His tender kisses and comforting words were enough to soothe her mind and heart over the last few days before they made it back to Galaton.
When they arrived in orbit around the terraformed planet, Ella’s stomach clenched with excitement and anticipation. Finally, she’d arrived home. But they still had so far to go before they were done.
The water lords still had to be overthrown before she and Shay could finally settle down and start their lives together. She’d waited so long, and at the very doorstep of home, she had to wait even longer.
It just wasn’t fair. But that was the way of things on Galaton. She knew that Shay would do everything he could to defend his throne. That was what scared her the most. She feared she might lose him in the fight.
Her baby was due soon, and it would be a wonderful experience for her and her mate. But if she lost him, she didn’t know what she would do.
“Shay,” she said, reluctantly, looking out at Galaton orbiting in the distance outside her window. “What if something goes wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you can’t win?”
“I don’t want to hear you say that, beloved. I will not lose.”
“I’m scared, Shay,” she whispered, leaning into him.
She’d never been so terrified. Losing him would be like losing her own life. Perhaps even worse.
“I know, my darling. But have faith.”
“I’m trying.”
He leaned down and kissed her head.
“If something happens to me, the other princes will take care of you. If you wish to stay on Galaton or return to Earth. You will be taken care of and so will my son.”
“Thank you, my mate. I needed to hear those words.”
After they packed their things, they climbed into a space pod and hurried through the expanse between the ship and the planet. Entering the atmosphere, the space pod rumbled and groaned as if it hadn’t been used in a hundred years.
She wanted to scream, but Shay took her hand, and it helped keep her calm. The feeling of his big fingers wrapped around her tiny hand gave her a sense of grounding, even as she hurtled through space.
When they broke through the atmosphere, the world stretched out below her. She saw the vast green jungles of the Fire Lands that circled around the central volcano. A plume of smoke curled in the distance.
“Salvatt, the Fire Prince, and his bride will care for you in my absence,” Shay said, kissing her hand.
“Please come back to me,” she said as the space pod began to descend onto the landing platform and landed. He helped her out of her harness, and smiled up at her.
“Try not to worry,” he said.
“I’ve just landed on a strange planet and my mate is going off to face a horde of aggressive dragons. I don’t know what else to do but worry.”
“I understand, my love. I will not tell you not to worry. It is a legitimate emotion for my human bride.”
He kissed the top of her head and helped her stand. Her seven-month pregnant belly was heavy and round, making it hard to get out of the space pod seat.
When they came out onto the landing pad, they were greeted with the fanfare appropriate for a visiting prince. The Fire Prince and his lady greeted them with their guards all around.
“It is good to see you,” Prince Salvatt said, placing his hand on his heart and bowing forward slightly as was the customary Draconian greeting.
“It is good to see you too, old friend,” Shay said with the same gesture.
“And this must be your bride,” Salvatt said, looking at Ella.
His ruddy red skin seemed strange after getting used to Shay’s blue-green skin. Ella put her hand to her heart and bowed slightly in greeting.
“This is my mate, Ella Turner,” Shay said.
“And this is my mate, Celeste Dawes,” Salvatt said to Ella, motioning to the pretty red-headed woman beside him.
She was curvy and petite, holding a pudgy, bouncing baby who gurgled at Ella and smiled. Ella cooed at the baby, wanting to hold him. It made her long for her own child who would soon be born.
“This is our son,” Celeste said.
“He’s so gorgeous!” Ella said.
The group walked into the Obsidian Palace through the high arching entrance. The walls of the entry hall were smooth and black, curving upward overhead.
Ella marveled at the sight of everything around her. The palace was a marvel of technology. Salvatt served as tour guide as they walked to a comfortable sitting room. He explained that the Obsidian Palace had been constructed during the time of terraforming for the four types of elements.
When Ella was comfortable in a well-appointed room, furnished with bold red and black furniture that reminded her of medieval Earth style, Shay turned to her to tell her goodbye.
“Do you have to leave so soon?” she said, reaching up to him from the couch where she sat beside Celeste and her baby.
“You will be well taken care of here, beloved. Prince Salvatt and his princess will make you feel at home. I will return to you very soon.”
“You’d better come back to me,” she said, standing up to wrap her arms around his waist.
“You can count on it,” he said, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. “I will be back before you know it.”
He held her close for another moment and then let her go. Ella watched him as he left the sitting room and disappeared into the wide hallway outside. Tears slid down her cheeks and she couldn’t keep them back. She collapsed into the couch next to Celeste and tried to wipe away the torrent of emotion.
“I’m sorry,” Ella whimpered, sniffling. “I must seem so weak right now.”
Celeste reached out and touched Ella’s wrist. The baby gurgled in her lap.
“Don’t worry about it for a second! I understand exactly what you are going through. When I first arrived, my mate was injured in a fight, and I thought I might die with worry. I love him so much.”
“This is all so strange. I don’t know what to do or what to think.”
