The Princess and her Alien Rogue: Alien Romance (7 page)

“I went to see a fortune teller. She told me to look for the moon in the stars. And
I found you.”

He laughed, a deep belly laugh, which she liked. “A fortune teller. I hope you didn’t give her much coin.”

“Two bags of silver coins.”

He tilted his head back and roared with laughter. “I would send your guards to go get it back. No one can tell the future.”

Now she did feel stupid. He reminded her of her father and how angry he was when her mom went to see Misha’Ha. “We’re here,” she said suddenly, and guided the cruiser off the main path and into a clearing where a small cottage stood.

Cottage
might have been a little generous. It was a mud hut, but outside of it were two children playing. They were very grubby, but obviously happy. When they saw the cruiser, they jumped up and ran into the house calling for their mother.

A middle-aged woman with silver hair and fair skin appeared, and stood still for one moment, her hand wrapped around a long pole that might have been a walking staff to the untrained eye, but Tallia knew it was for self-defense. However, her expression shifted, and then she smiled a smile that lit up her face and she ran to Tallia, pulling her to her and holding her close.

Tallia froze. She had not been held like this for so long. Even Rian did not hug her. Slowly her stiffness faded and she put her arms tentatively around the woman. “Yassa.”

“My Princess. Oh Tallia, I have wondered how you were. My sister sent word that things were not good at the palace, she told us to keep away.”

“I wouldn’t say they were that bad.” Tallia pulled back and looked at Yassa. “But you are probably right to avoid it. The Emissars are not fond of anything with a connection to my parents.”

“Including you?”

“Especially me.” She tried to laugh it off, but those words were true.

“And who is this you have brought to see me? The children said you had brought a moon giant with you.”

“This is Johar.” Tallia held her hand out, and Johar stepped closer.

“Johar, it is good to meet you.” Yassa looked from Tallia to Johar and smiled.

“Hello. May I call you Yassa?” Johar bowed his head slightly in welcome and respect.

“Of course. So tell me why are you so special that not only has Tallia decided to visit me, but to bring you too.”

“Johar is to be my husband.”

“Husband! I didn’t know.”

“Neither did I until earlier today.”

“So sudden.” The words
are you sure
, hung between them. “You went to see Misha’Ha?” Yassa looked at Johar again.

“Yes.”

“Oh, Tallia.” Yassa’s brow furrowed, making her look old beyond her years, and Tallia realized how much she meant to the woman who had helped raise her as a child.

“I had no choice.”

“Do not let the Emissars know this.”

“No one else knows. Only you, me and Rian.”

“And me,” Johar said.

“You won’t tell anyone; if you do, they will chop your head off,” Tallia reminded him.

Chapter Ten – Johar

“Nice,” he said. What the hell had she got him into? Which was rich coming from a man who had got himself into so many scrapes he was lucky to be alive and breathing free air. Although he was feeling less free and more penned in by the minute. What had started out as an easy and enjoyable way to make a large amount of money was suddenly looking like a dangerous mission.

“Come, I will make you some tea. It looks as if your Johar needs a little sustenance, he has gone pale.”

“I am always pale,” he said, not without humor. Helping Tallia, he lifted the baskets from the cruiser. “All of them?” he asked.

“Yes.” They carried the baskets inside the hut, Tallia helping him, even though he could have managed them all alone.

“Where shall we set these down?” Tallia asked.

Johar looked around. There wasn’t too many places to set them. The hut was no bigger than one large room with beds made of soft straw along one side. The thatch on the roof needed redoing, and the floor was dusty, covered with thresh to keep it from drifting up as they walked over it. He wondered why anyone would live out here. That was when the threat from the Emissars became more real to him. Yassa was hiding from them. Maybe she should have gone further away, but the pull of her old life at the palace, Tallia, and her sister Mabel, was too much for her to cut her ties entirely.

“Here.” Yassa cleared some space on a small table. Tallia opened the first basket and began emptying the contents. “I cannot accept it all.”

