Page 3 of Hunting the Warlord's Daughter

Home, where Wren would await her inescapable fate—the day she’d be forced to the altar.“My DNA is your destiny,”the warlord had proclaimed at her presentation.

Some blessing. It was a freepin’ curse.

CHAPTERONE

Present day

Battlelord Aral Mawndarr stood on the bridge of his warship, moments away from committing an act of high treason. His orders were clear: protect His Supreme Warlord’s personal cruiser.

He would disobey those orders, the ultimate betrayal of his leader by his most trusted officer.The flotilla under his guard drifted perilously close to the region of space called the Borderlands—the buffer zone between the two mighty civilizations intent on stamping out the other’s existence. The Coalition and Drakken Empire had fought each other for centuries. They called it the Great War, but in Aral’s opinion, there was nothing great about it—just another excuse for monstrous people to do monstrous things. If everything went as planned today, he’d eliminate two of the worst offenders. If the mission went awry, well, Aral would be a dead man.

He ignored the twinge of unease.You cannot fail. You must succeed. Too many people dependedon him to change the course of history, even if they did not yet know it.

A grand goal, that.

As the firstborn son of one of the most powerful battlelords in the Empire, Aral had always been ambitious. It wasn’t until his father had beaten him nearly to death—almost beyond the reach of lifesaving nano-meds—that he realized the direction his ambition would take.

Over the years, every crack of Karbon’s knuckles across his face had brought him closer to this day; every bolt of agony from his shock-whip had forged Aral’s vow to take away what his father loved most: status, power, and his ability to make others suffer. Never again would he allow himself to stand by, helpless, while Karbon harmed those he loved. Ridding the galaxy of the Warlord Rakkuu and his heir would be one more step to that end.

He would decapitate—then destroy—Karbon Mawndarr’s beloved Empire.

“The incoming ship has reached the perimeter.” A female voice pulled him from his thoughts. Dressed in brilliant Imperial Navy red, her uniform and bearing impeccable, his first officer, Sub-Battlelord Kazara Kaan, took her customary spot next to him on the bridge. Her short brown hair gleamed. She wore it tucked behind her ears, each lobe showcasing a glittering, ruby-red diamond stud. Above her collar, the nape of her neck showed the sliver of a tattoo—a pair of interlinking Drakken eagles across her shoulder blades. As one of the highest-ranking female officers in the fleet, Kaz could have commanded her own ship but had chosen to share command with him as a battle-pair. Many times, male-female battle-pairs also chose to share a bed—but Kaz’s heart still grieved another, and Aral had given his to vengeance.

He nodded. “Allow it to pass.”

Their attention remained on the holo-vis, where a small triangle inched toward the larger symbol denoting the warlord’s vessel.

The triangle crossed into the protection zone.Not much longer now. As Aral understood it—he wasn’t privy to all the details—Coalition operatives would board the cruiser, rescue a high-value prisoner from the warlord’s clutches, and arrest him and his son for war crimes. Their executions would come soon after.

TheBlood Run’s bridge crew continued with their routine tasks, unaware that the approaching craft’s Drakken identity code was fake—masking its Coalition origins—and that they were about to witness an enemy attack facilitated by their own battlelord.

Little did they know how routinetreason had become to Aral, once he’d shifted his allegiance away from the madman who sired him. At first, the Coalition hadn’t realized that a lone agent was behind the lucky breaks that seemed to fall into their hands at every perfect moment. As a young officer, Aral had allowed the Coalition victories that no one suspected he was behind. He’d made the Imperial Navy bleed, and by the fates, he’d loved it.

The warlord had blamed blindly for the inexplicable, inconceivable defeats. By pretending empathy and offering tactical advice, Aral became a favorite. He ingratiated himself to the dreadful man, was a frequent guest at the palace, and eventually, the warlord came to trust him as one of his closest advisors. Ultimately, he’d offered Aral the sweetest prize of all: his own daughter.

Aral stood straighter. His reunion with Awrenkka and what would come after was all part of his plan, meticulously crafted and ten years in the making. Trillions on both sides of the border would applaud his actions as heroic. Those loyal to the warlord would denounce him as a traitor. He was neither a betrayer nor a hero, but a man driven by reasons that were as selfish as they were private. His Coalition contact, codenamed Zee, liked to say that these deeds guaranteed him a place Up Above. Aral knew better. His sorry soul hadn’t the barest chance at salvation. He was a battlelord, with all the odious deeds that the role had demanded. He’d had to kill and order deaths. He’d directed men and women into danger. Sometimes he’d even sent loved ones.

Like Bolivarr.

Aral’s gut tightened. As a Wraith assigned to the elite special operations arm of the Imperial Navy, his younger brother had regularly passed him intelligence. His final communication had transmitted his discovery of ancient religious writings confirming the existence of a fabled treasure, and the only way to unlock it: a Sacred Key.“She’s the only one left in all the galaxy, Aral, the first in generations to survive long enough to come into her powers. She’s safe for now, but she’ll need our help. What I’m going to send you next is very important. I’ll explain after.”

Aral had mere seconds to memorize Bolivarr’s transmission—illegible runes surrounding a sketch of five round marks, two on each side and one at the top—before the attached self-destruct code had gone off.

Then nothing. No explanation ever came for the pattern or the runes.

Bolivarr had vanished without a trace. Had the boy Aral had protected from their father’s cruel hand grown up only to be struck down by another’s? He blocked his mind from envisioning his fears of Bolivarr’s last moments. His brother, unable to share those last, important pieces of data, had certainly died defending them.

The secrets Aral had ordered him to collect.

Guilt pressed on him. He carried its weight on his shoulders as he stood on the bridge of his warship. Perhaps, in some small way, succeeding today would help justify his brother’s sacrifice, for Aral surely had not made his peace with it.

“It’s done, sir,” Kaz announced quietly. They rarely discussed Bolivarr’s disappearance anymore; yet when he caught her eyes in unguarded moments, he knew she hadn’t yet recovered from their loss either.

Aral’s pulse jumped as the symbols on the display converged into one blinking circle. He let out a short, silent breath. “Indeed.” It was up to the Coalition now. He’d just handed their government the leadership of the Drakken Empire.

* * *

In the privacy of his command suite, Aral leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingertips together.

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