Sons of Lyra: Slave Princess (3 page)

She was truly beautiful
without all the filth. She was sitting on the end of the bed, the
tight blue flight suit hugging her lithe figure and undone to
halfway down her chest. The material squashed her breasts together
and formed a modest cleavage. He swallowed at the memory of how
good they’d looked when she’d been below him. It had been too long
since he’d had a woman, and she was more beautiful than any he’d
had.

“
Why did you
attack me?” he said.

“
I thought...”
There was fear in her eyes again.

“
I wouldn’t do
that to a woman,” he said and paced across the room to the windows.
He opened the shutters and her attention was immediately with the
dark space outside.

She moved to the window
and pressed her hands against the glass. He’d never seen anyone
look so fascinated before. When she looked at him, there was a
smile in her eyes.

“
It’s been a
long time since you left the port,” he said and she nodded before
looking back out of the window. “How long have you been working
down there?”

“
Working?” She
snorted in contempt. “I’m a slave.”

“
Not
anymore.”

She scowled at him. “I
still am a slave. He gave me to you because he thought you liked
me... he thought you wanted me. Don’t you want me?”

He frowned. His better
sense said to deny her words, even though they were true. He did
want her. Something drew him to her, lured him in until he could
only think of her.

“
How long have
you been a slave?” he said, choosing to ignore what she’d
said.

“
As long as I
can remember really,” she said and then pulled the translator from
her ear. “How does this work?”

“
It’s Lyran
technology—” He cut himself off when she looked confused and sighed
as he put the device back into her ear. “It’s Lyran technology. It
knows all languages of the universe and can automatically translate
them.”

Her brows rose. “Lyran.
You’re a Lyran... and you’re speaking Lyran? And I can understand
you because of this?”

He nodded.

“
What language
are you speaking?” he said, figuring it was a better way of asking
her where she was from than asking outright.

“
In the port,
you couldn’t understand him... but you understood the other man...
you spoke a different language to him.”

“
Minervan. Pray
to Iskara that that other man, as you put it, doesn’t follow us.
We’re in no shape for another battle with him.” He caught hold of
her hand when she went to take the translator out of her ear again.
She could look at it all she wanted later. Right now, she was going
to answer his questions. “What language are you speaking? It’s not
Sekarian or Minervan, or anything that I recognise.”

She flashed a smile and
hopped onto the bed. He looked at her where she knelt on the
pillows, staring out of the window. He was beginning to get the
impression she didn’t like answering questions.

“
What planet
did you call home?” he said, losing patience.

She looked at him with
wide beautiful eyes. “I never had a planet to call
home.”

He frowned and walked over
to her, sitting down beside her on the bed. His hand remained close
to his pistol. She’d already cut him once because he’d tried to get
too close. Just because she was speaking to him didn’t mean he was
about to let his guard down.

“
No planet. Do
you know what language you’re speaking?” He held her gaze. A hint
of sadness entered hers.

She was quiet for a moment
as she turned away and stared off into the distant
darkness.

“
Terran,” she
whispered.

Terran? The Earth system.
She was a Terran. He’d never met one before. Most never did. They
had been scattered to the four winds when their system had been
destroyed.

It had been destroyed by
his great great grandfather.

“
You knew I was
Lyran.” He watched her closely for any sign of a reaction to the
name of the species that had killed so many of hers.

“
I knew,” she
said with a small, joyless smile. “At least I suspected as much and
then I heard the Minervan call you Captain Lyra II... which makes
you royalty.”

“
And makes you
more informed than I thought.”

Kayla gave him a real
smile this time. She’d figured he’d think her an ignorant and
uneducated woman. Just because she’d been forced into slavery
didn’t mean she hadn’t been raised well. She could remember her
parents. She knew the story of how the Lyrans had destroyed her
home world and that they could never return there. They were
orphans of space like so many others whose systems had been caught
up in wars. Earth hadn’t been in direct conflict with either the
Lyrans or the Vegans. It had merely been in the way of their
fight.

She looked at him as he
stared out of the window. Never in all her short years had she
imagined that the one species she hated above all would be the one
species to rescue her. Now she didn’t know how to feel. He was
royalty. Her parents had told her of the current rulers and their
children, the famed sons of Lyra, handsome from the day they were
born. When she was younger, she’d made a pact with her friends Tyla
and Serena. If they ever met a Lyran, they’d get revenge for their
species.

Back then things had been
simple.

Back then the Lyran in
question hadn’t been her rescuer.

And he hadn’t been so
gorgeous.

Now she didn’t know how to
feel.

He touched his cheek and
the scratches she’d inflicted. A smile curved his beautiful bow
lips. Amusement shone in his dark eyes but was quickly replaced by
a serious look.

“
Is this why
you attacked me?”

“
I was
defending myself.” She would have done a lot worse if she’d wanted
to hurt him and get revenge. His pistol had been within easy reach.
She could have taken it and killed him. Why hadn’t she? She
reasoned that it was because she was on a Lyran ship and had no
chance of escaping it alive if she killed him.

The voice at the back of
her head said that it was because he’d rescued her. She felt as
though she was caught between a terrible reality and a beautiful
fantasy. Why had he had to rescue her and why did he have to be a
prince? Now she couldn’t stop imagining he was a knight of old in
shining armour.

She looked him over. Not
quite armour and she was sure that when her grandmother had whiled
away the dark hours with her that the armour she’d spoken of wasn’t
quite as revealing as his flight suit.

