Chapter 6

Rurik is facing away from me when I exit the suite to find him waiting in the hallway beside the door. He’s purposely avoiding my gaze. Instead of acknowledging me, he’s scrolling on a thin tablet that he hands over to another Vestalis male. While Rurik doesn’t look at me, the other man does. The guy drops down on one knee and pricks his finger on one of his fangs.

Doesn’t that get painful as shit to do that all day? I raise a brow.

“It is my greatest pleasure and infinite privilege to serve you, Imperial Princess.”

I nod in response, unsure of what I’m supposed to say to this dude.

“Uh, thanks guy.”

The man rises to his feet, bows, and retreats down the hall with the tablet.

My royal betrothed glances over at me like he can hardly believe what I just said.

“Uh, thanks guy?” he repeats in such a way that I can tell the translator did a good job getting my meaning across. It probably sounded more like click-click-whisper-hiss in the Vestalis language. “I know you are unfamiliar with Vestalis customs, but could you not have chosen a more polite greeting? In human culture, a bow would suffice. A handshake. A smile and a how do you do? These are not unreasonable suggestions that align with your culture.”

I can tell he’s angry at me because he’s being a dick. He’s acting like he doesn’t look into my face, spring a painful hard-on, fall madly in love, and wish we were fucking instead of arguing the inevitable.

I grin at him, and it throws him off course completely.

“How do you do?” I ask, meaning to be sarcastic, to question what decade he got his greetings from. Thanks guy works perfectly well where I’m from in the Pacific Northwest. I’m from fucking Portland, Oregon. Pretty much anything goes there.

“I am fine, thank you for asking,” Rurik replies. He seems pleased. Or else … the edge of his lip quirks up in an arrogant smirk. “If you behave politely for the rest of the day, you might find that you enjoy my company.” He turns fully around to look at me now, his antennae drawn back as far away from me as they can get. That annoys me. Isn’t he supposed to, like, bathe my hair with them? I’ve finally figured out why my hair smells so amazing lately. He’s depositing something on me when he sweeps his feelers over my head. And I like it. The smell makes me smile and sleep well. I haven’t had any nightmares about being abducted and waking up in that tent. Or about the brothel. Or about being eaten alive. “Regardless, you will go on this date or I will be unable to save you. My parents will find you and hold you captive until the Aspis male comes to rescue you. They’ll make you watch as they eject him into space to die the horrific, lonely death you so fear when you look out the windows.”

Rurik offers a tight, resigned smile to punctuate that threat, and my blood goes cold.

I’m not smiling anymore.

I’m terrified.

When he walks, I follow along behind him.

I … may have made a mistake when evaluating this guy. I was starting to think of him as a pushover and now I’m worried.

I stop walking.

I go to fist my hands in my skirts—a habit of mine—but there are no skirts. I’m wrapped up in a black ribbon that’s essentially a bodycon dress with a giant bow on the back of it. Fucking Avril, that bitch. She proudly explained to me that she’d given Rurik this design, telling him it was my favorite, that I was wearing something similar the day we met on the rooftop of Tabbi Kat’s apartment building.

“Can I have a new lady-in-waiting?” I ask his strong, wide back. His wings flick slightly, and he stops walking, turning to look over his shoulder at me.

“You hate her as well?” he asks, sounding absurdly relieved. “Yes. I will grant that request. We will have Avril jetted into the nearest sun—under anesthesia of course, so as not to alarm her.”

“Are you making a joke?” I ask, jogging to catch up to him. We don’t quite fit side by side in the hallway, but I squeeze past his wing to make it work, crushed up against him. He shudders at my nearness, bites his own lip, and sucks on the blood to calm himself. “After threatening me?”

He stops again. I stop. He turns to me.

Was this hallway always so narrow?

“That was not a threat. It is reality.” He reaches up a hand to cup the side of my face, stroking a gloved thumb along the seam of my lips. I want to feel his bare fingertips again, touch his naked skin. I reach a hand up and curl my fingers around his wrist. Between his jacket and his glove, there’s free space.

