Page 3 of Into The Rift

Six months earlier, my parents had informed me that they had made a match for me with a young Lycan who came from a wealthy family on the primary planet, Lycanus 1, though he was now serving as my father’s aide on Earth. His name was Alexsandr Cobescu, and he was a nice enough person, but I found him boring in the extreme. I had lived my whole life mostly onboard a Voyager ship, traveling through the cosmos, while he had stayed on Lycanus and gone to school and taken up employment in the boring old government as soon as he was old enough.

That wasn’t his fault, I guess, but we had very little in common. He was well-educated, ambitious and serious-minded. Everything I wasn’t. And as a result, we had little to say to each other.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with him. He was handsome and like I said, nice enough, if a trifle overbearing. He had a tendency to explain things to me like I was a child. That was the way of all Lycans, but there was something much worse. He made me feel…well, nothing at all, romantically speaking. There was no attraction, no appeal, no spark. And though my omak was inclined to sympathize, my father, the General, thought I was being foolishly sentimental, and I would “come to have regard” for him in time.

But I didn’t just want to only “have regard.” I wanted a wild and crazy love, like the one my parents had been lucky enough to have. Something overpowering and overwhelming that would sweep me off my feet. I wanted a love match—the kind where you felt like you couldn’t breathe without them, like you’d die if you couldn’t have them, and you would do anything, say anything, sacrifice anything, just to be in their presence. I wanted that kind of love. I wanted adventure and romance.

And then there was me and Alexsandr.

“He’ll give you a good, safe life,” my father told me. “If you’ll only stop acting like you’re the hero of some silly romance novel. That kind of reading has given you false expectations,” he said, with the supreme confidence and abundant ignorance of a man who’d never read a romance novel before in his life.

“You need to grow up,” he went on…and on, “and stop acting like a spoiled child.”

He blamed Blake for most of it and said he regretted letting me spend so much time with him when I was small, while he and my omak were off traveling. He said he was the one who let me read the poetry books and romance novels that he claimed had “rotted” my brain.

Blake and Renard had gotten off on the wrong foot when they first met, and they never truly got over it. Both were far too stubborn.

Anyway, it was shortly after that tirade that I ran away for the first time. I made it to Blake’s and King Davos’s palace by hitching a ride with a Nilanium trader, hoping I could find refuge there, but my parents followed me and made me come back home. The king, though sympathetic, refused to get between Renard and me and told me I needed to do as my father said, because I was far too young to make my own decisions about my life.

The next time I tried running away, which had been just a little over a month ago, I went right back to Tygeria, but this time I stowed away on a transport taking armament to Loros, where my cousin Mikol was living with his new mate. The captain found me after a few days, but I used my royal status to bully him into taking me all the way to Loros. It was glorious, as long as it lasted, and it was the adventure I longed for. I had decided when I was a small child that I wanted to live a life full of unexpected undertakings and risky exploits, and I would settle for nothing less.

I wanted to live among the stars and see things I’d never seen before. I wanted to do amazing things with my life. Was that really so much to ask?

The General was livid with anger when he finally found out where I had been this last time and had Mikol put me on the next available ship going back to Earth where he and my father Anarr were now living. Mikol had sent me to accompany Rakkur until we no longer needed the escort and then after Tariq came onboard, I’d transfer to the other ship, and we’d head toward Earth.

Now here I was, back in the hated sapphire robes, like all the royal children and consorts were made to wear, onboard this Tygerian ship and being sent to my parents in disgrace to “face the music.” That’s what Blake told me anyway, when we last spoke.

“Sorry, kiddo, but I’ve done all I can, and it’s out of my hands now. You know how Renard gets. He’s picked out what he considers to be the perfect man for you to marry, and he’s incensed that you ran away from him and rejected his idea of the right choice. He’s threatened to come and drag you home himself if you don’t accompany Rakkur.”

“What does my omak say about it?”

