The Barbarians: Stolen Bride Read online

  “Oh my god! This is an amazing specimen of a man! Stop looking at me with those beautiful, deep purple eyes! I’m going to come all over myself!” Snicker, snicker, hiccoughs and then she recited a poem that popped into her head. “Be quiet my pussy! Just go to sleep. He’s a barbarian and not fit to keep!”

  His lips twitched, but since his complexion darkened at the same time, Charly put it down to the misstep she took at that moment.

  He leaned closer, murmuring something in her ear.

  She didn’t understand a word of it, but the heat of his breath lifted a thundering horde of Goosebumps that ran off in every direction, further scrambling her brains.

  “Oh my god, I’m hot!” she gasped. “Quit it, you luscious lump of man meat! I’m going to have a heart attack and die right here!”

  Her insides were still quivering with nerves when Prince Galen finally escorted her back to her seat at the table, but she was relieved that she’d managed to escape.

  Her relief was short lived. She hadn’t even gotten the chance to sit and gulp down some of the intoxicating brew they served with the food when she discovered Prince Damek had returned Hal to her seat and clearly meant to exchange partners.

  She didn’t know whether to be glad or more unsettled when Prince Galen beat him to it.

  That was deeply disturbing in all sorts of ways.

  Mostly because it looked like, for several moments, the two might come to blows … directly on top of her.

  “Oh shit! Neal!”

  “Breathe. It’s just a minor dispute,” Neal whispered back.

  The exchange seemed to redirect both combatants, fortunately, to a sense of decorum. Damek bowed with an attempt to hide his fury behind a ghastly smile and stepped back, returning to his seat.

  Galen hauled her out to the dance floor and ‘frisked’ her, making no attempt even to pretend he wasn’t tempted to fuck her right there on the dance floor.

  Then he turned her over to Damek.

  Who thought it was his job to outdo his brother, apparently.

  It was like they had ten hands.

  Or maybe she was just too damned inebriated to keep up.

  She was tired when he returned her to her seat but a little more clear headed.

  At least she thought so.

  Fortunately, she wasn’t expected to dance with anyone else. When Prince Damek led her back to her seat and kept her from missing it, she collapsed gratefully and downed a healthy gulp of the spirits to recover her wits.

  “Well? What do you think?”

  Charly turned to stare at Neal blankly, but as confused as she was she was still pretty sure he wasn’t asking her to ‘share’ her experiences with the princes. “About what?”

  He frowned. “Did you get any sense of which of the princes might be involved?”

  “In what?”

  Neal gaped and looked at her half empty glass accusingly. “How many of those have you had?”

  Charly turned to stare at the glass in her hand and it occurred to her that it looked as full as ever despite the fact that she knew, positively, that she’d nearly drained it between dance partners. “Uh oh,” she muttered, very carefully setting it down.

  So it wasn’t just Prince Galen that had made her feel intoxicated!

  That was a relief!

  Not particularly helpful at the moment, though.

  Neal requested a glass of water—which earned him a blank stare—but the servant left and came back with a glass of clear liquid. Neal tested it carefully himself and then handed it to her and moved her liquor glass out of reach.

  Charly took a few sips while she struggled to bring her wits together. “Honestly, I don’t know. I couldn’t understand a damn word either one of them said to me while we danced. They could have confessed outright and I wouldn’t have known the difference.” She frowned. “That’s not our problem, though. Outside our jurisdiction—even Hal’s.”

  Neal studied her a little suspiciously and finally shrugged. “You’re right. But it could still be our problem if they’re involved and want to prevent us from getting to Nldick.”

  “I’m pretty sure we couldn’t count on cooperation anyway. Hal and Lee presented the case, I’m sure, and I haven’t seen a shift in their attitude toward Nldick. And certainly nobody’s approached me about handing him over.”

  “They have deniability—unfortunately. It would have been helpful if he’d decided to use Ginko Nldick, but he’s using another alias,” Neal pointed out.

  “But there’s only one outsider from what I’ve been able to find out.”

  Almost as if cued from that observation, Prince Damek rose and spoke to the assembled company, gesturing toward her at one point—or maybe the group? She wasn’t certain since she didn’t have a damned translator and no one thought to translate to her in sync with the proclamation or whatever it was.

  When he’d finished, the entire audience cheered.

  “That must have been good news?” Charly prompted. “What did he say?”

  Neal stared at her. “He said you and he were going to marry on their next holy day—which seems to be three days from now—and ‘we’re’ going to produce little god children to reign over Bacsheer.”

  Charly gaped at him. “That’s not funny!” she snapped.

  “I don’t think so either.”

  She felt a look of absolute horror contort her facial features as it sank in that this wasn’t some twisted joke her partner had come up with. He elbowed her in the ribs, jerking her back to a sense of her surroundings. She managed to wipe the horror from her expression, but to save her life she couldn’t manage anything approaching joy. “Oh my god!” she muttered under her breath.

  “What did you say to him?” Hallie hissed from her seat three down the table from Charly.

