Royal Recruit - Susan Grant Page 0,84
to ask for her forgiveness for his sin? Would she be able to forgive them? Could she? No one should have to make that choice.
“Put them on,” she said and pressed a fist to her stomach.
The older man had black hair and even blacker eyes. A career killer. But something in his eyes didn’t match the hardness of his features. “Blessings, Goddess. I am grateful for your government’s pardon.”
Keira answered with a single, careful nod. “If you have received a pardon I expect you did something to deserve it. Or, perhaps it was something you didn’t do.”
“Your Majesty, it was both. Years ago, I received important orders. With a small team of Wraiths, I set out to accomplish the mission. We were dispatched to intercept your family’s vessel on its way home to Sakka.”
Her family. The words jolted her. Be strong. You’re a warrior. But deep inside, she began to tremble. Jared moved to her side, covering her clenched fist with his warm hand.
“We didn’t realize until we boarded who the targets were. It was the goddess and her mate and their child, we took them.”
Keira shook her head as a sick feeling welled up inside her. She couldn’t bear to hear their confession. She couldn’t!
“Your Majesty, we didn’t kill them. We were assassins, but we were believers. Like so many Drakken, we worshipped in secret. We believed. We made the decision to keep the Sakkaran blood alive. We brought them to a distant, secret world, and told no one.”
What was he saying? She pushed upright. “They survived? My family?”
He nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty. We thought the secret of what we did that day would die with us, and if nothing else, we’d thus assure our place in the afterworld.”
“You have,” Keira whispered. “You have…”
“They didn’t learn you were alive until years later. It was because we didn’t know until later. Forgive us. There are now two more goddesses.”
“I have sisters?” Joy surged in her chest. Joy and disbelief. She started to tremble. Jared gripped her hand so tightly it hurt.
“We offered to bring you a message, but they were afraid. To do so was to risk your life. Know this, Goddess, they never stopped grieving your loss. The hope of reuniting with you lived on in their hearts. But it was something that could not happen without an epic shift in galactic power.”
The fall of the Drakken Empire.
She had set that in motion, never imagining the empire would self-destruct so quickly. No one had. “You’ll be rewarded for your bravery and mercy. You have my word. Whatever you desire, it’s yours.”
He smiled. “I cannot ask for more than this moment.”
The doors to parliament burst open. “Keira!” a throaty female voice called out, cracking with emotion on the last syllable.
Mother! Keira quaked with shock and joy as her family burst into the chambers.
She was paralyzed, as if frozen in place, realizing she stood in the exact spot where all those years ago she had received news of their deaths.
Jared urged her forward. “Go to them, Sunbeam. Go see your family.”
Keira began to run, haltingly at first, and then faster as she convinced herself they were not an illusion conjured from too many lonely years.
She flew into her mother’s arms, drawn into her embrace and the scent that brought her childhood back in a rush of sweet memories. Her father, weeping, hugged them both to his chest, and soon her new sisters and Narekk, her sweet brother, had joined the huddle of tears and laughter and elation that spread through a war-weary galaxy in a shock wave of joy.
Epilogue
“Push!” Jared urged. “Come on, Keira. You’re almost there.”
Keira gritted her teeth, her breaths hissing, and pushed as hard as she could.
“Come on. Give it all you’ve got. Push, baby.”
“I am pushing!” One last time, she shoved muddy gloves against the handlebars of her dirt bike, and with a sucking sound the tires came unglued from the mud.
She walked the motorcycle to where Jared sat astride his and propped it up with the kickstand.
Grinning, he watched her with his goggles pushed into his hair and his gloves tucked under an arm. “Thought you’d never get here.”
She pulled off her helmet and shook her hair free. “I told you I could do it.”
“You did. And you whooped my ass on that last trail too. Got you stuck in the mud, yeah, but that’s because you pushed the envelope.”
“That’s what you taught me to do.”
“I didn’t teach you to push it to the limit,” he said. “That, you already knew.”
She sashayed over to him, throwing her arms over his shoulders. Warm California sunshine spilled down on them. With her family installed back in the palace, she was no longer tied down with the responsibilities of being a queen and had happily returned to being Princess Keira.
