by Calista Skye
“Sir.” The lieutenant saluted and quickly organized his men to break into the huge palace. Three soldiers ran up to the metal door and fastened the explosives, then ran back and took cover.
The prince and Ev'Ax took cover inside their armored car. There was a giant blast as the door was blown in as if it were made of paper, and the Imperial Guards stormed in. The prince and Ev'Ax followed, both carrying a gun.
The rescue force was met with a hailstorm of laser fire as they entered the Grand Hall in the middle of the palace, but the trained Imperial Guards had little trouble dealing with the duke's private forces. The prince ran beside them, searching every room for Emily, whom he had now started to think of as his own woman.
But apart from the private guards, there was no one to be seen anywhere.
“I wonder if Ber'Ain may have made fools of us after all,” the prince said to Ev'Ax after they had searched through most of the palace. It was ancient and had a very complicated layout after centuries of additions and adjustments. But there was no sign of the duke or Emily.
“It's possible. But I find it interesting that there were guards here and that they opened fire on a whole battalion of Imperial Guards. Not what I would expect from a deserted palace. Does it have secret rooms, perhaps?”
“I suppose. These old palaces are practically labyrinths.”
“Yes... Don't most old palaces have cellars? For storage and dungeons and so on? Can't say I've seen one here.”
“Good point. Certainly this family would have had a dungeon, with their reputation from the old days. Let's find the cellar.”
29
There was a loud boom and the whole room shook. The demented duke was interrupted right before he was to perform the first incision.
“What was that, do you think, alien monster?” he said, very softly. “I wonder if your beloved Crown Prince thinks he can save you. But this cellar is very well hidden. He can pull the roof down over the rest of the palace, and we will still be able to continue this, our holy task. Never fear, alien. You shall help me become Emperor.”
The duke bent over her again, preparing to cut. Emily braced herself for being sliced. Then the alien straightened.
“In my haste, I haven't really considered if the recording will show all that goes on. It must be in focus, and it must be very clear for his Imperial Majesty to see every detail from any direction. Let me see...”
He put the scalpel down on a metallic tray and walked slowly around the room, looking at the lighting and scrutinizing Emily from several angles. Then he approached the table again.
“Well, I suppose it has to do. It shouldn't look too perfect, or it might look artificial. Where were we?”
He picked up the scalpel again and held it up to his eyes. “Do you think it's sharp enough? Perhaps your alien skin is tougher than human skin? We will have to test it, I suppose.”
The duke scanned along Emily's body, then seemed to focus on her chest.
“The alien is partially clothed,” he murmured. “In its otherworldly mind, it must wonder why that is. Will it understand that the Emperor's decency must be preserved and that being shown too much of its monstrous physiology might offend him? But its chest, ample though it appears, can probably be displayed to him.”
The duke placed the cold scalpel at Emily's shoulder on the inside of the bra strap, then sliced through the fabric easily. He then did the same to the other side and took a step back.
“Hmm, yes. It appears sharp enough. Let us remove the garment entirely.” He slowly cut the two side straps. Now the bra cups were not held in place, just laying loose on her breasts.
“Much better,” the demented alien said. “Shall we reveal the monster's feminine features? We shall.”
With a bony, shaking hand he lifted the cups off Emily's chest and dropped them to the floor, then stared at her bared breasts in fascination.
“Oh, my. Even aliens monsters can have an alluring quality, it seems. We shall have a great interest in revealing the inner structure of those features.”
He placed one icy hand on one breast and squeezed. Emily felt her skin crawl once more.
“Soft, yet firm,” the Duke mused. “Such an unusual size. Strangely attractive, in many ways. But we must not let ourselves get distracted. Certainly this is one of the alien's subtle weapons which it uses to divert our attention from our holy task.”
He let go and again picked up the scalpel. He looked up at the ceiling as if listening. “Very quiet now. Do you think your prince has given up? He was never the most persistent of men, was he? Quite unsuited for the Imperial throne. Whereas I...” His voice trailed off as he again bent down and again stretched Emily's skin with two fingers, preparing for the incision.
30
“Here it is, sir,” one of the Imperial Guards called down from the one level up. “The entrance to the basement.”
The cellar entrance was not actually hidden; it was just a result of the strange design of the palace. One had to climb the stairs up one level in order to find a trapdoor with a staircase that went down, much further down than just down to the ground floor.
The prince ran up to the entrance and started the descent, heading the soldiers. “Kill the duke if necessary,” he ordered. “But the woman must come to no harm!”
The spiraling staircase was very long and went deep underground. The prince could see no light until he reached the bottom, where there was a dim sheen at the end of a long corridor. He ran as fast as he could, aware that there might be booby traps along the corridor, but not caring much. The only thing in his mind was to save his beloved. Already the idea of living without her, now that he had finally found her was too painful for him to even contemplate.
The light came from a door at the end of the corridor, an ancient door that didn't fit the frame properly. The prince crashed through it, his gun held out in front of him, ready to fire.
31
The crash of the door breaking into splinters made the duke turn around abruptly. The prince was in the room, immediately pointing his gun at his demented cousin.
