Chapter 6
“Do you know why I have to be at this docking bay?” Emily asked, keeping her voice low. She didn’t look back, but her shoulders had gone tight.
“I don’t,” Raaevik said. “But if Station Command cleared it, it could be official.”
“Official how?”
“Earth official,” he said, and immediately regretted it when she went still. “Or it could be. A delegation, maybe… someone who wants to be seen paying respects to the new Empress.”
Emily’s laugh was short and humorless. “The President of Earth, come to take a selfie with their exported bride?”
Raaevik’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like being reminded of how easily humans could turn her into a headline.
“I bloody well hate surprises,” she muttered, more to herself than him. “The last surprise I got was a one-way ticket to an alien planet.”
“The docking bay is secure,” he said, trying to reassure her. Nothing was secure. Not after the shuttle. “Whatever is arriving has been cleared by Station Command.”
He walked half a step behind her, body angled to shield her from the open expanse of the corridor, his hand hovering near his sidearm. He scanned the corridor. Faces. Hatches. Light panels.
The assignment was an hour old, and his nerves were already shredded.
Emily walked with her head down, skirts brushing her boots. Tension rolled off her in waves.
The need to protect her hit him like a fist under the ribs… visceral, possessive, and completely inappropriate.
Gritting his teeth, he forced the feeling down, buried it under discipline and duty. It wasn't his place to keep her safe because she belonged to him. It was his place because the Emperor had ordered it. There was a difference. A very important difference.
They reached the transition point, and the VIP sector’s polished panels gave way to the docking ring’s industrial metal. Cooler air carried ozone and the faint tang of recently powered-down drives.
Guards snapped to attention as they passed. They all had good lines of sight, their weapons charged but holstered. He nodded to them in approval, his eyes tracking their hands and their focus.
The blast doors of Bay 4 stood open. Beyond them was a metal-and-glass reception hall designed to make visitors feel small.
A ship had already docked.
It wasn’t a military vessel, but a civilian transport, sleek and expensive, its hull a glossy white that screamed money. The airlock seal hissed, steam venting in thick white plumes that curled along the floor.
Moving closer to Emily, he stepped into her personal space without a thought. His body was a wall between her and the opening door. If this was a threat, it would have to go through him to get to her.
The ramp descended with a whine of hydraulics.
A figure appeared at the top of the ramp, black against the ship’s bright interior. Raaevik narrowed his eyes, tracking the outline for weapons, gait… anything wrong.
The human female who descended the ramp moved with a practiced, camera-ready grace, her blonde waves styled into place. Tall and willowy, she wore a tailored white suit and looked like dirt was a personal insult.
Next to him, Emily made a small, choked gasp. “Mother?”
He stiffened. This was the female who had given birth to his ma—The empress-to-be?
The female stopped at the bottom of the ramp, striking a pose as she surveyed the docking bay. Her gaze swept over the waiting guards, the utilitarian architecture, and finally landed on Emily.
She didn’t smile or rush forward to embrace the daughter uprooted from her life on Earth to marry an alien emperor. Instead, she tilted her head, expression one of mild distaste.
“Well,” she said, her voice carrying clearly in the silence. “It’s certainly... industrial. Quaint, if you like that sort of thing.”
Emily took a step forward, then stopped, her boots scuffing on the metal. Her shoulders squared, and a flicker of the stubbornness he’d seen in the alleyway surfaced. “Mom? What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be on a cruise?”
The female swept down the ramp, ignoring the question. She ignored Emily too, turning instead to the nearest Lathar guard, a young warrior blinking and trying not to choke on the wall of perfume.
“I am Miranda Evans,” she announced, lifting her chin. “The Empress-Mother. I assume my quarters have been prepared? I require a suite with a view of the planet, not space. Space is depressing.”
Raaevik frowned. The Empress-Mother? There was no such title in the Empire. The mothers of mates were honored, certainly, but they held no rank. They were guests.
The young warrior hesitated, sliding Raaevik a sideways look for guidance. “I... uh... Ma’am, I have no orders regarding—”
Miranda’s laugh cracked off the metal walls, too sharp to be real.
“Orders? I am the mother of the Empress. I don’t need orders. What I need is a porter for my luggage. There are twelve cases. Be careful with the blue ones, they’re very delicate.”
Waving a hand dismissively at the guard, she finally turned her attention to her daughter.
He’d expected... something. Relief, maybe?
