Page 77 of Bonded Queen: to the Alien Warlord Triad

What is that man thinking? I knew him. I thought I knew him. When he reported for duty, fighting by my side on Elsinor, I knew then he could not have been the man to take Lola. He eschewed command, but when one of my captains was cut down, triads rallied to him instinctively, and his swift action saved many lives.

Now he’s gone missing. “I know that man. If he is the one who has her, he would not harm her. He has a violence to him, but only for his enemies. Never to innocents.”

She looks down. Her aura is distant. “I hope you’re right.”

“Did you have all you needed down here?”

“I needed you, Ra’al. Will you go back to war soon or are you here to stay?”

“It is my duty. When Obsidian calls, I must lead the next strike. My men depend on me.”

She swallows. She looks up at me, but she’s not seeing me. She’s looking straight through me, as if I don’t exist. Her aura grows smaller and smaller in my mind, like she’s winking out of existence. I can see her. I can smell her. But her emotions are as distant as if she is lost in the rift itself.

“I go crazy stuck down here. I need to see the sun.”

We put a rigid, strict triad in charge while we were gone. He reported that his interrogators found two main spy cells and executed them instantly. Trebulous will never be fully safe until the Aurelian Empire is crushed, but she suffered down here. I get a pang of regret.

I did my duty…I did as I needed to.

I look at her in all her splendor. She is unashamed in her nudity, nothing covering her but the silver collar around her neck that marks her as mine.

I will put her on her throne, where she is meant to be, in front of us, showing the world our most prized possession.

“Come.”

29

Rachel

“This is where you will rule.”

There used to be two thrones in this room. I was never allowed to see it, not even on the day of Independence when we visited the castle, but Paulus would watch royal proceedings on holo-vid, glowering when their ruling would aid his competitors, filled with glee when it would hurt them. The thrones were studded with yellow and blue jewels, high up on a raised dais where the King and Queen looked down on their subjects.

There were rows of chairs where bureaucrats and sycophants sat, listening to proclamations, gossiping at breaks, and occasionally begging to be summoned up to put a choice word in the King’s ear. All the chairs are gone. Whoever comes to petition will walk up to the throne in emptiness, until they stand directly in front of the three huge men. There is a fourth, smaller throne, tucked to the left of Ra’al’s black seat, and sitting there, I’ll be overshadowed by the titans. The thrones are simple and black, made of wrought iron, the opposite of the bejeweled seats left by the former rulers.

“Rule? What do you need me to do?”

“Sit. Listen. We are not human. There will be things you know that we do not. Telepath them to me, so that I may make informed rulings.”

Kriz’s boots echo in the empty room as he walks towards the thrones. He motions to them. “Would you like to sit? The throne was made to your exact specifications. It’s more comfortable than it looks.”

I give him a little smile. It’s so nice to be out of the bunker, for the first time in what feels like forever. I had everything I could need down there, space to walk, food to eat, people to talk to. But it still made me feel cooped up and trapped. “I just want to see the sun.”

“Of course. Come,” orders Orr, turning sharply and striding out. The guards hear him stomping from the other side of the huge, freshly painted black wooden doors, pulling them open hurriedly before he rams through them. He looks left and right in the hallway, hand near his blade. The three men are constantly on alert when I’m with them. They look for threats in every nook and cranny, and there’s an eagerness to Orr, as if he is looking forward to dealing with whoever tries to hurt me.

Ra’al extends his arm. I take it, leaning against him as we walk. I love the way he towers over me, how stable and strong he is. The violet pleasure dress shimmers on my body as I rub against Ra’al, and I smile, remembering how good it feels to have the sun on my body. I’m nearly nude, but no male servant, guard, or even Aurelian dares to look at me. It’s so unlike when I walked through Paulus’s estate, ogled and leered at by guards. When Aurelians do look at me, it’s always at the silver collar wrapped around my neck, and they have the same deep, painful longing to them, flashing on their faces just for a moment before they control their emotions and become as statues again.

There’s far more Aurelians moving about the castle now, many with brands on their foreheads, just like the ones Krazak had, that mark them as the most devoted legions of the Priests.

My triad was wounded in battle, but they came back flawless, their bodies restored by the high-tech medical bays of their Reaver before they even returned. When I first laid eyes on them, there was nothing to indicate they had fought a battle. No scars on their bodies, no cuts or bruises, nothing to mark the brutal days of fighting that drove me near insane in pitch blackness.

Nothing except a new darkness that infects them. When they served in the Aurelian Army, they must have had to occasionally hunt down a Rogue Aurelian. They’ve never fought against their own species at such a scale. It left a stain on their beings, a blackness that even being with me cannot erase.

I follow Orr into an elevator transport pod, which shoots us through the palace, until the doors open to the outside world.

We’re back where I was first Bonded to the triad, taken in front of the crowd, claimed by the three men who collared me. I shiver as I remember that first moment when Ra’al pressed himself inside me, the fear and lust that mixed together into a cocktail of pleasure as I gave myself to the alpha. I look up, nervously, at the still damaged spire, remembering the huge chunks of rock that tumbled down, nearly crushing us.

The bridge has been partially restored. All trace of rubble has been cleared from the grounds, but the formerly unbroken stone bridge now has huge holes in it, spanned by black metal bars that reinforce it. The sun glows down on me, kissing my skin. I’m brought back to when I came to Trebulous from the space station, stepping out of my transport ship and feeling the sun on my skin for the first time.

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