CHAPTER 14
For some reason, I expected Ethan to phase us to either Xander’s home on Laed-i or at least Zane and Verati’s house. Instead, he phases directly inside an establishment that looks strangely similar to Grace House. We’re standing beside a bar where people are yelling out drink orders to a harried bartender working the counter. Bottles filled with colorful liquids line the shelves of the glass wall behind him. The translucent wall provides a clear view of a bright blue sky and white fluffy clouds in the distance. I immediately direct my gaze to the floor I’m standing on and see nothing but the white of clouds. As I let my gaze travel around the structure we’re standing in, I soon realize that it’s floating in midair.
A chiming noise causes me to look up to where the ceiling should be but isn’t. I had expected to see a glass roof to match the walls and floor, but instead all I see is open sky. Dozens of dancing couples are floating in the air above us enclosed in what looks like translucent bubbles. Each bubble emits a particular color. When one bubble touches another, the color of each one changes to a new color.
I look back at the room and see that there is a casino type area just past a normal, and very crowded, dance floor.
“Come on,” Ethan shouts to me over the loud music as he gently tugs on the hand he still holds. “If Xander isn’t here at the bar, he’s probably at one of the gambling tables in the back.”
Ethan leads me through the crowd of people toward the opposite side of the structure. I notice that the farther back we go, the quieter the music becomes. It’s almost like there’s an invisible dampening field causing the music to fade naturally. Once we reach the first set of gambling tables, I can just barely hear the music anymore. Everyone in the back seems to be playing the same game. A total of four people are sitting around each of the twenty tables in the room. On these tables, they’re playing some sort of card game.
“There he is,” Ethan says, spotting Xander easily since he’s the most vocal of the bunch in the room.
It’s easy to tell that Xander is drunk. His eyes are bloodshot, and he’s singing a song woefully out of tune. I’m not sure if the bad singing is part of his strategy to distract the people he’s playing with and get them off their game, or if he’s just an obnoxious drunk.
Ethan doesn’t let go of my hand until we’re standing next to his wayward angel’s table. As soon as we get there, he reaches down with both hands and grabs Xander by the front of his jacket to lift him out of the chair he was sitting in.
“What is wrong with you, Xander?” Ethan snarls, openly showing his anger and disappointment in his fellow angel. “I thought you said you were going to change your ways after what happened in Hell.”
Xander looks at Ethan with unadulterated disdain. I feel sure he wouldn’t normally let his emotions show so blatantly, but he reeks of alcohol, and since he’s an angel, I know how much of the stuff he has to drink in order to become this drunk.
“The high and mighty Ethan Knight has come to save the day yet again,” Xander says contemptuously. “Don’t you ever get sick and tired of being so damn perfect, Ethan? Not all of us can be.”
“I don’t expect you to be perfect,” Ethan growls. “But I do expect you to do your job here and stay out of trouble. What exactly have you gotten yourself into this time, Xander?”
“Perhaps I can answer that question for your inebriated friend,” a strange little man says as he shuffles toward us from the other side of the room.
As I watch his progress down the aisle between the gaming tables, I’m not sure if there’s something physically wrong with his legs or if the way he’s walking is an odd personal choice. My hunch tells me it’s the latter explanation. I’m just not sure why. Other than that, he looks pretty normal. He’s wearing a white tunic dress over a plain black shirt. He has the same light brown skin that most of the people in the room have, so I can only assume he’s a native to this planet. His hair is jet black—again the same as pretty much everyone else inside the nightclub. His face is a little on the weaselly side though, and I never trust a person with pinched features like him. They’re always up to no good, and this man is definitely not an exception to that rule.
Ethan sets Xander back on his feet, but he’s too wobbly to stay upright for very long. He ends up falling back onto his chair, which is the safest place for him to be at the moment. It keeps him a safe distance away from Ethan and allows gravity to work in his favor, not against him.
“And who are you?” Ethan asks curtly, looking the man up and down with open wariness.
“I am King Manas’ royal treasurer, Sir Uwe Hunya, at your service,” he says, bending at the waist slightly to Ethan in mock humbleness because humility is certainly not written on Uwe’s face. He’s as arrogant as they come because he believes he has power over the situation. And maybe he does. I have no way of knowing until he explains what’s going on with Xander.
“What kind of trouble is Xander in, and why are you here?” Ethan asks, sounding suspicious of the other man’s presence.
“I’m here to settle your friend’s debt to the king,” Uwe says with a grin that looks disarming and almost innocent, but I sense an ulterior motive to his presence here at this exact time.
“How much does he owe to the king?” Ethan asks cautiously.
