
Alinar Publishing www.alinarpublishing.com
Copyright ©2009 by Felicity Heaton
First published in 2009, 2009
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Princess Sophia, one of the beautiful and strong daughters of Lyra, has had it with the never-ending row of suitors that her father, King Sebastian Lyra I, has lined up for her. When the latest suitor turns out to be the emperor of Varka, a species known for their lack of emotions, nocturnal lifestyle and bloodlust, Sophia wants little to do with him.
But when she greets the emperor and his two attendants, Sophia realises that a Varkan makes her heart beat like no other man before him and might just win her after all. Only, it isn't the emperor who was caught her eye.
Regis, Count of Sagres, is transfixed from the moment he meets Sophia. She pushes him to the brink of surrendering control to his bloodlust with every beautiful glance and smile she throws his way. But would she ever marry a male who doesn't know the meaning of love? Fear of the bloodlust makes Varkans retain an iron grip on their emotions, but Regis is willing to surrender control and risk everything to win Sophia. And Sophia will do whatever it takes to make him see that Varkans can love and that she wants no other man in the universe, including triggering his bloodlust and putting the whole palace in danger!
Will Regis's feelings for Sophia be enough to stop him from hurting her and killing the entire palace? Will Sophia be able to love a man that the universe sees as a monster? And will she still love him when she realises the Varkans' deception?
Sophia stood in the expansive white square in front of the palace and watched the biggest and blackest fighter ship she had ever seen descend into the royal port of Lyra Prime. It wasn't just the colour of the sleek curvaceous craft that made it black to her. It was what it contained. Another black cloud to mar her perfect blue Lyran sky. With a sigh, she tossed her long dark hair over her shoulder and ran her fingers down the twin braids that started at her temples and flowed down the front of her pale blue empire-line dress. Her eyes tracked the ship and she toyed with the braids as she always did when nervous or angry. How was she going to get out of this one? She glanced at the palace and then back at the ship as it landed, sending a plume of white dust up into the air as the thrusters fired.
Her father had gone too far this time.
It had been bad enough when he had brought a Minervan suitor to the palace. At the time, she had thought it had been a joke and the man had been a friend of her mother's. No. A suitor. As though she couldn't find her own husband. After she had dismissed the Minervan, things had only taken a turn for the worse. So far, her father had brought a new suitor every month. Dazkaran, Sekarian, Terran, Sirian, and several other species that she didn't care to remember had sent suitors to court her. She had turned them all away. Her father might be the king of Lyra now that her grandparents had gone to Iskara, but he had definitely gone too far this time.
In the heat-hazed distance, three black-clad figures shimmered, striding towards her.
Varkans.
Sophia swallowed her trembling heart and straightened her back. They didn't frighten her. She had been reading up on them. At least, she had read what she could find, which wasn't much. There hadn't even been a picture of the royal family in the computer or the books. They were one of the most technologically advanced species in the universe, creating things that everyone had heard of, yet they had somehow remained the most mysterious. It was that mystery that frightened her, not their apparent bloodlust.
Her father and mother stopped beside her. Her mother was still as beautiful as ever. As always, she wore her long black hair in an elaborate bun, drawn away from her pale face. Her eyes were as dark as her father's, but seemed blacker with the makeup surrounding them. Her parents did look so very regal when they stood together like this, King Sebastian and Queen Terea of Lyra.
The confident click of heels on the white stone of the square ceased. Sophia took her place beside her mother and turned to face the Varkans.
It seemed she would still have to wait to know what they looked like.
Stood before her were three tall, slim males, all dressed in black high-collar knee-length jackets, black trousers and polished knee-high boots. Silver embroidery decorated two of the men's jackets, three columns of bright buttons down their fronts that shone like full moons. The third man, stood between the other two, had gold embroidery on his jacket and a deep red and gold sash that cut across from his left shoulder to right hip. The emperor she presumed. She wished that she knew what he looked like.
It was impossible to tell when they were all wearing black visors that covered the top of their heads, the two curved sides coming to meet in a point in front of their noses. All she could see were their mouths, jaws and necks. All of them were pale. The man on the left had lips like her father's, curved and hinting at beauty. The emperor's lips were a thin compressed line that made her wonder what he was thinking. She couldn't sense his feelings as she had been able to with her other suitors. The man on the right.
Sophia paused.
His lips were perfect. Curved, full, and intensely kissable. She dragged her eyes away from him and back to the emperor.
Her father stepped forwards.
"Emperor Varka, may your species flourish and may eternity be within your reach," her father said and Sophia noticed the emperor's lips tilt slightly into a smirk, as though her father's words amused him. Eternity. Apparently, it was something that Varkans already held within their grasp. They flourished rather well too. Perhaps her father should have chosen a better Lyran greeting. "May I introduce my daughter, Princess Sophia of Lyra."
Sophia stepped forwards past her father to greet the emperor and instantly the other two men were in front of him, both holding one arm out to block her path, their other hand on a weapon at their waists. They looked like swords. She frowned.
"You must understand, little one, it is not wise to approach our species so flagrantly," the emperor said, voice deep and edged with an eerie echo. She glanced at the small black triangular device attached to the left side of his throat. Did the translator make his voice echo, or did all Varkans sound this way?
"I apologise. I had only wished to greet you." She bowed her head, already wishing that the Varkans were gone. If she couldn't go near him, how was he supposed to court her? Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at the male with the perfect lips. Maybe she didn't want them gone just yet, not until she knew his face. "I am Princess Sophia of Lyra. May I enquire as to your guests' names?"
She could feel her father's eyes on her, and her mother's. None of the suitors had brought company with them before. It wasn't such an unusual question to ask.
The men moved back into their positions and then the one on her left stepped forwards.
"Attendant Second to Emperor Varka, Count of Aeris." He bowed very stiffly and then stepped back. Her right eyebrow rose. She didn't catch a name in there unless she was supposed to call him Count of Aeris.
The man on her right stepped forwards, an aura of confidence surrounding him. She watched his perfect mouth as he spoke, mesmerised by the movement of his lips and the deep echoing timbre of his voice.
"Attendant First to Emperor Varka, Count of Sagres." He bowed with grace and when he was rising, the sun hit his visor and she swore she caught a flash of his face.
Her heart pounded.
If she had, then he was handsome enough to rival any Lyran, even her father.
She curtseyed and then fixed her attention on the emperor so she didn't appear rude. It was difficult to keep her eyes off the Count of Sagres but she managed to make it through the rest of the greeting ceremony without looking at him. When they were walking to the palace, she reached out a little to try to read him. The area he occupied was there and she could feel it, but she felt nothing from him. It was as though he wasn't there.
"Sophia, dear," her father whispered as they led the way into the palace, accompanied by four Lyran guards. "You seem tense. Do relax. If you are worried about the rooms for the attendants, then you need not. They are already being arranged."
Sophia wasn't worried about rooms at all but she didn't correct her father. It was probably better that he presumed she was fretting over tiny details rather than battling her desire to look at the Count of Sagres again. She felt drawn to him, under a spell that commanded she look at him. Keeping her face forwards, she walked under the grand archway that led into the darker interior of the palace and smiled as the cooler air hit her. There was a collective murmur from the Varkans and a shuffling noise. Had they removed their visors? Suddenly, not looking at the Count of Sagres seemed impossible.
One of her attendants, Caria, hurried over to her and Sophia stopped to see what she wanted. Tiptoeing, the dark haired girl whispered in her ear, curtseyed and then stood to one side. Sophia glanced at her parents before slowly turning to face the Varkans, her heart thumping in her throat. Her gaze fell on the Count of Aeris first, her nerves and the anticipation of seeing whether the Count of Sagres was as handsome as she thought making her take the long route. The Count of Aeris was handsome, his beauty exactly as his lips had promised. The emperor was also handsome, but there was a cruelty about his features, a darkness that she didn't like. She knew that in terms of wealth and power he was a good match, and that marrying him would advance relations between Varka and Lyra and strengthen the peace, but for some reason he made her wary. Her gaze shifted, finally falling to rest on the Count of Sagres.
He was stunning.
His moon white skin was a stark contrast to the chin length tendrils of his black hair. It hung in ribbons, parted down the centre and caressing his cheeks and the defined straight line of his jaw. The sensual curve of his lips drew her gaze and she imagined how they would feel against hers---soft but strong, caressing hers in a kiss that she knew would be commanding, passionate and consuming. She dragged her eyes away, up over the fine aristocratic line of his nose to his eyes. They met hers and the deep red colour of his irises shocked her for a moment. Blood. They were the colour of blood. All of their eyes were dark crimson.
Regaining her composure, Sophia stepped forwards and curtseyed to the emperor.
"Your room is ready, your highness. Rooms have also been prepared for your attendants. One of my attendants will show you to them," she said and intimated for Caria to come forward. The young girl did and curtseyed so low that Sophia wondered if she would be able to get back up.
With a smile, Caria turned and started walking up the hall. The Count of Aeris led the way, followed by the emperor. He looked at her, his red eyes briefly meeting hers before he turned away. She had felt as though he had been assessing her with that glance. It made her nervous. In a few hours, she would have to sit and talk with him. Normally her research into the species helped the conversation but she still knew little about the Varkans. Perhaps she could ask him, at the risk of looking ignorant. The Count of Sagres passed her and her eyes followed him, studying his noble profile. Why couldn't he have been the emperor? She would gladly spend hours shut in the drawing room talking to him.
When the Count of Sagres had disappeared around a corner, she noticed that her parents had also gone. Behind her, excited chatter burst into life, shattering the silence in the hall.
Sophia sighed and turned to face her other two attendants, Alexa and Zalina.
"What is it now?" she said, relieved that she would have a few hours peace before yet another courtship began.
"Nothing, miss." Alexa curtseyed, holding the skirt of her corseted deep blue dress and lowering her head. The equally dark blue veil covering her hair fell forwards to mask her face. She pushed it back and rose.
"Nothing?" Why didn't she believe that? She looked at Zalina, knowing the younger girl had no skill at lying.
"Nothing---the Varkans are handsome." Zalina covered her mouth, her tanned cheeks darkening and ringlets of her brown hair falling down across her face when she shook her head.
Sophia laughed and looked along the corridor in the direction that the Count of Sagres had gone.
"They certainly are."
Sophia smoothed her black hair back into the bun that her mother had helped fix it in and then toyed with the two long braids she had insisted on keeping. She hadn't been able to find the peace she had wanted before the meeting. Her attendants had insisted on getting her ready early, plastering her face with pale make up that she abhorred and painting her lips ruby red. The colour of blood. Blood. She frowned as she remembered the Count of Sagres's eyes. Against his dark lashes and pale skin, they had been startling. Perhaps his species truly had a bloodlust as the books said.
She straightened her dress out, pulling the top half about so it covered her ample breasts a little more and making sure that the high waistband sat underneath them. Her attendants had tried to make her wear black, but she had changed out of the dress the moment they were gone and had put her empire-line sky blue one back on. She was a princess of Lyra. She was going to wear the colour of Lyra.
Minutes passed and she fidgeted on the long deep blue couch, wondering if the emperor was planning to make an appearance. She glanced around the expansive cream room and then at the rich dark wooden door. Perhaps it was still the fashion to be late on Varka. On Lyra, it was rude.
