to. For the past five mornings, Blake had been violently ill when he first woke up in the morning, vomiting until he’d emptied everything in his stomach and then retching with dry heaves until he almost gasped for breath. He was lying now on the floor of the bathing room, next to the toilet. He’d refused to let the doctors see him, but Derrick knew he hadn’t been able to hide much of his illness from Davos, and he heard Davos tell Blake that if he was sick again this morning, he was going to call the doctors in.
Davos had given Derrick a job in the laundry rooms of the huge castle. Mostly, he had to pick up laundry from the occupied rooms each day, as well as the kitchen staff’s table cloths and the rags used by the cleaning crews, take them all down to the huge washing vats on the lowest levels of the castle and drop them off. It wasn’t a bad job at all, but Blake didn’t like him doing it, saying it was insulting and demeaning. Derrick didn’t think so, having done a similar job in the training camps just a few months earlier, and in that case, he often had to help wash the clothing by hand. His trainers thought a bit of manual labor was good for their trainees, and especially good for the young noblemen who thought they were above that kind of work. They soon discovered they were not.
The job left him with a great deal of free time, so he went to his omak’s room most days and stayed around to help him with anything he needed or to just talk to him. He thought it gave his omak comfort, though of course, he didn’t need any himself.
Actually, Derrick hadn’t minded working in the laundry so much. The others working there were mainly from off-planet, primarily Leerians, and a few others from planets he’d never heard of. He actually liked them better than the Tygerians he’d met on Tveir so far. He’d already had to fight a couple of the guards, who were always lounging around the kitchen when he came through to collect the table cloths, and they were always trying to steal food. He’d had three fights, two of them over the guards trying to touch him in inappropriate ways. One was over a remark made about Blake in Derrick’s hearing.
The remark had been about what the guard would like to do to Blake sexually, and that had been bad enough. But the worst was when he’d called Blake Davos’s human whore. And then called Derrick a half-breed when he’d objected to the comment, because his omak Blake was human. That’s when he’d really had to wade in on them. He still wore a lot of bruises on his face, but they’d all been worth it, as far as he was concerned.
Blake pulled on his arm, struggling to sit up beside him and trying to smile. It came out more like a grimace. “Don’t look so worried. I’m feeling a little better now, sweetheart. Help me up off this floor.”
Derrick picked him up and set him back on his feet, then would have carried him over to the bed, but Blake shook his head. “I can walk. And anyway, I don’t want to lie down on that horrible bed anymore. I may as well be lying on a slab in the morgue.”
Derrick gasped. “Don’t say things like that, omak.”
“I’m joking, honey. Calm down,” Blake said, settling himself in a chair.
“Let me go find Father, and ask him to call the doctors.”
“Those quacks? No, there’s no need. I know what’s wrong with me. I just don’t know how it happened. Maybe it’s this crazy planet we’re on. I’ve almost given up trying to figure things out around here.”
“Wait—you know what’s wrong with you? Why didn’t you say so? I’ve been worried sick! Is it something you’re eating? I know how you hate the Tygerian food.”
“No, baby, it’s not anything I ate.”
“Then what is it? Tell me and I’ll go find Father and we can fix whatever it is. Maybe he can get the cooks to make something special for you. I know he’s been worried sick too.”
“You know, huh? And just how would you know that? The two of you haven’t spoken more than a dozen words to each other in the past couple of weeks since we’ve been in the palace.”
“Well, I-I can see it in his expression.”
“Mm-hmm. Okay, yes, I think he’s been concerned. But wait until he hears what’s wrong with me. If you think he’s upset now…”
“What? What’s wrong with you, omak? I’ll fix it for you if I can.”
“I know you would, baby. But there’s no fixing this. I’m pretty sure I’m…well, I’m pregnant.”
“What?”
“Probably about a month along. It must have happened soon after I arrived. That’s about the time I usually start all this vomiting, or at least that’s what I’ve done with my other pregnancies. And it happened every time, no matter what the doctors gave me to stop it. I just learned to live with it.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“Well, I’m not absolutely positive, but I’m pretty sure.”
“Are you all right? Maybe something’s wrong to cause you to be so ill.”
“Mm, I don’t think so. You know, maybe if I had some kind of crackers to eat before I got out of bed in the morning, that might help.”
“Crackers? What’s that?”
“Just little hard bits of…hell, I don’t know. Like bread, I guess. Really crispy though. Like when you toast really thin slices of bread. Maybe you could get me some of that.”
Derrick could feel the blood draining from his face. “I can try, but…omak! Pregnant? Oh, omak, are you sure?”
“Well, I have all the usual signs. I’m throwing up every morning, the smell of any kind of food makes me violently ill. I have to pee all the time. Yeah. All the classics. And I’ve definitely been exposed, if you know what I mean.”
