AN: So sorry for the delay! I just completely spaced it yesterday. :P Thanks for reviews you have left! I love seeing them, and I'm happy that you like the story so far! I hope it continues to live up to your expectations. :)

Chapter 11

Vegeta once again grudgingly trudged down the royal hall toward his father's reception hall. Yet another sure-to-be useless meeting berating him for not taking a mate. It hadn't been that long since his return from liberating Elor from invading mercenaries and recovering from a potentially deadly poisoning attack, but he knew his father would have been badgering him from his coma bed if he thought there would be any use.

He shrugged his shoulders at the unnecessary weight of the cape his father required for meetings. Such formalities were a waste of time, in his opinion, but he knew he had to allow the king some of his more frivolous requests, especially since he was outright denying his most important one.

The prince paused before the ornate doors, took a deep breath, and pushed the doors open. He sauntered into the room, quickly noticing that the large space was uncharacteristically devoid of people. It always seemed there was a surplus of random people milling about—servants, attendants, acquaintances, visiting rulers and their retinue… It was oddly empty.

In the king's chair sat his father, regal as always with the perfect posture of royalty. On his left was his personal attendant who went everywhere the king did. On his right was an unknown woman. She was a tall saiyan woman with long black hair flowing down her back, confident looking with almond-shaped eyes, a delicate nose, and full lips. He spared her an inquisitive glance before turning his gaze back to his father.

"What is this meeting all about, father?"

Vegeta was notably absent during the day's training which was led by Nappa. They had been split into groups to utilize different stations. Bulma was able to focus slightly better since she didn't have the ever-present pull of his presence, but she was also creating things in her head which proved ample enough distraction.

She was nudged a bit sharply when she didn't take her turn with the training bot quickly enough. She jerked her head around, ready to lay into whoever had done it only to meet Yamcha's uncharacteristically cold eyes. Her half open mouth froze on her expletive.

"You're up. You weren't moving," he said flatly. Her eyebrows forked in confusion at his tone, but she turned back around and proceeded with the bot.

She caught up with Yamcha after he had finished, placing a hand on his upper arm. She was caught off guard when he flinched his arm out of her grasp.

"Hey, what's your deal?" she questioned testily.

"You were wasting our time," he said shortly. She recoiled like she had been slapped. He never had this kind of attitude before—she didn't like it. As he was walking away, she took him by the shoulder and swung him back to face her.

"You have something to say? Say it. This is childish, whatever you're doing," she said sternly. His frown deepened.

"You seemed awfully… preoccupied," he said, sneering at the word. She looked at him quizzically.

"Yeah…" she replied slowly, "I've been puzzling out a part of a new project. I got distracted."

"Oh really," he drawled, unconvinced. "I thought maybe you were pining."

"Pining?" Bulma didn't understand where this was coming from.

"Well, he's not here today, so you can't actually stare at him now. Gotta make do with your memories, I suppose."

Bulma froze. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said slowly and deliberately.

"You know," he continued, "I'm pretty sure the prince is plenty safe in his bed. But I suppose you just like to go above and beyond, don't you?"

Her jaw dropped. She was not expecting that… Yamcha turned and walked away, leaving her in a stunned silence. She couldn't even hear Nappa calling an end to the day over the roaring in her ears.

Why was he so mad? Would he tell anyone? Would he tell everyone? Would her reputation turn to that of the pathetic woman who slept her way to the top? She knew that wasn't the case, but who would believe her? It was more believable that she wanted this from the beginning than that it was just something that happened and that there may be actual feelings there. (Wait, were there…? She'd need to unpack that later.) All anyone would see is a lowly third class who saw this as her ticket up—in the prince's bed. Sure, this was her ticket up, but on her own skill and hard work.

Shit…

Bulma sat sternly at the table eating the seemingly tasteless food on her plate. It all tasted like ash.