Damn. His skin is the softest thing I’ve ever felt in my life. It isn’t fair. It’s silky and delicious, and I just want to swipe my thumb over it. So I do. I do and he lets me, looking into my eyes.

“You are very sweet, and for that I am immensely grateful, but I fear for you. You do not understand the rules, and you play games. We cannot play games anymore, my princess. If you decide you do not trust me, you will pay for it. You are brave and humorous and interesting, but you are not a match for the Vestalis armada. You will not come out on top with your …”

“Pluckiness?” I supply, my stomach souring slightly.

“Naivety,” he corrects, dropping my chin and then releasing me. He turns away again, removing a glove and touching his hand to a pad beside the door. It opens and dumps us back into that horrible room again, the one with three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views.

I don’t remember anything for several minutes.

When I come to, I’m in Rurik’s arms and he’s striding down a large hallway. Perhaps the same hallway that we were in yesterday.

For whatever reason, he takes me right back to Hyt’s office.

“Ah, shit—” Hyt starts, but then he sees me in Rurik’s arms and steps aside, allowing us into the room. I’m still disoriented; I have literally no idea what’s going on. “What happened?” All the playful drawl in his voice is gone. He’s ice-cold again, but I can’t even process the strange shift in his emotions because I’m dizzy and tired and confused.

That … didn’t happen because of the windows and my very rational fear of space. This is something else. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel like shit. Haven’t been feeling great for a few days, but I really feel like crap now. How long has it been since Abraxas and I were separated? He’s an intelligent man, far smarter than I give him credit for. Why would he repeatedly tell me that we’d die of broken hearts if we weren’t together?

It’s been four days since we were separated. I’ve been getting dizzy, sure, and I woke up feeling tired and groggy, but … this is bad. Again, it’s way too early in a possible-maybe-not-happening pregnancy to blame it on that.

“Something is wrong with my princess, and I do not know what it is.” Rurik sets me down on the edge of a cushioned bench and turns to look at Officer Hyt. “I am afraid to take her to a med clinic or—Stars forbid—onto the ship where my parents or brothers may see her. If anyone finds out that she is weak, we may die. Worse even, if my siblings suspect she might be pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” Officer Hyt’s shocked expression somehow makes me feel ashamed. I don’t know why, but it does, and I fucking hate that. I’m not ashamed of Abraxas or any of the things we did together. “How?”

Rurik grits his teeth, nostrils flaring, hands squeezing into tight fists. He closes his eyes and drops his chin, breathing deep until he’s collected his calm.

“With Abraxas,” I explain for him, cutting him off before he can speak. “But I’m telling you, that’s not it. On the very, very slim chance that I’m carrying his kid, this isn’t that. Something else is making me sick.”

Hyt groans and plays with his hat, using a tentacle to push it forward and then over the top half of his face so that his eyes are obscured. All I can see is his mouth. And his pecs. Abs. The ‘V’ of his hips. Imagine his cock, unfolding like a telescope. I dig my fingers into the bench seat on either side of me.

“You brought her here because I’m an amateur medic, and I won’t tell shit to anybody. That it?” Hyt pulls his hat back into place with a tail. “I know I’m right. Don’t bother answering.” He waltzes over to a closed door and, as soon as he turns away from me, I see his ass. His entire ass. Naked and bare, no loincloth on the back half today.

Why do I have to be an ass girl? Why can’t any of these aliens have ugly asses? Then I wouldn’t have to look. I purposely turn my head away from taut, sapphire scaled cheeks. Now I’m looking at Rurik and he’s staring back at me in frustration. Or fear. Probably both things.

“You cannot be sick,” he whispers, more to himself than to me. “If you are sick, my brothers will come for us.”

“I’m feeling better already,” I tell him, and it’s true. Now that I’ve had a minute to sit down, I feel fine. A little tired. Maybe a tad dizzy when I think of the giant window at my back and the massive planet that takes up most of the view. But fine. I’m fine.

