Burning for Love Page 5

  5

  James reached out and caught her—what else could he do? Cradling her in his arms, he could feel that her whole body was putting out heat like a furnace. It was as though the little female was burning up with fever.

  He looked down at her anxiously, remembering what Commander Sylvan had told him about the Royals of Regalia Five and their Heat Cycle, as well as the possibility of spontaneous combustion. Somehow he had to cool her down before she burst into flames!

  But his body seemed to know what the Princess needed, even before his brain could work through the problem. Thanks to his Z’ngu DNA and his ability to regulate his own body temperature, his skin was cooling rapidly. As his hands became icy, he cradled the Princess’s lovely face in one palm, caressing her cheeks to chill the heat that was consuming her.

  After a moment, she gave a little gasp and opened her eyes.

  “Oh,” she whispered wonderingly. “Oh, your hands are so lovely and cold.”

  “The better to cool you down, Princess,” James murmured, looking back at her.

  At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to hold her in his arms forever. It was a strange idea—he had never had such thoughts about any female before, no matter how aesthetically pleasing they were. Was he…feeling?

  Surely not, James told himself sternly. And yet, how else could he explain this strange, possessive, protective feeling that had come over him? This wish to hold the little female close to him and never let her go?

  Behind him, he could hear the servants still rushing around and the older woman was saying,

  “Where did you put them? You know the ice pads are always to be kept at the ready when a Royal is in the middle of her Heat Cycle!”

  Princess Ka’rissa must have heard the flurry too, because she struggled to sit up in James’s arms and called,

  “Pray, Lady Mildew, do not distress yourself! For I am quite well—I promise I am.”

  “No, you’re not,” James growled, frowning down at her. “Lie still, Princess. You nearly went up in flames just now.”

  Her pink cheeks went pale.

  “No I didn’t!” she insisted, struggling even harder. “Let me go at once, Sir! You do not even know me!”

  “I know that,” James replied, frowning. “But I will not let you go until I’m certain you’re well.”

  He held her firmly, assessing her one more time despite her struggles. Her temperature had come down considerably and the sweet smell of burning sugar had subsided. At last, satisfied that the danger had been averted, James set her on her feet, where she wobbled uncertainly for a moment before catching her balance.

  “There. I am well, as I told you,” she told the older woman, who was fluttering around her, straightening her wig and her dress as the Court looked on avidly, gossiping about the incident behind their feathered fans. “I am perfectly fine—I pray you will not upset yourself about me, Lady Mildew.”

  But it sounded to James that the older woman was more concerned with the propriety of the situation than the Princess’s brush with danger.

  “So very improper—being held in the arms of a strange man in the very middle of the Court!” she was muttering, as she straightened the Princess’s clothing. “How could you let yourself faint into his arms in that way? And him acting much more like a suitor than a guard—scandalous!”

  “I didn’t faint on purpose!” Princess Ka’rissa objected. “Nor did I faint for my own amusement or to make a scene—how could you think such a thing?”

  But Lady Mildew—a rather unusual and unfortunate name, in James’s estimation—just kept grumbling about the impropriety of the situation until at last the Steward muttered to a herald who declared that Reception hours were over and the ball was about to begin.

  At this pronouncement, the Nobles began to file out of the Reception Hall, though many threw backwards glances at the dais where the Steward still sat on his throne and Lady Mildew continued to chastise the Princess.

  James simply stood there and kept an eye out for threats. Such times of confusion and transition were excellent opportunities for an assassination attempted, so he scanned the crowd carefully and made sure to put himself between the Princess and Nobles.

  At last, however, the hall cleared, leaving only a few servants and the Royals on the dais.

  “There—you’re mostly decent now,” Lady Mildew remarked, making a final adjustment to the Princess’s dress. Then she turned immediately to the Steward. “Your Stewardship, I must protest this situation!” she exclaimed, her faded eyes flashing. “The Princess cannot be given over to this strange man. It is simply not proper!” She pointed directly at James, her lip curling in anger and disgust.

