Alien Conquest: (The Warrior's Prize) An Alien SciFi Romance (21 page)

“He considers you a friend,” Bathari said quietly. “He’s taken great interest in your future. He’s been trying to turn the other cursii to your side.
Ask
him, Vega.”

“If he turns on me, too, I’ve no hope of surviving,” Vega whispered.

“Your hope of surviving is slim enough, mate,” Bathari pointed out. “How much do you want this girl?”

Vega’s eyes lifted. “I want her more than anything. More than going home, I think.”

Bathari exhaled, and then smiled. “I know what that feels like. More than winning the games, more than seeing my home again, I want to see my sweet Yfia’s face once more.”

Vega smiled too. “You’ve never said her name before.”

Bathari shrugged again and lifted his cup. “I blame the wine. And all your talk of marriage. It’s making me sentimental.”

Vega rubbed his hands together, mind turning end over end as he weighed the risks and rewards of petitioning Master Dyhar for help. He couldn’t get to him now, the Master would be in his rooms in the palace above until the morning. Then he’d return to the barracks to lead the cursii to the Arena for the games. Perhaps then. Perhaps Vega could go to him then. There was that hope again, faint and flickering, but it was enough to keep him warm through the night.

Alaina stepped into Rua’s suite and looked around, surprised at how sprawling and elegant the rooms were. He really was a guest, she supposed. At least until the morning, when he would be nothing more than another fighter on the sands. But this room was no barracks. Shining marble floors and billowing, pale curtains opening onto a balcony terrace. Several low sofas around a copper table, strange plants with bursting orange flowers and a set of french doors across from the terrace that must have led into a bedchamber. Or a bath chamber.

“I didn’t actually think you’d come.”

Rua swept aside one of the curtains, stepping in off the terrace. He was shirtless, in a pair of the same linen pants all the cursii wore in the barracks. Alaina had known he was handsome, but he was plainly strong as well. His shoulders and chest were hard sculpted muscle, a trail of dark hair leading from his sternum to beneath the waistband of those trousers. He’d have been an incredibly attractive man if he wasn’t such a goddamn asshole, Alaina thought.

“Well, I’m here,” she said.

“Drink?”

Rua went to a little bar built into the wall and set his glass beneath an automated pourer. He touched a control panel the glass refilled itself with pale amber liquid.

Alaina steadied herself and nodded, walking towards him. “Fine.”

He removed his glass from the pouring bank and set down a fresh one, which the machine filled as well, and then he held it out to Alaina. He looked her over as he did. “You look beautiful.”

She took the glass and lifted it for an immediate sip. It was sweet, but it burned down her throat just like whisky. Space whisky. It would have to do. Maybe she could numb herself so well this experience would barely register. She doubted it, but it was worth a try.

She coughed a little and took a second sip, and that one went down easier. “Thanks.”

And then she held out the key to the
clostrata
.

Rua took it, looking it over, turning it across his knuckles like Alaina had seen people do with a quarter back on Earth. He gazed at her thoughtfully and she gulped down another big swallow of the space whiskey, finishing what was in her glass, and set the glass back on the bar.

“Come on,” Rua said, tilting his head towards the french doors.

She followed him and he threw the doors open. It was a bedchamber like she’d thought, with a giant, canopied bed. The lights were dim inside the room, the carpet beneath her bare feet soft and lush. Rua went to the bed and sank to a seat on the end of it, his glass in one hand and the
clostrata
’s key in the other. He lifted his glass to her.

“Undress,” he instructed.

Alaina felt a flush creep into her cheeks, hot and burning with whiskey and shame. She was going to hate every moment of this and nothing would be able to numb her to it. But she’d do it. She’d already committed to doing it.

For Vega.

She slipped the strap of her dress down off her shoulder.

“Slowly,” Rua added.

Her heart started thundering in her ears.

But she slipped the other strap from her shoulder, slower. She tried to remember how Yfia had done it, but she had been dancing at the same time. And Alaina wasn’t going to dance like a monkey for this man.