The door opened and she shot to her feet. Her eyes widened when she saw it was the Count of Sagres. He stood on the threshold of the room, his hand still on the door handle. Her heart leapt and pounded. There was no denying the attraction she felt to him. Her mind had been constantly on him from the moment they had met and now that he was before her again, she wanted nothing more than to look at him, to drink her fill of his handsome face and those stunning red eyes. She blinked, looking into his eyes, wondering what he was thinking as he stared at her. He looked at her a moment longer and then stepped to one side. Emperor Varka passed him and paused.
"You may leave. I will report in before retiring," he said and the Count of Sagres nodded before closing the door, leaving them alone.
Her shoulders slumped. For one happy moment, she had thought the Count of Sagres would be staying.
She forced a smile for the emperor when he took her hand and kissed the back of it. Sitting back down, she held her hand out, intimating the couch opposite hers and fearing that he would choose to sit next to her instead like some of her suitors had.
Thankfully, he took the desired seat. She smiled again, unsure what to say to break the dreadful silence. By Iskara's wings, her father was going to pay for this torture. Hadn't he learnt anything when his parents had arranged his wedding? Perhaps she could run away as he had. She grinned inside. The shock and worry would probably kill him.
Perhaps she could run off with the Count of Sagres.
Her eyes widened again, that thought shocking her. Did she want to run away with the count? The idea flustered her enough that her cheeks burned.
"Is something the matter?" Emperor Varka said with a slight echo to his words. Sophia stared at him, shaking her head. "You look ill."
"No, I am fine, thank you." She straightened up and smiled again. "A little too much sun today perhaps."
"It is dreadful," he said, voice droning enough that she clearly got the message that he didn't like her sunny planet.
"It's beautiful," she countered, ready for an argument if he overstepped the mark. Emperor or not, she wouldn't let anyone insult her home world.
"You must understand, little one, that Varkans are not accustomed to such strong sunlight. I merely meant that it was painful for me, not that it is not beautiful, in short spells."
Short spells? She could spend the entire day lazing in the gardens under that strong sunlight. It did explain the visors though. She had read that none of the planets in the Varka system rotated like hers. On one side of each was permanent daylight. On the other side was permanent darkness. She was beginning to get the impression that Varkans were from that side.
She could ask the emperor, but for some reason she didn't want to. Her gaze drifted to the door and her thoughts to how handsome the Count of Sagres had looked. Shocked too. He had hidden it well, but something about either the room or her had surprised him. It was probably the awful make up she was wearing. It dawned on her that she didn't want to talk to the emperor.
She wanted to speak to the Count of Sagres.
"You are as beautiful as your planet," Emperor Varka murmured, his voice so low that it sent a shudder down her spine. She dragged her eyes away from the door and smiled at him, taking his flattery even when it revolted her. As a princess, she had grown accustomed to disgusting men fawning over her and seeking her attention. "Although I hear that you have had many suitors in the past, I can assure you that none of them can offer you what Varka can."
A frown threatened to crease her brow. She held her smile. Did he honestly think that he could haggle for her hand in marriage? She wasn't interested in how many planets her future husband had, or how rich and powerful he was. The only man she would marry was the one who loved her, and whom she loved.
Relaxing a little, she settled in for a conversation that she knew was going to feel like an eternity rather than a few hours.
There was only one thing keeping her remotely interested in the emperor as he told her of his wealth and the might of the Varkan Empire.
He knew the Count of Sagres.
Her gaze drifted to the door.
She wanted to know him too.
Regis, Count of Sagres, walked out onto the balcony of his room. The palace gardens stretched below him, white paths glowing ethereally in the evening light. A light breeze blew across them, washing his face with the lingering warmth of day and carrying the scent of roses. Far to his left he could see the port where they had docked. If he leaned forward, he could see the square where the royal family had greeted them.
Where Princess Sophia had greeted him.
Her lack of knowledge about his species had been evident the second she had thought to approach a Varkan emperor without warning. Still, it was understandable. His kind never had been ones to tell the universe about themselves. They were feared enough already.
Regis leaned against the white stone wall of the balcony and stared at the distant city. Tall pale spire-like buildings rose at the centre of it. The financial district was the closest group. Beyond that, even taller buildings pierced the sky. The Lyran parliament. His fingers flexed and he clenched his fists. They ran the military. How many of his kin had he lost to Lyra? His hand fell to the sword hanging at his waist. The feel of its hilt beneath his fingers was comforting. The war was over now. A tentative peace bridged the gap between his species and the Lyrans. They were here to strengthen that peace through marriage.
A sigh escaped him when a full moon broke the horizon, blood red but slowly turning to white as it rose. He watched its progress and then smiled when another moon appeared a distance away from the first, this one crescent. He studied them both and realised that the first moon partially eclipsed the second. It was beautiful. It added a strange sense of magic to the falling night.
He missed the moon of Varka Prime. It glowed purple, a pale lilac that reminded him of the flowers his mother and sister had preferred. It had been long decades since their passing.
In all that time, he had never left Varka Prime. His duty had been to the people and the struggle for peace for his species, while his friend Van, Count of Aeris, had left to join the military. Regis wished that he could have that freedom too, but knew that it wasn't possible. He had a duty to do.
The darkening sky lured his attention to how quiet it was on this planet at night. He looked down at the garden where it sprawled thirty metres below him and then leapt over the wall, landing silently in a crouching position on the balcony above the garden. He straightened and walked to the top of the steps that led down into the maze of paths and flowers. It was a beautiful night for a walk. It had been some time since he had felt so relaxed and at peace with the universe.
Regis followed the steps down into the garden and let his feet find their own route amongst the winding paths. The flowers were beautiful, especially so when the moonlight touched them. He gave a brief thought to the fact that the emperor hadn't reported back and that he might miss him, and then shrugged it off. He wanted to walk the garden. If he needed him, the emperor would easily be able to sense him here.
Perhaps he was still speaking to the princess. Regis frowned at that thought. It had been several hours since he had left them alone together. Maybe the offer his species had laid on her table was palatable. A firm peace between their species, the technology of Varka at their disposal, and a marriage that would connect them with other species of similar prosperity. Not to mention the fact that Varka were offering Lyra the second planet in their system for a military base station. Varka Two was a deal breaker. The Lyrans had desired a presence in the Varka system for nearing a century and had fought hard to win one.
Unfortunately for them, his species had fought harder.
The Lyran Imperial Army were no match for them.
Regis stopped and looked back at the palace. It was bright in the moonlight, the white stone glittering. Most of the windows glowed warm and amber from the lights inside. A few of the balcony rooms were in darkness. Without thinking, he reached out with his senses and focused on each room. The unlit ones weren't all empty. Their occupants were sleeping. The lit ones contained one or two signatures. A light sweet perfume of Lyran lilies came from one, carried down to him on the cool night breeze.
The princess.
Her room was distant from his, close to the rear of the palace, near to where he was now in the garden. He knew it was her. Her scent was unique in the castle and had stayed with him all day. He stared up at her window, a part of him willing her to come out onto her balcony. He had read Terran literature about a star-crossed match and their tender balcony scene. He had read a lot about love in an effort to understand it.
Looking back at the moons and the myriad of twinkling stars, Regis took a deep breath of night air that filled his heart with warmth and did something he hadn't done since his beloved mother and sister had died.
He sang.
Sophia sat cross-legged on her expansive bed, hungrily devouring the information in the computer pad about Varka that the emperor had given to her. Much of what she had read so far had contradicted that in the Lyran archives. Apparently, Varka Two rotated like her planet, with equal day and night across the sphere. It was the planet they were offering Lyra in exchange for her. The planet where her uncle had fought twice and almost died both times. Her family told her not to concern herself with such things, but she couldn't help it. She knew there was peace between Lyra and Varka now, but she couldn't forget their bloody history.
She paused and her breath hitched in her throat when she moved to the next page of information on the pad.
Varka Prime was stunning. The sight of it sent chills chasing over her arms and down her spine. The picture was of a city with beautiful pale cream towers decorated with jade and gold, or blue and silver. Intricate patterns of those colours surrounded the windows and doors, and adorned the bridges in the foreground. A wide river snaked through the city. Her eyes followed it into the picture and stopped when she saw a building in the centre of the city, high above everything else on a hill. A waterfall spilled from arches where the building met the hill and the water cascaded down into the city. Flying buttresses supported its tall spiked towers. She had never seen anything so beautiful. It even surpassed her Uncle Balt and Aunt Kayla's home on Lyra Five. It was breathtaking.
Sophia eagerly read the passage of text below it and frowned when she realised that the building was the emperor's palace.
Her frown increased when a lilting male voice drifted through her window, singing in a language she didn't recognise. She tapped the translator in her ear and wondered if it was working. The song was beautiful, so soft and melodious that she needed to hear it clearer. She slipped from her bed, leaving the computer pad there, and crossed her room to the balcony.
The sky was stunning tonight, the moons shining so bright that they lit the world in silver. She looked down at the garden and her frown melted away when she saw who was singing. It couldn't be. The Count of Sagres?
Her gaze followed him as he walked slowly through the garden, seemingly oblivious to everything, even her.
His song was like that of the Sonaran, a mythical sea creature that lived on Lyra Seven, her system's outermost planet. Apparently, its song lured you to a sweet death. His song lured her.
Conscious of her bare feet and nightdress but not caring about either, Sophia snuck through the palace and out into the garden. She needed to hear it closer. She had never heard such a sombre but beautiful song.
Her footsteps were silent on the pale stone path that wound through the garden. She approached the count from behind, slow and cautious, remembering how the Varkans had reacted earlier today when she had moved too quickly. His hand drifted out to brush the pale blue rose heads as he passed and he raised his face to the moons. It felt as though he was singing to them.
He was stunning even in the low light, his uniform cut to show his figure. The jaw length strands of his black hair shifted in the breeze, the moonlight making them shine. She wanted to look into his eyes again, to see his handsome face.
The small white pebbles of the path near the fountain scrunched when she stepped on them and she lifted her foot, cringing at the noise. Too late. The singing had stopped and she could feel him looking at her.
"Please, don't stop," Sophia said and smiled her apology into his eyes. "Continue. Do continue."
He shook his head, the jaw length dark ribbons of his hair moving with the motion. In this light, he looked even paler and his eyes were pools of midnight.
"I apologise for disturbing you, your highness." His voice was as deep and smooth as she remembered it from his introduction, its echo no longer startling her. The sound of his voice sent her insides trembling in a strange way.
"You weren't, really you weren't," Sophia said and stepped forwards, her brow furrowing as she tried to convince him to continue. If anyone had disturbed someone, she had disturbed him. She shouldn't have come down. She should have known that he would stop if he realised someone was listening. A frown crossed her face when she realised that the translator wasn't broken. She could understand what he was saying. Had he been singing in a language that the device didn't recognise? "It was beautiful, although I couldn't understand it. Was it a song for the moon?"
He smiled, sending her heart pounding. "A song for a goddess, sung in the old language as it should be."
Her cheeks flushed.
"I am sorry," he said and stepped up to her, holding his hand out. "I have not properly introduced myself. Regis, Count of Sagres."
She placed her hand into his and his thumb closed over her fingers. His gaze held hers. Regis. A count. She hadn't found anything about the societal structure of the Varkans so far. Was a count high up in court? Her cheeks blazed again when she realised that he wasn't letting go of her hand.
"I've been reading about Varka," she said to break the silence and his fingers left hers.
He held his hand out to one side and she started walking with him, nerves fluttering in her stomach. She hadn't asked the emperor anything about his species. They had only talked about the glory of Varka and the things that she would gain from marrying him.
