Highlander's Desire: Winter Solestice (Against All Odds Series 2) Read online

  "That's right," said Gwen. "King Dealon died. So of course his son takes the throne. But that still doesn't explain what you want with me. There have got to be a million Sarmian women out there who'd climb over each other and put their heels on each other's throats to be in bed with you. What do you want with an Earth woman? Especially one who's not that young any more and has..." And she looked down and gestured at her sides, recalling suddenly that her well-rounded figure was now draped in luxurious, shiny fabric. She was about to say, ...has as much hips and butt as brains. But it came out, "...has as much going on downstairs as upstairs."

  Dantar frowned, uncomprehending. "I know not whereof you speak. I do know that many women of your planet now walk mine. Never have we known the like of the people of planet Earth, you who look like us yet are not like us. In truth, a marriage such as ours would be unlike any other in the history of Sarma. It is fitting for a king to be the first to know what no other Sarmian man has known."

  And the madness was back. Gwen shook her head again at what she took to be his meaning. "Let me understand this. You want to marry me and make me your Queen to be the first Sarmian man to have interplanetary nookie?"

  The young King narrowed his eyes, still not grasping the meaning, and still wanting to grasp what lay under her royal bed gown. "We have no such word. What is this 'nookie'?"

  Gwen glared at him. "It's what you seem to think I'm going to give you when you drop those trousers, Mister. And you can guess again."

  Dantar actually took a step back, looking as stung as if he had been hit in the face with hot sand. "Is it that you are...refusing first intercourse with me, I who have chosen you as my bride and queen? Is it that you refuse to accept my zazansa inside you in our royal bed? Do you truly not desire me?"

  The context of his question answered for her the question of what his zazansa was without Gwen having to ask. She could only imagine that the erect zazansa throbbing under those silken leggings was as mighty and meaty as the rest of him, and that the seed flowing from it could easily have irrigated the desert from which he'd had her abducted. In a measured tone, Gwen answered, "Listen, I don't know how this is done when you're a King of Sarma. Maybe this is a place where a king just picks out any woman he wants, has her wrapped up and delivered to his bedroom, pins her to the bed and dubs her with his Royal sceptre all night, and voila, she's a queen. But I'm telling you, I'm from Earth and that's not how we do things."

  Now the two of them studied each other in silence. To Gwendolyn it seemed that Dantar might sway and topple over at any second. She could tell that he was wholly unprepared for what she was saying. The possibility of her not wanting him did not even exist for him. She almost pitied him. Almost.

  "Dantar," she ventured to ask, "what do you even know about me?"

  "You are from the planet Earth," he replied. "A planet of beings so similar to us that it is even possible for us to breed, or so it is said. You and I would be the parents of a magnificent new dynasty, the most unique in all of Sarma's history."

  "That's not what I asked. What do you know about me? What is it that made you want Dr. Gwendolyn Rush for your queen?"

  Dantar fixed her with a steady gaze and spoke with absolute conviction. "As a human of Earth, you are capable of being as strong and fierce as any Sarmian. But your basic character is gentler than ours. To us, you of Earth are a softer culture, more concerned with refinement. All Sarmians are warriors, even our females. Had I chosen a Sarmian female as my bride, I could have had any of the most beauteous women my planet has to offer. But in such a woman I would have had to contend with a warrior spirit to match my own. I have come to know that I do not desire a mate of my own temperament. I desire a marriage with someone...different, someone unlike any other I have ever known or ever could have known. That is what all humans represent to us: the knowledge and intimacy of the different."

  Gwen's eyebrows arched a bit to hear him speak that way. He was beginning to show a level of insight that took her by surprise. She felt fascination starting to overtake her defensiveness, intrigue creeping up in the midst of her hostility. What would he say next?

