ALIEN WEREWOLF’S PRIZE
STARLIGHT BRIDES
BOOK 2
JANUARY BELL
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ALIEN WEREWOLF’S PRIZE
Published by January Bell
www.januarybellromance.com
Copyright © 2024 January Bell
This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover design by Ozark Witch Cover Design
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Edited by VB Edits
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CONTENTS
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
15. Sneak Peek: Bargain With The Rogue
Also by January Bell
About the Author
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
For a full list of content warnings, please visit my website:
www.januarybellromance.com.
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CHAPTER 1
AILEEN
How did my life come to this?
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying that deep breathing shit Bridget’s always rattling on about, but all it manages to do is highlight the antiseptic smell of the glass cleaner in my hand, the strange space-station recycled air, and the horrible pervasive unidentified odor of the freak-show that is my place of work. The only work option for a human on this godforsaken space station.
At least it pays the bills.
I guess.
I crack open one eye, as if slowly ripping the Band-Aid off to my grim reality will be better than opening both at once.
Nope.
Not better. I’m still here.
I’m still grudgingly cleaning the worst part of this place.
Horror washes over me—despite the fact that I should be used to this goddamned thing—and I stare at the sight on the other side of the glass before me.
A brain, floating in a viscous, unknown preservative liquid, hooked up to some kind of wiring. A screen adjacent to the horrible brain-in-vial situation reads out what the brain is thinking. Can a detached brain think?
I’m not sure if I’m asking for myself or the brain in the vial.
I can feel you out there, rubbing my glass, the screen reads.
Disgusting.
At least it doesn’t have eyes. Not anymore. Bridget has stories about when it did.
My own thankfully attached eyes narrow. I have my suspicions about what happened to its eyes. Suspicions that all end with pointing my also-attached fingers at Bridget.
She said the brain and eyes had an accident.
I doubt that.
I shuffle away from the offensive brain, going to my other least favorite attraction, which I saved for last, because touching it makes my skin crawl. My stomach churns, and I exhale through my teeth as I grip the last thing I need to clean.
The single sentient tentacle.
I grip it firmly, pulling it off its spotlit dais, and it squirms happily in my hands. God. It feels like straight-up muscle under a slimy sheath. I’m gonna hurl.
I gag. I can’t help it, and I feel a little guilty as the tentacle sadly droops in my hands.
“Sorry,” I mutter, then shake my head at myself, because I don’t think it can hear me. Maybe it can. I have no idea. I don’t want to think about it.
Maybe it would be better if I were a brain floating in a vial making lewd comments through my wiring. Then I wouldn’t have to touch the tentacle.
Vial or vile.
Heh.
The tentacle curls around my arm, pulsing happily as I clean it off carefully with a wet sponge and plain water. It’s a sensitive little thing, and it suckers on and off as I clean it.
Honestly, at this point, I don’t know if I’m anthropomorphizing it or if it really is affectionate.
That’s how fucked-up this job is. I’m assigning emotions to a tentacle. A single sentient tentacle. Normal. Totally fucking normal.
“Aw, he does like you. I knew it,” Bridget squeals.
Startled, I scream, my knee-jerk reaction to throwing the tentacle foiled by the way it’s completely suctioned on to my arm. It tightens its grip on me, and I get the sense it’s chastising me for trying to launch it into oblivion. Or the wall, if not oblivion.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” I wheeze, doubling over. Bridget’s at my side in a second, and the tentacle gladly goes to her, climbing up her arm happily. Her strawberry-blond hair is tied back in cute little buns. Her plump, pale skin practically glows in the dim light of the sideshow exhibits. Her coverall is tight on her curvy body, and it barely zips up over her enviable chest.
“I didn’t sneak up on you,” Bridget says snarkily. “You were so invested in cleaning Mr. Tentacle that you didn’t realize I was there. Not my fault you didn’t hear me. Stop staring at my boobs.”
“Sorry. They’re just there. They look nice,” I tell her.
She snorts.
A message beeps on the brain vial screen, and we share a tortured look for a moment.
“What do you want to bet that’s about your boobs?” I whisper.
“I don’t pay you two to chitchat.” A sonorous voice fills the room.
“Touch her boobs,” a mechanical voice says.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bridget hisses at the brain. “I’ll make sure you have another accident if you don’t shut the fuck up,” she adds.
“That is no way to talk to my prize exhibits.” Our boss slithers into the room. Well, oozes. Ooze-slithers.
Frankly, I’m not sure I have a word for what the hell he’s doing. A cross between a blob of slime and a snake, our boss is one of the alien species that runs this station, an Oolasag.
They’re gross, and I’m sorry to say I’m pretty used to them by now.
They also think humans are gross, which is why our slimy, sluggy boss is staring at us both with derision.
The only way I can be sure it’s derision is because one of his eyeball stalks flops downward—a sure sign of the Oolasag’s displeasure.
Also, gross. Gross. My entire life is gross. Despair fills me. I just had to end up on this space station, where humans are a second-class species, not considered smart enough to do any of the jobs I’d really want. At least we’re not considered sexy here, which some of my friends from Earth have also had to deal with.
“You aren’t paying us enough for us not to chitchat,” Bridget says tartly. “Besides, we are capable of multitasking.”
“You are primates,” our bossy says, his second eyeball stalk flopping downward, too. “You are incapable of doing more than one task at once.”
