Chapter 47. Kingship

Vegeta watched his father pace out of the throne room still fighting the urge to retch. He was tired of war and he had promised himself to never be part of one again or have any more dealings with the organisation that had worked him like a slave. Yet he knew he could not walk away if it turned out the WTO was indeed still operating. He could not live with the idea that the bastards might one day come on his doorstep after discovering Vegetasei was back. The planet was bound to turn up on the radar eventually. Every galaxy surrounding them was, or had been, under the employ of the WTO and the nearest wasn't a moon's travel away. Vegeta wouldn't have a moment's rest with that kind of threat breathing down his neck.

Would his people understand of he ordered them to the battlefield again? His father seemed to be certain of it. Could Vegeta even ask it of them after all that had happened? And would his little mate understand? He had promised Akane peace. Still what peace was there if the WTO had continued their business without Frieza and Cold? Surely his mate would want to be rid of that menace as much as he did.

Tragus came into the throne room, his gait ever full of vigour. At least one of them had enough spirit left. Vegeta observed his own gallows humour with irritation.

Responsibility sure wasn't something that fell easy to him. He even caught himself longing back to his days on Earth where he had nothing to occupy himself but surpassing that idiot Kakarot. Where everyone was prone to just leave him the fuck alone and let him train to his heart's content. It would be a long time before he got around to that again.

"My King, the Princess bid me tell you," Tragus stopped in mid-sentence and Vegeta simply knew Akane had sent the sad bastard to pass along some base unpleasantry in her name. "She said it might be wise for you to retire for the night."

"What did my mate say exactly?" Vegeta asked with ill masked and unexpected amusement. It was a pleasing notion that in spite of all his misgivings and worries and the unyielding headache, his little mate could still make him laugh. Whatever would he do without her?

Tragus cleared his throat. "My King I really do not think…"

"If my mate ordered you to repeat the exact words, of which I am certain she did, you should obey her wish. She will be your Queen very soon." Vegeta interrupted the marred man nonchalantly. "It will also be wise for you to get used to her unpleasantries right away. I'm afraid you will have to suffer them for many times to come. Now what did she say?"

"She said me: tell the King that his mate wants him to get his lordly arse up to his solar." Tragus swallowed then and cringed with outrage as he resumed: "And that if he refuses, he will be getting sweet fuck all for a whole week, no matter how he begs for it."

Vegeta laughed. His mate wasn't even back on the planet for a day and she was already handing out abuse again. She was making good use of her top position in Vegetasei's hierarchy. The nefarious little savage.

"That sounds unpleasant indeed." Vegeta said, although he wasn't referring to his little mate's discourtesy. Everyone would simply have to learn to deal with that. He had. Besides, he loved her for that foul mouth. He wouldn't have it any other way. What did sound unpleasant was the prospect of not getting his leg over for a week. That would be torture. If he wanted oblivion, burrying himself in Akane was far more effective than any draught of wine could ever be.

Tragus' outrage seemed mollified by Vegeta's loose reaction and the man easily recaptured his dangerous sneer.

"You should retire as well, Tragus. I want you to receive the lords in my stead when they start arriving. Keep them occupied until they are all here so I may address them all at once. I have no mind to listen to the endless solicitations of nobility."

"I won't let them within a furlong of the stairs to the private floors, my King." Tragus assured him with a crooked smirk. He departed with a salute.

Vegeta didn't give attention to the throne that still stood waiting for him. He was not ready to face it yet. He sought his own way out of the throne room and up to his old apartments. Turles and Ringo still stood aside the double doors. He relieved them from their duties for the rest of the night and they left with a grin and a salute. His little mate was more than capable of fending for herself and with him around as well, there was no need for the Royal Guardsmen at the moment.

Vegeta found Akane propped up against a stack of pillows at the head of the immense bed in which he had slept as a boy. His quarters hadn't changed at all which was evidence of how his father had always kept the hope he would return home one day. Vegeta had at last.

The nostalgic scents he had encountered earlier when he brought Aina here had become less prominent particularly inside the bed chamber as his mate and his daughter both had already thoroughly doused the room with their familiar delicate scent. Vegeta drank in the sight of what it was that his life had come to revolve about. His mate nursed their daughter with a tranquillity she rarely showed. There was nothing of the usual ill temper on her face. Maternity agreed with her. His daughter lay in her arms a lump of pudgy limbs, her pale skin scrubbed pink from the bath she had shared with her mother. Both their wild hair was still damp from it. If this wasn't worth going to war for, he didn't know what was.

He came to sit across from Akane at the edge of the bed with his legs stretched out in front of him ankles crossed and his shoulders supported by the tall poster that rose up on either side at the foot. He had forgotten how ridiculously large this bed was. His little mate could well get separated and lost from him for hours in here. No matter. He would have fun seeking her out and digging her up from the stack of furs to relocate her beneath him where she belonged. Not right now though. Sadly enough.

