Page 34 of Her Alien Prince
I cut her off, "I think you've explained enough. You don't care about me at all... I trusted you. You would have me raise my offspring without ever knowing they are mine—" My breath hitched, and I clutched at my heart beating rapidly. Wings beat swiftly, and my toes hovered, barely touching the ground.
Elder Ezra's eyes became glassy, and her chest slowed, rising and falling softly. She blinked and whispered, "It's too late, you must protect her."
"I will always serve my queen," Trent said with derision towards the woman I thought was family.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Trent
"WHAT IS SHEtalking about?" Gaven glanced between Mabel and the elder. Neither of them was listening to him, he was irrelevant to what was happening, and the pain throbbing through the bond I shared with my mate. So many coiled emotions wrapped up around finding out she wasn't losing her future family, but she was losing the one she already had from betrayal.
I heard everything.
And I broke for her.
The Almder, and the elder knew she was half krelin, and the possibility that she would inherit her mother's traits, the mark of a queen. Her mother had to be Queen Leahme. Why else would they go to such lengths to keep Mabel's heritage a secret? My mother wouldn't have any need of killing a krelin unless they posed a threat to her, and our clan needed a new queen. All respect from the hive would be lost if a queen was murdered.
Mabel sprayed the elder with her musk, but a queen's musk worked differently than a krelin warrior. While mine would knock out my opponent... the elder would get past the stun stage and feel compelled to do whatever Mabel wished of her. It was a highly toxic brain stimulant that could kill with a high enough dose. I already felt my skin tingle where the spray settled on my arms. Sweeping my wings, I circulated the musk away, so I didn't inhale it.
"Who is my mother? Is she alive?" Her voice cracked, already knowing the answer to her second question.
The elder smiled sadly. "She was a kind soul. Queen Kai kept her close at all times, until she demanded to be shown proof that our Glorbin Flower was so difficult to extract. Scans of our planet showed an abundance of veins and our yield was low. Your mother was always at her side. Steam from the mountain caused the tunnels to collapse, and your mother was caught inside. Even Queen Kai thought she'd died that day, but your father worked in those mines..."
"Where are they?" Mabel's patience was wearing thin. The story was one I only knew half of. I was a boy at the time, and my mother came back to Krelis before informing the hive of the loss. That was the day many believed Queen Leahme died, but rumors spread months later from the warriors that worked the trade routes between Krelis and Estreldez. That she lived, and months later... more rumors that she spawned, before my mother had her very last visit to Estreldez, never to return to this planet again.
I didn't think my queen capable of putting the whole hive's future at risk by killing another queen when our numbers dwindled, but I remembered the dark look in her eyes as she left, and there was no warmth in my mother even then. Would she ruin our hive to stay queen... even if it meant the end of Krelis?
"Nobody knows, they disappeared shortly after you were spawned, and you resembled an estreld so much more than a krelin that when Queen Kai came to inspect our offspring, there was no need to hide you. If they are alive, they would not return here, and they certainly couldn't take an offspring with so few loh away from the moon's radiation. It would have been a death sentence," the elder explained, and though I knew her heart was in the right place... the information would be painful for Mabel to reconcile with no matter which was true.
Her parents are alive, it meant they left her.
Her parents are dead, then that meant my mother was responsible, and her life would be in danger.
Whatever the truth I would be here to support her, however she decided to handle things. Even if that meant storming the city and removing my mother by force. I had expected to have the hive follow Mabel by choice and the bond to the warriors be transferred to the new Queen of Krelis without ever approaching my mother at all. She would have little choice in the matter once Mabel was accepted by the hive. The transfer was already happening to Queen Leahme before she left...
Just then the noise from the entrance reached my horns, and I turned to Mabel. "We have to leave."
She glanced over her shoulder down the hallway we came from, hearing the same thing. The chorus of an army of warriors. She didn't run. I admired that in her. Squaring her shoulders, her wings buzzed in preparation for what we would face. I let my ki stingers drop from my wrists. Mabel frowned, shaking her head with disapproval.
"Showing them how deadly you are will not warn them away from attacking us, it will mark us as threats to be neutralized."
"She's right," Gaven agreed. "She's gone through the same training as any warrior of Estreldez. You'll only increase the odds of a fight."
Reluctantly, I retracted my ki, but I didn't like the idea of being unprepared. My black venom was not instantaneous, it had to be pumped from my glands to reach my stingers. Only residue would be left, and that was hardly enough to disable a trained warrior from harming Mabel. She folded back her wings, and they disappeared, the light refracting around them only visible by a discerning eye. I followed her lead, and folded my own as well.
The warriors came around the bend of the hall, and a blue male estreld was at the lead, the Pride of Estreldez, Loric, wearing full protective uniform, including a clear mask that would prevent my musk from reaching him. I could take him on, if I thought Gaven would keep to himself, but he was a wild card that I couldn't afford to risk my mate's wellbeing with. If he was the Sky Bender, then he was capable of protecting her, but also equally capable of killing her if he thought she was a threat to Estreldez.
"Mabel..." Loric sounded shocked to see her. His shoulders sagged in a kind of defeat. She was not who he was expecting to see. "Almder was concerned with the abrupt manner Elder Ezra ended their conversation, I came straight away. Have you seen Luan?"
"Not since the ceremonial greetings..." she replied, gnawing her lip with renewed anxiety for yet again someone else besides herself. Would she not think on her own safety? I didn't trust any of them. Her own Almder tried to steal her eggs so she wouldn't become a krelin queen, and I couldn't trust my own mother would see reason. We had to get to my warship, where I could trust my warriors with defending her, with doing what was necessary to lift her to her rightful place as Queen of Krelis before King Sylve was prepared to take this sector.
Tugging at our bond, her green eyes lifted to meet mine with a quirked brow. Did she feel it? I hoped she'd hear me, know that we had to leave, prepare, and then return to negotiate peace.
"My Kansa, I can't protect you here..."
"I don't need you to," she said, smiling at me with a sadness that wrenched at my hearts. She heard me, but she had yet to reach back through the bond. It stung to think she didn't wish to accept me as her mate, but she had a lot to process and I understood wanting to take on life's burdens alone, not wanting to weigh on another person's shoulders. But she would realize one day that I carried whatever troubled her regardless of if she wanted to share the hardship. She wasn't alone.
Loric observed us both skeptically, but then nodded. "Her radiation signature's being picked up by Hazel... she's either injured, lost in the mountains, or--" he couldn't finish his thought.