  James wondered what he had done to cause such strong emotions. He had only caught the Princess when she fainted and cooled her down—why would that make the older female so unhappy?

  The Steward seemed to think the same way.

  “Please, Lady Mildew, I have no time for this right now,” he muttered, frowning up at her from his throne. “I have a ball to oversee, as you well know.”

  “What I know is that this matter will be swept under the rug if it is not dealt with at once!” Lady Mildew exclaimed. “We all thought that the Kindred were sending us a robot—not a huge, monstrous male of questionable parentage!”

  “Actually, I have no parentage,” James interrupted, turning towards them. “My DNA was mixed by a Tolleg surgeon and I was grown in a tank on Zeaga Four.”

  “What?” Lady Mildew gave him a blank look. “You were not…”

  “I was not conceived in the conventional manner that most of the people in the universe are,” James said. “But I am a Dark Kindred—we have no females on our planet and so the growth tanks are a necessity.”

  “A whole planet with only males?” Princess Ka’rissa’s eyes went wide. “How very singular!”

  “How very improper, you mean!” Lady Mildew exclaimed. She turned back to the Steward. “Your Stewardship, surely you are not going to allow this…this creature to replace me as the Princess’s Constant Companion and chaperone!”

  “I thought you’d like having some time to yourself, Lady Mildew—you constantly complain about how waiting on the Princess is extremely onerous and how you are too old for such difficult duties,” the Steward said, frowning. “And besides, you cannot protect the Princess’s safety in the way this large, er, male can.” He eyed James uncertainly. “Also, he has assured us that he has no emotions for the Princess except the wish to protect her.”

  “But what about her reputation?” Lady Mildew protested. “What will people say to the idea of him undressing her at night and dressing her in the morning and bathing her and putting her to bed? It is all most shocking!”

  “Indeed, it is not!” The Steward was red in the face. “Because I say it is not and my word is law!” He glared at Lady Mildew, who glared right back at him.

  “I can remember, Your Stewardship, when you were just a servant,” she spat. “Before you undertook to rule the entire planet and lord it over all the rest of us! And let me tell you, you’d better have a care for the Princess in the way you didn’t for her mother! If you are to let this…this monstrous thing guard her, then it had better not be for long. If you fail to find her a proper suitor to slake her Heat before she combusts—”

  “Enough!” the Steward roared His face was nearly as red as the carpet as he pounded on the arm of his throne with one clenched fist. “I will not hear another word from you, woman!” he bellowed at Lady Mildew. “You are hereby officially and permanently replaced as the Princess’s Constant Companion.” He took a deep breath and straightened his rumpled cravat and wrinkled waistcoat. “Princess Ka’rissa will do very well with her new guard and her reputation will not suffer because I say it shall not. After all, does she not still wear the Chastity Wire?”

  “Yes, my Lord Steward, I do,” Ka’rissa said, speaking up for the first time, though she had been watching the shouting match between the two
older people in wide-eyed silence. “All the time now, except for during baths, of course,” she went on, blushing.

  “Good. Then let us simply continue in that way,” the Steward huffed. He was panting and out of breath from his outburst, but his face was beginning to go back to a more normal color. “Now come, we will go to the ball and tomorrow I shall announce some new suitors for the Princess to choose from. Won’t that be nice?” He smiled up at Ka’rissa who bobbed him a grateful little curtsy.

  “Very nice. Thank you, Uncle,” she said, speaking less formally than she had a moment before.

  “That’s a good girl.” The Steward nodded and looked up at James. “And you—see that you keep her safe! We nearly lost her just the other week and we cannot have that. I am too old to sit this throne forever and Ka’rissa is the last of the Very First Family’s bloodline. She must live to marry and produce an heir—for the good of all of Regalia Five.”

  “I will protect her with my life,” James said simply.

