The Princess and her Alien Rogue: Alien Romance (11 page)

Johar slid his hand underneath her, holding her still while he lunged harder, his body jerking as his climax hit him and he emptied his seed into her. He cried out, and then saw she was not quite there, not quite on the brink. His mouth closed around her nipple, and he sucked it hard, his body tilting so that with each thrust he grazed her clit.

She felt the world fall away from her, his body pressed closer to hers and she felt the buzz of static as his skin touched hers, his tattoos alive, pulses of light flickering from them. As she came, she wished she had let him in, she wished she knew the deepest, darkest secrets of this man who was filling her with his essence. But she was too afraid to let him see into her soul, too afraid to let go of everything she believed in and all she had been taught.

When at last they were totally spent, they lay together, his arms around her, his lips leaving soft kisses along the length of her back. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m thinking that it would be perfect if we could just stay like this forever.”

“We could run away. I could take you as far away from here as possible. But these people will always be right next to you, a shadow in your mind. I have seen how you love Rian. And Yassa. Would you leave them to the Emissars?”

“You’ve run. Haven’t you?” she asked, turning to look at him. Resting her chin on his chest, where his tattoos showed as a faint light across his skin. “That’s your secret. Isn’t it?”

“Yes. I tried to outrun my fate. Tried to be something else. I know you went to your psychic to learn of the man who is meant to be your husband, and when we first met I didn’t believe it. But now, you have taught me who I should be. What I should be.”

“Are you going to leave me?” she asked.

“Not until we have control here. Then I will journey back to my home planet, I hope you will come too. My father would like you.”

“Won’t he mind that I’m not seven-foot-tall with glowing skin?”

Johar chuckled. “He might. But if he does, then we will lead a revolution there too. You will bring strength to my bloodline.”

“If not height,” she said with a smile.

“Let us hope our children inherit my height, and your brains.”

“Talking of children.” He turned on to his back, and pulled her up so that she straddled him. “It is time we practiced making a child again.”

“With me on top?” she asked.

“Yes.” He lifted her, and guided her body so the head of his cock was pressing against her. Slowly, she lowered herself down, closing her eyes, as his cock stretched her sex. When she had buried to the hilt, she sat still for a moment, letting herself adjust to his wide girth.

“Open your eyes, Tallia,” he said, and she did, fixing them on his as she began to move.

Circling her hips, she moved in a rhythm, before lifting herself up and down. Once she was confident, Tallia managed to put the two movements together as if it were a dance. She rode him, taking her pleasure from him, finding what she liked and how to increase her arousal, until she teetered on the edge of the abyss once more.

Johar’s breath quickened. He thrust his hips up into the air to impale her on his cock, one hand on her hips to keep her in place, while his other hand kneaded the soft flesh of her breasts.

They worked as one, their ultimate goal to please the other. Bodies melded together, they rose and then exploded. Tallia threw her head back, and cried out, her sex throbbing and pulsing around his cock; it still wasn’t enough. She took hold of his hand and placed it over her clit. His fingers teased her, pinched her, and rubbed the sensitive bundle of nerves until she could bear it now longer. She came again, feeling wild and free, as if their lovemaking had released her inhibitions. Maybe next time she would be ready to let her barriers down, to let him in.

Johar came, filling her with his seed, and when he was spent, he pulled her down to lie on top of him, and stroked her back, talking to her in soft tones until she fell asleep in his arms.

Chapter Twenty – Johar

“What time is it?” he asked, when he was awoken by Tallia shaking his shoulder. “Are you ready for me again already?”

He opened his eyes to see Rian staring at him, her face ashen. “You have to get up and come with me,” she said.

“What’s happened?” he asked, instantly awake and aware that the bed was empty. “Where’s Tallia?”

“They came for her.” Rian had been crying, and he was sure she was only just holding it together now.

“Who … the Emissars?” he asked, swinging his legs off the bed and then hunting around for his clothes.