She eased the sheer fabric of the gown over the swells of her breasts, exposing them as the dress fell, pooling at her waist above her hips. She could feel Rua’s eyes on her skin, and she pushed the dress down further, inch by inch. She inched it over first one curving hip, and then the other, until it dropped of its own accord, landing in a pile at her feet. Then she was naked in front of him save for the
clostrata
. She kicked the dress away and waited, standing there, resisting the urge to cover herself as he looked at her.

He got to his feet, setting the glass to balance on bedpost, and came towards her, still turning the key across his knuckles as he approached.

He circled around behind her, and Alaina kept her eyes straight ahead, willing herself to stay still, to let him do what he would and not fight him. They had a deal. One night, just these three hours, and then he would help Vega survive the games. She could endure three hours. She had to.

He brushed a hand down her arm and she shivered involuntarily.

Then she could feel him at her back, feel his breath against her hair, and she closed her eyes and tried to imagine it was Vega instead. His fingertips slid over her side, up along her ribcage, brushing the underside of her breast, and Alaina imagined it was Vega’s hand. He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, to her throat, and she tried to imagine that it was Vega’s lips, Vega’s breath against her ear. Vega’s chest to her back.

His hand moved over the front of the
clostrata
and Alaina’s whole body tensed against any feeling of arousal. Against the betrayal of her own body. She didn’t want this man, but he knew how to touch a woman, she had to give him that. She exhaled, trying to keep herself steady, and Rua’s arm snaked around her waist, pulling her back against him. He sighed into her hair.

“I know you don’t want me,” he murmured into her throat.

“That isn’t the point,” she whispered.

“I know you’re imagining that I’m someone else.”

Alaina winced. “What do you care?”

“I told you I’m not a monster,” Rua said.

His arm loosened and then fell away, and to Alaina’s surprise, he stepped back. She risked a glance sidelong at him, watching as he went over to her dress and scooped it up off the floor. He held it out to her, expression frank, and she reached out with a tentative hand to take it.

“I don’t understand,” she admitted, pinning the dress to her collarbone to cover her exposed breasts. “You don’t want this anymore?”

Rua’s smile was bleak. “I do want you, Alaina. I do. But you don’t want me, and I’m not the kind of man to force you. I know how I seem. I know who you think I am, but I’m not that man.”

Alaina frowned. “What kind of man are you, then?”

Rua looked down. “The kind of man who has been far, far from home for a very long time. You’re the first human woman I’ve been near in a decade. I...can you blame me for wanting to be with my own kind, after so long?”

“I suppose not,” Alaina muttered. “But I can blame you for the way you’ve gone about it. And for selling me to these people.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Rua insisted. “But seeing you made me want to have one again. Which is why I’m even here.”

“Where does this leave us?” Alaina asked. “Are you going back on our deal?”

“I’ll still help your fighter, Vega, if…” But Rua trailed off, a mix of emotions on his face for a moment. Alaina realized he was embarrassed. He was hesitating, because he was embarrassed.

“If what?” she asked gently.

He smiled again, the same empty, bleak humor to it. “If you stay here with me like we agreed, but not for sex. Just...I want you to lie down with me. Let me hold you. Please.”

Alaina’s heart opened a little for him. Not that she might ever love him, but suddenly she pitied him. She couldn’t even imagine being in this place, among these people, for a decade. She couldn’t imagine being a slave for ten long years, clawing her way towards the kind of autonomy that Rua had achieved. Enough to let him stop on Earth every so often, just long enough to kidnap another human and condemn them to the very life he was trying to escape. It was horrible. And it was lonely. He must have been such a lonely, lonely man. And that pity blossomed into sympathy because Alaina didn’t know how to hate someone that sad. All she could do was hope that he found his way home again some day, and that she did too.

She nodded, shaking out her dress, and slipped it swiftly back over her head, tugging it down to cover herself before she took a few steps towards the bed.

“I can do that,” she told him quietly.

He exhaled, looking relieved, and ran a hand through his hair before he followed her to the bed. He set the
clostrata
key down on the bedside table, tugged the blankets back, and sprawled into the bed before he gestured for her to join him. She crawled onto the bed, slipping her legs beneath the blankets, and when Rua opened his arms she went against him, settling with her shoulder to his chest. He wrapped his arms tight around her and held on, breathing into her hair again, and Alaina closed her eyes and slowly began to relax.