“This’ll only take a second.” Hyt returns with a small device that looks like a ballpoint pen. He wiggles his fingers for me, and I hold out a hand. “Let me numb that up for you,” he says and, before waiting for a response, he sticks the sucker at the end of his tail onto my palm. There’s a tiny sting, and then the whole surface goes pleasantly numb. Huh. He pricks my skin with the pen, and then picks up a tablet off the nearby table. Data appears on the screen in an instant.

Hyt frowns.

“What is it?” Rurik asks, sounding tired. I feel like he already knows.

“Data is scrambled. Makes no sense. If she had any of these values, she’d be a dead woman right about now.” He looks up from the tablet to my face. “Nobody knows shit about Aspis mating habits, you know? We don’t understand how it works or what the repercussions are. The only people willing to capture and research Aspis were the Cartians, and they’re long gone.” Hyt gives Rurik a pointed look that he ignores.

“Maybe instead of capturing them, they could’ve had a conversation with one?” I blurt out, but then I think about how Abraxas behaves toward strangers, how the female ate me alive, and I decide that the Cartians weren’t so out of line thinking they needed to drug the Aspis to study them. “What do Aspis mating habits have to do with how I’m feeling?” I continue, and Hyt purses his lips. He sets both the ballpoint pen thing and the tablet down before squatting in front of me. He puts one hand on my knee, and Rurik slaps it off. Nine tentacles move forward to stick to the bare skin of my legs, and the prince lets out a sound that I wasn’t even sure he could make.

Nine suckers pop pleasantly off my skin as Hyt smiles gently.

“Whenever I start to think a human can survive here, I’m reminded of what a terrible idea that is.” He sighs and stares down at the floor before looking back to my face again. His companion floats in a nearby water tank—with a lid on it. The poor thing gazes at me with big, round black eyes, and I feel instant pity toward it. “Aspis scramble tech. You’ve heard that, I’m sure. Well, mating with one is scrambling your medical data.”

I have no idea how to respond to that.

Hyt’s eyes shift past my crossed legs to the dress I’m wearing, and his mouth twists up into a sinful smirk, one that’s full of lies and promises both. I want to be simultaneously blessed and cursed by this man, and I don’t know why.

“Wherever did you get this dress?” he asks before he stands up and shakes his head. He rubs at his chin before shifting his two eyes and six pupils over to Rurik. “I’m glad you agreed to meet the Aspis tonight. I’d say we need to have a discussion with him, maybe take some of his blood, run some tests on him.”

“Only Cartian tech works with the Aspis,” Rurik admits with another tired sigh. “There’s little of it still around, but I will see what I can do.”

“The translators work,” I remind them, tapping at my ear. I think about the hideous bright pink and lime green translators I had before. Those were both Cartian tech. But the one that was forced into my skin while I was helplessly sleeping? That one works, too. Or the ones that Rurik and Hyt wore did. They spoke to Abraxas just fine.

“The software they left behind has been helpful,” Rurik admits as Hyt retrieves a glass of water and a strange fruit from a nearby table. He brings them over and holds them out to me. The fruit looks like a kumquat with dalmatian skin, and it’s fuzzy like a peach.

“Don’t eat the pit,” Hyt warns as I accept the items with a grateful sigh. My stomach rumbles, and I realize just how hungry I actually am. I finish the drink in two swallows, and the fruit in three bites. It tastes like a day at the beach somehow, like sunshine and laughter. Hyt accepts the pit when I hand it back. “Has she eaten today?” he asks, like it’s more than just a standard question. “Have you eaten?” He’s talking to Rurik now and not me. Meaning the blood. Ah.

Rurik turns to me, looking me over and meeting my gaze. I am sorry, my princess. I can hear it even if he hasn’t said it.

“You missed a meal last night as well as this morning. This is my fault.” Rurik holds out a hand toward me, his pretty lips turned down into a frown. “Come. I will rectify and not repeat that mistake.”

