Daughters of Lyra: Heart of a Prince (12 page)

“
No,” he said
and removed her hands from his arms.

His eyebrows gathered into
a frown and his eyes narrowed.

“
I will not
take you near that area of space.”

Her heart sank.

“
Father—” Rezic
started but an alarm sounded, cutting him off.

Suddenly, the entire
bridge was alive with activity. All fifteen crewmembers bustled
around, rushing from one station to the next while her father stood
in the middle of it behind the pilot.

“
What’s
happening?” she said and rushed to his side.

“
We’ve detected
something, General,” a man to her right said.

“
A vessel?” her
father said.

“
Impossible to
say. It doesn’t seem to be visible in any direction.”

“
Details!” Her
father moved near the front screen of the bridge. “Give me a sweep
of space now.”

The screen displayed the
empty space around them.

“
It’s large,
sir,” a female officer near the back called out.

“
Coming
straight for us,” another said.

Renie’s heart pounded.
What was it?

She moved to Rezic and he
placed his arm around her. The feel of it was comforting but didn’t
alleviate her fear.

“
On screen!”
her father growled.

The space on the screen
changed but there was still nothing there.

Then a bright blue light
burst across it and suddenly there was a ship. It was enormous, and
silver and yellow. The sight of it made her shudder.

“
The Vegans,”
she whispered and her father looked at her.

“
Ready
weapons,” he shouted and then turned back to face the vessel on the
screen.

“
Incoming
communication,” someone near her left said.

“
Open a
channel.”

Renie swallowed, fear
making her heart pound as she waited. She kept telling herself that
they wouldn’t have killed Tres and that they wouldn’t be able to
take her away from her father again. She was safe on this ship and
they would find a way to rescue Tres from them.

“
Nexus-Lyra,
stand down your weapons,” a male voice said.

Her father grinned. She
knew he would never follow an order like that.

“
Ready weapons
and fire on my mark,” he said.

“
Nexus-Lyra. I
have no intention of fighting you. Stand down.”

Her heart leapt into her
throat.

It couldn’t be.

Her father raised his hand
and she ran at him, grabbed his arm and held it tight.

“
This is Renie
Lyra, stand down all weapons. Disengage!”

Her father pulled his arm
free and glared at her.

“
What in
Iskara’s name do you think you are doing?” he said, still
frowning.

Now she knew where Rezic
had got his unimpressed look. When her father frowned like that,
they looked incredibly similar—handsome, with black hair and eyes
like pools of midnight.

“
Put the Vegan
commander on screen!” she said, ignoring him and turning to face
the screen.

The display flickered and
changed to reveal the person on the other ship.

Tres.

He looked different. He
had tied his hair back and his clothes had changed. She could see
he was still wearing his thermal suit but he wore a tight dark blue
thick collarless jacket over it. It was edged and decorated around
his neck with silver. Across his chest was a silver sash. She
couldn’t see anything below his elbows.

Something else was
different too.

He seemed to be in command
of the ship.

“
General Lyra
II, I have not come to rekindle a long dead war between our
species,” he said.

Renie went to step
forwards but her father moved in front of her and held his arm out,
blocking her path.

“
Prince Tres
Vega XVI, I have no desire to fight you. Turn your ship around and
leave Lyran space. You are in direct violation of the Treaty of
Espacia,” her father said.

She stared at Tres. A
prince? Not just a Vegan but a prince of Vega.

Tres shook his
head.

“
Fire upon us
if you must, but I will not leave here without her.” Tres looked at
her. “You will have to kill me.”

“
Tres,” she
whispered and stepped around her father. She held her hand up to
him and Tres smiled at her. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why were you
in the cells?”

He looked down and
frowned. “I was placed there for attempting to leave Vegan space.
As heir prince of the Vegan Empire, I am not allowed to leave the
Black Zone. No prince of Vegan blood is allowed to enter this
space. The treaty forbids it. I wished to experience this side of
the barrier but my attempt failed, and then you came to me and made
me see that on this side, things are... lighter... and beautiful...
and that I had a duty to Vega to lead it into a new era where our
side of the barrier would no longer be something to
fear.”

She could feel her father
staring. In fact, she could feel most of the bridge staring at
her.

“
But you’re
here now,” she said.

“
I no longer
care about the treaty,” Tres said. “I will risk capture and
imprisonment for the sake of seeing you again.”

“
Hang on a
minute! Is this who you wanted me to go back for?” her father
snapped and she looked at him and nodded. He glared at Tres. “What
is the meaning of this?”

“
I wish to
marry your daughter. To do so, I am willing to surrender the name
of Heir Prince Vega XVI and my birthright. I will forsake my
lineage.”

“
No!” Renie
said and moved forwards again. She silently cursed that Tres wasn’t
here in the room with them. It would be so much easier and they
could have made this so much less public. “I’ll give up all ties to
Lyra and Earth! I’ll come to the Black Zone with you.”

Tres looked
stunned.

Her father grabbed her arm
and pulled her backwards. “Now wait a minute! Let’s not be hasty.
Forsaking this and surrendering that. Who said that anyone had to
sacrifice anything?”

Everyone looked at
him.

She wondered if Tres felt
as shocked as she did.

Her father turned to Tres.
“Prince Vega XVI, if you wish to forge new relations with the Lyran
Empire then prepare to board this vessel and meet me at the
negotiations table. If you are so intent on my daughter’s hand,
perhaps it is time that Lyra and Vega came to agree a new treaty
and era of peace.”

