Chapter One
When Blake first got back home to Tygeria after Davos left him on Vokaria, he found everything in a mess. He hadn’t known just what to do when he found Davos had already left again only a day or so before Blake’s arrival on an ill-conceived hunt through the galaxies in search of Derrick and his Pirate King. His intentions were clear—he would dissolve the so-called relationship, bring Derrick back home where he belonged and put the pirate in prison, where he belonged.
At least that’s what he told Mikos. He hadn’t done Blake the courtesy of talking to him about his plans. He’d only left that icy, angry note for him, along with one other little “message” about who was boss in their relationship. He had sent Larz away to a military training camp, against Blake’s express warnings about what he’d do if Davos kept insisting on it.
It was something that Larz wanted, of course, but Blake didn’t think a sixteen-year-old necessarily knew what was in his best interests. They were no longer at war, so there was no need for this training, in Blake’s opinion. Nor was there a need for his young son to be away from home so long. He had endured the long absences with the other boys, but that time was over now. They had peace in the galaxy at last and no need for training camps far from home for his next to youngest son. His eldest son, Prince Mikos, advised patience and understanding when Blake had furiously visited him in his office. He urged Blake to be calm and not to do anything rash.
“Really, omak, you’re making too much of this. Larz will be perfectly all right. The twins and I turned out fine and we were all at the camps,” Mikos said, in an infuriatingly reasonable voice, barely looking up at him as he shuffled papers on his desk. “As for Derrick, don’t worry so. Rhaegar won’t let himself be trapped, despite what my father thinks. We’ve been after him for years, and he’s always managed to stay one step ahead of us. Father will soon realize that, get tired of it and come back home. Anyway, why are you making such an issue of this thing with Larz? Pardon me for saying so, omak, but I agree with Father that it’s time to let my little brothers grow up and not spoil them like you did with the twins.”
Mikos, so much like his father, ignored the glint in Blake’s eye and signed something his aide put in front of him. Without another word to him, because he was afraid of what he might say, Blake turned and left his office. Wisely, Mikos didn’t follow or ask him to return.
Ryan, Mikos’s nobyo, had been furious on Blake’s behalf, but had also cautioned Blake not to do anything he’d later regret.
“The two of you will make it up, Blake. You always do,” Ryan told him, reaching across the table at luncheon to squeeze his hand. “You’ve had these terrible fights before, and Mikos is right about one thing. Rhaegar is smart and elusive. He and Derrick are safe somewhere, still enjoying their honeymoon. You can still bring Larz back home after you speak to Davos. After a few weeks of hard training, Larz will probably be anxious to come back to his friends and his games. Just try to be patient and wait to speak to Davos.”
They had been having lunch together, while Nicarr taught Mikol, Ryan and Mikos’s son, how to play some complicated Tygerian game involving making booby traps out of the furniture to catch any stray enemies that might happen by. Bloodthirsty little creatures, like all the Tygerian children, Blake thought. Totally adorable with their red-gold hair and their gorgeous cats’ eyes, but definitely little savages. Blake watched them in a listless fashion, thinking it had been a long time since he’d seen Nicarr play like this. Despite its homicidal intent, it was good for Nicarr to play, because he was missing his brother Larz, though he’d never admit it. Larz had only left about two weeks earlier for the training school that almost all Tygerian boys attended before they reached the age of fifteen. Blake had kept Larz out longer than usual, which had been another huge bone of contention between him and Davos.
During that last awful fight on Vokaria, after Davos had discovered Blake had helped Rhaegar escape so that he and Derrick could elope, Davos yelled at Blake that he had made all his sons soft, except for Mikos.
He’d said—and Blake thought he might never be able to forgive him for it—that it was one reason why his other sons had mated with stronger men, allowing these other men to fuck them, and why Derrick, in particular, had been so weak and morally bankrupt that he would let himself to be fucked by a lawless pirate.
Blake had pulled back his fist to hit him for that, but Davos had grabbed his hand and twisted his arm around his back, looking down at him with cold contempt. It had been the worst—and the last—moment of their fight. Davos had let him go and stormed out after that, leaving Blake trembling with so much hurt and rage that he had stumbled to the bathing room of their suite in the Vokarian palace and tossed up everything in his stomach.
It was the first time Davos had ever implied that he equated weakness with “being fucked by another man.” That he thought of it as some kind of deficiency that Blake had caused in his children. One that Blake himself had, considering he’d been fucked by Davos for years and had even borne him children.
“Did I tell you what he said about me making the boys weak? So lacking in certain areas that they allowed themselves to be ‘fucked by other men?’”
Ryan’s lips tightened as his eyebrows came together. “Yes, you told me. You don’t think he actually believes that bullshit, do you? He couldn’t have meant that the way it sounded.”
Blake fell back in his chair and sighed. “I honestly don’t know what to believe any more. If it’s true…if he really feels that way…well, it makes a mockery out of my whole life, then, doesn’t it?”
“No, please don’t say that.”