"Is it true that one of the planets in your system rotates?"
He nodded and placed his hands behind his back, locking them in the curve above his backside. "It is. It is uninhabited for that reason."
She frowned. "Why?"
"Because we cannot bear the light for too long, and the Wraiths cannot bear the darkness. We occupy only the planets that keep one face to the sun."
"What side are the Varkans from?" She glanced at him, her gaze tracing his noble profile and committing it to memory. He was a count and he travelled with the emperor, which meant that he had to be important. But would he be important enough for her father? In her heart, she knew that her father intended her to marry someone of a higher rank---a prince, a king or an emperor. She hoped with that same heart that she could change his mind and make him see that she had to marry for love, had to marry a man who she had feelings for, or she would never be happy.
"The side of darkness, as I am certain you suspected," Regis said, drawing her out of her thoughts and bringing her attention back to him.
She nodded this time. He seemed at home in the dark and all of them had made it clear they were uncomfortable with the bright Lyran sun.
"Is it always dark? I saw a city in a picture. It had looked like evening there."
"The dark side we live on is freezing. We have built a series of interconnected shielded cities where a dim day is artificially created and the temperature is controlled." He looked up at the moon.
Varkan technology sounded as amazing as her uncles and father had told her it was.
"Is it always so dark though? It looked like night was falling."
"It is set to a preferable brightness, otherwise it hurts our eyes."
"It looks too dark to me." She looked up at the moon he seemed so fascinated by. Or was it moons? Did Varka Prime have only one, or none at all? She hadn't read anything about it.
Her eyes fell back to him. She had never met a man as handsome as he was. There was such beauty in his features, such elegance, but there was strength too. His whole air spoke of it, of power and authority. It stirred her blood and made a warm feeling settle in the depths of her chest. She would give anything to have him command her, to have his demanding lips on hers and his hands gripping her with all of his strength.
"When you marry the emperor you will live on the dark side. You will need to become accust---"
"Marry the emperor?" Sophia interjected, stunned to a standstill by what he had said.
He turned and looked at her, a single dark eyebrow raised in intrigue at her outburst. She didn't care if it wasn't very princess-like to speak in such a fashion.
"That's a little presumptuous," she continued with a glare. "I'm never leaving Lyra and I'm certainly not going to marry your emperor."
His dark eyes narrowed as he frowned. "Why not?"
There was an edge of malice to his tone that she didn't like. Suddenly she could sense his feelings and they were all anger. Had she offended him with her rejection of his emperor?
"I don't love him!"
His frown didn't shift. "What does love have to do with breeding?"
Her eyes widened and she stared at him, unsure what to say and wondering if he really had just said that.
"Breeding?" Mortified, she trembled on the brink of unleashing her own anger but clenched her fists instead, desperate not to do anything that would disturb relations between Varka and Lyra. This man was a count and the first attendant to the emperor. He could have power enough over the emperor and his species to sway them into war with Lyra. She bit her tongue but it was no use. She couldn't stand there and let him say such things about her. What sort of picture had he made of her in his mind? What kind of person would marry purely for the sake of breeding? "I ... I won't marry someone that I don't love."
It was his turn to look shocked but there was something else in his eyes that didn't quite match his expression.
She reached out to his feelings, trying to discern them. The anger had gone. No, perhaps a little remained. Something else was crushing it though, consuming him. Some sort of upset. She couldn't quite tell what it was.
"What is love that you place such great importance on it?" Regis snarled and stepped up to her, towering over her in a menacing way that made her heart pound painfully against her ribs. His lips compressed into a thin line of fury.
What was love?
The question threw her long enough that before she could find an answer, he was gone, striding away and leaving a trail of anger in his wake that surrounded her and made her heart heavy.
What was love that she placed such great importance on it?
What sort of question was that?
Now that she was alone, she realised how cold it was and how numb her toes had become. She went back to her room, mulling over his reaction to what she had said as well as his question, and thinking about the fact that she had sensed his emotions when she hadn't be able to before.
Closing her door, she threw herself onto the bed and picked up the computer pad. The answer had to be in there somewhere. There had to be a reason for his outburst and the fact that she could suddenly feel him.
She would find it, even if she had to read all night.
Sophia peeked around the corner and watched with relief as her father disappeared into the distance, surrounded by guards and taking the dreaded emperor with him. She had told her attendants to inform the party that she wasn't feeling well and it seemed her father had decided to take the tour of the city without her. A fatigued smile touched her lips but quickly faded when she remembered what she had learnt by reading all night. She just couldn't believe it.
She had to find the count and find out for sure.
Her plan could have easily backfired. She had realised that as she had watched her father leave with the emperor. The emperor might have asked his attendants to go with him and then she would have had to find another opportunity to speak with the count alone.
She leaned against the wall behind her and wondered where he could be. The emperor would be gone for a few hours. The palace was so large that it could take her that long just to find the count. She had once spent a whole day trying to find her cousin, Amerii, in this place. They had kept missing each other by seconds. She hoped that didn't happen with the count.
Regis.
He had said that his name was Regis. And he had taken her hand. And his touch had been far warmer than she had expected.
With a sigh, she started her search, making sure to hide whenever someone passed, ready to pounce if it was him or disappear if it was her mother or a guard. She had sworn her attendants to secrecy and told them to stay in her room. She couldn't risk them revealing that she wasn't sick.
An hour into her search and she was beginning to wonder if the count was in the palace at all. Her feet hurt from walking in the delicate shoes her attendants had chosen for her and more than once she had almost tripped over the long skirt of her deep blue corseted dress. She could barely breathe in it now. Perhaps she should have convinced her attendants to choose something a little more suitable for an expedition. Trousers and flat boots sounded good.
Those two things made her think of Amerii again. It had been a while since she had seen her younger cousin and she wondered where she was in the galaxy. She was probably making a name for herself in the army, just as her father, Uncle Acer, had done.
Blindly turning a corner, Sophia started when she saw someone was there and didn't relax even when she realised it was Regis. He stopped walking and stared at her. He still made her heart pound whenever she saw him, his beauty otherworldly and entrancing. He straightened his back, standing tall, his long black jacket emphasising his figure, and then his gaze shifted to one side. Sensing he was about to leave down the nearest corridor, she hurried to him.
"I never realised," she said, the words coming out as one. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. "I'm sorry if I offended you last night. I never realised that Varkans didn't know love."
It had taken her almost an hour to absorb that information and make sense of it. The thought that a species in the universe didn't know love seemed unbelievable. It was something that she had presumed happened to everyone.
"I want to know," he said with a solemn edge to his voice, his gaze not leaving hers. "I have studied it but do not understand it. I want to feel what it is that other species in this galaxy place such importance on ... but I never will."
The idea of that made her sad and she took his hand on impulse, squeezing it. He looked down at their joined hands, his eyebrows raised and eyes wide.
"Varkans must be able to love. You must feel attached to something. You must be capable of feeling it." Her own words sounded stupid to her ears. Her heart told her that he would know if he could feel love. Someone on the Varkan planets would have felt it by now if the species could.
"What symbolises love?" He moved closer to her, his fingers closing around hers. He raised her hand. "Does this?"
Sophia's eyes widened. "No. Maybe for some people. This is ... sympathy perhaps."
"What symbolises love to you?"
She stared at the floor, at their feet only inches apart. She could see herself in the reflection on his black boots. What was love to her? Her thoughts strayed to her parents.
"A kiss," she said with confidence and a smile as she remembered how her parents would kiss when they thought no one was watching. To her, a kiss was love. It held love or it had no meaning.
Before she could even squeak, Regis had grabbed her, dragged her into a dark room and was kissing her. Her eyes were wide as his mouth glided over hers, sending thrill after thrill chasing across her skin and buzzing along her nerve endings. She closed her eyes and hesitated for only a moment before clutching his upper arms and returning the kiss. His tongue brushed her teeth and she parted her lips to let it pass, her own coming to meet it. He backed her into the wall, his body against hers, the pressure of it making every inch of her burn with desire. No one had ever kissed her like this. It was intense, mind-blowing, and even though she knew that she should stop him, she couldn't bring herself to push him away.
She wanted to cling to him, to hold him and beg him to never let her go. She could kiss him forever.
Her tongue brushed his canines and she flinched at their sharpness.
His fingers closed around her upper arms, pressing in and gripping them so tight that it hurt. She wriggled against him but he deepened the kiss and pushed her against the wall so hard that she struggled to breathe.
A metallic taste filled her mouth.
Blood.
She couldn't breathe.
Her heart exploded with panic, thundering at the thought that she was running out of air and Regis wasn't letting her go. She released his arms and pushed her hands against his chest, trying to shove him off her. His grip tightened again and she whimpered in pain. His mouth didn't leave hers. She shoved him again, closing her eyes so tight that a tear ran down her cheek. With one final push, he stumbled backwards.
Sophia choked on the air as she breathed deep, her heart still pounding with fear.
Before she could say anything, Regis pulled her back into his arms, holding her so gently that it confused her. He said something that she didn't understand, a language similar to the one he had sung in, and stroked her cheek. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against his chest, too tired to fight him again. Her head felt light but heavy at the same time. It spun occasionally, making her legs feel weak. She had never been so frightened.
"I am sorry, your highness," he whispered into her hair, his fingers still caressing her jaw and hair. "I was not in control of myself."
Sophia coughed and drew another lungful of air as she thought about what he had said. He wasn't talking about the kiss. It was what had happened afterwards. It was her blood.
"Understand that I would never consciously hurt you," he said and she frowned.
Stepping out of his embrace, she reached out behind her and touched the control panel beside the door. The lights slowly came on.
Regis flinched away but not before she saw how red his eyes were. Crimson. Not the dark red they had been before. She continued to frown, wondering what had happened to him to make him almost hurt her.
He turned away. "Do not look at me like that ... do not look at me at all!"
Suddenly, he was gone. The window was open and the warm midday breeze was drifting in, tousling the long thin curtains and washing over her.
She hadn't even seen him move.
Her hand rose. Her fingers pressed against her lips. He had kissed her and it had been nice, more than nice, until she had cut her tongue on his teeth and everything had changed. He had changed. Her blood had altered him. Could this be the bloodlust that the books and computer spoke of? She'd thought it was just a figure of speech, something to sum up their violent nature in battle. Did it mean something else? She didn't understand.
Sophia went to the window and looked out at the bright square below, but couldn't see Regis anywhere. There was so many questions that she wanted to ask him. He had to be back in the palace somewhere. The Lyran sun was too strong for him without his visor. She was about to go to find him again when she thought the better of it.
He had told her not to look at him.
She had felt his shame and horror. A moment before she had broken free of his arms, she had felt his remorse. And before that, when he had been kissing her, she had tasted his hunger.
If she went to him now, while he was still feeling such muddled emotions, he would turn her away. She needed to give him some time alone. She needed to find someone else to answer the question burning within her.
Looking back out of the window again, she smiled when she saw her father walking the square alone.
He would answer her.
She took the quickest route down through the palace, unable to leap from windows like Regis. She had read Lyran Imperial Army reports that stated Varkans had strange abilities---a strength like no other species, bones that wouldn't break when they leapt from great heights, and an urge for violence that made them natural soldiers. She wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't witnessed it herself.
Coming out in the square, she looked around for her father and spotted him walking towards the garden.
"Father!" She ran after him, lifting the skirt of her deep blue dress so she didn't trip. He turned and gave her a smile.
