Alien Prince: (Bride of Qetesh) An Alien SciFi Romance

by Juniper Leigh

  The Echelon was still determined to get its hands on our baby.

  “Would it not be better to simply tell them that the baby did not…survive?” Calder managed to choke out one evening as we thought of how we would keep them at bay. They’d already sent an emissary to visit on a “goodwill” mission, but he’d been forcibly removed from the Spire when the topic of taking the baby—with or without me, whichever I chose—back to the Atria.

  “You must understand the implications!” he’d insisted, sweating under the effects of a particularly spicy banquet prepared just for the purpose of keeping his visit brief. “We have so much to learn from this offspring. Even if it doesn’t make it to term, we can learn so much from the fetus’ cells alone! Think of what it will mean for all species to know that inter-relations that produce offspring are possible!”

  My husband had leapt across the table to take the man by throat at the mention of “cells” and “research,” but the guards managed to convince him to remove his nails from the visitor’s windpipe.

  After that ill-fated attempt at reason, there had been several strange occurrences that told us the Echelon wasn’t finished with us. My appointed mid-wife, a Europax woman with extensive knowledge of birthing and of Qulari medicine, suddenly disappeared; the brew I was given each morning to quell the violent nausea and strengthen my bones for the emergence of an infant with horns turned rancid, no matter how fresh the herbs they used. Most alarming of all was the possible attempt on my life, only it was my father who was very nearly poisoned when he stole a piece of fruit off my plate when I was distracted.

  Now, with the child delivered healthy and three months passed since the last sign of the Echelon—thanks to Dad’s “favors,” no doubt—we were free to celebrate the continuation of the royal family line.

  I scooped up Bre’etara and cradled her in my arms (thankful for the hundredth time that Qulari females are born without their horns!) before passing her off to my mother. Mom held her breath as she looked down at her granddaughter, inhaling deeply of her intoxicating baby scent. If I’d had any reservations about either of my parents being less than addicted to their half-alien grandbaby, they were long gone.

  “I’ll just take her to the rocking chair and give her a good snuggle while you finish getting ready,” Mom whispered over her shoulder as she left the room and headed to the nursery across the hall. I laughed softly; the scientific part of my mom’s personality had completely been overridden by her nurturing side, and it was adorable.

  “Are you nervous about Bre’etara’s big day?” Calder asked, a worried look on his face. “Because there are extra guards in case of any Echelon attempts at—”

  “No, that’s not it,” I answered quickly, not letting him finish speaking that sentence aloud. “I just…I still can’t believe everything has turned out so perfectly!”

  “Why should it not?”

  “I don’t know, maybe because it all started by being taken captive by slavers and almost being sold into prostitution?” I joked weakly. “It could have all gone so horribly wrong, a hundred different ways. Instead, I have everything I ever wanted. My whole life on board the Atria was all supposed to lead to this.”

  “Then I suppose I have to be grateful to the Echelon for that, at least,” Calder said, coming to me and pulling me into his strong arms. He pressed his lips against mine and lit a new fire inside me, one that I would never tire of.

  Alien Alpha

  (Qetesh Warrior)

  By Juniper Leigh

  Copyright 2015 © Enamored Ink

  Part One

  CHAPTER 1: NOVALYN

  Okay, just hit “send.” Hit “send.” It’s not a big deal — It’s a text. Everybody texts.

  Dating in New York City is probably the worst thing in the entire universe, apart from obvious things like genocide and disease. You would think that the high population density would mean a larger selection of viable options, but in my experience, it actually makes finding the good ones all that much harder: the proverbial needle in a haystack. And some days, it just feels totally overwhelming.

  I finally put Tinder on my phone when my manager told me about how her cousin met his fiancée on it. I uploaded a profile picture that highlighted my round, blue eyes and pouty pink lips, and maybe slightly downplayed my unruly mass of brown curls. I included another image that was a full-body shot because the absolute last thing I wanted was for someone to think I was anything other than what I am: curvy and Rubenesque, an hourglass with a prominent backside. I slipped into the back alley behind the bar on my breaks, scrolling through the endless menagerie of men that fit within my search parameters. No, no, no, no, yes, no, no, no… I thought of it kind of like a game instead of a dating site, and was slightly unnerved when I received my first message.