  The young king went on. "Do you think that I selected you at random? Every human visiting Sarma was required to submit personal information to our computers for identification and background. I commanded my Information Guard to collate data on the most learned females visiting Sarma. Not only the most beautiful, but the most intelligent, the most enlightened, the most accomplished. I sought artists, philosophers, educators, scientists. When I came to you, I found a woman who had walked in Earth's most esteemed halls of learning and been a peer of the finest minds; someone who had distinguished herself in the pursuit of learning; someone quick of intellect and curious and fascinated with everything there is in the universe that is not like herself. Such a woman, I reasoned, could bring me not merely beauty and pleasure in my bed, but satisfaction for my own mind. As a king I shall be bound to my world and my throne. I desired a mate who could truly bring the universe to me. You are all these things, Gwendolyn. It is for these reasons I must have you. And have you, I shall."

  The reasoning and emotions behind Dantar's suit almost made Gwendolyn's head spin. In his haughty, entitled, royal way, he had made something like a compelling case for himself. On some level Gwen realized she should feel deeply honored. But on another level she was still offended at his presumption and angry to have been abducted right from her own work site. No matter that he was King, the embassies and other authorities of their respective planets were going to hear about this—after she was finished giving him an earful directly.

  "All right," she said in a tone measured to make dead certain that he knew she meant business. "I understand that you're the king and you expect to be obeyed. But I am not one of your subjects and you are not going to treat me like one."

  "You shall be no mere subject. You are to be my queen."

  Gwen climbed off the bed and looked him squarely in the eye with her hands on her ample hips. "No, I am not! I am not going to be your queen! I am an Earth woman. I am a citizen of a sovereign planet and you've taken me against my will. What you've done could be taken as an act of terrorism and Earth will not stand for it. And as for just declaring you're going to 'have' me, you don't get to make that call, either. King or not, you don't just command someone to love you and want you. Love that isn't given freely isn't love. You want to make me your queen and you're treating me like a courtesan. Being who you are, you're used to getting your own way. Except this time, you don't. I demand you take me back to the archaeological site where you found me and let me get back to my work. Now."

  This outpouring of defiance brought another moment of studied, measured silence between them. Gwen watched Dantar, her breaths having quickened with her assertion, as he stood unmoving before her except to flare his nostrils and cross his arms. Finally, he spoke.

  "That you would speak thus to your future king," said Dantar, "says but one thing to me."

  "And what's that?"

  "It says that, in truth, I have chosen my bride as well as I thought. Your fire and strength, coupled with your intelligence and beauty, mark you as worthy to sit at my side and rule my world. We will not proceed with the prenuptial consummation—for now. For you have been injured and your pain needs attending. I shall summon one of my healers to see to your comfort. Once your pain has been eased and you have rested more, I shall return. We shall thus lie together and know one another for our first time in body and sex. Until I return, my bride."

  Gwen's mouth dropped open and not a word tumbled out. It was as if this arrogant, shirtless, admittedly drop-dead-screaming gorgeous son of a bitch had not heard a word she had said. She watched as he spun on his heel and his thick and rippling muscles bore him back towards the portal of the bedchamber. Suddenly livid, she dove onto the bed, grabbed one of the pillows, leapt back up, and flung it at him, shouting, "Stop calling me that!" The pillow spun through the air behind him and smacked into the broad wall
of tanned muscle that was his back.

  Dantar turned halfway around and glanced back at her as the pillow plopped onto the carpet at his feet. He smiled at her, the first smile she had seen from him since he came swaggering in. He said not a word, just turned back around and made his way out of the chamber, leaving Gwendolyn puffing and fuming behind him.

  Alone in the bedchamber once again, Gwendolyn had time to think about her captor, who truly considered himself her suitor. She went over everything that was known and conjectured about the Sarmians. The working theory on Earth—which admittedly awaited a better idea to take its place—was that a long-vanished race of beings, who had been highly advanced in their day, had gone about capturing emerging life from other planets, including Earth, to breed as slaves in wars of conquest. This would account for the odd duality of the Sarmians’ nature as people who lived in a combination of semi-barbarism and scientific achievement.