“You’ve just been in space for seven months, Ella. And now you’re here, and you can’t even go home. The fact that you’re functioning at all right now is a testament to your strength. You are truly a dragon bride,” Celeste said with a wink.
Ella let out a long sigh. Celeste was such a sweet woman. Ella was more than grateful to have someone to talk to who understood what she was going through. The baby giggled and reached out to Ella. Celeste looked up at her questioningly.
“Do you want to hold him?” she asked.
“Can I?”
“Of course. I have a nanny, but I like to take care of him myself,” she said, handing her child over to Ella.
The sweet-smelling child was heavier than Ella had expected. His weight and the scent of him filled her with a heady sense of excitement and longing for her own baby. Something in her seemed to burst open and she felt her breasts let down milk for the first time.
She gasped and put her hand to the side of her breast, not fully understanding what was happening.
“What is it?” Celeste asked, surprised.
“I think my milk just came in,” Ella said with a gasp.
Then she felt her belly ache with such intensity, it almost threw her out of her seat. She screamed, and Celeste picked the baby up off her lap. Celeste spoke into her wrist holocom and a medic entered the room only seconds later.
“What is it?” he asked, scanning Ella with a medical wand.
“I don’t know. I think I’m in labor!”
Celeste paced the room with the baby in her arms. The medic picked Ella up and put her on a hover bed that a second medic brought into the room.
“I can’t be in labor. It’s too soon!” she screamed.
“We’re taking you to the medical ward,” the medic said.
They quickly pushed her bed out of the room and down the vast hallway and into an elevator. Celeste was beside her in the elevator, holding her hand.
/> “Shay,” she whispered. “Where is Shay?”
“Try to stay calm,” the medics advised.
“I need my mate. Please tell him to come.”
11
Shay flew a speeder to the water lands and broke under the waves in a rush of splashing water. He had to get back to his bride and soothe her mind as soon as possible. He could sense her distress already.
Anger filled his gut at the thought of his lords occupying his throne. It filled him with bitter bile, and he gritted his teeth at the taste.
He needed his anger to defeat these rebel dragons. They wouldn’t have his throne for long. The admirals the other princes had sent to assist him while he was gone met him in their own speeders at the edge of a ravine under the deep ocean.
It was the code of honor to meet an enemy dragon on a neutral battlefield. The rebel dragons would have to honor the code this time too. With the admirals gathered and in agreement, Shay haled the Coral Palace.
“This is your prince,” Shay said through his holocom. “I demand an honest fight for the Water Throne.”
“So, our leader has returned. With some sweet human bride, I assume. Why is it that the princes deserve females but the rest of us do not? Why do you deserve our loyalty?”
“I understand your concern. But this is the way of things. Insulting your prince will not help you once I have my kingdom back. And if the water lords want to be included in the lottery, the fastest way to it is accepting a fair and honorable fight for the throne.”
“Agreed,” said the water lord on the holocom.
Shay couldn’t see his face, and he couldn’t recognize the voice of the dragon on the other side of the conversation. But clearly this dragon spoke for the rest of them.
“Our terms are that you must fight all of the water lords at once if you wish to be considered our leader again.”
“Preposterous,” said one of the admirals of the Fire Lands.
Shay frowned. “And how many are you?” Shay asked through clenched teeth.
“There are fifteen water lords currently fighting to be the top. If you best us all in a fair fight. We will step down. If not… You lose.”
“Agreed,” Shay growled.
“Good, proceed to the fighting pits.”
After ruling over the Water Lands for a hundred and fifty years, Shay could not believe he was being spoken to this way by one of his own men. But since the last female had died, nothing was beyond the scope of the imagination. The other dragon had clearly lost his mind.
If the history of Galaton weren’t part of their vast storehouse of data, Shay wouldn’t have believed it himself.
He told the admirals of the other lands to follow him in their speeders, and the small armada sped through the deep ocean until they came to the entrance hatch into the dome over the Coral City.
It was time for him to take back his throne and prove to his mate that he could protect her from anything from the Mulgor to his own men.
The speeder descended through the exit hatch with the admirals’ speeders behind them. They landed on the landing pad outside the Coral Palace. Shay climbed down the exit ramp, looking around warily at the lords who’d come to greet him.
For everything he’d done for them over the last one hundred and fifty years, he didn’t see a speck of gratitude in their eyes. The lower level lords desired nothing more than to be princes. The common dragons desired to be lords. And on and on it went.
Shay and the admirals hurried through the spiraling pink and green coral entry hall to the elevator that took them down to the fighting pits below the palace.
The smell of sweat and blood bit his nostrils as the door swished open. Without stopping, Shay hurried to the fighting pit where the opposing Dukes and Earls of Water were gathered. They faced him, their sharp teeth bared.
“We will fight with laser swords,” one of the lords said, throwing a retracted laser sword at Shay.
Shay caught it and turned it on, growling at the assembled men.
“Your flunkies can’t help you,” the same water lord said.
“I don’t need their help,” Shay growled through his sharp teeth.
