AN: I'm not good at cliff-hangers. I hate leaving people hanging.
The colours were all wrong. Everything overly bright and warped. A bird cried high above her and the noise of it nearly deafened her. Her footfalls echoed with the same strange amplification as she climbed, her steps oddly elongated because she was… wrong. Too tall? The thought slipped away as her view tilted and shifted. She recognised the seemingly endless stairs cut into the red mountainside before her. The green tinged sky and the curve of T'Khut were familiar to her, as was the hot dry heat and the heavy press of T'Khasi's gravity upon her shoulders, but at the same time completely alien.
Ahead loomed the dark gaping doors to the Temple of Gol and the Hall of Ancient Thought beyond. There the seeress sat in council with the katra of the dead. She had come to seek her wisdom. It was cooler in the cavernous chamber, dark and lit only by flaming torches. Amanda wanted to stop and crane her head, look around, but she had no control over her movements.
The ancient woman rose to her feet as she approached, her dark robes an inky shadow around her. The crystal headdress she wore glittered in the red light of the room and her black eyes seemed to bore right through her.
'Honourable Seeress.' she intoned in a voice that was too deep and in a language she did not know. 'I seek your counsel.'
The seer did not greet her as a Prince, as the heir of the Empress, but instead simply bade her kneel.
The stone was hard and gritty with sand beneath her knees, her loose layered robes offering little protection. The hands she pressed together in supplication were too large and dark hair was sprinkled across the olive skin.
The seer's fingers were dry as they pressed against her psi points but she was unafraid, she cleared her thoughts and welcomed the touch of her mind.
Thoughts and memories spiralled in a lazy whirl before their joined mind's eye. She made no attempt to shield herself from her, she knew all. A vision stopped and was re-examined at length. Her own face? But not. It was… the beautiful Terran girl. Amanda. She felt a wave of heat at the vivid memory. The girl whimpered beneath her, cool human skin warmed by her own, calling her name – Sarek – tempting her with a mind full of thoughts that were sweet and innocent, unlike any she'd ever felt before. She wanted to join their minds and revel in that purity but she knew to do so would be to destroy it and that was something she found she could not bear.
Amanda. Daughter of the Human king, sister to the foolish rebel her brother had destroyed himself over. Her stupid brother. Inciting the wrath of their vengeful mother. A vision in a vision – Silek's green blood hot and foul on his fingers... But that was wrong, her brother was Daniel and -
Telik.
The word echoed in her head.
Disjointed disbelief not her own consumed her.
The seeress plucked at something in her mind and she had a sudden disconcerting sense of distance. Vast terrible distance. A yawning black chasm 15 lightyears wide separated her from… her telsu. Bonded.
'Pi'reldai Terrasu t'du.' the seeress mocked.
Your little Terran princess.
Amanda gasped and pushed herself up on her arms, the alien light spectrum and oppressive heat of her dream fading into the Halkan décor of her father's office. Her senses seemed dimmed - her vision blurred and hearing muffled. For a moment she didn't know what was happening, then she felt that burning, alien, rage once more and she remembered.
She was on the floor, Winona and the priestess knelt beside her. Her cousin's eyes where wide in terror and her cheeks were wet with tears. The priestess looked petrified. Ignoring them both she struggled to her feet and took in the scene before her in horror. George lay sprawled across her father's squat desk, Sarek looming over him with a hand wrapped around the boy's throat. He'd turned a terrible red colour and was flailing wildly against the Vulcan's grip.
Her father and several others stood motionless behind them. There was a look of utter despair on his face.
Amanda sobbed.
Sarek's anger, for she understood now that it was his emotions she was feeling, had intensified. She did not understand how one being could hold such hate. Sarek was going to kill George, she had no doubt. He was enjoying slowly crushing the boy's life out of him. Her father had been correct – Sarek would not keep a married woman for a mistress, but he'd kill her husband without compunction.
'Sarek!' she yelled.