“Yes you can. I would come more often if I could.” Tallia’s face became blank, but he had grown to know that that was her defense mechanism taking over. When her emotions were at their strongest, that was when she hid them.

“So things are that bad?” Yassa asked.

“I always thought my father held the control over the planet, but I think he let the Emissars take it back. Especially when my mother died. I hadn’t realized. But when he died, they were poised.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “They were ready.”

Yassa lifted her eyes to look at Johar. “Is this why you went to see Misha’Ha?”

“So she could tell me where to find a husband. I need an heir.”

Yassa looked at Tallia sternly. “And she sent you to a big tattooed alien? And you’re sure you are supposed to marry him, or did she mean for him to give you protection?”

“I asked her to tell me…” The blank expression covered her face again. “I asked her to tell me how to beat the Emissars.”

“You should not have to marry for that reason alone.” Yassa told her.

He listened to the conversation, saw the look that passed between Yassa and Tallia, and wondered if the marriage was off. However, this was not the time for that conversation. But damn him if he was going to let her use him like a hired hand.

He chuckled to himself. Of course, that was exactly what he was, no, not a hired hand, a hired cock. Maybe he should make love to her here today outside of her palace walls and show her what she would be inviting into her life, into her bed if she took him as a husband. Then her words came back to him. She only ever planned to keep him by her side to make a child.

To her, this had never been a permanent relationship; she wanted an heir, she wanted his seed, she did not want him, or need him.

“Johar? Yassa asked if you wanted tea?” As Tallia spoke, he looked at her for the first time, seeing not a rich princess, but a woman he desired, a woman who was worthy of him, and of whom his father would most likely approve of, even if she was not of their race.

She was everything he would have run from before today, because she was everything he had run from his whole life. Power and the pressure to be what you were not, who you were not.

The reason he hated these tattoos was that they were a constant reminder of his fate and his duty to his father and his people, a fate he didn’t want. Yet here, Tallia was fighting to keep everything he had convinced himself he wanted to give up. Through her eyes he could see why a man wanted to rule, why a woman wanted to rule. To make things better for the people, not to hand over power so hard won by her ancestors so the Emissars could rule by pain and terror.

“Johar,” she prompted again. “Please do not be rude.”

“I’m sorry. Yes. Tea please, Yassa.” He looked at Yassa, their eyes meeting, and a smile spread across her face.

“Maybe he is the marrying kind.” Yassa turned away and poured the tea, but Tallia was staring at him, and her expression said otherwise.

“Food?” Tallia asked.

The hut seemed too small with him in there, too claustrophobic. “Shall we eat outside?” he asked, and then ducked back out into the fresh air, needing to clear his head and compose his thoughts. He needed to figure out what he wanted, and how he was going to achieve it. It was time for Johar T’Omil to stop running and start fighting for what he wanted.

And what he wanted was a princess. His father would most likely laugh until he wept tears of silver when he heard that news.

Chapter Eleven – Tallia

Going to see Misha’Ha had been with one purpose in mind, how to keep the Emissars from taking power. Her mother always said that the witch psychic knew what a person needed, and sometimes the answer she gave was not the answer to the question asked, but the answer to someone’s deepest need, so deep that person might not even know it needed an answer.

Was that what has happened here? She had asked about a husband, and Misha’Ha had seen deep inside her head and realized that what Tallia really needed was a protector, a champion, someone big enough and strong enough to stand up to the Emissars. Could this one man, her big silver-tattooed alien, be a one-man army and defeat the Emissars?

“Why don’t we stop here for a while?” he asked.

They were traveling back to the palace. She was taking the scenic route past the river that flowed close to the city, where traders from the other parts of Carinia transported their goods along its wide, calm waters. The place Johar was pointing to was a tributary that fed the river; it was quiet and pretty, perfect for two lovers in the evening twilight to hide away.

“We should get back,” she said nervously.

“Why, so we don’t break curfew?” he teased, trying to bait her.

“I do not want trouble. But then, I suppose trouble is coming.”

“Then let’s stop.” His eyes said he wanted to do more than talk, and her body wanted to agree.