“Step away from her,” the prince ordered in a voice that dripped with danger. “Or I will kill you where you stand.”
“The former Heir Apparent wants to kill me,” the Duke murmured. “We can't have that. Not at this critical time. Why, it would be regicide. Practically.” He held his arm up over Emily's chest, clutching the scalpel with the blade down.
“This knife is very sharp, cousin. If I die here, my hand will fall, and the blade will penetrate the alien's heart, killing it. It's physiology is not that different from ours.”
The prince didn't reply, just took aim with the laser gun and fired. The invisible beam went right through the duke's wrist, severing the hand from the arm. The duke screamed, a piercing wail of pain.
But it was not the arm that held the scalpel that had been sliced off. The Prince knew that the involuntary reflexes of the body would force the Duke to clutch his injured arm with the other hand, letting the knife fall harmlessly to the floor.
The blood sprayed out from the wrist where the hand had been, and the duke screamed in pain and anger. In five quick steps, the prince had reached his maniac cousin and knocked him out with a hard jab to the chin.
Then he focused his attention on Emily, scanning her body before he gently took the gag out of her mouth. She breathed in deeply through a throat that felt raw.
“Are you unharmed, my love?” Ar'Ric said, cutting the straps that held her down.
“I think so,” Emily said in a hoarse voice as the prince took her hand and helped her get off the table. “You got here just in time. He wanted to... to cut me up.” She stood unsteadily on her feet and let Ar'Ric support her.
“He's insane. But that doesn't excuse his actions. Where are your clothes?”
She pointed to a corner of the room. “That's my overalls, but it's ruined now. He cut it off me.”
Ar'Ric took his light uniform jacket off and wrapped
it around her shoulders. It reached almost to her knees.
“At least I have this for you,” the Prince said and reverently handed over her plastic spray bottle of blue cleaning liquid. “A warrior always dislikes being without a weapon.”
“Ah... Okay. Umm... thanks.” She took the spray bottle from his hand.
Emily just wanted to leave this horrendous place. “Shall we just get going?”
“Of course. I'll just see if your tactical utility belt might still be intact.” The prince walked over to the corner and searched through the bundle of drab fabric that had been Emily's work attire.
Then Emily saw movement from the corner of her eye. She yelped as the now mostly recovered duke pounced on her from a curled-up position on the floor and tried to lock his one intact hand around her neck.
“Die, alien monster,” he hissed, and his white, claw-like hand clenched around her throat with surprising strength. There was only one thing to do. Emily pointed the spray bottle right at his face and squeezed the trigger as hard as she could, spraying the lemon-scented all-purpose cleaning liquid into his eyes. The alien duke screamed again and let go of her neck, stumbling backward and trying to rub the stinging liquid out of his eyes with his one functioning hand. Emily gave him a hard kick and he fell to the floor in a whimpering heap. Immediately the prince was upon him and dragged him towards the door, where Ev'Ax and more soldiers were coming through. The whole thing had only taken a few seconds.
Prince Ar'Ric left the duke to Ev'Ax and the Imperial Guards and walked Emily out of the palace and inside his armored hover car.
“Now I will take you to my own residence,” he said.
“Is that a palace, too?” Emily asked. “Because I heard that you're a Crown Prince, next in line to become king and emperor. Or was that something the insane guy back there dreamed up?”
The prince started the engine. “I was not going to reveal that to you just yet. But now that you ask, I have no choice. It is true that I am a royal prince and the Heir Apparent. The Emperor is my father.”
“I see. You've called me 'my love' twice now, I notice. Not something an heir apparent does lightly, I'm guessing.”
Ar'Ric pulled on the controls, and the hover car was airborne. “What I mean by that is that I need a wife, a princess, a mother to my heirs. That's why I came to Earth in the first place. By some strange coincidence, you appeared aboard my ship. And I find you immensely attractive.”
“Right,” Emily said, looking out into the alien night. She enjoyed being alone with the prince, but she was still trembling with adrenaline from her encounter with the duke. “Well, the feeling is mutual.”
“Is it? You surprise me. But it's a pleasant surprise. Would you then consider marrying me if I were to propose to you?”
Emily hesitated. She wanted nothing more. But she was not who he thought. “Ar'Ric, I think you have the wrong idea about me. I'm not really a warrior. Like, not at all. I'm a cleaner. I clean toilets.”
The prince glanced over at her and lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “I have to confess that I feel some relief. I had my doubts about marrying a warrior. But a cleaner, nobly fighting uncleanliness and entropy wherever it may be found – that is a profession worthy of a princess!”
Emily frowned. “You don't mind that I'm not a warrior?”
“Oh, you plainly are. It might not be easy for you to see yourself, but you did fight valiantly and attack me with your spray, and you did fend off Duke Hyp's final attack on you. You may have the profession of a cleaner, but you also have the heart of a warrior.”
“Uh-huh.” She was not sure about that.“So was that Duke completely insane? Or did he have a point about what would happen if he showed the Emperor that I'm alien?”
