Chapter 18

My eyes crack open to find … well, Rurik’s crack.

He’s naked and standing by the window, looking out. I don’t even remember walking back here last night; he must’ve carried me. The two-headed cat lays at the end of the bed. One head is asleep while the other watches me with unnerving interest.

“We’re sure these cats are just cats, right?” I ask, trying not to take the creature’s green-eyed glare too seriously. “I mean, the Dehvas, they’re just animals, right? They don’t actually follow what’s going on with the Vestalis or anything?”

“Not that I am aware,” Rurik says with a frown, turning unashamedly toward me. His pearly white skin catches the edge of a golden glow from beyond the sheer curtains, and I notice with a surge of heat that his penis is hooked under that thigh strap, obscene against the paleness of his leg. He notices me looking and gifts me with the barest specter of a smile. “How are you feeling this morning?” he inquires, but I don’t want to tell him.

Because it’s bad.

It’s really fucking bad.

The vitamin packet he gave me yesterday did something for me, but it didn’t fix everything. I’m dizzy and nauseous, and I have a pounding headache. I do my best to skirt the question.

“So, uh, what’s today all about? Do I have to wear another cum-stained dress or …?” I lean back in the pillows, as if I’m just relaxing. Rurik frowns at me because he already knows me better than I know myself.

“Eve, you must—” he starts, but I wave him off.

“Look, we both know that I’m not doing well. So what? All we can do is wait for Officer Hyt to show up.” I ignore the sweat droplets beading on my forehead. Ugh. Am I even going to make it until tomorrow? If there’s a delay of any kind, I’m screwed.

We are screwed.

Because this illness, this threatens more than just my life.

If I die, Rurik dies. If I die, Abraxas might die. If it’s the venom thing, maybe he won’t, but somehow, when he says he would die of a broken heart without me, I believe him.

“You are certain he will show up?” Rurik asks, moving over to stand beside the bed.

Two-Face (that’s what I’m calling the cat) seems to think sex might be on the horizon. The creature curls both sets of lips at us, hisses with two mouths, and then takes off for the kitty door.

“I’m sure,” I reply, and somehow I know that Hyt will do whatever it takes to bring Abraxas here. Not sure why I implicitly trust a man who’s clearly a liar, but … I do. “He … well, he was going to rescue me from you, but you know about that already.”

We might’ve talked this over, but that doesn’t make it any less embarrassing. Even though I knew as soon as I made the plan to run from Rurik—to starve him out—that I couldn’t go through with it. Pretending even for a few seconds that I might was not acceptable. I feel like I betrayed my mate somehow.

He reaches out to take my chin in his bare hand, stroking a single fingertip over my lips.

“Yes, I know.” Rurik smiles grimly before dropping his hand to his side. When his claspers stage a coup and try to unwind from his cock, they get caught in his thigh strap and he reaches down to push them back into place. Oh my. “And I would’ve agreed to it. I would agree to it still. If you wish to run from me, I will not stop you.”

“Of course I don’t want to run anymore,” I snap back at him, trying to keep my eyes on his. The A.S.S. part of me wants to stare at his junk, but I’m not sure I have the energy to fuck right now. There’s a will, but I’m not sure there’s a way. I rub at my forehead as Rurik frowns again, reaching out to push my hand away so that he can feel my temperature.

“I will get you some of the frigid moss,” he tells me, and I just assume he’s talking about the same stuff we had on The Korol, the stuff the servants brought for us when we were in that room shaped like a glass bell jar. The prince moves away from the bed as I recline even further into the pillows, closing my eyes against another wave of lightheadedness.

Rurik is not a parasite. Never was. His love is truly selfless; he actually cares about me.

If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be harboring all these stupid secret plans to hurt himself.

“Here.” A cool balm is applied to my sweaty forehead, and I crack my lids to realize that I was out there for a minute. Rurik is mopping my skin with the moss, sitting nude on the edge of the bed beside me. “When it is time for you to visit the chapel, I will have to stay here.”

“Wait, what?” I ask, trying and failing to sit up. Mostly, I just flail around a bit and then slump back into the bed. “Why can’t you go with me?”

I know that once I’m with Abraxas, we’ll need alone time, but I can’t imagine heading over there to see him without Rurik by my side.

