The Melier: Home World (Women of Dor Nye Book 2) (24 page)

“It is an honor to the immediate family to witness the marking of ones mate,” Zun explained to her as he continued to stand at her back. “Though we are missing some individuals, and your family, they will be able to watch the vid.”

Her eyes bugged. “You’re
recording
this?”

Soren and Zun grinned, gesturing to the CID Val’Koy held up.

“Oh my god,” she moaned, and her eyes widened.

“Smile,” Val’Koy smirked before Gi’Ren elbowed him.

Soren stole her attention when he leaned down and placed a soft kiss along her bottom lip, the heat sending a sizzling jolt down her body and warming the blood in her veins like a drug.

“Now, Loo-Sha,” Zun whispered in her ear, the timbre of his voice and his warm breath against the sensitive skin of her lobe sent shivers rippling through her. Instinctively, her fingers curled just slightly with the sensations her body was reveling in, the action pricking Soren’s flesh.

Lucia’s brows knit together, worried, but she didn’t stop. Again, her fingers curved a little more, the tips of the gauntlets easing into the thick, cobalt skin just below where his scales faded into flesh. His tail slithered up her leg, tickling the skin of her calf, and then he kissed her again, fully that time.

Her fingers clenched and dug into his skin all the way. She gasped against his mouth and immediately let him go, the tips pulling from the flesh and coated in his dark red blood. Before she could apologize, or ask if he was alright, he and Zun were switching places.

Once again, her hands were placed. Zun’s thin lips kicked up into a grin that spoke of only happiness in the moment. She just couldn’t understand why they were so eager to get scarred up by her. Why scarring? Why couldn’t their custom be something like, exchanging locks of hair?

She supposed that would be impossible, since they were bald and their tail hair wasn’t long enough.

Soren’s lips kissed the curve of her ear, his purr and warm breath tickling against her skin, causing her to actually giggle, and her clawed fingers sunk into Val’Zun. They slid in easier the second time, already slick with Soren’s blood.

Immediately, Zun’s purr revved, and she was glad it wasn’t overly painful for them. Neither winced, growled, or showed any signs of distress; only gratification.

Zun’s lower set of arms gripped onto her hips before he leaned down and kissed her quickly, withdrawing. He removed the bloodied gauntlets one by one and placed them back into the box. When she mentioned washing them, they both told her no.

It would be a
treasured
token of their sealed bond.

Lucia thought they were both strange to want to keep bloodied claws, but who was she to rain on their joyful time? Claws obviously held some importance to the Melier.

They both looked immensely pleased when they cleaned and admired their new marks with their brothers, and the queen.

She sat down, watching them with a strange fascination. She was honestly just glad the entire thing was over, and that they were
happy
. Now no one could question that Soren and Val’Zun were
hers
.

Soon they were alone once again, and her mates were crawling onto the bed, taking their places on either side of her and purring as they loved on her. Lucia giggled sleepily and sighed before she dozed into a slumber, surrounded and protected by her males.

Chapter 18

Lucia cradled a crabby Lenny to her chest and rocked the fussy infant. Another few days had gone by and being aboard a ship with a bunch of military Melier was starting to get to the both of them. Most of them were stiff to begin with; enter the human and they were positively stony.

She thought she’d grown used to frigid, unfriendly Melier, but it apparently still got to her just a smidge.

When she asked what was going on with the plans to get back the palace, her mates had told her in the privacy of their quarters the current mission in motion. Lu had been relieved they were keeping their promises and not being secretive, but she was torn about it all.

Capturing the emperor’s daughter seemed the logical thing to do, as she could be good leverage, and it could end up saving many more from being slaughtered on the planet.

But it was the
capturing
and
leverage
parts that unsettled her.

No matter whose daughter she was, she was still a
living being
. It was wrong to
use
her in such a way.

None of the princes agreed with her and she figured this was another difference between them and her. They were born royal. They were military males. They made decisions based on the betterment of Melierun, even if that meant sacrificing one to save many.

When Lu’s thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Gi’Ren rounding the corner, she smiled happily and waved him down.

“Ren!” she whisper-yelled and waved. “Ren!”

She didn’t want to scream his name and draw unnecessary attention. He heard her though and slowed down so she could catch up. It was like running a marathon for her when trying to keep up with the walking pace of the Melier.

“Sooo,” she grinned up at him as they continued to walk through the corridor, various military personnel passing as they went about their business. “I never got a chance to thank you for saving my life in the garden that day. So, thank you.”

He dipped his head as if to say
‘you’re welcome’
.