"I see you are feeling better," he said and placed his arm around her shoulders. The sleeve of his loose pale blue shirt tickled her neck. She looked up into his near-black eyes and smiled at the concern in them. Her father had always made her feel better. "Although you are a little flushed."
Sophia touched her burning cheeks. It was Regis's kiss that made them blaze, not her phoney illness.
"Father, can we walk a while?"
He nodded and they headed in the direction of the garden. Sophia struggled for a while, trying to find the courage to ask her question. It was difficult enough to ask her father this. It would have been impossible to ask Regis.
"What are Varkans?" she said, voice trembling.
Her father sat down on one of the benches in a shady corner of the garden, ran his fingers through the strands of his black hair and then patted the spot beside him. He crossed his legs and adjusted his dark blue trousers. Normally her father didn't dress so informally but it was hot out today. A smile touched her heart when she remembered how they normally passed hot sunny days swimming in the crystal clear palace lake. Sophia sat sideways, facing him. His pensive expression unsettled her.
"You seem troubled by them." He cupped her cheek and his brow furrowed with concern. His dark eyes searched hers. "Is it the emperor?"
She shook her head, nerves churning her stomach.
"The Count of Sagres?"
Her eyes widened.
Her father laughed. "Your mother was right. The moment they arrived she knew that it would not be the emperor who captured your heart."
Sophia placed her hand against her chest and looked at it. "My heart? How can someone who cannot love capture my heart?"
She sighed when her father placed his arm back around her shoulders and pulled her close. It was comforting to feel the weight of it against her and his firm grip on her shoulder. It had been a long time since she had been a child, and since she had turned mating age, but it still made her believe that he wouldn't let anything bad happen to her.
"You must have noticed that it is difficult to sense their emotions."
She nodded.
"Varkans control their emotions to control their bloodlust. The species do not feed in the same manner that we do. Intense feelings bring out their bloodlust."
Her hands fell into her lap. Bloodlust. Was her father suggesting what she had feared, insinuating that Varkans drank blood for sustenance and that it affected them? When she had been close to Regis, she had been able to sense his feelings, but after she had cut her tongue and he had tasted her blood, his feelings had been so intense that she had felt them.
Everything he had felt, she had felt too.
She had never experienced another's emotions before, not like that. It had been overwhelming.
She opened her mouth to speak but her father raised his hand, silencing her.
"I do not think it is I who you should be posing these questions to. I will detain the emperor again so you may ask the right man for the job." He smiled at her when she gave him an unimpressed look and then rose and walked away.
The right man for the job. Her eyes scanned along the palace and stopped on the room she knew was Regis's. Perhaps her father was right. Regis was the one she should be asking, even though she was afraid to. He was Varkan after all. If anyone could make her understand the species, it was him.
Regis stalked his room, grabbing everything that he had unpacked only hours ago and tossing it back into the large cases on the floor. He was a fool for thinking that he could do this. His father would have been sorely disappointed with him if he had still been alive.
He paused by the window. The curtains and the tall windows were open. The world outside was still painfully bright, stinging his eyes enough that he thought about putting his visor back on. He didn't. He walked to the edge of the room, standing on the threshold of the balcony, and stared out at the city. He had never seen such a blue sky before. Sophia wore nothing but blue. Even if she did agree to marry Emperor Varka, it would be impossible to convince her to leave this place. She loved it as much as any Varkan loved their home world.
As much as he loved Varka Prime.
Although her skin was pale and her eyes and hair were dark like a Varkan, she was a completely different creature. She craved the sunlight while a Varkan needed the darkness.
With a growl, Regis unbuttoned his black jacket and tossed it onto the expansive bed beside his sword. Bare-chested, he walked into the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror above the marble basin. Dark red eyes glared back at him. He knew what she had seen when she had looked at him in that room. It was the exact reason his species were so secretive. Other species didn't understand their ways and their needs. When they discovered the truth about them, their view changed. His kind became something else entirely in their eyes.
Monsters.
When she had looked at him, she had seen a monster.
He hung his head forwards, grasping the edges of the basin for support, and closed his eyes.
He wasn't a monster.
Or perhaps he was.
He had almost killed her after all. Something with feelings, with a heart that could love as well as merely hate, wouldn't have done such a thing to someone so beautiful.
A knock at the door made him tense. His fingers tightened against the basin edges, threatening to smash the stone. He pushed away from it and went back into his room, throwing the rest of his clothes into the waiting trunks.
Another knock.
"I wish for no company, Van. Leave," Regis said, hoping the younger Varkan would do as he had asked. He had known Van since they were younglings together on Varka Prime and under normal circumstances would welcome his company, but not today. These weren't normal circumstances. He would leave a note for Van, the Count of Aeris, and then make his way to the ship. His friend would understand.
They knocked again.
Perhaps he wouldn't.
Regis's temper frayed when another knock sounded and he stormed to the door.
"Van!---" He yanked the door open and stared at the blank space were Van's face should have been. His gaze dropped almost a foot to a crimson-cheeked Sophia.
She smiled nervously and glanced along the hall in both directions.
"Will you let me in?" she said, the anxiety showing her voice and her beautiful dark eyes.
Regis stepped back to allow her to pass. She took a step and then stopped, her eyes widening slightly when they fell on his bare chest. Her cheeks darkened and she hurried past him and into the room. Closing the door, he watched her standing in the middle of his room, looking over his luggage. She turned to face him, her mouth open and shock in her eyes.
"You're leaving?"
He nodded. "I must."
"Why?" she said and looked away, back at the trunks.
"I cannot remain here." He went to his trunks and closed the lids. "Not now."
"Not now?" She took a step towards him, her dark eyes wide and entrancing. Each shy glance she had ever given him flashed across his memory, making his blood burn.
His gaze shifted to her neck and his hunger rose. The world became brighter as his eyes altered and he waited to see how she would react to the sight of them so vivid with bloodlust.
She touched her throat, delicate fingers caressing skin that he longed to devour and taste.
"You want my blood ... and you're leaving because of that?"
There was an incredulous note to her voice that amused him on some sick level. She didn't know what she was dealing with. Whatever she had learnt about his species and their bloodlust couldn't prepare her for the reality. The darkness and violence, the need, were things that were impossible to put into words that any but a Varkan could understand.
"I must." He turned away from her and pressed the dark pad on the front of the cases, locking them and registering his imprint with them so none but him could open them.
She huffed and grappled with the lid of one of the trunks, trying to prise it open, clearly wanting to unpack his things as though that alone would make him stay. Her efforts were futile but it didn't stop her. There was a sense of sheer desperation about her actions and her feelings. He could sense them as clearly as he knew she could sense his when he was close to losing control. One of her parents had more than one species blood in their veins. Perhaps her mother. It seemed likely that a daughter would receive her mother's gifts.
"Why?" Sophia said, surrendering her attempt to open his luggage. Her jaw was set tight, her lips beautifully compressed into a thin line that said she wasn't going to give up so easily. What was she fighting for so vehemently? Was this the true face of love?
Did she love him?
A voice at the back of his mind laughed and mocked him for thinking such ridiculous things. A princess wouldn't lower herself to marry someone she knew wasn't of royal blood. Their trip here would prove him right in that. No matter what she said, it was wealth, power and connections that she wanted from marriage.
Not love.
"Why?" she said and moved closer to him, seemingly unaffected by his half-dressed state now. He was under no illusion about her innocence. She had never been alone with a man like this before. Anger coloured her cheeks as much as the sight of his bare chest had. "Because you want to bite me?"
If only it were so simple.
"You do not understand," Regis said and walked over to the bed to retrieve his jacket.
Before he could put it on, she had crossed the room and had come to stand only a few feet away. The sound of her heart pounding filled his senses and he could feel the warmth radiating from her. She pushed a strand of her long black hair from her face and glared at him.
"Father says that Varkans control their bloodlust." She grabbed his sword off the bed and unsheathed it a little.
"What are you doing?" He grabbed her wrist but not before she had managed to run her finger along the blade.
His eyes widened.
He stared at the drop of blood as it blossomed on her finger. She held it up, her palm facing the ceiling so the drop remained perfectly balanced. His lips parted and his teeth sharpened. His heart thumped hard against his chest, faster than he had ever felt it beat before.
His breathing turned heavy as he stared transfixed at the tiny bead of blood. Fire consumed him and a desire for violence was born in its midst. He trembled as he held her wrist, his fingers tightly closed around it, aware that he was probably hurting her but unable to care at that moment. He was lost. His mind raced forwards to imagine every possible outcome of this moment. A wave of bloodlust stronger than he had ever experienced hit him and he could see himself killing all in the palace just to get to her, to have her all to himself.
He could see himself killing his friends.
Her family.
Everyone.
It was torture to see all that in one single drop of blood and know that if he tasted her, drank from her, the feelings he had now would increase in strength one hundred fold.
He would lose his mind.
"You can love, Regis ... you're just too afraid of how those feelings control you," she said and his gaze snapped to hers. "Well they control everyone. We're slaves to them too."
His breaths shortened as the hunger rose.
"Is it just blood making you lose control?" she whispered, sinful and tempting as the blood itself. "Or is it my blood? Is it me?"
He frowned at her. Was it her or her blood? He had been battling for control over himself from their first meeting in the square. He hadn't smelt her blood back then. He had only smelt her perfume of Lyran lilies.
"I'm not afraid, Regis," she said and removed his hand from her wrist. Entranced, he stood there, watching with a sense of inevitability as she raised her hand and the precious drop of blood towards him, knowing he wasn't strong enough to stop her. "Not of love or these feelings. Not of you or your hunger."
She wiped her finger across his lower lip, smearing it with the rich taste of her blood.
"Tell me that you didn't want me before you had a taste." Her voice was a sultry whisper that made him realise that she didn't know how dangerous what she had done was. He couldn't control himself any longer. "Tell me that you didn't feel something that night we spoke in the garden."
He shuddered and licked his lip. Bringing his hand up, he touched his mouth and then brought it away. His fingers shook, paler now than they had been. He couldn't control himself and he wished for her sake that he could.
He frowned and tears filled his eyes, hot and rebuking.
Was this love?
This desire to protect her, even from himself, even when he knew that he wasn't strong enough?
"Tell me that you didn't want to kiss me and I will believe that you cannot love. I will leave."
He stared at her.
"I wanted you the moment I saw you." He grabbed her around the waist and crushed her lips with a kiss so consuming it felt impossible to sate. His tongue thrust into her mouth and hers came to meet it, tangling and gliding against his in a way that stirred the fire in his blood. He growled, picked her up, and continued to kiss her as he lay her down on the bed, only half-aware of what he was doing.
She moaned on contact with the soft bed and he ground his teeth, closing his mouth and struggling for control. Her hand came up to caress his cheek, bringing the scent of her blood with it. It was too much, too intense. It shattered what little control he had retained and sent him over the edge.
He poured all his hunger and need into his kiss, claiming her mouth for his own just as he longed to claim her blood and her body. The feel of her delicate warm fingers stroking his cheek drove him on, luring him into enacting all the sinful thoughts running through his mind. He closed his eyes and fervently kissed her, his body hardening as her tongue caught his teeth and a flood of sweetness filled his senses. Her hands lowered to his arms as he devoured her mouth, seeking out every molecule of blood, desperate to taste each one. Her fingers flexed around his muscles and then held them tight as her body went rigid and a moan escaped her. He groaned at the feel of her body brushing his, stirring his desire until a red haze fogged his mind.