“Omak!” Derrick said, feeling his face grow warm again.
“I know, dear, but you were around for Larz and Nicarr’s births. Surely you know what causes it. Your father and I do the same thing in our bedrooms at night as you and Rhaegar do in yours.”
“I don’t have to hear about it, though. Or think about it.” He shuddered. “And besides, Rhaegar is gone. He’s not ever coming back.”
“I don’t believe for a second that he’s never coming back to you. He’s a Lycan. He can’t stay away.”
“He’s doing a pretty good job of it so far.”
“He’ll be back. Mark my words—he’ll come back as soon as he can figure out how to get to you. You’re inside the palace, after all.”
“He doesn’t care where I am or he wouldn’t have left me. Maybe I don’t want him back.”
“Now you’re just being silly. He left because I told him to run so he wouldn’t be recaptured.”
“Oh, he ran, all right. Besides, he’s not important. I’m worried about you. How could you be pregnant? You have to take hormone injections to get that way, don’t you?”
“In our world, you do, yes. Who knows here? But yes, honey, I suspect there was something in those injections they kept giving me to ‘calm’ me when I first arrived. They never did tell me what was in those things. I know they hurt like a bitch, just like the injections I had when I went through it before to have you children.”
“But we have to do something. Forgive me, omak, but you’re a little too old for having babies, aren’t you?”
Blake glared at him and then sighed. “I wouldn’t forgive you, if it wasn’t so true. I’m pretty old for it, yes. Having Tygerian babies is physically hard on a younger man, let alone someone in their forties. And I’m not sure if the doctors here know all that much about it anyway. Davos told me once that getting love slaves pregnant had gone out of fashion on this world, especially with humans, and it just wasn’t done much at all anymore.”
“You have to tell Father.”
“I know.” Blake sighed and reached over to squeeze his hand. “But let me tell him in my own way, okay? He’s not going to be too happy about this pregnancy.”
Derrick didn’t feel happy about it either, but only because of the risk to his omak’s health. Still, he felt resentment toward Davos on Blake’s part and maybe a little on his own. Since they’d been in the palace, Davos mostly treated him like a nuisance. Like someone he had to put up with for Blake’s sake. Intellectually, he knew Davos didn’t remember him, but shouldn’t he feel the connection with his son on some level? Or had his father been so angry at him when he crossed into this world that the resentment carried over? Maybe what Davos felt for him wasn’t indifference, but cold fury for running off with Rhaegar and embarrassing him. After all, when his brothers had married, they’d chosen a colonel, a general and even a king, respectively. Rhaegar was a king too, in his own right. He was the Pirate King. But that was a title his father would never acknowledge. In his eyes, Rhaegar was a criminal, plain and simple, and he wanted him thrown in prison to rot.
“Why wouldn’t Father be happy about it? It’s his child, after all.”
“I don’t think he wants any children. And certainly not from me. I’m a human captive, sweetheart.” Blake touched his face. “And I know you’ve noticed the way the Tygerians feel here about humans. You have the bruises to prove it.”
Derrick felt his face grow warm again, but he shrugged. “Who cares what these people think? They’re not like our people back home.”
“I think we have to care, because we aren’t back home, and we have to face the fact that we may never be again. Mikos must have stopped looking for us by now.”
“Mikos would never stop looking! Besides, maybe we can find a way to get home again. Don’t give up.”
“I haven’t. Not really. But unless we get some help pretty soon…”
The door swung open and a servant carrying a tray came in, with Octavion right behind him. Since they’d been in the palace, Octavion had been around every day, checking up on them, in Derrick’s opinion. He was Davos’ aide, after all, and Derrick suspected Davos had charged him with keeping an eye on their activities. The gods knew he was nosy and Derrick suspected he eavesdropped on their conversations whenever he could. Even the way he entered the room was typical. Octavion always threw back the door and came in with his bright eyes intent and suspicious, as if hoping to find them in some kind of compromising position. Derrick was pretty sure he didn’t believe the stories that he was Blake’s son, or just thought they were up to something anyway.
“You haven’t rung for your first meal, so I took the liberty of sending up a tray.” He glanced at Derrick, who was sitting beside Blake, holding his hand, and Derrick could have sworn his lip curled a bit. “Where would you like the tray?”
“Back in the kitchen,” Blake said sharply, waving it away. “The smell is making me sick. I don’t want anything to eat this morning, because I’m feeling ill, so please leave me alone and take it out of here.”
Octavion gave Blake a sour look and snapped his fingers at the servant to take away the tray. “As you wish,” he said and gave a short, cursory bow. He turned on his heel without another word to follow the servant out the door, not looking back.
Blake sighed. “Unpleasant man. I could have handled that more diplomatically, I suppose.”
“Why should you? You didn’t ask for the tray.”
