She rolled her eyes. Nole rarely, if he ever had, missed an opportunity to compliment her. Perhaps he never would. She enjoyed it, but sometimes it felt like he was playing a game—how many times can I compliment her today?
“I’d be fine with going to this stupid event if we could just stay an extra day,” she whined. Troptonia was home to some of the rarest plants in the galaxy. It would be easy for them to secure a guide, even get some presses for her research books. She’d read about some of these plants her entire life! There was one in particular, the Alfred Geriminium, that had some astounding medicinal properties. If she could get a clipping of it, it might even be possible to clone it in her own future garden...
“I know, my beauty, but we have another stupid event we have to get to,” Nole grumbled, his attention now claimed by the tablet. “It’s better than working in the salt mines. But only barely.”
Braun lifted an eyebrow at this gross exaggeration but then continued to dress. “There will be other planets,” he reminded Kayla when he turned around and saw her still staring at him with pursed lips and crossed arms. “And why you’re standing there glaring at me, I don’t understand.”
“Because Nole doesn’t have any idea what this means to me, and you do. Grazing animals have more concern for plants than he does.” Nole surely heard this but made no sound or motion of argument. She had long discovered that he had absolutely no interest in her studies. He enjoyed studying politics—actually enjoyed it!—but cared for very little else. Luckily, they had similar tastes in music and movies or else no common ground would have been found outside the bedroom.
Braun looked up at the ceiling and shook his head as he buttoned his shirt. When he finally looked at her he said, “You need to stop acting like a brat. You’re not the twelfth royal child of a small, poorly-ruled kingdom anymore. You can’t do everything you want. Sometimes we need to go and do things on the schedule.”
“The only times we’re not doing something ‘on the schedule’, we’re having sex,” she snapped. “I never get time to do anything that’s important to me.”
Weeks ago, she had assumed Braun didn’t smile. There was nothing in the lines of his face that told of him doing it often, or at all. He always appeared to her to be surly and grumpy. But the last week or so, she had finally realized that Braun did have just as broad of a spectrum of emotions as she did. He was simply less likely to show them; emotions broiled deep under his surface, and one had to watch him closely to read them properly.
Here, the side of his mouth widened, rather than lifted into a smile. “It would be very easy for you to get out of your obligations without offending our hosts if you’re with child. We’re simply trying to get you to that place of relaxation that you dream about as soon as possible.”
She continued to glare at him, and he added, “You’ve spent hundreds of hours of research and plenty of time looking for specimens in the last month. There’s a room on this ship filling up with your samples.”
“A closet. Not a room.” Now was her time to roll her eyes. “Come on, if you just let me go while you’re at the game, then I’ll be back by the time you get to dinner.”
“And we would,” Nole said, now getting out of his chair. “And we thought about it, discussed it with each other, and then were fortunate enough to remember this time that you’ve shown yourself not to be reliable when it comes to inconsequential things like time.” This might have been true, although she had already decided that she was actually going to show up on time in this instance. She understood that showing up late drove both of her husbands up a wall.
She simply wasn’t used to anyone waiting on her. In her past, it was very easy to come along to a place whenever that proved convenient to do so. Still, she felt there was a middle-ground there. She didn’t see it as an issue when she came to the meals they had on their own, for example, but just the day before, Braun had ordered her to sit with her nose in the corner for ten minutes after she arrived only ten minutes late for breakfast. She had done it, despite how ridiculous it was or how embarrassed it made her feel, because she had known that a spanking would be worse.
“I would be back on time,” she assured, dropping her hands to her side and turning to Nole. The look she received in response showed his obvious doubt of her promise with one dark eyebrow raised nearly to his hairline. “I would,” she assured.
“We said ‘no’,” her other husband said from behind her, his tone just as firm as always. “You don’t have to go to the games with us, but you need to stay here until—”
“Let her go,” Nole finally said, waving his hand at his brother. She nearly bounced at this announcement. She clapped her hands together and jumped on her toes, but Nole arranged his expression into one of the sternest she had ever seen him wear. “You will be escorted. They will remind you what time it is, and you will comply. We will be back from the games in five hours, and you will be here whether or not you find your—whatever plant you’re obsessed with today.”
“I thought we discussed that she would stay home,” Braun argued with his brother, jerking his index finger down toward the floor. “You can’t just change your mind just like that!”
“Oh, come on, Braun. I’m not a child. I can show up somewhere on time,” Kayla assured with a groan, putting her hands on her hips. When his expression continued to hold only stubborn resolve, she said, “You’re trying to impregnate me at every turn, so apparently you trust me with your children, but you don’t trust me to do something a monkey could do.”
“It seems you’re better with complicated things than uncomplicated things,” Braun replied after a thoughtful pause. “You’re brilliant, Kayla. But you are extremely absent-minded. You lose everything, forget everything, and don’t care.” He threw up his hands.
“Thanks for your shining vote of confidence.”
“Fine,” he snapped back. “Go. But you will surprise me and be here on time so that I don’t have to make a scene to appease our hosts.”
