Chapter Twenty-One
Vyken
“We come to you, Wrax, to explain ourselves in front of the people of Paxia. We owe you an explanation and you owe us your ear.”
My king’s eyes flash with outrage at being addressed like that, which is not like Wrax at all. He is a fair and level-headed ruler, especially with his serene and clever human mate, Cara, at his side.
“You are a wanted fugitive, Vyken,” he reminds me, and nods at Tyr, who is dressed in full Admiral uniform, sashes and emblems and all, and is staring me out with the most direct death glare I have ever felt trained on my skin -- and I have been fighting wars my entire adult life.
“This is Roxie,” I say. “My mate. I don’t care what the Lottery might say.” I announce it and my human does a funny little curtsey, awkward and confused. I smile, proud to show her off. I notice Cara raise her chin and focus harder now that a human is involved.
I am standing in front of a panel of my peers. They are waiting, unimpressed and with hands trained on weaponry, while I stand in front of the stolen spacecraft and chatter. I wish I could settle this with my blaster gun, to be completely honest, but the only way to end this once and for all is to tell a story.
Luckily, we brought a trustworthy storyteller.
“Your highness, your holiness,” Rsharr says, his voice like a windy forest. He bows to Wrax, and then to Cara. I watch as they bow back, and I can feel laughter bubbling up from deep inside me at the pure shock on everyone’s faces.
The dead are back to life, in front of their very eyes.
Which means that the crime I was punished for? Well, put simply, it clearly never even happened. Not to mention that Prince Rsharr is such an honored guest and treasured ally of the Firosan Mahdfel that Wrax visibly looks mortified at the fact he even has a single blaster gun in the vicinity.
Yes, OK, I feel smug -- it is hard not to.
Rsharr speaks to the ten or fifteen people who ran out to greet me, or to kill me if it came to it, when we alighted on Paxia in Tyr’s beloved spaceship. Unlike when I speak, nobody even dared to breathe an interruption until the Ferathorn leader was completely finished with his tale.
And it sounded so very gallant, brave, and infallible coming from his ancient wooden tongue.
I fight the smirk away, it’s hard not to feel a little childish about being proven so thoroughly right, and turn back to my king, lowering my head respectfully before I speak.
“This is all true,” I say, cutting the stunned silence.
“The Suhlik have mind control,” Wrax says, and I nod. “They may have teamed up with the Sekir.” Cara whispers in his ear and he raises an eyebrow. “Or, yes, it could be the work of the Wal-el, but they have no reason whatsoever to work with the Suhlik. They’d nullify half their Alliance pacts.” He scratches his chin and looks pained. I feel for him, then, and my smugness fades into the past.
“With all respect, my king,” I say low. Wrax and I fought together side by side for years -- I don’t feel too afraid to speak up even now, especially considering what I just laid at his feet. “It’s time to bring the fight to them.”
“They have disrespected the Mahdfel,” Wrax mutters.
“They nearly succeeded in committing another genocide,” Cara speaks up. She is wearing flowing ceremonial robes, and I wonder if she has recently been speaking to the planet, Paxia, about these events. “They nearly succeeded in sowing such discord among our people that we may never have truly recovered in time for battle.” I nod firmly, agreeing with her.
“They nearly killed my fated,” I say before I can stop myself. Rsharr turns to look at me pleasantly for accepting his term, but I shake my head. “My mate. My Roxie.”
Roxie steps to my side in front of the spaceship and holds my hand, confidently. “We haven’t met,” she says, addressing especially Wrax, Cara and Tyr, “but the Suhlik really screwed stuff up, and they’re just getting stronger every day.” Nobody interrupts her so she happily continues to talk -- she is different from me in that way. She completes me. “We can’t keep waiting for them to knock down something we need and then go and put it back together again. We need to accept that they have declared war on the Alliance and we are the only ones who can stop them.”
The Mahdfel surrounding us, the citizens of Paxia, roar in agreement. It starts as a couple of ripples and then increases until they are hooting and punching the air in unison. Wrax and Cara exchange a look, and lean in to talk to each other. Tyr continues to stare at the three of us.
Or past us, to his beloved ship. It’s unclear.
Finally, Wrax turns back to us and raises his thick lilac arms. The Mahdfel cease their roaring and chanting and silence falls.
“We have done you a great dishonor, Vyken,” he says. “And Prince Rsharr, no apologizing will make up for the fact that I left your people for dead. I can only beg you keep an alliance with us.”