He needed her.
She didn't protest or put up a fight as he dragged the skirt of her dress up to reveal her legs. He broke off the kiss and stared down at their long shapely forms, the sound of her heartbeat and her rapid breathing filling his ears. With a growl, he grabbed her and pushed her up the bed, so he was level with her hips. He pushed her dark blue skirt away and ran his hands over her thighs. She shook beneath him, trembling in a way that his body matched as he stared wide-eyed and open mouthed at her bare legs.
He wanted her.
She would be his.
Every Varkan would know it.
With a snarl, he sunk his fangs deep into her thigh and sucked hard, pulling a mouthful of her blood and then swallowing down the sweet nectar. She shrieked and her hands grasped his shoulders, shaking with the pleasure he could sense in her. He drank deeper, lost in the haze and his need. One thought pounded his skull as he clung to her legs and held onto her.
She was his.
A loud banging disturbed his solitude, his moment, and he raised his head. Seven signatures on the other side of the door. All meat. All dead. He roared at them, a warning for them to leave before they met their deaths. They banged again and ordered him to open the door.
Sophia muttered something, her eyes closed and face flushed with desire. The scent of it filled the room, suffused his senses along with that of her blood. He growled at the thought of their moment being disturbed, at the thought of those men daring to intrude and interrupt her pleasure.
Kneeling on the bed, he narrowed his eyes on the door.
He roared.
"In the name of Iskara and the King of Lyra, open up!" several men demanded at once.
Addled by the blood, Regis grinned. He would open up. He grabbed his sword and unsheathed it. He would open up and then he would open them up.
He ignored Sophia's feeble protest as he left the bed and stalked towards the door, intent on protecting what was his.
The weird dizziness and warmth evaporated in a heartbeat when Sophia realised that Regis had opened the door. Tall burly armoured guards poured in and she screamed as she raced to cover her legs and sit up. Regis roared and she reached out to him. Kneeling on his bed, she could only watch as he fought the guards, his eyes blazing red and his mouth bloodied. Her blood. She flinched when he blocked one of the guards' blades with his bare arm and it sliced into it. She had done this to him. She had made him lose control.
She reached out again, desperate to speak but unable to find her voice. He ran one guard through, gutting the man, and roared as he attacked the next. What had she done? She hadn't meant for it to turn into this, for it to go this far.
Her heart ached when the guards finally disarmed Regis and piled onto him, pinning him down. She couldn't watch as they carried him away, didn't want to hear his shouts of protest. Even though he was speaking the old Varkan language and she couldn't understand the words, she knew that he was angry. She could feel his outrage and his hunger.
Sophia didn't understand why he felt those feelings though. Was it because of her? Was he angry at the disturbance? She had been, at least at first. She sat in silence in the empty room and lifted her skirt. Her fingers traced the neat set of red marks on her flesh. They didn't hurt. The whole area felt numb. In fact, she felt numb. Her initial anger at the guards' arrival and Regis stopping biting her had faded to guilt and misery.
She had driven Regis into biting her and now the guards had probably taken him to the palace cells. Her father would probably have him killed.
It was all her fault. She touched the mark on her thigh again. It had felt so good though. She had tried to keep quiet but it had been impossible. The wave of pleasure and sense of connection to Regis had been overwhelming, sending her out of her mind.
The door opened and she covered her leg, smoothing her dress down over it. She frowned when she saw it was her mother and turned away to stare at the window. Night was falling. How long had she been sitting here thinking about what she had done?
Her mother sat beside her and placed her hand over hers. It was comforting, warm, and made tears fill her eyes as she felt she no longer had to be strong. Her mother would understand. Her mother would never be angry with her, not about anything, and certainly not about something concerning love.
Sophia sighed. She had been such a fool and where had it got her? She had convinced Regis to lose control and she still hadn't been able to discern whether he felt love. His feelings had been so strong and, while there had been a connection to him, and she had felt tenderness and devotion within his emotions, she hadn't felt anything that she could distinguish as love. Now, Regis would pay the price for her mistake. He would be punished, not her. It should be her.
"What will happen to him?" she whispered, staring at her mother's hand where it covered her own. She could feel her mother's sympathy and understanding.
"They are holding him in the cells for now," her mother said and Sophia forced a smile when her mother brushed her hair behind her ear. She didn't want to think about her appearance. It was probably obvious what had been happening in this room before the guards had burst in.
No, they hadn't burst in.
Regis had gone to fight them.
She had felt his need to protect her.
"Will they kill him?" Her voice trembled and she looked up into her mother's dark eyes. Sometimes, it was as though she was seeing herself in the future. They were so alike. Perhaps that was why her father doted on her so much and tolerated her sometimes wild ways. "I have to speak to father and tell him not to kill him."
Her mother's grip on her hand tightened, stopping her from leaving the bed. She looked back at her.
Her mother laughed. "Do not be so overdramatic. They are only holding him because he is trying to kill anyone who goes near to him, even his kin. Your father asked me to take you down there. The Varkans believe that he will calm down if he sees that you are not harmed."
Sophia frowned. "Will they take him away?"
Her mother's eyes widened.
"You've fallen for him!" she said with a strangely serious expression, one that unsettled Sophia.
She blushed. "It's pointless. He says he can't love."
"I know love when I see it and can feel it," her mother said on a laugh.
"Feel it?" Sophia said and clutched her mother's hand. "What do you mean, feel it? I can't feel it. I tried ... this is all because I tried to see if I could feel that he loved me."
"Love is not one feeling that you can sense, child," her mother said with a sigh and smoothed her hair, pushing each rogue strand back into place. "It is the culmination of many feelings. It is something you have to see with your eyes. That boy ... no ... man, very definitely a man, loves you or he would not be shouting your name from the cells."
"He is?" Sophia said, unable to believe what her mother was saying.
Her mother nodded. With a grin, Sophia stood and raced from the room, running for the cells. She held her skirt high so she didn't trip as she bounded down the steps that led into the dungeon beneath the palace. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness and then she rushed on. Her heartbeat quickened when she heard Regis. He was shouting something but she couldn't understand it. The old language again. Other voices joined his as she followed it, trying to find him.
She skidded to a halt when she turned a corner and saw a row of men stood in front of one of the cells. She raced over and pushed her way through the guards, coming out beside her father and the emperor. The Count of Aeris was pinned with his back against the bars, Regis's arm across his throat. Regis snarled, his eyes still bright red even in the darkness, and went to bite the count.
"Stop!" she screamed.
Regis froze and looked up at her.
"Beauty has timing at least," the Count of Aeris drawled and she gasped when she saw the blood on his cheek and throat. "Although you might have come quicker to tame your beast."
Regis snarled and released the count. She went to help the count but stopped when Regis roared. It froze her blood and she tensed.
"It is not wise to anger him," the Count of Aeris said as he got to his feet and rubbed his neck. "Soothe him. Bring him back to us."
She stared at him and then at Regis. "I don't know how."
Emperor Varka stepped forwards and Regis growled again. "Speak with him. He has been calling you."
"But he'll speak in that old language won't he? I don't understand---"
Regis reached out to her and she realised that she didn't need to understand anything he said, she could feel it all in him, every emotion behind whatever words would leave his lips. They would tell her what he wanted to say.
She stepped up to the solid steel bars. Varkan steel. All the bars of the cells at this end of the palace were Varkan steel. It was supposedly indestructible, even to the species who mined it. They had placed him here because they knew he wouldn't be able to break out. He growled and reached for her again, black claws scratching impatiently at the air.
Taking a deep breath, Sophia placed her hand into his and frowned when he drew her slowly to him, his grip so light that it stunned her. He closed his eyes and she walked forwards, following her hand. Silence filled the dungeon and she trembled as he leaned his cheek against her hand. It was strange to have such power over one so strong. Her presence alone had calmed his thirst for violence. Opening her hand, she furrowed her brow and touched his cheek. He was bleeding. Long thin lines cut across his face and his neck. The wound on his arm where he had blocked the guard's blade was deep, blood coating his forearm. His chest was marred with cuts and scratches, smeared blood. His blood.
"Who hit you?" she said, looking over his face again, and he opened his eyes and looked at her. He said nothing in response, merely leaned into her open palm and held it against his cheek.
"I have not enjoyed your deception and you have a lot to answer for," her father said behind her. She presumed he was talking to Regis.
Turning to look at her father, she pleaded him with her eyes. "Release him, father. It was all my doing. Punish me instead. I made him bite me. I'm sorry. Please don't hurt him anymore. I am a woman, and I can accept responsibility for my actions."
Tears streaked her cheeks and as the first sob broke free of her lips, Regis growled and pulled her against the bars. She closed her eyes as she felt his arms around her and a strip of his chest against her cheek, edged by cold steel where the bars pressed in.
"No one will be punished," her father said and she smiled. "But there will be some explaining to do once the Count of Sagres is calm."
She blinked away her tears as her father turned to the Count of Aeris and Emperor Varka.
"Take the Count of Sagres to his room."
A guard near the cell door opened the lock and the door slid open, forcing Regis to release her. The moment the door was out of the way, he grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her so close that she couldn't help smiling. He still wanted to protect her.
The Count of Aeris tried to get her free but Regis clawed at him, making it quite clear that he wasn't going to leave her. She looked at her father to see him standing with his arms folded across his chest and a grim look on his face.
"Can I go with them?" she asked.
An amused smile touched her father's lips and she frowned.
"You are much like your mother in matters of love. When I saw you enter this universe thirty Lyran years past, I had a thought that you would be like me, but I see now that you have grown into a woman as headstrong and wilful as your mother, willing to sacrifice yourself for one you love," he said and she blushed and dropped her gaze to the floor. She had never thought of herself like her mother in personality as well as looks.
"Perhaps there is a little of you in me too, father, for I was willing to run away to avoid an arranged marriage."
He frowned. "My sweetest daughter, you did not believe that I would give you to a man whom you did not wish to marry?"
"I thought perhaps you might, if they offered the right things in exchange."
"Never!" He stepped forwards to touch her face but Regis growled and held her tighter. Her father smiled and shook his head. "I would have kept you for my own forever but I knew that you were lonely and desired to meet someone to call your equal, your love. Having found such a good match in my Terea, I thought you might wish to look beyond the sphere of Lyran society for your love. I only invited these suitors so you might be able to find someone you loved without having to leave ... foolish as it sounds ... here."
Sophia smiled. She didn't think her father was foolish for trying to bring the universe to her. She only wished that perhaps he had done it in a more tactful manner such as a ball or something where she wasn't meeting one species at a time. It had been the thought of a queue of them waiting for their time with her that had made her uncomfortable. It had made her believe that he wanted to give her to the highest bidder. She hadn't thought about the fact that he had kept her here and had continued to refuse her desire to travel while still granting her the freedom to do as she pleased.
"Forgive me?" he said and looked as though he wanted to put his arms around her.
Her smile widened. "Of course. Although, I never wanted to leave here. I still don't."
"You mean you'll refuse to leave?" The Count of Aeris stepped forwards, a frown marring his beautiful features. "Even if the emperor ... no ... even if Regis will marry you, you will not leave Lyra Prime?"
"Regis knows that I will not leave this planet. Lyra Prime is my home. What does it matter if I remain here even if Regis marries me?"
"It will matter a lot when Varka---"
"Van, that's enough," Emperor Varka said and she blushed with shame when she looked at him. "We will take the Count of Sagres to his room."
