Her Merciless Prince Read online

  Her Merciless Prince

  Daniella Wright

  Contents

  1. Eron

  2. Sybil

  3. Eron

  4. Sybil

  5. Eron

  6. Sybil

  7. Eron

  8. Sybil

  9. Eron

  10. Sybil

  11. Eron

  12. Sybil

  13. Eron

  14. Sybil

  15. Eron

  16. Sybil

  17. Eron

  18. Sybil

  19. Eron

  20. Sybil

  21. Eron

  22. Sybil

  23. Eron

  24. Sybil

  Epilogue

  More By Dany

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Eron

  Footsteps approach my chambers. Four people. Even in my human shape, I can tell who it is. I don’t need my wolf scent to know the sound of royal guards and of Miama, chief advisor to my parents.

  Like a second mom to me, really.

  They’re walking with purpose. I don’t like that one bit. My covers tangle my feet and I kick them off, throwing on some pants.

  A crown prince had to keep some semblance of decency.

  A knock.

  “Your Highness,” the words, softly spoken, do nothing to quench my growing dread.

  The door is heavy like someone is holding it shut. But it’s just me, not wanting to open it.

  “Yes?” I ask and Miama looks at me, her kind orange eyes shining with tears, some of them caught in the ample wrinkles of her eyes.

  “My parents,” I say it, knowing it could be no one else. A simple diplomatic mission to Earth. That’s all this was supposed to be.

  “Yes, Prince Eron.” She chokes on the last word. The guards have the decency to step back.

  They couldn’t exactly protect me from the blow my heart had just taken.

  “How?” the word is harsh with grief and confusion. How the hell had they died? A peaceful mission. To solidify ties.

  Nothing anyone should die over.

  “An attack. Massive bombing. Most of Earth... the planet is devastated.”

  It must be a dream. It can’t be real, and yet there are three guards looking awkward and one grief-stricken matron in front of me. My parents are dead.

  The king and queen are dead.

  Dread tightens my throat. I swallow it down, along with grief.

  First, duty. Sorrow later.

  “Make sure the dawn is red and the flags are low,” I order. “And that the calls are loud at first sunrise.”

  Miama nods, waves to the guards who head off with their new orders. We’re alone now, me and a woman who cares deeply about me. A woman like a mother, except not, and now my real mother was gone.

  The grief is too near. I have to get out of here. To run under the moonlight, before dawn and the news breaks out, and howl at the moon.

  Miama gets me. Miama always gets me.

  “Go,” she says. “I’ll take care of everything until you return.”

  “Eron,” she uses my name only when it’s just the two of us. “You’ll be king, sooner rather than later. Take this moment. And breathe.”

  She bows, turns around, a slight sob dropping as she vanishes down the corridor.

  I can’t breathe. Breathe, she’d said. And I can’t.

  Not anymore.

  How could I? How could I ever breathe again?

  Grief spasms hit my muscles and I shift, letting the wolf form take me. My paws hit the ground, the stone cool underneath them. In one bound, I clear the window, land on the ground.

  I’d mastered this move as a pup.

  The air is cool, the ground is moist, and I run. I run past the forest with the tall trees, where my mother always told me lived the spirits of our ancestors.

  I run near the shielding units protecting our ancient castle with modern tech.

  The world is small until you look up and howl at the moon, my father would say.

  But remember that home is where your pack is, my mom always answered.

  And they were gone. The moon had eaten them up. The pack was broken.

  My paws pound the ground, earth flying behind me, a trail of grief. I want to howl at that moon, up above, and speak to the trees where my parents’ souls might dwell. But I can’t.

  I can’t, because they’re not supposed to be dead. I’m not supposed to be king. Not yet. I’m not keen on sitting down on that throne, for the shackles of a crown.

  My paws find concrete and metal. I’ve cleared the royal lands, but keep running. The port is just ahead. The last place I saw them alive and happy.

  We’ll be back soon.

  We love you.

  I run and then stop, my tongue lolling out, my mind numb, my breath barely escaping past my maw.

  My paws, my treacherous paws, brought me straight to the last spot I’d seen them.

  I imagine them in front of me. My mother, turquoise eyes blazing with joy. My father, yellow eyes filled with purpose.

  I still can’t breathe, but I can howl.

  The grief echoes through the city, down to the palace, around the trees, and would have reached the moon itself, if not for the vast emptiness separating us.

  But it’s that emptiness that calls to me, now.

  In the silence that follows, my mind seems to kick back in. Grief turns to something a bit more cunning.

  Maybe my paws hadn’t just taken me here to howl for my parents. My heart guided me to many places, sure, but this time it feels different. The crisp air and bright moon impede my thoughts, mixing with my grief to create a mind-number concoction.

  I shift back into human form, and stare around me with my orange eyes. What I sacrifice in perception, I gain back in clarity.

  A ship sits in port, waiting for takeoff. I’d forgotten they’d be here, allowed access to the royal docks.