  Charly glared at her. “Hey! Why don’t we get married and see if we can fuck things up worse than they already are? That’s a stupid question!” she hissed back. “My translator’s broken.”

  That clearly took her aback, but she recovered quickly. “Well! You’ve gotten us into a hell of a mess.”

  Charly wanted to punch her in the nose.

  It was a very good thing she couldn’t reach.

  The Prince’s announcement galvanized her, though, putting her brain in high gear and she was able to resolve the plan she’d been tumbling around in her mind since the earlier discussion.

  “Ok,” she said in a low voice to Neal. “We’re going to have to move fast.”

  Chapter Five

  Charly glanced around, but she thought there was enough noise to cover her and none of the aliens spoke English anyway. “I’ve got a tranq in my med kit. You’ll need to locate Nldick’s sleeping chamber. Once everyone is settled for the night, come to my room and I’ll give you the tranquilizer to knock him out—it’s fast acting since it’s for field injury. Tie him up and haul his ass to the roof, the ramparts. You’ll need to neutralize the lookouts up top with the tasers, so take plenty of rope to tie them up and wait there for pick up. I’ll meet up with Claude and Tara to bring the ship for a pickup. You take Tom and Larry with you.”

  He nodded as she outlined the plan. “What about Hallie and Lee?”

  “Don’t tell them shit until we’re ready for pickup. Hopefully they’ll have enough sense to hit for the ship. If not …. Well, I don’t feel like giving Hal enough warning to fuck up my plans.

  “I’m not leaving Nldick and I’m not hanging around to become the next barbarian queen!”

  Neal snickered, which made her feel like belting him, but she supposed if it had happened to anyone else—like Hal—she would have been amused. All she could think about, though, was that her career would be in the toilet if she wasn’t very damned careful.

  Sure, there might be a stink about it anyway, but she was fairly certain it would be way worse if command had to send marines to extricate her and her team.

  Under the circumstances, she was beyond relieved when they were finally able
to slip out of the Great Hall and head to their rooms. They’d stayed until the ‘party’ seemed to be winding down and she was hopeful that that meant it wouldn’t be a long wait before everybody settled in for the night.

  They’d left Tom and Larry ‘partying’ so they could locate Nldick when he left—not that she’d seen him but she was sure he had to be there since everybody else was—and tail him to make sure they knew which room to go to and that he was actually in it.

  She was still pretty wound up when she got to her room, but also bone weary from a very long, very tense day. She didn’t doubt that the booze she’d had contributed to the fatigue, but she didn’t think she’d overindulged as badly as she’d first thought.

  Either that or the marriage announcement had totally sobered her up.

  She paced the room for a little bit while she waited for Neal to show up for the tranq, going back over the plan she’d worked out and checking it for flaws. When she’d gone back over it several times, though, and there was still no sign of Neal, she began to get seriously concerned.

  But maybe he’d just misunderstood? Maybe he thought he was supposed to wait until everyone was asleep to get the tranq?

  And actually, that would probably be for the best considering the announcement Prince Charming had made earlier!

  It might seriously foul their plot if he was seen going into her room.

  It wasn’t as if they could explain!

  Finally, she decided to check out the bath. According to whoever had compiled the data on the Oloote, they actually had running water in the main seat of the High King.

  Of course, that didn’t mean it was available to just anybody.

  But she discovered it was definitely the case for the room she’d been given—gift to the gods? And better than just running water, it was hot!

  They must have tied in to a hot spring, she realized. They certainly didn’t have the technology or power supply to manage any sort of artificial/mechanical water heating. Well, or pumping for that matter. It would have to be gravity fed.

  Direct from Mother Nature! Piping hot water courtesy of the local volcanic vent?

  She didn’t care!

  It was hot, running water and she abruptly felt almost a sense of desperation to make use of it.

  Removing her armor, she slipped out of the undershirt and panties she wore beneath it and climbed into the pool.

  It was divine!

  There was a crudely woven cloth provided for bathing and a dish with what seemed to be some kind of soap. She washed thoroughly. She was tempted to lie back and soak when she’d finished, but she thought she was probably as relaxed as she ought to allow herself.

  Unfortunately, she discovered when she’d climbed out and dried off that she’d already breeched the threshold. She was so sluggish it was all she could do to pull her undershirt and panties on again.

  She decided to just lie down a few moments to collect herself before she tackled the armor again. Neal would wake her when he came in for the tranq even if she did fall asleep, she reasoned.

  And that was only if.

  She was relaxed and a little drowsy from the booze, that was all.

  That was her last thought before something alerted her to danger and brought her up abruptly from the depths of sleep.

  Fortunately, years of training came to her aid. She played possum, reaching out with nothing but her senses.

  There was someone in the room with her, she decided. It wasn’t just the creaking of old timbers.

  And it wasn’t Neal.

  He would know better than to creep up on her even if he thought she was asleep.

  * * * *

  Galen was a man of action. He had no taste for subterfuge. He, in fact, hated that he had been forced by circumstances to act out such a distasteful plot, but he was grimly determined to follow his father’s last wishes.

