Daughters of Lyra: Heart of a Prince (6 page)

Tres’s eyes narrowed
slightly, a look filling them that made her heart race a little
quicker. His blue pupils mesmerised her, surrounded by inky black
irises and then the white of his eyes. The soft look in them warmed
her, soothed her. She didn’t understand any of what had happened
between him and the commander and she didn’t need to in order to
know that Tres had made a sacrifice for her sake. He had protected
her and her brother by giving in to the commander.

He had hurt himself
defending her.

She tensed when something
brushed her left cheek, cold but soft, and then tried to smile when
she realised that it was Tres’s other hand. He brushed his fingers
along her jaw line and his thumb swept across her cheek below her
eye, wiping away her tears. He smiled at her when he moved to the
other side, catching her tears with his fingers and taking them
away.

“
I believe you
are hurt worse than I,” he whispered back at her, his eyes never
leaving hers. She briefly closed hers when his fingers paused
against her right cheek, his touch light and tender. This was
insane. Here she was stuck in a cell on a Vegan military ship with
a man she barely knew and she was having what had to be the most
romantic moment of her life. She leaned into Tres’s touch, wanting
to steal every drop of comfort and strength from it as
possible.

He took his hand back and
she looked at him again.

“
My family is
coming,” she said, more to herself than to him. She needed to make
it sink in. Her family were coming for her. Rezic would be safe.
Everything was going to be all right. “Your family too, apparently.
You seem important to the Vegans.”

She studied his face,
trying to read his reaction.

“
My mother is
an important political figure,” Tres said and leaned his head back
into the wall behind him. He stared up at the ceiling and Renie
wondered if he was seeing it or the ducts. What would it be like to
have ocular implants? Could he see through anything? “My family
were probably looking for me and that is why the ship picked me
up.”

Renie’s eyebrows rose.
“Will they ransom you too?”

“
No.” He shook
his head and looked into her eyes. “As it stands, their treatment
of me will probably get them punished... but that all depends on my
mother’s mood.”

“
What do you
mean by that?” Renie said with a glance down at her hand where it
still covered his. It felt nice. Reassuring. She had never realised
that such small contact between two people could have such a
profound effect. It wasn’t the first time she had held hands, but
it was the first time it had deeply affected her, making her feel
strangely safe and sure that everything would turn out fine in the
end.

Tres frowned. “It means
that it may turn out that I am the one who is punished while the
commander of this vessel is commended for his actions in capturing
and containing me.”

“
Your mother
sounds frightening.” Renie managed a smile when he did. He had a
nice smile, although they were always closed lipped. She looked at
his mouth. The seam of his lips was dark blue. Did he have blue
gums? What colour were his teeth? He was so fascinating. She wanted
to ask him a million questions but held them all inside, sure that
he wouldn’t like her probing into his life and treating him as
though he was a science experiment.

“
She can be at
times,” he said and looked up at the ceiling again. Renie studied
his profile. His nose was perfectly straight and, for the first
time since meeting him, she noticed that he had a slight blue
shadowing around his eyes and that his eyelashes were like his hair
but in reverse. They went from black at the root to blue at the
tip. He suddenly turned his head to face her, his eyes meeting
hers. “What is your mother like? Will she be coming with your
father on the ship?”

“
My mother?”
Renie smiled as she thought about her mother and father. “No, she
probably won’t be with my father. It’s not that she wouldn’t want
to be with him when he came for me. She’s probably worried sick
about me and Rezic.”

She giggled.

“
Mother always
said that we’d get into trouble one day and father would have to
come for us.” Her look turned serious as she thought about how
scared her mother probably was, and her sister and brothers too.
Even her father was probably worried. Perhaps her and Rezic had
overstepped the mark by venturing so close to the Black Zone. They
only had themselves to blame and she didn’t know what she would do
if a war started between Vega and Lyra again because of
her.

“
You look
upset,” Tres said and she blinked and then looked at him. She shook
her head. “Worried?”

“
Are they
really going to ransom me and Rezic?” she said, needing him to tell
her again that everything was going to be fine.

“
They would be
fools to try. Vega would not condone such actions.”

“
You seem
terribly sure of that,” she said with a little laugh and a smile,
afraid that he was wrong. “The commander seemed rather intent on
getting his dues.”

“
And he will
get them, but it will not be from ransoming you.” Tres’s hand
shifted beneath hers and he held it tight. “Come, you were speaking
of your family. I wish to know about them. Is your mother
Terran?”

Renie frowned. “You know
who I am don’t you? You know about my family. Do you know who my
father is?”

He nodded. “I know of
General Lyra II, but I do not know about you, and... I would like
to.”

A blush blazed across her
cheeks and she dropped her gaze. Her eyes fixed on their joined
hands and her face only burned hotter. He wanted to know about her.
It was a strange notion. No one had ever really wanted to know
about her, but then she had never remained in one spot long enough
for someone to ask. Rezic and her had always been flitting from one
port to the next, heading deeper and deeper into space that was
sparsely populated.

“
My mother is
Terran,” she said after a moment’s thought. She wasn’t going to
deny Tres the chance to hear all about her family, not when it was
comforting to speak about them and to remember how much they loved
her and that they were coming for her. “She was a princess but no
one knew it. When my parents met, she was a slave. My father was
given her by a trader. His translator had broken and he didn’t
realise what was happening until it was too late. My father set her
free.”

