Conquering His Queen: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Zalaryn Conquerors Book 1) Read online

  “No,” I say firmly.

  And for once—for the very first time—I actually feel like a Queen. I have felt like a fraud all this time, like a girl wearing her mother’s fancy clothes and sitting in her father’s throne. Like this was all an elaborate bit of pageantry to indulge a spoiled princess.

  “No?” he says, honest confusion crossing his brow. “But he locked us all up in the dungeon. He locked you up in the dungeon. That’s treason.”

  “It’s not treason if you’re the King,” I say. And I mean it. Vano is the King of this planet. And he is the King of me—of my heart. He has the authority to lock me in a cell if it’s going to keep me safe.

  Just so long as when this is all over, Vano realizes that—as Queen—I have the authority to lock him in a cell if the situation demands it.

  “You can’t let him do this,” Yar pleads. I can tell he is disappointed, but not just because he was looking for a good fight. His shoulders seemed to have slumped just a little bit, his eyes have lost their twinkle. “This is our chance to get the Zalaryns out of Lekyo Prime.”

  “No, Yar,” I say. I take his hand. “He’s here to stay. All of the Zalaryns. We are still in negotiations about the relocations, but make no mistake that I have willingly wed myself to him.”

  “I see,” he says. “Let’s go then. Get you out of here before we both end up burnt as a holiday goose.”

  With my hand still in his, he leads me through the winding passageways. The roar of the flames gets quieter, and soon I can hear the whimper of the kecklets in the cages. The whimpers get louder, and soon there is a chorus of barking to accompany it, like some canine symphony from the Void itself. The sound is terrible. Yar is taking long strides, and I nearly have to run alongside him to keep up, so we pass by the kecklets very fast.

  But not fast enough.

  I see the red kecklet, the one with the spots. He is on his side, his chest rising and falling in irregular pulses. There is a runny stream of vomit on the ground at his snout. And the sounds coming from it are like the squeaking hinges of the gates of Hell.

  This red-spotted kecklet is sick.

  It’s dying.

  And it’s the kecklet that drank the sweet-cane nectar.

  The nectar brought straight to my room by the hands of Yar himself.

  “If I was an evil asshole about to kill a Queen, where would I go?” I shout into Stine’s face. He’s flat against the wall, my arm pressed against his chest, pinning him to the sooty stone blocks. After seeing that Bryn’s cell—and, indeed, all of the cells—were empty, I scoured the area and found this coward wandering around in the black smoke, a few lungfuls away from passing out.

  “I— I—?” he says. He’s confused, likely more than halfway intoxicated by inhaling so much smoke. The flames have all been put out, but some bits and pieces still smolder, and the smoke will take forever to clear out of this basement level since there is no way to get fresh air down here.

  “Where did he take her?” I say again, really leaning into my forearm this time, putting some weight into it. I know it was Yar. As I stood before the empty cells, one of my Zalaryn guards found me and delivered the news that the red kecklet had died.

  Stine gasps and starts to choke, and I see actual flecks of soot come out of his mouth. One lands on the very arm that pins him to the wall, and I have a moment of pity for this weakling male. He was fleeing the scene of grave danger, not unlike a rodentoid trying to escape a sinking boat by climbing to the top of the mast. He’s not part of the conspiracy, just a pampered and foppish human who is ill-equipped for any true test of his survival prowess. I ease up the pressure across his chest, instead placing my hands on his shoulders. “You know this palace,” I say. “If Yar took her somewhere, where would they be? Where’s the most convenient, secluded place that he could—”

  But I can’t say the words.

  The very thought of Yar hurting her makes me feel like I’m the one pressed against a wall, the strong arm of despair and grief pushing against my chest, making it hard to breathe.

  “I don’t know,” he wails desperately. “Please, I don’t know anything.”

  “That’s obvious,” I say. Then I get an idea. “Let me ask a different way. If you were a servant down here and you wanted to sneak somewhere to take a nap, where could you do that? Or if you were an idle nobleman and you wanted to chase a maiden around and try to get a peek under her skirts, where would you go?”

