The Alpha King (28 page)

No wolf wanted to hear about their mate being with someone else. No wolf wanted to know they were in danger of pushing their mate towards someone else, but Buck needed a major reality check and Blaze would give it to him.

"But if you really want to come with us you can," Blaze assured his brother, watching Buck's shoulders sag with relief.

Blaze returned Buck's grateful smile with an indulgent one of his own. Turning to look at Mailon, Blaze nodded towards him and then back at Tal. Mailon would get the clue and stay behind to keep an eye on Blaze's very expectant Vermithian. Clasping his brother's shoulder once more, Blaze turned and walked towards his pouting mate.

"My love, I promise to contact you once we are safely in orbit," Blaze reiterated once again.

Their mental mating link would work as long as they didn't venture too many light years away, and he comforted his mate with the knowledge that once they were in orbit, he would be contacting him, and keeping in touch with him. He leaned over and pulled the smaller man into his arms for a final farewell hug. He smiled down at his small, pregnant mate as he gently pulled free of the almost choking hold the younger man had on his neck. Since waking up the morning after their intense lovemaking session, almost three days before, Tal had been unusually clingy. Blaze didn't mind too much, if Tal always remained with him then he could be assured of his man's safety. However, he had to get into the shuttle to leave and he wouldn't be able to do that as long as Tal hung onto him like some sort of snake or Strawxigian clinging vine. Standing up to his full height he gently ran the backs of his fingers over Tal's cheek.

Tal sighed and then muttered, "You better."

Blaze couldn't understand Tal's sudden reluctance for him to leave. They were going to rescue his brothers. Tal had been passionate about finding his younger siblings, and had become just as passionate about Blaze not being among those who made sure it got done. He quirked an eyebrow in a silent question, growling in frustration when the smaller man merely shrugged one shoulder. He leaned forward and kissed his mate's forehead before turning to board the awaiting space vessel without another glance back.

"
I will miss you my precious Vermithian
," Blaze communicated through their mental link.

He smiled when Tal's happiness shone through.

"
Just make sure you come back to me, my big, bad Alpha King
," Tal replied.

He flooded Blaze's mind with images of them locked in numerous passionate embraces and positions. Sending back a loving growl, Blaze received a happy giggle and an image of Tal and their children to take with him. It made him all the more determined to rescue his mate's brothers and return back to Tal's arms where he belonged.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Tal sighed sadly and walked through the palace gardens, one hand touching the flowers and plants that were in bloom, the other resting upon his very large belly. "I'm very glad that all of my royal attire only calls for loose pants and a tunic," he stated to his unborn children with a smile. "I would never leave the room if I had to wear anything even remotely form-fitting. Not that I'm not excited to have you all there, even if I did have a slight freak-out at first. I'm very excited about you all. I'm merely stating the fact I am extremely happy I don't have to wear anything seen even remotely as being sexy." He chuckled then as an unbidden image of him in a black form-fitting leather pantsuit arose in his mind's eye.

He thought of sending the image to Blaze through their mental link but remembered the Alpha had told him the day before they were going onto the slave ship that day and he wouldn't be able to talk with him until they were done. He would tell Blaze about the pantsuit when the man returned… if he returned… and he'd make sure he wouldn't consider putting Tal in the leather contraption from Hades.

One of the babies chose that moment to kick and Tal rubbed his stomach soothingly over that spot. "Don't worry, your daddy would never do that—" His words drifted off as a sudden question arose to his mind. "Well, what would you call me? Would I be Daddy or would Blaze be Daddy? I mean, technically I would be Mommy since I'm the one pregnant and the one giving birth, but I have a problem being called Mommy. I mean, I already get the Alpha Queen around here, and that's never going to change, not unless your father decides to finally do something about that. And honestly? I think if one of you called me Mommy I might just scream—" He sighed and he sat down on one of the garden benches Blaze had placed within the lush gardens after he'd discovered Tal's love for walking through them.

