Chapter Three
Kirstos Vargarra
I was on my way down to the planet’s surface within the hour. I could have left even sooner, but I wanted to give Prince Vannos’s servants time to make preparations for me and my men. Hopefully, Prince Mikos had notified him that we were on the way and we’d be expected.
I had left the prince bickering with his husband, though I thought that from the way Prince Mikos was looking at the colonel, it was as much foreplay as anything else.
Not that this situation with his brother Larz had ever been anything but a sore point between Prince Mikos and the rest of his immediate family.
The fact that he argued with his mate in front of me was telling.
No matter what Prince Mikos might say or do in private, he was not usually inclined to argue with his mate in public as a general rule.
Of course, there was that one time when the handsome Prince Consort first started playing in the Games and allowed others to see him nearly naked, wearing only the short piece of cloth players wore between their legs in front.
The prince had shown him the error of his ways in no uncertain terms, but that was surely justifiable and what anyone would have done.
The former Alliance colonel who married the Bloody Prince to help save the galaxy was Ryan Donnelly, and he was famous on Tygeria.
He would probably be in his mid-fifties by now, though he looked to be still in his thirties.
Like the King’s Consort, he didn’t appear to be aging at the normal human rate, which must be due to the intervention of our physicians and their treatments to alter his DNA.
He was different from the King’s Consort Blake, with his dark, curly hair and his slightly larger frame.
But he was almost as beautiful and more athletic.
He still participated in the Games with his own human team, I’d heard.
I could only imagine how much the prince hated that.
He was quieter than the King’s Consort too, and not as bold in his manner of speaking.
Both men were popular with the Tygerian public, and both had produced fine heirs.
Both were beloved by their mates. Perhaps too much so, in my opinion.
It wasn’t a good idea to be so much in love. If you lost them—and with a human, it was inevitable—it was far too devastating and life-changing. Most never fully recovered and never remarried.
Tygerians had a much longer life span than humans.
In fact, our life spans were roughly twice that of theirs and I knew from bitter experience how deeply traumatic it was to lose your mate.
I felt a familiar twist of pain in my chest at the thought of Merik, even after all this time.
After my mate’s death, I thought I’d die too, and I welcomed the idea of joining him in the afterlife.
I had crawled inside a bottle for a while, until my friends intervened.
I’d been in several battles that I hardly even remembered afterward, and I think I would surely have been dead by now if I’d kept on the way I was.
My behavior had been reckless in the extreme.
That’s not to say I didn’t have a sex life now or enjoy the company of other men from time to time.
I had been a healthy eighteen-year-old man when Merik was killed eleven years ago, and I was still considered to be pretty young by Tygerian standards.
I still had needs just like anyone else.
Some widowers did marry again—a few, though it was not at all common.
Others never had another significant relationship ever again.
I suppose I was somewhere in the middle.
Perhaps Merik and I hadn’t been bonded long enough for our bond to stick, or perhaps the bond had been formed when we were both too young, because I didn’t completely feel it biologically, like some did.
Our emotional bond had been really strong, however, and I still didn’t plan on ever marrying again, because I couldn’t imagine ever loving someone as much as I’d loved Merik.
It wouldn’t have been fair to either of us.
Remarriage had proven to be easy enough to avoid so far. I simply didn’t allow myself to fall in love, and so far, I hadn’t been so attracted to another man that I didn’t feel as if I couldn’t live without them, like I had Merik.
I never wanted to fall in love again. Even if I were willing to take such a terrible risk and try to feel all that again, then someone could come right in and blow up my life again.
If I were to open my heart to another person and to that potential heartbreak…
. If I were to make another person the center of my life—then that person could just as easily blow it apart.
Why would I ever risk something so perilous?
So dangerous? So devastatingly painful. I’d barely survived Marek’s death.
Surely it was better to not fall in love with anyone at all ever again.
Death was inevitable and sooner or later it would come for all of us.
If the higher I climbed only meant that I had that much farther to fall, then why expose myself to something with such potential for a negative outcome?
I had to protect myself at all costs, because I knew I wouldn’t make it through that kind of loss again.
We were met when we landed by King Stefan himself, a big man who looked vaguely like a Tygerian, though with dark hair and without the markings under the skin.
Moravians were closely related to our people genetically.
He made us welcome though he seemed a little indignant at our presence there so unexpectedly.
Still, he invited us inside the palace and was cordial enough.
Our group was fairly small—I had brought only nine men with me.
Prince Mikos would bring a few more, but ten Imperials were more than enough to handle any contingency.
The king led us to the large room where the conference would take place the next day and told us that his men had already searched it thoroughly.
“If you do find anything, I’d like to know about it,” he said, puffing up a little at me. “So that we can investigate it fully. I won’t stand for any kind of treachery against the king here in my home. And I would have thought that Mikos would know that.”
“Of course he does, Your Majesty.” I replied, trying to soothe his feelings.
“His Royal Highness, Prince Mikos understands and appreciates your efforts. He’s simply being extra cautious since your children are in residence, along with the fact that your mates will be in attendance.
And King Davos and his consort will also be here in the morning. ”
He nodded, looking only slightly mollified. “Yes, of course.”
The door opened behind him and his consort, Prince Vannos came in to greet us.
The Imperials hadn’t been around—at least under the same name—when Prince Vannos had last lived on Tygeria, though of course, I’d seen him on his visits back home.
His disappearance from the royal palace as a young man had been one of the arguments made for the creation of the Imperials, and the need for an elite, specialized force, dedicated to the royals’ protection.
“Your rooms are prepared, General Vargarra,” he told me. “I’m afraid your men will have to double up for tonight, though there will be more rooms prepared for their use by tomorrow. Perhaps if my brother had given us a little more notice…”
“I’m sure that whatever accommodations you have for us are more than sufficient, Your Royal Highness. Again, I can only apologize for any inconvenience.”
“Oh no, General, I know the fault is not yours. Do you or your men require anything from the kitchens?”
“No, thank you, sir.”
“Then I’ll say goodnight and see you in the morning at first meal. Please join us then with your men in the dining hall.”
I bowed to them both and they left the room. Vannos had reminded me a little of his omak, Consort Blake. Not in looks, though he was very handsome, but in the way he spoke and in his mannerisms. His personality was quite different from his older brother, Mikos.
I stayed in the conference room with my men for the hour or so it took for them to do a thorough sweep of the floor, ceiling and walls, looking for any hidden devices or explosives. I didn’t think we’d find anything, and we didn’t, but like Prince Mikos had said, you never knew.
It was fairly late when we finished, and I headed upstairs to find my bed for the night.
The directions I’d received were fairly simple.
The servant who gave me the key said to go up to the third floor, take a left and my room would be the first door on the left.
I went up as directed, not seeing anyone along the way.
The palace was quiet, though I knew there were many people here in this ancient old building.
The halls were carpeted in a deep purple color and there were hanging tapestries along the walls, no doubt to keep out drafts.
I came to my door and fitted the old-fashioned key in the lock.
It took me a few seconds to figure it out, actually, because I’d never seen one of the things outside of a museum.
The door finally opened with a creaking noise and I went inside, flicking on a switch just inside.
At home, the lights were motion activated, so this was something outside of my experience too.
I’d been glancing around the darkened room as I moved, automatically checking the corners out of long habit before I turned on the light.
I’d cleared many buildings in my time as a soldier, and this wasn’t my first time to go into an unfamiliar, dimly lit space.
As I walked farther in toward the big four poster bed, I caught a small flash of movement near the closet door.
The door was being eased shut very softly—so softly, I never heard any sound but noticed only the movement.