Uwe pulls out a small black notebook from the folds of his outfit and flips through a few pages until he comes to the one he’s looking for.
“Ah, here it is,” he says with a satisfied grin. “Your friend owes the king twenty million M coins.”
“And just how many bars of gold would that translate into?” Ethan asks, bracing himself for the answer.
“Well, let’s see,” Uwe says as his eyes wander skyward and he tilts his head slightly while he calculates the rate of conversion. “I would say that would come to twenty standard gold bars.”
Ethan sighs. “I can get that for you, but I’ll need about an hour to gather it together.”
“Oh,” Uwe says, waving a hand at Ethan like he’s said the funniest thing, “no need. The debt has already been settled.”
“By who?” both Xander and Ethan ask at the same time, but not in the same voice. Xander sounds surprised while Ethan remains cautious of such good fortune.
“By your friend, of course,” Uwe says with a smile. “She came to see the king personally and convinced him to agree to the trade instead.”
“Trade?” Ethan asks in surprise. “Who was this woman, and what did she trade to the king?”
“Something quite rare and beautiful that we do not naturally possess on this planet,” Uwe replies without answering the first question. Whatever was given must be highly prized on this world to cover such a hefty debt.
Before I can react, and before Ethan or Xander understand what’s happening, Uwe clamps one of his hands on my arm nearest to him. Within a millisecond, I find myself trapped inside one of the translucent bubbles I saw the dancers in earlier with my captor. We zoom high into the sky, leaving the floating casino far behind within seconds.
“What are you doing?” I scream to Uwe as the ball we’re in hurtles through the air with the pair of us completely weightless inside. I wrench my arm out of his hold and glare at him scathingly.
Uwe holds up his hands as if he’s innocent of any wrongdoing.
“I am only making sure the king receives his payment for your friend’s debt. Nothing more, young lady,” he protests crossly.
“Payment?” I yell, just as all the pieces fall together within my mind, revealing Helena’s true motive for telling me to urge Ethan back to this planet. “That bitch!”
“Well, I’m not sure what that word means on your world,” Uwe says snottily, “but I assume it’s not a compliment.”
“No, it sure the hell isn’t, you sniveling kidnapper,” I reply unable to hold in my anger.
Uwe lengthens his neck somewhat indignantly. “I resent that remark, young lady. I am merely adhering to the rules of barter. The king graciously accepted to take you for the remaining years of your life as payment for your friend’s debt. If you ask me, you should be grateful for his generosity. He was well within his rights to execute your friend. Ever since those earthlings traveled here, they’ve been a nuisance to the king’s plans. Frankly, I’m surprised he hasn’t already killed them for their insolence.”
Earthlings? From the way Uwe just talked about Xander and Zane, it sounds like he doesn’t know they’re angels.
“Have you ever been to Earth?” I ask, curious to know if the inhabitants of this planet have the ability to travel across galaxies.
“We have not developed the technology required to travel so far,” Uwe replies, not sounding so arrogant now that he has to admit that his planet is behind Earth’s science. But it does tell me that he and his king don’t know that the ‘earthlings’ aren’t using technology to travel. It appears that they don’t know my friends can phase.
“So basically, you’re telling me that your people aren’t as smart as the people on Earth,” I say, just to rile Uwe up because he needs to be taken down a notch or two.
Uwe narrows his eyes on me. “You are not a nice person, and I will report your insubordination to the king himself!”
“Was your threat supposed to scare me?” I ask him with open amusement. “I hate to tell you, but my friends won’t just stand idly by and let your king keep me. They’ll come for me, and when they do, I would advise that you find a deep dark corner to hide in until it’s all over.”
Uwe lifts his nose in the air as if he believes I’m bluffing, but he doesn’t say anything else to me for the remainder of our journey.
It seems like it takes forever for us to finally begin our descent out of the sky and back toward the ground. Once we’ve passed through the cloud layer, I see an island, at least I think it’s an island at first. The closer we get to it, the more details I’m able to make out. I soon realize it’s a fortress built in the middle of a vast blue ocean. A thick wall of rough-hewn black stone surrounds a palace made of a polished version of the same stone. It’s beautiful in its darkness, but I can’t say it’s very welcoming. Then again, I remember what Ethan and the others said about the king of this world. He is basically destroying his own planet to gain personal wealth. The plan seems a bit shortsighted on his part, but then again, egomaniacs aren’t usually the smartest bunch in a crowd.
The bubble Uwe and I are traveling inside of decelerates to a point where we’re hardly moving at all. It hovers over the center courtyard within the palace before making a gradual descent to solid ground.
“Has Zane or Xander ever been here before?” I ask Uwe, praying that at least one War Angel has a phase point inside the palace to make my rescue easy.