Another heavy sigh left him as his head fell back to rest against the wooden poster supporting him. He did need sleep. His headache was almost making him cross eyed. He feared that his worries would not allow him shut eye anytime soon. He could rest his body at least and try to turn his mind away from the misgivings about his kingship with the company of the two Princesses sitting across from him.

His little mate looked at him and her savagery was restored in all its splendour. It made him snicker despite his exhaustion and he said offhandedly: "You're in a good mood, little one."

"Your bleeding headache pesters me." Akane spat roughly and with a moody look to the daughter at her breast added: "And she is like to suck the nipples right off me if she keeps at it like this."

This made Vegeta snicker more. His little mate was such a charmer.

Akane replaced her nipple for the tip of her finger with a very displeased snarl and it was all the same to his daughter as Aina resumed to suckle on that in stead. "See!" she hollered acusingly. "She is not even hungry anymore. The little monster simply tortures me out of habit. I can't wait until she gets on solids."

Vegeta stifled a yawn and put in: "I rather fancy having those to myself again."

His little mate set loose a very menacing growl. "You keep your bleeding paws from my tits. I am too sore to be touched."

Her attention was drawn to the kitten in her arms when Aina set out to mimic the vicious snarls her mother produced.

"That face, kitten." Akane said with feigned disgust. "How about you give me a break and go exchange hideous looks with your ugly father?"

Vegeta pulled off his gloves and bunged them aside, watching with decline how Akane held out his daughter to him by the tail and dangled the little creature upside down in front of him like a chunk of meat. Aina herself didn't seem to have a care in the world, but still, that was no way to handle his daughter.

"You're a right horrid." Vegeta said as he took Aina from her mother's careless grip with a lot more respect.

Akane dismissed him with a rough sound of the throat. "That face of hers, that's what's horrid."

Vegeta ignored her and lay his daughter in his lap. It was fascinating how her pouting little mouth made her look exactly like her peevish mother. She was going to be a tough one to deal with growing up, that was plain to see. He smiled his satisfaction and bent over the pudgy lump in his lap to thoroughly nose that unimaginably soft face and belly, his headache all but forgotten at the gentle feel and scent of her.

Aina resounded the pur he started and looked up at him drunk from her mother's milk, her shimmering dark eyes half-lidded. In her laziness one of her miniscule hands was irrepressibly drawn to her mouth where she slipped in two fingers to suck on. He refrained from pulling them out. His mate wanted it so and frankly, the sight of it made him melt. Soon those big eyes fell shut completely and the gentle pur died out as she drifted off to kitten dreams within seconds. The drool was already gathering in the corner of Aina's little mouth just like it would with her mother while she slept.

Vegeta refocused on his mate across him and asked: "Did that repulsive Field Marshal give you any more trouble?"

"I told him to fuck off until he had taken a shower because the reek of him made me want to honk." Akane snarled blunt as only she could be. She folded her arms like iron under her swollen breasts, looking the Queen she was going to be. "Tragus agrees with me that you should strip him of his title. The man is a disgrace to the forces. I don't care what state the planet was in or what mad things your father ordered him to do, he should have taken better care of his men."

"Him and his General both." Vegeta grumped, his fingers aimlessly fondling the flame of red hair on his sleeping daughter's head. "What of the common folk?"

"We found a straggle in the mountains near the capital. The old and the weak. Those that were fit have made for other cities to put as many leagues between them and the capital before the war could commence." Akane reported.

She stood up from the immense bed then and made to thoroughly stretch her magnificent naked frame. That body of hers was a right scandal, Vegeta told himself and it wasn't the first that he had done so either. Was it any wonder that he was still obsessed? It hadn't taken her any time to get back to her old self after the birth of Aina and with her ascendance she truly had become a force to be reckoned with. Her power appealed to him as much as the preposterous curves his eyes were sweeping.

She came to stand at his side and brushed his hair back fondly, though habitually rough with those lethal little hands. She forced his face up by his hair to make him look at her, those hard yellow eyes tearing straight through him.

"You pay no mind to your worries." Akane said as she leaned in for a brief and hard kiss. "You will be the greatest ruler this empire has yet seen. I am certain of it. Granted you look ridiculous without a tail, but none will ever dare mock you for it. You are one of the most powerful men in the universe. The people will take pride in your magnificence and all will love you for the peace you bring them." She glared at him with savage conviction. "And if you need to go to war to bring it about, I will be right behind you to tear out the windpipes of any remaining WTO members that have the gall to oppose you." She trailed her fingers along the broad chain of his position that hung around his neck. "Now go to sleep King Vegeta, the fifth of your name. Your fears are for nothing. Tomorrow you will make me proud again."