S*** gets real in this chapter. Eternal thanks for reading along to all of you who've made it this far! I promise things will only get more exciting from here on out!
He followed her from the shadows. Only the dingy netherworld light of pre-dawn filtered through the palace's narrow windows, providing him plenty of shelter. His soft-soled shoes didn't betray him with a sound as he glided from doorway to doorway, zigzagging up the corridor until he was so close behind he could have reached out and caressed her hair. Even in the sepulcher light it shone. Careless of her—she should have covered it. The thrill of the kill ignited in his blood, he reached up to grab hold of her shoulder.
She stopped, nearly making him collide with her back, and sighed. "Oh, please. I knew you were there ten minutes ago."
A grin less than five souls in the universe had ever seen violated Sven's usual code of stoicism. Stepping up beside Romelle, he slipped his reaching hand around her trim waist instead. "Just lulling me into a state of overconfidence, that's it, is it?"
"Of course," she sniffed, with a regal toss of her hair. "Appearing helpless or inept to deceive an enemy was the first lesson those Inalkai Kuhalth psychopaths taught me."
His grin receded, but his hunter's instincts merely changed targets. "Did they also teach you to look irresistible in those snug pants of yours?"
Her sea-blue eyes glanced up at him through their thatch of thick lashes, and she tried in vain to wrestle a smile into submission. "Close enough to kiss, close enough to kill," she quoted.
The low, almost husky quality that had crept into her voice, her parted lips, and the way she pressed the side of her hip against his were all the bait Sven needed. He leaned down and went in for the first part of the Drule proverb. Their kiss started out soft. He didn't see a need to rush—one wouldn't skip through a stirring symphony or wolf down a delicious feast, so why sprint through a lover's embrace? He took the time to cherish the feel of her quickening heartbeat against his chest. Savor the sensation of her lush mouth on his and how her hands slipped into his back pockets, pressing him closer, letting him know he was wanted just as much. Reflect on how far they'd both come in picking up the pieces and arranging them into a new life together. He buried his fingers in her hair, its waves forming a bright cloud around their faces. Like fire to his black smoke. Where she was, he would be sure to follow, now and always.
The need for air finally broke their kiss though not their hold on each other. Satisfaction spread through him at the sight of her flushed face, glazed, unfocused stare, and the knowledge that only he had such an effect on her.
"Come back to bed," he whispered, shifting his hips slightly against hers.
A small noise came from her throat at the sensation, her fingers digging harder into his backside. She started to nod enthusiastically, then stopped and changed it to an equally vigorous shake of the head. "I have to check on something first—you almost made me forget."
"Can't it wait?" He traced the edge of her collarbone with one fingertip but didn't hold out much hope; once Romelle sank her teeth into something, she locked her jaws and didn't let go.
Sure enough, she bit her full bottom lip and shook her head again. "I might not get another chance at this."
That cleared Sven's head more. He quirked his eyebrows at her. "What exactly are you checking on? Something tells me it isn't a pie you popped into the oven—not this early in the morning. And not to mention that you tried to sneak out without waking me to do it."
The mood withered completely, her expression scrunching into a scowl. Extracting herself from his arms, she leaned her back against the wall and glared down at the floor for a minute. Just when he thought he'd have to coax the information from her she spoke.
"I saw something in Allura's binder yesterday at lunch. A paper."
"So? She had plenty of papers."
"Yes, only those didn't have Lotor's handwriting all over them."
Sven's breath left him as though he'd been sucker punched in the gut. His initial instinct was to blurt that was impossible.
Allura despised and feared Lotor in equal amounts. The Drule prince had stalked her, injured and nearly killed the rest of the Voltron Force on multiple occasions, and threatened her planet on a regular basis. The only paper she'd accept from him was an unconditional surrender or a letter begging for forgiveness—both of which were as likely to happen as Coran shaving off that walrus moustache of his.
"You're sure it was his writing?" he pressed. "It wasn't a print out of some document our spies got their hands on maybe?"
Romelle shot him a look that told him just how far he was reaching. "Not unless we got a hold of his grade school work. The paper had the symbols for the Imperial Drule alphabet written on it. In ink. He wrote them out himself, Sven."
