Stolen Dream

Chapter Six

Keyvon stared moodily out over the open sea from his precarious perch on a rocky outcropping. His mood as turbulent as the water around him, threatening to pull him from his perch and send him careening into the abyss.

He wouldn't mind that some days.

He was incredibly lonely for someone nearly always surrounded by people, and the thought of being taken away by the water was more appealing some days than others.

This was one of those days.

He wasn't lacking for companionship. He could have nearly any pet, any companion he wanted. Even women weren't an object if that's what he wanted. It wasn't that he didn't want a woman. It was that he wanted the right woman. He wanted to find his mate.

His father was loathe to let him wander the sea. Keyvon was the Sovereign's only son and heir. It was more prudent, to the Sovereign's way of thinking, to have every eligible girl in the region come to him little by little.

Keyvon was tired of meeting all the women that weren't for him.

There was another group coming that very evening and he wanted to hide away from them. Only the thought that, perhaps, this time, the right one would be there drew him home to meet them...despite his strong doubts to the contrary.

He trusted his instincts, but he also didn't want to take the chance that they might be wrong this time. He sighed heavily and leaped into the current, letting it carry him down and away from his perch towards home.

"Ah, there you are," his father greeted, his booming voice nearly sending a pulse through the water.

"Father," Keyvon greeted, inclining his head respectfully.

The Sovereign smiled and motioned his son forward. "Meet today's lovely group of ladies," he invited, waving his hand towards the small group of women huddled together, staring longingly around.

Fear. Desire. Curiosity. Annoyance. Self-importance...and so on and so forth. They were feeling a multitude of emotions, none of them surprise or true interest—at least, not interest in him. In the crown, in the power, in the prestige, absolutely. In him? No.

"Nice you meet you all. I hope you have a marvelous time," he told them graciously, then turned and left.

His father wouldn't be happy, but he had something else driving him now. An instinct that he could no longer put off or ignore. He had the terrible feeling that his father had been right all along.

He had to find Rave.

He knew, just knew, that she was the one he needed to find. Not for his father, or her parents, or her grieving friends, but for him. It didn't matter that his father had sworn to uphold the law if she was found, no matter the circumstances. He had to find her.

Now the big question was: where to start. He didn't know very much of the world above the water. No one did if they wanted to live. Only a few select researchers given special permission by the crown were allowed to study humans—more for the protection of their own kind than for strictly scientific reasons.

Keyvon knew he wouldn't be able to glean any information from them without his father getting wind of his interest, but he had a pretty good cover already in place. His father had given him the case. He had every right, every obligation even, to turn over every rock in his search for Rave.

He made a bee-line for the researcher's guild. It was a massive cave grouping where the researchers lived. He went right to the top, the head researcher, Novo. "Hello, Novo."

Novo looked up from the fork he was studying and smiled in welcome. "Keyvon, how nice to see you. It's not often you grace our halls."

"I have some questions for you."