He stiffened. Something he had been doing all too often at the sound of her voice.
She gritted her teeth, forced herself to speak with more strength. “Come to me, my love.”
He stood, his chair scraping back. When he crossed the room, his body was stiff, as if he didn’t want to be near her. He kept his eyes downcast until she placed a gentle finger below his chin and angled his gaze to hers.
“Kiss me, Cyprian,” she whispered.
He pressed his lips to hers in a deep kiss that had him groaning, wanting more. Always more.
She steeled herself as she pulled away and spoke again.
If he obeyed...it would change everything.
“You will take me home tonight,” she said.
Cyprian’s head jerked upward. “What?”
She nodded. Nerves pricked at her senses.
If she could do this, if she could get him to take her back, with their new son in tow...
“I wish to return to Xen Ptera,” the queen pressed. “My husband...he will surrender.”
“Your husband,” Cyprian hissed. “He does not care for you, fool queen.” He shook his head and ripped himself away from her. “I cannot allow this. You have seen too much. Heard too much.” His shoulders rose and fell as he inhaled and released a breath. “You are bound to me now, Klaren. Through our child.”
“Which is why I wish to take him, too,” she said. She swept closer to him. “Cyprian...look at me, my love.”
He spun around, eyes flashing. “I will not allow you to bewitch me again.”
“Bewitch you?” She put the power into her words, where her compulsion was strongest. Put the power into her gaze, too.
She could feel it working on him, but only for a moment.
Then she hit the wall.
Little by little, Cyprian had begun fighting back, building a wall within his mind. As if there was something inside of him, some hidden power that he, too, bore.
“You will send me and Valen to Xen Ptera,” the queen said. Her body shook with the power she urged into her words. “Tonight.”
Cyprian was motionless as he watched her.
“You will send me and Valen to Xen Ptera,” she tried again, sweat beading on her brow. “Tonight.”
“Tonight,” Cyprian said, and she felt the wall in his mind begin to crumble.
Exhaustion had made him weaker.
It was why, each night, she kept him awake with her kisses, her touch, her false love.
“My husband will allow us entry,” she said, still using her power on him, compelling him to obey, “as long as you propose a cease-fire. From both sides. For one day. You will release Valen and me to Xen Ptera, and you will forget that we existed. You will remove us from your memories and from your heart.”
Cyprian looked up.
This time, when he locked eyes with her, she saw that she had finally won.
“Pack your bags, my dear,” he said. “Tonight, you will board a ship. It is time for you to return home.”
“And then?” she pressed.
“And then,” Cyprian said, his jaw tight as her power flowed into him, “I will remove you both from my memories and my heart.”
“Good,” she said. “We leave at nightfall.”
As the prisoner queen left Cyprian’s office, her steps light and bouncing, she could not help but smile at everyone who passed.
Every fool, unaware of her plans. Her time on Arcardius had been hell. A necessary one, but a hell all the same. It had taken years for her to truly understand the magnitude of what was at play.
Tonight she would return to her Xen Pterran throne. Back to her husband, back to her daughter, to introduce them to her newborn son.
He was asleep when she went to him, the many-armed servant standing guard as promised.
“You look pleased, mistress,” the servant said, anxiously twisting her many hands together, like a tangle of knots.
“I am pleased.” The prisoner queen smiled, because she knew the truth. “Perhaps for the first time in a very long while.”
Freedom was within her grasp. And when her children met, when they combined the strength of the abilities that she’d felt in both of them...she could almost feel the distant Conduit tremble, even from here.
The galaxy did not stand a chance.
Chapter Ninety-Five
* * *
KLAREN
Year Thirty
FOUR YEARS HAD passed since the queen had commanded her captor to take her home.
Cyprian had managed to outwit her that night. Flying high with her triumph, she’d never expected him to turn on her.
Somewhere along the way, he had discovered her compulsion ability. Somehow, he’d been the only man to ever discover the difference she held in her blood. And so he’d kept her locked up for four years, refusing to see her when she called upon him, ignoring her pleas to return home to Xen Ptera. Denying her the right to see her son.
And yet he always came crawling back, unable to pull her from his mind. She’d embedded a deep obsession within him, and it was her only hope.
Just days ago, he’d entered her quarters, saying that her husband had agreed to a truce. That she’d finally be able to go home to the family she hadn’t seen in six years.
Now, finally, she was nearly back where it all began.
She sat aboard a starship, staring out at the darkness of space. Far in the distance, the glowing orb that was Xen Ptera hung like a tiny, waiting gift.
On its surface, her daughter, Nor, waited.
Around her, the ship buzzed with soldiers rushing about. Polished boots thudded on shining Arcardian-mined metal. The captain, with his clawed hands, was busy speaking in hushed tones over the com system. Each time he spoke, Klaren could hear the clacking of his massive teeth. The low, deep-chested rumble of a growl as he communicated with Xen Ptera, where she knew she would soon walk.
So many years she’d been away.
Now, it was nothing like the planet she had left behind.
On that fateful day she’d last seen it, Xen Ptera was already dying, but the surface was still a livable place, its citizens able to grow food and harvest water from great wells. Now it was a dead, barren wasteland that hung limp in the cradle of space.
“Home,” the queen whispered to herself.
Heavy footsteps approached behind her now. A hand caressed her bare shoulder. Lips touched the nape of her neck beneath her piled curls.
“You lied to me all these years,” she whispered. “You said they were holding their ground, still fighting. But that was never true, was it?”
“They weren’t lies, my dear Klaren,” Cyprian hissed in her ear, his warm breath sticking to her skin. “I just didn’t tell you the full truth. You are still my enemy, no matter the things we’ve been through together these past years.” His fingertips trailed farther down her neck and onto her arms, where they squeezed tightly enough to make her gasp in pain.
“When?” she asked. “When will I be on the ground?”
“As soon as you sign the treaty,” Cyprian said, lowering a holoscreen to her lap, the contract she’d requested ready for her signature.