The fifteen lords gathered in the fighting pit and the rest of the audience stood back. A fighting pit was a ring surrounded on all sides by thorny ropes. The thorns had poisoned tips. Landing on one would bring the fight to a quick end.
The floor of the pit was covered in gravel rock, making it easy to kick dust into an opponent’s face. Nothing about fighting pits on Galaton was engineered to be humane or easy on the participants.
The fifteen dragons who’d chosen to compete with Shay did not know what they were in for. He was the strongest prince on the planet. He came from a long family line of immensely powerful dragons who’d kept control of the water throne for millions of years. Shay did not intend to be the first Vishak prince to lose the water throne. It simply would not happen on his watch.
Shay sidestepped slowly as the other dragons started to circle him. He took in his surroundings, using all his senses to note where the other men were in the fighting pit. With his laser sword gripped in his hands, he twisted quickly as one of the lords came at him from behind.
Without a thought, Shay thrust his sword into the lord’s chest. The man’s hot red blood seeped from his wound. Shay pulled the sword from his chest, just in time to maneuver around and kick at an oncoming Earl.
Shay thrust his foot into the man’s stomach, pushing him backward into the group of three others. The three lords stumbled and fell into the thorny ropes.
They gasped and groaned, black bile forming on their lips as the poison took hold. It was a gruesome sight, but Shay had no time to contemplate their deaths. There were still twelve dragons to overcome and their strength was evident as they circled around him.
He turned, slowly, meeting the faces of his opponents. He challenged them, raising an eyebrow. The dragons all moved in at once, trying to rush him.
Shay ducked low, twisting around on the balls of his feet in a graceful spin none of them expected. He cut five lords at the knees before the rest hurried out of reach of his sword. The men he’d hit screamed as their bodies were relieved of their lower legs.
Blood ran over the gravel floor of the fighting pit. The iron tang of it was thick in the air. Shay growled, wishing this fight to be over so that he could go home to his bride.
She called out to him over the distance as if there was something wrong. Shay forced himself to push it from his mind. He could not risk distraction now.
Seven dragons remained, including the lord who had organized the challenge. Shay narrowed his eyes at the one he’d decided was the leader. Shay spun forward, thrusting his sword with lightning speed toward the man’s heart, but the other dragons were on him.
The pushed him bodily to the side and the lord he’d aimed at rushed forward, slicing Shay’s stomach before Shay could spin out of the way. The laser wound stung and blood seeped from Shay’s wound. His hand went to the cut, feeling the wet blood pouring from inside him.
It was a bad wound. He knew that much. But he could not stop for medical attention. Without missing a beat, he ducked and spun around behind the lord who’d cut him. He was faster than the other man, even with a gaping wound.
Shay thrust his sword into the man’s back and it came out the other side through his chest. The dying lord let out a long, low groan as Shay pulled his sword from the man’s limp body. It felt to the gravel floor, and Shay faced the remaining six dragons.
They stepped back, meeting his eyes with utter dread.
“I concede,” the first one said, dropping to his knees in front of Shay. The other five followed his lead and soon they were all kneeling before their rightful prince.
“I accept,” Shay said through gritted teeth. The pain from his wound sliced through him like a knife.
“Medic!” the admirals of the other lands cried out.
Medics hurried toward Shay, running their medical wands ove
r his body until he was fully healed from the slice in his belly.
With the loyal admirals and his now subdued lords behind him, Shay left the fighting pit. For the first time since the last female had died, he felt as if there would soon be peace in his kingdom.
As soon as he was back in his chambers, he flicked his finger over his wrist to bring up his holocom. He wanted to tell Ella the good news. He’d won his throne. She could come join him in the Coral Palace.
“You must return as soon as possible,” said a voice that was not Ella’s.
“What’s wrong?” Shay demanded.
“She’s gone into labor.”
“It’s too soon!”
“Just hurry,” the voice said. “She needs you.”
Shay flung himself from his balcony and shifted midair, flying down to the landing pad in front of the Coral Palace. He jumped into his speeder and was in the air in record time, ascending to the exit hatch at the top of the dome.
The speeder hurried through the depths of the water and then into the sky. He directed it straight toward the Obsidian Palace and didn’t slow down to take a breath or to even think.
When he settled his speeder on the landing pad in front of the Obsidian Palace, he jumped out and ran toward the entrance hall.
Prince Salvatt met him inside the black walled hallway and brought Shay to an abrupt halt.
“We did everything we could to halt the contractions,” Salvatt started.
“Where is she,” Shay growled, ready to tear the prince’s head off if he didn’t take him to his bride in the next nanosecond.
“Come,” Salvatt said, stepping back and hurrying down the hall.
They made it to an elevator that they took upward until they came to the next floor. The door swished open, and Shay burst out into the hall. Salvatt stepped out beside him and started toward a brightly lit room with an open door.
Shay couldn’t wait for Salvatt. He broke into a run and charged down the hall, into the brightly lit room.