“Humans need extra food if they’re giving blood,” Hyt tells him, putting his hands back on his hips. When he does that, every muscle in his body pops. I can’t stand it. “Don’t force her to skip meals because you’re pissed off.”

Rurik ignores him, but he at least has the common decency to cringe.

I accept the prince’s outstretched hand and get to my feet. The heels that Avril put me in are hellish, but she claimed that she’d forgotten all my other shoes on the ship. I’d love to grab a different pair, but I doubt there’s a human shoe available anywhere on the World Station. I may just have to walk around barefoot like Zero does.

Speaking of … Avril and Zero didn’t accompany us. They’ve accompanied us everywhere else, so why not today? Because you’re going on a date, duh. A date with an alien moth prince. I’ll add a line to my bucket list, and then cross it right off. I’ve got a few other good ones, too, like fucked an alien dragon, almost fucked an alien tentacle cowboy, got eaten alive, etc.

“Come see me again sometime,” Hyt calls out before the elevator door shuts. I turn just in time to see him with his purple tongue sweeping over his lip, his thumb sliding along the top of his belt as he pushes it down. “And get something in that mouth of yours!” The view gets cut off, but I pretend like I wasn’t staring. Was that … innuendo or concern? Both?

Rurik is clearly furious with himself, thinking I’ve missed two meals. I have, but Avril offered to feed me earlier. I wasn’t hungry then, so I declined. It’s not a big deal. I don’t think the fainting spells have anything to do with that. Then again, I’m not used to giving blood so frequently, and I have a tendency to get dizzy after a routine draw anyway.

“We’re going on a date today?” I ask, because he’s the one who mentioned it before. He looks at me, hands clasped together behind his back, but beneath his wings. He has to shift them up and down to affect the pose, but he does it anyway. Must feel properly pompous to be worth that extra effort.

“After we eat, where would you like to go?” he asks, and my brain swirls with possibilities. I have no idea what a space station is like, but I’m always down to explore. Might as well, right? I’m here.

“Are there any bookstores?” I ask, because if I ever needed to find Jane in a vast and endless universe, it would be there. If she were ever to stop by the World Station, and she knew there was a bookstore, she’d go straight to it.

“Bookstores?” Rurik repeats the word and then thinks heavily on it. I love the way he scowls as his mind works, curling his lip over his teeth and teasing them with his tongue. I want to be covered in that blood lace shit. I don’t know where the thought comes from, but once it hits, I can’t shake it. “Yes, I believe there is one. It may not have any books in any human language—let alone in the English tongue.”

“Can you put the blood lace on my body?” I blurt randomly, and he goes still.

The mood in the elevator changes drastically, and he looks at me with infinitely dark eyes, the eyes of a fucking demon, and his mouth is the shape of one too. Wicked. Unforgiving. Possessive. It’s been there, but he’s been trying to hide it. He doesn’t want to scare me off, but that’s a mistake.

I’m way too attracted to danger.

“Can I?” he echoes with a laugh. “I can, but I will not.” He offers me his arm, and I frown. I accept the gesture, and we walk down the hall together when the door opens again. “Perhaps if you behave like my princess, I will treat you like one and consider it.”

“What does ‘behaving like a princess’ even mean?” I ask as he tugs off his glove, activates a biometrics screen on the wall, and waits for another door to open.

“I said my princess, not a princess.” Rurik ignores the surprised expression on my face, pulling me forward and into a crowded hallway. I’m so fixated on him and what he’s just said that it takes me a second to—

“Holy shit fuck.” I clap a hand over my mouth as people—aliens—turn en masse to stare at us.

And I thought I was experiencing culture shock at the black market? This is … there are more species in this hallway than I know what to do with. My brain feels like it’s on overload as my gaze flicks from one face to another to … is that even a face? How many eyes does that thing have?! I choke on my own saliva when I see a slug thing on the opposite side of the hall. It looks exactly like the one that ate the lawyer.

Nobody moves except to make way for us. Nobody talks. We’re given a wide berth and plenty of groveling, supplication, and abasement. What I mean to say is: we’re fucking worshipped as we walk.