“Firstly—okay. Secondly, if you wanted to, you could go over there and take this planet. Just take it. Like it was part of a buffet or something. I don’t know why you’re so adamant about kissing—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Braun warned, holding up one stern finger. “I’m not sucking up to anyone. We’re not taking over this federation. We can’t take every planet in the universe at once, and if they think that’s what we’re going to constantly do, then we’re not going to have our own. So every now and then we practice respect, and so shall you.” He grabbed his coat from where he had it resting on the back of a chair. “Be there. On time.”
She saluted, and although he looked less than happy about her response, he let her turn and walk towards her dressing room to get ready.
* * *
This planet was just about as cold as her own, but over the last few hours of walking through snowy forests, she’d realized that planet-hopping and space travel even in the last month had begun to remove some of her acclimatization.
Her two bodyguards didn’t have a chance. They were from a tropical planet and thus shook uncontrollably even in their layers of coats. They checked the time every two minutes. She knew they would rather be chewing glass than crunching through the muddy snowdrifts all day looking for a flower that grew in these particularly shitty conditions. What made this even worse for them, if she stopped to think about it, was that if she had gone to the games with her husbands, they’d be in a warm arena watching men beat the snot out of each other with their bare hands all day.
“We need to get back to the palace, Your Highness,” one of her guards finally announced with a sigh of relief.
She checked the time for herself and then looked at the man with an incredulous expression. “I don’t have to be back for two hours.”
“We’ve been out here for two hours. It takes time to get back,” he reminded. “And then you’ll have time to freshen up before your dinner this evening.”
“Why
do you think I need a full hour for that? This isn’t a pleasure hike. I’m not going to give up early. I’m going to find that damn flower if it’s the last thing I do.”
And time ticked on. It didn’t feel like it, of course. She was cold, but not miserable, by the time she finally came across a whole patch of the blossoms, so white that they nearly blended in with the snow. She felt a thrill of exhilaration at the discovery.
The guards were less than enthusiastic when it came to helping her dig out a sample for her collection. “It’ll be lucky if they have food still left in the kitchens by the time we get back. At this point, we’d be late even if we could teleport back...” one of them grumbled.
“It’s worth it,” she told them as she pressed on with her efforts. “This is a really important plant, just discovered a few years ago. The potential medical uses are incredible and it’s one of the only things that bloom in freezing temperatures.”
Was she late? Well, yes, considerably so, and she felt bad about it. But surely Braun would be somewhat on her side as soon as he saw that she was successful in her search. He had been doubting that it could be done, and she had done it in five hours. Besides, although her guards were unappreciative about the entire outing they were on, they weren’t going to take as long to get back. She’d probably be only a couple of hours late, which was much better than her norm. Right away, in the beginning of her relationship, she’d made it perfectly clear that being a half to a full day late was acceptable in her culture, especially among the wealthy and the royal.
“You know we’re going to be the ones that get blamed for all this,” another guard pouted. She thought he looked very much like a seven-year-old boy who didn’t want to do his homework.
“You’re not going to get blamed. They know it’s my fault. Trust me, it’s not going to be a big deal,” she assured them.
Sure, her husbands had acted like it was going to be a big deal, but they were very dramatic people. In their culture, and on their worlds, she noted people often acted like things were more important and dire than they were. She might get scolded a little, maybe even a small spanking, but then they were just going to get over it.
Either way, it didn’t matter. She had the plant she wanted, so she was victorious.
* * *
“That’s why I told you not to take a Fuedian as your bride,” Braun and Nole’s uncle, King Gresen, had said with a chiding laugh. “They’re beautiful creatures, to be sure, but they’re about as easy to tame as a herd of cats. But no, no. You wanted beauty. When she’s here, that is.”
“There’s more to her than beauty,” Braun argued, although hell if Gresen was going to hear that at all at this point. Gresen hated being disrespected in this way, and that’s all he saw it as. Braun wasn’t sure if Gresen even believed Kayla was really out on a research trip, since he didn’t much hold with the entire major of botany. “She’s a good girl. Bright.”
“Except that she acts like a disobedient child, apparently,” Gresen scoffed, and Braun looked across the table to see that Nole wasn’t even paying attention. He looked distant, apparently thinking of times and places better than where he was at the moment.
He wasn’t going to agree with his uncle at any point here, although he secretly hated how childlike she was being at the moment. Her innocence, passion, and enthusiasm were childlike, too, but endearing. Her lack of responsibility was less so. “She’s very reasonable, but like us, she does have her passions that tend to color over other things. She’s new to responsibility.”
“I certainly don’t let my own wife be late to anything,” his uncle reminded, gesturing down the twenty-foot-long table to where his wife was entertaining guests at the other end. “How can she be a helpmate if she’s not there?”
“I’m not pleased with her at the moment, either, if that’s where you’re going,” Braun told him through gritted teeth. Talking to his uncle was too much like talking with his father, only about marriage his uncle would never shut up. By not sharing a bride with Braun’s fathers, his uncle succeeded in splitting up the whole federation by a third, and he never regretted it. He felt he was an expert when it came to marriage, and such expertise needed space.