Blake lifted one shoulder. “It’s true, I think. In the note he left for me, he said he had to consider where we can go from here. But I’m not sure it’s only his decision anymore. After what he said…I don’t think I can stay here any longer, knowing how he truly feels about me and some of our children.” He stared out the window for a few moments, wondering and worrying about the note Davos had left for him before he went on his ridiculous chase through the galaxy after their son.
Is that what Davos had thought of him all these years they’d been together? As somehow “less” because he had allowed Davos to finally win him over? Had he secretly always felt contempt for the kind of man Blake had become? That Davos had made him become? He had been a captive, after all. It wasn’t as if Davos had given him much choice about his role in the relationship. He had never forced him, of course, but the seduction had been relentless and ongoing for months, and Blake had been all alone on this alien planet, far from home and surrounded by his enemies.
If Davos really believed the awful things he said, then maybe they really were through.
Ryan shook his head. “It was said in the heat of the moment…a stupid, ignorant thing to say, yes, but I’m sure that now he’s had time to cool off, he regrets it. He was only trying to hurt you and he succeeded. At least give him a chance to tell you he’s sorry.” He stood up and went around the table to hug Blake. “Mikol loves you so much. And Mikos and I don’t want to lose you either. Besides, where would you go? What would you do?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see,” Blake said, putting up a hand to pat his shoulder. “Even if Davos were to apologize, I think too much has been said on both sides. Words can’t be taken back once they’ve been spoken, and I always believed that you should listen to words spoken in anger. They may be harsh, but sometimes there’s a great deal of truth in them.”
He sighed and stood up. “I’m going to rest a while before dinner, Ryan. We’ll talk more later.” For the first few days after he’d gotten back from Vokaria, he had, by turns, ached and grieved and screamed and raged, and now he was sick of it all. Sick of feeling so much, and now all he felt was numb. He’d tried hard to keep it from Nicarr, though he thought his youngest son suspected something was wrong. And in all this time, three weeks or a little more, since Davos had left, there had been no message home. No word of any kind. Davos had ignored him like this once before, when he was angry at him for lying to him and trying to rescue Vannos from Moravia. It had only been a few days though, and not this long. Davos preferred to fight with him, make love to him, ravish him…yes. All of the above. But not totally ignore him for any length of time. Their love ran way too hot for that.
Mikos said it was because Davos must be far away, and it would take a message too long to get to them. They used wormholes to travel the vast, almost incomprehensibly vast distances between galaxies and star systems, but it was often more difficult to send a message from such a distance, as there was sometimes too much interference for them to go through.
Unable to think about it any longer, Blake started back for his rooms to send a message to Egan, who was now the Regent of Vokaria for his new daughter, whom they had already named, though she wasn’t due for another couple of months. They had decided to name her Poplonia II after his mother. Blake had to admit he was a little horrified by the name at first, until Egan’s mate, Kylar, sent him a message asking him to tell Derrick, if he heard from him, that the baby was going to be called Poppy.
Blake smiled to himself as he remembered, and he was lost in thought when he heard someone pelting down the hall behind him, calling his name. He turned to see one of Mikos’s aides.
“Consort Blake! We’ve received an urgent message intended for you. I took it to Prince Mikos, who said to tell you and to ask you to come to the communication center right away. He wants to talk to you right away.”
Alarmed, Blake rushed back down the corridor, following the aide. He wondered why a message “intended” for him had gone to Mikos instead, and flash of anger surged through him, directed not at the aide but at his husband, who must have given the order.
“Omak,” Mikos said, coming to meet him and taking his hand in his as he rushed through the door. “Sit down. I have something to tell you.”
“Don’t tell me to sit down,” Blake said, even as he collapsed into the chair one of Mikos’s assistants had ready. Despite his words, his knees had just given way when he saw the expression on Mikos’s face. “What is it?” he asked, his voice shaky as he clutched Mikos’s arm. “Tell me.”
“We’ve received an inquiry about Larz from the training center. They were asking when they might expect him to arrive.”
“What? He should have been there over a week ago!”
“I know, but…” Mikos took a deep breath and squeezed Blake’s hand where it gripped his arm. “Omak, his ship never arrived.”
Everything got a little hazy for a few minutes and he could hear Mikos and the others in the room talking to him, but their voices seemed to come from a long way away. He watched Mikos’s face break up into little black dots and then slowly reform, like a bad connection on the communicator. In and out, in and out… “Steady, omak,” Mikos was saying. “I’ve already sent out ships in the area to search along his route. I’m leaving myself as soon as my ship is ready to search personally, and I know we’ll find him.”
“He’s not dead,” Blake said, looking up directly into Mikos’s eyes to convince him. “I’d feel it if he was. He’s not.” Blake got to his feet, swaying only a little. “I’m going with you.”
“No, you can’t,” Mikos replied firmly. “There’s more.”
“More? What do you mean, more? Oh, God, what are you saying? You think he was kidnapped?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible, but I just don’t know. No, this concerns the other message that came in at almost the same time as this one. It went to your personal communications, but…” he broke off, biting down on his bottom lip, something he’d done since he was a child, whenever he had something to say that he felt guilty about.