Blake sighed. “You know Anarr won’t say much against Renard. But I know he won’t force you into this marriage if he’s convinced that you truly object. He thinks you should give this man a chance, though. That comes mostly from Renard, of course. We were all worried sick when you ran away like you did, and no one could find you at first until we heard you were on the ship to Loros.”

“I didn’t run away. I’m a grown man—almost twenty-one now and I’m of age—and I decided to book passage to Loros to go see my cousin Mikol.”

“Mm-hmm. You’re twenty-one in Lycan years, which is only twenty in human years. And you didn’t book passage at all, did you? You stowed away until someone on the crew of the ship found you. I think your fiancé saw the situation differently too. He told Renard he wasn’t going to put up with such foolishness, and he would ‘discipline’ you when you got back.”

“That fucking Lycan is not my fiancé. And if he lays one hand on me, I’ll-I’ll stab him with one of my daggers. I never agreed to his proposal, and I never will. He can kiss my…”

“This is an open channel, baby. Be careful what you say. You can’t just go around stabbing people and telling them to kiss your nether regions. That’s your Jayronian side coming through.”

True enough. My surrogate mother had been a Jayronian, and they were not known for either their good judgment or their patience. But then neither was Blake, and I was descended directly from him too.

I made a gagging noise and he just laughed. At least I knew he’d be on my side if the General decided to continue to be completely unreasonable about all of this. I said as much to Rakkur, who took my hand in his.

“I’m on your side too. I think Renard is forgetting how much he tried to get out of marrying my brother Anarr when they first met. It didn’t work, though, and he only pretended to be unhappy about it, so he’s being a big hypocrite right now. When Anarr was in that coma years ago before you were born, everyone thought Renard might die himself. You’re young and you’ll have many choices to marry. I always thought you were the most beautiful of all the grandchildren—though all of them are handsome, naturally. I think it’s because of your Jayronian surrogate, and the fact you received so much of her DNA. I think in your case, it might have been a little more than half, because of your hair, for example, which is just gorgeous.”

I shrugged. That’s what most people noticed about me first. My hair was navy-blue, down to my waist and as straight as a stick, like so many of the Jayronians. It looked almost like silk when I wore it down on my shoulders, which I hated, because it was also feminine looking, and I lived in the hyper masculine world of the Tygerians and the Lycans. I usually wore it wound tightly in a knot at the back of my head, because Jagger Balenescu, also a Jayronian and a grandfather on the General’s side, (I’d been named after him too) had begged me not to cut it off. Otherwise, it would have been long gone.

My eyes, at least, were amber, like the Tygerian side of my family, and I had a faint hint of striping across my cheeks. It made me look exotic and different, which was never a good thing, in my opinion. I’d learned at an early age it was better not to draw too much attention to myself if I could help it, because that kind of attention brought unwanted attention from the big, overgrown males of Lycanus and Tygeria. It didn’t help that I had to wear the Tygerian royal robes, but I’d been informed that the uniforms were intended only for members of the army.

I had a slight build, and none of Anarr’s height. My uncle Rakkur surely knew only too well how that felt, being so small around all those Tygerians, as he looked far more human than Tygerian. He was almost the same age as I was too. He was lucky though, because he had Tariq now and he could stop worrying about fending off unwanted suitors. He had Tariq to keep them away.

I’d wanted to join the army when I was small. It had always been my dream to travel among the stars, wearing the insignia of the king, and having adventures that I could look back on one day in the far distant future, when I was an old, old man, telling stories to my grandchildren.

But the General said I was too small and slight. I wasn’t “suited” for combat, and I could be hurt. Instead, I should find a good husband who would care for me and make sure I was always safe. I knew he loved me and was trying to protect me. But I felt like he was suffocating me.

“Come on,” Rakkur said, taking my hand. “I’m hungry. Let’s go down to the dining hall and get some lunch. You’ll feel better, and by the time we’ve eaten, we should be in safer territory. Tariq should definitely be arriving.”

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