"Wonder why he's over there today…" Goku mused, nodding toward Yamcha who was sitting at a table across the room with another group of elites. It's not that he never talked to those guys, but he never sat with them. "He seemed mad earlier, too. He's been off all day."

Chichi happened to look toward Bulma who gave her a concerned look. Chichi's eyes widened with understanding, and she cleared her throat. "Maybe he didn't sleep well. We'll leave him his space." She patted his arm with a smile and turned her eyes back to Bulma's with a clear "we'll talk later" message. It couldn't happen soon enough. Bulma needed to talk all of this through. She was also anxious because she hadn't seen Vegeta all day. She could still faintly sense him through the constant pull, so she could tell he was in the building, but what was he doing? She assumed it had to be some sort of official business to keep him away all day as he was very involved in the training of his elites.

She felt a kick under the table and jerked to attention. Chichi's eyes met hers, giving her a pointed look and nodding slightly to her food which was sitting there relatively untouched, her fork limp in her hand. She adjusted her grip on the utensil and began shoveling the bland food into her mouth, knowing the sooner she was finished the sooner she could leave and she and Chichi could talk through this disaster.

She swallowed the last bite, pushed her plate away, and stood up. "Well, I'm ready to leave," she announced, picking her plate and positioning herself to flee the cafeteria. Goku blinked at her and grabbed his empty plate while Chichi ate the last bit from hers and followed suit. Bulma didn't wait and made her way to the exit knowing they would catch up.

When the trio made it back to their living quarters hallway without any suggestion of anything else to do that night by Goku—either he sensed it or, more likely, Chichi told him not to—Bulma grabbed Chichi's arm and pulled her to her room. "Girls' night!" she called back to a bewildered Goku as they disappeared into her quarters. As the doors shut behind them, Bulma let out a sigh and dragged herself over to her couch, collapsing.

"What a fucking mess…" she lamented. Chichi sat herself next to Bulma and watched her for a moment.

"Okay, what happened with Yamcha?"

Bulma sighed and went through what transpired earlier, seeing the same emotions she had at the time fly across her friend's face.

"Well…" Chichi said slowly, "the good news is that it's nothing that's expressly forbidden."

"Maybe not, but you know what they'll say about me," Bulma continued. Chichi sighed and nodded. Of course Bulma was right, unfortunately.

"Maybe we can talk to him," Chichi offered. Bulma shrugged.

"If you can get him to listen. He certainly won't listen to me. He believes what I suppose anyone would—and he knows me."

Chichi patted her shoulder. "He might listen to me. He won't listen to you because he's hurt. He has a thing for you, so this was a slap in the face." Bulma jerked her head toward Chichi; she hadn't made that connection. "He may be more receptive to listening to me because he doesn't feel spurned by me."

Bulma opened her mouth to counter only to have Chichi hold up a hand. "I know you didn't intend it, but he probably feels it nonetheless. Either way, I'm more removed so he hopefully won't shut me out right away. I may be able to get through to him." Bulma pursed her lips and slowly nodded. She was right. Bulma was too close to it.

"That's not my only problem," Bulma said quietly after a bit of silence. Chichi raised her brows at that.

"Uh oh," she replied dryly, "what else?"

"Well…" Bulma stated, not sure how to say it. "You remember telling me about the bond thing?" Chichi's hand shot up to the healed marks on her neck instantly. Her eyes narrowed at her blue-haired friend.

"Yes…?"

"Umm…" Bulma felt sweat form on the back of her neck from the awkwardness. "So… last night while we were… uh…" She gestured vaguely with her hands, and Chichi hurriedly waved her on—she got it. "Yeah, anyway… It got to the point where all I could think of was biting him or him biting me. And he was unusually attentive to my neck..."

Chichi shuddered at the familiarity of her friend's recounting. "You're right," she finally said. Bulma looked at her questioningly. Chichi smirked at her. "Yamcha was not your only problem."