“Omak, Father has directed that all of your personal messages be monitored until further notice in case you were communicating with Derrick.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you, but I thought this would all blow over soon, and Father would come to his senses about Derrick and Rhaegar. For some reason, he’s always hated pirates so much, he’s really not logical about them. And you were so upset already, I didn’t want to make things worse. Then he left chasing after them, and as I said, you were so angry at him when you arrived. I knew this would only make everything much worse.”
Blake shook his head, feeling confused, the enormity of the fact that Larz was missing driving out anything else from his mind at the moment. “I don’t care about any of that—I mean, I do, but I can’t be bothered by it now. I have to go look for Larz. He needs my help!” He tried to pull away, but Mikos stopped him.
“You don’t understand, omak. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Derrick needs you too. The message we intercepted was from Derrick, begging you to help him.”
“What? What do you mean?”
Mikos handed him the paper he’d been holding in his hand. “Read this for yourself. It’s all we have and though we’ve been scanning constantly for anything more, this is the only message we’ve received.”
Omak, I don’t know how much time I have before we lose communications. Please help us! Father found us and has chased us almost to the ends of the galaxy. Rhaegar is looking for a way out of this, an uncharted wormhole he knows about that will lead to someplace he calls the Never Never, but he hasn’t been able to locate it yet and he’s worried. So am I. Father has threatened to shoot us down if we don’t surrender immediately. Can you make him stop? Use your influence on Father to let him know that I—”
Blake looked up at Mikos, feeling stunned. “Let him know what? Where’s the rest of this?”
“The message ended there, Omak. I’m sorry. It ended abruptly, but that could be for any number of reasons. We’ve traced the message’s origin to the outer edges of our galaxy, not too far from Vokaria, but there aren’t any wormholes in that area. He did say in the message that the one they were looking for was uncharted, but that doesn’t make any sense, since all the large ones are on our star charts.”
“Where is this Never Never?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of it before and I thought I knew of everything in our galaxy by now. It’s not on any of our maps either, and all the wormholes would be. Wormholes aren’t exactly easy to construct and their maintenance requires a lot of effort.”
Used in the galaxies as kinds of super highways, the wormholes were portals through space created by energy fluctuations in positive and negative directions. The different fluctuations within the holes created a curved space that opposed the other side. When these two were then connected, a wormhole was created. The small ones were natural, but the larger ones were engineered and kept open by the scientists.
In Tygerian airspace, for example, there was one such large wormhole. Scaling these up so that ships and their passengers could pass through them took massive amounts of energy to create the particles with negative mass and energy and an enormous amount of effort and expense on the part of the Tygerian forces to maintain, so they were in operation only as needed. They also required the presence of a gigantic black hole and its negative mass/energy counterpart, to connect two points in space via a sort of tunnel through a higher dimension. The black hole nearest them was just outside the distant edges of their own star system, but nowhere near Vokaria’s star system, where Derrick’s message had originated. Nor were there any other wormholes in the area.
Blake felt shell shocked and struggled to stay on his feet and concentrate on what Mikos was telling him. Too much bad news had hit him all at once and he was still reeling over Larz. “We’ve tried to contact Father’s ship on various channels, but he’s not answering us. We’ve alerted our ships in the region to be on the way there, but we don’t have anyone close. I need you to go there and look for them.”
“I…but Larz needs me…”
“I’m going to look for Larz and I’ll find him. I won’t rest until I do.” He looked down into Blake’s eyes, catching his chin to make him look up at him. “Do you trust me, Omak?”
Blake nodded slowly. “You know I do, but...”
“Then let me handle this for you. And you go find Father and Derrick. Get this straightened out between you and bring Father back home.”
Blake shook his head again. “What if he won’t listen to me? I’ve never seen him so angry. So out of control as he was during that last argument.”
“He’ll listen to you. I’m not sure what’s going on with him, or why he reacted so strongly this time, but I know one thing. He loves you. You’re his nobyo, and he can’t make it without you.”
Blake pulled his hands away from Mikos’s. “Then he should have thought of that before he started all this. Before he sent my boy away from me… If Larz has been hurt…if he’s …”
He broke off suddenly, feeling overwhelmed by all that was happening. He couldn’t allow himself to dwell on what if’s. If he started all that, he’d be paralyzed with fear and grief and he needed to act.
Mikos must have known it too. Gripping Blake’s shoulders, he gave him a gentle shake. “Don’t do this to yourself. There have been no reports of any explosions, no distress signals sent out by the ship’s captain. There’s a possibility the ship was intercepted. He is a royal prince, after all, so if he was kidnapped, there could soon be a ransom attempt. I need to be on hand in case that happens. And you need to take a ship and go look for Derrick. If Father caught up to the pirates, which I think is the most likely scenario, he’ll have put Rhaegar in the brig and probably locked Derrick up too so he can haul him back home. You can get through to Father. I know you can.”
“I wish I shared your confidence about all this.” Blake squared his shoulders and nodded. “But I’ll go. And you go after my boy. Give me a small, fast ship and a good crew. I need to get to Derrick as fast as I can.”