Page 28 of Bonded Queen: to the Alien Warlord Triad

The other is in her forties, with an elaborate mass of braids, woven artistically. She has a handsome face, with striking features, and I can imagine how she must have looked ten, twenty years ago…

When they first bought her and brought her into their harem. I look around for more women. I chose this. Despite knowing I might be linked to the triad, they’ve lived hundreds of years.

Why didn’t I think of the fact that they must have grown a harem of hundreds over the years?

I swallow, a strange sensation in me. The way Orr looked at me, it was like no other woman could ever exist. Now I’m slapped with the truth.

Ra’al steps into the huge chamber, and I follow him in with Kat at my side. The floor is stone tile, soft tones of blue and yellow laid down in gorgeous spiral patterns. Ra’al’s boots stomp against the floor under his weight, and he seems out of place here, a war-lord in restful, decadent luxury.

The two women tense up as we enter. I don’t blame them. At the far end of the room is another set of elevator doors, which Ra’al makes a beeline towards. I smile warmly at the two women, hoping to levy their fears, and call out with a friendly “Hello!”

They don’t answer. Orr stomps past me, his black robes swirling. “When she addresses you, you speak,” he orders. I cringe inwardly, but the two of them snap to attention, their eyes meeting mine.

“I apologize. We are not Royal Servants, and we do not know how to act. We will do our best to serve you,” says the older woman, her hands open and pressed against her chest under her breast, as if to calm her.

I’m sickened by how scared they are. If these are harem women, then they are even more brutal than I thought. What did expect, dammit? Orr put me over his lap and punished me hard within minutes of knowing me, and my ass is still burning from his discipline. If these are harem women, they must be kept under tight control.

“Thank you. Please, relax. Take a seat, I have no need of your services right now,” I say, keeping my voice as reassuring as I can. There’s a flash of gratitude on their faces, but they stand straight-backed, glancing nervously at Orr.

“She told you to sit. Sit!” barks out Orr, beckoning with an irritated gesture, as if he can’t believe they didn’t already obey such a simple order. The two women practically jump out of their robes, rushing to the closest deck chairs and sitting down by the hot tub, their eyes planted straight down to the ground.

The three men have spent so long in combat they don’t know how to speak to civilians, if these women were taken from the city and didn’t travel with them. I don’t know what’s worse, that Orr is so cold to speak to women who narrowly avoided death from Scorp, or that these are their harem women and they speak to them so brusquely even after however many years they served.

I try to give the two women a smile to comfort them, but they don’t make eye contact, sitting stock-still like prey waiting for the predators to lose interest.

Ra’al is silent. He strides to the doors of the transport pods, and I scurry after him, keeping ahead of the heavy-booted steps of Orr and Kriz behind me.

“We’re in the middle of the palace. That pod is an elevator up to the Royal Spire,” says Kat, whistling with admiration at the elaborate design. This is no fool’s gold over wood, designed to show off riches. This is true elegance. We walk by the pool, and I look down in the perfectly clear waters, marveling at the patterns of the tile at the bottom, arranged in the shapes of flowers and birds.

The wooden doors of the elevator open. There’s a row of buttons, and I realize the Royal Spire is basically an incredibly tall apartment building, filled with rooms for servants. I read the dizzying amount of numbers of floors, with some labelled as parks, pools, restaurants and more. The Royal Family had practically their own private city behind the walls.

“Queen’s Spire,” states Ra’al, in clear, precise Common tongue. The AI hears him, and to my surprise, the doors close. He’s set the Palace to work to his DNA and tongue. I didn’t even know that was possible, thinking it would be linked only to the Royal Family. I press myself against the back of the elevator, keeping as much distance between me and the huge bulks of the warriors in front of me.

I feel nothing, no sense of movement, but when the doors open again, we’re on top of the world.

I can see between the broad backs of the Aurelian warriors. There’s a bio-dome, far above the city below, above even the clouds. The sun streams in through the glittering, near-translucent sphere of the holo-field that keeps the chill out and the air in.

They enter, and I follow cautiously afterwards, my eyes darting left and right. My hand clenches into a fist. It takes me a second to realize I’m looking for Scorp, and that my hand is clenching tight like it’s around the rifle that barely kept us alive.

It’s paradise. There’s a low, one-story house that sprawls out on the far edge of the bio-sphere, constructed of white rock in angular, squared lines. The Royal Palace looks like a symbol of power and strength. This bio-dome looks like it was made to be lived in, a paradise accessible only by a select few. There is a pond in the center of the dome, and fish leap into the air, their scales glittering metallically. There is a forest that rings the side opposite of the enormous home, and I catch a glimpse of a squirrely animal leaping from bough to bough.

Pure black Reavers circle watchfully, four of them crisscrossing silently in the air above the holo-dome.

“How did I never see this before?” I’ve stared at the Royal Palace thousands of times, watching it rear above the walls of the city.

Kat shakes her head, anger flashing. “There’s clouds. Always clouds, in the center of the city. These fuckers blocked the view from the masses. How did I never think they were man-made?”

I blink. Of course. Even on the clearest days, there was always fluffy white clouds above the city.

“They had this, while everyone worked below.” Even I am surprised by the venom in my voice.

“It is yours now.” Ra’al states it like it’s nothing, as if he is telling me that the weather is mild.

I turn, in shock. He’s looking down at me, his weathered face emotionless. “What do you mean? I can’t stay here.” I’ve spent so much of my life behind walls, and seeing the endless sky around me, with no reference points other than the Aurelian Reavers flitting around us endlessly, makes my heart pound.

Ra’al waves his hand to the estate. “They left. The King, the Queen, the heirs. They left, and their people died. You will be their voice now.”

I can’t say anything. My eyes go wide, and my mouth opens, then snaps close.

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