Alien Savior: A Sci-Fi Alien Invasion Paranormal Romance (18 page)

Now the palace had been plunged into chaos and she was very probably caught in the middle of it.

Her and his unborn child.

The thought made him physically ill and he doubled his pace towards the holding cells. He would have the truth of this attack, and he would have it now. Their prisoner hadn’t truly encountered pain.

With no less than fifty soldiers at his back, Kael rounded the corner that would bring him to the entrance of the levels – and froze in place.

He was greeted by a scene from his worst nightmares.

Twenty Reman rebels stood in a line before them, blocking their path – and at the head of their formation was his prisoner; battered, bruised, and with one thick arm around his wife’s throat.

Kael suddenly felt weak, as if all his strength had left him.

Danielle was struggling, her blonde locks falling lank with exertion around her face. At the sound of their approach, she looked up, and her panicked eyes locked with his. For a moment, Kael lost himself in those eyes –felt the fear in them, and liquid fury coursed through his veins.

“
Zekhed Zender
.” He hissed the man’s name like a curse, his skin crawling at the sight of the man’s hands all over his wife. “Release the princess or die where you stand.”

Danielle cried out as the traitor only clutched her closer to him. “How are you going to kill me with your lovely bride in the way, your
highness
?” Zekhed sneered. “Though I’d love to witness your knife piercing her face, should you try. That would make my day.”

How on Earth had he gotten hold of Danielle? How had he escaped from a maximum security cell? Kael’s mind whirled with a thousand questions. He took a deep breath, trying to keep himself from rushing at the man. Such a thing could hardly end well for Danielle – and if he sent his men into combat, Zender could slip away with her. “What do you want?” He demanded lowly, fairly trembling with anger.

“What do
I
want? Now you want to know what I want, don’t you princeling? Now that I have what
you
want? Well, what if I want her dead?” The man withdrew a serrated piece of metal from his tattered shirt and held it against Danielle’s throat.

Kael’s heart was nearly ejected from his chest. He wanted to throttle the criminal where he stood, but he forced himself to keep calm. His anger could not help Danielle…
would
not help her.

“There is no need to spill her blood. We can…negotiate.” Not a word he would think of when discussing the Remans…but he thought of it now. He was willing to do anything to keep Zender from slicing Danielle’s throat - to give away half his empire…to travel to the third sun and back if need be.

“Oh, well now you sound like your bride. You know, she’s one for negotiation, this pretty little human. I tried to kill her…” Zender drew his knife taut against the skin of her throat. “And yet she would still speak to me. She came to me of her own free will, right? Did you know that?”

The prince’s heart stopped.

His gaze once more met his wife’s and the guilt he found there would have brought him to his knees in any other company.

She had left him…snuck away from him in the middle of the night against his express orders…just when she had told him how much she believed he could protect her and their child. The prince’s desolation flowed through him and he swallowed thickly, pressing down those emotions. He could not afford to feel them right now. He would be angry with Danielle- reprimand her later.

He would rather have her warm and safe in his arms, even furious as he was, then see her killed in this conflict.

“I’m sorry, Kael.” The young woman’s words were barely audible, gasped through the tightness of Zender’s arm around her throat. She had to be in pain, and yet still, she tried to make her apology. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I just didn’t want war…I didn’t want you…or anyone to die.”

Well now, there would certainly be war. There was no question of that. The only matter left to solve was what the war would be over: the death of a Garinian princess or the attempted assassination of the entire royal family?

“How touching.” Zender snorted, his makeshift knife now drawing a trickle of blood on Danielle’ pale white throat. “She doesn’t quite understand men like you and I, does she,
highness
? That we live for conflict. It is what breeds us…what separates the wheat from the chaff. You know, it was quite lucky that your little treasure stumbled upon me. Were it not for her, I didn’t think it would come to this. You handled the bombing with more grace than I would have expected.”

Now the man was speaking in riddles. Riddles Kael had neither the time nor the patience for. “Speak plainly.” He spat, his eyes flashing bright gold. “I’ve no time for games.”

“You don’t like games, princeling? War itself is the finest game there is to play, and everyone is a pawn. Here we are now, standing on the brink, and all I have to do is simply tip the scale…” A whimper escaped Danielle as he added further pressure to the knife.

“No!” The prince demanded, his voice on the edge of a plea.

“Kael!” He was cut off by his wife’s panicked cry. “Kael, don’t listen to him. Promise me that whatever happens…whatever he does…you mustn’t go to war with the Reman people!”

Her words hit him like a physical blow.

Was she mad? They were going to kill her. Did she have such conviction for her pacifist tendencies that she wouldn’t want him to avenge the death of their unborn child? Had she taken leave of her senses? “Kael, listen to me!” She choked, “These Remans...they’re a faction! A small minority! They’re rebels causing trouble. There are Remans who could cooperate with you – who would adhere peacefully to your rule, you only need to speak with them!”

For a moment, the prince couldn’t believe his ears. How on Earth could she possibly know such a thing? She was perpetuating ideas that she hoped to be true with her dying breath and denying the cold reality of matters. War happened – and this one was inevitable. It had been since the unrest in the wake of the first Reman conquering – since the first small skirmish on the borders of the empire.

…a small skirmish caused by isolated bands of Remans.

“Quiet, woman!” Zender jerked Danielle enough to draw a stream of blood and her mouth snapped shut, but he, Kael, could still read the plea in her eyes.

No war
.