“I would not be the first prince to take his mate and flee,” he says, gently dabbing the moss over my temples, my cheeks, my jaw. My mouth. His touch lingers there, and my eyelids flutter closed. “Not trying to run is the exception, not the rule.” Rurik drags the moss over my clavicle, plunges its cooling touch between my breasts, down my belly toward my navel, and then— He stops. He lifts the moss back to my shoulders and uses its icy softness to swab the sweat from my upper chest. “I have an idea to escape my parents’ all-seeing eyes.”

I’d laugh, but … that’s not a joke.

“Didn’t we escape them last night?” I tease, but Rurik gives me a look.

“They allowed us to have a dalliance together, but make no mistake: we were being watched. Not inside the cave, but everything before and after.” He sets the moss aside and takes my face between his hands. His fingers are unbearably cool from having held it for so long. That, or my skin is just really, really hot today. Maybe both. “Mates cannot stand to be separated,” he whispers, voice catching. “I will exit the royal suite, and make nice with the Duke of Dome. My parents will see me and know you are nearby. Zero will escort you to the chapel. When”—and here he has to pause to close his eyes, to catch his breath—“you are finished mating Abraxas, you will return here, and we will await further instruction from my parents.”

Fuck.

Why does this have to be so heavy?

I’m bound to two hot-as-fuck aliens for life and yet, here I am, wondering if it’s even going to be a life worth living. Stupid meaty spaceship. Stupid galactic millipede. Stupid oversized moth king.

“We could be on the throne as soon as the day after tomorrow, huh?” I ask, even though I don’t need to pose the question. We both know the answer to that is yes.

“Hopefully,” Rurik says, and it’s a sad state of affairs that he’d actually wish for such a thing. “If so, then I will be able to avoid refueling for the time being. We will remain here on Dome, and you will be free to stay in these very rooms with Abraxas. I will continue negotiations with the Atrata, and if we agree to one another’s demands, we will have found ourselves an alternative meal for The Korol.”

“The Atrata?” I ask, just before our doorbell rings.

Rurik and I exchange a look of shared annoyance.

“Chuck her in one of the bloody canals and watch her drown?” I tease, throwing the blankets back and climbing out of bed before Rurik can stop me. I toss a robe over my shoulders and hit the panel beside the door to open it. As I do, I bump a button on the screen and the wallpaper changes color from a burgundy floral pattern to silver and black diamonds.

Um.

The door swishes open and Avril notices that I’m just standing there, gaping.

“You okay, boss?” she asks me, peering around the edge of the doorjamb to see what it is that I’m staring at. I touch the button a few more times, and all the walls in the room change. Blue and silver. Black and green. Wallpaper. Solid color. Wood paneling that looks unbelievably realistic. “Oh. You’re just now realizing the walls are dynamic? It’s all digital; you can change them daily if you want.”

“I see that,” I murmur, shaking my head as Rurik strides forward, also dressed in one of the oversized robes. “What are our plans for today?” I ask them both, still sweating, still shaky on my feet, refusing to fully admit to myself how sickly I truly am. I play with the wallpaper until I find something I like—a pale butter yellow with white, red, and black flowers—and then exit the bedroom to find Connor and Brot waiting with Zero.

“It’s the Day of Resting,” Rurik offers before Avril has the chance. “It is intended that we should rest and relax in preparation for tomorrow.” He doesn’t sound excited about any of that. He’s worried. Terrified.

“Sounds great,” I offer back cheerfully, moving over to the table to see that we’re not having macarons today, but doughnuts. Doughnuts that float above the tray they’re situated on. Unconventional, but eh. I pick one up, take a bite, and sigh at the slightly crispy exterior and fluffy cloud interior. The purple frosting tastes like my sixteenth birthday party, but I don’t really know how to explain it other than that. It just does. I take another bite, examining Connor and Brot as they sit snuggled up in their chairs. “I could use a day off.”

“Hey Eve,” Connor says, gazing into Brot’s eyes. He’s barely able to pull himself away. “When you look at Rurik, do you get swept away? I mean, does his gaze just obliterate your brain?”

“Um, yeah,” I reply, trying to act as if I don’t have double vision or sweat-slicked skin or the sudden urge to throw up the bite of doughnut I’ve just taken. “That’s sort of standard fated mates type shit, right?” I set my food aside on a plate, and it still floats. Explain that shit to me. How does that even work? I reach out to grab the edge of the plate, just to peek underneath and see if there’s like a magnet or something, but I can’t seem to hold onto it.

The dish falls and Rurik catches it in midair, pausing beside me with a severe frown.