Again, his mind tried to evade the implications of the discovery, chalk it up to a simple mistake. But he knew better. Romelle hadn't had much time to learn the skills for espionage and assassination. However, she'd learned them in the most brutal and fast-paced school of all: life on Doom. A single mistake could have cost her—or her comrades—their lives. Instead of breaking under the pressure, she'd let her training burn away the old, soft, hesitant parts of her personality and an adamant, pragmatic one had risen from the ashes. Her awareness and memory had been honed to scalpel-sharpness.
In short, if she said she'd seen something, she'd seen it. He suppressed the urge to start gnawing on his nails; he'd just broken the lifelong habit last week.
"So you decided to go find it while Allura was out on her patrol," he concluded, without judgement. "What do you plan to do when you get your hands on the paper?"
Anyone else would have seen nothing besides the merciless lines of resolve etched into her face. But the tiny fissures of dread and self-loathing stood out under Sven's gaze, telling him how brittle it truly was. Romelle's spirit may have been cast from steel, but even the hardest materials would bend and break under the right amount of stress.
"I'm going to do whatever I have to," she answered, voice unwavering. "I'll confront her with it and give her a chance to explain first. If she tries to dodge the issue, then I'll inform Coran and Captain Kogane. I'm positive they wouldn't be letting her carry on correspondence…or whatever she has going on…with Lotor if they knew."
Sven nodded, his mouth tightening as he followed the signposts to the obvious. Arus had received crucial intelligence from a mysterious source, and now Allura was walking around with some language key in Lotor's handwriting. The events were too timely to be a coincidence. Allura, meaning well as she always did, must have accepted help from the Prince Imperial.
At what price, though—that was the question. Lotor never did anything without gain, whether in the long or short term.
The "assistance" he'd given both of them when they were Zarkon's prisoners certainly hadn't come cheap: Sven's promise to never rejoin the Voltron Force, along with Romelle's throne and dignity. Some days, the scraps of information and limited access he provided for their merry band of saboteurs on Doom hardly seemed worth it.
"All right. Let's get this done then. I'm behind you, always." He managed a miniscule smile. "And not just for the view."
She didn't return his smile, but she accepted his hand in hers with a brief squeeze as they made their way to Allura's quarters.
It was hardly like sneaking through the twisting halls of Galra Castle, avoiding or assassinating Zarkon's guards on the way to steal some data strip. They merely walked into the room without meeting another soul. The leather portfolio hadn't even been hidden; it sat on the nightstand next to the bed Allura had neatly made before leaving. If it had had a face, the item would've watched them approach with an open air of innocence.
A minute's rifling through the papers therein revealed another kind of complication entirely.
"It's gone," Romelle announced, tone weary from the burden of confirmed suspicions. "She must have known I'd spotted it and disposed of it. Which means she's protecting him. The naïve little fool."
Again, Sven saw the true sentiments seething beneath the harsh, barren surface of her reaction. Her anger just grazed Allura, not able to reach its true target light years away.
"I don't know if I'd use 'protecting' to describe what she's doing," he told her. "More like using him."
A very unregal snort came from Romelle. "Allura doesn't do manipulation—at least not skillfully. Excuses from toddlers trying to avoid a time out for eating cookies they weren't supposed to are slicker than anything she ever comes up with. Even if she did think she could pry something out of Lotor in the bargain, he's the one casting the line and reeling her in. But I don't think she had gain on her mind. I bet the wide-eyed idiot is doing this because she believes he's genuinely trying to help her."
"I'm not sure even Allura is that trusting."
"Yes, she is—you heard how she leapt to defend Lance yesterday."
Sven folded his arms across his chest and cocked his head. "Lance tells tall tales and chases skirts. Lotor kills and enslaves entire populations. I think one deserves a little more leniency than the other."
She flung her hands in the air with a disgusted sigh at his logic, starting to pace back and forth like a caged animal. "I know how she thinks, Sven. Not because we're related, but because I used to be just like her. I believed Lotor would help me and look what happened. Avok and my father wound up dead, Pollux nearly became another notch on Zarkon's belt, and I lost my throne and the respect of my people. He made you slink around those vermin-infested tunnels beneath the Pit, and I endured daily physical and psychological torture disguised as combat training at the hands of the Drule death goddess' fanatics. The only reason he 'rescued' us was because he figured we'd make useful pawns in the games between him and his father. Just imagine what he'd do to Allura."
It wouldn't involve learning a martial art or crawling through the tunnels, but he had to admit Lotor's plans if he ever captured the Princess of Arus wouldn't be much more benevolent.
