Chapter 5

Grace awoke peacefully, which was outlandishly out of the norm for her. She was accustomed to waking repeatedly during the night, worried, sick with dread and concern, fearful for whatever outcome might present itself next day. That was her life: expectations, consequences, demands. She had no life of her own. It was forfeit at birth by her station.

So to wake peacefully and without fear was an alien thing. She was confused for a moment. Garrus was next to her, sleeping as well. His long, slow breaths bathed her in warmth and that strange spicy-sweet scent he had, reminiscent of frankincense, eucalyptus and amber. Clean and comforting. He was snoring. No… no he wasn't. He was purring, low and quiet and almost imperceptibly deep. She was tucked up under his chin, and his right arm was protectively around her. They were both naked, utterly comfortable. On an island far away from anything real.

She did not want to move. Not ever. The memory of his body over her, his enormous weight and strength carefully in control so as to not hurt her, his cock inside her as far as he could get it, hard and hot and hungry, slamming with gentle and demanding strength, caused her heart to quicken with pleasure. He was so good… So breathtakingly, unimaginably, ferociously… and at the same time so gentle… satisfying. How could a creature covered in such toughness be so monumentally erotic? This was beyond logic. He was from a different planet, a different solar system, a different species, and yet their bodies met in this gleeful crash and melded together in such an orgasmic explosion that she suddenly was afraid in her very soul of ever losing him. Love for him wrapped itself around her fragile heart and threatened to literally stop it in dread.

I love a lion. And it felt, oh heaven above; it felt like he loved me, too... But why exactly would he? And then, before she could pursue that channel of self-doubt, Grace realized she didn't care. It didn't matter to her what the logical beginning or ending this odyssey might have. She just wanted him. For however long or short, for a day or a thousand years. She wanted to be near him. For as long as it lasted. And when it was over, the memory would sustain her.

A sudden noise at the door jolted her to unwelcome reality. Her housekeeper, Josie, was trying to get in to wake her for her first meetings. But Gavorn was there, shooing her away. Grace wasn't sure why he would be there or take it upon himself to do that, but she found herself glad he did. In her station, Grace found it very hard to put aside any sense of responsibility or to let someone else take control. When it happened, it was a rare and happy moment.

Garrus heard his guard, too, and involuntarily was swept back through the memory of the previous evening's encounter, savoring each happy detail. Slowly, though, he let himself come back to the present. There would be many more nights like that. His female, his mate, his heartbeat, would come to his bed and they would share these pleasures for long years to come. He had denied himself such tenderness throughout the first years of his life. Duty and necessity had demanded it. Now, though, he'd gotten a taste of tenderness. And it made him hungry for more, desperate for it. He'd given all he had to the rest of the galaxy, lost friends, countrymen, and his beloved commander. This was his. He earned it. He deserved it. He would take it. This lovely creature was his mate, and he cared not from whence she had come or what species she happened to have been born into. She opened herself to him so sweetly, so completely, with such trust in the face of his urgent, relentless hunger. He had felt as though he might die if he didn't plunge into her, harder and harder until finally he reached the last of his great strength and he collapsed beside her, spent. And he knew in his great heart that he would kill to protect her and what they had from this day onward. He wasn't sure if she knew the full extent of his decision. Possibly she wouldn't know for years or decades. Hopefully it would never be a necessity. But if needed, he would kill or die for this sweetness, the first he had ever experienced in all his hard life.

Grace stirred slowly, moved gently toward him in this happy embrace. "Garrus… ?"

Blue eyes opened, lazy and contented… "Gracie…"

"As much as I hate to say it, I am actually supposed to be in a meeting. I'm already late. Can you let me up?"

"No. Absolutely not. I have you, and here's where you will stay." Though he knew he would release her. It would, however, be with reluctance. She would have to persuade him.

But at that moment, both of them were shocked to attention. Her Defense Minister, Jai-dim Kobel, began to literally bang on the door as though he intended to break it down. "Open this door!" He was shouting as though he needed to address half the nation with a broken microphone. "Open it! Open it now! Open it or I'll call the Royal Guard!" At the same time they could hear Gavorn, who was at least as imposing as Garrus, having been chosen specifically as a personal body guard to the Second-an individual who was in effect his own one-turian SWAT team-try not to hurt the little human and at the same time stop him from the intrusion that Garrus had forbidden.

In the interest of averting an interplanetary incident, Grace opened the door. She had reluctantly put on a robe before she did so, though for a long moment she contemplated opening the door completely naked just to embarrass the little pasty-faced troll. "Jai-dim ?" She stood in the doorway, blocking him from entering the room. "Why are you addressing your Queen-Elect in this manner?" She was nearly as tall as he, and stared him directly in the face unblinking.