“Princess,” he warns as I slump into one of the chairs with a groan, elbows on the table, fingers buried in my hair as I try to control the uneasiness in me. Since the day I got abducted, I’ve tried to stay positive. I have. May not have seemed like it at times, but I swear that was me putting my best foot forward. But this? I could die before Abraxas gets here. I could die tonight in my sleep tonight. I could die now.

“Are you okay?” Connor asks, alarm spiking his voice. “Avril, she looks terrible.”

“Like death warmed over,” the other medic agrees, and the next thing I know, I’m laid out on the bed and both of them are there, touching me, drawing blood, talking to someone else in the room that I don’t recognize at first.

“Shh, my love,” Rurik whispers, reclining beside me in his robe and looking regal and handsome and perfectly insouciant as he brushes hair away from my sweaty face. “I have asked Vrach to take a look at you.”

Ah. Right. The Vestalis doctor dude.

“Wasn’t I just at the breakfast table?” I ask, trying and failing to sit up.

“That was over an hour ago,” Connor says, glancing over his shoulder at me. He has that same look he wore in the tent that first day, like he doesn’t think I’m going to make it. He turns around, Avril at his side, Vrach studying the Cartian medical wand behind them both.

Two-Face sits on the window seat, glaring at me while Zero strokes the cat’s fuzzy pink fur.

“Shall I return to the chapel again, Your Majesty?” she asks, rising to her feet.

“With all due discretion,” Rurik replies without much thought, as if he’s given this order numerous times today. I assume they’re checking to see if Hyt has arrived. He said he’d be here by the last day of the wedding, but that he’d try to come earlier if possible. Doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen. I can only hope for an on-time arrival.

“Any news about the handsome, young officer?” I tease, and I’m terrified to hear how weak my voice sounds, how strange and wet my gasping breaths are.

“His ship has landed, according to Dome’s flight manifest,” Rurik tells me, face set in as neutral an expression as possible. He doesn’t want me to know how afraid he is. “I assume he is making his way here, but we cannot rely on his timely arrival. We must make other plans.”

“Other plans?” I whisper as Avril comes over to sit beside me, and Zero excuses herself from the room.

“We need alternative treatments,” Avril begins, looking past me to Rurik. He nods, as if willing her to continue. Her sapphire eyes find mine, and there’s nothing but truth in that strong gaze. “We could try to surgically remove the markings,” she begins, but before I can protest, she continues. “That won’t mitigate the venom in your blood, but maybe if we do that, we can treat the symptoms until your body burns through it.”

“If her body burns through it,” Vrach says, putting the Cartian wand in his lap. He looks more upset by the situation than I imagine he should. “I am sorry, Imperial Princess, that I misdiagnosed you during your first examination. If we had surgically removed the marks then—”

“Remove them?” I croak, horrified by the very idea. “I’m not removing them. Hyt will come through for me. Abraxas will come through for me. What are you even talking about?”

“Our surgical techniques are quite advanced. You would not suffer from any loss of function,” Vrach promises as Rurik strokes his fingers down my back, expression contemplative.

I’m reeling here. Remove my mate marks? No fucking way. I would suffer loss of function. I wouldn’t be able to connect with Abraxas and share fluids anymore. If our theories are correct, I also wouldn’t benefit from antibodies during mating, and then I might not be able to fuck him at all.

“I’m not doing it,” I snarl, wasting the last of my strength on such a vehement action. I roll toward Rurik and bury myself against his side. “Please don’t. Just … wait until tomorrow. Give them until the last possible second to get here before we do anything that drastic.”

If it’s the only way for me to live, and in turn keep Rurik alive, I … I’ll do it.

But I don’t want to.

Rurik draws away from me, putting his fingers on my chin to lift my gaze to his. I have never seen him look more kingly or in control of a situation. His dark eyes hold an ironclad resolve.

“There is a risk that you are too weak to survive the surgery. I will not attempt it unless we have run out of options.” He snaps his fingers and Avril scrambles to retrieve several small bottles from a nearby tray. She passes the first one to Rurik, and he collects it with two fingers clenched around the neck. “Open up, my princess. You will take all of the medicine, all of the supplements, given to you. And you will not attempt to rise from this bed again, do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” I whisper, relief flowing through me at his words. He’s just given me permission to relax. So I do. The urge to get up, to pace, to put on a show for everyone else, that fades away. I take the medicine as he feeds it to me, helping me drink down a hot cup of tea to top it all off. I’m given a dozen injections by Connor and Vrach, and another half-dozen pills from Avril.

