Chapter One
“You’ve arranged a marriage for me with one of Eli the jeweler’s beautiful daughters? I’d sooner take a whore from one of the sex slave markets on the Street of Pleasure.” Arik, newly named Crown Prince of Obsidion, clenched the fist on his remaining hand and shoved his right arm with its vicious-looking hook practically into his father’s face. “A sexbot would be an even better choice.”
King Gawain shuddered, obviously pained to have to look upon the ravagement he had caused. “You cannot mean that, my son.”
Arik took pleasure in the way his father cringed when he had to look into Arik’s remaining eye. It gave him fiendish pleasure when the old man quickly looked away and focused his gaze on the priceless carpet at his feet. “At least a whore would close her eyes and give me my money’s worth. And I would walk away satisfied, with no obligation to provide her pleasure in return. A bot would care nothing about anything, even this sight that makes you look away.” Arik lifted his hand and touched the empty eye socket and a mass of scars that crisscrossed that side of his face and neck.
The king’s eyes dimmed when he glanced up Arik’s body, his gaze settling this time on the hideously scarred surface of his son’s cheek. “The one named Emerald will not dare reject you.”
Arik curled his lip in disgust. “So you’ve bought me a princess with Obsidion’s gold. Do you think that will buy my forgiveness for you having sent a horde of mercenaries to chase me through the galaxy and destroy me?”
“There can be but one heir to the Diamond Throne. Tradition dictates that its heir be my eldest son.” The king’s expression softened. “The palace physicians told me I was dying. After you fled to avoid being made a royal eunuch along with your cousins, I ordered your death to prevent the battle that would have been inevitable between you and Tabor if both of you were alive and whole at the moment of my death. The gods must have foreseen that I would recover and that Tabor would fall in battle, to have looked over you and nursed you back from what must have been certain death. I am grateful I still have a son to continue Obsidion’s rule.”
“A son for whom you must buy a consort since your thugs failed to kill me.” Arik pondered the irony of it all as he limped across his tower chamber, the translucent robe that indicated his princely station flapping against his legs. “If you had left me to live my life peacefully in exile rather than hiring mercenaries to kill me, you would not now find yourself with an heir no woman will willingly take to her bed.”
“I did not buy a woman for you, though I would gladly have done so had it been necessary. Meredith the matchmaker brought me much gold from Eli. Apparently his spoiled eldest daughter insists she must have a prince for her mate.”
“I take it I was the only prince in Meredith’s inventory of possible mates for Obsidion’s sheltered beauties.” Arik made no effort to disguise his sarcasm as he looked out toward the twinkling, multicolored lights from businesses on the Street of Pleasure.
The king followed Arik. As though almost afraid to touch him, he reached out and laid a hand on Arik’s damaged shoulder. His gaze fastened on the scarred arm and the hook Arik now used after losing his hand and the lower part of his forearm on Eastphalia, where more modern prostheses weren’t available. He realized that while the device functioned reasonably well, it looked more beastly than human.
As beastly as his scarred face and missing eye, more so than the scars that ravaged his body. Wearing the hook gave Arik a perverse sense of satisfaction, every time he saw the regret and horror reflected in his father’s eyes. No way would he allow the king to salve his conscience by submitting to the lengthy plastic surgery the surgeons had proposed to restore his appearance, even though the old cyborg maker had tempted him with promises of functional prostheses for some of his missing parts. “The hook unnerves you, doesn’t it, Father?”
His expression stoic, King Gawain met Arik’s gaze. “I admit it does. It looks as though it might become a lethal weapon.”
“I promise not to use it to maim you as your hirelings maimed me. But I will not submit to the knife to make it easier for you to look upon me.”
Arik watched a tear slide down his father’s cheek. “Perhaps you will do it for the fair Emerald, if not for me or your future subjects. You mentioned being the only prince in Meredith’s inventory. You may be right about that. It is of no importance, however, for you are to mate with Emerald tomorrow. I pray to all the gods that she will soften your heart.”