12. Stella

The moment we touch down on the palace's ground it's pure pandemonium. The relative calm I felt while talking to En'Zal is gone the moment the doors open.

Outside there are dozens of people loudly clamoring for his attention. My breath lodges in my throat. I'm not good with crowds, never have been. And I'm especially poor with crowds of menacing-looking aliens.

To his credit, En'Zal notices my discomfort right away. He wraps one big, protective arm around my shoulder and pulls me close to him.

"You are safe with me, Stella."

He pushes his way through the throng of aliens and we enter his opulent palace.

Filthy rich doesn't even begin to describe it.

This place makes the White House look like a cottage. Hell, it even makes the Palace of Versailles look like a summer home.

Everywhere I look there is art, there are statues, tapestries, paintings.

En'Zal doesn't give me the time to appreciate it all. He leads me up a long winding stair-case, and I get dizzy as we keep making turns. Left, right, left, another staircase, through several rooms filled to the brim with alien artifacts and marble statues and gorgeous paintings, up another set of stairs, left — and then we finally reach a gigantic suite.

I hug the fur cloak tightly as I realize where we are. A bedroom. His bedroom.

The giant bed in the center of the room, with its pristine white sheets and countless fluffy pillows, looks both supremely comfortable and intensely intimidating.

Does he want sex?

Of course he does.

That's the reason he took me, right? He wants me to spread my legs for him and enter me with his alien…

What kind of cock do Erullians have, actually? Is it scaled? Red? Does it have pincers?

Does he have two cocks?

A shiver runs down my spine. I wish I was back home again. I wish I could clock into work and read through boring legal dispositions all day, and get annoyed by my co-workers chewing bubblegum, and sip awful coffee while I watch the hours tick down until I can finally go home and continue reading my smutty books.

That would be so much easier than being in this luxurious bedroom with this handsome alien king.

"I have work to do," En'Zal says. "You can stay here for now. Do not worry, Stella. There will be guards outside. You are completely safe here."

I whirl around to face him. Somehow, the thought of him leaving me alone does not comfort me as much as I thought it would just a second ago.

Without him I'm all alone on this strange, alien world.

"You're leaving me?"

"Not for long."

"When will you be back?"

"As soon as I am able."

He turns around, and just like that, I'm all alone.