Page 9 of Dark Space
He hadn’t, though, so he was stuck with me. Unfortunately, I looked so much like him that there was no way he could reasonably deny parentage; whoever my mother had been, she’d given the King himself in miniature.
Not in spirit, I vowed.I will never be like him.
If all the Roth histories did was compare me unfavourably to my father, then I’d consider my life well-lived.
Over time, we Roth had become a violent species, with strict hierarchies, rigid rules, and an unshakable belief that we should be governing the universe and imparting those rules on other species, as if it would somehow improvetheirlives. What we really wanted was power. We were hungry for it, ravenous, even, because we knew that we were dying, and we were making one last, desperate grab for life through universal expansion.
And until the dread gods claimed my father’s soul, I couldn’t do a thing about it.
Well, that wasn’t strictly true. I could do very little about it, but I could still dosomething, keeping in mind all the lessons my grandmother had given me about the history of our species and aboutrightandwrong. When my father gave me an order to collect alien females, for instance, I could deliberately direct my orb ship towards a galaxy where databases suggested there were very few females to find, and I could ask the orb’s co-pilot, Callan, to discreetly hack our course to mirror that of a nearby Tirian ship so that if any of the crew questioned me, I could pretend thatwewere being shadowed by the universal peacekeepers, rather than the other way around, and protest that if we sent out a reaping party the Tirians would realise and take action.
I didn’t think the Tirians even knew we were there, which was why I’d risked Callan’s unsanctioned trip to Earth, succumbing to my curiosity about why the peacekeepers would send a single tiny Pod to a Category-3 planet.
Unfortunately, I was reasonably certain that Dainn, one of the few males my father calledfriendand my advisor since I grew horns, knew what I was doing, and I was equally certain thathe’d tell my father if I didn’t start following the King’s orders soon.
Dainn gestured to the map on the screen. ‘Here. Sector Thirteen. The notes say there are three planets with complex life forms that may be compatible with ours. Or we can turn around and go back to Earth. As a Category-3 planet, we could probably do whatever we liked there.’
I thought of how the human had looked lying on my bed, her eyes closed, her hair spilling from her braid and shining on my blanket, thought of how her fresh scent had invaded my senses and tied my stomach in knots. ‘No,’ I said, trying to ignore the sudden heat at the base of my spine, the heat that had come the moment I’d noticed the sweep of her eyelashes against her cheek and wouldn’t seem to release me from its grip. ‘We’re not going back to Earth. Let us look forward. We’ll plot a course for Sector Thirteen.’
Dainn patted my shoulder. ‘Good. I’ll get back to the lab.’
When the door slid closed behind him, I allowed myself to slump. I pressed the screen on my wrist. ‘Callan,’ I growled into it. ‘The nav room. Now.’
My pilot arrived barely a minute later. Our orb ships were always piloted by two officers: one who served the military, and one who served the highest-ranked dignitary on board. That way, if anything went wrong, the dignitary could escape one way with their pilot, while the rest of the crew went the other. Callan was different to other pilots; an orphan given to the military at birth, he’d been raised with me as half a companion, half a bodyguard, before my father decided to appoint him as my personal pilot. My father meant it as an insult, inferring that Callan was nothing more than a chauffeur with a shiny pin, but Callan had smiled and thanked him and said that nothing could be a greater honour.
I pretended not to admire him as he stepped through the door, pretended not to see the pattern his muscles made beneath his uniform, pretended that my fingers didn’t itch to run through his jet-black hair, pretended that my lips weren’t burning to be pressed against his.
I pretended a lot of things, when it came to Callan.
‘What do you need, Prince?’ he said quietly.
I shook my head. ‘How are we going to do this? There’s no way we can keep her a secret.’
‘Alcide, you’re thePrince. You don’t have to justify your choices toanyone.’
‘But Dainn –’
Callan growled. ‘I know you grew up with him, Cide, but Dainn is nothing but your father’s echo. He doesn’t have your best interests at heart. He’s a pawn in your father’s game, a piece the King uses to stop all your moves across the board. Forget Dainn.’
‘Who does have my best interests at heart, then?’ I said quietly.
‘You know the answer to that.’
I met his steady black gaze.You. ‘One being in the entire fuckinguniverse.’ I sighed and rubbed my temples.
‘I know it’s hard,’ he murmured. ‘But remember your grandmother’s lessons. Remember what you dreamed together. Bringing Scytha into the light. Saving our kind through peace, not violence. Replanting the forests. Cleansing the water. Ending the corruption, the consumption. Building a world where our species lives withbalance, whereelyacan flourish once more. Where the Roth arehappy. Whereyou’rehappy.’
‘Sometimes I think it will never be anything but a dream,’ I said glumly.
Callan took a step closer. ‘Cide. If I’d taken that human female to your father, what would he have done?’
I swallowed, feeling sick. ‘I don’t want to think about it.’
‘Exactly. What will you do if she refuses to let you claim her?’
I frowned, thinking of the way her hair had fallen across her cheek, of the way her scent made my muscles tight and loose all at once, the way it made everything seemright. ‘I suppose we’ll take her back to Earth.’
‘Do you think your father would do the same?’