“
Are you going
to keep me?” she said, aware that she was his property now. He
could do whatever he wanted with her. Why wasn’t he? She wasn’t
naive or blind. She’d seen the hunger in his eyes when he’d been on
top of her.

He shook his head and she
frowned when a strange feeling of disappointment swept through
her.

“
What will you
do with me?” She turned to face him.

His eyes met hers again,
sending a warm rush through her.

“
I will set you
down on a planet between here and the space station we’re destined
for.”

There was no emotion in
his voice or in his expression. He would set her down. Just like
that. He didn’t care what happened to her really. He was a typical
Lyran after all.

“
Fine,” she
said and looked back out of the window. So what if he didn’t want
to keep her. She didn’t want him to be her master anyway. She’d
find a job on the planet he dumped her on, save enough to buy a
rusty old space ship, track him down and fly it into his fancy
fighter ship in the hopes of killing him. Her gaze flicked to his
pistol. The pact she’d made was starting to sound possible after
all. If only he’d take his hand away from his gun.

He stood and paced across
the room.

Her gaze ran down his body
and her thoughts betrayed her again. He really had looked after
himself. The flight suit left nothing to the imagination. Every
muscle was outlined for her pleasure. He turned back to face her,
his hands clasped behind him. Her stomach warmed. Every
muscle.

She raised her eyes to his
face. She could see why half the galaxy spoke of the sons of Lyra
as though they were gods. He was handsome, his dark hair and brows
setting off the equal darkness of his eyes, and his straight nose
and bowed lips making him appear as regal as she knew he
was.

“
It will
probably be a day or so before we reach a suitable planet,” he said
and she wished he hadn’t spoken.

She’d been happily lost in
a fantasy and he’d had to ruin it by reminding her that he intended
to ditch her.

“
You should
have left me back there,” she said and got to her feet. She went to
the row of windows and leaned against the grab rail that ran at
waist height along them.

“
He would have
killed you.”

“
I know.” She
leaned forwards, folding her arms and resting her chin on
them.

“
You’d rather
die than be free?” He stood beside her. She could feel his gaze
boring into her face. She didn’t look at him.

She didn’t say a
word.

There was nothing to say.
The Sekarian probably would have killed her, but it sounded like a
better fate than being dumped on some distant dreary planet. She
gave it a week before she was someone else’s slave or worse. This
time she’d probably end up on one of the pleasure planets, doped up
to her eyeballs and too out of it to fight the disgusting men
pawing at her.

Taking the translator out
of her ear, she straightened and looked at him. She took his hand,
turned it palm up and placed the device into it.

She’d rather not
understand a word he was saying when everything he said only hurt
her.

Lying down on the bed, she
rolled over so she was facing away from him and curled up holding
her chain in her hands.

He said something that
sounded a lot like curse words and then stormed out of the room.
She heard the locks on the door slide into place. For someone who
said she was free and didn’t belong to anyone, he certainly wanted
to keep her captive.

Closing her eyes, she
tried to remember her family and where she’d come from. She did
this every time she finally had a chance to rest. It was important
to remember her heritage. There were hardly any Terrans left now.
Her friends had all been killed in a Vegan attack on the space
station they’d lived on with her. She’d been taken into slavery
with some others. She screwed her face up, not wanting to remember
all the dark times she’d been through since then. She’d never
thought she’d escape that last planet. Now she was on a Lyran ship
heading away from it, but there was no comfort.

He was going to ditch her
at the first opportunity.

A slave like her wasn’t
good enough for a prince like him.

He didn’t even want to
touch her.

Was she that repulsive to
him?

It wasn’t long before
she’d drifted off to sleep. She only realised she had when she
heard a noise and opened her eyes to see that the man had returned.
She watched him right the table and chairs, and place a tray of
food down on the round table. He held the translator device up and
said something before setting it down beside the tray. Why did he
care so much about her speaking to him? He was going to drop her
off any time now. It made more sense for him to just keep her shut
in the room and ignore her.

He sat down, an impatient
look on his face as he stared at a computer pad similar to the one
he’d had at the port. He frowned and muttered something. She cursed
him for making her want to put the translator back in so she could
understand him. Her stomach growled when she looked at the
food.

She’d not seen fresh food
in years.

Slipping off the bed, she
padded quietly across the room and stared at the food. There was
fruit. Where had he got fruit? Did all the crew on his ship get
such luxurious food, or was it his personal supply he was offering
to her?

She sat down, her eyes
still fixed on the fruit and her mouth watering as she remembered
how delicious the only fruit she’d ever tasted had been. It had
been a bruised apple core that she’d found discarded on a space
port floor when her family had been travelling to their second
home—the last home she’d had.

This fruit wasn’t bruised.
It was perfect and shiny. There were beautiful red quarib berries
and rich green polans apples. It was fruit she’d stared at so many
times in the shop windows of the ports she’d passed through or been
a slave at. She’d never thought she’d get to eat something so
luxurious.

She looked at the man. He
paused at his work and gestured for her to eat. She flexed her
fingers, grabbed everything she could, and ran across the room to
the bed. Curling up in the corner of it furthest from him, she
could feel the man’s eyes on her. She brushed the chain dangling
from her neck away and clutched the fruit to her chest when he
walked over, unwilling to share it now that she had it. She could
live for weeks on this much food.