“Of course,” Rsharr says, and I almost see the relief on everyone’s faces. But Mahdfel don’t tend to give away their emotions that easily. “The Suhlik must stop their marauding, and we will work together.”
“To begin to make up for this, we will give you a vessel. And a mission of great importance.”
I look over at Roxie, and she looks back at me -- there is no better way for him to prove he has 100% trust in me than to give me a ship, a crew, and a quest.
“You will take a group of our finest fighters here on Paxia, and you will take our latest and best military spacecraft,” Wrax says. “You will comb the galaxy for those who would lay down their lives for this cause, and you will recruit them. Here we will work on technology, on advancement, on protecting our people and our planet. You will do something much more important, Vyken: you will build our army.”
The Mahdfel roar again, their agreement ringing in my ears.
“I will discuss it with my mate,” I reply, not wanting Roxie to feel as though her opinion doesn’t matter. I want to do everything with her now, and her willingness to join me is the only thing that matters. Somebody else can take on this critical mission.
“His mate says ‘hell yeah’,” Roxie cries out from beside me. I squeeze her hand, my chest aglow with pride and excitement.
Before this began, if faced with the prospect of being given a crew to look out for, I would have refused the responsibility. Now? I have died for somebody. I have confidence in my abilities as a leader. And as a man.
“Then I accept,” I say. I see the ghost of a true smile on Cara’s face, though she is trying not to show it. I think she likes what she sees of Roxie so far, and I couldn’t agree more. I could not be prouder of who I returned with.
They accept that we are exhausted, and after wrapping up a few more minor details, and establishing the finest guest quarters for Rsharr to stay in while they talk tactics, I take Roxie to my mountainside apartment in a hovercab. She is clearly in awe of Paxia, and I am so happy.
Maybe I can convince her to stay with me.
With a sinking feeling in my gut, I wait for her to finish showering. I pace up and down on my carpet and she arrives wrapped in a towel, rubbing at her dark hair with another, and smiling that sexy smile up at me. I know exactly what’s going through her mind, but we need to have a conversation first…
She has changed me, a lot.
“What’s up, frowny?” she teases. I dip my head, press my hand on the small of her back, and kiss her before I speak. It’s impossible to resist, with her hair all wet and tousled and the light streaming in through the window.
“We need to talk.”
Her brow twitches and she settles on the arm of my couch. “On Earth that sentence never means anything good,” she says.
“Now that our dire situation is at an end,” I say, “Wrax can contact your people and your punishment will surely be lifted.” I swallow. “But you’ll have to enter the Lottery.”
She shakes her head, disgust on her face. “Vyken,” she tells me, “there’s no way. I could never be with anyone but you now. You’ve … ruined me for other men.”
I am confused. “Is that bad?”
“No,” she says softly. The way she looks at me, with so much love, it makes my heart ache in such a delicious way. “It’s good. I’m yours, is what I’m saying. I won’t do anything to risk what we have. Even if that means staying some kind of a pariah. I don’t care in the slightest. I’m staying by your side.”
“I am going to have to leave for a very long, fairly dangerous journey.”
“Vyken,” she says again, standing to move closer to me. I love the way she says my name. She softens the harshness of the word like no other. “There’s no sexier sentence you could have said than that.”
I let out a small laugh -- I know her sense of humor by now. But I also know she’s serious. She would rather be hurtling through the blackness of the void than be sitting around doing nothing. I understand, because I am exactly the same way.
“If you’re sure,” I say. I no longer fear for her life, because she has made 100% of her own choices since the moment I snatched her off the surface of her planet. I trust her, and for the first time in my life, I trust my own ability to make decisions, too.
“I have never been more sure of anything in my life,” she says, and lifts herself onto her tiptoes to kiss me sweetly.
“Then we will tell the humans you are in our custody,” I suggest, but she shrugs. “Or we will tell them nothing at all. It makes no difference what they think.”
“Just one last thing,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ears and looking around, nervous for perhaps the first time since I met her. “Aren’t you wondering? You know, who your true match is? In the Lottery?”
I smirk, knowing I signed up for the Lottery and did not have a match.
I also know that Roxie was never tested for her DNA anyway.
As far as I know -- and we will never know for sure unless she happens to get pregnant and prove our compatibility, and if she doesn’t it does not mean we aren’t compatible anyway -- she is my one and only. My fated mate. The love of my life.
I know it with certainty, and I trust my decision.