He wasn’t Vega, and it didn’t feel safe in his arms.

But he was true to his word and didn’t try to touch her inappropriately, just held onto her until he drifted to sleep. Eventually Alaina slept as well and they dozed there, snuggled together in the gigantic alien bed, until a soft but insistent knock on the bedchamber door woke them both with a start. Rua sat up in the bed, bringing Alaina with him, and there was Nyssa standing in the doorway, waiting.

“It’s time to go,” she said.

Rua nodded, his arms falling away from Alaina. “Thank you,” he whispered into her ear.

Alaina climbed out of the bed, but then she went around it and took the key off the bedside table, holding it out to Nyssa as she joined her in the doorway. The slave girl took it and pocketed it, then took Alaina by the arm to pull her through the suite to the exit.

Alaina looked over her shoulder at Rua, once, and saw him spill back against the pillows with a sigh. Then Nyssa was pulling her out of the suite and into the dark corridor beyond, leading her back down to the slaves quarters in the dead of the night.

It was tense in the barracks on the morning of the games, as ever. Vega rose with his brothers, going through the rituals alongside them of bathing and dressing and then falling in line for the walk to the Arena. He was first in line this day, and as the gate to the tunnel lifted and they started off, Master Dyhar arrived to walk beside him.

They walked in silence for several minutes until Vega perceived they had enough of a lead on the cursii behind them they were out of ear shot.

“Master,” Vega said carefully. “I need your help.”

Dyhar frowned, glancing at him. “You know I can’t keep you from the sands today, Vega.”

“I know that,” Vega said, nodding. “And I’ll fight today. Like you said, I’ll survive today. And when I do, Dyhar, I need you to help me.”

“If it is in my power,” Dyhar said, “I will always help you.”

“After the games,” Vega went on, pitching his voice even quieter. “During the revelry. I want to marry the donara. I need you to marry us.”

Dyhar looked sharply at Vega then, eyes wide with surprise. “That’s madness,” he hissed softly. “And forbidden.”

“I don’t care,” Vega said honestly. “I love her. Dyhar, I love her. And she loves me. And if I survive these games, I’m going to marry her. Please. Help us.”

Dyhar looked back at Vega, dismay in his eyes.

Vega didn’t look away. He held the Master’s eyes, deadlocked, and refused to look away. He willed him to understand how important this was to him. How desperately he needed to know that if he survived, Alaina would be waiting for him. He didn’t care who the domina gave her to as donara. He didn’t care about winning her on the sands. He had already won her heart and he needed to know that if he lived beyond this day, she could be his. That he could be hers. And that no power in the system could tear them apart, heart and soul.

Finally, Dyhar nodded, though his reluctance was plain.

“If you survive the games,” he whispered. “I will see you wed tonight, Vega.”

And Vega didn’t care about any of the rest of it. His heart was singing.

It sang through the pain in his muscles and joints as the slaves in the pit dressed him in his armor. It conformed to his body, compressing, and that siphoned off the worst of the ache, but he knew it didn’t fix it. If anything, it would make things worse while he couldn’t feel it. But the pain was only a tiny thing compared to the hope in his heart. The other cursii looked at him with a mix of pity and satisfaction as they were fit with their armor and weapons.

Vega looked around the pit for Alaina, but she wasn’t there. The domina must have decided against having her treat the wounded cursii during these games. Maybe she was still back at the palace. Vega hated the thought of her alone in her room, not knowing what was happening to him. But he supposed that was better than if she were here, where she could watched him die if it came to that.

He took a seat on one of the benches by the Arena gate, shifting in his armor, an arm around his waist, palm pressed against the bandage over his ribs through the armor. If he could just reserve his strength and avoid getting hit in that one spot, he might make it through the day.

Bathari took a seat beside him. “The roster is up.”

“And?” Vega asked.

Bathari nodded. “You’ll fight in the last game. And I’m not fighting with you.”

Vega sighed. He knew it would be so. Bathari was a skilled fighter, but he had never been a champion. Only the champions fought in the last game of the day.