Ascension Saga Book 4: Interstellar Brides®: Ascension Saga Read online

  But that didn’t stop a power-hungry mother from hoping her son could turn Trinity’s head. The woman probably needed some good news for the family name.

  Speaking of the devil herself, Lady Jax chose that moment to walk in. She saw the creatures, the wine spilling over onto the floor as the larger of the two cats pushed at the lord’s arm with her paw, jostling his hand and the drink he held. “My lord, you are making a mess on the floor again.” Her voice was stern, like an angry nun at Catholic school. Her stress level was through the roof since the whole Zel fiasco came to light.

  “It’s not me, love. It’s her fault.” Lord Jax rubbed his cheek along the face of the female creature. “Isn’t it, kitten?”

  Lady Jax crossed her arms with a tolerant smile. It was clear that she cared for her mate. But then, he was likable. Unlike his cock’s choice of mate. “I think you love those creatures more than you love me, mate.”

  He raised a brow and looked up at her. His gaze took in the floor-length pale green dress she wore, the small slippers on her feet, the softly coiled hair. She was clearly in her fifties, but still gorgeous. “Is that so, female?”

  “You know it is.”

  He was already rising from his chair, pushing the protesting creatures from his lap. She took a step backward, too late. “Come here, mate. It sounds like you’re a little stressed and need some… relief.”

  She shook her head, but her eyes were bright with interest. “No.”

  “Obey your mate, female.”

  “Make me.” With that, she laughed and ran from the room, the older lord hot on her heels.

  I grinned. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t much care for the lady of the house, except when she was with him, and she did deserve a little relief. With the servants, visitors, everyone else, including the investigators who’d been through the house often enough, she was cold. Calculating. Vindictive. The word diva didn’t come close to doing her justice. But with her mate?

  I took his cup and watched the creatures leave through their own special door with a sigh. They never stayed. Never let me touch them. Too loyal to their one true master, or so I’d been told.

  Walking as quietly as possible to the hallway, I followed the lord and lady, eager to discover where they might end up. Most of the time, he carried her to her chambers, leaving me no hope of searching them.

  But today?

  A door slammed ahead of me, her squeals of laughter clearly heard through the thick panel.

  Yes! The library. Her room was empty!

  I ran to the side cupboard, put down the partially full glass of wine and made my way to the lady’s room as quickly as possible. She locked herself in here for hours and hours. Now was my chance!

  Closing the door quietly behind me, I took in the high ceiling, the large bed covered in ivory material even softer than silk. The carpeting was so thick I would have to rough up the floor on my way out to cover the evidence of deep footfalls with each step I took.

  I started in the closet, opening and closing everything. Searching pockets. Shoes. Decorative boxes. Nothing.

  Moving on to her desk, I pulled at the drawer, found it locked. Damn it.

  “Key. Key. Where’s the key?” It looked like an old-fashioned lock. The lock on the lord’s desk had been much more advanced. I’d had to copy a fingerprint from one of his wine glasses and record his voice to gain access. But I’d found nothing there. Business and banking documents. All public and confirmed by hours of research I’d done on their version of the internet.

  But Lady Jax? She was much more of a mystery to me, and my instincts told me she knew a lot more than she let on.

  Lying on my back on the floor, I slid under the desk and saw the key jammed into a small space between the wooden braces in one corner. “Gotcha.”

  I grabbed the key, slid out from beneath the desk and unlocked the drawer. Before I could open it, a woman’s cutting voice stopped me cold.

  “What do you think you are doing?”

  Frozen in place, I slowly looked over my shoulder to find Lord and Lady Jax staring at me from the now open bedroom door.

  “Just tidying up in here.” God, I really needed to work on my lying. Even Lord Jax didn’t believe me. I could see it in the scowl on his face, the way his lips tightened into a thin line.

  “Well, my lord, it appears we have found the one leaking information to our enemies.”

