Obedience

Obedience
Isabella Jordan
Second Edition
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2024 Isabella Jordan
An Authorized Excerpt

Meela stared into the flowing red river before kneeling on the grassy bank to sulk. The red colored water rushing by her looked like blood. There were so many red rivers on the planet that they'd looked like veins on its surface to Meela when the star cruiser she'd traveled in approached it earlier.

Now that she was here, she wished that someone had told her to throw herself in the river. Her nurse had only told her to take a walk to calm her mind. It was a rare freedom for Meela. Probably her last.

Today was the day Meela had been preparing for her whole life. Later today she would be presented to the queen of this planet along with two other princesses from neighboring planets. The queen would then allow her sons to each choose the girl he wanted for his bride beginning with her oldest son, her heir.

It wasn't that Meela minded the arranged marriage. She was a princess after all and her duty was to her people. Her marriage to a Prince of Nelot, the strongest planet with the most powerful army in the system, would ensure the protection of her people. She'd been promised in marriage since her birth and all of her teachings were in preparation for fulfilling this obligation.

Meela accepted that.

But when she was sixteen, the Queen of Nelot, a sorceress she was to find out, paid a visit to Meela and her family on their home planet, Bano. She wanted to meet Meela, considering one day she would be the bride of one of her sons.

The queen was pleased with Meela. A little too pleased in fact. She explained to Meela's parents that their daughter was indeed beautiful, cultured and intelligent -- befitting a Princess of Nelot. But she felt those very virtues put Meela in danger from others and from herself until the wedding, so she placed an enchantment upon Meela. From that day forward, Meela would be obedient, would do whatever she was told, until her future husband arranged her release from the spell.

Her life had been misery ever since.

At first, Meela and her family didn't realize just what curse had been bestowed upon her. A few nights later Meela became angry at her father for not allowing her some privilege. She sat complaining in her rooms while her nurse brushed her hair. Finally her frustrated nurse told her to hold her tongue.

It had taken several hours for the entire family to discover that someone had to tell Meela to let go of her tongue before she could pry her fingers away.

It got worse. While her parents enjoyed their new power over Meela, the power to make her work at her studies longer and attend royal functions in their places, soon they learned there was a danger to the curse. Once, one of Meela's friends at court had dared her to kiss the handsome visiting ambassador from the planet Dalu. Unable to stop herself, she'd walked right up to the man and kissed him full on the mouth.

Her parents had been so alarmed by the turn of events that she was placed under the strictest watch until the time of her wedding. No more fun outings with her friends. No more boring royal functions even. Meela was only allowed to attend the most important celebrations on her planet, and then only for a short time with at least a dozen people watching her every movement. They might as well have locked her away in a prison.

Perhaps that is what the Queen of Nelot had intended when she'd placed the enchantment on her.

Years passed while the Princes of Nelot fought off one legion of intruders to their system after another, the stories of their glorious victories painting them as great warriors. By the time the Queen of Nelot sent for Meela for the bridal selection and subsequent wedding, she was twenty-seven, going out of her mind with boredom, and had taken to finding creative ways of watching the private activities of guests to the palace. It was as close as she had ever come to having sex after all.

And now that she was here on Nelot, ready to be selected by one of the queen's sons and do her duty for her parents and her people, she was pretty damned unhappy. Wasn't it enough of a sacrifice to have the person she'd spend her life with, share a bed with and have children for, chosen for her? Then to have the hateful curse of obedience placed on her, robbing her of her last years of freedom?

Meela no longer wanted to marry any son of the woman who had done this to her. Meela didn't even want to meet the princes.

"It's not fair," Meela grumbled at her reflection far below in the red water.

"What's not fair?"

That deep male voice alerted her to the fact that she was no longer alone. With as much composure as she could muster, Meela turned her head slowly. She was unescorted, without any of her attendants who understood her enchantment, for the first time since she had kissed the ambassador at court. The pace of her heartbeat grew along with her anxiety.

"That I can't stay and enjoy this beautiful view," Meela said in her best royal voice with her practiced princess smile.

Yet she forgot all about how she was to speak or smile as she gazed at the two men standing before her, their dress indicating that they were common soldiers of the planet. They looked very much alike, both tall men with bodies of steel, the snug black uniforms they wore revealing that they were all hard, firm muscles.