  What was known on Earth about this planet as actual fact was that the Sarmians’ own history was a series of wars with each other, leaving much of their present civilization in need of rebuilding, let alone the ancient ruins from the times when aliens may have brought them to this planet. The ruling family, Dantar’s ancestors, had barely survived to reunite the people. At the death of the king, whose own life must have been a litany of conflicts, his son Dantar had obviously risen to the throne.

  So, his family had overcome what must have been tremendous adversity for Dantar to be where he was now. And to Dantar, that was license to do as he wished and take what he wanted—including the hand of an Earth woman visiting his planet as his bride.

  Sitting herself down at the edge of the foot of the bed and glaring at the portal through which the young King had entered and left, Gwen thought, All right, Your Highness. At least all that helps me understand you a little better. But it still doesn’t mean I’m yours to take just because you want me. As far as I’m concerned, I’m not a royal consort; I’m a prisoner. And a prisoner’s first duty is to try to escape.

  The healer was one of those women that the irrational side of Gwen—the side she did not like for the very reason that it was irrational—always resented a bit. She was about Gwen’s own age, but about a head taller, with golden brown hair, and she was thin. She was not outright skinny; there were curves on her body. But they were gentle, graceful curves, not the round, broad curves that made Gwen’s hips and thighs so full. How was it that science had advanced so far, Gwen often wondered, but still women entering their 30s and 40s could sometimes practically warp space with the middle of their bodies? The only time that Gwen ever felt as graceful as a woman like this was when she was in zero gravity. Being outside of a planet’s gravity well was the great equalizer, as most spacecraft still were not equipped with artificial gravity. Floating weightless anyone, regardless of girth, could be a swan.

  The medic, along with her pouch of treatments and the supplies of her art, brought a golden carafe of water, and other women accompanying her—who quickly exited—brought in trays with bottles of wine and the delicacies of Sarma with which the king meant to win Gwen’s favor. And Gwen had to admit that it all smelled wonderful and that being abducted on a planet light-years away from home had given her an appetite. She had actually not had a bite to eat before she started working on the dig that day. Still, after the healer treated the knot on the back of her head with a soothing white salve that amusingly reminded Gwen of what Dantar meant to fill her with from his zazansa, she reminded herself that that could still be her fate of she did not do something. What she did, once the healer was finished treating her, was to grab the carafe of water and bring it down sharply on the back of the healer’s own head, leaving the woman in a heap on the royal marriage bed.

  Gwen felt an undeniable sting of guilt about this. The healer had been kind and gentle and had even spoken admiringly to her. She had expressed honor at serving her future queen and even tenderness and compassion about the roughness with which the royal guards had taken her. She was after all a doctor, someone who set out to help and never harm, and Gwen had hauled off and clocked her over the head, the person who’d been sent to make her feel better. The guilt nagged and dug away at her as she went through the healer’s pouch to try to find something to help her out of this predicament. The pouch was filled with objects that she could recognize—bandages, for instance—and others that she might have figured out if she’d had the time or the inclination. Reasoning that she might have need for any or all of them, and knowing that somewhere among them was what she most needed at the moment, she opted to steal the entire pouch as the first step in stealing her way out of here.

  Thus leaving the unconscious healer, who would now need healing herself, Gwen found on the carpet of the bedchamber a pair of slippers that she guessed were meant for her. She put them on and made for the chamber portal. It took her a few minutes of rifling through the contents of the healer’s pouch and looking anxiously back at the unmoving healer herself before she found an oblong, narrow piece of crystal that fit in a slot on the wall beside the portal. She inserted it, fighting the unwelcome image of what Dantar wanted to insert and where, and the portal slid and hissed open. Yes! she congratulated herself. Now, if this thing works the same way on all the doors in this place, I may get myself out of here yet. And with that hope, she crept out of the royal bedchamber and into the corridor beyond, letting the portal slide and hiss closed behind her.