  That seems to change his thought process. He thinks for a moment and then says, “There’s a room,” he says.

  “That’s a good start,” I say, “but I’m going to need a little more to go on than that. Time’s wasting. Whatever he does to Bryn, I’m going to do triple to you.”

  “Please!” he whimpers. “I’ll show you!”

  I shove him into the corridor, and he takes a few steps, stops, shakes his head, then turns around and goes the other way.

  “You’re sure this is the way?” I demand.

  “Yes,” he says. Then, so quietly that I can barely hear, “I think so.”

  We run. It doesn’t take long, but it feels like forever, feels like the chambers of my heart are going to burst like an old, overfilled waterskin.

  Stine had said there’s a room, but what he should have said was there’s a torture chamber. When we get to the door, I recognize it for what it is. The door is made of thick planks of wood, so old and worn that the surface is as smooth as glass. But lying limply on the left side of the door is a thick iron cross bar. Why would you want to bar a door from the outside unless you were trying to keep someone inside? Given its proximity to the dungeon cells, this room could have no other purpose but for torture.

  Stine just points one trembling finger at the door and says nothing. I wonder if his confinement in the dungeon cell has made him unhinged or if he was always this weak and worthless. I grab the handle and swing it open.

  There he is. Yar. The poisoner.

  And Bryn. He’s tied her hands and feet with a strip of her gown. She’s on her side on the floor, looking up at her captor—nothing but defiance and venom in her eyes. No tears, no begging.

  She is strong, and I am proud.

  “Don’t you see?” Yar says. His back is to me, and he is in the throes of a speech and does not notice that I have opened the door. “We can’t rebel against the Zalaryns if our Queen is united with them. The people love you. They love you so much, they don’t care that you’re letting some primitive alien invader have your royal cunt every night. They say, ‘Oh, good, we don’t have to worry, Good Queen Bryn will look after us. She’ll tame that brute. She’ll make sure the Zalaryns don’t abuse us.’ Can you believe that? They think you will look after them. Even after you sold your pussy to the leader of the race that would wipe us out. They still love you after you betrayed all of them. They will never rebel as long as you’re alive and wedded to that red menace. But if you’re dead? If I can make it look like Vano killed you? Then the people will follow me, they will rebel—and we’ll have our planet back!”

  “You fool,” Bryn hisses. “Without the Zalaryns, we’re dead to the Rulmek. I did what I did to save us all. And it worked. You’re the murderer. You’re the one who would betray your own people, having them march to endless slaughter in a futile rebellion against the Zalaryns. If the Zalaryns chose to leave and not fight—and that’s the only way humans could claim victory against them—if some humans managed to survive, you’d just lead them into a second slaughterhouse against the Rulmek. All for what? Your pride? Because you can’t stand to see change in our planet?”

  My heart swells as I listen to her words. She is a fighter, refusing to capitulate even when all hope seems lost and her demise seems all but certain. She will not let him have the satisfaction of seeing her grovel, beg for mercy, make wild promises of allegiance or riches or rank or land or any of the other things condemned people use to barter for their lives.

  “This is all your fault,” he says. “You have no
one to blame but yourself.” He takes a step toward her. This is when time all but stops for me. Everything happens in the blink of an eye, but I can narrate every nanosecond of that moment.

  He bends a knee, begins the lunging descent towards Bryn. She purses her lips and grits her teeth together so hard that the muscles of her jaws bulge like overripe fruits under the skin. Her eyes remain open, fixed upon her attacker. Her hands struggle against the knotted cloth at her wrists.

  I take my weapon and thumb the charging button. It emits a high keening whine like the damned parasitic insectoids of this planet as they hover about your ear before landing.

  Bryn senses my movement and her eyes flick to my direction for a split second. And that’s all it takes. Yar notices her gaze and casts a hasty glance over his shoulder. It’s enough to throw a big man like him off his center of gravity. Though my weapon is not fully charged, I poke it at his broad torso and deploy the button. He lets out a clipped hummph as the air is pushed out of his lungs with the blastwave.