  “Good—that’s what Commander Sylvan promised me.” The Steward wiped at his sweating forehead with a gold silk handkerchief “Now then, you may escort the Princess to the ball,” he told James. “I will arrive shortly. Ka’rissa, tell them to start without me,” he said to the Princess. “Can’t have people all milling about, waiting on an old man to dance.” He smiled at the Princess. “Come give me a peck, child. And then run and have some fun—enjoy dancing while you’re young.”

  “Thank you, Uncle.” Ka’rissa stepped over and dropped a kiss on the old male’s cheek. Then she turned back to James expectantly, and a little shyly, he thought. “Well, Sir James? Will you escort me as my uncle, the Steward, commands?”

  James wasn’t sure what was expected of him at first, but then he remembered seeing the noblemen holding out their arms to the noblewomen as they were leaving the Reception Hall.

  “I am ready,” he said, holding out his arm.

  “Thank you.” Ka’rissa took his offered arm with a touch as light and tentative as a bird’s. “Come,” she said. “You are new to the palace, so I will show you the way.”

  James didn’t tell her that he had studied a schematic of the palace blueprints and committed it to memory on his journey over to Regalia Five. He had learned that when feelers wanted to tell or show you something, they preferred if you pretended you didn’t already know whatever it was they were telling. So he simply nodded.

  “Lead on, Your Highness,” he said formally.

  “This way,” she said.

  And she led James down the dais and out of the Reception Hall.

  6

  Rissa took the long way through the Solarium to the ball, because she was burning with questions—questions she needed privacy to ask. The first one, of course, was how the man she had been dreaming of for the past month had suddenly showed up in person in her life.

  But she didn’t feel able to ask that because it would sound so strange—almost deranged! How could she tell him that she had dreamed of him—of his blue, metallic eyes and dark hair and his deep, rumbling voice? It would make her sound like a lunatic, so she kept that particular question to herself. However, she was unable to hold back some others.

  “Were you really grown in a tank?” she asked, looking up and up at the tall Kindred. The huge warrior was so big that the top of her head barely came to his bicep and Rissa nearly had to scamper to keep up with his long strides.

  “I was.” He nodded impassively, not looking at her as he spoke. In fact, what he seemed to be looking at was the hallway around them. His metallic blue eyes were constantly scanning back and forth. What was he looking for, she wondered?

  “So you were not…born like other people are? I mean you said you were not conceived in the, uh, the usual way?” Rissa cleared her throat nervously, her cheeks heating. Imagine a whole planet filled with only men with no women to kiss in order to get them with child!

  “I was not,” he agreed as they entered the vast, glass room of the Solarium. He was still scanning the way ahead of them alertly. “We should not have taken this route,” he said, frowning around the Solarium. “It is too deserted—too easy for an assassin to set a trap or ambush a target.”

  “Oh, do you really think so?” Rissa looked around the high glass walls, which let in the pinkish sunlight of Regalia Five’s red giant sun during the day, but which were now black and blank since it was night outside. Unconsciously, she tightened her grip on the big Kindred’s arm, as she remembered the awful attack in the library and the feel of the sharp silver knife against her throat.

  Sir James seemed to feel her tightened grip because he looked down at her briefly.

  “Don’t worry—I’ll protect you with my life, as I swore, Your Highness. You are safe with me.”

  Rissa nibbled her lower lip.

  “Why would you swear to protect me with your life when you just met me?” she asked, though she knew she should not. It was a rude question—doubtless completely improper. But if the big Kindred cyborg, as he had called himself, really had no emotions, he shouldn’t mind a bit of impropriety. She hoped, anyway.

  He glanced down at her again from his great height.

  “Guarding you is my mission,” he said shortly. “Your wellbeing and safety were assigned to me by my direct supervisor, Commander Sylvan. I obey his orders completely.”

  “Oh.” Rissa couldn’t help feeling somewhat disappointed by this answer. After the way he had stared into her eyes and kissed her hand while vowing his devotion so beautifully in the Receiving Hall, she had hoped for something else.