  I really should pay more attention to the dealings of the court. My father was right on that count.

  Had been right. He’s gone.

  I suck in air like I hadn’t breathed in hours, which I hadn’t, really. At least not in the last hour, running around like a mad wolf.

  This ship is important. The Blue Coin, from the Venesas sector. A diplomatic mission, but more importantly, a ship often used by Time Agents.

  My mother believed in wolf instincts, and she’d raised me to believe in them, too. I never had, until now.

  Because now I stood right in front of the one thing that might bring my parents back.

  All I had to do was sneak on board, figure out how to travel back in time, and save my parents.

  How hard could that be?

  Turns out, sneaking on board was easy. Like stealing extra dessert at fancy gatherings.

  But not getting caught, well…

  The ship shivers for a moment, the entire hull vibrating with energy. The roar of engines fires up. Outside access is closing.

  We’re taking off.

  I don’t know that this is my best idea ever. I’m safe on my planet, being crown prince, but diplomatic immunity only took me so far off-world.

  But some things are worth it. Like saving those we love.

  The thrill of the adventure isn’t bad, either. This isn’t like running through the dark woods hunting down invaders, but it comes pretty damn close.

  The ship stinks of ozone as the gauges kick in and the fresh air of his planet is replaced with artificial atmosphere.

  Shitty artificial atmosphere.

  At least I don’t have to smell it as much when I’m human. I ignore the acrid scent and debate my next move. I’m in a storage bay, near the back of the ship. I assume whatever Time Agents ar
e on board will be located near or on the bridge.

  Unless this ship is a completely different design, the bridge is probably near the front.

  The two bay doors from the hold into the ship look a bit too noticeable. If they were as rickety as they looked, they’d make a lot of noise, too.

  There must be some other way in. A main ship access with no quick entry into other sections seems pretty foolish.

  Older designs, though. The air stinks, the hold looks about a hundred years old, and I’m just glad the seals are holding. For now.

  The door doesn’t seem locked, but I open it carefully, just in case. No one is around, but the corridors stretching out from the cargo hold seem much better kept. The air smells better, too.

  Damn that light is bright. Would it kill this ship to have one shadow?

  I keep low and move quickly, wishing I’d brought a weapon with me. Of course, with all my shifting, that wouldn’t have worked. We’d long ago figured out how to incorporate shifting abilities into our clothing, but that didn’t mean we could shift with stuff.

  Not yet, anyway. Technology improves all the time.

  Just like this ship is improving with each new corridor. The closer I get to the bridge, the better the tech is.

  Maybe the Blue Coin wasn’t quite as old as I’d first thought.

  Noise up ahead, and I dive into a corridor, ready to fight my way out. Two blue-skinned, long-neck Rostrans walk by, but don’t notice me. I breathe again and continue toward the bridge.

  Or, at least, I hope I’m heading toward the bridge.

  The ship jostles, the hyper-drive kicking in. The inertial dampeners also kick in, but about three seconds after the hyper-drive.

  My feet suddenly seem to be in front of me. I’m not sure where down is, anymore.

  By the Blood Moon, I’m tumbling.

  And I’m gonna lose my lunch.

  I turn into wolf form, try to minimize my impact as the damn dampeners finally kick in. The ship coughs like a geriatric patient, jostles again, and I land.

  Hard.

  I give a low whine and turn back into a human.

  The ship didn’t smell any better as a wolf.

  I find my feet, stand back up. I take one step forward, when something hits me on the head, hard.

  I’m out before I hit the ground.

  My mouth is on fire, it’s so dry. I fight against a cough, hearing voices around me.

  I’m bound, my wrists tied down to a chair. My ankles, too. And I’m pretty sure there’s a vice around my head.

  No. Wait. That’s just the headache from the blow.

  I keep my breaths long and shallow, to mimic being passed out. I don’t want them to know that I’m awake. I need to figure out what exactly is going on.

  And how much trouble I’m in.

  I can shift at any time and get out of my bonds, but I don’t need to let them know that. At least, not just yet.

  “The ruined timeline begins just on the outer edge of Earth’s atmosphere,” a gruff voice says. Male, I think. “The explosion occurred just near time irregularity 5660-B, classified a thousand years ago.”

  A low whistling. “So, they got thrown back that far?”

  “Yes, Agent.”

  “Bring Earth up on screen. Let’s see how bad it looks.”

  An intake of breath all around me, from multiple sources. I’m surrounded. I’m bound. And I want to see the planet.

  I look up, my neck angry at the movement.

  And there, on the screen, is Earth. I’ve seen pictures of the planet before. A beautiful ball of blue and white, lazy cloud drifts, cities lit up at night.

  That planet on the screen didn’t look like that one bit.

  The atmosphere’s lighting up with red and black sparks like the entire world is on fire. The clouds cover the entire damn thing and don’t look natural. Like shifting monsters clawing at the land below.

