Captive

The chains rattled around him as he groaned. Lotor's arm muscles ached from being confined to the shackles in the dimly lit dungeon. He had witnessed his father's rage many times before, but never had it been quite so vengeful.

"The Voltron Force is outside! Haggar, shoot them down!" Zarkon's voice thundered through the throne room. Lotor was already running down the stairs toward the launch bay when Zarkon grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?"

"I'm going to get the Princess, Father!" Lotor's usual response was met with a resounding backhand across the face. The prince fell to the ground while Zarkon leered over him.

"You will do no such thing! Your sick obsession with her has cost us many victories. Now, you will stand down and watch a proper victory," he said darkly before turning to his commander. "Shoot them down. Shoot them all down - even the Blue Lion. I want nothing left of Voltron!"

"Father, if I could just-" Zarkon's boot kicked into Lotor's side hard enough to send the prince sliding down the stairs.

"Lock him up. I want to make sure he doesn't interfere. His head is clouded with that pretty face. Get her out of the skies and eventually he'll clear up." The order was given, and Lotor found himself being led away by his own guardsmen. He fought and struggled, but the six of them were able to overpower the able-bodied prince.

He exhaled. They'd gone the extra mile to make sure he stayed put: they didn't just lock him in a cell. They shackled him to the wall, as well. He'd been immobile for hours and the sound of battle raged on outside. He wasn't quite close enough to the barred window to see much, but every once in a while a white flash would catch a corner of his limited sky and he would strain to see which lion it was.

Based on what he could hear from the battle outside, the lions hadn't formed Voltron yet. The robeast in the sky was making horrible snarling noises, but the team hadn't felt the need to merge into the giant robot. Or couldn't, he reminded himself. The pit in his stomach tightened as he thought of Allura. He turned his thoughts to her in an effort to ease his mind.

He didn't want to lose her. She was a semblance of her people and a beauty to behold. She was one of the few females in the galaxy that defied him and he loved it. He loved her feistiness, her tenacity and her bravery. For most of his adult life, he had contemplated marriage and taking a queen one day, but in all the fantasies it had been a shy, demure and subservient female to cater to his every whim and lust.

And then he had met Allura.

Initially in his mind he had tried to force her image into the mold he had created, but she didn't fit. She was too much fire and will to be contained as a gentle wife and to his surprise, Lotor found himself craving a strong-willed woman for his side instead. Inevitably, it all led to the same paradox: he wanted Allura by his side with all her fire and glory, but to force her there would involve breaking her. The only possible way to resolve it was to get her there willingly.

"Don't touch me!" Lotor sighed as her words echoed off the walls. Even his memory of her voice was full of rejection.

Shuffling from the main chamber caught his attention and broke him from his train of thought.

"Dammit why won't you just play nice like a good little - SON OF A BITCH! SHE BIT ME," the guard hollered loudly and Lotor quickly realized he wasn't hearing things in his mind. He held his breath, straining to listen to the sounds outside from his small, dark corner of his cell.

Cursing, grunting and decidedly feminine breathing were audible as a struggle occurred.

"Get the damn door open, quickly," Cossack's voice sounded strained. The door to Lotor's cell swung open and before his eyes, the pilot of Blue Lion was tossed in on her - rather delicious - backside. She skidded a few feet and with a resounding roar of determination launched herself off the ground. Her body made contact with the door just as the commander was bolting it. She shook the door as it rattled against the lock before slamming her shoulder against it.

"Just... stop. You'll only hurt yourself. It's solid steel," Cossack said from the safety of the other side of the door.

Allura let out a ragged cry of frustration and spun in a circle.

"Just... give me the key back, Cossack. You can't use it. You can't fly Blue Lion; she won't respond to you! That has no value to you!" The strain in her voice was evident as the silent prince realized his commander had taken the ignition to her lion.

Cossack stilled and regarded her for a moment.

"Oh? 'She won't respond to me,' you say? Do tell, what makes the lions work the way they do? They're more than just machines, aren't they?" Cossack honed in on a vital slip of information. Allura's body went very still as she realized her mistake. She stood with her shoulders back and her chin high, staring the man down through the iron bars over the little window in the door.

"Not so quick to lash that pretty tongue of yours now, are you?" He snickered a little. "Well, I'm sure Zarkon has ways of making you talk," he said suggestively. To her credit, Allura's face remained impassive and stony, though the entirety of her body paled a few shades.