When her cheesy grin didn’t go away as she rocked Lenny in her arms, his green eyes narrowed down at her.

“What?”

“You said my name!” she gushed, and bubbled a gleeful laugh when he groaned. “Say it again,” she poked his arm.

“I am not a puppet,” he grunted.

“Please?” she stuck out her bottom lip in a pout, and normally that wouldn’t work on Gi’Ren at all but apparently she caught him in a good mood.

He sighed like it was the biggest favor in the world.

“Loo-Sha.”

“Eeee!” she squealed, causing Ren to wince and scowl. “
Sorry!
”

Lenny giggled and startled them both. They stopped walking and looked down at the pretty blue babe who had the biggest, goofy, gummy grin she’d ever seen. Lu and Ren shared a look and then focused back on Lenny.

She squealed again but a little quieter that time as she tickled under the younglings chin.

Lenny giggled harder.

“Oh my stars,” she breathed and laughed with Ren as they showered the babe in strange sounds and kisses. “Soren and Zun are going to be so jealous you heard Lenny laugh first.”

He grunted smugly.

****

A while later, Lucia stood behind one way glass as she watched the captured Trepnil princess.

The daughter was
not
what she was expecting.

She didn’t have the extremely freaky exterior the male Treps did. She shared the green scales, but they were smaller, smoother in appearance and a little paler. No elongated snout took up her face, but instead a hump where her nose might be, adorned with smaller tear shaped nostrils that opened and closed with her harried breathing.

The princess’s eyes were copper, and kind, which Lu wasn’t expecting in the least. There wasn’t a calculating air to her at all, and the fact that she’d been captured like an animal made Lucia all the more uneasy.

It isn’t right!

The princess wrung her wrists with hands that had four fingers, unlike the males who had three. No lethal talons either; only shortened, manicured claws. Her sandaled feet were of similar design.

Unfortunately her teeth were still nightmarish and needle-like, matching the males.

“She looks so scared,” Lu frowned.

Zun made a sound, agreeing.

“She is not what I anticipated,” Soren voiced. The brothers and the queen all stood in there with Lu, watching, and deciding what to do next.

“It could be an act,” Gi’Ren said skeptically.

“I do not think it is,” Gi’Moy replied.

Before Lucia really thought about what she was doing, she made her way to the door and slipped into the holding room before Soren could grab her. Of course, she wasn’t alone, as he and Zun stepped through after her.

“Loo-Sha,” Soren warned and laid a hand upon the back of her elbow before she shook him off and cautiously stepped further into the room.

The princess was standing with her back to a corner, no longer roaming about, but watching them warily.

“Hello,” Lucia said, trying to appear as nonthreatening as possible, which wasn’t really hard since she didn’t have any natural weapons to top that of the princess.

She did have a mean bite if she really put her mind to it though.

“I’m Lucia.”

The cornered princess looked between her and the flanking Melier males. She wanted to groan and tell them to go back inside the room, but she didn’t. Part of her was still wary of the princess since she was after all, still a Trep.

“I… am Princess Beela’Su,” she said softly, and the grating language of the Trepnils didn’t sound completely awful coming from her. “What are your intentions with me?”

“You will not come to harm,” Val’Zun said, his face twisting into an expression of disgust as if hurting a female was the foulest thing he could imagine, even if she was the enemy.

“You do not understand what you have done,” Beela’Su’s hooded eyes squeezed shut momentarily and then she refocused on Lucia, her pupils flicking to all three of them quickly. “My father is vengeful. Keeping me prisoner will only make things worse for your people.”

This attitude took all three of them by surprise. Zun and Soren shared a glance over her head and then back to the princess.

Why would she care if it made things worse on the Melier people? They’re supposed to be her enemy.

“Why did he hide you?” Zun asked.

She sighed and shook her head. “I am the youngest of his progeny.”

The favorite.

The brothers seemed to decode this as well.

“But my father…,” Beela’Su began to wring her wrists once more while she looked torn between loyalty and something else. Her mouth opened and closed before she shook her head as if to shake away whatever she was going to say.

Again, they all shared a look.

“I do not want to go back,” Beela’Su said, almost too low to hear. “But it is the only way. I may be able to persuade him to leave your people alone.”

“You don’t want to go back to your home?” Lucia asked, surprised.

Beela’Su shook her head. “I do not see any other way.”

Her heartstrings pulled in her chest. This was definitely not the reaction she was expecting. By now, she assumed the princess would’ve tried to claw her face off. That she would be violent like every other Trep Lu had ever encountered.