“It is our greatest pleasure and infinite privilege to serve you!” someone calls out, and the cry ripples down the hallway in a wave. There’s so much going on around me that it takes some time for me to realize that there are Vestalis guards surrounding us. They must’ve been waiting just outside the door. At least a dozen on either side, some of them carting massive guns, others with spears.

“Why do we have guards here and not on the ship?” I ask, and Rurik offers a wry smile that fades just as quickly. His lips are an icy pink color, like he scrubbed them to within an inch of their life. I wish he’d stain that beautiful mouth with my blood. The thought springs up out of nowhere, but it doesn’t matter. Whether I want Rurik to bite me or not, he has to do it in order to eat.

“The ship is controlled by my father. Every room. Every cranny. Every transport. There is no need for guards on The Korol.” Rurik exhales, like he’s carrying around a heavy burden that he can’t share with anyone else. I want to ask him about it. I want to know. But I don’t think we’re at a point in our relationship where he’d tell me.

Not … that we’re going to have any sort of relationship.

I’m already second-guessing every decision I’ve made thus far.

I’m so distracted by my thoughts that I forget to look around. When I do, it’s like blinking through a haze. There are shops along the left side of the hallway, but more than half of them are entirely unrecognizable to me. One of them seems to sell brightly colored goo in jars? Another sells exotic plants, including those purple Venus flytraps that bit me on my first day on Jungryuk. A different shop is stuffed full of Tusk Men, and I shudder, looking away from them and doing my best not to think about their weird, gross dicks.

“Hey,” I whisper to Rurik, pressed as close to him as I can get. He has creepy fucking parents, and he makes glowing lace out of veins that spring from his tongue. But … he doesn’t freak me out the way everything and everyone else here does. I feel safe with him which makes no sense. “Can I see your dick?”

Rurik stops walking so suddenly that I trip and only manage to stay upright by my grip on his arm.

His dark eyes are narrowed to slits, a flash of red hiding underneath all of that beautiful black.

“I assume you are asking because I will be fucking you tomorrow?”

He just says it out loud like that, right there in the middle of the hallway. My mouth hangs open as I stare back at him. Then again, I’m the one that started it. But I was whispering. I was trying to be discreet.

“I … well, yeah.” I reach up and scratch at the back of my head with my free hand. My hair is loose, tumbling around my shoulders in big, bouncy waves that Avril put in for me. I told her that I didn’t look anything like a Vestalis princess, and she told me that each Vestalis male is perfectly attracted to his mate. So, the more human I look, the better. I look like a feral club rat, but whatever. Not necessarily a bad aesthetic. I’m just usually more of the ‘wearing my work clothes all day until I collapse in bed still wearing my work clothes while complaining about hustle culture’ type person. “Don’t I have a right to see what it looks like before we do the deed?”

I give him a hip bump that’s meant to be a joke, but definitely does not land that way.

Rurik turns his regal face over to look at me, and he appears both incredibly alien and incredibly familiar in the same breath. Uh-oh, here we go again. Our gazes clash, my breathing stills for several seconds, my body lights up on the inside like it’s filled with gunpowder.

“I am going to kill your lady-in-waiting,” he tells me, and then he keeps walking and we break through the crowd without any resistance. He’s scowling again, but he looks extra pretty when he does it, so I don’t complain. “She is supposed to educate you. What in the Stars does she even do?”

“Mostly she eats my macarons and tells me that I should let myself fall in love with you.”

Rurik almost stops walking again, but he manages to gather himself together. One would think he was unaffected by my statement. But that’s not true. His antennae are spread wide, one of them hovering over me like maybe he wishes he’d touched my hair earlier. His wings are slightly spread, and he keeps clenching his right hand into a fist before releasing it.

“We are here.” He doesn’t respond to my previous statement or answer my question. Instead, he gestures to a black door in the wall. Just the one door. No other indication of what the location is supposed to be. No signage. Nothing. The door opens automatically and Rurik allows several of the guards in before he puts a comforting hand on my lower back and pushes me through.