  It was times like this that Gwen least appreciated her girth, for it did not lend itself to moving stealthily through the corridors and halls of what she took to be one of Sarma’s royal palaces. She would have liked to be thinner, gliding behind pillars and fixtures and ducking around corners and behind potted plants and indoor shrubs to avoid detection by the guards that she found standing about at the entrances to various chambers. She would have liked to be leaner, slipping past the attention of the other palace staff that she saw going about their business. All it would take, she knew, was for some serving wench or fetching boy to find her slinking about or crouching in hiding, and the underling would call out an alarm that would cook Gwen’s plump little goose. Somehow, though, she found her way to a flight of stairs in some rear part of the palace, perhaps a service stairway, where she hoped the guards’ and servants’ attention would be focused the least, and she made a break down to the lower levels of the palace for what she hoped would be a clean getaway.

  At the bottom of the stairs lay another portal like the one to the bedchamber from which she had escaped. She took the crystal key and slipped it into the appropriate slot, letting out a grateful exhalation when the portal slid open for her. “Yes!” she said in a whisper that was actually a muted shout, and stepped out onto the palace grounds.

  It was still daylight out, but the Sarmian suns were on their approach to the horizon and their light was taking on the fading golden cast of the last hours of the day. The palace, she found, rested atop a plateau surrounded by the same kind of terrain from which she had been abducted. The grounds were not enclosed in walls but surrounded by rows of trees and hedges, perhaps because anyone approaching the place would have to climb the plateau and the palace likely had sentries looking for anyone doing exactly that. This, if true, would complicate Gwen’s escape, for she would have to avoid being spotted sneaking out just as much as anyone sneaking in. Her best bet, she reasoned, was just to run to the edge of the plateau as fast as her stout legs would carry her and find a way to climb down it. She did not look forward to that, but neither did she look forward to possibly being the captive Queen of Sarma and the focal point of an interplanetary incident. So off she went, keeping to the cover of trees and hedges, peering upward at the palace as she went, and otherwise keeping her head low.

  She was halfway across the grounds when a loud, sharp, reverberating sound split the air, coming from the stone and glass turrets behind her. Gwen flinched at it, at both the suddenness and the volume going through her like a slung blade. It was without question an alarm. Som
eone in the palace had either found her missing from the bedchamber or spotted her skulking through the grounds. It did not matter which; the Sarmians were on to her. She bolted upright and broke into a full run for a row of hedges at the edge of the plateau. She could only hope that the incline beyond those hedges was not too steep. Otherwise she might have to slide and roll down it to freedom, a prospect that promised more pain. She ran, puffing as she went.

  Gwen pushed her way between two hedges and peered down carefully, nervously, with the alarm still throbbing loudly behind her. The side of the plateau was quite steep—but perhaps not so steep that she couldn’t crawl or clamber down it and out into the terrain beyond. Her next problem would be finding someone in the surrounding kilometers of countryside who would help her without turning her over to the king—perhaps in the best case she might stumble onto some other human visitors to Sarma—and if that was impossible, what she would do about being out here by herself at night, exposed to cold temperatures and whatever native creatures might come out in the dark. She tried to call up her outdoor survival training, wondering how much of it would be applicable in this environment, and clutched the healer’s bag all the more tightly as her only resource against whatever awaited her. With a breath of resolve, she stepped out past the hedges and went into a crouch to climb down the plateau.

  The sound of the palace alarm carried over. Gwen’s heart and breathing quickened at the thought that at any second guards would come pouring down over the side of the plateau after her. Still, she kept moving, now sliding, then crawling, down and down and down, desperate to put as much distance between herself and the palace as she could, knowing that if she could just get herself all the way to the ground below, she could break into a run…but toward where? She would still be out in the open, a lone target running out into the expanse beyond the plateau, easily spotted, easily surrounded. Her face broke into a sweat and her breathing broke into panting. Damnit, Dantar, why me? Of all the Earth women visiting your damn planet that you could have drafted for your queen, why did you have to pick an archaeologist with hips the size of her IQ? Damn, damn, damn…