It helps. But only a little. Like the vitamins from yesterday, I can tell this is the equivalent of that bandage on my bleeding femoral artery way back when. And like last time, it’s up to Abraxas to make it all better.

Midway through the night, I’m woken by Rurik.

“Princess, he is here,” he hisses, climbing out of bed and scooping me from the mattress before I’ve even fully registered what it is that he’s just said. “You must go to the chapel now.”

“Now?” I slur the word and Rurik pauses to look down at me, the light from a table lamp casting his strange face in shadow. I force my tongue to remain steady. “Thank the Stars. Yes, now.”

My husband carries me into the sitting room, waking the others in the adjoining bedrooms.

“Oh, shit,” Connor says, stumbling out of bed and simultaneously yanking a pair of pants on. Brot is right behind him, somehow fully dressed. Does the guy just sleep in his clothes? I can see him being that level of uptight. “We should hurry.”

“Yes, please do,” Rurik growls out, leaning down to press his forehead to mine. He sweeps his antennae over me, bathing me in pheromones that help soothe my racing heart. I’m actively dying right now, aren’t I? “I would send you off with a long goodbye, the sweet touch of flesh-on-flesh, but I fear we are out of time and I must settle for the truth and a kiss.” He presses his lips to mine, gently, as if we may be saying goodbye to one another for the last time. “You are my mate, the one I have waited an entire lifetime for. If the time we had was all the time we get, then I will cherish it through to the next life. Without you, there is nothing for me, blood be damned.”

I kiss him back, hands trembling as I lift them up to brush my fingers against either side of his face.

“Rurik, I love you,” I tell him simply, absorbing his expression, allowing myself to fall into the blood lace and black of his eyes. “I’m always on your side, okay? Always.”

“Always,” he returns, studying me as Avril opens the servants’ door and my cyborg bodyguard steps into the room.

“We have precious few moments to move unseen,” Zero tells the prince, offering a gentle incline of her head.

Slowly, and with great pain in his face, Rurik hands me over to the Cartian girl.

“If anything happens to my mate,” he says softly, but they all know.

Their lives depend on my life.

“We must provide a distraction,” Brot growls, but Connor gives him a look that steals the fire right out from underneath him. He sighs and turns to his brother. “Allow me to request a meeting with the duke; it will draw the attention of the king and queen.”

Rurik nods, reaching up to yank on one of his antennae in frustration.

I don’t know if there’s a specific time that I need to be back by, but I’m sure sooner rather than later would be ideal. Explaining my absence to his parents would not go well for Rurik.

“Take her,” he growls, waving a hand at us. “And hurry.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” All three—Avril, Zero, and Connor—say it together, and then I’m watching as my mate slips out the door with his brother following closely behind him.

“God, my chest hurts,” Connor mumbles, but although I know what he’s going through, I can’t seem to find the strength to respond.

With each step we take out the side door, down the servants’ staircase, and into the woods, I’m finding it harder and harder to breathe.

How long until that moment comes where it’s not just difficult, it’s impossible?

“Mine, too,” I gasp, tasting the first hint of blood and venom on my lips. Uh-oh. The next breath I take is wet and wheezy, and I realize with a start that we have, quite literally, pushed this moment as far as it will go.

It’s now or, as Abraxas might say, I go to the dirt and I take everyone I love down with me.

The Cosmic Chapel looms in the distance, but I’m having trouble concentrating on it. My heart is beating so fast that I can barely hear my own thoughts over the sound of it. My fingers clutch at the front of Zero’s dress, already missing Rurik. Wishing Rurik were here. Fighting the urge to scream for Rurik.

You’ll see him again soon enough. This is just a brief visit. Just a few hours of stolen night.

I know that as soon as I see Abraxas, the tides will change, and it’ll be him that I’m crying about leaving again. I guess this is what it’s like to be in love with two people. It’s not easy. Not at all.

“Wait here.” Avril takes Connor up the steps to see if there’s anybody around, hiding behind columns or bushes. If anyone gets video footage of this and somehow shows it to the king and queen, we could end up like Ranet and his mate. “Come on up,” she calls down to us, and Zero wastes no time in clearing the steps.

The stairs and the floor inside are made of a beautiful white stone with threads of true silver and gold. The interior is filled with small benches for kneeling, and the walls are painted a royal blue. Above us, there is no ceiling that I can see. I only see space and stars.

I drag my gaze away from that.

I’m far too dizzy to be contemplating something as crazy as this.