Jai-dim stood for a second, uncertain. The half-bred idiot had never dared to meet him head on, Queen-Elect or not. Not really. She surely knew her base-born father kept her from being his equal. This went without saying. He just bowed to keep up appearances. Being an Elitist, Jai-dim was as he had always been, unflappably assured of his superiority to any inferior, be it a half-bred, a Commoner or an alien.

"The Second is with you?" Jai-dim could just barely bring himself to say it. The half-bred had actually allowed that thing into her bedroom. Into her bed? Into…. Her? Was she truly that stupid?

"Uhm. Yes. Garrus is with me. I'll be in my morning meetings shortly. Can this not wait?"

Behind her, Garrus knew that this Jai-dim, whom he had never liked or trusted, was a major player in this attempt to keep them separated. It was clear, written all over his easily readable human face. The disgust that this human felt at the mention of Garrus was unmistakable. It had always been there, from the first time they had met. Jai-dim was one of the most sleazy and disreputable creatures of any race that he had met in a long time. But, having been appointed, both he and Grace were essentially stuck with him.

Nausea literally swept over Jai-dim. He could not speak for a long moment. "Yes, Highness." He was finally able to talk. "It can wait until you are in chambers." He left, and found himself almost running at the end of the hall, once he was out of sight. He had to find a privy, had to throw up… The half-bred idiot still found a way to get herself laid by a giant cricket. This was bad news. Very bad news. The turians were very popular with the Commoners. Just as the half-bred idiot was popular. This would not do. These tiny minds could not think for themselves, could not govern themselves, could not be allowed to do as they pleased. This had to stop.

The meeting had not gone well. Whatever business needed to be discussed had been pushed to the background. Jai-dim had launched onto the floor in his outrage.

Grace was baffled. Why did the Council care? She hadn't disgraced any upstanding Elitist.

Oh, no. She was a member of the royal household; she was supposed to have known that it was a treaty action. That this was impossible. They were not the same species. This was abomination.

Grace was outraged. We shall put this to vote.

No, we shall not. By ancient K'OrSachean law, handed down by those who broke the Zeeni crypts, the rule belonged to the Elites, the Ones Who Liberated All. The Commoners, the ones who were relegated to life outside the caves: farming, factory life, maintenance and servitude to the Elites, could not rule. They could have only the most specific of responsibilities and education only as high as and as specialized as their professions needed. They did not have valid arguments. They were too simple, had to be cared for. To ask them to vote was cruel.

And it was treason for even a Queen to say otherwise.

She leapt to her feet at that. "Are you insane! Are all of you so monumentally crazy as to think that these people, these Commoners as you so ungraciously call them, are children, simple-minded peasants, villagers, half-wits that require your care? They are scientists, engineers, scholars, geneticists, and teachers. But you wouldn't know that because you so carefully separate yourselves from them. They are parents, and they are children, and they are elderly. And they all have hearts, and souls, and minds that are free in spite of the bonds of their daily lives. They work tirelessly for long hours, seeking excellence in all that they do, hoping that someday you will trust them with the decisions of their own lives. You tax them into poverty, dictate to them what direction their lives will go, even what discipline their children will go into, and continue to stand on their necks.

"Well they are not idiots, nor are they sheep. They have a right to the vote. They have a right to say that you will no longer rule them with your arbitrary mandates, taking all that they do and all that they produce for your own selfish goals. And I have a right to take what love is offered from wherever it may come from!"

Jai-dim leapt up, too at that. "Blasphemy! She sleeps with the alien, and now she says the government that has kept the peace for thousands of years is useless! That we are irrelevant! She is inciting civil war, committing treason by even suggesting that our way of life and our government be abolished! She must die! We should have known that such a half-bred creature as she would not be able to rule responsibly. Her mother failed us when she produced this flawed thing before us! We were right to bar her from marriage or producing an heir! The Chehada line must be destroyed once and for all!"

"Then kill me! When you've martyred me, we'll see how these simple cattle feel about it! Go on, televise your civilized application of Ancient Law! Show them how merciful you really are!"

Members of Council jumped from their seats then. "She dies! And her alien lover dies with her!"

And this was the entanglement, although Grace's plan was not to lose her head on public television. It was, instead, to break ancient law and give the people their vote. She believed, whole-heartedly, that it was time for her people to be released from the bonds of this ancient and crippling rule. She had watched the television shows and documentaries, the political debates and listened to the schools until she knew that, if her people were ever going to be able to truly leap into the modern times of the civilizations around them, that they had to be allowed to think for themselves.

She had not, however, planned to involve Garrus. This was what shocked and horrified her. That Council actually said out loud that the alien could be executed next to her. Oh, no, he could not. They could not jeopardize the turian treaty by threatening the life of the Second. They could not go to war with the benefactors who were becoming more popular every day. There had not been an execution of anyone, let alone a state figure, in centuries. And if there was going to be one, by heaven and ancient Earth, she would go alone. They would not take Garrus, too, and she told them so. This was not his fight. It was hers, begun out of love for her people and for him.