We head up a set of stairs and find ourselves in a black-on-black lounge with pops of red on the ceiling. The room smells like blood and sweet-scented smoke, and dozens of faces turn our way. Vestalis males fill the room, all of them with a partner at their sides. Not a single one of the females is the same species as any other. Definitely no humans to be seen. But … maybe some dudes? Yep, there are Vestalis males that are dating guys. Interesting.

Even more interesting: one of the females is like a chimera or something? Thank you, Nate, for all the useless fairy-tale knowledge. I hold back a strange tightness in my throat.

“Right this way, Princess.” Rurik leads me into a private room with red velvet on the walls, a single table in the center with a pair of chairs. There’s a wall of glass opposite the door that showcases a lush greenhouse filled with plants. A portion of the glass has been opened like a window, letting in a gentle fragrance and the vaguest hint of dirt.

The sight and smell make me feel better immediately.

The prince pulls my chair out for me, leaving the guards outside the room.

“I like the plants,” I admit as I tuck my dress under my thighs and take a seat. He pushes me into the table and leans down, putting his mouth right up against the side of my neck. It takes everything I have in me not to shiver. I dig my nails into my legs so he won’t see how much of an effect he has on me.

“Such a planet-dweller.” And then he bites my ear. Literally bites it. There’s no pain though, just violent pleasure that breaks free that gasp I was trying to hold back. Rurik draws away and moves casually over to his side of the table.

He sits back in his chair, legs crossed, hands folded in his lap. His wings rest in the handy notch in the chair’s backrest, and he looks at me like he wants to tear my clothes off. How do I react to that?

I’m supposed to sleep with this guy tomorrow; I’m mated to Abraxas.

I’m going to be seeing Abraxas tonight. Yet, after Abraxas leaves, it’s me and Rurik.

This doesn’t have to be completely unpleasant, does it?

“What is this place?” I ask, looking around. There’s nothing but this table, those plants, the velvet walls.

Him, poisoning the room with his spice and honey pheromones. Sultry. Thick. Impossible to ignore. Every breath I take feels like it’s going to kill me. How does nobody else smell this when he’s around? This is fucking intense. Rurik adjusts himself, reaching up to undo the top few buttons on his coat.

“This is a restaurant,” he tells me, and this time, a smile manages to break out on his porn star mouth. It’s not fair for an alien male to have a mouth that pretty. It’s full and plump, and when he pulls it back to reveal his teeth, I forget my own name. “You will eat food, and I will eat you.”

Uhhh.

Startled laughter escapes my lips.

“You don’t eat food?” I want to know more about him. Feels like I should already know the answers to such simple questions. Also, damn, I know it’s been said more than enough times but … Avril really is a shitty handmaiden.

The way Rurik’s feelers come together at the back of his head, I can tell he’s thinking the same thing.

“I can eat whatever you can eat. If it is safe for you, it is safe for me. I will be able to taste it, to enjoy it, but it’s an unnecessary pleasure. To survive, I need only your blood.”

A screen prompt appears in the middle of the table. I mean, like, just floating in the air in the center of the tabletop, maybe two feet above it. Glowing red alien text, hanging out in space like it’s nothing. Rurik blinks and the prompt disappears.

“What the fuck is that?” If I sound crazed, it’s because I am. Nate would’ve loved this stuff. Nate would’ve been so goddamn happy to be here. Any person in my family would trade a limb for an experience like this. I know they’d all be happy for me because … I’m having fun, but I know they’re suffering and I miss them.

“I was letting the serving staff know that they are allowed to enter the room.”

I put my hand up to my throat, and I realize that I’m shaking all over. I don’t know when that happened. And it’s not related to the dizzy thing. This is something new. I’m finally having a panic attack. It hits me so hard that I wish I’d passed out. It truly feels like I’m going to die, like I’ll never take another breath.

Rurik leans down in front of me, one palm on the table’s surface, and he presses his mouth against mine. The blood lace catches on my tongue, searching fingers digging into my soul, sifting through every part of me.