  Who, me? She couldn’t possibly be talking about me. Right?

  Wrong.

  Lord Jax’s face turned red with anger. “Guards!”

  Whirling to face them, I kept my hands behind me and relocked the drawer. “I was cleaning the room. That is all.”

  “I don’t believe you. The way the Jax name is being destroyed in the media? The way we’re losing our integrity, our honor? Because people like you and your evil, wicked ways.” Lady Jax walked to me and yanked me away from her desk. Boy, she could be strong! I took the opportunity to flick the key under the chair behind me. It was the best I could do. At least I wouldn’t have it on me.

  “You dare enter my mate’s quarters without permission?” Lord Jax was no longer soft or amiable. Now he was a male defending his mate, and I was screwed.

  Two burly, well-armed guards were at the door and he stepped aside. “Lock her up in my office and summon our son and the police.”

  Lady Jax went to his side, shaking like a leaf at the great danger I was to her. I didn’t think it was in fear, but fury. His scowl deepened and he wrapped his arms around her protectively. They were both flushed but it hadn’t been long enough for even a quickie in the library. I had to assume they’d decided to take a bit more time here in her bedroom. Lucky me.

  “Shouldn’t we summon the palace guard? The Optimus unit? They’re the ones investigating. She is the mole, love. She is the reason so many of our guards are dead. She probably sent that traitor, Zel, to kidnap the princess at the royal reception!” She sounded as if she were on the verge of a complete breakdown. Tears. Trembling. Jeez. The woman deserved a freaking acting award.

  But then, maybe she really did believe I was the mole in the Jax household. I was here, looking for him—or her—myself. So was the Optimus unit.

  The guards stormed in and grabbed me. Their hands were rough, and I couldn’t blame them. If they believed what Lady Jax was saying—and they had no reason not too—I was, most likely, the reason their men had been killed the night of mine and my sisters’ arrival on Alera.

  Double screwed.

  “I want Thor to talk to her first, but I want the police as well, just in case she turns violent. Thor can decide what to do with her… and whether or not he wants to hand her over to the police or the palace.”

  The palace guard would be easy. I could just ask to see Trinity. She’d rescue me from her own guards. But the police? Assuming I was the mole, would they just torture and kill me? Lock me up? Make me disappear?

  I could tell them that I was a princess now, but they’d never believe me. Everyone on the planet was looking for me and my sister, Destiny. Everyone, although no one knew what we looked like, or even that we were princesses. And I’d been cleaning bathrooms and waiting on them hand and foot? Yep. Not exactly royal behavior. And besides, maybe this way the real traitor would show his face, or at least come at me so he could gloat.

  I’d have to let this play out.

  When the guards led me away, I didn’t fight. And when they stood guard around me in Lord Jax’s office as they awaited Thor and the police, I refused to cry.

  I was a fucking princess.

  2

  Lord Thordis Jax, Mytikas City, Planet Alera

  “My Lord, you’ve been summoned to the family mansion.” My head of household, a stern and highly efficient female, spoke from the doorway of my office.

  “My mother?” I asked. Mother sent for me often. If she was lonely, or bored, or wanted to discuss the latest female she hoped to parade before me. Always scheming, my dear mother, hoping the right female w
ould come along and awaken my dormant cock, inspire me to be more. She believed a mate would force me to increase my interest in politics and the family finances. I was in no hurry to be dragged around by the balls, crawling after a female. And in no mood to entertain my mother today.

  “No, my lord. Your father. The traitor has been caught and detained. He has ordered you to come at once.”

  The traitor? Caught? No wonder they called me. The two of them had been stressed and bothered—understandably—by the weight of the investigation on the Jax family. They thought us traitors. Zel, fuck, Zel had been one. I’d grown up with him, his father a guard for my grandfather. We’d gone to school together, been best friends. Until we’d grown apart. So far apart that he’d gone down a dark path, a path that led to his attempt at kidnapping the princess. And it had occurred right after I’d been seen talking with her at the royal reception, which only fueled the Optimus unit’s interest in us.

