Chapter 77: Chapter 77
Tempest narrowed her eyes at the prince.
She’d been looked at like that before.
It was never the start of anything good. The last thing she wanted to do was lead the prince on. She wasn’t interested in the least.
The problem with that was from what Dron told her the Prince could do and have anything he wanted. If she pushed back too hard, he may demand that she stay there just because he wanted to break her.
She had to find the sweet spot when it came to being respectful and still making sure that Prince Jaqen knew she was not interested.
She smiled at him again and hoped that would be enough to get him to look away. Instead he stepped forward. "You never told me what that expression meant. Is it your world’s signal to mate?"
Tempest’s eyes widen and she took a large step away from him.
"No, absolutely not. It simply means that I’m trying to be pleasant. Friendly."
Prince Jaqen’s expression turned pensive. "Friendly? Is that all you are with Dron? Friendly?"
Tempest didn’t know how to answer that without seeming as if she were contradicting herself.
"Well, things are a little different with Dron. He’s my mate so we are more then friendly. We’re intimate. When I smile at him there is more intention behind it. It’s a subtle difference. Only shared between mates." Tempest hoped that would be enough for the prince to drop the line of questions.
"Will you show me what that looks like?"
Tempest was absolutely flabbergasted. "You want me to smile at you as if you were my mate?"
"Yes, I’d like that very much."
Tempest shook her head, "I don’t know if I can do that on command."
"It would please me very much if you at least tried." Prince Jaqen continued to look at her waiting for Tempest to put on a show.
She wanted to tell him to go to hell. Wanted to tell him that she wouldn’t do that. But then she didn’t know if that would affect what would happen to Dron in this battle royal he was about to take part in. She had to play this right.
A little bit of a show couldn’t be that bad. At least she hoped it wouldn’t be.
"I want to make sure you know this isn’t real. I’m not trying to hit on you or anything like that." Tempest clarified.
"Hit on me?"
"I’m not trying to flirt with you."
Prince Jaqen shrugged his shoulders once hard before he let them fall and continued examining her.
Tempest dropped her head and tried her hardest to get into a sexy mind frame.
Prince Jaqen was tall and fit. His beard was gilded. His eyes were a nearly clear gray. He was horned. The markings that swirled around his arms, up his neck and over his chest glittered like gold against his pale skin. Based on what she knew of Thraqen culture, Prince Jaqen was gorgeous. But Tempest just couldn’t get turned on by him. She felt nothing when she thought about him. Nothing but disgust because of how he abused his power.
If she really wanted to show Prince Jaqen what it looked like when she smiled at Dron she would need to bring up a few memories from her time with her mate.
Dron never failed to get her desire revved up.
She closed her eyes for a second and thought about Dron when he was in the back of the house chopping wood. The scene replayed in her mind in slow motion.
Oh how she wanted him to do some dirty things to her.
While he was all sweaty.
While his muscles rippled...
That’s was all it took.
She opened her eyes and as seductively as she could she smiled at Prince Jaqen.
He growled and took a menacing step in her direction.
Tempest yelped and jumped back.
Prince Jaqen closed his eyes and squeezed his hands into fists before he opened his eyes again and looked at Tempest.
"I see. That is indeed different." He turned as if nothing had happened.
Tempest was still breathing hard. Somewhat because of what had happened with the Prince and also part of what she had been thinking about to put that look on her face.
She sent up another silent prayer that he would be okay.
Prince Jaqen went on and on about the different exhibits in the gallery. The many different artists that Tempest knew nothing about. There were a few other people in the large museum and every time they passed by the Prince they bowed and showed the proper reverence but as soon as they stood up their eyes locked on Tempest. Some of them sneered at her while others looked at her with wonder. She was starting to feel like a spectacle.
"Do you enjoy art?" Tempest asked Prince Jaqen trying to break her long silent streak. The most she had said after the near sexual confrontation was hmm.