"Okay," he sighed. "It wouldn't hurt to take some precautions. Let me talk to Coran and Keith about what you saw. It wouldn't do a bit of good to confront Allura without evidence if she's covering for Lotor anyway. At least Keith and Coran can keep an eye on her in case she really is in over her head." Raking his fingers back through his hair, Sven tried to keep from tallying all the ways in which the elements of the situation added up to disaster. For them, for Allura, for her world and its allies—for the entire galaxy, for that matter.
"Don't take this wrong, honey," he added, putting his thumbnail into his mouth and grazing it with his teeth, "but I hope you're just losing your touch and made a mistake this time."
Replacing Allura's papers in exact order, Romelle closed the leather binder and turned it to the right a hair. It looked like it had never been touched.
"So do I, love," she replied. "All the time."
!
"You're insane. Your whole plan is insane. I'm insane for agreeing to go along with it."
Lotor aimed a glare through the view shield of his battle cruiser at Saffrin, his tense position in the pilot's seat of the fighter next to him clearly visible. "You're driving me to insanity with your whining," the Prince Imperial snapped.
"Considering this will likely be my last day as a living man, I think I have the right to a little panic."
Though he'd never understand how the bizarre practice came about, Lotor had to admit the human habit of rolling one's eyes somehow expressed exasperation like no other. "We're not even here to fight! All you and the rest of the squadron have to do is distract whatever members of the Moran Force show up until I warp back to Korrinoth with Allura. Give them just enough of a fight to make things convincing, but don't take any risks. We'll be back home in time for lunch. You'll see."
"Lunch, yes," Saffrin muttered, expression darkening further. "Not to mention our executions at the emperor's hands for disobeying his direct orders regarding attacks on Arus…"
Rather than waste time trying to reason with him, Lotor growled, "Just get your asses down there, hide, and wait for my command."
"As you wish then, Highness. I have but one final request: at my funeral, let it be said I was the very embodiment of friendship. Yes, the living avatar of Belnoc himself…"
Though the Prince Imperial couldn't tell for certain, he suspected the hint of smirk he caught on Saffrin's face was more than his imagination or a trick of the planet-light reflecting off the fighter's view shield. Lotor's grip on his battle cruiser's controls tightened, but not entirely from aggravation. For all his martyred grousing, his friend had a point. This plan came with no shortage of ways to fail spectacularly. While the soldiers he'd picked to come along had been told their priority was to stay alive, it would be easier said than done if Kogane or the other Lions showed up. He had no fleet to back him, only twelve men and his own wits. He could easily be shot down or taken prisoner. There would be no negotiating for his release with the old man either.
He would be destroyed along with the rest of Arus' population once the armada his father had gathered over the past few weeks—the one preparing to launch even as Lotor hung in orbit—arrived. For the billionth or so time, his common sense berated him for waiting up to the last minute. He should have done this long before. Anything that went wrong could cost him everything. He didn't need that magnitude of pressure crushing him on top of all the rest.
Except he did. Haggar had spoken painful yet pure truth. If he wanted Allura by his side, he had to force her there.
And, he'd realized, he would have to force himself to go through with it. In the end, neither of them could have any other choice. She would have to yield. He would have to triumph. For either of them to do any less at this point meant destruction.
If they couldn't live together, at least they'd die together.
"Go, Saffrin," he said, anger turned to ashes. "If we make it out of this, I'll have a shrine erected in your honor myself."
His friend nodded to him, all traces of skepticism and humor, real or faked, gone. "Get your princess."
Lotor watched the twelve of them descend to the unsuspecting globe of blue, green, and white below. Then he leaned his head back against his seat and tried not to count the minutes until Allura's arrival.
His instruments chirped to announce Blue Lion's approach around the expected time. Each of their patrols had been predictably regular since neither he nor his father had given them cause for concern. He watched her draw ever closer against the backdrop of the universe and wondered what occasion it marked: the last time they would ever be apart, or the last they would ever see each other.
When she had come close enough for him to make out the joints in Blue Lion's smooth metallic limbs, she finally hailed him.
"Lotor," she said with surprising civility. "To what do I owe this visit?"
"News." Knots of tension ached across his shoulder blades. "The urgent kind. May I have a word with you, down on the ground? Preferably out in the canyons, away from your castle's sensors. I don't have much time, so I'd rather our conversation not be interrupted by falcon cannons or missiles."
Only a split second of hesitation preceded her reply of, "All right. Lead the way."
