Duties to the Throne

Chapter 1 - To Be Mad

It wasn’t news who the parents of the mate-to-be were. Kakarott was a highly decorated Commander in the King’s Royal Crusaders. His exploits of mating with an Earthling named Chichi had earned looks of disapproval, raising questions as to how strong his child could be with both weak and powerful blood. The contract between King Vegeta and the commander had not been removed, so the people were almost certain the Kainin-Sho was not as weak as his mother.

If there was anyone unhappy with the arrangement, it was the two mates-to-be. Gohan, the Kainin-Sho, was probably the more furious of the two. His life had been arranged without him even knowing it until a week before. Plans to be a scholar in Saiyajin History had been washed down the drain when his mother had explained about his own father’s prior arrangements with the King. At least, Gohan growled, dad is coming home to hand me to the Prince. I can kill both of them before the ceremony’s even over.

Darting through the overgrowth of the Western Forest, just south of his home in Uysu, Vegeta-Sei's rural lands, Gohan pushed his legs to move faster. The moment his mother had told him that he was to be mated off the next moon cycle, just before his first rutting period, the teen had felt dread. He had heard the rumor about the prince, who was so arrogant to the world around and was impossible to handle. The fact that his mate was a Saiyajin made the situation worst. The fact that he was getting sent off to birth children for another male hadn't even made an impact with his thoughts. All he could think about was how he was marrying a brute, a man who lacked the reasoning ability and thus opted to use brute force to solve all of life's problems.

Most Saiyajin’s despised the Earthen race -- especially their reasoning that war was a last option. Having learned those beliefs from his mother, Gohan felt that any battle could be pushed off if the two races talked it through. “I am going to hate him.” Gohan scowled, falling back against a tree to watch the sky above. He’d spent summers with his grandfather on earth, so the landscape of the Saiyajin planet had always astonished his sense of art. A purple sky laced in gray darkened the planet. It was a serene painting rather than a place for a race of power-starved monkeys. A smirk fell on the half-breed’s face as his tail tightened around his leg, a reminder that a tiny part of him strived best in battle and possession.

He almost didn’t catch an unfamiliar ki coming towards him until a bald man fell from a tree. The bulky man looked up, his royal uniform shifting under his bulging muscles. Gohan took a deep breath, stepping back as his own ki level spiked just enough to warn the other man he didn’t want to be messed with. “Kainin-Sho?” The man asked. Scowling at the title, Gohan nodded. “Ah, good! Your ma asked me to come get ya. What if your mate were to be traveling in these parts? Bad luck for the two of you to meet before the tail twist.” He crossed his arms and smirked. Gohan turned.

“I wasn’t heading towards the capital, I just need to run a little.”

“Stupid half breed. That includes the rest of Vegeta-Sei. Back home with you, get in your robes. You earthlings will ruin this planet yet!” The man never touched the younger boy, his own ki working as a force to push Gohan back towards his home. Knowing it was no use to fight it, the brunette turned and fled, never looking back at the man who had stepped in on his run.

Back in the field, the bald man’s arms remained crossed as he waited. Five minutes passed, then ten. Finally, a ki approached his form and he threw his hand out, stopping the Saiyajin prince from getting any closer to the Uysu region. “Off to see your Kainin-Sho, Prince Vegeta?”

“Fuck off, Nappa. I’m going to tell his idiot parents to cancel the pact with my father!” The young prince levitated towards a branch to get a bird’s eye view of the little circular hut in the distance. The home of his future mate, the bane of his existence, was within his reach. “Someone was here.” He looked down, trying to find where the person had come from. The unfamiliar scent lead back towards the hut in the distance. The scowl deepened on the prince’s face, “You saw him?”

“Oh yea,” Nappa smirked, the tip of his tail wagging happily. The motion wasn’t lost on the dark haired man on the tree branch. “You’ll have to wait to see him in a week.”

“Ch. Probably looks like his father, I refuse to agree to any marriage with a half-breed.” The prince turned his head away before returning towards the Capital. Standing still for a second, Nappa waited before bending down to grab his head with a howl. If there was anyone who hated this mating the most, it was him, because he was the one who had to make sure neither mate saw each other before the ceremony.