Cossack snorted after a moment, clearly disappointed she was still silent. "At any rate, it is valuable to me in so much that you can't fly it if I have the key. No key, no Voltron," he snapped, putting the key in his pocket. "But since I'm feeling generous, you can have this key instead," he said as he handed a small, silver key to her through the bars.

"What... is this for?" Allura reached out and took the key delicately, clearly confused. It obviously did not unlock her cell as it was far too small to do the job. "How can this help me?"

"Who said it would help you?" Cossack laughed and just walked away, the main door swinging shut behind him, leaving a very perplexed princess standing in the center of the cell.

"Dammit Cossack!" She yelled, stamping her foot on the ground in tangible frustration. With a resigned sigh, she turned her attention back to the strange key in her hand. "What are you for..." she murmured softly.

"For me." Lotor finally spoke up, his voice weaker than he would have liked but it had been hours since he'd been chained up.

Allura released a strangled cry as she spun to face him, plastering her back to the wall behind her. Lotor noticed her eyes more than anything; a beautiful blue color that did not exist on Doom anywhere. They were proud eyes, strong and they were frightened at this moment.

In her defense, the room was dark and she had had no reason to expect a cellmate. She had been too preoccupied with Cossack to look closely in the corners. Lotor just shrugged at her, the chains rattling in response. He had no words to give her, no expression of safety or speech of conquering.

"You're..." Allura trailed off, her eyes darting over his form, slowly taking in more of him as her pupils adjusted to the dim light. Carefully she eased herself off the wall and hesitantly made her way over to him, one careful step after the other.

Lotor stayed very still, watching her approach him. He'd never seen her willingly walk in his direction before and despite the fear and tension laced through her body, he found the sight soothing.

"Restrained," he finished for her as she came to stand in front of him.

"Hurt," she corrected, a frown on her face. Allura reached up and touched his cheek gently and Lotor released a shaky exhale. Even through her gloves, her hands were soft and warm when they weren't connecting with his face at terminal velocity. "Let's get you down," she said with a little more courage.

Allura dragged a loose chunk of stone from one corner of the room to his side in order to reach the shackles. The Drule was significantly taller than her to begin with, and with his arms stretched to their full length over his head, there was no way Allura would reach the handcuffs without something to stand on.

As she worked to free him with the key Cossack had given her, Lotor wondered briefly if he were hallucinating. As one hand fell free, he cursed as pain shot through his arm with the sudden return of blood flow. Allura paused, worried.

"Did I hurt you?" He looked up in surprise and shook his head.

"No, I've just been here a while," he admitted as she went to work freeing his other arm. When it finally came down, the fire that rushed through his body was almost incapacitating.

He collapsed, weak from the strain on his muscles. After a second of catching his breath, grateful to be sitting on the floor, he realized Allura was still near him. The princess had tried to help catch him as he fell and she was now collapsed against him, supporting one of his arms across her shoulders, her hand on his back.

"Why are you here?" She asked the question finally as he stared at her in disbelief. He studied her carefully, afraid to move or breathe the wrong way and send her fleeing. Her company was warm and he didn't want it to stop. Her eyes belied her fatigue; the fight outside had been going on at least a few hours and she was worried about her team. Her body was relatively unscathed, some scratches and scrapes marred her flight suit and her hair had half-fallen down her back from her bun, but she was otherwise unharmed.

"I angered my father," he replied simply, not wanting to confess that his desire to have her - to protect her - had led to him being locked up. A frown flashed across her face at his words and she chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully.

"He really is a terrible man," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. "How are your arms feeling," she turned her attention back to him, shifting her weight so that he could move the arm across her shoulders. He had rather liked the sensation of Allura tucked into his side, but he knew holding her there would cost him.

A moment of clarity struck him as he realized the profundity of his thought. Holding her there would cost him. That was how it had always been - the harder he tried and the stronger he forced, the higher the stakes and the greater the ultimatum - the more she resisted and the further she ran. And here she was, at his side caring for him with a tenderness he had never seen directed his way before. He had not orchestrated any ruses or gimmicks, none of Haggar's spells or complicated plots. She was simply there, being herself and unfathomably kind. Maybe I've gone about this all wrong, he thought dryly.

"They're sore," he admitted, unwinding his arm from her shoulders reluctantly, but he knew she would grow uncomfortable if he lingered. There was a strange truce hovering in the air and he was loathe to break it. He watched with avid fascination as she reached for his right arm.