  The traitor had been found. Thank fuck. I set the crystalline drink glass down on my desk and grabbed my coat. The air at this altitude was cold.

  Dancing with the princess at the reception had made two things abundantly clear. One, Celene’s daughter was highly intelligent, not the uninformed, spoiled twit I’d been expecting.

  And two? She knew a lot more about what was going on in Mytikas than she let on. And she was doing everything in her power to protect the identities of the other two females, both of royal blood if the spire lights were any indication—who had arrived on Alera with her.

  Princess Trinity was a step—or ten—ahead of me, and I didn’t like that feeling. Not one bit. For despite what my mother believed, I’d been running the family estate for several years now. My father, not wanting to lose face in front of his beloved, pretended, and fed her bits of information that I provided to him. As I lived in my own apartment closer to the city center, it was easy for us to keep up the charade. My mother always worried overmuch about status, and money, and power. Best if she believed everything was going as it always had. That her mate was taking care of her, was still a competent, ambitious male.

  He was old, he said. Tired. He wanted nothing more than to spend time with his expensive and exotic pets, drink a bit of wine, and fuck his mate. The last, I didn’t even want to think about. But he doted on her, and I had to respect at least that. This whole mess was wearing on all of us and I was glad to know it just might be over.

  Especially since I’d agreed to accept the responsibility for the family. I had no mate, and my cock, after all these years, countless parties, and what felt like an infinite number of females paraded before me—had yet to be awakened. My mate nowhere to be found.

  Things used to be quiet. Simple. At least until three spires randomly lit up the Mytikas sky just a short time ago. All of Alera probably thought the same thing I had, that our lives had changed overnight.

  For most, the arrival of Princess Trinity gave hope, curiosity and even eagerness for the future. But for some, the lighting of the spires made decades of scheming and maneuvering for power suddenly irrelevant. The fights between the warring houses interested in taking over Queen Celene’s reign had gone suspiciously quiet. Just a week ago, the royal guard, including Princess Trinity’s mate, Leoron Turaya, had fought off another incursion into the sacred city.

  Each time, the attacks on the capital city had been carried out by mercenaries carrying no banner. They were notorious for brutality in battle, and taking their own lives rather than surrender. I had spoken to my father’s own men, those who had fought beside the royal guard in the last battle, and they all said the same thing.

  The mercenaries never talked. They fought to the death, or they vanished into the night. No injured men were left behind. Only the dead. And dead warriors told no tales.

  I strode out to the street and slid into the seat of the EMV waiting to take me to my parents’ mansion. The Jax household had always been loyal to the crown. For thousands of years, we had served the bloodline of the ancients. So, too, had the other families. But they had yet to realize they had no fight left to win. Not with three new spires lighting the Aleran sky.

  But the Jax household had plenty of fight at the moment. Not for the crown, but for a different reason entirely. There was a mole among us and we wanted to know who it was. A traitor willing to destroy the age-old name and the honor associated with the Jax family name. That made me want the EMV to move faster, to find out about this traitor they’d captured first hand.

  When the princess first arrived, a group of Jax guards had been trusted to keep her, and her mystery companions, safe. All of the Jax guards had been killed, except Zel, who’d been seriously injured and in need of a ReGen pod for healing. Our most valuable and well-loved consort, Cassander, had been injured as well.

  We’d believed the attack had come from someone outside the family, a group of assassins hired to kill our men.

  But the night of the princess’s reception, we’d discovered a much more disturbing truth. It had been Zel who had been part of an ambush to kill Princess Trinity and the two females she’d transported with. When he hadn’t succeeded, Zel, the bastard, had kidnapped the royal from her own welcome reception.

  Wearing a Jax family crest.

  If he weren’t dead, I would kill him myself. Slowly.

