"Where the hell is she!!!?" Juunanagou demanded as he paced aimlessly back and forth across his chambers. "She was supposed to check in with me early this morning, and yet no one has seen her since last night! Tell me, Juurokugou, how the hell do you explain this!?"

Bowing his head in contemplation of the possibilities, the associate eventually offered a decisive answer. "With all due respect sir, you know how long your sister has dreamed of her return, it is no surprise that with this new freedom she does not wish to spend her timed tucked away, plotting her husband’s demise."

"Well, she had better damn well start feeling like it!" the Adajinzoun king hissed. "I have put myself in serious danger to bring her back to life. If she does not follow our plan, I could be out more than just a wife."

"Yes, you could," the large red haired man agreed somberly, "You risk quite an awful lot just to claim an onna whose heart belongs to another."

"You know nothing!" Juunanagou growled as he took a dangerous step closer to his companion. "Bulma’s heart belongs to me; she just is not yet free to realize it. Vegeta has poisoned her mind against me, all I need is some time alone with her, and she will see that I am the only man for her!"

"But sire, would it not be simpler to find a more compliant female? I mean, even if your plan succeeds, your sister takes Vegeta’s throne, she gives her ward to you in wedlock, and you and she return to reign over our people, there will always be the lingering possibility that the truth will come out, and she will hate you, even more than she does now, for all of the lies and manipulations you have spun to attain her."

"That will not happen!" Juunanagou promised as he pounded his fist into a nearby wall. Taking several long breaths, he then turned back to his partner in crime. "Find my sister, bring her back here," he announced before turning to grab his cape and throw it over his shoulders. "And make sure you are discreet. The last thing I need is to have Bulma catch a glimpse of you. Understood!?"

"Yes, sir," Juurokugou nodded swiftly in agreement.

"Excellent," the king then turned to leave. "Now, I am going to smooth things over with my bride to be, keep my sister here until I get back."

Both men then disappeared down the hall, but in opposite directions, though each to find an equally disturbing sight, come the completion of their tasks.

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Blue eyes fluttered open as a soft yawn aroused the waking onna. Blinking a few times, she ran her fingers up the hard chest she had been sleeping atop of, when suddenly the realization of the predicament she was in jerked her body into a seated position. "Oh by the gods, what was I thinking!?" she scolded herself as she jumped to her feet, scrambling to throw her clothes back on.

The Saiya-jin who had been peacefully returning to consciousness, groaned as her frightened shriek blasted through his ears. "What is all the yelling for?" Radditz rubbed his eyes as he looked upon the frantically dressing female. After shaking his head a few times to make certain he was seeing what he thought he was, Radditz jumped himself as memories from the evening before bolted through he mind. "Oh by the gods, what was I thinking!?" He repeated Juuhachigou’s question as he followed her lead by springing to his feet and pulling his combat pants back on. Once all of his more private elements were covered, he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to calm his nerves. "I can not believe I let this happen."

"You can’t!?" Juuhachigou screamed as she glared at the large man. "I am the one who is married! I can not believe I let this happen!"

Radditz swung his head around in disbelief as he repeated her confession, "you are married?!" he shrieked, "You never said anything about being married last night! You said you were pining over a lost love!"

"I am," she insisted while pulling her shoes on. "But my husband is a completely different story, I am in the process of trying to overthrow him, but an affair like this could ruin my chances. So, you have to keep your mouth shut!" She ordered as she stormed over to him, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him down till he was eyelevel with her. "Promise me you will not breathe a word of this indiscretion to anyone! Not even the little minx you are so smitten with. Got it?!"

Gently removing her hands from his shoulders, Radditz growled in frustration as he roughly reminded, "Well, it would be a little difficult to tell anyone about you, since you never told me your name!"

Taking a long breath, while silently praising herself for her absentmindedness, the Saiya-jin queen smiled. "Good, so let us keep it that way. You never met me, I never met you, and we definitely never had sex, got it?" she questioned quickly as she turned to whistle for her horse. Once the steed was by her side, she barked out a few further orders. "All right, now if anyone asks, you were hunting all evening, but never saw me. And do not start your return until I am well out of sight, we can not be seen arriving together after all," her voice was hastened as she turned to mount her horse, but she soon after stopped and turned around to the large Saiya-jin. "Oh, and by the way," she added before grabbing his shoulders as she had earlier to quickly pull his face down to hers once more, only this time to bestow upon him a passionate kiss. After several moments of drowning in one another, Juuhachigou pulled away, a devilish smirk upon her face. "You were very good," she purred before breaking from him to pull herself onto her horse. Without further intercourse, she rode off back to the castle, hopeful that her one night stand would not compromise her plans.

