Page 32 of Jewel of the Alien Bandit
Almder froze on the screen so still I almost thought the connection was lost.
“Necias has every incentive to keep me alive, but if they can’t, I need you to promise me you will take the technology and research they offer. If they back out of their deal, make a trade agreement with the Krelis Prince. He seems to want to invest in our planet, and may seek to protect it.”
“My sweet Jewel, I can not promise you that. Not when the prince has made it very clear that he’ll have you as his mate or he’ll find another planet to fit his hive’s needs. He has mobilized his entire fleet to retrieve you.”
It was like having daggers thrown into my gut, and my own injury from Carmen’s claws throbbed hearing about Prince Trent throwing his whole hive into a war with Necias outlaws to save Luan. All while I stood here powerless to help her and I was just a few feet away.
I didn’t deserve her as a mate.
Even if the krelins were on my shit list for genocide-ing my species, Trent was strong, decent enough to give me a head start escaping his warship, and worthy of a mate like Luan. But not Luan, I thought darkly.
If he had killed me instead of being merciful, Luan wouldn't be where she is right now. She never would have escaped onto my ship, Carmen never would have warped away from Estreldez because his warship would have got to her before she knew that the krelins were on to her, and Luan would be safe.
I saw the way her legs wrapped around Trent in the garden, and the way Trent looked around knowing someone was watching. If it weren’t for me, she’d be at a mating ceremony right now. Not dying in a med pod.
My fists clenched at my sides. She would not die, I had to believe it, or I might just space myself.
“You’ll have to talk with Prince Trent, then. Tell Loric that I won’t be able to take him up on his offer, and that I’m sorry he wasted so much time waiting for me. To the moons, my Almder.” Laun’s eyes fluttered and I snapped to see C.O. Grear was administering the sedative into the chamber.
“To the moons, My Jewel.”
And the transmission ended.
Grear walked out of the med deck leaving me staring at the floating form of Luan, her silver hair pooling around her face behind the clear chamber. Tiny microbots filled the med pod, glinting like she was floating off into space, and all I wanted to do was join her.
She’d survive this, but would she come with me when I finally freed myself from the necia?
Or would she risk a war between her planet and the outlaws, making her the newest slave of King Sylve?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Luan
I COULD ONLYhope my Almder got the message. The outlaws couldn’t be trusted. To the moons was something I used to say as a child, and it would always be followed up with an explanation that the moons provided us with radiation, but there was nothing else there. At least not until my mom outfitted our biggest moon with a research facility.
If King Sylve already had warships out-posted around Estreldez, then he already had his mind made up to come after us.
He wasn’t going to stop his plans just because I asked him to, or give us technology or research data to avoid a war he was already planning to start. At least with my death he’d look bad to other planets, possibly cause other leaders to increase their defenses or even retaliate to secure the balance of power dynamics.
To the moons was my way of telling her to take the research if she could, and take her own advice that there was nothing on the moons unless you made it yourself.
The King would betray her.
And whether Krelis was or wasn’t sending their whole hive of warships after me was of no concern. It was tactics to let it slipthat we had Krelis’s support. Perhaps King Sylve would fall back long enough for us to have an advantage, if only a small one.
And if the Krelis Prince did support retrieving me, then maybe not all things were lost after all.
But the very idea of mating him somehow repulsed me now. He was an attractive man, and powerful. He led his hive, he was a prince. And even with the time that I spent with him in the garden… I had no desire to feel his touch again.
Instead it was Vareo’s hands that filled my mind, and those very fingers that I imagined plunging into my pulsing core.
I gasped clenching my thighs together, and then my eyes opened, remembering where I was. Inside the med pod, floating like a pretty display, and still alive.
And awake?
“There isn’t time to make this pleasant,” Vareo’s voice was strained as he pulled me from the chamber and the ache of gravity beared down on me once more, “We’re docked at Necias’ Station TF-9W and there are only two ways off this rock. As slaves, or stowaway outlaws.”
He was carrying me against his firm chest, and I groaned as we made our way to the transport deck of the Viper Raul. The pain relief gas was wearing off, I could feel my back loh throb.