"I'm sorry about all this," Sophia said and tried to move but Regis was holding her too tight. "I think I might have to go too."
Her father nodded.
Taking Regis's hand to show him that she wasn't going to leave him, she started walking. He released her and followed, holding her hand so tight that she could feel her bones creaking. He was strong. He was incredibly strong. Yet she had brought him to his knees. She followed the emperor and count up through the palace, back to Regis's room.
"Emperor Varka," she said and the man didn't respond. She walked a little quicker to be closer to him. "Emperor Varka?"
The man turned to look at her with wide eyes and then smiled. "What is it, little one?"
They stopped outside Regis's door and she glanced at it and then looked back at the emperor.
"I'm sorry. I don't love you. It wouldn't have worked."
He continued to smile. It held a hint of darkness that unnerved her. Something about it, about him, spoke of intimate knowledge of violence and death. He looked like the royal assassins did sometimes when she chanced upon them in the city.
"Give the Count of Sagres more blood and he will calm down. We must call home to apprise them of the situation but will not be far away. If he loses control, we will sense it and come to you. Come, Van."
With that, he was walking along the corridor. She had expected more of a protest or perhaps disappointment. He didn't seem at all bothered that Varka's ties with Lyra weren't going to be strengthened through marriage. Perhaps he was only thinking of the money he could save and the fact that Lyra wouldn't be getting Varka Two.
She opened the dark wooden door and walked in, leading Regis to his bed. He sat down on it and she was relieved when she released his hand and he didn't make a fuss. She could sense him watching her, studying her every move. His feelings were still as strong as they had been when they were last in this room together, ebbing and flowing through him, through her. Looking him over, she sighed at the cuts that marked his pale skin, cutting over the contours of his muscles. No one had admitted hurting him. Had they all been guilty to some extent? Even his friend and the emperor? Even her father? She supposed they weren't to blame if they had hurt him in order to protect themselves. After all, he had been attempting to kill the Count of Aeris when she had arrived at the cell.
"Are you alright?" she said and touched his cheek. His blood red eyes never left her face. "I'll clean you up."
She went to the bathroom, unsure of what to do. She had never had to clean wounds before. She ran water into the stone basin until it felt cold and then wet a cloth with it. She returned to Regis and sat beside him on the bed. He turned to face her when she did and for a moment, his eyes flickered to her throat. Ignoring the spark of desire it lit in her, she cleaned his cuts, carefully washing away the blood, and bound the wound on his arm. She couldn't help noticing how fantastic his body was, or the white scars that marked his skin. He wasn't a stranger to wounds and pain.
Her gaze wandered his body until it reached his hands. They rested on his knees, relaxed but holding them. She could sense the tension in him, the desire to touch her. It seemed he was in control of himself, at least for now. She frowned when she noticed a black finger thick band that ran up both of his arms on the outside. She looked a little closer at it, fascinated by the intricate markings that created the line, markings that varied from slashes to swirls to what looked like symbols. Her eyes followed the black line upwards over his biceps to his shoulder and from there up his neck. They were beautiful.
Without thinking, she ran her fingers down the line nearest her, tracing it and revelling in the warmth of his skin. The marks were familiar but nothing came to her---nowhere she had seen them before or what they might mean.
Dropping the cloth, she took hold of his hands, one in each of hers, and then ran her fingertips along the marks, following both at the same time towards his neck. When she reached it, she caressed the line of his jaw and then brushed his lower lip with her thumb.
Regis growled, grabbed her upper arms, and pushed her onto her back on the bed.
Give him blood.
That was what they had told her.
Sophia shut her eyes when his mouth closed over hers, his kiss stealing her breath and setting her body on fire.
Give him blood she would.
Sophia stared at the ceiling when Regis's mouth left hers and he kissed a trail along her jaw and then down to her throat. She swallowed and lay sprawled out on the bed, ready for anything. Ready for everything. A moan left her lips when he kissed her throat and then wrapped his lips around it, sucking the skin. She longed for him to use his teeth.
She ached for him to bite her.
She would give anything to feel it again.
Involuntarily, her body arched against his, her thigh rubbing between his legs. He growled and sucked her throat harder, but still didn't bite her. She would surrender everything to feel it. Her birthright, her family, her blood. There wasn't anything she wouldn't sacrifice in exchange for him.
It didn't matter that he wasn't the emperor or that her species would gain nothing from the match. She didn't care.
She only wanted him.
She loved him.
Her eyes shot wide when he nicked her neck with his teeth and she shuddered along with him when he growled and sunk against her, his body half covering hers. Her hands swept up his arms and she clawed his back, lost in the glimmer of pleasure and the promise of exquisite ecstasy. His hand roamed down the other side of her neck and covered her right breast. She bit her lip and moaned her approval, hoping to encourage him.
They had told her to give him her blood.
She wanted to give him more than that.
So much more.
Regis growled again and shifted, moving to kneel between her legs. Sophia gasped when he ground against her and she felt his hard length. Her heart raced. She had decided to give herself to him but it still hadn't quite prepared her for the reality of it or the fact that he didn't seem quite with her.
She had thought perhaps that he would come around a little once he'd had a taste of her blood. Right now, he didn't seem at all conscious of the fact it was her.
Or was he?
"Regis?" Sophia whispered as he devoured her throat with kisses so intense that she yearned for his touch. They drove her wild with need and when he pushed his hand beneath her skirt and placed it over the bite mark on her thigh, it sent her out of her mind. She raised her body into the touch, into him, and threw her head back. Her breasts pressed against her corset, straining for contact with him. Her heart ached and thundered, begging him to relieve her.
He muttered something in her ear, his breath hot and sultry, his words carrying a promise of seduction even though she couldn't understand them. She longed to know what he was saying, what words he husked against her skin between kisses. He felt hungry, full of desire and passion as strong as her own. There was an aura of desperation around him, of hope and fear.
Her hips bucked into his touch when he pressed his hand against her mound, fingers teasing her through the material of her underwear. She willed him to remove the snug material, to invade her body with his own and take everything that she was offering him.
"Regis." As she uttered his name in sheer need, he ran his fingers over the front of her underwear and she blinked as she felt cool air against her. His fingers quickly followed it and she realised he must have used his claws to rent the material in two. She gasped at the thought of him touching her with his claws out and then relaxed when she looked at his other hand and saw his fingernails were normal.
Her eyes met his and she opened her mouth to speak but her words came out in a garbled moan when he slipped his fingers into her folds and drew wetness up to her pert nub and circled it. The feel of his touch was intense, mind-blowing.
Regis growled, a pleased smile on his face.
She had to stop him. She needed to know that he was actually in there, that it was him speaking to her and he was conscious of what they were doing. Her hands pressed against his chest but he didn't stop. His fingers slid lower and she melted into the bed when he inserted one into her slick channel.
"Regis?" She bit her lip and stared into his eyes.
They brightened, turning crimson.
"Shh, Sophia, before you turn me insane. I am already half there." He flashed her a smile that was all sharp fangs before burying his face in her neck and kissing it.
At least he was still with her, even if he was on the verge of losing control again.
He needed blood or, well, she didn't know what he would do or how violent he could become. The others had told her to give him blood to calm him down. Taking hold of his other hand, she brought it up to her neck and then remembered that his claws were retracted and she really didn't want them out again when he was touching her down there. She had to cut herself though. She had to convince him to bite her and take her blood before he lost control. She could feel that he was slowly regaining a sense of awareness about her and his surroundings. She didn't want him to lose that again. She wanted to make love with him, not have him lost in a haze of bloodlust as he had sex with her.
His finger moved inside her and all reasonable thought left her. She gasped with each plunge of it into her core, each smooth slide that sent sparks of hunger gathering in her abdomen. She writhed against his hand, moaning into his ear and desperately trying to retain a sense of cohesion within her thoughts so she could figure out a way to make him bite her.
He thrust against his hand where it covered her mound and the solution dawned on her.
He wanted to bite her.
She didn't need to make him.
She only had to let him know that she wanted it too.
There was something else that she wanted first. She wanted this torture to end and him inside her. Her hands skimmed down his back to his buttocks and she slid them around to the front of his trousers. He lightly bit her neck as she undid the front ties of his trousers and her heart thumped hard against her chest when she swallowed her nerves and slid her hand inside. The feel of his hard shaft in her hand was electrifying. She licked her lips as her mind raced to imagine it inside her, stretching her body and making it his. She ached for that moment.
He ground his length against her hand and she instinctively wrapped her fingers around it, gripping it. A groan left him when he thrust again, his length pushing through the tight circle of her fingers. His tongue traced a line along her throat that left her tingling. Insensitive. Was this why the patch around his bite mark on her leg felt numb? Could he anaesthetise the area that he was going to bite? It explained how she hadn't felt any pain earlier when he had bitten her thigh. She had felt only pleasure.
His finger slid free of her body and he removed her hand from his length. She swallowed her pounding heart as he moved between her legs and the head of his shaft pressed into her. Closing her eyes, she waited with bated breath. It was torn from her throat in a deep sigh as he pushed into her, filling her body with his own. She licked her lips again and clung to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pushing her fingers into his hair. He thrust into her, slow and deep, taking her out of her mind as her body hummed and tingled with each plunge of his length. He moaned against her throat and then growled. Before she could even think about reacting, his fangs penetrated her neck and he pulled on her blood. Her entire body arched into his as a wave of heat crashed through her followed by a shockwave of pleasure. This time, she bit back the scream as she climaxed.
Regis growled and continued to thrust into her, drawing on her blood at the same time. She held his head to her, not wanting him to stop drinking. He didn't. He drank deeper, biting hard enough that she felt it this time. It hurt, but the intense feelings of arousal and desire that it brought with it made the pain seem a small price to pay. His hand went to her breasts and he growled into her throat as he sliced the front of her corset open. She gasped at the cool air as it washed over her body and then at the feel of his bare chest against hers. She wished they were fully naked, but didn't want him to leave her. She wanted him to stay inside her. Wanted to feel him.
He thrust deeper inside her and she raised her pelvis up, drawing a moan from him. His drinking slowed but remained deep enough that her head spun with each mouthful he took from her. Her thighs trembled against his as warmth coiled tight in the depth of her stomach again. His pelvis slammed against her clit with each frantic plunge of his length into her and before she knew what was happening, heat exploded through her again. Her body convulsed around his, milking his shaft and this time sending him crashing over the edge with her. He jerked up hard inside her and shuddered as he spilled himself. Her harsh breathing was joined by his own as his fangs left her throat and he licked the wound, pressing kisses against it occasionally.
Her eyes widened when he rolled onto his back, taking her with him so she was lying on top of him, and then closed when he wrapped his arms around her. She drifted off to sleep as Regis whispered words to her that sounded a lot like the song he had been singing to the moons.
Sophia sighed as she woke and then smiled when she saw Regis lying beside her, half dressed and looking as wanton as she probably did. She reached out to push the long strands of his black hair away from his face so she could see it better and then paused as it hit her.
She would have to marry him now. In her haste to have him, she hadn't thought about the consequences. She hadn't thought about protecting herself. He murmured something in his sleep and smiled. He had a beautiful smile. If they had a child, perhaps it would also have his smile. In a way, she hoped it would have his eyes too. Now that she was used to them, his eyes were stunning.
She brushed his hair away from his neck and ears, and smiled too as she mused what life would be like with him. Her smile faltered when she realised that she might not have a life with him. Her father hadn't consented to the match and Regis might not want to live on Lyra Prime. What if her haste had left her pregnant and Regis didn't want to stay with her? What if he didn't love her enough or still refused to believe that he could love?