Tal closed his eyes and turned his face up towards the sun. He really did love being outdoors, feeling at one with nature, releasing the problems of the kingdom and just being. He loved communing with his natural surroundings. It was a part of genetic makeup as a Vermithian. He let the different conversations from the plants and bushes around him wash over his mind. He wondered where Mailon had gone off to. Very aware Blaze had sent the Elder back to watch over him, Tal became impressed at the different ways Mailon explained why he showed up at certain spots trying not to look as if he were watching over Tal. They were probably some of the most enjoyable conversations he'd had in a long time.

Tal laughed gently when he felt a series of kicks and rubbed his belly again. "Boy, you guys certainly got active quickly. Is it because you miss your father? Huh—" He grinned, his eyes still closed. "I guess he's father and I'm daddy, right?" he teased the babies.

"My love,"
Blaze's voice broke through.

Tal figured they had returned into the planet's orbit, which meant they were either on their way back with Tal's brothers or the ship had passed them as they departed to meet up with their contact. He was happy their mental link was still intact as long as they were within a few light years of each other. It had been lonely in his mind without his mate.

"Yes, dearest,"
he replied, so intent on communicating with Blaze he missed the danger lurking nearby, ignoring the plants and flowers when they began to move without wind in an effort to warn him.

He blocked out the sounds of the trees yelling about getting to safety and wouldn't hear their desperate attempts to save him.

"The ship passed us, but we turned around and have tracked it within our orbit. We have received word your brothers are still onboard. We are going in soon to rescue them,"
Blaze responded.

"Good. Then you will be home, in what, a few hours?"
Tal happily questioned.

He didn't notice how still the air had become around him and missed the fact the two guards who had walked with him, now lay dead their throats quickly and efficiently cut, in the grass feet away in the very bushes that had tried to warn him only moments before.

"Yes, my heart, in a few hours I will be home and with your brothers."
Blaze chuckled, then asked,
"You are still pregnant then?"

Tal giggled and rolled his eyes. Every time he'd spoken to Blaze, whether through their mating link or with a communicator, the man always asked the same question.

And every single time, Tal returned,
"Of course I am. If I weren't, you would know. I would send you every pain, every—"

* * * *

Blaze waited for Tal to finish his usual statement, growing worried when Tal's words cut off, assuming his mate had actually begun labor at the very moment they were discussing it. The One wouldn't let that happen to him, would she? Fickle bitch.

"Tal?"
he called.
"Talon? Baby? Answer me! Talon Versuthion Roughshire! My love! Answer me!"
Blaze became more and more agitated when he still received no reply from his mate.

After a few minutes of frantically calling for his mate mentally, he calmed when he realized perhaps his mate had merely fallen asleep, remembering the younger man happened to be pregnant with a very large litter. Or rather a lot of babies, he corrected himself, since Tal hated it when Blaze referred to their children as cubs or litters or litter mates, insisting they were babies and children first, shape shifters second. Sighing in relief at the idea his mate probably just fell asleep and trying to calm his racing heart, Blaze prepared himself to board the slave ship and rescue his brothers-in-law. He wanted to swiftly return home to his pregnant mate. While his head said Tal hadn't responded because he'd fallen asleep, his heart had a different idea.

He looked over at Buck and nodded before turning to observe the other soldiers that had come along. Rico, Kazumi, Gregor, and Waylorg all volunteered, in addition to many others. Tal had become much loved among many of the Tumarons, and almost every soldier and guard had wanted to help rescue the Alpha Queen's long lost brothers. From what Blaze could smell, the various scents of Vermithians, Edificians and other races, they'd be rescuing a whole lot more than just the Versuthion brothers.