He was an accomplished swordsman and one of the most lethal in current existence. His arm was everything. Had any of his soldiers or guardsman reached for his arm, he would have assumed it a threat or an attack. But slumped in a dungeon cell, vulnerable and weak with the princess of Arus herself sitting so close their thighs touched and legs tangled, he felt more at peace than he ever had. Her gentle hands took his arm and she began to massage it carefully.

Allura seemed to understand how sensitive his muscles were as blood rushed back through them, and the pressure she applied at first was very light. She touched his biceps and forearm, coaxing them to respond, stimulating just enough to awaken them. As the blood continued to move through his arm and the sensation was restored, she added intensity to her work to try and soften the knots.

Finishing with his right arm, she reached to take his left and repeated the process. Lotor knew how fast Allura could move; he had witnessed it firsthand many times. Between the quickness of her strikes to his face, the speed with which she evaded him and the rebound as she launched herself at the cell door - he knew she was easily the most agile of the Space Explorers and moved with a finesse to rival Drule lords. If she were more competent with a weapon - if she ever wanted to be - she could rival him in a duel. Despite the speed he knew she was capable of, she moved slowly with him. Allura intentionally gave him time to react and in turn - gave herself time to react to him.

"There," she said after a few minutes, gingerly releasing his left arm. "How does it feel?" She looked up into his eyes, nibbling on her bottom lip nervously. His presence wrapped around her. He was docile - far more calm and controlled than she had ever seen him before, but he still encompassed her. His intensity flooded any room he was in and she found herself very intimately aware of how close she was to Crown Prince Lotor himself.

He couldn't help himself. She was so kind and beautiful and so very close to him. He reached out and touched her cheek, leaning in to kiss her lips.

Allura's agility revealed itself as she scooted across the room from him, leaving his body feeling cold in her wake. He sighed; he knew his mistake the moment that he made it. Closing his eyes in defeat, he just shook his head once before looking to her, not bothering to make any physical indication he would pursue.

"Better, thank you," he said sincerely, irritated at himself that he had put the width of the room between their bodies with his own uncontrolled urges. He glanced over to her as she pushed up onto her feet and walked to the barred window to peer out at the sky. She stood on her toes and grasped the steel bars in her hands and made a face of displeasure. Dropping back down to her heels, Allura slipped off her two white gloves.

Her head snapped to look over at him in alarm as he shifted his weight. Lotor held up his hands in front of him, signaling that he wasn't trying anything. Allura regarded him warily but looked back to her gloves and quickly knotted them together to form a long streamer.

Allura reached up and tied one end of the gloves to a bar and tossed the other end out into the wind. Stepping back away from the wall, she cautiously went to stand near him in the corner against the wall furthest from the window.

He gave her a curious look and she smiled down at him, reclining against the wall.

"And now, we wait," she said mysteriously, a smile playing at her lips.

"Wait for-" Lotor didn't even finish his question as an explosion lit up the wall by the window as a missile crashed through. He leaped to his feet in surprise as Allura excitedly ran over to the gaping hole. She waved as Red Lion hovered just outside.

"Princess!" Lance's voice was full of relief as she peeked around the crumbling remains of the wall. "Are you hurt?" He called from the open hatch. Allura leaned out, noticing the ground was hundreds of feet below.

"I'm fine, go find Blue Lion! Cossack has my key! Also, little help?" She pointed over her shoulder at the locked door to the main chamber of the dungeon. "I need my stuff. You grab Keith and go find Blue Lion and I'll come the long way and meet you there!" Allura called out over the rushing wind around the dungeon tower.

Lance gave her a thumbs up before dropping back into his cockpit. Allura backed away, grabbing Lotor by the arm and pulling him back into the corner.

"Move," she instructed quickly as he hesitated, just as another ion dart shot through the opening and hit the door, effectively shredding the metal. Lance took off after Blue Lion's location once he saw Allura move through the doorway.

Lotor followed behind her, watching with fascination as she made a beeline to the table where her gear was spread out. Allura went to work, reattaching her communicator around her wrist, her belt around her waist and her weapon in her holster.

"Is that Allura I hear online?" Keith's voice surged across the communicator as Allura joined the channel.

"It is," she said, answering his hail. "Lance found me - if he didn't update you already, he's heading to find Blue Lion. Cossack has my key and I would bet he's on his way there now. Can you beat him there?"

"You got it, Princess," he said.