  Hey, it read, alongside a tiny picture of him, blond and smiling. We’re a match!

  I looked at his profile, scrolled through his pictures. He was a Celtics fan, working in engineering, a vegetarian who lived with his brother. He was handsome, with striking blue eyes and long blond hair that hit his shoulders. It wasn’t a hard decision to respond.

  Yay, I typed, you’re my first one!

  No, that’s dumb. Delete, delete, delete.

  So we are, I tried again. Hi.

  But I didn’t send it right away. I felt paralyzed. In quantum mechanics, there is a theory that holds that all possible futures exist somewhere, in different dimensions. This felt like a diverging moment: if I responded, one future was certain; if I didn’t, if I deleted the app off my phone, then another future altogether would come to pass. Little did I know then how wise I was to hesitate.

  After a prolonged moment of consideration, I went back into the bar and spent the night slinging cocktails to a collection of reliable regulars who didn’t use more words with me than absolutely necessary. They never shared any details of their lives and never asked me for any details of mine. I’d taken the job because I thought it would allow me to talk to people, you know? The bartender is supposed to be something of an ersatz therapist to her customers. But the seedy Alphabet City dive that hired me didn’t exactly have a chatty clientele. I was sick of the silence, sick of the isolation. When I wasn’t tending bar, I was in school, working toward my BA in Mythology. Can you even think of a less useful major? But the heart wants what it wants, I suppose. When I wasn’t working or in class, I was doing homework, or I was asleep. Not much of a social life to speak of. After my shift, I thought I might actually go insane if I didn’t talk to someone, a real live person, and soon. So I took a deep breath, opened the app, and hit “send.”

  It was only a matter of days before I found myself in a cozy little Italian bistro, sitting across the table from my match. I’d opted to wear a black dress and flats, an ensemble that was easily dressed down with chunky, colorful jewelry and natural makeup. Plus, it was breezy, allowing my body to better regulate its temperature in the muggy New York City summer. My date, Tymer, was dressed nicely in slacks and a long-sleeved collared shirt, but he also wore a knit beanie and had a blazer slung over the back of his chair, like he was prone to getting cold. Not that I was really looking at his clothes, not when I had those eyes staring back at me. I swear, they seemed to glow with their own inexplicable light.

  “Tymer,” I said, leaning forward to scoop up my wine glass, “that’s an interesting name.”

  He grinned. “Novalyn,” he said, elongating the oh sound, “isn’t exactly run-of-the-mill either.”

  “Actually, it’s pronounced Nah-Vah-Lyn,” I corrected, a faint blush rising into my cheeks. “My parents were hippy artist types.”

  He laughed, tossing his head back as he did, and punctuated the gesture with a sharp nod. “Yep,” he said, “mine were, too.” He took a sip of wine and leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “So, Novalyn,” he went on, peering intently at me, “tell me more about your family.”

  I arched a shoulder in a shrug. “What’s t
here to tell, really? I’m an only child. An accident. My parents died in a car crash when I was little, so my grandma raised me. She owned a farm in Nebraska, but she passed away three summers ago.”

  “God,” he said, furrowing his brow, “I’m sorry. That’s kind of a lot of death for someone your age.”

  I shrugged again, not knowing where to place his sympathy. “But what about you?” I asked, eager for a subject change. “What are you into?” He simply gave a shake of his head.

  “Things,” he said.

  “Things?”

  “And stuff.” He grinned. “No, seriously, I’m boring. Tell me more about you.”

  And I did. Tymer had broken the dam of my silence, and my words came spilling out, end over end. I told him about growing up on a farm, helping to work the land in the summertime and during the harvest. I told him about the stories my grandmother used to tell me, and how they had gotten me interested in mythology. I told him about how I had wanted a bigger life for myself than what Nebraska could afford me. I told him about coming to New York for school, and how lonely it had been, how alone someone can feel in a crowd full of people. I just kept talking, addicted to sharing a piece of myself with another living, breathing person, perhaps a bit too eager to open up to anyone who showed me the slightest scrap of attention. And when I finally ran out of steam, and our glasses were empty, he stood, held out his hand, and offered to walk me home.