  Then he is on the ground, twitching as his nervous system tries to reassemble itself.

  I fall to my knees at Bryn’s side. I tear the cloth binding her wrists with one quick movement. I pull her up to a sitting position, gathering her into my lap and wrapping my arms around her.

  “Safe,” I say. “Safe.” I repeat it like a prayer singer’s magic incantation, as if I can’t quite believe that it is so.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “This is all my fault. I didn’t know what to do. The thought of something happening to you was driving me insane, and I couldn’t think straight.” I stroke her hair and take in her scent. It’s a mix of acrid fear and the crisp, almost floral scent of relief.

  “It’s not your fault,” she says. “It’s only his fault.” She points to Yar’s lifeless body. “And he’s dead.”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” I say. “I should have never locked you up. It was just the only thing I could think of. I have terrible judgment, terrible sense of proportion. A male who would do that to his bonded mate is lower than the straw strewn about the kennel floor.”

  “You locked me up out of love,” she says. “And you should never apologize for love.”

  “Our bond is true,” I say. I feel it between us. Strong and bright. Like the rays of the Zalaryn sunslight woven into a rope, tied around both our hearts. Both our fates.

  “It is,” she says. “I forgive you, but there’s not much to forgive.”

  “I love you,” I say. “I still don’t know why you humans call it love. Don’t you also use that word to describe the fondness you have for certain foods and other frivolities?”

  “I suppose,” she says. “You say, ‘I love cheese,’ or ‘I love this old pair of slippers.’ But that doesn’t diminish my feelings for you. I love you, too, Vano.”

  “It is sacrilege to use the word for anything other than the most sacred of bonds between true mates,” I say. “I will say it in my tongue.” I have to think for a moment, because the language procedure that I’ve had makes it difficult to differentiate between spoken languages. I concentrate on my native tongue, the shape of the words in my mouth.

  “Well?” she says. “I’m curious what the Zalaryns say. I only hope I’ll be able to say it back.”

  “Zerxal yirna,” I say.

  “Zerxal yirna,” she repeats. She doesn’t come close to pronouncing it correctly, but I couldn’t care less. Coming from her mouth, it sounds like perfection. Sounds like home. Sounds like forever.

  “Zerxal is sort of like the word for…aquifer.”

  “Aquifer?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “And yirna is the word for fire…No,” I correct myself. “More like heat. The lingering heat of an object after the fire has left.”

  “Aquifer heat?” she questions. “That’s the phrase you use to describe the bond between fated mates?”

  “Makes sense to me. An endless reserve of water, the very thing essential for all life. And thermodynamic energy transfer. Think of it like transferring energy from one life force to another. Sharing energy. Because energy cannot be created or destroyed. Only transferred from one state, one object to another.”

  “Why are all your words for romance so…scientific sounding?”

  “Because we think about things,” I say. “Except this.” I push on the back of her head, gently guiding her lips to mine. Our tongues intertwine, the heat transfers, the lifeforce is renewed.

  “Zerxal yirna,” I say again, forcing myself to break the kiss.

  “Zerxal yirna,” she repeats, only this time her pronunciation is near perfect, as if we really are bound as one soul, one fate.

  I kiss her again, and this time I don’t force myself to break it for anything.

  Heat transfers.

  My lifeforce is renewed.

  Vano sets up his comm-panel, and I marvel at it. I have only seen him use it in passing—most of our time together has been spent in pleasure, not business.

  It is a large, flat panel of glass, rimmed with a thin frame of metal. He has an antenna, too, a large, conic apparatus that he says enhances the signals.

  “How does it work?” I ask. I have no idea how a written message could materialize on his screen. It’s not connected to anything. It’s magic, pure and simple. No parlor trick—real magic.

  “I’m not sure, exactly,” he says. “I connect my device to the Zalaryn network. Then if the signal is strong, I can get the messages.”