With a nod and a gesture to Kazumi, someone whose smell Blaze couldn't place in a room full of people, even though he knew the younger man, the Alpha King stormed into the room where all of the slaves were held with the rest of the Tumaron rescue force. Looking around the area, Blaze struggled not to vomit. Some of the slaves were covered in bruises, some had been interrupted in the middle of servicing patrons, some were tied up and being raped, spit on, brutalized. Swallowing down the bile threatening to explode from his mouth, Blaze's wolf snarled at the surface, wanting to get free. He smelled traces of his mate. What the hell? At that moment, Blaze realized his mate's brothers had to be in the room, close by and secreting fluids. Without another thought, Blaze let the shift roll over his skin.

His skin prickled when fur covered his flesh. His face elongated into a large muzzle, his body went from standing on two legs to resting on four. His body grew larger, broader, and more menacing in size. Stronger as a wolf, he became more vicious. Unrepentant, intimidating, vengeful, and fucking dangerous. Following the almost familiar smell of his mate to a corner, he spied a young man with dark brown hair cowering in fear and being kicked by a bigger man who yelled at him.

"This is your fault! You and that fucked up female brother of yours! You godsdamn Vermithian! I knew you weren't worth the trouble it took to get you!" the man shouted and raised his arm to hit the young man.

Blaze let his muscles bunch, ready to fly at the man but was prevented from being able to when a large brown wolf—Rico—jumped and attacked the man, ripping out his throat. Blaze turned to look at the other wolf that had gone almost feral and huffed before he made a move to ease forward and release the young man who looked almost exactly like Tal. Trenton, the older of the two boys. The sound of Rico growling low in his throat stopped Blaze. He froze. He knew that sound. Rico had found his mate.

Fuck me sideways. Tal would shit kittens when he found out his little brother would end up as the mate of the palace slut. Nodding slightly at Rico to let the guard know he understood, Blaze turned to follow his nose to the other 'Tal-like' aroma. The scent led him out of the room with the other slaves and a feeling of dread creeped up Blaze's spine. He caught a whiff of Buck and Gregor behind him and was grateful for the back-up. The ship had gone into an uproar and everyone ran from the enraged Tumaron shifters. Stopping outside the closed door, Blaze shifted back to his human form and tried to open the entrance. Finding it locked made him angry and suspicious.

"Alpha? If I may?" Gregor asked.

Blaze turned and noticed Gregor and Buck had shifted back. Moving aside, Blaze allowed Gregor to shove his massive shoulder against the door until it popped open.

Stepping inside the room, Blaze stopped and looked on in horror. His eyes widened before he shifted again into his wolf and launched forward with a massive roar. The five men torturing his mate's baby brother had no time to flee or even consider running before he'd slaughtered them all. Feeling the rage still bubbling under the surface, Blaze turned away from Tuvarion, who'd been chained and covered in all manner of unspeakable horrors.

He shifted back and growled out at Buck and Gregor. "Get him the fuck down! Right now!" he yelled.

He rubbed his right hand over his chest and inhaled, gagging over the smell of blood, spunk, tears, and…oh gods… Prinktakium aphrodisiacs? Had they been trying to force Tuvarion to orgasm? Blaze swallowed thickly in order to prevent himself from shifting back to his wolf and tearing apart the remains of the men in the room. He rubbed his chest again, his heart throbbing within. He had a desperate urge to get back to Tal. His heart pounded in fear for his mate and it unnerved him.

Blaze's heart had it right. Moments earlier, a trio of interlopers made their move against his very pregnant mate. Tal had been drugged and kidnapped, not for ransom, but for extermination.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Mailon, the 'not-so-elder, Elder', watched from the bushes and quickly but quietly followed Anglania Lang, her brother Freud, and Elder Bryce Morgasen, along with two traitorous palace guards, as they drugged and kidnapped Tal. He mourned briefly for the two guards who had fallen in the line of duty, unable to offer their slain forms the proper acknowledgement before he tried creeping closer. He desperately wanted to leap forward and rip out the throats of everyone involved with putting the Alpha Queen in his predicament, but he had to tread carefully just in case he reacted hastily and Tal ended up being killed anyway.