Radditz watched, utterly baffled as the blonde beauty he had mated with the night prior disappeared into the darkness of the surrounding trees. While gathering his clothes, to soon after return to the castle, nervousness encompassed his body. He was not certain why, but a nagging feeling told him this ‘little indiscretion’ was so much more than just that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vegeta felt a genuine smile cross his normally smirking lips as he raked his eyes over the angelic form of the princess in his arms. It had been so long that he had dreamed of this simple privilege. Being able to wake with her by his side, and not merely because of a nightmare, a frightful experience, or a fear of loneliness, but simply because she wanted to be there, because she wanted him.

Him; yes, that was what she had said last night before the bliss of sleep had overtaken them both. ‘I meant what I said earlier, about my loving you. You have my heart, you always have.’ The words had rung through his mind a thousand times. Had she truly meant it? ‘Maybe this is a sign I should never tell him how I really feel about him.’ What had she meant by ‘really’ feel? Was it possible she too held an embedded truth about the feelings he could evoke within her? Was it presumptuous for him to hope that perhaps as he has been growing in affections for her, she has for him as well?

The thought sped the palpitations in Vegeta’s heart. For so long he had desired something more between them, yet never did he dare to imagine that the once young girl he had taken into his care could grow up to be the passionate onna she was today, and see him as anything more than a guardian. But her comments and actions as of late were leading him to hope for such an impossible reality.

Of course, he could not let such desires cloud his judgment as they almost had the night prior. He had been so close to taking her, but he had stopped, knowing that she—they both deserved their first time to be done right. Not out of blinded lust, or desperate emotional need, but out of a completely consensual love that would be binding for all eternity. That was what he had failed to believe could ever exist, but now, with this precious onna he held securely in his arms, Vegeta finally knew he did. Love: untainted, entirely reciprocated, physical and emotional desire for another being. He felt it, and he could only hope that she did as well.

The sound of a soft moaning averted the king as he felt the female in his arms stir. After lightening his grip so she could contort her body into several rousing positions, he took an uncertain breath as he watched her blue eyes shine upon him. "Good morning," she whispered softly after having clearly taken a few minutes to sort out what events had occurred to bring them to the position they were now in. "I am glad you stayed," she confessed while nestling her head in the crook of his neck, it seemed she wanted to be parted from him no more than he wished to be from her.

"I promised I would," he reminded as he ran his fingers through her silky hair; for some time after, the pair lay together, basking in the mere presence of one another. Words were not needed to express the peace their union invoked; it was all too clearly felt between them. However, their peace was not to last as a banging on Bulma’s door startled the pair. "Are you expecting anyone?" Vegeta asked with a hint of suspicion, it bothered him that anyone was daring to gain access to his princess without his previous consult.

"Oh, it is probably just Radditz," Bulma explained before lifting her head slightly from Vegeta’s chest to call towards her guest. "You can come in, Radditz, the door is unlocked." She made the simple allowance before dropping her head back down against a rather bemused Vegeta. He found it somewhat curious that she had no qualms with her guard seeing her in such a position with her warden.

‘Does the low class weakling know something I do not?’ Vegeta wondered shortly before the emergence of the intruder eliminated any other thought.

"Well, well, well, is this not cozy," a venomous hiss came from Juunanagou as his observation jolted Bulma and Vegeta to both sit up right in bed.

"Juunanagou," Bulma gasped his name as she narrowed her eyes, "what the hell are you doing in my room?! I did not invite you in here!"

The king ignored the question as his eyes focused on his rival. "My, my, Vegeta, I am not sure which is more of a disgrace, the fact that you are cheating on your wife, or that you are doing it with your surrogate daughter."

Vegeta growled as he moved to jump off of the bed to proceed to pummel his fellow king, but Bulma grabbed both of his arms, stopping him before he could leave her side. "Do not let him goad you into a fight, he is not worth it!" she tried to use some discretion as she whispered her insistence. Unfortunately, Juunanagou heard her every word.

"I am not worth it!?" The icy blue-eyed man repeated her assessment with a crude laugh. "My lady, I would scarcely point fingers if I were you. I mean, it was barely two days past that you were all over me, and then last night you were fucking your guard, and now your king. You may wish to rethink your lifestyle; prostitution does not become a creature as fair as you."

Bulma lost any hope of stopping Vegeta from finishing his attack as the man, who she was once engaged to, spewed such cruel words about her. Bulma barely had a chance to scream as punches were thrown, resulting in the explosion of an all out brawl. Shooting off of bed herself, Bulma rushed to try and break the two men up, but all she received for her efforts was an elbow to her chest that would have knocked her half way across the room had two strong arms not broken her fall. "Radditz," she sighed the man’s name in relief as he released her to break up the two smaller men.