“Absolutely not!” Uwe tells me haughtily. “The king would never permit such riffraff to enter his fortress.”
Well, so much for plan A. Hopefully, Ethan and the others come up with a plan B quickly. Since the king’s palace is in the middle of an ocean, there’s virtually no fleeing it on foot—not unless I can figure out how these bubble things work or happen to come across a submersible somewhere. Considering the choppy, shark-infested waters I saw, escape by boat is out of the question.
After we land, the bubble surrounding us suddenly disappears. I suppose I should have paid more attention to what Uwe was doing before we touched down. He maneuvered his body upright, so that when the bubble disintegrated, he would land firmly on his feet. Unfortunately, I didn’t have such a graceful landing. I end up falling directly onto the grass below us back first, which jars the air right out of my lungs.
“Oh, sorry,” Uwe says as he looks down at me with a slightly sadistic smile on his face. “I guess I should have warned you about the landing.”
I hear a small group of booted footsteps run in our direction. Uwe looks up toward the noise and says, “Take her to the consort chambers and inform Lady Maya that the king’s latest addition to his collection has arrived and needs to be prepared.”
Just as I sit up on the grass, but before I have a chance to ask Uwe (the wannabe tyrant) what kind of “collection” he’s talking about, I feel two sets of hands grab my arms and snatch me up off the ground rather roughly. They turn me around and drag me into the palace. When I look at my captors, I see faceless men. It’s not that they don’t have faces exactly, but their bodies are covered from head to toe in some sort of stretchy black cloth. They’re wearing long white dress type clothing, similar in style to Uwe’s outfit, except theirs are chalk white and nondescript.
I attempt to struggle out of their grasps, but they simply refuse to let me go. In fact, their grips tighten on my arms with superhuman strength. I begin to wonder if the two people dragging me through the palace are actually androids of some type and not men.
Finally, my captors stop when we reach a white marble door in the hallway we’re in. One of my escorts holds out a hand and pushes the door open. Once inside the room, they shove me farther into it with such force I end up sprawled onto the white marble floor. By the time I turn around, the door is closed and the creatures who brought me here are nowhere to be seen. I immediately stand to my feet and run over to the door, trying to find a way out. Since there’s no knob, I try to push it open, but it doesn’t budge. I look around the room to search for a different exit. I see another door—one with a knob this time—and run toward it.
When I enter the room, I discover it’s simply a windowless bathroom.
“Great.” I sigh, resigned to the fact that I’m going to have to wait for the rescue party Ethan is sure to bring. All I need to do is stay alive until they come. I can do that. At least I hope I can.
Uwe said I was to be a part of the king’s collection. I hope it’s a live collection and not one where he intends to hunt me for sport and mount my head on his wall. I also remember Uwe telling the creatures to take me to the consort chambers. I’m not sure if “consort” means the same thing on this world as it does mine, but I hope it doesn’t. Hopefully, this Lady Maya who is supposed to come to my room will fill me in on the details of my captivity.
I look around the bedroom to see if there’s anything here that can be used as a weapon. I don’t see much except a large bed with black covers and two chairs directly across from it. The positioning of the chairs seems odd to me. It’s almost as if they’re there for the people who sit in them to view what happens on the bed. The thought sends a chill down my spine, causing me to shiver involuntarily, and I continue to look for anything I can use to defend myself with. My search is cut short, however, when a tall, statuesque dark skinned, black haired woman opens the door and walks into the room. She’s physically beautiful, but the arrogant expression on her face makes her ugly to me. She’s wearing a long sleeved black dress that clings to her body, showing its perfect proportions.
“Hello,” she says, looking me up and down. From the disappointed look on her face, I can tell I’m not meeting a certain physical standard she was expecting me to. “I am Lady Maya. I’m here to prepare you to meet King Manas.”
“What if I refuse to meet the king?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest in open defiance.
Lady Maya smiles, but it’s not the sort of smile you give when you’re being friendly. It’s more of an indulgent one—the kind you bestow when you feel as though you’re being forced to discuss something important with an idiot.
“Refusing to meet with the king would not be in your best interest, I’m afraid. He may prize your yellow hair and pale skin, but being rebuffed by someone as low as you can only lead to one action from him: death. Now, if you want to survive tonight, I suggest you listen to me very carefully and do exactly what I tell you to do.”
“What’s happening tonight?” I ask. “And what’s so dangerous about it?”
“It’s dangerous, because if you don’t do what the king wants, he will kill you.”
“What’s happening tonight?” I ask again, since she didn’t answer the question the first time.
“Do you want to live or not?” she questions me tersely, obviously losing her patience with me. “If the answer is yes, then stop asking me so many questions and just do as I tell you.”