I like it here. I miss my family. I like you. I feel alone. I like somebody else. I like you.

All of these things flit in and out of me faster than I can comprehend, and then Rurik is drawing back, and his lips are red with blood again. I’m not shaking anymore.

“When you are queen, you will be able to get a permit to see your home.” He smiles tightly, putting one hand on the side of my head. “You may visit once a year. Perhaps twice.”

It’s not a lot, but it’s … something.

Yeah, that plan I hatched with Hyt? It’s not happening. I can’t run. I just can’t.

And for so many different reasons.

“I can visit Earth?” I ask, trying to imagine what the hell that would be like. I don’t even know what I’d do if I got sent home. It’d certainly be difficult catering parties when I know about aliens. When I fucked a dragon. When I became a princess. I stare into Rurik’s eyes, catching the faintest hint of red lace behind the obsidian shimmer. He’s not a bad guy. He’s not. “You know that if I put my trust in you, and you fuck it up, it’ll ruin everything good about me?”

“I do know that; you know that I know that.”

Somehow, that’s all true. I shove him back.

“Get away from me, guy. Your pheromones are breaking my brain.”

Rurik says nothing, but he does retreat to his side of the table. No sooner has his (perfect) ass hit the chair than he looks up and realizes that there’s someone in the doorway, staring at us. Rurik yanks a handkerchief from his pocket and rapidly mops up the blood on his lips.

The look on his face makes me wonder if we didn’t technically just get caught with our pants down. It might not have been a traditionally sexual moment, but it was an intimacy nonetheless.

“Your Imperial Prince.”

I look over my shoulder to see a Vestalis waiter with white wings. Now that Hyt’s mentioned it, I did see markings on Rurik’s mother’s back. On several of the males, but not all of them. Everyone in the front room was mated; this male is not.

Rurik is not. Because his wings are white. I wonder if this is all incredibly embarrassing for him?

He looks mad. I’m starting to see that for what it is: a completely empty defense mechanism.

“Bring the food and leave,” he growls out, and the man looks properly kowtowed. Terrified even. The reaction of the employees is making me question his temper. Several trays with lids are set on the table in front of me before the staff disappears and the door closes once more.

Rurik is rubbing his temple.

“Why are you so … human?” I ask. The food smells good, and I’m starving, but I feel like I can’t eat until I know the answer to this.

“Why?” he asks with another laugh. “Because you are my mate, and I imprint on you immediately. I pick up your body language, your moods, your expressions immediately. I am—quite unfortunately for both of us—made for you.” Rurik turns away from me and stares at the wall. “To be rejected by my own mate. And to be king.” He laughs at that, but he isn’t amused.

“Am I making a mockery out of us at court?” I’m terrified that this is true even as I tell myself that I don’t care. I do. I care. Goddamn it. “Because we haven’t mated? Because I rejected you?”

“It does not matter now; the wedding begins tomorrow. We will mate. Every day for seven days.” He looks back at me with an apologetic expression on his face. “The first time will not be particularly pleasant. I will do what I can for you, but there are biological reactions that I cannot control.”

I don’t flinch. I just listen.

“It hurts?” I ask, and he nods. “How badly?”

“Females of every species are different, but my mother says that it was the worst pain of her life.” He doesn’t sugarcoat it for me, just tells it like it is. “But after that, my body will adjust to yours, and you should find it pleasurable. Whatever you need to be satisfied, that I will give you.”

My cheeks heat because he’s staring directly at me, almost apologetically. I don’t understand the expression.

“Let’s strap Avril to a rocket and send her into a blackhole.” I grumble the words, but I’m honestly fucking serious about them.

His expression shifts slightly, darkens the mood in the room—in a good way.

“I will have her thrown into the carnivorous plants facility tomorrow. You will not have to see her again.”

“Thank the Stars for small miracles.” I don’t know why I say that. Because he says it alot? Rurik just stares at me, so I busy myself with lifting the lids on the food.