Nor was she pressured to continue her bloodline. With so much living to make up for, she and Jared had decided to put off starting a family for a while. They split their time between the palace and the holy shrine of Earth.
She turned her face to the blessed sunshine, welcoming it. She adored the primitive pleasures of Jared’s ranch. She even sometimes helped cook outside on the contraption called a grill. Mostly, she sat and watched, soaking in the affection his family showered her with. Once, she hadn’t had a family. Now she had two.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked tenderly.
“The barbaric pleasures of your provincial home world.”
He coughed out a laugh.
“And also how much I love you, Jared. Do you love me?”
He drew her closer. His eyes glowed. “Yes, I love you, Keira of Sakka. I love you from your wild hair down to your cute toes. I love your throttles-to-the-max attitude, and how you get mad when you’re really scared. I love the way you kiss and how you hold nothing back when we’re making love. I love your loyalty to your people, the sacrifices you’re willing to make. And your strength.”
He stroked his hand over her cheek. “Most of all, I love that you love me, because all I want is to be a good husband. And someday a good father to our children. At the end of our days when you’re two hundred and fifty years old, I want you to clasp your feeble hand around mine and tell me you’re glad we made the journey.” One corner of his mouth tipped up. “Oh, and that I can still rock your world.”
“You have sufficiently answered my question.” Swinging her helmet, she walked back to her dirt bike, hiding her smile.
“Brat. Just because you’re a royal doesn’t mean you can’t get spanked,” he said.
She stopped, glanced over her shoulder, her smile turning wicked. Jared sat where she’d left him, his arms folded. “Ooh, we return to the roots of our relationship—corporal punishment. Remind me to get the smart-cuffs out for later. Now, if you don’t mind, husband, I’ve got a trail to conquer.”
And a life to live, to the hilt, alongside her best friend, her beloved consort. Her royal recruit.
Find out what happens next!
CYBORG AND THE SINGLE MOM (Evie Jasper and REEF’s story)
Can a single mom who is afraid to lose her heart find love with a fugitive cyborg who has forgotten he has one?
Evie hasn't forgiven Reef for invading her home and terrorizing her chihuahua, but agrees to a temporary stay to help Earth avoid an alien invasion. But does the suburban mom really want to shelter the alien hit man who almost offed her sister and future brother-in-law?
Reef can't understand why these humans care about him, and has no memory of his life before he was conscripted and turned into a bio-engineered super solder. But as his computers fail, the man he once was emerges, and soon he’s determined to figure out how to navigate this thing called love.
Read the hot and heartwarming conclusion to the OtherWorldly Men series today!
(Based on the title How to Lose an Extraterrestrial in 10 Days)
From the Author
Susan's childhood dreams of becoming a space explorer fizzled when she found out calculus was involved. Luckily, she didn’t need math skills to fly jets—or to create space stories in her head, first for herself, then for friends, and now for readers everywhere.
A New York Times/USA Today bestselling author and a military veteran, Susan won the prestigious RITA® Award for her book Contact, a sci-fi aviation-thriller romance.
Also by Susan Grant
New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author
RITA Award Winner
Star Series
Star King (RITA finalist)
Star Prince
Star Rogue
Star Champion
Star Hero
Puppy
Star Raider (prequel)
Star Series—4 book boxed set
Star Heroes—2 book boxed set
2176 Freedom Series
The Legend of Banzai Maguire
The Scarlet Empress
2176 Freedom Series—2 book boxed set
Stand-alone Books
Contact (RITA winner)
Once A Pirate
The Day Her Heart Stood Still
The Lost Colony Series
The Last Warrior
The Borderlands Series
Warleader (RITA finalist)
Hunting the Warlord’s Daughter
Raider Born
Otherworldly Men Series
Guardian Alien
Royal Recruit
Cyborg and the Single Mom
Anthologies
Mission: Christmas (featuring “Snowbound with a Prince”)
Mysteria (featuring “Mortal in Mysteria”)
Mysteria Lane (featuring “The Nanny from Hell”)
Mysteria Nights (combines the Mysteria and Mysteria Lane anthologies)