“Yes, but is Nole? I can’t tell how he feels at all. I don’t know how you can set down expectations if you’re not a united front,” he said, like he had any experience whatsoever in sharing a wife. Braun looked across the table and realized there was no evidence that Nole had even heard Gresen talk about him.
This conversation was getting more painful by the minute, but fortunately the door to the dining hall opened and one of his wife’s guards stepped in, looking wet, muddy, cold, and miserable. Nole, seeing this entrance, stood from the table and departed it without taking leave, making his uncle growl at the perceived rudeness.
“Excuse me,” Braun grumbled and stood up as well, meeting with Nole and the guard as they spoke in tones too quiet to hear from the table. “Is she returned?”
“Yes, and as I was telling His Highness,” the guard said with a gesture toward Nole, “she is quite well. We’re all colder than we’d like to be, but she’s in her chambers warming up and dressing.” Just as Braun opened his mouth he added, “As you ordered us, she was made well aware of the time, I assure you, but you didn’t give us leave to force her to go back when she needed to.”
“I know who we married. Thank you for bringing her back in one piece,” Nole said, clasping the guard’s arm. He turned to Braun and said, “I’m going to go see her.”
“Gresen is—” Braun began, gesturing behind him.
“Already irritated. I’m not going to wait for her to join us and then have him expect some public scolding or worse—not because he expects it, in any case.” Well, if he wasn’t going to wait for her then Braun certainly wasn’t. Part of him wanted an excuse to chastise her in public since her blushing was one of the more erotic scenes in the known universe, but the other part of him knew that she wasn’t ready for that. She was still too new, and he didn’t want her to start thinking of them as cruel... Even if that little minx deserved the paddling of her life!
He grumbled as he walked over to the table, bowed, and explained to everyone there that his wife had returned, and they were going to make sure that she was alright, and excused himself. His uncle immediately said, “Remember, women need structure and firm correction—”
“Absolutely agree with you, uncle,” Nole said, but very offhandedly. Still, Gresen didn’t call him on his flippancy, and they finally were able to walk out of the room. “I’m going to kill her,” Nole said as soon as they exited the room. “I’ve been worried sick for the last three hours! I thought there was no way that, after everything we said, she would just fiddlefart around out in the freezing cold forest to her heart’s content! I sort of thought the lousy weather would drive the idea far out of her mind, anyway. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. I’ve been nice, understanding—I’ve been patient. I’ve made you be patient with her. Most men would have had her sitting on a pillow for the last month. Maybe they have something there! Apparently, what I’ve been doing hasn’t been working!”
Braun raised his eyebrows, surprised by his brother’s sudden vigor. He normally wasn’t one who’d get annoyed over anything, and it didn’t seem to ebb even with that small rant off his chest. He walked straight past the guard posted outside Kayla’s room without a glance, barged in, then pointed at Kayla, who was still dressed for a hike, with fur-lined boots stretching up to her knee, trousers, and a fur-lined jacket still on her shoulders. “You!” He pointed to the ground in front of him. “Come here!”
Braun’s surprise at Nole’s high level of annoyance was nothing compared to Kayla’s. She spun around and looked at him like he had sprouted antennae.
“Now,” Nole growled, and they watched as Kayla, hesitating and suddenly very timid, walked over to him. “Damn it, woman, you could lead a man to drink.” With a jerk, he reached down and yanked the coat off of her shoulders. “Do
you have any idea what time it is?”
“I’m not that late,” she promptly stated like he was overacting. “Don’t you want to know how it went?”
“I don’t care about flowers. I care about you, Kayla. You’re my wife, and you’re over three hours late. I know for a fact that you knew what time it was. Did you want a good spanking tonight? Because next time if you’d like one, all you have to do is ask,” he told her crisply.
Her eyes rounded and Braun could see that she was surprised by the idea of a spanking. How there could be any surprise there, he had no idea.
“No, I just—” she began, but Nole continued to divest her of her clothing in a way very unlike one of their love-making sessions. His movements took her by surprise, and though she verbally squeaked in protest, she could do very little to keep her clothing on. She was soon standing with her arms covering her round breasts and puckered nipples, trying to back up as Nole attempted to unfasten her hiking trousers. “Nole!” she chided. “Come on!”
She looked pleadingly at Braun as if he might intervene. “What?” Braun asked. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s too bad you didn’t sit down much today, little wife, because you’re not going to be doing much of it for quite a while without a cushion. Now take off those trousers, or are you going to make us do it?” He hoped his low, firm tone wouldn’t broach any argument; it certainly didn’t invite one.
Yet she said, “You have to be a little more understanding. I’m sorry I was late, but aren’t you reacting a little too strongly?”
“Wife, if you had come to dinner this late, King Gresen would have surely implored us to take you in hand in front of everyone, and thoroughly. Be grateful that the only people seeing your naughty bottom getting what it deserves will be your husbands,” Nole snapped at her.
Alien Alphas: Twenty-Three Naughty Sci-Fi Romance Novellas Page 70