Her eyes met Tres’s when
his hand tensed against hers. His were wide, staring at her with a
curious look that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Was he
thinking about their situation? Did he think that he could free her
just as her father had freed her mother?

“
Your father is
a very noble man and has a great reputation that spreads deep into
the Black Zone. All of the sons of Lyra are men to be feared. I am
learning that their daughters may be just as
formidable.”

Renie laughed.
“Formidable? That’s not a very complimentary thing to say to a
woman.”

Tres’s hand left hers. “I
apologise,” he said and frowned, staring at the floor near his
bench. “I have little experience of speaking to
females.”

“
But you have
your mother?”

“
My mother is
often in other quarters. I rarely see her.”

“
Oh,” she said
and a horrible feeling settled in her chest. Perhaps she shouldn’t
have teased him about his choice of words. He was only being nice
to her after all. She should have seen the good in what he had said
rather than the bad. His mother sounded quite formidable though.
“Don’t you have any other family?”

“
My
sister.”

There was a curt edge to
his voice that warned her not to probe any further.

“
I wish I could
speak to my parents. My mother especially. I’m sure that she would
want to come with father but he’s out in the region of
Perseia.”

“
He is closer
to us than he is to Lyra then.”

She looked at Tres with a
frown. “Are there star charts of my side of the galaxy in the Black
Zone? We have no charts of the Black Zone. They end at the line of
the Vegan barrier.”

“
Your space is
well documented,” he said and his hand came back to hers, his
fingers brushing her knuckles. His hands were still cold but she
didn’t care, not when it felt so nice and he looked as though he
was enjoying the contact between them. He seemed fascinated with
her hand. Perhaps it was warmth he was after. She hoped it was
something more.

The door to the cellblock
opened again and Tres’s hand left hers as he stood.

Renie took her hand back
and wiped away any remaining trace of her earlier tears before
looking up at the corridor of the cellblock. The other guard was
back. He had a blue dish filled with something. The guard that had
remained with them did something to a control panel near Tres’s
door and a small opening appeared at the bottom of the bars. The
guard with the food pushed the blue bowl through and then the bars
closed again.

“
Eat,” the
guard said and nodded towards the food.

Tres took the bowl and
came back to her. He gave her a small smile as he sat down and she
peered across into the bowl. It looked disgusting. Inside the blue
dish was a thick gooey clear mixture with some kind of pale red
strings in it. Tres stuck his fingers into the mixture and stirred
it. A blush of purple rose to the surface, rippling through the
clear. It smelt foul.

But she couldn’t stop
herself from watching Tres eat it. He scooped some up in his hand,
tipped his head back, and let it fall into his mouth. She caught a
flash of blue gums and white teeth and then he was swallowing. How
could he eat such a horrible smelling and gross looking
food?

Her stomach
growled.

She looked at the bowl
again and placed her hand over her stomach, trying to make it be
quiet. It grumbled again as Tres ate another mouthful of the food.
The more she looked at it, the more her stomach rumbled and the
more appetising it looked. She was starving. It had been a while
since she had eaten. Two days or possibly more. She didn’t know how
long she had been unconscious.

When Tres was halfway
through, he stood and went back to the door of his cell.

“
Give the rest
to her,” he said.

The guard looked
unimpressed. “Our orders were to make sure you ate.”

“
I have eaten.
Now I am full. I wish for you to give the rest to the princess. If
she is ill when her family come, your chances of receiving the
ransom will be zero.”

The bars at the bottom of
the cell door lifted. Tres put the bowl down and slid it through
the small gap. The guard took it and Renie moved towards the door
when a small area of the light bars disappeared. The man pushed the
bowl through into her cell.

She picked it up and
sniffed it. It really did smell foul but her stomach didn’t seem to
care. It rumbled loudly. She cast a nervous glance at the two
guards and then Tres, unsure whether she wanted to eat it in front
of them. Not only was she going to have to use her hands, but she
wasn’t sure if she would be able to keep the food down if it tasted
as disgusting as it smelt.

She dipped a finger in and
licked it clean.

Her eyes popped
wide.

It tasted
amazing.

Carrying the bowl back to
the corner with her, she sat down and scooped a small amount of the
stringy goo up. She ate it. It was incredible. The textures and
layers of taste were phenomenal, each making some different sense
zing and pop. She had never tasted anything like it. It was food
fit for a king. Not even the smell put her off.

It was
delicious.

The bowl was empty before
her stomach was full. She reluctantly turned it on its side and
passed it through the bars to the guard. He took it without so much
as a glance at her and left along with the other one. She looked
longingly after him, wondering if he would come back with more. She
could have licked the bowl. She would have if Tres hadn’t been
watching her.

Sitting back down beside
Tres, she sighed.

“
Thank you,”
she said.

“
For
what?”

She looked across at him,
through the shimmering blue light bars.

“
For eating in
order to help my brother. I admit that I don’t understand it, but
thank you. I was sure that they were going to hurt him,” she said
and wondered if Tres would hold her hand again if she placed it
down on the floor by her side. “Rezic has no interest in the
throne. He wishes we were just archaeologists, like I do. We’ve
never used our positions or our family to get anything.”

Tres smiled at her. There
was so much warmth in it and his eyes. What was he thinking when he
looked at her like that?

He scratched his face,
reopening the gash that ran below his eye. A bead of blue blood
broke to the surface.

“
I think you’re
bleeding,” she said and pointed towards the cut.