  Thankfully, Princess Trinity had been saved. Zel had been killed. While I wasn’t sorry to see him dead, I did wish I could interrogate him. Even though we’d grown up together, known each other almost like brothers, I didn’t know him now. I’d wanted to find out who he’d worked for. It was obvious now he’d just been a pawn. Not too intelligent. Highly disposable.

  Without knowing who was leading the evil faction against Queen Celene’s daughter, the princess was not safe. The tension within the walls of the family mansion was incredible. Were all of the Jax family foes of the royal family? Did we wish them harm? Death? Those were the questions tossed about in the Aleran press.

  No fucking way, but words weren’t enough to prove our innocence. With our honor tarnished, nothing less than the traitor’s head on a platter would prove our innocence. I was eager to see it done and had spent more time than usual with my parents. I had my own responsibilities, handling the financial fallout of our family’s newly tarnished name. I could not afford to hide in my apartment. There was too much at stake for my anxiety ridden mother, or my doting but irresponsible father to handle this fiasco alone.

  There was another reason for my frequent presence in the Jax mansion these past few days. Someone within the household stirred something in me. A scent lingered in the air, something I could only describe as hypnotic in nature, tantalized my senses in almost every room. My cock stirred. Not fully awakened, but… no longer fully dormant either. I was in an agony of inertia.

  It happened for the first time several days ago when I stood in the empty dining room. I’d eaten meals there my entire life and my cock never thickened, never swelled in my pants. Arousal became an instant hunger in me, as if I were hungry, but not for the food I knew would be served later in the day, but instead, for a female’s wet, willing pussy.

  What the fuck had been wrong with me? A female was meant to awaken me, and only one at that. My mate.

  I’d had to excuse myself, seek the privacy of my old bedroom to open up my pants to alleviate the growing ache in my balls, to see for the first time how my cock was now like a club, thickly-veined and broad-headed. Eager. I’d stroked it, felt the powerful pulse of desire that coursed through me at the contact, but it had been unfulfilled.

  The arousal had faded. I had begun to wonder if, after reaching nearly thirty years with no mate, my body had simply gone mad. For there was no mate to be found, only that scent. Elusive. I caught the barest whisper of it here and there.

  I felt as if I were hunting a ghost. Or, worse, losing my mind.

  And so I’d been curious to know the answer. Eager to find the one who had awakened me. Every time I searched my childhood home, I could only hope to
breathe in that elusive, addictive scent.

  And in the days since, I’d grown frustrated—my cock only grew harder each time I caught the scent—my body more and more eager to fuck. To mate. To satisfy the female who’d been mysteriously taunting me.

  The EMV came to a stop at the mansion’s entrance and I stepped from the vehicle into the cold air, my cock once again as it had always been, asleep. But there was a newfound eagerness in my steps as I made my way to the front door.

  The servants greeted me and I handed my coat to a familiar face. Sometimes, it was good to be home.

  Home. Perhaps, if I found a mate, I would return to the mansion and raise my children here, where my father could spoil them and my mother dote on them, lavishing them with a bit too much attention.

  The idea of finding my mate consumed me, even now, as I went to face a traitor, I thought of her. Wondered what she looked like. What noble family she had been born to. For I had come to believe it was, indeed, a female who eluded me, for the scent of her mocked me from everywhere in this home. The library, my old bedchamber, even the coat closet. I was constantly aroused at my parents’ home and that made me crazy. I should be worried about this mole who had been caught, not eager to breathe in that mysterious sweet scent and have my cock rise once again.

  For the first time in my life, I wanted to fuck. The desire had been dormant because… well, because. An Aleran male didn’t have his cock awaken until he found his mate. Before that moment, he felt arousal, but never got hard. I could stroke my cock and never find satisfaction or completion because my body was waiting for The One. But who the fuck was she?

  I ran my hand over the back of my neck as I walked down the ornate hallway. My parents didn’t go for simple when they could show off their fortune.