All the carefully crafted arguments he'd concocted while waiting collapsed in on themselves. Lotor blinked, at a loss for a moment. If it had been anyone other than Allura, he'd have become instantly suspicious. Rousing himself from surprised stupor, he nodded, knowing somehow she'd be able to see it, and turned his cruiser toward Arus.
!
Within fifteen minutes, Allura stood with Lotor in one of the ravines that cracked the rocky, arid landscape of the southern Altean continent. About an hour's hike away lay the famed Valley of Zohar, where their fathers had faced each other in their last, legendary duel. She suspected Lotor hadn't chosen the spot for its dramatic personal history, though; the deposits of crystals inside the caverns crisscrossing the canyon's depths had a handy way of interfering with sensory and navigation instruments, the Lions the only exemption found to date.
Sweat already slicked her brow and tickled behind her ears when she slipped her pink flight helmet off. "What's happened now?" For a moment, she reflected how odd it felt to fear something other than just the man standing across from her. Odd, yet somehow…liberating. Like keeping him at bay had consumed a huge portion of her time and energy without her even realizing it.
Would she have accomplished much more for Arus if she'd just tried to negotiate with him sooner?
The still, mask-like expression that settled over Lotor's face blocked her from pursuing the train of thought. "I don't know how to lead into this, so I'll spare us both any preamble. There's a fully-loaded armada of Galran ships headed for Arus. Carriers, destroyers, fighters, and multiple cargo ships loaded with so many bombs that there won't be enough left of the planet to leave an asteroid belt as a reminder."
"What?! Headed here right now?" She knew how stupid the question sounded as soon as it left her mouth, but it was an almost involuntary reaction–a herald of shock.
Lotor's lackluster smile showed he understood. "Yes, Allura. Right now. Final checks were being run when I left Korrinoth, in fact. It should be launching in about half an hour, your time."
For a minute, her mind went utterly, terribly blank. Like all her thoughts had run for cover, hiding from belief in what he'd told her. But then, in a dizzying flurry, they returned, linking together to form a plan as surely as the Lions did to form Voltron.
"I'll call the rest of the team," she said. Her thoughts flashed through her neurons so fast that she needed to share them, just in case she forgot or misplaced one. "And I'll contact Pollux. We've all been standing by for something like this, so it won't take long for them to get here. I'll cause a distraction in Blue Lion if I have to. As long as the cargo ships don't touch down, we can deal with an invasion. The citizens are already in the shelters, thank goodness. Yes, that's a start." The need to do something overcame the urge to figure out what the something would be. Turning on her heel, Allura went to sprint to her Lion.
A firm grip on her upper arm kept her in place. Looking back at Lotor, she saw him slowly, almost sadly, shake his head.
"No. Not this time, Allura."
"What? Lotor, let—"
"No." There was that word again. "This isn't some two-bit fleet slapped together for the weekly raid on Arus—which, by the way, you barely managed to repel half the time."
An outraged blush ignited in her cheeks. "We held you off just fi—"
"Be silent." His command echoed off the canyon walls like the report of a cannon, making her jump. "The only reasons you and your knights in spandex armor are alive after this long is because you've never warranted the full attention of our forces. Well, congratulations—you've finally annoyed my father to the point where he wants to destroy you in person. There are only two ways to avoid that, and neither involve rushing out half-cocked to meet him in combat. Deities know our remaining two options aren't even guaranteed to work."
Mouth a stunned, slack oval, Allura goggled at him in silence. Another demand that he release her, a protest that he couldn't do this, trembled on the very tip of her tongue. She crushed them up against the roof of her palette.
Because, as she'd noticed, he damn well could do it to her. Was, in fact. And short of wrestling out of his grip somehow, she wasn't going to get him to let her go.
As the reality of her own lack of power sank in, a tide of panic rose, until her mind was almost submerged beneath its turbulent depths. With the self-destructive determination of a snared animal, Allura began to twist and jerk against his unyielding grip.
"Why are you doing this?" she shouted, voice thickening with a gathering storm of burning tears. "You promised to help Arus! You promised!"
A flinch broke the stern fortifications of his expression, but only for a fraction of an instant. "I am helping. Not in the way you want, but in the one you need."
"Liar!" She punctuated her accusation with a left-handed punch to his arm. She may as well have been striking a stone pillar with a wad of cotton. "This was your plan all along, wasn't it? To pretend you wanted things to change, then invade at the first chance you got!"
