Page 15 of The Alien's Stolen Rebel

“Without you distracting me and bringing in all the guards, I’d have had time to disable all the security measures!”

He looked at me, eyes smoldering with anger, but there was something else there, too. I glared back, crossing my arms.

After a long pause, he spoke again, his words slower, more considered. “How did you disable the security locks, anyway?”

I wetted my lips with my tongue. “I got the idea from the autodoc. It wouldn’t work until I ordered it to. After that, I guessed the problem with the thrusters was the same—it would let you drive it around at low power, but for the fun stuff, it needs a royal in charge.”

He drew a breath to answer, then let it out in a sigh. “So that nonsense about being a princess?”

“It’s fucking ridiculous, but at least this once it came in handy.” My turn to sigh. “It’s a technicality, okay? An accident. True but meaningless, and it won’t be true for long. Dad hates it as much as I do.”

One of the few fun things about being lumbered with a royal title is the looks you get when you explain that it’s a bad joke. Kreel didn’t disappoint. His eyes wide, he leaned back, slack jawed.

“How does one ‘accidentally’ become a king?” Suspicious and doubting, he glared at me. “Many have claimed a throne citing ‘accidents’ forcing them onto it. I’ve never heard of one letting go of the power afterward.”

I laughed, a loud, impolite snort of a laugh. “Youhaven’t met my father, then. He’s an engineer, and this nonsense is keeping him from the polar canal project he’s been dying to work on. The sooner the colonial senate can get a fucking constitution written, the better.”

Less suspicious and more convinced I was insane, Kreel stared. “How does a man who doesn’t want to be king end up wearing the crown?”

I ran a hand through my hair, looking away from him and at the endless black outside. “The Uplink War happened. Humans connected to the galactic network, and immediately half a dozen alien species tried to conquer us.”

“Four.” I paused at his interruption. “Four species attacked yours, not six.”

I waved him off. “Doesn’t matter. There were enough of them to get in each other’s way, that’s the main thing here. That let humanity hold our own long enough to make our claim to independence stick. But the war cut Mars off from Earth, forced us to run our own affairs.

“Dad was the unlucky guy the Martian colonies picked to lead them, and by the time the peace was signed, we weren’t about to hand power back to Earth. Which meant signing our own peace with the invaders, and to dothat,we had to choose someone who had the authority to negotiate. That turned out to be dad again, and without a better title, they ended up using king.”

Telling the story annoyed me, as it always did. It was such a stupid fix, the diplomatic equivalent ofpapering over the cracks, and it stuck dad with a thankless job which Mars would abolish as soon as he could arrange it.

Hopefully, ‘former princess of Mars’ would look good on my CV. So far, all the position had gotten me was trouble.

Kreel looked at me with questions in his eyes and a subtle smile on his oh-so-kissable lips. I practically saw the wheels turning in his mind as he digested the story.

“Are you his firstborn child, then?”

I pursed my lips as I nodded.Of coursehe wanted to know more. Everyone did. At least he wasn’t just trying to get me into bed so he could tell his friends he’d fucked a princess. That was all too common a response, and why I’d given up on dating.

“Yes,I’m the crown princess. Technically, I could inherit the throne. Practically speaking, though? It’ll never happen. Even if something happens to dad, the senate would take that cue to ratify whatever constitution they’ve got.”

Kreel swore in a quiet, hissed litany. Leaning on the throttle, he adjusted our course.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, frightened by his sudden change.

“Everything,” he growled. “I thought I was stealing his prize spaceship. That was bad enough. Then it turned out I stole his bride to be, which is a lot worse. Now it turns out I’m stealing his chance to rule a planet? He’ll throw everything he has at us, and hiding in an asteroid field won’t be nearly enough.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I twisted in my seat to look at him, more angry than frightened. “He’d have to be an idiot to believe I’d inherit Mars.”

“Unless he arranges things the old-fashioned way. Marry you, conquer Mars, kill your father. You inherit the throne, and he claims that makes him ruler. Who’s going to tell him no when he’s got an army?”

“If he can put together a horde able to conquer Mars, what does he need my claim for?” I tried to raise that as an objection, but it came out as a frightened question. Kreel paused a second before answering.

“It makes his claim legal, at least arguably. You’re the acknowledged heir as far as the treaties go, which is what matters. If he just landed some warships on Mars and declared himself king, there’s the risk someone more powerful would do the same to him. But if he can claim he’s the legitimate king, the treaties that keep Mars safe will protect him, too.

“As soon as you marry him, that fleet’s on its way to Mars.”

10

KREEL

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