I do want to live. I want to live long enough for Ethan to find me and take me back home.
I lower my arms back to my sides and ask, “What is it that you want me to do?”
Lady Maya’s instructions are simple at first. She asks me to go into the bathroom and bathe, then return to the bedroom so I can be properly groomed to meet the king.
I quickly take a shower, and while I’m towel drying myself, Lady Maya walks into the bathroom without giving me the common courtesy of knocking on the door first.
I quickly cover my nakedness up with my towel and yell, “You’re supposed to knock before you come into a room where someone is most likely naked!”
“Trust me,” she replies, holding out the thick white robe she has in her hands, “there is nothing about your body that interests me in the slightest. For your sake, I hope the king finds you more appealing than I do.”
“Don’t ever try to become a motivational speaker,” I advise her as I step out of the shower and slip into the robe she’s holding out for me. “You’re terrible at it.”
“I’m not here to motivate you,” she says snidely. “I’m only here to do my king’s bidding and prepare you for tonight.”
Lady Maya turns on her heels and exits the room with me trailing behind her like a lost puppy dog. I hate relying on someone as patronizing as her, but considering Uwe’s behavior, I start to believe everyone on this planet—with the exception of Zane’s wife—is full of themselves. Or perhaps it’s only those who deal with the king on a daily basis, but I don’t plan to stick around long enough to find out.
I may not like Lady Maya, but she is extremely proficient when it comes to personal grooming. She styles my hair in an intricate up-do and even incorporates a gold mesh fabric throughout the braid, leaving enough on top to fan out for dramatic effect. The makeup she uses is silky smooth and weightless. She tells me that no matter how much I rub my face with my hands, the makeup won’t smudge or come off. The only way to remove it is to use water and soap.
“Considering how you look without it on, I would advise you to never wash your face again,” she says haughtily.
I let her remark slide because I could probably look like Anna Devereaux and Lady Maya would find fault with my looks. When she orders me to disrobe in front of her, that’s where I draw the line.
“If you just show me what I need to put on,” I tell her, “I can dress myself.”
“Dressing you was not my primary reason for asking you to take the robe off,” she says in a huff. “I need to make sure you are properly groomed … in all areas of your body.”
I begin to laugh harshly. “Oh, hell no. That’s not happening. And I swear to the good Lord above that if you even attempt to ‘groom’ me anymore, I will break both of your arms, and possibly a leg, if you push me too far.”
Lady Maya lets out an irritated sigh. “Very well, but if the king is disappointed in your appearance, you will be the one who suffers the consequences, not me.”
“I can pretty much guarantee you that your king won’t be seeing me naked tonight.”
She doesn’t look convinced, but neither does she try to argue with me anymore. Lady Maya walks over to a closet and pulls out a dress that’s a lot tamer than I expected to be given. Considering everything, I thought she would make me wear something that showed a lot more flesh. The crop top is made out of a sheer fabric, but most of it is covered with crystal beads stitched in a lace pattern that covers all my important parts adequately. The plain white skirt is long and has the same crystals as the top stitched onto the waistband to give the appearance of a decorative belt. There is a long slit in the front, but the material is free-flowing, and the slit probably isn’t noticeable unless I’m walking. Lady Maya hands me some matching shoes and then leaves my room without even saying a good-bye.
“Good riddance,” I mutter after she’s gone.
Considering how rude the people on this planet have been so far, I don’t see why Ethan stationed Zane and Xander here to save it. Though, I’m not sure Xander is all that interested in protecting it. If he was, it seems like he wouldn’t be spending his time wagering money he doesn’t have on card games and booze.
I have no idea what else is expected of me next or when someone will be coming to escort me to the king. I decide to take the extra time I have to fashion a holster for my tracking device. I don’t dare leave it in the room, so I rip out the elastic in my bra and use it to strap the tracker to my right thigh. As long as the king doesn’t get frisky, I should be able to hide it there safely. However, I am a bit worried now that the king believes he owns me. From what Uwe and Lady Maya have said to me so far, I am supposedly the king’s property. I hate to inform King Manas, but no one owns me, especially not a piece of scum like him who is pillaging his own planet for personal gain.
About an hour after Lady Maya left, the door to my room opens and the two faceless guards from before stand in the doorway. They don’t move or say anything, just stare at me as if I should know I need to follow them. I rise from my seat on the bed and walk out of my room. One guard walks in front of me and one walks behind me, presumably to make sure I don’t try to run away. I would be a fool to say that I’m not scared about what’s going to happen next.
My only consolation is that I know I have a guardian angel watching over me, and that angel’s name is Ethan Knight.