My skin prickles, and my power begins to build beneath my fingers.
Roghat leans towards her, his shorn hair so different than mine and my brothers’. A strange think to have done, to cut his hair off like that. It is not like the Roth to wear our hair short. A frown turns my lips down. Maybe this was a waste of time. Maybe this sect is too far gone from Roth culture to even wish to involve themselves with our politics.
I sigh, leaning back against the chair. My fingers drum against the arms, sending orange sparks flying where my energy slips free.
Leigh laughs at something Roghat says, though it’s a tight, unnatural sound. The noise in the hall diminishes at the sound, and nearly all the males stare at her now. I don’t like this.
My lips pull back in a snarl. Something is wrong. I should have insisted she stay with me, at my side, or even better, in my lap.
Roghat cuts me a sly look, and I half-stand in response, already infuriated. He meets my gaze, and I gather my power around me, wearing it like a mantle.
His hand flicks out, and when he grabs Leigh by her neck, time seems to stand still.
The memory of my mother, fighting for her life, for her freedom, as the Overlord’s troops dragged her from our home, flashes before me, and I shake my head, refusing to let the weakness of that past moment ruin my future.
She lets out a furious noise, and then a knife I didn’t even know she had presses to his throat. A thin trickle of blood blackens the blade.
“She should be mine,” Roghat spits out, and the knife cuts deeper into his skin.
Without the tough hide other species have, Roghat is vulnerable, and Leigh uses that knowledge as well as she can.
“You have not fully mated her,” Roghat sneers. “She doesn’t wear the marks of Roth. The humans may be breedable but they are not fit to call queen. They are not Roth.”
A roaring fills the otherwise silent hall, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from me.
Nobody moves.
She digs the tip of the knife into his neck, sputtering for her own breath as his knuckles whiten and her feet kick.
“Let her go, or you die,” I tell him, my muscles straining with the effort of not incinerating the entire gods-damned settlement. “You all die.”
“And you’d kill her with us?” he asks, but sweat beads at his temple.
When his fingers flex around her throat, she makes a small noise of distress, and I raise a finger, my entire hand cloaked in white-hot fire. The chair behind me catches, too, and the rest of the sect shouts, crying for water.
Fools. Don’t they know they are powerless against me?
Don’t they know I would burn the world to save her?
“Release the queen! May the stars shine on them both! Nydo flames as the gods once foretold, a true King of Roth,” a voice cries out, the only sound that pierces my awareness long enough for me to register it.
The hand around Leigh’s neck, the only thing in the universe that matters to me, falters, and she slices a thick line across Roghat’s neck as she takes a huge, shuddering breath. Her feet smash into the ground.
In the next instant, I’m moving as fast as I can to get to her side.
I haul her against me, the flames around me guttering, save for those around my hand, which I reach out to Roghat.
“I promise you this, Roghat of the Ikkox sect. I do not need you badly enough to allow you to live.”
Dark red-black blood seeps through where his fingers are clapped against his throat.
Leigh shakes like a leaf in the wind against my arms.
“I can finish the job,” she murmurs. “I’d love to.”
“Bloodthirsty,” I say approvingly. “And they say you are not worthy of the crown. She is more vicious than any male here,” I boom.
She starts forward, the plas knife only slightly trembling in her grip. “Should I chop his balls off first?” she asks. “Make him eat them?”
Roghat drops to his knees, and the hall falls completely silent. “You have my troops. You have my ships. I only beg of you, help us find females like these. You have my allegiance, my king. My queen, you have my apologies. I am at your service.”
Leigh flips the knife around in her hand, a practiced, showy move demonstrating skill I didn’t know the tiny human possessed.
The rest of the males in the hall kneel as one, thumping to the floor so heavily the table shakes at the impact. Shoulders move as one, grey Roth fists beating against them, a sign of respect. For both of us.
Leigh raises her chin, and I scent the female’s fear behind me. But for all her hand trembles, my queen, my mate… she smells like rage.
“Well, my queen,” I drawl out lazily. She doesn’t take her eyes from Roghat kneeling before us. “Do you want to take his manhood or his life? Both? Neither? I’ll leave it up to you. Consider his life a mating present between us.”
She turns her face to me, a smile flitting across it—but not before I see the disgust plain in her eyes.
“The last thing I want is this sad excuse for a Roth as a,” she pauses, clearing her throat, as if her words stick in it, “a mating present. He can live… for now.”
I let my power rage around me for a brief moment before drawing the energy back into me. “Then you live, Roghat, but do not forget that it is because of my queen’s generous heart.”
He glares up at me, blood leaking from between his fingers.
“Aw, come now, you can’t be angry about that little scrape. We all know how fast we heal, don’t we?” I raise my voice, making sure to keep my tone light, even though I’d very much like to finish the job my Leigh started and send his head rolling from his shoulders. “We have to, seeing as how we are the most elite fighters in the universe! There are none stronger than the Roth!”
Cheers roar through the hall, and Leigh steps back, further into me, as Roghat stands up.
“We will show the Overlord that Roth don’t need to annihilate others to prove their worth,” I continue, my voice echoing off the walls. “We will return to Roth with glory and honor! Beautiful human females will come flocking when they hear of how we treat our mates!” My words boom out, and each new comment is met with more raucous cheering as the hall returns to normal, food served and drink passed around.
“Come,” I tell Leigh, wrapping my arm around her waist. The heat of her skin blooms through the sheer fabric, and it’s utterly tantalizing. “You do not leave my side for the rest of this night, do you understand?” I keep my voice low, and she places her hand over mine on her hip, nodding once, her chin held high.
Carefully, I take the blood-stained plas knife from her hand, clicking it off. Her hand falls to her side, and I know she’s more rattled than she appears. With slow, gentle fingers, I part the slit of her skirt, skimming my fingertips over her bare thigh until I find the hidden holster and tuck the knife away.
I turn her towards me, making sure her eyes stay locked on mine, and lead her away from the table. Lyko and Ayro are on full alert, as are the other two human females, though the yellow-haired one seems close to tears.
“You did so well,” I tell Leigh, whose hand sweats against mine. “I am… honored to have you by my side, and I am sorry. I should have brought you up here with me as soon as we arrived.” I inspect her throat, rage filling me again as it’s clear his fingers have marred her skin. “Twice now, I have failed you,” I growl, clasping her to me as I sit in the chair. “I won’t do it again. This was not the plan.”
“My throat hurts,” she whispers.