He could. Her mother was right. Everything Regis had done had proven that he loved her. She had felt all the feelings in him, everything that she had been feeling herself. He couldn't deny that he loved her. Would it be enough to make him stay on a planet that didn't suit him though?
Or was her love for him enough to make her leave Lyra Prime for a world and a species that she knew hardly anything about?
A place where the brightest the day got was evening light?
Her fingers traced the black band of marks that started just behind his ear and followed them down his throat and over his shoulder. They were so familiar.
It dawned on her where she had seen them before.
They had been in one of the books from the palace library.
Pulling her clothes closed around her as best she could, she rushed from the room intent on reaching hers unseen.
There was something important about the marks.
Something very important.
She had to know what.
Regis smiled up at the hot Lyran sun through his visor. It warmed him to the bone but it wasn't the reason that he was smiling. He lowered his gaze to the garden and his smile widened as he saw Sophia. She was beautiful in her flowing sky blue empire-line gown, her wavy black hair tumbling around her smooth graceful shoulders. He laughed with her as she danced around, her smile broad and infectious. The laughter of the two small children joined theirs and he stopped to watch them again, fascinated by the sight of her and the younglings.
Younglings.
Their red eyes told him that they were Varkan. Or at least in part they were Varkan. They had their mother's beauty.
His younglings.
Their younglings.
He had never seen such a beautiful sight as her playing with them, never in his long years. A sigh escaped him and he allowed himself the moment of whimsy as he watched them. In this moment, he was no longer a commander of his people but a man with a family.
It was a beautiful dream.
No. It would be a beautiful reality.
Sophia turned and looked at him, waving as she laughed, the light breeze tousling her hair and dress.
She was a beautiful reality.
He flinched and gritted his teeth as something hit him. The dream slipped through his fingers as the pain came again and he was torn from sleep. He frowned as he opened his eyes and then smiled when he saw Sophia kneeling beside him on the bed.
"You utter sekta no uso cruskin nyaaeso!"
She hit him again with something rectangular and very hard. His head ached and he blocked her next strike with his arm, unwilling to be beaten up any more. His translator hadn't understood the last part of what she had said but judging by the thunderous black look in her eyes and the fact that she was beating him to a pulp, he deduced it wasn't words of love.
"You lied to me."
He understood that.
Sitting up, he placed his hands out behind him to prop himself in place and looked at her. The marks on her neck were deep and sore. He had been a little harder on her than he had hoped he would but the bloodlust had been too intense and he hadn't been able to stop himself from losing control.
"Lied about what?" he said, his head still reeling. One moment, he was dreaming about their future family and the next he was being hit with, he glanced at what she was holding, a book.
"You," she said and opened the book. She turned it to face him and he stared at the markings on the page. Perhaps some things about his species were better documented than he had expected. He hadn't let slip about these markings so it must have been his father or one of his other predecessors. With a sigh, she dropped the book and her shoulders slumped. "Why didn't you tell me?"
He picked the book up and looked at the drawing of the markings and then at his arms.
"Because I had to know," he said and closed the book, placing it down on the bed. He looked at her, at her sore eyes, and realised that she had been crying. Why? Was it because of what she had discovered or something else? His gaze lowered to her stomach and then darted back to her face.
"You had to know what?" New tears rose into her eyes and he longed to reach out and wipe them away.
Was this also love? This past day had been incredible. He had learnt so much, gained so much, and now he felt as though he was standing on the edge of the cliffs of Varka Three, one step away from falling to his lonely death. If he said the wrong thing now, if he couldn't convince her that he hadn't lied to her, then he would lose everything.
Without her, life wasn't worth living. Eternity would be a bleak darkness without this ray of light before him.
His own shoulders slumped as he realised that the Terran tale was true. He understood it now. Love was consuming, beyond mortal control. The star-crossed lovers had killed themselves---one because they believed the other dead, and the other because they woke to see their love had died. Neither had wanted to live without the other. Both had chosen death over life alone.
A decision he would gladly make should Sophia turn her back on him because of his deception.
"It was not easy. Please believe me, Sophia," Regis said and took her hand. When she didn't snatch it back, he took it as a good sign. This was all frightening and new. Never before had he been so scared that someone would leave him. Never had he relied so heavily on one person for his future happiness. "I desired to tell you at every turn, with every furtive glance you threw my way, but I had to resist and see what you would do. When you rejected the emperor because you could not love him, and when you sought my company, I knew that you were growing attached to me but I still could not dare hope or reveal the truth."
He sighed and squeezed her hand.
"Sophia, I admit that while we were en route to Lyra Prime, I decided to switch with Sirus and see what would happen. You have had many suitors and rejected them all. I wanted to spend time with you to discover whether you were only waiting for the right amount of money, planets or power to come along or whether it was something else that you were looking for."
"You lied."
He closed his eyes and raised her hand, pressing it against his cheek. He opened his eyes again and looked at her. The frown she wore was beginning to fade.
"Know that I did not mean to deceive you. I only wished to observe proceedings, hoped that perhaps I was wrong and there was something else you sought. When you admitted that you wanted to love your future husband, I wanted to rejoice and cry at the same time. You had chosen the one thing I could not give and I had begun to long for your company and the sight of your beautiful face."
A blush touched her cheeks and he stroked her right one with the backs of his fingers.
"But you can love," Sophia said and took hold of his hand. "I have seen it ... felt it."
"You have made me realise it." He squeezed her hand and sighed. "Although I fear you will no longer love me."
"It's foolish, but when I met you, I longed for you to be the emperor so I could spend time with you. I hated the emperor."
"Do you still hate the emperor?" he said with a hopeful look.
Her frown melted away and she sighed. A smile curved her beautiful lips.
"I'm an idiot, but I think I love him."
Regis smiled, warmed by her confession and the fact that everything was out in the open now.
Almost everything.
"Would you marry the emperor?"
"I don't think the emperor should talk about himself in the third person," she said and then frowned again. "Your name is Regis though, yes?"
He nodded.
"And the Count of Sagres bit?"
"Count of Sagres is the name traditionally given to me as Emperor Varka. It was a risk to use it, but it is not well documented."
Sophia stared at him. Regis was a count, and also the emperor. The man she had thought was the emperor wasn't the emperor at all. She couldn't believe this. It was almost as strange and fantastical as the thought that he couldn't love. She had wanted Regis to be the emperor, and it had turned out that he was. Was this the deception her father had spoken of?
"My father knows, doesn't he?"
"Does he?" Regis said with a frown.
"Down at the cells he mentioned a deception and that someone had to explain something. It must be this."
"The cells." Regis looked pensive, as though he was having difficulty remembering being there. "It is not clear. Perhaps he does. Everything between leaving you here and seeing you there is a blur."
"The bloodlust?" Sophia said and he nodded again. She stroked the back of his hand and then the start of the marks running up his arm. "You really are the emperor, aren't you? You're not going to suddenly announce that the Count of Aeris is the emperor?"
He laughed, although it sounded strained to her. "No. Van would make a terrible emperor. He is a better tactician than politician. He is the commander of our finest fleet."
"And the other one?"
"Sirus?" he said and lowered his gaze to watch her hand. "He is my first attendant and bodyguard. Although I do not need one."
She could believe that. Having seen Regis fight, she couldn't imagine anyone besting him if he was in control of himself. Her fingers followed the marks up to his elbow.
"Were you going to tell me?" she said with a frown, hoping his answer would be yes. She hoped that he had been intending to tell her sooner rather than later. She hoped that he would have told her before she had found out from her father.
"Were you going to tell me?" he countered and her frown intensified.
"Tell you what?" she said, unable to think of any secret she had withheld from him.
He lowered his hand to her stomach. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open.
"Varkans are very sensitive to female times of needing and pregnancies. A Varkan pregnancy develops quickly. A Varkan's ability to see the future of their family develops faster than that." He smiled and she was stunned to see the tenderness in it and the affection that filled his eyes as he stroked her stomach. "There will be two."
"How do you know?" She placed her hand over his, shocked by how sure he had sounded.
"I have seen them. A boy and a girl. Playing under the Lyran sun with their mother."
When he smiled at her, she wondered how he could have ever said that Varkans couldn't love. There was so much affection and love in his expression and in his voice.
She hesitated and then smiled. "Do they have red eyes?"
He nodded.
"I think I might be the first Varkan to ever say this." He looked nervous for a moment and cleared his throat. "I love you."
Sophia grinned and forgot that she had been angry with him. It was impossible to be angry with him when he looked at her like this, so full of devotion and love. She was about to throw her arms around him when she stopped herself.
"You saw us here?" she said, wanting to make sure that she had heard him right.
He nodded. "In the gardens."
"But you're the emperor of Varka. You can't live here and I've already made up my mind to leave with you. How could you see us here?"
"Perhaps because I had already decided to stay here. The dreams can change. I am willing to change with them. We could make both palaces our homes."
"Spend some time here and some on Varka Prime?" It sounded too good to be true. She knew it was a long journey between the planets but perhaps the Varkans could invent a type of space travel that would be even faster than sub-space. She could happily spend half a year on Varka Prime if she knew she could bask in the sun of Lyra Prime for the other half. If they were having twins as he said, then she wanted her family involved with them. She didn't have a clue how to look after children and everyone would be more than willing to help.
"Whatever you wish for, you will receive, my love."
Sophia threw her arms around him then and dragged him down to the bed. His mouth claimed hers and she sighed inside over his tender kisses and the fact that his hand remained against her stomach.
"Regis?" she whispered when he kissed down her neck.
"Yes, Sophia?"
"Will you lose control again ... if you taste my blood?"
"No, not now."
"Not now?" she said with a frown.
"Not now that you wear this," he said and kissed the mark on her throat. It was something she hadn't read anything about and now she wished she had so she could understand what was happening.
"Why not?"
He drew back and looked at her. "Because it tells everyone that you are mine."
"I'm yours?" she said, hopeful and wanting to hear him say it again.
"Forever mine and mine alone. No one will dare touch you." He caressed the marks on her throat and warmth spread out from their centre, suffusing her entire body. She closed her eyes for a moment to relish the feel of his fingers against her and then looked at him. "To bite someone's neck is the equivalent to ... well ... marriage."
"Marriage?" Her eyebrows shot up and she went to touch her neck but touched his hand instead. A jolt ran through her and she bit her lip at the sudden hunger that followed. She wanted to feel him against her, their bodies as one again. She cursed him for being able to make her feel like that from just a touch, for making her forget what she had been talking about. "Marriage?"
"There will be an official ceremony of course, both here and on Varka Prime. The people will wish to meet their empress. If you will have me?"
And she had been worried that he was going to leave her. She blinked, too stunned to form a response. He had already marked her as his but he still wanted to marry her.
"Are you going to talk to my father?" she said and he nodded again. "I think I should go with you and perhaps we should bring Van and the other one too. We might need all the protection we can get."
"Why?" He frowned at her.
"My mother will be there."
"And?"
It didn't seem to be sinking in.
"Well, you see, I already have ties to your species."
"You do?" His frown didn't shift.
"My mother isn't wholly Minervan. She's part Varkan. My father can feel things but it's strongest when my mother is with him."
His eyes shot wide. He paled to a shade of white Sophia didn't like.
"She will be able to sense the pregnancy," Regis said in a distant tone, his eyes bright but unfocused. Clearly, he enjoyed the idea of having to face her parents as much as she did.