  “I’m not going to invite you upstairs,” I said when we’d reached the front door of my building. He flashed me a bright, dimpled smile and leaned down to press a kiss to my cheek.

  “Maybe next time,” he said, his eyes twinkling. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and walked back toward the subway station, turning after a few paces to face me again. “Are you busy tomorrow?”

  ***

  It’s possible that I seemed overeager when I agreed to meet Tymer for lunch the following day, but I didn’t care: I was hooked. In the span of a few hours, I was addicted to telling someone my story, and to having it really matter. And, let’s be honest, I was hoping that the intellectual intimacy would extend to other facets of our relationship. Can you blame me? He was beautiful, shockingly so, and I wanted to have my taste.

  I met Tymer in Tompkins Square Park, where we spread a blanket on the grass and nibbled shyly on little pieces of cheese and bread. We had bottles of fresh-pressed apple juice on the blanket between us, but passed a sly little flask of whisky back and forth as we spoke. He was easy company, warm if not effusive, and he had this remarkable ability to make me feel calm, and totally at home.

  “So, you’re a classics and mythology major,” he said after a brief lull in the otherwise constant conversation. I bobbed my head in the affirmative. “So, then: what’s your favorite story?”

  “Hm…” There were so many from which to choose: Persephone and Hades and the origins of spring, the Muses, the Fates, Odysseus… But there was one that had always stood out. “Well, maybe it’s a little trite, but I’ve always been partial to Psyche and Cupid.”

  Tymer scratched at his head — still wearing the black knit beanie — and smiled in recognition. “I know the story,” he said. “After Persephone incurs Aphrodite’s rage, Aphrodite enlists her son, Cupid, to make Psyche fall in love with a monster, but Cupid scrapes himself with his own arrow and falls instantly in love with her.”

  “Mmhm — but the part I really love is how she fell for him without ever seeing how beautiful he was. How she loved him despite fearing he was a terrible monster.” I smiled, snaking my fingers around the flask to drink deeply of it. “It’s where Beauty and the Beast comes from.”

  “I’m more familiar with it as a tenet of psychology,” Tymer said, plucking the flask out of my hand to take a drink. “How a mutable person matures within the constructs of family and marriage.”

  I leaned back on my hands, my legs out in front of me and crossed at the ankles, and I couldn’t help but smile. Talking about my favorite myth with someone who actually got it.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed, unable to wipe the grin off my face. “It’s just an incredible piece of history. Consider the art it inspired, the music, the reinterpretation. It’s just…” I shrugged. “It’s extraordinary.”

  “You’re extraordinary.”

  I froze and locked my eyes on him, startled by the sudden warm swell I felt at his compliment. He was looking at me with an expression of wonder on his face, and before I could part my lips to protest, he’d leaned forward and pressed his mouth to mine. He kissed me like it meant something, like he had never been so hungry for anyone or anything in his life. And I responded in kind, lifting a hand to brush my fingertips over the smooth slope of his cheek. His tongue lapped at mine with a little come hither gesture that sent a shiver down my spine, and I found that I nearly toppled forward when he broke the kiss and whispered, “Invite me upstairs.”

  We were several blocks away from my tiny studio apartment, but I just nodded, stunned into silence, and helped him gather up our picnic supplies. He took my hand as we walked together, and I smiled to think of us as a typical New York couple: going to brunch, hitting tag sales, taking the subway home together late at night. I tried to reason with my brain, tried to stop it from getting ahead of itself, but it had already begun to spin its fantasies. My life will be different now, I thought, less lonely, more exciting. And, I suppose, I was right.

  We scaled four flights of creaky old prewar stairs to get to my studio, and he had his hands on me as soon as I’d gotten the key into the lock. His touch was light, gentle, tentatively exploring the peaks and valleys from my rib cage to my hips, from my shoulder blades past my tailbone. Inside, he allowed the picnic things to fall to the floor and he tugged me into him, encircling me with his arms. We kissed like we had never tasted lips before, and his hands were two explorers on the continent of my skin.

  I shimmied out of my jean shorts and lifted my tee shirt up over my head, unabashed and full of wanting. He watched me carefully as I undressed, and I reveled in the feeling of his eyes on my form. My bra was the next to go, freeing my full breasts to the open air, and finally my panties dropped to a puddle at my feet. I was bared fully to him; I don’t know what it was that made me bold.