“Yes, but maybe he meant well. I always get so grouchy when I’m in the early stages of pregnancy. It’s so unlike the way I usually am. I’m normally so undemanding and easy to get along with.”
Derrick decided not to comment, though when Blake gave him a sharp look, he tried to smile and nod. His attempt must not have been totally successful because Blake snapped at him.
“What? Are you thinking I’m not easy to get along with?”
“No, I’m not saying that. Exactly.” Derrick made himself suddenly very busy straightening up the bed for Blake in case he wanted to go back and lie down, but Blake wasn’t fooled. Derrick glanced into the mirror near the bed and saw Blake’s face getting red, so he quickly turned to look at him. “I have a great idea. Let’s go for a walk. It’s a beautiful day outside, and the sun is shining for a change. What do you think?”
“I think you’ve lost your mind. It’s freezing out there since that last storm and what sun are you talking about?”
“Well,” he said, glancing out the window at the gathering dark clouds, “it comes and goes. Come on, it might make you feel better.”
“No, I’ll stay here and rest. I need to talk to Davos if he comes back too. May as well get it over with. But you go ahead, honey, though it looks pretty cloudy to me. Like it’s about to rain again.”
“I don’t want to leave you when you’re sick.”
“I’m fine now. That’s the way morning sickness is. It comes and you throw up a few times and then it goes away if you’re lucky. I’ll probably feel much better by the time you come back. Stop by the kitchen on your way back up and try to find me something light to eat that I can hold down. Take your time though, because I want to rest a little while first.”
Derrick agreed and left, feeling a little guilty but glad to get out in the fresh air. Davos had given him a lot of freedom since they’d been staying there in the palace. As long as he kept to the palace grounds, the guards had been given orders to leave him alone and not challenge him. And as much as he loved his omak, it was good to get a little time to himself.
Blake had been right—the weather was pretty bad. Not really raining, but threatening to do so at any moment. The wind had picked up a little, bringing them a clear warning of rain too, and the sky was dark with low-hanging clouds. Derrick decided to go for just a short walk anyway, down to the gardens outside the palace kitchens. Blake liked eating what he called ‘salads,’ with fresh greens and vegetables from the garden. The week before he’d left the kitchens, he’d noticed some tender greens just sprouting up, and he could go see if they’d been gathered yet. If not, he could pick some, and maybe he could get one of the cooks to wash them off and put them in a bowl with some of the oil and spices Blake liked. Would Blake consider that to be “light,” whatever that meant?
He found the patch where the greens had been, but they had already been picked. He wandered farther down toward the edge of the garden, looking for more. Surely they had more than one small patch of the stuff? He had almost made it to the end of the garden when he felt a small sting on his neck. He rubbed it thoughtfully and looked around for the culprit, but couldn’t see any kind of flying insect that could have been responsible. He walked on, wandering down the row of vegetables when he felt another sting on his cheek, and this one was even harder. He slapped at it and looked around suspiciously. That had felt an awful lot like a small pebble. He glanced mistrustfully around the garden area, which was deserted as far as he could see. Who was throwing rocks at him?
“All right,” he growled. “Stop playing games and hiding yourself and be man enough to come out and confront me.”
A large bush shook furiously by the fence surrounding the garden and Derrick walked warily toward it, his fists held ready. It shook again as he got closer and then a hand shot out and grabbed Derrick’s wrist, pulling him off his feet and down between the bush and the fence. Before he had time to react by pulling back his fist, he saw Rhaegar crouched there grinning at him. He pulled Derrick to him roughly, kissing him hard on his mouth. Derrick flailed a little but soon stopped struggling and let himself enjoy what was happening as the kiss continued. He relaxed into it and even threw his arms around Rhaegar’s neck. Rhaegar moaned and pulled him so tight he could barely breathe. His scent completely overcame Derrick and he whimpered and whispered in his ear. “Missed you so much.”
Damn it, he’d meant to act mad if Rhaegar returned and make him beg his forgiveness, not fall into his arms like some kind of swooning young girl. Still, he couldn’t seem to help himself. Rhaegar nuzzled his face in Derrick’s hair and inhaled deeply, then nipped at his earlobe and the gold ring there. Derrick, who felt dazed, sighed and laid his head on Rhaegar’s shoulder, turning his face so his nose was almost touching Rhaegar’s chin and said it again. “I missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too, sweetheart. I never should have left you. Can you forgive me?”
Derrick murmured his assent and then suddenly straightened up in alarm, whispering urgently to him. “Wait! What are you doing here? If they catch you, they’ll put you in prison. It’s too dangerous for you to be here.”
“They’re not going to catch me, unless you keep making so much noise. Let’s go somewhere a little more private, shall we? Wait here a moment after I leave and then come around the side of the building there. I’ll be waiting for you. It won’t be quite so public.” He kissed the tip of Derrick’s nose and then scooted out from under him. Looking carefully around him before he left, Rhaegar did a kind of crouch-run around the side of the building.