"Enough!" the brawny Saiya-jin ordered while forcing himself between the angered pair. "You two are kings, not children! You should both know how to solve your disputes through diplomacy instead of violence," he reminded wisely. Though he expected little understanding, it was becoming all too apparent to him that neither man could think clearly when the princess was involved.

"You are lucky, Vegeta, that this lap dog of yours arrived when he did, or else I would have taken victory over you again." Juunanagou never broke eye contact with his challenger, making certain he knew this was not over.

"You are delusional if you believe you can best me," Vegeta grounded out as he watched the king slowly back away from them. He felt his stomach tighten as his adversary’s eyes broke from his to gaze upon Bulma. "Enjoy her while you can, Vegeta, because before these conferences are over, it will be my bed that she sleeps in." With the bold statement, Juunanagou blew a quick kiss to Bulma and disappeared from the room with a purely evil smirk upon his face.

Radditz, who had found himself restraining his king once more, attempted to calm him. "Come on, Vegeta, you have better control than this."

Shaking his arms to break from the lower man’s grasp, Vegeta walked towards Bulma, gently grasping her arms as he asked, "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I am fine," Bulma was quick to respond, she did not need him fussing over her. "What about you?"

Vegeta turned his head to take several breaths to control his anger before responding, "I have to go." He released her to walk back to the side of the bed where he had discarded his garments the night before. After throwing on what he had to, he returned to her side and promised, "I will handle this Juunanagou mess. You need not worry, I will not let him force anything upon you, you know that, correct?" After she nodded her head in affirmation she felt his gentle lips touch hers in a brisk kiss before he pulled away from her to leave. Though, not without barking a few orders to the silent Saiya-jin who stood by watching the exchange, "You stay with her every second of every minute while I can not be with her, and by the gods, make damn certain Juunanagou stays the hell away from her as well, is that understood?!"

"Yes, sire," Radditz found the order needless, but he agreed to it anyway as his king slammed the door behind him. Once the pair was in private, Radditz raised a suspicious brow as he glanced over towards the princess’s disheveled bed. "You two didn’t…"

"No!" Bulma was quick to swear. She did not want one of her best friends to believe in the rumors she was certain were about to be circulated. "We slept together, but we did not mate. It was completely innocent."

"I am sure it was," the longhaired man chuckled sarcastically. "However, that little kiss he gave you before leaving did not seem so ‘innocent.’ Is there something you wish to tell me, saiai?"

Biting her bottom lip in consideration, Bulma moved to plop down onto her bed, tentatively answering, "I am not certain, actually." She reflected upon the evening’s events, "Vegeta and I came to some kind of understanding last night. One in which, I believe, should this Juuhachigou mess all end well, Vegeta will," she paused, lifting her eyes to somewhat awkwardly meet those of her guard, "court me."

"Haha, I knew it!" Radditz clapped his hands together in triumph. "I should have put a wager on my instincts, they are never wrong!" he asserted while taking a seat next to his protectorate. "So he finally confessed that he was in love with you?!"

Bulma felt her lips fall as he made the false conclusion. "Well, not actually, he just said that he was interested in pursuing something with me," she felt herself sink a little lower, before voicing a somewhat optimistic spin on the facts, "but at least that is a start. I mean, I cannot expect him to fall in love with me overnight. He needs time, and I will give him as much as he needs." She vowed with gusto, she had already waited so many years, what was a few more? "But enough about my problems," Bulma was ready for a new subject, "how was the rest of your evening? I did feel awful that Vegeta and my conversation kicked you out of your own room. I hope you were not banished for too long."

Radditz choked out a few muttered words before answering clearly, "No, actually it turned out all right."

Bulma raised a brow as she noted the man’s nervous demeanor. After taking a few moments to assess his tone and attitude, like a bolt of lighting, a shocking conclusion came to her as she jumped off of her bed and pointed an accusing finger at him, "Oh my gods, you had sex, didn’t you?!"

The large man could do little but drop his jaw in utter disbelief as she made such a bold suggestion. "I am going to pretend you did not just ask me that," he rose to his feet, crossing his arms defensively.

"Then tell me I am wrong," Bulma challenged with a widening grin on her face. "Ah, come on, Radditz! You know every detail of my personal life!! You have to share with me what happened. Is it someone I know? An old flame? A new acquaintance? Is she Saiya-jin? How did it happen? Were you drunk at the time?"

"You would have thought so," Radditz grumbled under his breath, halting the younger woman’s inquisition immediately.