“Yes. She came down to the kitchens to fetch breakfast.” Rian pushed his clothes into his hands. “Hurry, they will be here soon.”

“Slow down.” He tried to soothe her with his voice.

“We cannot slow down; they are coming. Aleck has tried to round up the strongest guards, the best fighters.”

“To take me out?”

“I think they want you dead.”

“Damn it. Can you get me a weapon?”

“No. My Princess has ordered me to get you out of the palace and off this planet.”

“I’m not leaving,” he said firmly, fully clothed but minus the shirt. He was going to need all of his tricks to defeat the mob who were coming for him.”

“You have to.”

“I can fight them.”

“And they will kill My Princess.”

The words hit him in the gut. Of course. If they had been together he could have protected her, but if the Emissars already had Tallia, they had a hold over him; they had leverage. “I can’t leave her.”

“If you do not, you will both die.” Rian wiped her eyes. “Please, do as she wishes. Get off the planet. They will likely use her, make her revoke the crown and all claim to it. But if they are pushed they will simply kill you both and be done with it.”

“Rian, I can’t.”

“She said to tell you that she would rather live a life in captivity knowing you were alive, than face the future with your death on her hands.” Rian looked away from him.

“Tell me. What else did she say?”

“Nothing,” Rian said quickly.

He reached out and touched her arm, holding her gently. “Tell me.”

“She said we should find Misha’Ha.”

“The witch who told Tallia where to find me?”

“Yes. She says Misha’Ha will either tell you what to do, or she is guilty of treason. In which case My Princess asks you to put a knife in her heart. Just as the witch has put a knife in My Princess’s heart.”

“So I’ll go to the market and find her. You know where she is.”

“I will tell you.”

“No. Come with me.” He held her arm, and started to lead her towards the doorway.

“I have to stay here and help My Princess.”

“How?” He turned and faced Rian. “They know how much you mean to Tallia too. Do you think they will not use you against her?”

“I … I am but her slave.”

“Who would die for her.” His face softened. “Come with me and help fight them, from the outside. Take me to this psychic and see what she has to say. Then if you want to, you can come back here.”

“Very well,” Rian agreed. “I will come with you and put the knife in this witch’s throat myself if she has betrayed My Princess to the Emissars.”

He had not thought of that. For all they knew, the witch had been put up to this whole thing by the Emissars. However, he could not work out why they would want this Misha’Ha to tell Tallia to marry him. If they were going to get her to marry a fake husband as her fated mate, then surely they should have picked a man who did not know how to kill. Instead of one who was more than willing to do cut down anyone who stood between him and his wife.

As they ran through the deserted hallway, down the stairs towards the kitchens, he heard the shouts of the guards who were entering the room they had just left. It was all he could do to summon the will not to turn around and cut them down where they stood. Only the thought that it would make matters worse for Tallia stopped him. He had to find out the truth, and from there he would be able to plan his next move.

Chapter Twenty-One – Tallia

“What are you doing?” Tallia asked angrily as she stared at Emissar Aleck through the bars of her cell.

“What we should have done long ago.” He smiled at her benevolently. “We should have spared you this last year of trying to find a husband. We should have sent you away
and taken control when your foolish father died. The people would have believed you too weak and sad to rule, there should have been no long-drawn-out charade. But we wanted to allow things to happen naturally, for you to realize you are not suitable to rule. But instead you married that silver alien. Now we have to act before you produce and heir and prolong this mockery. We are not willing to give power to your kind any longer.”

“My kind? My kind came here and saved the people from zealots like you. I think it is my ancestors who made a mistake, they should have thrown you out of the palace hundreds of years ago. Instead you have been left to fester like an open wound; well, I will heal that wound.”

“And how are you going to do that,
My Princess
. You are in here, and we will keep you here. When that creature is found he will be brought to justice for attempting to murder you.”

“You are going to pin this on him? You’re going to blame him for my death, and what? Kill me yourself?” she asked.