Bulma's mind was reeling as she made her way through the halls. She hadn't seen Vegeta all day, and she knew she should mention the stuff Chichi had told her about bonding from her personal experience and how Bulma had been experiencing the same thing, but she was worried about his reaction to that kind of revelation. It was, in essence, like telling him they were soul mates. Who wants to hear that from their new booty call? At least… that's what she thought of this whole situation. But was that what this was? It certainly felt more to her than physical, though the physical was quite powerful and definitely in the forefront at this moment.

Either way, bonding or Yamcha or whatever nonsense was going on right now, what she needed right now was him. She kept an eye on the halls, trying to keep her guard up and avoid any other wanderers.

She rounded the corner to Vegeta's hallways, his doorway the sole entry at the end. That pull snapped her forward, her speed picking up as she progressed down the too-long hallway. She was almost there when the door opened, and there he was. She could feel the longing emanating from him snake across her skin, and she broke into a run, covering the short distance in a second before launching herself into his arms. Their lips crashed together in a desperate melding of flesh. His hands were all over her. It felt as if they hadn't seen each other in months rather than the mere 24 hours that had transpired since they had last touched.

"Vegeta…" Bulma breathed as he had her pinned against the wall. "There are some things we need to talk ab-aaaahhh…" She drifted off as his teeth grazed her neck. She was lost for minutes in his ministrations, sending all conscious thought from her.

Fuck it, she thought, we'll talk after. She grabbed his face in between her hands, wrenching him away from that delightful spot on her neck to bring his lips to hers in a searing kiss. There was no way she was stopping this.

Bulma lay curled up against him in post-coital bliss, her head and hand on his chest while his arm rested around her. Now that the fog of passion had dissipated slightly, she was trying to figure out how to bring up her concerns. She had decided that the Yamcha aspect of it was the least stressful one of the two—at least as far as Vegeta was concerned, surely. That was going to be her first topic, but she didn't know how to say it.

"So… where were you all day?" she said instead, breaking the comfortable silence. She felt Vegeta give a slight shrug.

"Meetings with my father and other state matters."

That was essentially what Bulma had suspected, but she would have been interested in more details; if only to allow her more time to figure out what to say. She took a deep breath. Better just out with it.

"Yamcha knows," she blurted. She felt Vegeta stiffen, but she wasn't sure if the reaction was to the revelation or simply the fact that she brought up another man's name while in his bed.

"Knows what?" he finally asked.

"He saw us," she clarified. She didn't know what his reaction would be, but it was decidedly less stressed than hers had been. She felt him relax and shrug again.

"There are not any rules against it," he finally said. Bulma pushed herself up on her elbow.

"But they will think that this is how I got the position!" she objected. "That I slept my way to the top!"

"Well, you didn't," he said matter of factly. Bulma gave him an incredulous look.

"But everyone will say I did, Vegeta."

"So? They're wrong."

Bulma dropped her head down, covering her face with her hands. "You act like they will believe that."

"Why do you care?" he questioned, soundly truly confused at her distress.

"They will treat me differently, Vegeta. They will not respect me. I will be seen as a mistress," she lamented, looking at him. She noticed his eyes change when she mentioned the word mistress, though. Something flashed—something that seemed like frustration or anger—then he looked away.

"What? What is it?" she questioned, following after him as he turned away, moving to get up. She grabbed his arm, stopping him from leaving the bed entirely. He glanced at her sidelong before pulling from her grasp.

"Nothing." He crossed the room to collect his discarded clothes.

Bulma's eyebrows forked in concern. "It's very obviously not nothing, Vegeta. Tell me. Does it have to do with why you were busy all day today?" His shoulders tensed. "Ah ha!" she pointed. "Tell me."

She saw his shoulders rise and fall, settling in a resigned droop.

"I have been assigned a fiance."

AN: Oh nooo. What daddy wants, daddy gets, apparently. Guess we'll have to see how they handle this new collection of headaches!

Love you all! R&R!

- Trixie-chan