Page 1 of Savage Union

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JESSINA

MAFIA PRINCESS, DAUGHTER OF THE CHIEFTAIN OF CLAN CRUEL

“Jessina, where are you? Please, just let me know you’re safe. Our Sire is worried sick and Lyrah…well, you know how she is. But even she’s anxious. Where did you go? Are you all right?Callme. I can help you—I promise.”

I pulled the communication device from my ear and looked at it, contemplating my big brother’s voice message. Could he really help me? I wished I could believe it was true.

Slade was the Head Enforcer of Clan Cruel, one of the Four Families that ruled the fringes of the Imperium Galaxy. He was feared and respected and he had a lot of power. But did he have more power than our father, the Chieftain of Clan Cruel?

The answer was a definite no.

Slade might think he could help me—he might even swear to keep me safe. But he couldn’t overrule the will of our father. And our father was under the spell of my wicked stepmother who had decided I was going to marry a disgusting old man who was thirty years my senior.

If that sounds dramatic, I’m sorry but every word is true.

Lyrah, my stepmother, had stepped into my father’s life and basically seduced him not two months after my own mother died. That was ten years ago and she’s been leading my fatheraround by his nose ever since. (Though let’s get real—that’snotthe body part she’s leading him around by.)

Lyrah’s been trying to get me married off almost from the minute she moved into my family’s mansion. I think she just wants to get rid of me so she can have my father all to herself. My big brother, Slade, moved out two months after she moved in. But since I’m a daughter, not a son, I didn’t have that option.

I’ve been doing my best to avoid her for years, but she still wants me gone. So when my father decided it was time for me to marry, she naturally volunteered to take over the whole process.

I didn’t know anything about it until she took me to a “special surprise luncheon” as she put it at Chez L’ronge, the most expensive and exclusive restaurant on Rigelis Nine.

I was suspicious, of course—Lyrah and I mostly avoid each other. Why would she want to take me to lunch now? All the way there in the back of the hover-limo, she kept prattling on about how I was getting too old to keep living at home and that I needed a new direction in my life.

I was starting to have some hope that maybe she had talked my father into letting me move out to an apartment of my own, the way Slade had. He has the penthouse suite at the top of the Henkleton Resort where he and his new human bride, Aurora were currently living their best lives. So at the time, I thought that maybe Lyrah had arranged for me to get an apartment in the same resort as my big brother.

But all my hopes were dashed when we walked into the circular dining room of Chez L’ronge.

The restaurant is located at the top of the tallest tower in the city and it boasts a gorgeous view of the entire downtown area. Looking down from the circular windows that ring the entire dining area, you can see all the lines of flying traffic and the 3-D Holo ads which are often as big as the buildings themselves.

But it wasn’t the spectacular view I was looking at. It was the elderly male sitting at one of the tables. He must be at least half Brute—which is the race of the Four Families or Clans—because hedidhave the curling horns all Brute males have. But they were small and withered and unpainted. Only chieftains, enforcers, and soldiers of the Clans are allowed to paint their horns, so I knew at once this male was someone who was outside the inner circle I had grown up in.

The Brutal Clans function like the Mob back on Old Earth—we operate outside the law in things like racketeering, smuggling, and illegal cloning. We also offer protection to the ragged little colonies and planetoids barely hanging on around the fringes of the galaxy where the Imperium—the galactic government—usually doesn’t bother to come.

I say “we” but I’ve never had anything to do with the family business—that’s the way my father wants it. He’s also expressed a wish to have me marry outside the Clan, to a male unaffiliated with any of the Four Families. So I guess the stranger’s unpainted horns shouldn’t have been a surprise.

Whatwasa surprise was how old he was. There were wrinkles around his eyes and the corners of his mouth and the grey skin of his cheeks hung in doughy waddles on either side of his face. He was wearing a long robe to try and disguise his girth, but it was clear that he wasn’t in very good shape.

I don’t want to sound hateful or judgmental—he looked like a nice old GrandSire and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach as he looked me up and down with a lustful gaze that was anything but grandfatherly.

When the old male saw Lyrah, he raised a hand and half-stood to greet her.

“Grr. Malofice—thereyou are!” my stepmother trilled. Taking me by the arm, she hurried me over to the table where he was sitting.

“Grrsa. Lyrah, my dear. It’s so very good to see you again.” He looked at me, giving me that same, greedy look that made my skin crawl. “And this must be your lovely daughter—the one you say is looking for a husband.”

I knew then and there that my fate was sealed. But I was determined not to go down without a fight.

“I’mnotlooking for a husband,” I said bluntly. “I’m waiting for my Fated Mate—the one She of the Four Faces set aside just for me.”

“Oh Jessina, don’t be ridiculous!” Lyrah scoffed. “Nobody waits for their Fated Mate anymore—it’s nothing but a nursery story.”

“Your mother is right, a lovely young girl like you mustn’t wait until she’s old and withered hoping for a fairytale to come true,” the male called Grr. Malofice said, laughing jovially.

He was one to talk about being “old and withered” but I didn’t say that.

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