"Your bags are packed and I have nothing I'd need to take with me," she said and sat up. "We could run away."
He sat up too and frowned at the luggage.
"No."
"No?" The thought that he might actually stand up to her parents made her squirm inside. She didn't want to start a war between Lyra and Varka and if Regis went to face her father alone, that might happen. Both of them seemed unduly stubborn. "Then let me go alone. My father won't deny me."
He looked uncomfortable.
There was a buzz over the intercom beside the door.
She tensed and looked at Regis.
"Open the door, Sophia," her father said over the intercom.
Regis stood and put his jacket on. She could only watch as he buttoned it and then did his trousers up and fastened his sword around his waist. He gave her a smile, swept the long strands of his black hair out of his face, and then strode to the door. She curled up on the bed and hugged her knees to her chest. At least they were both dressed. Perhaps her father wouldn't put two and two together. If he did, she prayed to Iskara that he made five.
Regis opened the door. Her father walked in and Sophia smiled until her mother stepped out from behind him. They both looked at her, their shock written on their faces.
Sophia opened her mouth to explain but Regis stepped between them.
"I, Regis, Count of Sagres, Emperor Varka, kneel before you," he said and unsheathed his sword and knelt in front of her father. She leaned forwards, anxious to see what he was going to do. He balanced the sword across both of his palms and lowered his head. "Your highness, Lyra I, King of Lyra, I offer you my sword."
"Your life?" her father said and Sophia started forwards but stopped when Regis looked at her.
The sword symbolised his life?
No.
"My life, in exchange for your daughter's," he said and looked up at her father. He raised the sword up, offering it just as he had said. She shook her head, afraid that any exchange he spoke of would be taken literally by her father. She could see the anger in his eyes and knew that both he and her mother had sensed what had happened to her. Her father would have felt it from her mother. "I willingly give my life for hers."
"Regis," Sophia whispered and reached out to him. Tears blurred her vision. She bit her lip and sobbed when her father took the sword and held it tight in one hand. "Father?"
She cringed and flinched away when he brought the sword down and there was a harsh thud.
Silence reigned.
"I do not understand," Regis said and Sophia opened one eye and then the other. Relief filled her swift and sweet when she saw that he was unharmed and that her father had buried the sword point down into the wooden floor.
"My daughter loves you," her father said on a sigh. "Enough that she has given herself to you. I cannot cause harm to one my daughter loves, not when it would in turn cause harm to her."
"Sophia," Regis said and stood. He held his hand out to her and she went to him, slipping her hand into his and holding it tightly. Her stomach fluttered with nerves as she stood before her mother and father with him. He turned to her father. "You will give your daughter to me, to protect from this day forward?"
Her father nodded. Her mother smiled wide and looped her arm through her father's.
"I give my daughter to you on one condition."
"Anything," Regis said.
"That you promise to love her until the end of your days, whenever those may be, and beyond them."
"I will always love her." Regis turned away from her father and looked at her. She blushed when he took both of her hands and held them, his thumbs caressing her fingers. "I will always love you, Sophia. I am no longer afraid of these feelings or how little control I have over them. For you, I embrace them and the fear they bring, just as you embraced it for me."
Sophia bit her lip and smiled when he pulled her into his arms. She rested her head against his chest and listened to his heart beating strong. Her heart. She had captured it just as he had captured hers.
She cursed her parents when she saw them still standing by the door and tried to shoo them away. Her father gave her a look that said he wasn't going anywhere.
"One more condition," he said and Regis looked at him. "Sophia is Lyran and will live many long years just as the rest of our species, but not as yours. Give her a wedding present when you are married in two night's time."
Sophia frowned. "Two nights?"
"Hush," her mother said with a knowing smile. Sophia couldn't believe it. If they intended for her to marry Regis in only two nights then they must have been setting everything up from shortly after she had spoken to her father in the garden.
"I will give her any present that she desires," Regis said and she smiled at him.
"Give her this one. Give her the aeturnalia solis."
Regis' expression changed to one so serious that she was dying to know what her father had said. She hadn't understood it. It had sounded like the old language that Regis had spoken.
"I will," he said and her parents left.
Sophia looked at Regis, eager to know what it was that she would be getting as a present. It sounded interesting but the look on Regis's face made her worry. She hoped it wasn't anything to do with him dying again. The thought of him leaving her was terrifying. She didn't want him to ever leave her side, and definitely not on her wedding night.
In two night's time.
Night.
She was getting married at night?
Evening at least. She wanted to see Regis's face during the ceremony.
"Regis?" she said as he wrapped his arms around her and the door closed. "What's aeturnalia solis?"
He brushed the waves of black hair from her face and smiled at her.
"Something I would have given you without his asking, but only with your permission."
"Permission?" she said and frowned.
"It goes with this," he said and stroked the mark on her throat. "Think of it as love everlasting."
"Love everlasting?" she said and then remembered what she had read about Varkans. "Or life everlasting?"
He smiled and cupped her cheek. "Both, for you."
"Love everlasting," she whispered as she stared into his eyes.
Eternity with Regis.
It sounded wonderful.
Taking his hand, she placed it over her stomach, holding it there, and kissed him. She wasn't going to leave this room until the ceremony in two night's time. After that, she wasn't going to leave Regis's side forever.
She smiled when Regis nicked her lip with his teeth and kissed her harder, stealing her breath away but in control this time, just as she knew he always would be from now on. Now that she was his.
Always.
And soon he would be hers.
Forever.
The End
Felicity Heaton is a great believer in love at first sight and the romantic ideal. Having grown up reading extensively, she developed a deep love of classical literature, ranking Jane Eyre, North & South, and Persuasion amongst her all time favourite reads. The most romantic moment of her life was when her husband got down on bended knee on the steps of Sacré Coeur, Paris, at night in front of several hundred spectators and proposed. She was too drunk on love, and subsequently champagne, to care about the audience. All she could see was the man that she loved. A writer of emotion and life, she always strives to touch a chord of familiarity in her readers and give them characters they can love and a read to remember.
Check out her stories: www.felicityheaton.co.uk
Upcoming stories in the Daughters of Lyra series:
Heart of a Mercenary---out July 5th 2009
Heart of a Prince---out August 2nd 2009
Heart of a Commander---out August 30th 2009
Heart of an Assassin---out September 27th 2009
Stories in the Sons of Lyra series:
Sons of Lyra: Slave Princess
Captain Lyra II, known as Balt to his family, is one of the famed sons of Lyra, the handsome princes with passionate hearts that every girl in the galaxy wants to catch. The second eldest son, he's content with the freedom and adventure that life in deep space and the Lyran Imperial Army offers him. What he isn't content with is the current situation he's found himself in. Not only has he been forced to stop at a backwater port for supplies, but he's leaving with more than he expected!
Kayla is a slave but can still vaguely recall what it had been like to be free. It's something she believes that she'll never taste again, and when she finds herself handed over like the piece of property she is to a complete stranger, a Lyran prince no less, she's convinced her life is about to get a lot worse. Taken onboard his ship, she quickly finds herself torn between fulfilling a promise she made to her friends when she was young, and falling for his chivalry and good looks.
Balt, not wanting a woman as his slave and not wanting to become the laughing stock of the admirals, intends to dump Kayla at the first decent planet he comes across, but as he starts to learn more about her, he finds it harder to fight his growing attraction to her. A passionate kiss from her only makes things worse. When Minervan mercenaries demand he hand her over, he discovers her true heritage and realises that things are more complicated than he'd believed.
Will Balt let her go, sending her into a life as a pleasure whore for the highest bidder, or will he fight to protect her? Will Kayla take revenge for her people, the Terrans, who were almost exterminated when Lyra destroyed the Earth system? Can love between a prince and an enslaved princess ever have a fairytale ending?
Sons of Lyra: Runaway Hearts
Heir Prince Lyra I hates his life, and it's only getting worse. Not only do Sebastian's parents force him to remain on Lyra Prime with them and control his life, now they've gone and arranged his marriage. Unable to stand the thought of getting married before he's seen the stars as his three younger brothers do and tasted adventure, he decides to run away. Only that's not as easy as it sounds when you're one of the infamously handsome sons of Lyra.
Terea needs to get away. She's had it with men and her family. When she spots a man who looks as though he has a little money, she sees her chance and pickpockets him. The only trouble is, he's quicker than her. Before she knows what's happening, she's been caught and is agreeing to leave the planet with him. Anything to escape Lyra Prime and her future there.
Terea's plan to escape Sebastian when they've left the planet behind is shattered when he cleans himself up and changes on her, losing his naive air and becoming a confident and dangerously sexy man. A bottle of the strongest alcohol available is her last resort, but getting him drunk to the point of passing out means she'll have to drink too, and before she knows what she's doing, she's sitting astride his lap feeding him the alcohol and kissing him.
When the ship is forced to stop and boarded by Minervan military looking for him, will Sebastian hand himself over to protect Terea? Will Terea stand by and let the man she's falling for get hurt or will she sacrifice herself and return to her family for the sake of saving him? Will two runaway hearts find the freedom they're searching for in each other's arms?
Sons of Lyra: Fight For Love
Lieutenant Lyra IV is as sinfully handsome and irresistible as his elder brothers, but the one woman he wants seems to be immune to his charm. Every man in his squadron is falling over themselves to win her. Literally. When the reward is getting to see her, not even he can stop himself from getting hurt in training every day. Losing feels like winning when he ends up on her inspection table, and the pain means nothing when she touches him.
Nurse Emmanuelle knows exactly what the devilishly tempting and handsome Lieutenant Lyra IV is doing and she's not going to fall for it or his attempts to make her call him by his first name, Remi. It's her duty to keep her distance and maintain a professional relationship with him, even if her heart and body is crying out for more.
When the fleet is called back to Varka Two where Remi almost lost his life, he can't waste any more time. This time, he might not make it back. A kiss that sets both their hearts on fire leads to more than he'd dreamed of, and makes both their feelings clear, but will it be too late?
Facing overwhelming odds, is Remi strong enough to survive the battle and return to Emmanuelle? If he ends up on her table again will Emmanuelle be able to save the man she loves? Will they win their fight for love?
Sons of Lyra: Stranded
Captain Lyra III is known for his vicious attitude and brilliance in battle. Second youngest of the infamously passionate and handsome sons of Lyra, he's a born leader and doesn't take no for an answer. Except this time. Acer is facing a future that seems like a nightmare, a future that has shaken him and made him realise that the one thing he truly wanted in life may have just slipped through his grasp---his engineer, Stella.
Stella fell for Acer the moment she was transferred to his ship by his brother, Captain Lyra II. A year on his ship and never being noticed by him unless she's done something wrong, she's come to accept that she won't be the one to tame this prince's passionate heart, but it doesn't make her feelings disappear and doesn't stop her dreaming that she might capture him yet.
Attacked en route to Lyra Prime they find themselves stranded alone in the middle of deep space and things reach boiling point when the climate control breaks down. Trapped with only each other for company, it's not long before the truth comes out about their feelings for each other and Acer's reason for returning to Lyra Prime.
When Stella discovers Acer is duty bound to marry a woman of Lyran aristocracy, she offers him a night to remember her by, but will it be enough or will it cause them more pain than pleasure? Returning to Lyra Prime, will Stella's heart falter or will she rise to the challenge and fight for Acer? Will Acer be able to find the strength to forsake his family in the name of true love?
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