"I do. I love to see the beauty from my people’s eyes. My father will live for many many years yet but one day soon he will tire of the throne and pass it along to me. I want to be part of them. I want them to be part of me. Art is one of the ways I connect with them." He said it as if it were something he was proud of.
"What about those that aren’t depicted in the pretty pictures? Don’t you want to be connected to those people?" Tempest asked and immediately wanted to bite her tongue. This wasn’t the time or the place to bring up how poorly some of his people were being treated.
Prince Jaqen turned his head to look at Tempest. "You really don’t hold back do you?"
Tempest shrugged sheepishly.
"Come with me." Prince Jaqen walked toward the back of the museum and pulled back a curtain.
Tempest gasped but this time it wasn’t due to the beauty and grandiose art. It was because of the horror she saw on the walls.
It looked like a scene out of Dante’s Inferno.
Paintings and sculptures lined the walls and even some on the ceilings. Every where she looked Tempest saw depiction after depiction of suffering. One picture in particular caught her attention.
It was of a woman sitting in the middle of a long road. Her child crawling in front of her. The child was in threadbare clothing and the mother had the typical stone face she’d seen on nearly every Thraqen woman she’d ever come across but there was clear sadness in her gaze. Who ever painted this picture was incredibly talented.
There was a small catch in Tempest throat the longer she looked at the picture. Instead of impressing Tempest like she was sure Prince Jaqen was trying to do, it only enraged her further.
Here he was in a fully air conditioned town, life nectar flowing from fountains, and more wealth than anyone could ever use and there were people in this land who looked like this.
"You see, I am connected to them as well. I know of their plight but there’s nothing that I can do about it."
Tempest whirled on him no longer caring about being polite, "You’re the crowned prince. If you wanted to make things better for these people you would."
"You’re wrong. There is nothing I can do. We have been like this way before my time and my fathers time. That can not change. We can not change...but you can change us."
Tempest was ready to fight back but she was caught off guard by the last bit of his little speech.
"What do you mean I can change you? How?"
"If you were my mate, you’d have the same power as me. But your culture would be different. People would push back but they would concede."
"You’re kidding me. You have your pick of mates why would you want me?"
"Because your unique. Something I don’t have."
At least he was being honest.
"I’m already mated. I’m happy with Dron."
"You may think you are happy with Dron but I promise you he could never give you what I could. He could never help you change all you see as wrong in his station. Dron will never rise any higher that he is right now. And any offspring you might give him..." Prince Jaqen shrugged his shoulder twice in quick succession, "well they would be nothing more than outcast like he is. With me you would be a leader."
"And if I don’t want to be a leader?" Tempest questioned.
First Rynax telling me that all the other alpha’s were vying to get her, now the crowned prince...all of them searching for someone to help strengthen their own agenda.
"You already are. That expression, the one that nearly caused me to lose my wits. It wasn’t on your face where I’ve first seen it. People in the town are doing it. Children have picked it up from their parents. Wherever you go you inspire change. With me you can make a bigger mark."
The prince was pushing hard but Tempest wasn’t about to let herself be manipulated. She’d already had enough of that with Sam.
"Maybe it’s time we go back to Dron?" Tempest tried to keep her words sweet but she watched in real time as the expression on Prince Jaqen’s face changed from pleasant to menacing.
"That was the wrong decision." He snarled, "You want to see your cursed animal of a mate. Fine. Let’s go." Prince Jaqen grabbed her arm and dragged her faster than her feet could go.
"You’re hurting me." Tempest tried to pull her arm away.
"What does it matter to me. You want to lay with trash, that is how you will be treated."
"Alpha’s aren’t supposed to hurt the omegas." Tempest whimpered as she tried to keep up with the extra tall alien.
"That’s true, but as I’ve heard you like to tell everyone, you’re not a true omega. I thought you would be the special one but it turns out your just another failure. I should have the guards throw you out into the wilderness to suffer. But you marrying Dron is a more fitting punishment. You want to tie your life to that monster, now you can watch him die."