As long as the Commander was establishing foreign ties with their most recent conquest, it left him alone to maintain a healthy pre-marriage. But if anyone was going to prove to be difficult, it was Vegeta. “Captain Raditz had better start taking care of his nephew.”

Vegeta was pissed. Not only was his marriage fast approaching, but he was also forced to suffer taunts from both Nappa and Raditz about what his Kainin-Sho looked like. Nappa described horror, a half-breed of green scales and purple fur. Raditz commented on the boy’s mannerisms and behavior. Agitated, the prince was tempted to make another dart towards Uysu to see just who was going to be his princess. “Settle down, Vegeta.” Nappa waved his hand, stretching his thick legs.

Two nights before the ceremony, the purple skies were tinted gray with the promise of the twin moons. The moons cycled once every fifty years and were deemed sacred by the Saiyajin race. Unlike other planets, full moons that promised transformation, the fifty-year moon lacked the luminosity to bring forth the Ôzaru inside each of them. Had it been any other time, Vegeta knew he would have been looking forward to seeing the twin moons the first time without the costly transformation. “I’d rather,” he admitted over a glass of Voskin Whisky (a strong drink that hit even the toughest of Saiyajin guts), “fight for my last day of freedom.”

From his own glass, Raditz snorted at a personal joke he dare not share with his companions, “You make it sound like my nephew is going to chain you down. Give him a good book now and then and he’ll leave you alone. The royal library will keep him busy for three, four weeks max. Then give him a pat on the head every now and then.”

“When I mated Jijun,” Nappa smirked, “I thought I had it made. She was such a fox in bed; the sweatier I was, the hornier she was. Man those were the days.”

Dark brows twitched as the Prince poured himself another glass. “And how are my problems going to be solved when you haven’t been home now for months?”

“It’s the principle of the matter. When I first meet Jijun as a kid, she was a pain in the neck. Always fighting, tearing apart souls, stomping on dreams – my dream girl. She was like that for awhile into our mating and then she became the thing that scowls at me for coming in with a dirty uniform and – ugh, what was I saying again?” The bald man looked into his amber liquid as Raditz roared with laughter.

“So what, if I fuck him hard enough he will move back in with his parents and leave me be?”

“Oi! Don’t talk about my nephew like some Vixen Whore, no matter how hot his mom is…” Raditz groaned. “Fucking Kakarott got everything – he, the weak baby brother!” Raditz shattered the glass in his hand. Fearing for the alcohol he had yet to consume, Nappa pulled the whisky towards himself as Vegeta summoned for another glass for his ‘honored guest’. Chanting for more booze, Raditz threw his head back, swallowing the contents of his glass. Without a second glass, Vegeta refilled the contents before resting back in his seat to watch his companions take their alcohol, himself taking a more watered down wine from the Nebulas of Hondaru.

After what felt like hours passed by before his guests fell asleep in a drunken stupor and Vegeta found the time to escape, with just a buzz. He had to stop his own mating before it was too late! Without Nappa stopping him now, he could probably make it to Uysu before anyone noticed he was gone.

His mate lived in such a commoner’s domain, complete with Earthen architecture. It was an embarrassment that he would have such a lower class being sleeping in his own bed, birthing his future heirs. His father must have been on the sauce then to actually think something like this would make anyone happy. Landing just south of the house, Vegeta scanned the area looking for all signs of life. Commander Kakarott was outside the little hut, enjoying a soak to relieve himself of the stresses from diplomacy. Inside the home was the commander’s wife, Chichi, and the Kainin-Sho.

He had forgotten that the Commander had returned to the planet. It was no wonder Nappa had taken to Vegeta’s company rather than scouting between the two mates, keeping them apart. There was no way that the idiot of a commander, who preached peace and violence as a last option, would listen to him. “Damn it.” Vegeta slammed his fist into the thick trunk of a nearby tree. If it wasn’t for that idiot Nappa overstepping his boundaries, ordering a Prince around, then it was going to be his idiot-mate’s father who had the King wrapped around his finger. If trade with the planet Earth weren’t so fucking important, he would blast a hole into the irritable Saiyajin. “Ch.”

“Prince Vegeta, you know better than to come see your mate before the ceremony.”