In that split second, Kael remembered the details of their troubles with the Remans. Ambushes, small battles and instigations along supply lines. Uprisings not from women and children, but from young men - and always when they thought they had the advantage. They assassinated, blew up their own resources as well as those sent by Garinian forces, and seemed to have no method to the manner in which they attacked.

He…couldn’t have been wrong, could he?

What he’d believed to be the acts of the fragmented Reman military in the wake of the first war….they’d been the work of a specific terrorist group – one posing as the Reman army.

All in an attempt to restart the war.

To spread the proliferation of pain and suffering.

Garinia was an empire built on the spoils of war. Their cycles of battle and repopulation were written into the empire’s history – so much so that it had become a part of him.

That he had accepted the idea of the next war just as readily as he breathed.

But Danielle had challenged that thought. She’d encouraged him to find another way…to save the lives of even those willing to die…and he had refused her.

Now her life hung in the balance – and from his position, he was helpless to save her. The more he thought, the more he realized how plainly Zender wanted his plan to succeed. There had been complete communications darkness with the Reman government at Kael’s own stubborn command and the terrorist had used it to his advantage – to create an impetus for the ultimate conflict.

And now victory was within his grasp.

“It matters little what you say now, princess.” Zender spat, his smile wide and wicked. “What I want now is for you to say goodbye to your beloved husband and the end of peace. When your people find your lifeless body, they will rebel against this tyrannical system, and the Garinian Empire will began to fall apart at the seams. We will watch it all burn…and relish it.”

Zender’s arm tensed, and Kael could see the motion before he made it. A wide arc with all the strength of his arm that would slit his wife’s throat and spill her blood all over the palace floor as she bled to death.

She would die a political martyr, the human queen that had never been – and his son would die with her.

At that moment a wild cry issued from the open corridor to their right, ringing off the stone walls. Flinching, Zender looked just in time to snatch a knife out of the air – just inches from his ear.

Kael’s reflexes acted in seconds as he took his opportunity. He barked an order to his guards even as he let his weapon fly.

Several blades found their marks all at once; the guards’ knives piercing through the hearts of the four rebels on either side of Zender, while Kael’s sword embedded itself in the terrorists’ forehead – directly between his eyes.

As the man choked, swaying, his arm dropped – the knife he’d threatened Danielle with spinning away over the glossy floor.

At that moment, either side of the corridor erupted with Garinian soldiers, one column led by his brother Marc, and the other by Jalil. They were not warriors, but they had come to his aid.

As Zender dropped to his knees, his body lifeless, the Garinian soldiers engaged the rest of the rebels, and Kael leapt forward, closing the distance between he and his wife within seconds. Danielle swayed on her feet, blood leaking from the cut on her neck as her eyes fluttered shut, and he caught her as she collapsed into unconsciousness in his arms.

Her weight was warm and welcome, and he clutched her to him, trembling as he finally allowed himself to feel the emotions that had threatened to swamp him in the face of danger.

He could have lost her…and he would not have mourned simply because she carried his heir. He would have mourned because he treasured the way she smiled at him; treasured the way she scowled when he insisted that a queen must be more graceful…and he secretly adored the way she moved close to him in her sleep. He reveled in the stubborn jut of her chin when she argued, how she entered their chamber at night covered in dirt, and most of all…he admired how she stood for what she believed for even when it earned her the ire of her husband and prince.

She was brave.

More than brave enough to rule by his side.

And he would never take her strength for granted again.

Chapter Eight: Strength

She hurt.

Every single part of her body ached – and her throat felt as if it had been rubbed raw.

Coughing slightly, Danielle reached up to touch her neck, only to find the spot tender beneath her fingertips. Her eyelids felt leaden and heavy – and she had to force them open.

Even if the piercing white light beyond made her wish that she hadn’t. There was a split second in which her eyes adjusted to the brightness and she couldn’t see a thing. All she knew was that she felt awful…like she’d been run over by a steamroller.

Then, she remembered.

She’d been down in the holding cells, speaking to the prisoner that Kael had scheduled to execute…when a full scale attack had been launched on the palace. She’d been so intent on getting the information that she needed that she hadn’t noticed what was happening until it was too late.

The holding cells had been taken over by members of Zender’s terrorist faction – and they had released him…at which point he’d immediately taken her prisoner. Her death, he’d told her, could serve as a fine catalyst for the new war between Garinia and the Reman people.

The man was a monster. He deserved to die.

Danielle couldn’t believe she’d ever felt any pity for him.

He’d dragged her up to the main level of the palace, only to be confronted by the prince himself, and as Danielle had gazed into her husband’s eyes, she feared death for the first time in her life. When she had lived on Earth, there had been so many days she’d wished she could die…that dying would have been better than living on without those she loved.

But when she’d seen the panic in Kael’s eyes – the raw fear – she hadn’t wanted to leave him like that… believing he was the cause for her death.

But she’d been absolutely helpless. It had been all she could do to watch Zender bait her husband as he talked of how much he would enjoy killing her.

But now, Zender was dead.

It was the last thing Danielle remembered before she had blacked out – the man had seen a Garinian blade right between the eyes, and the corridor had been filled with noise as Garinian soldiers attacked from all angles.

And then she must have fainted.

As the ceiling of her chamber swam into her line of vision, she struggled to sit up with a low groan.

“You’re awake!”

She blinked, looking to the side of her bed to see Kaia sitting there attentively, with Hadric on her lap. The small boy was looking up at her as well, his eyes wide. As always, the Prince’s sister looked impeccable – not a single hair out of place. Her face, however, appeared paler than normal, and it was obvious from the wide circles beneath her eyes that she’d gotten little sleep the night before.