“Yes.” He looked at her coldly. “Before you married him we would have been content for you to live out your days in peace, away from the palace and stripped of your power. But now we are in agreement, you are not to be trusted.”

She laughed. “The only ones around here who should not be trusted are you and your fellow Emissars. How long before the sacrifices begin again?” She gripped the bars of her cell, until her bones showed through the skin covering her knuckles. If only she could reach Aleck, she would tighten her hands round his neck in the same way, until he breathed no more.

“Soon. We thought we would start with your slave. Rian, isn’t it?”

“No,” Tallia said. “She is innocent in all this.”

“Then tell us where that monster is and we will spare her life, I am sure there is a man down in the south who would take her on. She is used to obeying, after all.”

“You are the true monster. You and all your Emissars.”

He came close to the bars and whispered, “And so what if we are?”

“I will see you dead.”

“An empty threat, considering which side of these bars you are on.”

“Things change, Emissar,” she said firmly. “It’s a lesson you and your kind have never learned. You change and adapt, or you die.”

“It is you who will be doing the dying,” Aleck said, and with a smile of triumph, he turned and walked away from Tallia, up the stairs and into the light. A light Tallia was unsure she would ever see again.

Turning away, she went to the back of her cell and slumped down. She was not defeated yet; Johar was out there somewhere, free. She had to believe that; anything else was unthinkable. Anyway, if they had him under arrest, Aleck would have told her; of all things, he did like to gloat.

“Breakfast.” A guard came up to the bars and thrust a plate of food at her. “Eat.”

She sat still for a moment, wondering if they might poison her and blame it on Johar. Her stomach rumbled, telling her to take a chance, she had to keep her strength up. Going over to the plate, she looked down at it and smiled.

She was not alone. There were people out there who were still her friends, and who might help Johar to free her. She picked up one of the honey cakes, savoring every mouthful. It tasted all the better knowing that there were people she could depend on, Yassa maybe, that even though she had lived her life keeping her distance from people, she had made friends, or at the very least, earned the loyalty of those who would rather be ruled by her, than the Emissars.

Once her meal was finished, she left the plate outside her cell, and went to the straw mattress in the corner and lay down. She was tired. Last night had been wonderful, but exhausting. She still ached inside from Johar’s lovemaking. It made her feel closer to him in some strange way, it made their marriage real. She clung to that as the long hours drifted by, and she dipped in and out of sleep.

Every time there was a noise, she woke to listen, hoping it was someone coming to her aid. Each time someone came down the steps she opened her eyes, imagining it was Johar come to rescue her. Yet as the day passed and the light through the small barred window grew dim, and the air grew cold, her hope faded.

By now he should have found Misha’Ha. If she had been truthful, she would have told him how to deal with the Emissars. Tallia reminded herself to keep hoping; she had been a prisoner less than a day, and these things took time. However, her impatience to be out of here was growing. Not least because all her thoughts were consumed by how many ways there was to kill an Emissar.

Chapter Twenty-Two – Johar

They had escaped the palace, but found the town filled with guards from the palace. Carefully, Rian had guided him to the shop The Silken Promise. There they had begged Hosta to hide them. Strangely enough, she had a hidden basement that was perfect; it was also filled with silks and fabrics that could only be contraband.

“A woman alone has to make her living where she can,” Hosta said as he looked at the stacks of fabric.

“Lucky for you, we are not citizens of your planet, so your tax avoidance is nothing to us,” Johar had said.

“You forget you are the prince now.” Hosta had laughed, and walked back up the steps. “Until they burn you alive anyway. And then I think the last thing you will be thinking of screaming is that Hosta owes coin to the crown.

“I’m pleased she takes it so seriously,” he said, sitting down next to Rian on a stack of woolen cloth.

“We are lucky she is here to help us. It will be best to go into the marketplace below at dusk. You can never tell how many eyes the Emissars have amongst the people.”

“Will the people support the Emissars taking power?” he asked. He did not know how much they would care about a change in rule.