  Truthfully, he had never thought that Damek was suited to rule, but he was the eldest and their father didn’t seem to share his doubts regarding Damek’s temperament.

  And truth be told, he had no desire to rule himself so he had kept his misgivings to himself lest his father decide to make him his heir instead.

  Of course, their father had wavered from that earlier decision once he became ill, deciding instead to split the realm between them and then adding the stipulation that they must wed if either of them wanted to inherit the entire realm, but Galen had put that down to the illness and expected to sort it out once his father recovered.

  It grieved him to accept that there would be no recovery.

  It angered him.

  But it also hardened his resolve.

  It was, after all, part of the reason he had learned the language of the gods. It had certainly not been an easy task, or knowledge he had particularly wanted. And it had forced him into close association with a man he had not trusted from the start—his father’s assassin. He had seen it, though, as a weapon that could be used against him if he did not master it. And to his everlasting horror, it had proven to be worth it. It had allowed him to uncover the plot against his father and avenge him.

  It had not saved his father or even given him a clean, swift death, but he had taken out the assassin.

  And now he must prevent Damek from seizing the throne when their father died and knowing the language had given him the knowledge to stop his brother.

  He was not happy that he had inadvertently targeted Charlotte as a pawn in their political game. He could not say that it had not occurred to him at all when he had focused his attention on her to divert attention from himself. It had—mostly because Damek had always leapt at any challenge to compete with his younger brother.

  As long as it was not a challenge of combat.

  He had not fought Galen since his younger brother had grown strong enough and skilled enough to beat him.

  But he had not expected Damek to instantly leap upon Charlotte as the key to taking the throne.

  He should have, but he hadn’t.

  It was fortunate that his father had reminded him of the secret passages woven throughout the castle else he would have had some difficulty in reaching Charlotte’s room without detection. He had not used the passages since he had played in them as a small child and had all but forgotten them until his father had told him to use the passage to remove Blazig’s body.

  It was unfortunate that he would have to leave it there to be found, but Charlotte had forced his hand when she had hatched the plot to snatch Blazig and leave.

  Well, Damek had when he had decided to announce her as his bride and then Charlotte had further complicated the situation when she had announced her intentions, removing the time limit Damek had set.

  There was no longer a Blazig—or Ginko Nldick, as they called him—to snatch and Damek, of a certainty, would not allow her to leave now that he had claimed her as his bride.

  He had made her the key to inheriting the throne by announcing her as his chosen one. Damek could not now choose another.

  And that meant he, Galen, must consider Charlotte as the easiest and fastest route to honoring his father’s last wishes.

  It was a fine mess, he thought in disgust.

  He thought he would far rather challenge his brother and defeat him on the battlefield than to tie himself to an off-worlder who thought of them, and him, as barbarians and clearly held them in contempt.

  * * * *

  Charly had enough presence of mind to feign sleep while she struggled to gather her wits, bracing herself to leap into action when whoever it was got close enough.

  Unfortunately, her assailant moved with amazing speed and silence. He was on her before she realized he was close enough to launch a counterattack.

  Moreover, the stab to her ass was completely unexpected and totally threw her off.

  “OW!” She bellowed even as she jerked upright and whipped around to fight him off, balling her fist and throwing everything she could behind it.

  “I thought you were faking,” he
murmured with obvious satisfaction as he ducked the punch and she missed.

  Before she could try again, he dove on top of her and covered her mouth with something that stuck like it was glued down, grabbing her wrists when she would have reached up to tear it off. They wrestled for dominance briefly, but she could feel the effects of the drug fairly quickly.

  She recognized it.

  Which was a good thing.

  And then again, not.

  Fuck!

  The bastard had injected her with the damned tranq she’d left out for Neal to use on Nldick!

  Sensing that she was weakening, he grabbed the coverlet she’d been lying on and rolled her up into it. Her head spun with dizziness. By the time the spinning slowed, she was trussed like a Christmas Goose.

  He dragged her from the bed then and knocked the breath from her when he hefted her onto his shoulder.

  It wasn’t Ginko Nldick, she decided, dazed and confused, but not so much she didn’t realize that worm would never be able to lift her to his shoulder, let alone carry her.

  She felt herself fading fast, though, too fast for her brain to work out the puzzle, particularly with the disorientation caused by the cover he’d tied her in. The confusion deepened when, instead of heading out through the door as she’d expected, he appeared to turn to the window.

  Thankfully, she was too out of it to feel the sheer terror she would have felt otherwise, she was sure, because the idiot did go out the window with her.

  She could hear several voices when they finally reached the ground and the sounds the beasts they used for transportation made.

  She was plucked from the shoulder and plunked down on something broader and tied to it and then, thankfully, she lost consciousness.

  Regrettably, that state wasn’t prolonged. Almost as soon as the beast started moving, she roused, but only insofar as more awareness of her painful discomfort. She thought it might have been considerably worse if she hadn’t been tranqed, but then again there might not have been a need to tie her down.

  Whatever the case, she was miserable and could neither fully gain awareness or complete oblivion for long at the time. When light finally began to filter through the fabric encasing her, the beast was halted and she was hauled from its back.