The general quickly put down his napkin and then rose to come and find out what was on Mikos’s mind. I was interested to find out myself. I knew that though he’d die before admitting it, Mikos was a little nervous about this upcoming meeting with his brother, Larz. Mikos didn’t second guess himself much, but maybe this time he should have exercised a bit more control and a lot less passion and not used the word “treason” in his message to his younger brother.Like I’d warned him not to do.
It would no doubt bring Blake’s wrath down on his head, but I understood where all that anger of Mikos’s was coming from. I had been with Mikos when we first located Larz on Laltana all those years ago. Larz had been a dear and welcome sight, and we’d run toward him, ready to fight our way out of the capitol city if we had to and rescue him to bring him home with us. We were so happy to find him at last. He had looked to be in good health, which was a great relief, though he had scrapes and contusions all over his body. We could see a lot of his body too, as he wore next to nothing at all.
The tropical-like weather on Laltana made clothing optional, it seemed, for most of the population. Most of the men wore a scanty covering like a short apron over their private parts and only a strip of cloth up their backsides, which covered them like a thong. He was very brown from the sun, highlighting the bright gold collar and cuffs on his wrists, like a slave would wear. In fact, we had been reliably informed that hewasa slave—a bed slave to King Janos. As for the cuffs and collar, which had been welded on, we took them as further proof.
When Mikos saw his beloved younger brother, whom he’d been worried sick about for four long years, wearing that slave collar and cuffs, I thought he would have a stroke right then and there. He flew into a rage, grabbing Larz and trying to drag him onto the ship. He wanted to get him inside to safety quickly so he could go back out there and kill everyone in sight and thendestroy the city and burn anything left to ashes. Maybe even sow the ground with salt as a curse aimed at current and future generations of the hateful planet.
That last part was a joke, but he would totally have done it if I’d told him about that ancient ceremonial act of destruction and then congratulated me on my wonderful idea.
It wasn’t what he said or did, of course, but I knew this man intimately, and he didn’t have to tell me. I knew exactly what he was thinking. I was upset myself, because I loved Larz like he was my own little brother—in fact, I considered him one. He and his brother Nicarr had been children and my first friends when I came to Tygeria years before, frightened and alone, and they had made me feel welcome. They still meant the world to me. On my various adventures with Blake, they had been our sidekicks and cohorts in crime. In fact, the first time I’d come to Moravia, it had been with Blake and his two youngest sons. Larz had been a fierce little thing even then. He’d pulled a knife on the soldiers when he thought they might be a threat to his omak. That had been just a year before he was kidnapped, when he’d been just twelve or thirteen years old.
When Larz was taken, the victim of kidnappers and sex slavers, I knew that our family would never recover unless we could find him. How could Blake continue living his life, not knowing where his son was, or even if he were still alive? Knowing that he was in the hands of monstrous pedophiles and slavers? That he was being sexually abused? It waseviland insupportable. If it had been my own son, Mikol, I wouldn’t have been able to stand it. I just wouldn’t have, and as it was, Larz’s disappearance had taken a heavy toll on all of us. We had been deeply grieving him for years when he was finally found.
So, Mikos and I were absolutely all in when we located Larz in the palace courtyard and forced him to come on board with us. We thought we were doing the right thing. We thought thathe was traumatized, and that was the reason he kept resisting and wanting us to slow down and let him talk to the king of Herkos—his abuser,as far as we knew then. Mikos almost lost his mind with rage.
The general came up to our table, jarring me out of my memories.
“Good evening, General,” Mikos said. “Please, sit down and have a glass of visu punch with us.”
Visu punch was an extremely popular and strong liqueur, suitable only to be drunk in very small quantities. For anyone who wanted to get drunk and stay that way for a while, it would certainly get the job done, considering that it just might kill you too, if you were unwise enough to over imbibe.
The handsome general bowed respectfully and then sat down across from us.
He turned to me first. “We’ve never actually met, Your Highness, though of course, I’ve heard your husband speak of you often. It’s nice to put a face to the name.”
I extended my hand to him, which was foolish of me, because I knew that shaking hands wasn’t a custom with Tygerians in any kind of way, but I felt flustered by him. He was far too well bred to ignore it, though, and took my hand in his, and then I could see that he didn’t know quite what in the hell to do with it once he had it, other than just hold onto it. His hand was large and warm, and for some reason I could feel a blush warming my cheeks. It was probably embarrassment, as I couldn’t quite figure out how to get us both out of this. But I couldn’t just keep sitting there, letting him hold my hand across the table.
Mikos was watching our every move, like the General might be trying to steal something from him. He frowned a little and reached over to pluck my hand away from the general’s and hold it in his own. He pulled it up to his mouth to kiss the back ofit. It was an extraordinary thing for him to do and nothing he’d ever done before, but I knew what he was up to. The jealous ass was staking his claim and sending the general and me both a message at the same time. I glanced over at him and found myself looking directly into his gold-green eyes, and that hot blush on my cheeks spread quickly over my whole face.
The general was at a loss as to what to do next, but Mikos turned back to him and smiled. “Would you like that drink now?”
“Yes, thank you, Your Royal Highness,” he said, looking back over at Mikos, who picked up the bottle of visu and poured him a glass of the strong liquor. Mikos glanced over at me, and I shook my head to indicate I’d had more than enough.
Mikos launched right into it. “You may be aware, General, that my younger brother Prince Larz and I don’t get along.”
“I’ve heard talk of that, sir.”
“Janos, the former king of Herkon in Laltana, the principal country on that planet, had him kidnapped years ago in retaliation for Janos being captured during the war and held on Tygeria. It was in a prison called Beatik. You may have heard of that too?”
“Yes, sire.”
“Then you will be aware that it was a disgrace and the prisoners suffered torture and abuse there. That was still not sufficient reason to kidnap innocent young Tygerian boys, some no more than nine years old, and subject them to slavery and terrible abuse.”
“No, of course not, Your Royal Highness.”
“So you’ll understand the reasons for my antipathy toward this sorry excuse for a man.”
“Yes, sire.”
“This is what my brother Larz calls his mate and his nobyo. And he refuses to put thedevartusaside, thereby disrespecting his family and all of Tygeria.”
My husband had used a word that didn’t translate to Earthan very well, which they were speaking in deference to me, I suppose. But suffice to say it was a filthy word that I’d rarely heard him use.
“My brother’s behavior has become even more erratic lately, and I plan to urge my parents to put him in some kind of mental care facility, until he regains his senses.”
“Excuse me sire, but is it possible Prince Larz is seeing another man? I observed him on the scans hugging a young, dark-haired man wearing an old red Alliance coat.”
Prince Mikos turned to me in surprise. “A human?”