Freeing the Prisoner Read online

  “Look—don’t go. I promise not to do it again.” His green eyes were pleading. “Please, we were just getting to know each other.”

  “I must go—the banquet will be over soon and my father will return to his royal bedchamber. I must not get caught here when he returns,” Dani told him.

  “Will you at least promise to come back and visit me again?” Ky asked. “It gets fucking lonely in here, little girl. And, well…I was hoping to get to know you better.”

  Dani bit her lip. Should she promise to come back? It was a risk every time she came. And now that she knew he had witch powers, she ought to avoid him like the plague—Lavi would. Any self-respecting and decently cautious Goshan female would.

  Perversely, it was that thought which made her decide to come again to the small, private cell. Why should she act as every other female acted? Why should she always obey the rules and believe everything she had been taught? Maybe the Kindred was not so bad—maybe he was even telling the truth about his “Touch sense.”

  Maybe.

  “All right,” she said at last. “I will try to come back. And I will try to nudge my father into coming to see you.” She crossed the room and held the sud-stab to his throat again. She glared into the big Kindred’s eyes. “But if I do, you must swear not to hurt him with your powers.”

  “I told you…” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple working delicately against the point of her knife. “I told you, it’s not for that—not for hurting people. It’s for when I find a mate—a female I want to bond to me forever.”

  “Well…” Dani thought of the gentle brush of the unseen hands across her cheek and shoulder. “All right,” she concluded at last and withdrew the sud-stab for the second time. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  She picked up the heavy gold vase, now only half filled with water, and turned to go but Ky called her back.

  “When will I see you again, Dani?” There was both uncertainty and hope in his deep voice.

  “I don’t know. The next time I can be certain my father will be away from his royal chambers for some time.”

  She turned to go again but as she slipped through the door in the corner of the cell she heard him speak once more.

  “Goodbye, little girl. Be safe and may the Goddess watch over you.”

  Dani turned her head to see him looking at her. Their eyes met and for an instant, it seemed his strange pale green eyes would pierce right through her soul. For a moment she wondered if he would try to Touch her again. But she felt no invisible fingers or hands or mouths—there was only the force of his eyes on hers, holding her to him, not wanting to let her go.

  It seemed to last for an eternity, her heart drumming in her chest, her breath quick and light in her ears. At last she was able to drag her eyes from the Kindred’s and shut the door behind her. Clutching the heavy vase, she ran down the dark corridor as fast as she could, unable to forget the way he had looked at her.

  Chapter Five

  “Papa, I have heard a distressing report that there is an alien prisoner here in the palace. Is it so?” Dani looked at her father frankly. Lavi would have batted her lashes and simpered, hoping to gain favor with their parent but that wasn’t Dani’s way—she preferred to be direct.

  Her father frowned down at her—he was one of the tallest males in his own kingdom and so he was able to do this.

  “Yes, my daughter,” he said formally. “There is a prisoner, as you well know. Rumors are flying about him at court—there is no way you could not be aware of his presence. Why do you ask me this?”

  “I just want to know who he is,” Dani said, trying to sound casual. “Do you…have you gone to see him? What does he want?”

  “No, I have not gone to see him yet.” Her father heaved a deep sigh. “This business between the Council and the Thuggors has been keeping me busy. They are staying for two solar weeks which is longer than I truly like. I must keep my mind at home on matters of state rather than letting it fly off to some other planet where this alien enemy is from.”

  “But what if he is not an enemy at all but a friend—someone who might be helpful to us?” Dani pressed. “What if he means us no harm? How will you earn his people’s goodwill by keeping him locked away in a cell?”

  “What do you know of it?” Her father rounded on her suddenly, his face turning from parental to cold in an instant—the face of the Monarch.

  “Nothing!” Dani hated lying the same way she hated hiding and spying but she had no choice—she couldn’t tell her father that she’d been to see the prisoner and he was no threat to them. Well, not exactly no threat, whispered a little voice in her head as she remembered the gentle caress of his whisper fingers. But not the kind of threat Papa is afraid of, anyway.

  “Daughter,” her father said as he resumed walking, his rich royal robes swishing along the tiled floors. “Do not speak to me again of things you do not understand.” They stopped at the entrance of the throne room where the guards waited to keep her father safe…and to keep Dani out. He turned to her again. “You must keep your nose out of affairs of state.”

  “Why?”

  The word was a passionate whisper and Dani felt tears coming to her eyes as she glanced at the guards who would bar her way and keep her out of the place that should rightfully have been hers if only she had been born a son instead of a daughter.

  “Why must I keep my mind only on pretty clothes and women’s matters? I am your daughter—my mind is sharp like yours, Papa,” she entreated softly. “Why can you not allow me to talk with you about what matters to the kingdom—to the planet?”

  “Because you are a female. Women do not conduct state business—they have not the heads for it.”

  The words were not from her father but from Councilor Tornk who had come up behind them as she spoke.

  Dani looked at him coldly.

  “I am speaking to my father, Councilor. Not to you.”

  His small eyes flicked over her contemptuously.

  “Best keep a civil tongue in your head, girl—you might pay for such insolence one day soon.”

  “Enough!” Her father’s voice was a roar that made Dani flinch. The Monarch was known to be a stern but quiet male and his sudden wrath was frightening. He turned to his head councilor. “Tornk, excuse us. I will speak to my daughter alone now.”

  Clearly dismissed, Tornk made an ill-mannered bow and stalked into the throne room, his long ears twitching with irritation. For a moment Dani felt a surge of triumph as she watched him go, then she turned back to her father and her heart quailed within her.

  “Dannella,” he said, frowning at her, “I will not have you behaving with insolence to males. What would your poor mother say? She would say I raised you wrong and perhaps I did—I never should have allowed you to take an interest in matters of state and ruling. Never should have allowed you into the throne room in the first place.” He sighed. “But you were so young when I lost her and you reminded me of her…so headstrong and beautiful…”

  “If I was a son you would let me in,” Dani said, hot tears gathering in her eyes again. “If I were a son you would be proud of my knowledge and interest. I could rule the planet after you—”

  “Hush!” Her father took her by the shoulders and shook her once, hard. He glared at her intently. “Never speak such words again, Dannella! They are blasphemy and you know it. Our gods do not allow for a woman to rule—such an idea would cause an uprising among all our people—male and female alike!”

  “But why must it be so?” Dani demanded. “It isn’t so in other places! On some planets males revere their females and treat them as equals.”

  “What males are these?” the Monarch demanded harshly. “What do you speak of, Dannella?”

  “I…I didn’t mean…” Gods, what was wrong with her? She had almost blurted out what Ky had told her—that the Kindred saw females and males as equals. “It was…another culture I was studying,” she said at last, haltingly. “An alien culture. But why c