  “Is it all right if I just look at you for a minute?” he asked, his voice a husky whisper in his throat. I nodded and forced my hands to stay at my side, forced them not to cover the most private parts of myself. Tymer walked in a slow circle around me, sweeping his fingertips over my flesh as he moved. He drank in the sight of me, taking his time; he pressed a kiss to a spot where I knew there was a small birthmark on my left shoulder blade, ran his finger along the line of a scar I’d gotten from a trowel when I was seven. He must have noted every tiny blemish and imperfection, but when he moved to stand in front of me again, he cupped my face gently in his hands and said, “Beautiful.”

  I swelled with pride as I stood on tiptoe to kiss him again, pressing my breasts against him as I did so. He reached between us to wriggle one deft finger in between the folds of my labia, only to find me wet with my wanting.

  “Is this okay?” he asked. I nodded my enthusiastic consent, and he began to rub my clitoris with the tip of his finger. A tiny little moan escaped my lips, and he smiled down at me in the dim light of the setting sun.

  It was impossible that the sun should already be setting. We’d just had lunch, hadn’t we? How long had we been talking? And why did I always feel like time slipped completely away from me when I was with him?

  He led me over to my bed and pushed me gently down onto the blue quilt that was my bedspread. I let myself relax into the mattress, and he reached forward to pry my thighs apart. I bent my legs at the knees and allowed them to fall to the sides so that I was open to him. He dropped to his knees in front of me and wrapped his arms around my legs, tugging me forward so that he could run his tongue along my separation, sending a jolt of electricity through me. His tongue was warm and thin, str
ong and quick, and he began to lap at me fully, from perineum to clit and back again.

  After a time, he slid his middle finger inside of me, probing me with long, slow thrusts. It was then that he focused his ministrations on my clit, and I felt that familiar crescendo, a desperation for release. Tymer added his index finger and gestured with them like he was beckoning me forward. He flicked my clit with the tip of his tongue at an almost inhuman pace, and my orgasm broke like a wave on the rocks of my wanting, sending my muscles to spasm around his intrusive fingers. I cried out and turned away to bury my face in a pillow, and he withdrew his hand slowly, his fingers dripping with my juices.

  I closed my eyes and heard him moving about the space, first to the bathroom, where he ran the water, then back to the foyer, where he’d dropped all his things, and finally back to my side. He sat on the edge of the bed and stroked my hair, and I smiled, sated.

  “That was amazing,” I murmured, sleepy in my satisfaction.

  “Shh,” he whispered, leaning forward to press a kiss to my cheek. “Sleep.”

  He brushed my hair away from my neck, and I felt a pinch, like I’d been stuck by a small needle. But before I could even give voice to my pain, I fell into a deep, unyielding sleep.

  CHAPTER 2: NOVALYN

  I woke up with a start, jerked violently from a dreamless slumber by that sinking sensation of falling, somersaulting, my stomach lurching into my throat and dropping down again. My heart thrummed madly in my chest, and I could hear the blood pulsing in my ears, and everything smelled clean, sterile, like lemon and peroxide, bleach and lavender.

  This was not the tepid bathwater air of my apartment; these were not my sheets, this was not my mattress; this impenetrable darkness was utterly unfamiliar.

  Where am I?

  The dark was all-encompassing, and I opened my eyes as wide as they would go, willing my pupils to dilate and give me some idea of the outline of the room. With fumbling fingers, I reached out to try to gain purchase on some light switch or familiar piece of furniture, but felt nothing in the black. I tossed aside the blanket in which I was tangled and swung my feet over the edge of the bed — plush, but small, with a memory foam mattress that swelled at the head for a pillow. Planting my feet on the floor, I was shocked by the feel of cold metal against my bare toes, sending a chill down my spine. I stood, tracing my hands along the far side of the room until they brushed some sort of touch pad which set a series of indirect overhead lights to glowing. They cast the space in a warm, orange light, and I saw that I was in a room — no, a cell — with no discernible door. The entire thing was maybe ten square feet, with my small bed in one corner and a toilet and sink with a mirror in another. I allowed my gaze to drink in the details of the tiny space, willing myself to keep an impending sense of panic at bay.