“Loo-Sha,” Zun gripped her elbow and gently pulled her in an attempt to guide her from the room. She resisted slightly while she continued to stare at the princess.

“We don’t
have
to give her back,” she whispered to both of her males, her brows knitting with sympathy.

Zun sighed, muttering under his breath, and Soren glanced back to Beela’Su.

“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” she asked the princess.

Beela’Su looked confused as if she wasn’t expecting to be treated with any kind of dignity.

“I…,” she stared at Lucia and then nodded once. “I would be grateful for water.”

She sent a small smile to the princess before she let her mates usher her back into the room where Ren and Val’Koy continued to watch through the glass skeptically with the queen.

Immediately she stepped over to the side table where a pitcher of water and multiple upside down glasses sat. She filled one for the princess and one for herself.

“You are not going back in there,” Val’Zun said down to her, and when Lucia snorted, he scowled and looked to Soren. “Tell her she is not going back in there.”

“Loo-Sha, you are not going back in there.”

Again, she snorted.

“If you two think you’re going to gang up on me,
and
tell me what to do, you’re both more hilarious than I originally thought!”

“It is unsafe,” Zun growled. “She is a Trepnil. Our enemy.
Your
enemy.”

“She’s
scared
,” she sighed, frustrated.

“Well, yes,” he replied in a tone that said
‘obviously’
, “she is on a Melier military ship.”

Lucia turned with the two glasses of water in her hands and began back to the door but Zun blocked her path. She glowered up at him only for him to return the expression and she was positive one day his face would get stuck like that.

“You’re in my way.”

“You are
not
going back in there.”

“Val’Zun, if you don’t get your pretty blue ass out of my way, so help me, I will-”

He began to purr and his expression bespoke irritation that he couldn’t seem to
control
his reactions whenever she got snippy, before he snarled and stepped out of her way, scrubbing his hands over his face.

Lucia
‘hmph’d’
triumphantly and stood before the door, hands full. After a few seconds she turned back around and said, “Will one of you please open this thing?”

For a split second, she didn’t think they would, but then Soren, annoyed as he was, opened it for her. When he began to enter the room after her, she glared at him.

“I’d like to speak to the princess without a shadow,” she whispered, miffed that she couldn’t seem to shake her mates off her trail, but all warm at the same time because they worried over her wellbeing.

Soren hesitated, letting out a defeated breath and giving the princess one last glance before he left the room and it was just Lucia and Beela’Su.

“Sorry about that,” she half smiled and shrugged a shoulder like
‘whatya do?’

“You have good mates,” Beela’Su’s mouth curved into a miniscule smile as she accepted the glass Lu handed her. “Gratitude.”

She gave a nod.

“Apologies about the surroundings,” she gestured to the cold holding room. “This ship isn’t really equipped for comfort I’ve noticed.”

When she sat down in one of the two chairs at the table, Beela’Su sat across from her. The table and two chairs were the only decoration in the room and they certainly weren’t comfortable.

“Do you have a mate, or partner?”

Beela’Su looked startled and then shivered. “Not yet…” She took a slow sip of her water and Lu wondered how she did it so neatly with such thin, stiff lips. “I have managed to avoid joining with a male due to my father’s fondness for his youngest.”

Lucia really couldn’t blame the princess. The thought of being forced to continuously copulate with a Trepnil made her skin crawl, especially if they smelled and acted anything like the pirates that roamed the trade routes.

Immediately her brain tried to pull forth the memory of Ta’Ra’Enn’s men, and she took a breath to shove it back into the dark recess of her mind.

“Why don’t you want to go home?” Lu moved along hoping the question would help her brain to continue to sink Ta’Ra’Enn into gray matter.

Beela’Su took another sip of her water, no doubt buying time but Lu pretended she didn’t notice. Instead she gave an encouraging smile.

“It is a hard life for females on my planet,” she replied. “Even a princess.”

Lu nodded, hoping she would continue.

“I am the…
odd one
of my family. I want different things out of life than what is expected of a princess.” Beela’Su paused and sighed almost wistfully. “I want to travel and create beautiful art, see how other species live, enjoy
culture
…”

“Your father won’t allow this?”

“No,” she shook her head. “It is a waste of time in his eyes. Our people do not pursue art. It has nothing to do with war, and conquering, so it is undesirable.”

On they went back and forth, and Lucia was actually
enjoying
the conversation. She was learning things about the Trepnil world she never knew before, and getting to know one of their princesses, which she never would’ve imagined.