She looked at Tres. He
nodded, smiled at her, and then the screen went dark.

She turned to her
father.

“
Go easy on
him,” she whispered, afraid that her father would see this as an
opportunity to bleed Vega dry.

Her father grinned and
slapped a hand down on her shoulder.

“
A man will do
a lot for love and he definitely seemed to love you.”

Those words made her so
warm and light that it was almost impossible to glare at her
father.

Everything in the past few
minutes was a blur in her mind, a pleasant haze. In a matter of
minutes, she had discovered that Tres was alive, was a prince,
wanted to marry her and definitely loved her. If it weren’t for the
fact that her father was about to wreck her chances with Tres, she
would have been on what Terrans called cloud nine.

“
You dare use
his desire to marry me as an excuse to—” She cut herself off and
started walking towards the door.

“
Renie, where
are you going?” Rezic said as she passed him.

“
We’re going to
meet Tres at the airlock and run away with him. Come
on.”

Her father stormed up
beside her, keeping pace even when she was walking so fast she was
almost running.

She stopped and swept her
hand through the air in a cutting motion.

“
Peace! That’s
it,” she said with a frown. “No bleeding Tres dry because he wants
to marry me.”

“
But the
technology. Did you see how that ship arrived, Renie? I’d heard
rumours that Vegans could fold space and move from one point to
another in hours rather than days. If Lyra could get hold of
that... and the barrier—”

“
Sir!” someone
shouted from the front of the bridge.

Renie and her father
turned to look at him and then stared at the display as another
blue flash occurred and a second ship appeared. This one was
smaller and sleek, but still silver and yellow.

“
They can
definitely fold space,” her father said and hurried down to the
pilot.

Renie stared at the screen
and found herself following him down the steps, curious about the
new ship.

“
Incoming
communication,” the man said again.

She stood beside her
brother, exchanging a glance that revealed they were both worried
about this newcomer. Perhaps they were here to attack, or to make
Tres return to the Black Zone.

“
Open a
channel,” her father said. “On screen.”

“
This is
Princess Vega XVI,” a beautiful woman said, her appearance similar
to Tres’s. Her skin was white but turned blue near her hairline.
Her long straight hair went from blue to black, parted at the sides
by her pointed ears.

Rezic stepped
forwards.

Renie raised a brow when
she saw he was staring at the screen looking like a Gavaelian
carp.

“
I believe my
brother is en route to your ship. I request permission to attend to
him. It is my duty to travel with him wherever he may go.” The
woman on screen looked around her and sighed. “I had not quite
expected it would bring me into Lyran space however.”

Rezic stepped forwards
again and cleared his throat. The woman’s attention moved from
their father to him and her eyebrows rose.

“
Permission
granted,” Rezic said with what looked to Renie like a highly
charming smile.

He might have pulled off
handsome had he been a little cleaner and a little less
bloodstained. Rezic seemed to have forgotten that blood caked his
hair and covered one side of his white shirt.

“
Curious, I had
expected the command to come from a superior officer,” Princess
Vega XVI said, her eyebrows still high.

Rezic adopted a frown that
made him look very much like their father and stepped up beside
him.

“
I am Prince
Lyra V. This is my father General Lyra II. Our orders carry the
same weight.”

Renie stifled her laugh at
his lie. Rezic’s orders carried barely more weight than her own.
Only their father’s tolerance was saving them both from being sent
from the bridge for commanding his officers.

“
Then prepare
to meet me at the airlock, Prince Lyra V, and escort me to my
brother.”

The screen went
blank.

Rezic left the room so
fast that Renie barely saw him go. She looked over at her father to
see him staring towards the bridge doors with a raised
eyebrow.

“
Deep space has
turned my children insane,” he muttered and then extended a hand
towards her, smiling.

He was still as handsome
as ever. When she had been little, she had thought there was no one
in the galaxy more handsome than her father was. She glanced back
at the screen as she took her father’s hand. Now she had found
someone more handsome, someone she loved.

And she was getting the
impression her brother wouldn’t complain about what she was going
to suggest. Not if the princess had to go everywhere that Tres
went.

Renie walked through the
ship with her father, her arm looped through his. When they neared
the docking bay, he paused, placed his hand over hers and looked at
her so seriously that her heartbeat quickened.

“
Tell me
honestly, my little angel, do you love this Vegan?”

Her mouth turned dry and
she swallowed to clear the sticky lump in her throat so she could
answer him clearly.

“
I know we’ve
only just met. I heard that the sons of Lyra never took things slow
and never took no for an answer. Perhaps the same could be said for
its daughters? Sophia married Emperor Varka barely days after she
had met him. Miali is going to marry Kosen. I want to marry Tres.”
She paused and sighed. “I do love him, father, with all my
heart.”

“
What will your
brother do now?” he said and began walking again.

She frowned at the doors
ahead of her. Rezic was waiting there, pacing back and forth. He
had cleaned up and was wearing one of the tight blue and black
flight suits of the Lyran Imperial Army. It emphasised his
physique, just right for making women stare and realise that he was
a true son of Lyra—perfect and handsome.

“
I think my
brother will be happy for me,” she said and nodded towards Rezic
where he waited for them. “I think he might just marry a Vegan
too...”