“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!
5
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, becauseIhad been the one who ended up paying a female, and it definitelywasn’tsafe 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 youup to, brother?” Zann asks, biting into the flesh of a pukpuk fruit. “Going for someearly 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.
My brother grins and shoves himself away from the pillar, casually throwing the half-eaten pukpuk fruit over his shoulder. One of the small service bots this station has bleeps and blinks as it rolls its way over to clean up the mess my brother had made, and I’ve never related so much to a piece of machinery before in my life. There is a waste receptacle maybe three dozen paces away, and yet he has to make work for something else to clear?
“Oh,Kiahn,” he laughs, coming to stand beside me as though he intends to ride the level pod with me. “It’s never too early to start annoying you. You should know that by now.”
Unfortunately, Idoknow that.
The pod arrives with a chirpy-sounding‘ding’and I enter with a grunt. Of course, my little brother follows me inside and waits for me to key the destination level into the control pad. He leans back against the glass wall, watching me, but I say nothing.
“You know, if you finally wanted to start fucking in the flesh, there are hundreds of gorgeous Xaviann females back home who are dying to enter breeding contracts with Prince Kiahn. Just ask Aunt Zalora, she’s got at least a dozen lined up ready for you to choose from. No need to purchase a bed slave.”
“I am not purchasing a bed slave,” I grumble, as the pod starts its descent into the belly of the station.
Zann scoffs. “You’re buying a human,” he says simply. “And humans, believe it or not, are one of the few species I’ve not been able to cross off my fuck list-” he taps on the personal comm strapped to his wrist to project a large image in front of us. A list with images of all the known sentient, sexually explorative species from various galaxies. There are crosses through the ones my brother has managed to bed. A few of the images of females are left with no mark through them, including one of a very plain-looking human.
“Why?” I grunt, half wincing because my brother’s mating habits are not really something I’m keen to learn about. But humans are a very attractive species, and I cannot imagine Zann turning his nose up at the prospect of taking one to bed.