Officer Hyt stands at the front of the room in his cowboy hat, studying the glowing ball of light on the altar. Avril and Connor take up outside the door to watch for worshippers while Zero walks us in to stand on Hyt’s left.

“Beautiful, isn’t it …” Hyt trails off as he glances over at me, and his quirky expression falls. “ … Princess.” He finishes with a slight curl of his lip, like he’s seen something terrifying and doesn’t know what to do with it. Me. I’m that terrifying thing. “Oh, Dead Kings. This is bad, isn’t it?” He takes me from Zero, and holds me against his chest. I’m not sure why, but he does.

“I can probably stand,” I say, but my words are a slur all of a sudden. Doesn’t matter. I push at Hyt’s shoulder, and he begrudgingly sets me down. I crumple almost immediately, and he picks me back up. His face is cold and grave, like it was when I told him that he was a bad cop. “Guess not. Shall we go?”

I have no idea what the plan is here. Is Abraxas on Hyt’s ship waiting for me again? Is Hyt going to take me somewhere else to meet up with him? Is Jane here, too, or just Abraxas? I need to see him first, but then … Jane. I’ve missed her so much.

My head lolls and Hyt grabs my chin in gentle fingers to stabilize it.

“Oh, little human woman,” he whispers, looking down at my limp body in his arms. “What are we going to do?” He sounds genuinely upset, almost as if I’m already dead. He’s looking at me the same way, too. The truth is written starkly in his eyes. Hyt hefts me more tightly against his chest, his tentacles sliding over my legs, my arms, digging through my hair. He seems to do it absently, like it’s a subconscious thing.

His gaze is on Zero.

“Make sure nobody comes in here,” he tells her, and she nods, taking off down the aisle as Hyt turns back to the glowing light thing on the altar. Whatever it is, it looks like a small star trapped in a glass box. “Do you know that they worship this thing?” he asks me in a low whisper. His expression says he isn’t impressed by the Vestalis. “They worship this. It’s the smallest star in the known universe. Don’t know why they worship it. They know what a star is. But …” He trails off as the door slams shut and we’re alone in the twilight-shrouded star chapel.

“You’re stalling for time,” I slur, and Hyt looks down at me with that cold frown on his face again. He didn’t want Zero—and through her, Rurik—to know how bad our situation is. “Tell me. I’m half-dead already, Hyt.”

“We have a small problem, Eve. Our … cargo didn’t show up where it was supposed to.” Hyt looks pleadingly at me to understand. I do. I study his triple irises, like sapphires in a pretty face. My head lolls again, and he sticks the sucker at the end of one tentacle against my forehead, giving it a pop. “Wake up, Earthling.”

I open my mouth to respond to him, but nothing comes out. I close my eyes for a few seconds while I get myself together. When I open them again, I see that Hyt’s head has fallen back, and his eyes are closed, too.

“I only get one of these,” he groans, his voice a pained sound. “Just one.”

I cough and spatter Hyt’s neck with blood. He drops his chin down, and we’re both caught staring at the dark red liquid dripping down his chest.

“If … if I die, they die,” I whisper, tasting copper on my mouth. I grab Hyt’s face. I think about the medical transfer tube that Connor was found in, the Cartian-made one. Or even … if I have to … the device that held Zero’s brain all this time, until she could get a new body. I could be transplanted into a cyborg like Zero, couldn’t I? “Don’t …” More red spills past my lips, and I think about Abraxas at the very end there, when he was dying by venom like I am now. I saved him that night only to kill us today. “Officer Hyt.”

That’s all that comes out.

My head drops back, and my eyes close. I can feel Hyt touch a sucker to my forehead, popping it again. He touches my cheeks, shakes me gently, tries to get me up by whispering words into my ear.

“Little human …” he says softly, and I realize that there’s nothing he can do right this very second. And right this very second is all that I have. My heart thuds painfully in my ribs, and I can tell it’s going to be one of the last times it’ll ever beat. I can feel it. “I’m gonna regret this. Mark my words.”

Hyt adjusts me in his arms, and my eyes flash open in time to see him leaning down toward me.

He pauses and his purple tongue curls out to reveal … a pearl. It sits on the tip of his tongue before he rolls it back and clacks his teeth around it. One of his tentacles slips his cowboy hat from his head and brings it around to block our kiss from view. Even if someone walks in, they won’t see us.

In the twilit romanticism of the chapel, Officer Hyt kisses me and makes me his bride.