“He did not have a point,” the Prince scoffed. “It was a crazy fantasy of his. No, my father the Emperor is mainly concerned about the future of the Empire. He has nothing against aliens as such, and he has sometimes said that he wants aliens to be closer associated with the government. And I think that my father will welcome you with open arms. That's his way. And it might be a way to tie our two civilizations together. No need for one to discover the other, just a mutual friendship that will be beneficial to both. Whatever I think about the space station I was at, I was certainly impressed by its cleanliness. I'm not worried about what anyone else will think. If I want to marry you, I will marry you.”
“Provided I agree, of course.”
The prince glanced at her again, amused. “Of course. We must both want to, that's how we do it here. Is it similar on your planet?
“Yeah. The guy proposes, and the girl says yes or no. If it's no, well, that's it.”
“It seems our customs have much in common. My position on this is clear. You have both the soul and... hmm... body of an Imperial Princess. But your opinion of me may not be what I would wish it to be.”
“Only one way to find out.” She was not going to pre-approve anything here just because he was a royal. Crown Prince or not, he had to take a chance on this like every other man in love.
“Very well. Emily, will you marry me?”
It was getting brighter outside. The night was coming to an end, and the armored hover-car flew on over the surface of the planet, into the sunrise.
32
The prince's residence was also a palace, but one that looked smaller and more modern than the Duke's in the warm dawn light. Ar'Ric took her straight to her bedroom because they both needed each other now.
The strong prince took Emily in his arms and had to bend down a little to kiss her. She put her arms lightly around him, feeling the muscles flex under her hands. The scent of him was intoxicating – it was exotic, but not too alien. It was fresh and clean and still complex and musky, and Emily felt that if he hadn't held her, she might have had to steady herself because she felt that her knees could give way. But he held her easily, his strength and size making her feel small and delicate.
She dropped the jacket he had given her and stood before him with only panties on. She looked up at him and almost had to smile at the expression on his face, so struck with wonder at what he was seeing. Then he smiled, showing even, white teeth, and the breath caught in her chest. He was beyond handsome; he was just magnificent.
He quickly shed his shirt, and the breath caught in her chest again. Was it even possible to have that many muscles? And that big? Still, the muscles looked like they were the result of a practical need and strenuous use, not just endless hours in the gym. There were scars here and there, probably from battles and war. He had survived all of them, even won most of them, she knew. Her hand traced a long scar on his chest, feeling the heat from his body and the smoothness of the skin. Ar'Ric gently put one hand on her chest, cupping a breast with his palm. She felt lines of fire shooting from her nipples to her clit.
“You are so close to my ideal woman it's almost unreal,” he said with a voice that was thick with arousal. “A woman should have a feminine shape like yours, not be dry and gaunt like twig.”
“You don't like that?”
“A woman should be allowed to take any shape she wants. Of course I personally prefer the rounder shapes, the fuller figure. And so do most fighting men, because we need the feminine to balance out our lives. Your body is... luxurious. It is exactly what every man dreams of coming home to after his hard and demanding work. You have no idea how much that attracts me.”
His hand slid down her back along her deep curve and pressed her into him. The force and need of the move made her gasp in a need of her own. He was very close to her now, and she could feel a hardness right at his crotch. She glanced down. Yeah, that was the bulge to rule all bulges. She felt her mind becoming a whirlwind of erotic images. This man pulled at some primitive urge deep inside her, one that sent hard tingles to her girly bits.
She wanted him inside her, as soon as possible. She fumbled with his pants, unable to figure out the alien mechanism. He gently helped her, and soon his pants slid down his
legs and revealed both thighs as thick as tree trunks and a sleek alien undergarment that was obviously straining to keep the hard rod behind in check. The sight of it made Emily's pussy ache with arousal. She felt her breath going ragged as the impatiently tugged at his last garment, wanting it gone so she could see the manhood he would take her with.
He took her hand and placed it on his hardness. “That's all you, my alien woman. You do this to me.”
He placed his hand behind her neck and kissed her once more, curling his tongue around hers. She raked her nails up his arms and squeezed his hard muscles under the supple, smooth and warm skin.
But she wanted more, and she didn't want to wait. Again she tugged down on his alien shorts, and this time it slid down just a few inches. That was enough – the large manhood was freed from its confinement and swung up to hit the alien Prince on his flat abdomen with a fleshy splat. It was the most magnificent cock Emily had ever seen, large and thick and impossibly hard. It pointed straight skywards, and she could see his slow heartbeat in the way it pulsed.
She couldn't help herself. She slid her hand down to the awesome manhood and held around it. It was too thick for her fingertips to meet, and it was rock hard, hot and smooth. A moan escaped from his lips when he felt her cool, slender hand touch him, and she could see in his eyes that she had awoken the animal in him. That was fine with her. She was more than ready, and she was sure her panties were soaked. It certainly smelled of aroused women in the room.
Ar'Ric placed his hands on her hips and pulled her panties down in one impatient move. The Prince stared at her pussy as if mesmerized. Had he never before seen a landing strip?
“I wonder if you may be the perfect woman,” he mused. “Your shape is spectacular, and the... details are exquisite.” He stared at her pussy, and it only made her lust stronger. He obviously found her extremely attractive, and she wanted to show him all of her.