Chapter 5: Bee Sting

Jupiter and Caine had just finished their morning meal when the chamber presence alerted again, "Your Majesty, your sparring session will begin in 5 minutes."

The soft female voice urged Jupiter out of her chair; Caine again standing when she did. The thought that she would have to break him of that habit tried to get her attention, but she quickly pushed it aside. She had more important things to focus on, like Stinger's punches. The memory of the last hit she took to the jaw flickered through her mind like a phantom pain. This time she physically shook her head, trying to rid herself of distractions and focus.

Caine turned to follow Jupiter as she exited her chamber door on the way to the gym. "Oh, are you coming to watch?" She asked in surprise. The thought of Caine seeing how bad at sparring she was made her palms sweat nervously.

"If your Majesty permits me to, I would like to see what sort of training you are doing with Stinger." Caine said, his head bowed subserviently. The thought of an Entitled physically fighting was not unheard of, they had highly structed ceremonial fights among themselves. The unusual part was that she was training with a security splice and that she was doing this to learn to protect herself. He didn't think one born to the Entitled life would ever think to defend themselves from an attacker. That just wasn't done. That was why they hired guards and patrol bots for after all.

Jupiter shrugged in response to his request, "Sure, I guess. I'll try not to embarrass myself too badly today then." She laughed at herself a little while she continued down the hallways, Caine and her splice guards trailing after. Drear and Yumi were on guard through the night and had been replaced this morning by another of the Y 'sisters', Jupiter couldn't tell which, and Quell. The male splice on duty slipped around his Queen to take point on security.

Caine was pleased to see that even within the compound all protocols were being followed to protect Jupiter. He knew all too well that a single attacker could find holes in the alert net around the set of buildings and slip inside. Slipping inside Kalique's alcazar to save Jupiter hadn't been that hard, after all. There was no way he would let something similar happen here. There were too many people in the 'verse trying to grab a piece of the power his Queen had inherited. Without heirs her estate, succession could not be settled and that left everything vulnerable to greedy Entitled like Titus.

The thought of that pompous, lying, manipulative little man had Caine's face set in a scowl. His nostrils flared as he fought to breath through the anger. Jupiter did not notice the subtle shift in his demeanor but Quell and Yall did. They became more alert and looked to him for instructions. He shook his head minimally, trying to avoid catching any attention from Jupiter, and their tension eased a bit. Being back with Jupiter seemed to bring up all the memories of what they had gone through. Kalique. Titus. Balem. How could he ever keep her safe? He had already failed so many times.

Those thoughts weighed on his mind still as everyone entered the gym. Stinger was there waiting for them. He set down a sheave and stood at Jupiter entered. If Caine had to guess he was also going over security reports from the day before while he waited. Stinger grabbed some hand wraps and went to work on Jupiter, using just a touch of his enhanced speed to get the process finished quickly. The way he moved always stunned her. She couldn't quite wrap her head around it as his hands blurred over and around hers. Caine settled on the bench that Stinger had been sitting on, taking up the security report and taking up where he had left off earlier.

Stinger and Jupiter moved to the centre of the sparring mats and took starting stances. Caine kept reading, his attention only peripherally on the pair beginning to work on defensive hits. He didn't notice when they moved from discussing tactics and warming up, to actually sparring. The grunt of Jupiter taking a hit from Stinger took the lycantant by surprise. Before he could even consciously process what was happening, he was lunging at his commander. The only thing he could focus on was the screaming in his head to protect his Queen.

A feral sounding growl ripped from his throat as his hands closed on Stinger's shoulders. He jerked the bee splice away from where he stood over Jupiter. Caine didn't comprehend that he was standing there not to continue to attack her, but to help her up. No, his mind only saw the threat and reacted. That one little sound of pain from her had sent him entirely into a feral mode. His only thoughts were to save her.

Though Stinger had been caught by surprise as the lycantant grabbed him from behind unexpectedly, he was able to maintain his cool head and knew immediately what was going on. He maintained a fighting half crouch after recovering from being basically thrown halfway across the room. His hands remained down and loose so as not to pose a threat that would set Caine off again.

Both splices' attention was pulled from the other by a very angry Jupiter yelling, "What the hell are you doing Caine?"

That finally snapped Caine back to reality. He rose from the aggressive posture and turned to face her. She was climbed to her feet and stood now with both hands on her hips. He immediately read in her stance and on her face that she was very angry with him. Out of instinct his head dipped submissively. Mr. Quell hovered just behind her, ready to pull her away from Caine if he turned on her.

The fact that he even though Caine was capable of hurting his Queen troubled him. He knew that his reputation was still tarnished by his attack on the Entitled years before, but he had thought that the guards understood that Jupiter was special to him. That he could never harm her. His shoulders slumped further, and he was already moving toward the exit before Stinger even ordered him out. He couldn't bear to look at any of them right now. He couldn't bear to see Jupiter and Stinger angry with him over his loss of control.

Jupiter watched him slink out of the room looking dejected. Her anger had turned to confusion. She genuinely didn't know what the heck had just happened. It was all too fast for her to process. One minute she was sparring with Stinger and then, as usual, she took a punch to her side. The impact, though she was sure Stinger was pulling his punches, was still enough to knock her off balance, causing her to crash to the mat. The commander was standing over her holding out his hand to help her up as usual and a second later he was gone, Caine in his place growling.

She hadn't felt scared of Caine. The thought hadn't even crossed her mind that he would harm her. She just couldn't figure out what exactly had happened. One minute she was sparring with Stinger and the next Caine was throwing him across the room.

Jupiter tore he gaze from the door that he had left through and looked to Stinger for answers. He was also frowning but not at Caine's actions. He understood that the boy had been caught off guard by the strength of his instinct to protect the woman he loved. The pull to protect her was probably even stronger for the lycantant than the bee splice felt because she was both his Queen and his mate. The wolf's drive to protect his family would be very strong Stringer knew. No, the commander was frowning at the other bee splice, Mr. Quell.

It was obvious that Quell had thought Caine had gone feral and was attacking an Entitled again. At least one member of his team did not trust his sergeant and that simply would not due. It could cause major problems if there ever was an attack on their Queen and they could not work together. Trust was the foundation they would need to build on to become one entity and that was obviously lacking. He would have to find a way to deal with it before the small issue became a huge problem.

"Later," he thought, before ordering Mr. Quell and Ms. Yall out to stand guard at the door. They didn't need to hear the rather sensitive conversation he was about to have with Jupiter.

Sighing he motioned his Queen to the bench, absently noticing that his sheave lay cracked on the floor where Caine had flung it in his haste to get him away from Jupiter. "Your Majesty, please have a seat. I imagine you have questions about what just occurred."

As usual, his soft-spoken words combined with his accent to calm Jupiter. She had come to associate his voice as one of cool reason. It often settled any panicky thoughts. That was part of the reason she valued him as an advisor so much. He never reacted out of emotion or instinct and always offered well reasoned words to her.

Sitting on the bench Jupiter waited for him to continue; to explain what the hell had just happened.

xXx

Author's Note: Been getting a lot of favs and follows so I thought I should feed you all another chapter finally.

Sorry for the cliff hanger but I literally have no idea how I am going to write this conversation.

As always, feel free to leave me a review to tell me what you like (even if you are reading this 10 years after I stopped posting I promise I will still love a review if you enjoyed it).

Take care. Enjoy!