  “What signal?” I ask. “How could it send something millions of miles away?”

  “It’s billions of miles away,” he says. “Ask Orlon. He knows how this stuff works.”

  I think about my thrice-great grandfather and his reasons for leaving Earth. The technology had gotten out of control, he’d said. Maybe there’s some truth to that.

  Just then, the screen lights up and I see a moving picture fill up the previously empty space. It’s another Zalaryn, older, but exceedingly handsome. They are transmitting live images? Billions of miles away? It makes my head spin.

  “High King Xalax,” Vano says. “Fifty neus and fifty nights.”

  “Fifty-one,” the King says, “to you and yours. I trust that everything’s going well?” Did I imagine it, or did the Zalaryn High King smirk?

  “Not particularly,” Vano says. Vano takes a breath. He told me what he plans to say to his High King. I am nervous for him. “The Rulmek should be taken care of soon.”

  “Rulmek?”

  “A minor annoyance,” Vano says. “They’re delaying things, but we have it under control.”

  “Good to hear,” Xalax says. “What of the evacuations?”

  “They are complete,” Vano says. “Every single human has been evacuated.”

  “Every single one?” Xalax asks.

  “Yes,” Vano says. “Every Lekyo Prime human has been evacuated from Earth and brought back to their home.”

  After we settled the business with Yar and the poison, Vano consulted with Bantokk and Orlon. They devised a plan to deal with the Rulmek in a way that will make sure those evil bastards will never set foot on Lekyo Prime.

  It’s safe for my people to come back.

  And Vano promised me that they get to stay.

  “Their home?” High King Xalax asks. He doesn’t seem particularly upset. I had thought that the Zalaryn leader would be furious.

  “Yes,” Vano says. “With all due respect, I have decided not to evacuate the humans. The Zalaryn colonization of Lekyo Prime will proceed, but the humans will stay.”

  “Alright then,” Xalax says. “Anything else?”

  Vano is stunned. I can see his face struggling to comprehend. “Did the transmission go through?”

  “I heard you,” Xalax says. “I wondered how long it would take you. Honestly, I’m surprised it took you this long to send a comm telling me to screw off.”

  “What in the Holy Void are you talking about?” Vano asks.

  “You were in the dunge
on,” Xalax says. My ears perk up. Vano has mentioned bits of this, but now I am going to get the full story. “Do you remember what I said to you?”

  “You said you had a job. To colonize Lekyo Prime. I needed to assemble a crew and evacuate the planet. You said that because of my war crimes I could not return to Zalaryx, but if the colony was a success, I could stay and rule Lekyo Prime.”

  “No,” Xalax says. “That’s not exactly right. You don’t remember correctly.”

  “Sir?” Vano asks. “I was in the dungeon for treason. For botching my last mission.”

  “Indeed you were,” Xalax says. “Until I could sort it out. I asked around and found out what really happened. You were responsible for saving all those people.”

  “Saving?” Vano says. “I got four Zalaryns killed.”

  “But you saved hundreds of natives,” Xalax says. “I know what happened, how the captain of the raid commanded you to set fire to the village. I know that you refused. I know that the captain set four of his cronies after you, and you fought them off.”

  “Four against one?” I say. I don’t mean to speak and interrupt the Zalaryn High King, but I can’t help it. I imagine Vano on some distant planet, ordered to slaughter the natives. It’s horrible, but I’m not surprised that he refused. He is a just and honorable male.

  “This is what I was afraid of. Your guilt clouded your judgment. I told you to evacuate all malcontents. And I told you not to come back to Zalaryx until you were able to forgive yourself.”

  Vano is speechless. I want to go to him, comfort him, but I know he must come to terms with this revelation on his own.

  “Sir,” Vano says. “Thank you for having faith in me. I didn’t even have faith in myself.”

  “I know that,” Xalax says. “But I needed you for this job. I needed a reasonable, honorable male to do it. Colonizing a planet requires flexibility and a degree of compassion. It’s a job for a scalpel, not an axe.”