She slowed the cruiser and he was out of it before they had come to a stop, but instead of walking off towards the river, he came to her side of the cruiser, and helped her out. Gathering her up as if she was a small child, and cradling her to him. “I can walk, you know,” she said.

“I know.” She rested her head on his large chest, listening to the strong beat of his heart as he carried her over to the river and set her down on the soft springy grass. “I like holding you.”

His admission seemed hard fought, as if words like these were alien to him, as alien as he was to her. As she looked at him, his silver tattoos seemed to glow brighter than ever. Kneeling up, she placed her hand on his chest, and traced the pattern of what looked like a crescent moon. Where her fingertips touched him, the skin glowed whiter, and a small electrical charge seemed to emanate from him.

“Tell me about them.” She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his skin, feeling the buzz against them.

He groaned, and moved, so swift she was unprepared. He laid her down on her back, his body nestled between her thighs. “I want you, Tallia. You have no idea what you do to me.”

He moved his body, his cock hard, stimulating her clit, making her want him, ache for him, in return. “Not here.”

“Why not?” Johar pressed his lips to hers, his hand sliding between their bodies to press against her sex, he would know how much she wanted him, how much she ached for him, when he felt the heat there.

And maybe he was right. Maybe they should make love out here beneath the trees. He might put the child she needed in her belly, and then there would be no need for weddings and husbands.
Her child would be a bastard
.

“Johar, stop, please.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t want me, I feel the heat between your thighs, and smell the scent of your arousal,” he murmured against her neck as he kissed her softly, his lips leaving a trail of fire on her skin.

“I … we, have to do this properly.” She pushed him, but he was too strong, too big and she was like a tiny
timil
beneath him, powerless and small.

“I aim to do it properly, and for that we need neither a bed nor a ceremony.”

“Johar, please.” Her voice was urgent, as were his fingers pushing against the fabric between her thighs, making her want him, trying to make her forget her uncertainty. “Johar, stop.”

This time her words connected with his brain, and he lifted his face, his eyes heavy with arousal. “Yassa’s words have made you change your mind?”

“What?”

“I saw how you thought on what she said.”

“About. What … about getting married?”

“Yes. I would make a good protector, but not a good husband.”

She couldn’t move away from him, he still had her pinned beneath his body. Inside, her anger flared. “What do you think this is? I paid you fair and square.”

“Half. You paid me half fair and square, remember.”

“And the other half when…” She shook her head. “This is all about making sure I marry you, so you can get the other half of your money. What, you think I’ll withhold your fee unless you fuck me on our wedding night?”

“That was the deal.” His voice rose too, and she wanted to shove him aside. Instead she felt tears prick her eyes.

“Damn you.” She pushed at his chest, but he didn’t move, and her tears spilled down her cheeks, too quick for her to wipe away before he saw them.

His voice softened. “Don’t fight me, Tallia. Don’t fight against everything in your life.”

“I’m not.”

“Is it so much easier to believe no one cares?”

Now she did hit him, her balled-up fist struck his shoulder; he didn’t even flinch. “You don’t know me, and you have no right to judge me.” A sob bubbled up in her chest and she was horrified when it erupted, her body shuddering with the force.

“I’m not judging you. I think we are more similar than you can imagine, we both run and hide inside, but to others we put on this armor, to shield our true feelings, until we begin to believe we don’t care, we aren’t capable of love. Only you faced your duty. Whilst I ran from it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m trying to say I’m sorry. I thought if I made love to you here, you would marry me.”

“So you can get your money,” she sobbed again.

“No. Because I want to marry you. I want to help you and I want you to bear my child. A child I had sworn I never wanted.”

“Who are you, Johar T’Omil?”

“Until I met you, I didn’t know. Maybe your Misha’Ha is for real.” He sat up, shifting his weight off her. “I’m sorry. I think I was trying to cling on to who I thought I was.”

She placed her hand on his bare back, touching the tattoos there. “Who are you, Johar T’Omil?” she asked again softly.