His words are spoken so closely to my skin, I can feel the brush of his lips on my neck. And somehow, it all feels so terribly erotic all of a sudden. I don’t know if I’m running on adrenaline from being in such a dangerous situation, or if it’s the fact that this huge, powerful male seems… in awe of me?

Is that a crazy thing to say?

Probably. All the aliens I’ve encountered have treated humans as pets at best, and disposable things to own and use at worst.

Still, this big guy came busting in here to save my life and now he’s acting like this?

Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe I’m stupid to be horny right now, but I don’t think I could stop myself from grinding my ass back on that man even if I wanted to.

My Xaviann friend apparently didn’t get that memo though, because his huge hands grip my hips tightly. “Don’t,” he hisses in my ear. “I won’t be able to control myself if you keep moving that way.”

The words are spoken into the side of my throat where I feel a gentle graze of his teeth.

“Well, well, well, what’s going on in this dark corner?” comes a voice to our side.

I don’t know if the guy I’m sitting on is just lightning quick, or my reflexes are just too damn slow, but by the time I look to see who had spoken to us, he’s already pointing one of his blaster-guns at the newcomer.

To the new guy’s credit, he doesn’t seem to react in the slightest. He’s another Xaviann, similar to my guy but perhaps leaner, wearing more gold jewelry, and has his otherwise long hair shaved at the sides. He stands there with an amused look on his face and his arms crossed over his chest.

“I swear to all four Goddesses, if you scare off this female, I will not hesitate to pull the trigger, Zann,” my Xaviann seat growls.

The other Xaviann chuckles and bats away the barrel of the blaster currently pointed right at him. “Nice to see you’ve been missing me, brother,” he grins and then promptly urges us to move along the circular booth seating so that he can join us.

“Zann,” my guy glares at the newcomer over my head while his free arm tightens around me and the other puts his gun away. “She trusts me. Do not scare her.”

This ‘Zann’ raises a single eyebrow. “She shouldn’t,” he says, leaning back with his hands behind his head looking very smug for some reason. “Not when Prince Kiahn is out here with his fangs out for all to see.”

“Shit!” My guys hisses, releasing me and covering his mouth with his hand.

I shift in his lap to look back at him. “You have fangs?” I ask, genuinely curious because I didn’t notice them before at all. But then another part of information dropped by his brother rings in my ears. “You’re a Prince?!”

“Prince Kiahn of the Northern Principality, to be precise,” Zann supplies before swiping my untouched drink from the table and then gesturing with the glass to my credit-orb, “and purchaser of females now, apparently too. Aunt Zalora is going to love that,” he adds before taking a swig of the green liquid and giving me a wink while he’s at it.

“I am not purchasing this female,” ‘Prince Kiahn’ hisses from behind his hand. “I came here looking for you, you giant drak-shit! But she needed help.”

Zann grins over my head at his brother. “Sure she did. Looked like you were helping her real good.”

“He was,” I feel compelled to say, feeling tiny sitting at this booth that’s stuffed uncomfortably close with both these huge males. “He saved me from a group of Yoxxarii.”

Zann grimaces, his green drink paused mid-way to his mouth. “Yoxxarii?” he asks, shuddering in disgust before glancing around the club. “Where?”

I look around too.

Oh, shit.

They’re gone.

And my knight in tight pants didn’t follow them out!

OceanofPDF.com

5

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 5 - Kiahn

Before meeting that little human female, I had been cursing to all four Goddesses that I was ‘blessed’ with such a wayward brother. I had scoped out a few of the other clubs and entertainment establishments along the way, but my search had kept me going lower and lower on the levels of this wretched station. I had passed many a brothel and briefly wondered if that is where I might find him, since I know he is here to lay with females in the flesh. But, even while I disagree with a lot of my brother’s decisions for his life, I do know that he would not force a female to mate for money, no matter how safe he claims he can make the experience for her.

Which is ironic, because I had been the one who ended up paying a female, and it definitely wasn’t safe for her to trust me like that. Not with the way she felt, and how she moved against my body like she’d wanted me to bend her over that disgusting table and breed her then and there.

The Yoxxarii scum were not too difficult to track down after we realized they had left. They had descended a mere three levels and were getting escorted out from a gambling house when my brother and I had spotted them. The plan had been to follow them, and wait for the opportune moment to drag them into the dark of the service tunnels and dispose of their miserable lives there. It really would not do for a Prince of Xaavia to be seen committing murder at a space station.

Luckily we did not have to wait too long because not an hour after they’d entered a euphoria peddler’s tavern, did they stumble back out again, as high as shooting stars but nowhere near as pretty. It was easy for Zann and I to herd them somewhere quiet and finish the job.

When we returned to ‘Star Pleasures’ the club was closed, and my human was gone.

The slave trader marked on her arm was not yet open for business, either, so I had no choice but to return to our second level lodgings and wait for the nearest sun to rise. Sleep did not come easily. I could still feel the press of her warm body against mine like she was still there, leaning against me - trusting me not to hurt her. The image of her uncovered throat danced behind my closed, sleepless eyelids. It made my fangs itch.

Luckily, I managed to leave our rented suit this morning without detection from Aunt Zalora. Goddess of Wisdom only knows how she would react if she ever found out the kind of place her eldest nephew had visited last night. Zann? We’ve come to expect these types of things with the youngest of my two brothers - what with his curious heart and talent for getting into trouble… and the sleeping quarters of various females.

But I am not Zann. I am Kiahn, Prince of the Northern Principality, and as I stand here waiting for a vertical level pod to arrive, I cannot quite believe that I am about to go and …purchase a female.

Save.

I’m going to save her, I tell myself, brushing imaginary dirt from the shoulder of my shirt and checking how clean my horns are in the reflection of the glass in front of me.

Another face appears in that very reflection, standing a few paces behind me, leaning his shoulder against a pillar as he wears the most smug expression I think I’ve ever seen.

I pause, my hand halfway on its journey to brush over my left horn before I drop it and turn.

“What are you up to, brother?” Zann asks, biting into the flesh of a pukpuk fruit. “Going for some early morning shopping?”

I just about manage to rein in my snarl. “I thought you’d slunk off to some female’s bed again last night. Isn’t it too early for you to be awake?” Honestly, Zann hardly ever stays put in our suits wherever we visit, and I don’t think he’s spent one single night in his rented bed during this trip. He normally comes swaggering back during the afternoons to check that he’s not missed anything vitally important during morning meetings - meetings that he should really be attending in person. I’d only gone looking for him last night to drag him back because father wished to speak to us all this morning over comms.