"Ah, so it was a fling!" Bulma deduced from his comment while grabbing his arm and pulling him back down on the bed next to her. "All right, give me details."

Radditz took several hesitant breaths before he reluctantly confessed what he had been sworn not to. Delving into the events surrounding his chance encounter with the mystery female up until his accepted proposal of a midnight ride, Radditz spared no details until he came to the end of their ride where they had stopped for what was supposed to be a short rest. "I am just not certain what happened," he whispered his bewilderment aloud. "One minute we were wallowing in our combined misery and the next we were mating. I still am not certain what I was thinking; I never give into my feelings of lust so recklessly. But I did, and the next thing either of us knew we awoke under the bright light of the sun, both of us regretting our hastiness."

Bulma frowned as she noticed the depression in the man’s voice. "So how were things left?"

Radditz shrugged, not certain of the answer himself; "Well, apparently she is married, but estranged from her husband. At least that is what I gathered from what little she said. She made me swear to tell no one of this, but then I reminded her that I still did not know her name, making my confession of the story useless. She seemed uninterested in any further dialogue, so she left, though not before giving me a passionate kiss and an admission of my perfection in mating, not that it softened the blow much."

As he finished, Bulma wrapped a comforting arm around his waist, not certain what she could say to make this bizarre predicament any better. "Well, my friend, perhaps this little encounter was a wakeup call for you."

Raising his eyebrow, the guard questioned, "and just how is that?"

"Maybe it is fate’s way of telling you that it is high time you settled down," Bulma offered reasonably. "You are an incredibly handsome man with much wisdom and gentility. You deserve so much better than a ‘one night stand,’ Radditz. You are one of the good ones, who deserves a mate just a flawless as you are. So why dwell on this little mistake when you should be looking for your soul mate?"

Forcing a smile Radditz hid the fact that her words held little comfort for him. He could not ignore what happened, or simply classify it as a mistake, when deep down, he truly felt as though it was something more. "Enough about me," he too was not in a mood to have his romantic life, or lack thereof, scrutinized. "Have you had breakfast?"

Bulma glanced over at her wall’s clock and laughed as she realized it was a little late for that. "Well, since it is afternoon, I think breakfast is a moot issue now, but how about lunch?"

The elder man nodded as he rose to his feet, helping the princess up as well. "Why do you not change, I will send for a meal to be prepared for us."

"Very well," Bulma nodded in agreement before she turned to head towards her washroom. She only made it half way, however, before a knock at her door interrupted her plans. "I’ll get it," Bulma insisted, stopping Radditz dead in his tracks as she walked over to open her door to find the severely unnerved image of her former guard before her. "Kakarrot, what is wrong?" she asked hurriedly, while grabbing his wrist to guide him into her room so his brother could hear as well.

"It is Chi-Chi," he stuttered her name as he looked pleadingly back and forth from his elder brother to the young princess, "have either of you seen her? She never came back to our chambers after the debacle last night."

"What debacle?" Radditz questioned perplexedly, he had no knowledge of his brother being involved with what had transpired the night before.

The younger man frowned, "Juuhachigou crossed our paths while we were leaving the Enkaijou. She told Chi-Chi of our relations before I had a chance to. I wanted to explain everything to her, but I had to get rid of the resurrected queen before I could. Unfortunately, once she was gone, so was Chi-Chi. I have been unable to find her since. I am very worried, no one seems to know where she is, and at her age, carrying a child, she shouldn’t be alone," Kakarrot dared not voice the worst. He simply had to find his mate, and once he did, he had to set all this right.

"Ok, then we will split up and look for her," Bulma announced quickly, Chi-Chi had waited too long to find love, she would not allow Vegeta’s ‘wife’ to destroy her happiness as well.

"I do not think that is a good idea, Vegeta ordered me to—"

"I am not that one missing, Radditz," Bulma was fast to cut him off. "Chi-Chi has been like a mother to me since I was a child, she has given me so much, and I can not turn my back on her now that she is in trouble. Like Kakarrot said, she is with child, and so naturally her hormones will make this dreadful situation exponentially worse in her mind, unless we can find her and settle her down. So will you help or not?!"

"She is my sister through mateship, of course I will help," Radditz vowed, it was now his turn to bark out a few orders. "Bulma, go change and then begin searching the outside perimeter and the underground level of the castle, I will take the first two floors of the castle and then Kakarrot will have the top two. We will meet in the stables one hour from now, and should none of us find her by then, we will take to the forest. It is possible she has taken a ride to clear her head."

Fast agreements were made by Kakarrot and Bulma as the three then after departed to their designated destinations, each hoping that nothing serious had happened to their family member.

* * * * *