Page 4 of Her Lawless Prince

Why was she even thinking about all of this? She didn’t have time for relationships.

The city seemed oddly barren now that most of the population had moved to the barracks. Rusted metal ship parts helped create walls. They butted against stone and anything solid the Cysgodians had been able to scavenge. It was all strung together with chains and rope. Canvas hung between them to give shade, a necessity on a planet cast in constant daylight, but for the one night a year that all three suns set simultaneously.

Cysgodians lurked along the edges of the marketplace like the remaining ghosts of a dead town. They walked over the shadowed sidewalks of which the pieces of metal and warped boards were glued down by dried mud.

Payton couldn’t blame them for not wanting to move to the barracks, even though they were nicer. This town had been the only one the alien visitors had known on Qurilixen. Given a choice, she’d probably pick the city over the barracks. She liked the open air more than the sterile interior walls.

When she focused her hearing, she detected the sound of teenagers running through a distant street. They still came down from the cliffside to roam their childhood playgrounds and camp in abandoned homes.

Gone were the days when she had to hide her identity from the crowd with layers of mud and costumes. She made her way quickly through the streets, turning down familiar alleys, before finally crossing a street to slip between two metal buildings.

The narrow opening was a close fit and not any path one would normally take, as it looked like a dead end. She turned sideways and slid down to the end before rounding a corner. A thick metal sheet overhead blocked the sunlight. As a shifter, her eyesight easily cut through the darkness. She turned another corner and stepped up before reaching a hidden door.

“Yevgen,” she called softly as she pushed open the door without knocking. The cyborg had an irrational fear of the radiation from the blue sun, or so he claimed. She felt it had less to do with fear and more to do with the fact that he liked being stowed away in his secret dark lair.

A blue glow came from a wall of monitors. Payton had scavenged some of them for Yevgen. He used them to watch the city, something that had gotten less interesting without the people living in it.

The home had been constructed between the exterior walls of the surrounding buildings. The paint didn’t match, and the walls cut in at uneven angles. His usual sling chair hung empty from the ceiling. Since the cyborg had not come to the planet with legs, he normally needed the chair to move around.

Payton’s picture appeared on the center monitor. It had been taken probably twenty years ago while she’d snuck through an alleyway. A heart burst over her face and twinkled before disappearing. Yevgen had been the first to discover her identity in the city and had followed her with his nearly invisible cameras for years before she’d detected them. They’d formed a strange friendship.

She smiled at the screen and suppressed a laugh. “Come out of hiding. I’m alone.”

The soft whirl preceded the thumps of mechanical feet as Yevgen slowly walked from behind the monitors. She had brought him the new legs. They’d been scavenged from another cyborg she’d defeated in a fight. The translucent skin showed the tubing and mechanics underneath. He’d fashioned a pair of short pants over them. The dark material hung unevenly over his thighs.

“Welcome, Princess. It has been one hundred eighty-six hours since I have last seen you, but your beauty has not diminished a second.”

“They increased the number of guards at the palace. It took longer for me to get away.”

“I have not detected the Federation ships. You are safe with me, my princess.” Yevgen had infiltrated the stronghold’s computer system thanks to Payton sneaking him access.

“You’ve finally got them calibrated.” Payton nodded in approval at the legs. His height matched hers as he took stunted steps toward her. “Well done.”

Mechanical irises focused on her, and she knew her image would be reflected on the monitors, showing her what he saw.

“I have had extra time now that the city is empty,” Yevgen answered, turning to the screens.

Various images of the city showed on them, some grainy, several flickering. Payton’s eyes went to the Federation stronghold at the top of the cliff. Nyle wasn’t there.

“No one has come for trades. It is very quiet,” Yevgen said. “I miss the chaos.”

A group of teenagers appeared. One swung a metal pipe at a wall as others watched in boredom. They sat against a building in the shade.

“Are you ready to move to the stronghold?” she asked. “We can keep you out of the sunlight.”

He glanced away. The screens flickered with images of the past when the streets had been filled, as if to express his longing for the city to return to the way it had been when he could watch over it and log the many activities.

Payton again looked at the screen with the stronghold. “Yevgen, did you tell anyone about my grandparents? About who they were?”

“Do you mean King Attor? I discussed him with your cousin, Roderic. The old king had one hundred and sixty-three half mates, all off-worlders. He believed in emotional detachment and that life mates were the lot of lower society, for those who could not afford more than one wife or had no opportunity to negotiate with aliens for them.” Yevgen smiled. “Are you saying you are ready for me to be your half mate?”

The cyborg wanted very much to love her. It had become a bit of an obsession. He brushed his fingers against her cheek. They felt like the flesh of a man, but underneath moved a metal skeleton.

“You are of a higher society and can have emotional detachment while I will love you,” he insisted logically.

“Not King Attor. The others. Did you tell anyone about—?”

Yevgen’s eyes flashed red, cutting off her words. Payton tensed as she listened for what had set off Yevgen’s alarm. The monitors dimmed, casting the home into darkness.

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