He snarled and turned his alien glare upon her. Like any human faced with an irate Vulcan, Amanda cowered. His slanted brows exaggerated his violent scowl and his lips were drawn back exposing sharp Vulcan teeth threateningly.
George choked, the noise wet, hacking and obscene.
'Wait, please!' she begged stepping forward and reaching for him hesitantly.
He snarled at her and she shrunk back half a step. 'Begging for your moon-boy's life Reldai?!' he hissed.
Her 'moon-boy' had gone limp, the gasping of tortured attempts at breath and the flickering of his bloodshot eyes the only sign he still lived. He had tried to save her, a girl he hardly knew, and because of that kindness he was going to die. Winona was sobbing quietly behind her. He was so young. Sorrow and guilt enveloped her and she felt hot tears scald her cheeks. 'Please Sarek!' she choked. 'Don't kill him.'
'He thought to take you from me!' he roared. 'He will die!'
George coughed and Amanda heard finality in that noise. Uncaring of her fear she grabbed at Sarek, clutching at his arm and shoulder. 'He will not take me! I'll stay with you, I swear, just please! Don't kill him.'
She'd said precisely the wrong thing. 'He means so much to you?' Sarek hissed lowly.
Amanda darted a glance at George. It appeared Sarek's grip had loosened slightly in his distraction. She quickly returned her attention to the Vulcan. 'I barely know him!' she insisted, tugged at his arm. 'You know that. You've shared my thoughts.'
His eyes glittered menacingly. 'Aye and often enough they have been of him!' he spat.
Amanda stepped forward again, moulding herself into Sarek's side. 'It was not him I thought on, but my duty to him.'
Sarek exhaled heavily through his nose, his eyes narrowed suspiciously, but Amanda could tell he had calmed slightly. She looked down at George's limp form.
She tried a different tact. 'George Kirk!' she half-yelled. 'I reject your offer of marriage! Our engagement is broken.'
George of course, made no response to her declaration, but she felt Sarek's rage dwindling further. The room was quiet save a low rumbling noise emanating from the Vulcan. And Winona's quiet crying.
Amanda reached up hesitantly and pressed her hand to his cheek, pulling his face towards her. 'Sarek.' she said. 'It's done, he is not my betrothed anymore. He has no further hold over me.' When he did not release him she continued more desperately. 'I barely know him, he's nothing to me and he's only 16 – a child!'
Sarek was still breathing heavily, his face twisted in a grimace. 'You were about to marry him.' he spat.
George had gone utterly still. 'I'm sorry!' she wailed. 'Please, please Sarek. Forgive me!'
'I told you not to betray me.' he reminded her, his voice cold and bitter. He lifted George from the table slightly and slammed him down, the back of his head making an awful thudding noise.
Amanda sobbed anew and slapped at Sarek. 'Sarek! If you kill him I will never forgive you.'
When he still did not respond she let out a wordless noise of despair. Tears burnt her eyes, blinding her. 'You bastard!' she screamed in English. 'He's just a boy! He didn't do anything! He was trying to protect me - from you! This is your fault! If you hadn't hurt me, he wouldn't have tired this!'
'Amanda!' her father called in censure and warning.
Ignoring him she pulled back her arm and hit the Prince across the face, as hard as she could. His head snapped towards her and he growled, snatching at her arm with his free hand. However she wasn't currently throttling anyone and she had another hand. She promptly resumed her attack, but with her left instead of her right. Sarek did not appear overly concerned, it was unlikely she was hurting him, even though she was hitting him so hard her hand was stinging numbly.
In desperation she screamed and dug her fingernails into the too-warm skin of his cheek and dragged them in deep gouges towards his jaw - so roughly she felt one of them break. Suddenly she was straining on her toes, gripped painfully by the back of her neck and pulled up towards Sarek. His hold was pulling her hair and hurting her neck and so she hit him again, his green blood hot and wet under her fingers.
Panting like a winded animal, his eyes wide and mad, Amanda wondered if he was finally going to kill her. She'd been living in fear of this moment ever since that dinner on Earth a year previously and now that it was finally upon her she didn't care. She was filled with that same madness that had struck her that first night when she'd been taken to his bed, when she'd thought to goad him into killing her so her suffering would be short lived.