An irritated sigh blew out of him. "This isn't an invasion, Allura. It's an execution. Now are you going to listen to me about how to stop it, or will you continue to throw a tantrum over life not going your way?"
Tantrum. Like she was a spoiled girl crying over her daddy not buying her a pony. This was the fate of her world, her home at stake. Millions of innocent lives hung in the balance while he wasted precious minutes scolding her. When he was the arrogant one, the traitor, the co-author of every misery she and her people had ever endured. Her only crime had been trusting him, and now he expected her to pay for it with everything she held dear.
So, she did what any sane person in her position would.
Cocking back her leg, Allura let loose a scream of undiluted fury and aimed a shattering snap kick at Lotor's knee. He may have been twice her size, but no matter how much muscle and height he had on her, his joints were as vulnerable as anyone's.
Instead of the satisfying crunch of bone, though, she felt her foot connect with nothing but empty air. Lotor dodged the blow by shifting to one side. The next thing Allura felt was his grip on her arm tighten with bruising force as he lifted her clear off the ground, hefting her onto his shoulder like a sack of goodies. Or more like a sack of rabid cats, given the way she thrashed and shrieked.
"Put me down!" She sensed several of Lance's more descriptive words threatening to boil out of her. "Traitor! Monster! Rotten, despicable, pointy-toothed, lying bastard!"
"Please, Allura. I'll faint from such language." He sounded more tired than amused. "And this is my last warning. Stop fighting me. We both have larger concerns than each other."
An elbow bashed into the back of his skull expressed her thoughts eloquently. He staggered and recovered with a snarl. Before she could comprehend the full chain of consequences she'd set in motion, Allura felt him drop her. She rolled and hit the ground on her back, the air rushing from her lungs and small, sharp stones biting her skin through her jumpsuit. Pain washed away by a flashflood of adrenaline, she scrambled to her feet. Without bothering to look back at Lotor, she sprinted for Blue Lion. She had to get to the pilot's seat. Had to launch, had to warn everyone—
Unlike the funny old "science-fiction" films in Lance's collection, she never heard any cute sound effects when Lotor fired the pistol he must have brought along for the occasion. Only felt the energy sizzle and split the air a second before it seared into her. Only enough to stun her nervous system, not enough power to shock her heart into arrest.
Her body found little comfort in the distinction.
Allura's legs crumpled beneath her several yards from Blue Lion. She didn't even have enough motor control to break her fall, going down hard and tasting dry, hot dirt. Her voice still worked well enough to allow her to scream to her heart's content while every other muscle she owned felt like it was being wrung and torn by fiery hands.
That wasn't what had tears streaming down her cheeks to water the parched land, though.
Her planet. Her people. She had failed them. No—worse.
She had condemned them.
!
Lotor quashed the urge to apologize as he gathered Allura, twitching, jerking, and all, into his arms. He avoided the look of utter betrayal brimming over in the form of tears from her blue eyes. Regret would do neither of them any good, and she would never believe he meant his share.
And, honestly, if he looked below the surface, he wasn't sorry in the slightest. For causing her physical pain, yes, but the emotional discomfort, no. If Jui Kuhalth had taught him anything, it was that personal growth felt a lot like one's soul being shattered and ground to bits under a bootheel before being reassembled. It was agony…but it would pass.
He remained silent while he walked to his cruiser. After laying Allura back down in Blue Lion's shadow so the sun wouldn't be in her eyes, he hopped up onto his ship's wing, reached into the cockpit, and grabbed the flare gun he'd brought for just that moment. Aiming it at the clear Arusian sky, he sent a garish green column of smoke into the air. It still drifted in wispy ribbons when Saffrin and the rest of the squadron appeared above several minutes later.
The others hovered while his friend brought his fighter down for a landing, kicking up a small storm of fine red dust and forcing Allura to abandon her attempt to stand in favor of shielding her face as best she could. Keeping one hand lowered over his own eyes, Lotor strolled over to collect her again. Whimpers that belied her intentions came out of her when she felt him get his arms beneath her—she threw a handful of dust at his face, missing and hitting his chest instead. A smile born from a bizarre marriage of admiration for her spirit and frustration at her sheer stubbornness overtook his mouth. Though stunned and panicked, she must've caught onto his plan, simple as it was.
"Come on, Allura," he said, heading not for his cruiser but the fighter Saffrin had vacated for them. "Let's go home."