Feeling dazed, Derrick followed instructions and waited a few moments. Then he stood up as casually as he could and looked around the empty garden, hoping no one was watching from inside the building. He strolled nonchalantly around the side of the building and stopped, looking around himself in confusion. Where had Rhaegar gone? Was this supposed to be funny, because Derrick didn’t feel amused. He said he’d be waiting for him.
“Rhaegar?” he whispered hoarsely. “Where are you?”
Silence reigned.
“Rhaegar, this isn’t funny. You’re scaring me. If you’re hiding, come out now,” he whispered fiercely, stomping his foot to emphasize the last word. A door suddenly opened behind a bush beside him, and he was grabbed suddenly by the arm and yanked inside.
“What the…?” It was pitch black, but he could smell Rhaegar’s delectable scent and feel his arms wrapped tightly around him, so he relaxed a tiny bit.
“Sorry, baby.” Rhaegar kissed him on his cheek and whispered, “Hit the light, Smeet,” and a light from a dim bulb came on inside the passageway. Rhaegar was there beside him, along with Smeet and another man Derrick recognized as one of Rhaegar’s crewmen.
“How did you get inside here? This is inside the palace itself, isn’t it?”
“It is. This place is just like the old palace back on Tygeria. When they came here, they built an exact replica, even down to the false walls and the secret passages. Green John used to work at the palace on Tygeria in the stables, a long time ago before he wised up to an easier way of living and became a pirate.” He gestured toward a tall man with greenish tint to his skin and a emerald colored beard at the rear of the little group. “He knows all the secret ways to get inside. There’s some traffic inside the passages though, from time to time, so we have to be careful.”
“Traffic? What kind of traffic?”
“All kinds of people coming and going. Servants taking short cuts, secret lovers’ assignations, people spying on each other for political reasons. You name it.”
“I know about the passages. We had them at the palace at home too. But this place was built after they arrived here on Tveir. Surely my father doesn’t know it, does he?”
“If you’re talking about King Davos, then I’m sure he does. Everybody knows it.”
“I have to warn my omak. I don’t think he knows they’re here. Someone could be spying on him.”
“They probably already do, but you go tell him. First, though…” He put his hand around the back of Derrick’s neck and pulled him in for a kiss, pushing his head back into the wall at the same time. The kiss started off passionate and urgent but turned lazy and increasingly dirty as Rhaegar glided his tongue over Derrick’s bottom lip and then slowly pushed his tongue in between his lips and pulled it back out again. Rhaegar’s cock was straining against his breeches and pressing like iron against Derrick’s groin as he slowly ground into him. Derrick’s breathing became frantic and his own cock leaked in avid anticipation. The smells of sex mingled with Rhaegar’s own scent and swam around Derrick in a heady mixture. He closed his eyes and breathed it in, his heart thumping loudly in his chest.
Finally, Rhaegar pulled away with one last nip at Derrick’s bottom lip. “There. That will have to do us for a while until I can see you again. Go upstairs and tell Blake we’re back. Tell him we’re coming for you both soon.”
“C-coming for us?” Derrick sighed, still dazed and reeling a little from the kiss. “For what?”
“To get you out of here, baby.”
“But where will we go?”
“Now see, that’s the holdup. I don’t exactly have a plan for that part just yet, but I’m working on it. We have to steal a ship and get out of here so we can take you back to try to find the Never Never.”
“But I thought you said…”
“I know what I said then, but I was full of shit. I can’t be away from you. I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work. So, if you’re set on going there…then I guess I have to go too. We have to stay together.”
Muffled voices sounded suddenly behind them, still at some distance but getting louder. “We have to go. Stay here a few minutes and then make your way back outside. I’ll be back as soon as I can to get you, but if you need me in the meantime, hang this by the garden door.” He pulled off the red kerchief from around his neck and pressed it in Derrick’s hand. “I’ll come by to check on it soon.”
Another brief, hard kiss and then they melted back into the shadows, leaving Derrick alone and feeling stunned, holding tightly to the red kerchief, the only proof it hadn’t all been wishful thinking or some kind of dream. He pressed the cloth to his nose and inhaled deeply, going a little weak in the knees again. It gave him a little lift to smell it and caused his heart to start banging hard in his chest. The voices were still coming toward him, so he fumbled for the door handle and slipped back out into the garden.
It had been snowing earlier, but the snow had turned to an icy rain and now it was pelting down, big, fat drops of rain that soon soaked him to the skin. He hunched his shoulders and ran for the back door of the kitchens. He would find Blake something to eat and then go upstairs to warn him about the passages and tell him about seeing Rhaegar. He couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he heard the news.