Marked Prince - Michelle M. Pillow Page 0,2

over him should the rare instance arise that he’d need to be king.

King Jaxx. The very idea caused him to laugh. Hell, the elders wouldn’t have to pass over him. Jaxx would shift into his dragon form and fly away to abdicate the second they tried to place a crown on his head.

King Ualan and Queen Rigan, his uncle and aunt, were fair rulers over the dragon-shifters, as were King Kirill and Queen Lyssa, the neighboring cat-shifter royals. But, for all the power those positions should have afforded them, their hands were tied when it came to the most crucial issue on the planet—the unwanted occupation of the Federation and their militant control over Shelter City.

The Qurilixen shifters called the settlement Shelter City because initially, it was to be a temporary shelter where the Cysgod aliens could heal after a plague had besieged their planet. Cysgod meant shelter in the old Draig language.

Qurilixen’s suns had healing properties. A deal had been made quickly to save lives, and shifters had no say over the alien settlement. Though shifters could not prove when or how it happened, the city now housed more than the original infected Cysgodians that they’d agreed to shelter. It went against the agreement that had been signed when setting up the rules for the Federation’s stay on the planet. The city was not meant to hold more.

If the shifters could prove the Federation brought more people to the planet against the terms, they could attempt to kick them off the planet. Proving it was difficult because they never caught them in the act of transporting additional people on-world, and they weren’t supposed to be inside the city limits.

Temporary. The thought made Jaxx snort a small ring of smoke from his dragon nose. It had been thirty years since the Federation had tricked their way onto the planet, and now they refused to leave.

In the valley was an overcrowded marketplace and homes. The metal and stone buildings had been carelessly tossed together and were not meant to stand the test of time. Strips of canvas draped between decaying structures to give shade. This is where the Federation corralled their poor—which was any alien under their jurisdiction who wasn’t conscripted into the Federation Military.

Across from Jaxx’s perch on the watchtower roof, above the main city was the Federation Military base, and, on the very top of a ridge, political housing overlooked it all. The base consisted of evenly spaced, maintained buildings, a sharp contrast to the poverty below.

The large stone building which housed city officials and high-ranking military personnel was set across from his watchtower but low enough that he could see the roof. The rectangular structure stretched along the length of the city. Metal arches slashed over the top.

Dusk had settled over the planet of Qurilixen. Three suns, two yellow and one blue, cast the skies in pale green. Since night only came once a year, this was as dark as the evening would get. Usually, that wouldn’t be a big deal. However, to a dragon-shifter sitting on top of a cliffside watchtower with his giant body outlined against the sky for the Cysgodians to see in the valley below, it was far from stealthy.

And neither would this be…

Jaxx opened his mouth and spouted flames into the sky to signal to his cousin, Prince Grier, on the opposite cliff across the valley that he was in position as the lookout. In truth, Jaxx wanted to change places with his cousin. There was no reason the crown prince should be sneaking into a Federation stronghold in disguise.

In his shifted form, Jaxx heard the shouts of the citizens in the alien settlement below. If they had not noticed him perched on the tower’s circular roof before, they did now. Even if the Cysgodians illegally left their city limits, scaled the cliff face, and then the tower, there was nothing they could do about his presence. He was allowed to be on the watchtower since it wasn’t part of the temporarily agreed-upon Federation territory.

Jaxx hated Shelter City. He hated the smell of uncleaned bodies, the poverty and decay, the fact that the population starved. In modern times, there was no reason for any of it.

Decontaminators for bathing were cheap enough and could easily be distributed throughout the city. Thirty years of constant sunlight had taken its toll on the structures, but it wouldn’t take much for a work crew to replace the rusted metal walls and tattered overhangs of the homes and