  What are you hoping for, though? whispered a little voice in her head. A romantic declaration of love? Don’t be ridiculous, Rissa! Just because you’ve been dreaming of him for the past month doesn’t mean that he’s been dreaming of you, too—or that he feels anything for you. In fact, you know for a fact that he feels nothing, for he has no emotions.

  Or so he had said.

  “Do you really have no feelings at all? No emotions?” she blurted, before she could stop herself. Again, it was a terribly rude question, but it just seemed to slip out.

  Sir James looked down at her again, searching her eyes with his own, flashing blue ones for a long moment. Rissa seemed to feel the breath catch in her throat at the intensity of that stare. But then he looked away and said,

  “None,” in that same, flat voice that seemed to ring with finality.

  “Oh,” she whispered. “I…I see.”

  But despite her disappointment in his answer, she still had one more question.

  “How did you cool me down when I fainted?” she asked, looking up at him. “Your hands…they felt like ice. But your arm seems warm enough.”

  She nodded down at his left arm, which was the one he had offered to her, though it was more usual for a lady to walk on the right side of a gentleman. But Rissa wasn’t sure how she felt about touching his metal right arm, anyway, so she hadn’t complained.

  “Ninety-five percent of my DNA is Kindred but the remaining five percent is Z’ngu,” he replied, glancing down at her again. “Which means that I can control my body temperature at will. As to why my body reacted to yours so quickly to cool you down…I don’t know.”

  For a moment a troubled expression seemed to pass over his strong features, but it was gone so quickly, Rissa couldn’t be sure she’d seen it at all.

  “Maybe it was just your way of…of protecting me?” she asked hesitantly.

  He nodded thoughtfully.

  “Possibly. I felt attuned to you the very first moment I saw you—probably because your safety is my mission. At any rate, when I felt how hot your skin was, my body reacted and dropped my temperature in order to cool yours.”

  “Indeed, it did. And I am most grateful, Sir,” Rissa murmured. She could still feel those incredibly strong arms holding her against his broad chest and the cool, delicious sensation of his left hand—the non-metal one—caressing her flushed and burning cheeks. It was the closest, physically
, she had ever been to any man and she was certain it would have been quite improper if it were not for the fact that the “man” she’d been held by was actually a kind of robot.

  At that moment, they exited the Solarium and found themselves just outside the main Ballroom. Sounds of murmuring could be heard from behind the tall, carved doors and Rissa realized suddenly that when she walked into the room on her new bodyguard’s arm, they were going to be the talk of the Court.

  I shouldn’t have allowed myself to be alone with him, she thought. We went right through the deserted Solarium together, without a chaperone! Without even a thought for the propriety of the situation or my reputation! However could I have been so careless?

  But then she remembered the Steward’s, sharp words of rebuke to Lady Mildew. He had said that it was perfectly fine for Sir James to be alone with her—indeed, to bathe her and dress her and act as her Constant Companion, too.

  Because he’s a robot, she told herself again. A cyborg—he has no feelings, no improper urges like the other men Lady Mildew is always warning me about. So it is perfectly safe to be alone with him—and perfectly proper as well.

  She would hold her head high when they entered the Ballroom, she decided. If she betrayed even a whiff of shame or self-doubt, the gossip-hungry Court would pick up on it at once and tear her apart like a pack of ravening dogs.

  “Are you ready?” she asked, looking up at the big Kindred. “We must let them know to start the dancing.”

  “I cannot dance,” he said, frowning down at her. “And I don’t think you should be dancing either.”

  “Not dance? Admit myself to be a wallflower?” Rissa was shocked. “I cannot do that! I am the Princess—I must lead the dance, not refuse it!”

  It was a fact Lady Mildew had always impressed upon her. “Royalty leads, girl!” she’d said more times than Rissa could count. “It’s your duty as a Royal of the Very First Family to make a good showing in a ballroom or any social situation.”