Turning fast (and shocked that he hadn’t felt the foreign ki signature), Vegeta crossed his arms. “Admiral Burdock.” He nodded his head towards the aging warrior who had protected his people against Freiza’s reign during his younger days. “Like I would come to see my mate, your grandson,” He lied through his teeth. “No I was traveling to welcome the Commander back.”

“Feed your lies to the dogs, boy. Raditz already warned me of your distaste for your upcoming ceremony. Your father was the same way. When his days as a free man were numbered, he ran to Lanka-Seven to join the forces. Your granddaddy, rest his soul, was so ashamed at the dishonor put on the royal clan for your father’s cowardice.”

“Father is a great warrior, never once did he cower at his fate. He brought several budding planets to Vegeta-Sei’s control.” Vegeta defended his upbringing, fully aware of the fact that his father had joined the Royal Armed Forces under an alias. Now the proud king talked sweetly of his mate, the woman so weak as to have died during childbirth. “This is a waste of time.” He turned to leave, but Burdock wasn’t done, the aging Saiyajin making a throaty noise.

“My grandson won’t dishonor you or his family. His only goal is to make people happy, even if it means leaving his childhood behind. I won’t lie to you, my liege, he will be difficult at first, but if you show him some kindness to the situation, he will be the princess Vegeta-Sei deems him to be as well as an excellent mother and fighter. He was, in fact, trained by me and his own father.”

Vegeta scoffed at the idea of a half-breed being equal to a full blood Saiyajin. He’d seen the few Earth forces; though powerful to a limit, they weren’t spectacular compared to other races. Even the more peaceful planet of Namek had a far stronger elite than the weak planet. It only led him to believe that the offspring of those Earthlings couldn’t be any more powerful than their parents, even with the aid of Saiyajin blood. “Demented fool, a true princess wouldn’t aspire to be a librarian.”

“Is that what Raditz told you? Sometimes I’m ashamed to call him my son. He wanted to be a scholar in war tactics – that way, he can study and have the company of books, and still follow the call to battle. He’s a smart kid, having him on just the battle, even to order troops, would be a waste of that head of his. I think you should head back to the castle now. I promise you, the last thing you’ll feel is disappointment when you meet my grandson, your bride.” Burdock smiled widely, his large hand slapping the prince in the back, pushing the man back in the direction towards the Capital. “Now get lost or I’ll get my other son to escort you back. I don’t think Kakarott or his lovely wife would appreciate you bringing dishonor on them or their son.”

Pushing the hand away from him, Vegeta gracefully left the site, only scowling once at the aging warrior left behind.

The remaining days of his bachelorhood went fast before Vegeta even realized what was going on. He had been ushered to the baths earlier that morning so the maids could bathe him with the finest soaps that overpowered even his sharp sense of smell. Part of him thought that maybe the smell was to cover up his Kainin-Sho’s heat, but he doubted that was the reason. The thought that he would be forced to throw himself into heat just to please his ancestors and the future of Vegeta-sei pissed himself off the most. The sooner he had a son, the less time he would be allowed to be on the throne after his own father finally died. He had waited too long to rule to be usurped by his own heir.

But if he called the mating off before the ceremony, he would be in trouble. He would be accused of having met his mate prior to the ceremony and that would dishonor the throne. Vegeta gazed at the marble columns in his baths, trying to figure out his next plan of action. By the time the moons raised above Vegeta-Sei’s castle, he would be a mated man off on his honeymoon, forced to bring home a pregnant…

His thoughts fell to a screech. The weeks after his ceremony, he would be expected to knock up his Kainin-Sho before returning to the planet, but if the mate wasn’t pregnant, it wouldn’t be his fault. It would be this Gohan’s fault. A proper submissive mate knew just how to attract her dominant and get pregnant – to do her job. If Vegeta could fight back against the primal urge to have sex, he could get out of this marriage without any repercussions. It could all be Kakarott’s inept son’s fault the mating didn’t work out. The commander and his family would be run off the planet, bringing an end to all of Vegeta’s problems!

Holding his arms out as the metal plating of his uniform was attached, followed by the gold jewels of the kings past, Vegeta couldn’t hide the smirk on his face. He would play his father’s game today, but he wouldn’t fall victim to the spiraling trap of mating for life.

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