"Okay," she spun around to head back to the cell and calculate a route down the side of the castle when she came face to face with Lotor right behind her. She gasped in surprised as his frame towered over her. She had room to take one step back before her hip hit the table behind her, Lotor quickly closing the distance between them.

"Don't touch me," she hissed out as he cornered her.

"I'm not," he said calmly. It was the truth; while his body had closed in on hers, his hands remained at his sides. He did not touch her or try and hold her, he simply watched her with an eerie intensity. Allura swallowed nervously as her skin flushed at his closeness.

"I need... I can't..." She stammered as his hand raised up to touch her cheek gently. He frowned as she flinched and closed her eyes.

"You need to go help them, I know," he murmured softly as he let his hand fall back to his side. As he stepped back away from her, the look of surprise on her face amused him. He walked across the large room that all the cells branched off of and opened up a door revealing a small closet. He reached inside and withdrew a long coil of rope. As he turned to face Allura, he was met with an expression of alarm, her eyes focused on the coil in his arms.

Without warning, he tossed it across the room to her. Allura caught it out of the air on instinct.

"That should be long enough to help you grapple down, at least to rooftop below the tower. Once you're safely down there, I'll cut the rope so you can use it again if needed," he said, reaching for his laser sword resting on the table and reattaching it to his hip. He looked back to the princess to find her staring openly at him, clearly floored.

"You're... helping me?" Her incredulity was obvious. Lotor just shrugged in response.

"My father is always going on about Voltron winning. I'd like to see him lose, too," he muttered dryly. Allura finally shut her mouth and glanced down to the length of rope in her arms. She shook her head once to clear herself of her surprise.

"Thank you," she murmured, turning to head back to the gutted cell. Lotor watched after she paused after two steps, and then turned back to face him. "Why did Cossack give me the key?"

"My guess would be he was hoping you would release me. He couldn't do it himself - under a direct order from Zarkon - but nothing forbade him from giving someone else the tools to do so. I would suspect that's why he chose that cell for you - rather than any of the other empty ones," he finished, gesturing to the fact that of the two dozen cells in the tower, only one was utilized.

She nodded, still processing the information as she carried the rope to the edge of the hole in the wall. She tied one end off on the warped steel of the remnants of the door and flung the rest of it down the side of the building.

"Be careful," he whispered, more to himself as he watched her work. She glanced up to him.

"What did you say?"

Lotor gave a sad smile and shook his head once. "Best of luck," he said louder as she nodded. After testing the strength of her tie, Lotor watched as the woman he craved most in the universe leaped from the tower and descended several hundred feet to the rooftop below. He walked to the edge to make sure she was alright. Once certain that she had established her foothold on the roof, he sliced the rope and let it fall down.

He groaned, sitting down on the floor and letting his legs hang off the edge. Yellow Lion hovered over to the roof and he watched as she jumped into an outstretched claw. The pilot maneuvered swiftly but gently with its precious cargo, ferrying her off into the distance.

"What the hell is wrong with me," he groaned, rubbing his temple. "I just let her go. Cossack won't let me hear the end of that..." He trailed off, contemplating his situation. His father had been right to imprison him in the first place. He failed at attempt after attempt to take over Arus and harvest its resources. And it was all because of Allura. He was obsessed with everything that she was, her smile, her laugh, her curves... and she was utterly unattainable. Part of him wanted to believe that fueled the obsession, but he knew there was more to it than that.

She ran deep in him; under his skin and through his veins. There was no escaping her - she had become his sunlight on his otherwise dark planet. He was utterly besotted like a fool and no amount of mistreatment from his father would make him give up on her.

His thoughts trailed off as he watched the robeast screech in the sky as five lions lifted off the ground, falling into their usual V-formation before the Arusian robot appeared. He grinned darkly.

At least his father wouldn't win this time. He felt a sick satisfaction in the realization that Zarkon would fare just as poorly as he did against Voltron. The sound of the blazing sword forming marked the last few minutes of the monster's existence.

As Voltron lifted into the atmosphere to head home, Lotor wondered wistfully if he would ever be free of Allura's spell over him - and whether he even wished for that. Defying all Drule customs and traditions, he was utterly hers. He would never admit the depth to which she affected him, but he was forever her captive.

I don't quite know why I'm avoiding another chapter of Bridges, but I do promise it's almost done. It's just one little part that doesn't quite feel right, but there should be an update soon. Thank you for reading this in the meantime, and as always, feedback (positive or negative!) is welcome.