George was alive - Sarek had both his hands upon her, not his neck - the poor boy hadn't died for her sake, and soon she'd be free of the shame of being the Prince's alien whore. She hoped he would not punish her father, but with her and Daniel both gone, perhaps he'd would welcome death…
Sarek's voice brought her out of her revelry. 'I have no intention of killing you.' he said, sounding more in control of himself. The grip on her neck released and she fell back onto the balls of her feet, her head ringing.
At their feet Winona was tending to George Kirk, who appeared to be unconscious but was at least breathing. Amanda felt dizzy with relief and adrenaline. Before it could all really sink in however, Sarek pulled her into his arms, roughly restraining her. She froze in shock. She had no desire to hug him. He'd just nearly killed someone. George Kirk was lying half-dead a scant metre from her, her father was looking on in dismay and the priestess who was to have married her to the aforementioned half-dead boy was watching, as was her cousin and two of her father's guards.
She pushed him away, wedging a little space between them with her elbows. Sarek ignored her attempts to distance herself and glared down at her intently. Amanda wilted under his scrutiny and stared back at him transfixed. Green blood smeared the side of his face from his cheek to his jaw. A dark mark was slowly growing on his tunic as it soaked into the cloth. Green blood. He had never looked so alien. Amanda felt the furrow of her brows and knew there were tears in her eyes. It wasn't just George she was crying for either. She felt too much. She was angry and terrified and relieved all at once. It hurt.
Sarek was so handsome - so fiercely beautiful in an utterly Vulcan way - but so cruel. A Prince that took what he wanted, that hurt innocent people, hurt her, her family, poor George and thought nothing on it. He was a murderer. He'd swung the blade that took his own poor brother's head. He'd ordered massacres, overseen invasions and orbital bombardments of civilian cities for the Empire. There was the blood of a dozen races all over him; green, red and blue.
He was a tyrant. He deserved nothing from her but hatred and yet she wasn't sure if she did hate him - because he had also shown her kindness. She didn't know what it was she felt looking up him. She was certain that she felt defeated. He had won whatever game it was they were playing. She was too tired to fight him anymore.
His fingers dragged hotly against her skin but Amanda ignored the sensation. They skimmed along her jaw and up over her cheek and then settled with intent along the bone beneath her left eye. His eyes bored into her's darkly, his face shifting a little closer to her own. She gasped as that vague sense of him, where she'd felt that rage earlier, suddenly swelled and became deafening. It was a lurching sensation, like vertigo.
She felt him, angry, but a cold bitter jealousy in place of the hot violence of earlier. It overwhelmed her as she felt his thoughts, his mind, invade her own. She heard herself sob as if from far away. No. No he promised he would not… He felt her horror, she knew it, and yet he ignored it. Ruthlessly he searched her memories, her thoughts, seeking seeking – what she did not know, but all he scrutinised regarded George Kirk. It felt like hours but was only seconds before she heard his voice inside her. 'You do not love him.'
It was not a question but her exposed mind offered up the answer just the same. 'No.'
He wasn't angry anymore, he was filled with deep, lustful, satisfaction. It poured into her where his fingers pressed into her skin and filled her up like an empty glass. It felt like fire was rippling through her veins instead of blood. She forgot her pain and horror at his unwanted mind-touch, the betrayal of the one promise he had ever made to her. Instead she shifted closer to him, letting him fold her into his arms.
Blindly she turned her face towards his, rubbing herself against him like a cat, stricken with feelings and desires that weren't her own, weren't even human. He spoke except he didn't, the words revibrated silently inside her skull. 'You are mine.'
'Yes.' she whispered aloud, because she found she could not lie. His breath was hot against her cheek, warmed like blasts from a furnace. She felt his pleasure at her simple utterance. It was blinding in its intensity – like the flare of a star gone nova - and she whimpered before the onslaught.
END PART II