Affection, definitely. In Latharian society, children were prized and precious.
He remembered his own mother’s reaction when separated from him and his brother for any length of time.
There was weeping... tears of happiness as she clutched them close, and checked them for injury.
It had been cute when they were five, not so much by the time they’d hit fifteen.
But Miranda didn’t weep. She inspected instead.
She walked a slow circle around Emily, her gaze cold and calculating, raking over her daughter from head to toe. It was the way a quartermaster inspected a shipment of grain, looking for rot.
“The blue is a good color for you,” she sniffed, pausing to flick a piece of lint off Emily’s shoulder. “It hides your complexion. You look sallow, darling. Have you been eating properly? Or just stress-eating again?”
Emily didn’t flinch this time. She swatted her mother’s hand away, jaw tight. “I’ve been a little busy being kidnapped, Mom. My diet wasn’t exactly a priority.”
“Kidnapped? Don’t be dramatic.” Miranda reached out again, not to stroke Emily’s cheek, but to tug at a loose curl that had escaped her daughter’s messy bun.
She pulled it straight, then let it snap back with a sigh.
“It was an arrangement. A very lucrative one, might I add. I told you to get a treatment before you left. Frizz is not regal, Emily. It’s messy. ”
His anger simmered under his skin, restless. Every word out of that female's mouth was poison. He forced his hands to unclench. This was her mother… her family. He couldn’t just throw her out an airlock because she was rude. But gods, he wanted to. He really wanted to.
Circling back to the front, Miranda stepped away to look her daughter up and down. Her attention dropped and froze.
“Emily,” she said, the words dropped an octave. Became sharp and deadly. “What. Are. Those.”
Emily stared down at her feet. The scuffed brown boots peeked out from beneath her skirts. She lifted her chin and met her mother’s gaze.
“They’re my boots.”
Miranda leaned in. “They are garbage.” She glanced around the docking bay. Her expression registered for the first time that they had an audience.
“You are meeting the Emperor of the Latharian Empire,” she said, her voice rising with growing anger. “You are representing our family. Representing me. And you are wearing shoes that look like they were pulled out of a dumpster?”
“They fit,” Emily snapped back, though her voice wavered. “The other shoes hurt. And the floor is slippery. I’m not going to break my neck just so you can have a photo op.”
“Pain is part of the package, darling. If it hurts, it’s working. Welcome to being important.” Miranda loomed over her daughter. “Look at you. You’re slouching again. You’ve gained weight in your hips, haven’t you? Even in that dress, I can tell. You look like a peasant playing dress-up.”
“I look like a person who didn’t ask for this,” Emily shot back, but he could see that the fire was dying. Her shoulders slumped, just a fraction.
Raaevik moved forward.
He didn’t mean to. It was instinct. A sudden need to put himself between Emily and the female hurting her.
“And who is this?” she asked, gesturing in his direction. “Your handler? Does he speak, or is he just decorative muscle?”
“He is my guard,” Emily said. “Sub-Commander Raaevik K’Vass.”
Miranda turned back to Emily, a sneer curling her painted lips. “Well, have the servant explain to you that when one marries a king, one does not dress like a stable hand. It reflects poorly on all of us.”
Servant.
He stared at her. He was a Latharian warrior and a Sub-Commander of the Imperial Guard. He had killed males with his bare hands for less disrespect than this female offered with a wave of her wrist.
He turned back to Emily and stopped dead. The fight had drained out of her. She stared at the floor, fists clenched, swallowing tears. Small. Beaten.
Her gaze dropped to her boots. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t think... I just wanted to be comfortable.”
“Comfort is for people who don’t matter,” Miranda snapped. “You are an important person now, Emily… An empress. Try to act like one. Fix your hair. Stand up straight. And for god’s sake, burn those boots before the Emperor sees them.”
“Now…” She turned away, dismissing her daughter as if she were a bored customer walking away from a disappointing display, and clapped her hands. “My bags. And some wine, but nothing sweet. I have a headache coming on.”
The silence in the docking bay was absolute.
The young lead warrior looked at Raaevik, eyes wide. The warriors around them stared at the floor. Even the station’s hum seemed to drop away.
Emily didn’t move for long moments, then she lifted her head.
She didn’t look at her mother or the ship. She looked at him.
Her dark eyes were wide, wet with unshed tears.
She thinks I’m judging her, the thought slammed into him.