  And a light dances in the atmosphere, like tears caught just above the surface of the world.

  Those tears seem fitting, like a stone marking the place where my parents died.

  Chapter 2

  Sybil

  I know that when I left the fields last night they weren’t dead. And they certainly hadn’t been on fire. The devastation is vast and terrifying. The implications even more so.

  My parents look about as stunned as I feel, staring over the vanished crops. Up above, magenta and orange lightning leaps from cloud to cloud. But the radiation level wasn’t high enough for it to have skirted along it down to the ground.

  Not last night, anyway.

  “I can’t believe this is happening again,” my dad says, his hand coming up to his bald head, the way it always did when he was working out a problem.

  My mother, a bit more practical a scientist, crosses her arms. “Believe it or not, it’s happening.” Her thin hand brushes away a wisp of light hair, more white than blond. Sometimes, I feel like looking at Mom is like looking at future me. We’re so very much alike, she just has twenty years more than me stamped on.

  “What could cause this?” None of my theories are lining up in my head, but I’m also not a full-fledged biologist like my parents. At least, not yet.

  “It could be several factors,” Mom says and we head closer, the fires now only smoke, thanks to the villagers’ work. “So, we’ll break them down.”

  “Henrouk,” Mom tells Dad, “you worry about chemical sources. Anything that we don’t know about that might be in this ground. Any new poisons for us to contend with.”

  Dad nods and heads off, kit in hand.

  “Sybil,” Mom says, tone still all business. “You look for evidence of anything... different.”

  “Like what?” That’s not exactly super clear.

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. Anything different. I’ll look at the plants themselves. See if any of our genetic modifications made them vulnerable to these storms.”

  I wasn’t sure how the two could be related, but the crops are new enough that we didn’t yet know how they react to everything.

  Mom and Dad created the new strain, always a struggle to stay one step ahead of the poisoned earth. But with each new creation, the cellular decay became apparent. Crops were less sturdy. Weird stuff started to happen.

  Mom heads off to grab her samples, and I start to look around for... something? Anything?

  I’m not even sure where to start. It’s a big field.

  Since the middle of it is still smoking, I decide that I’ll start with a perimeter walk.

  That alone will take at least an hour.

  Great. I’m so glad I studied so hard to spend my time taking walks around smokey fields.

  Asking Mom for another assignment won’t help. Biologists have to do their bit to help everyone survive, and my bit is to look.

  For something.

  All right, let’s head left.

  The grass surrounding the field seems as normal as ever. It’s the usual yellow color, though records showed that it had once been green.

  Most people laugh when they hear that. I don’t. I can imagine it green. Even now, I almost see it that way. To me, the green is normal, even though I’ve never seen grass that color.

  I get those feelings sometimes like things aren’t as they should be. My gut churns when I see the spotted leaves on trees, the gray waters, the dark clouds.

  Like things aren’t quite, I don’t know, right.

  Someone falls in step beside me, and I sigh. It’s Jordain, of course. The shadow at my side is always Jordain.

  “Hey,” he says, sticking his hands in his pockets, his overalls as ratty as his hair.

  “I’m working,” I’m brisk, but I don’t need to be nice. I’ve told him off multiple times, and it’s true, anyway. I am working.

  I’m not sure what I’m doing, but he doesn’t need to know that.

  “Field’s acting weird,” he offers.

  Wow. Useful, Jordain. So glad you came out.

  “I need
to concentrate,” I said, and he gets the drift and moves off, but not so far that he can’t watch me. I hated how he did that.

  Just... watched.

  I ignore him as best I can and focus on the ground. Nothing strikes me as weird until I get near the forest edge, and a tree catches my eye.

  It’s scraggly and gray, as most trees are, a few spotted leaves clinging to its branches. On the gray trunk, there’s something dark. Black, even.

  It looks burned. But, almost like a splatter pattern. Like something dripped acid onto it and burned pieces of it. Another tree just a few feet away, deeper in the forest shows the same marks.

  I head in, and that’s definitely burned. But where did the drips of acid come from? There’s another drop on the ground. Right on a blood red plant.

  Sample kit, time to make use of you.

  I wouldn’t admit it, but I’m excited. I’ve never collected a real sample! If I’m honest, it’s my first field mission. At least, for something more than just animal dung and insect migrations.

  This was an unknown. A mystery.

  I gingerly pluck the leaf and place it in a container, sealing it in. I stare at it through the clear glass. It looks kind of innocuous in there. Like I just grabbed anything to avoid coming home empty-handed.

  But then I see the burn mark again, and I know it’s something.

  “Guess Mom’s instructions were pretty clear,” I mumble.

  “Whatcha got there, Sybil?” I stand and turn, dropping my kit.

  Shit.

  I pick it back up, make sure it’s well closed. I need my samples, and kits aren’t exactly easy to come by.

  “Are you following me?” I ask Jordain, knowing full well that’s what he was doing.