Page 4 of The Alien's Stolen Rebel

Brenias-Alcar would undoubtedly have built more to the same pattern, if they’d had the chance. But when the revolt swallowed the Empire in flames, the foundry was amongst the first targets of the rebellious slave-soldiers. The prototype survived, though. One of the Last Emperor’s wives stole it to escape the fall of the capital and vanished into the confusion of the war. No one had seen it for nearly a century, until it turned up in the hands of the notorious warlord, Frax.

“She is a beauty, isn’t she?”The low rumble of Frax’s voice took me by surprise, and I had to control the urge to lash out. Instead, I turned to face the warlord, smiled, and nodded.

“That she is,” I said. “Are we talking about your ship or your princess?”

He laughed, an unpleasant, guttural noise. “Still a ready wit, Kreel. I always liked that about you.”

“So you invited me to your wedding as a jester?”

“Old friend, you wound me. You know the deep respect I have for you and your brothers.”

It took an effort to keep my expression friendly and placid. We’d never been friends, though we’d worked together back when I wasa cub and wasn’t ready to branch out on my own. As soon as I outgrew him, I’d gathered a crew and left, never looking back.

Dwelling on thepast wouldn’t help. Instead, I lifted a glass from the tray carried by a passing servant and raised it in Frax’s direction.

“You’ve certainly made something of yourself since we last spoke.”

Frax smiled his predatory smile. “You’ve seen nothing yet, Kreel.Nothing.”

Intriguing.My brother Varok would know how to maneuver this kind of conversation to learn more without raising suspicion, but my brute-force approach wouldn’t work well. I changed direction as smoothly as I could manage.

“How did you meet your bride, Frax? Humans aren’t common this far from their homeworld, are they? Especially not the royalty.”

Mostly because they don’thaveroyalty,I thought, but Varok would gut me if I was blunt enough to mention that detail to Frax. It made me wonder whether the human was working some kind of confidence trick on Frax.

If so, I hoped she got away with it.

The warlord looked up in her direction, rolling his prehensile tongue across his lips. “Oh, I stumbled across her a long way voidward, near their new colonies. And our love blossomed at once.”

“How lovely.” I hoped I sounded more sincere than he did. Whatever had really brought them together, it bore no resemblance to that tale.

If he caught my sarcasm, Frax didn’t show it. Instead, he gave me a cheerful nod and moved on to speak with the Guildfather, leaving me to my thoughts.

They should have been about finding my way to theStarshadow.Instead, the fear in the human’s eyes consumed me.

3

RACHEL

The rest of the welcome party went by in a blur. Frax brought a few select guests up to meet me, or more accurately, to show me off like a stolen work of art. I barely noticed. My mind wasn’t on the present, and I was vaguely aware of replying with bland inanities when asked a question. I couldn’t even tell you who I met. My mind focused on the future too strongly to hold on to what was happening in the present.

All I had in front of me was a simple, awful choice: a short future of attempted escape and death, or a longer one of miserable marriage…and death.

Great.

I refused to entertain the fantasy that the silver skinned alien would save me. He was just one man, and Caliban station crawled with Frax’s guards. Besides, whatever I thought I saw in his gaze, he was here, amongst the cream of the interstellar underworld. Noreason to think he’d be any better than the rest of the criminals here.

Eventually, the event ended. I only noticed when a pair of guards escorted me off the balcony. They ignored my questions but were carefully polite, though I doubted it was for my benefit. They had the look of thugs being nice because the boss might kill them if they weren’t.

The ramshackle remains of the luxurious station reminded me oddly of Mars. I’d grown up running around Olympus Colony’s maintenance ducts, and I could probably navigate through this place better than anyone would expect. All I needed was a chance to get away from the guards.

And somewhere to run to.

The room they ushered me into was nice, but clearly a gilded cage. The guards checked it carefully, searching for anything untoward before leaving and locking the door behind them. Once they were gone, I finally let myself relax a little and looked around.

The chamber was magnificent and unbelievably tasteless at the same time. Someone had flung together luxury furniture without giving a thought to appearance or function, and the result was impressively hideous. It reminded me of Lady Astara’s outfit enough that I wondered if she’d done the decorating. Every item of furniture in the room was valuable, but together they made a discordant mess.

I flopped down onto an overstuffed sofa, its white cushions decorated with some kind of heraldic emblemthat appeared nowhere else of the in the room’s chaos. My eyes burned at the ugliness of the decor, and even when I closed my eyes, my breath wouldn’t catch.

---