Underneath the first one, there’s a plate of smoked salmon canapés.

Oh.

Tray two holds a quiche. For tray three, it’s ratatouille. Next we’ve got a cheese plate followed by … a pile of macarons. I narrow one eye. Just the one. Telling myself that I will not literally strangle Avril the next time I see her. More macarons. A French menu. A date. I smell her all over this.

“Are you getting your dating advice from Avril?” I blurt the question out as I investigate the drinks that’ve been served. A glass of wine. A cup of coffee with some cream. Ice water. It’s all here, no stone left unturned. I refocus on the smoked salmon canapés, popping one into my mouth.

Smoked salmon, dill, and … instead of cream cheese, it’s plain yogurt, but hey, an effort was made.

I can’t help myself.

“On Earth, I’m a caterer,” I explain because even if Rurik is my one-true, destined, fate-prescribed soulmate, that doesn’t mean he knows who I am. “A caterer is someone who serves food at parties.”

Rurik lifts his feelers up and to the sides, like he’s amused. He taps at his ear with two fingers.

“I know what a caterer is. Continue.”

“These canapés are all wrong.” I eat another anyway. Now that I’ve started eating, I realize how hungry I truly am. “This should be cream cheese, not yogurt.”

“I will inform the kitchen staff.”

I eat half of them and then pass the tray his way, gesturing at him.

“Eating is way less fun when done alone. Dig in. Tell me that wouldn’t be better if the white stuff was thicker and creamier.” Shit. What the hell, Eve?! Why did I say that? Rurik doesn’t react to the statement itself. There’s a chance that the Vestalis don’t orgasm like human men. Or maybe something different comes out. Maybe it’s a different color. Who knows?

I should’ve watched Vestalis porn instead.

“You are aroused,” Rurik says mildly, his voice lordly and smooth. Arrogant ass. “Why is that?”

“Eat your half of all this.” I drag the quiche over. “There’s no way I can finish it by myself.”

“I can smell everything you feel; there’s no sense in lying to me. I am the only person you cannot truly lie to. I will always know.”

“Why don’t you get fucked?” I tell him, defense mechanism switching into place. I might have to trust what he says about his parents and the wedding and what needs to be done, but I don’t have to pretend like his weird insta-love crap is endearing. It’s terrifying, if anything. Loss of my free will and personal agency.

“I would like to get fucked, but my intended mate has rejected me.”

I slam a lid down on one of the plates and give him a look.

“You kidnapped me.” I’m aghast that he thinks he deserves my immediate love and dedication in return. It has to be earned. Abraxas earned it. Rurik has not. “I will not feel guilty for not finding myself instantly in love with you. I see that we have to work together, and we will. But if you want me, romance me.”

“Thus the date.” He digs his fingernails into the armrests of the chair. “The only Vestalis male in the history of our great species to have to work for his mate’s affection. You know that I will die for you?”

“Sure. I believe that.” I put a hand on my chest. “Because I feel it, too. I do. But that doesn’t mean it’s real, Rurik. I’m feeling all of that same shit! But love is important to me. Real love. Actual love and not well-matched chemistry.” I pause. “Though that helps. It helps a lot. It puts you way up in the ranking, but it’s not a gold medal.”

Rurik looks away, and he doesn’t eat.

But I do. I take my time, eat as much as I damn well please, and then slump back in my chair with my coffee. More Dunkin’ Donuts decaf, but c’est la vie. The ribbon dress I’m wearing feels like a torture device, but that’s not how Rurik looks at it. When he thinks I’m fixated on the liquid in my mug, he rakes his gaze over me and shudders, eyes closing as he rubs a single finger over his parted lips. When he opens his eyes, we’re staring at each other again.

“Can I please see your dick now?” It’s time that he shows it to me. I should be able to see it. “By the way, how does that mating ritual thing work? We go into a room, do the deed, come out and show off our markings?”

“No, you may not see it now.” He sighs deeply and then uses one hand to rub up along the length of his feeler. I think it’s a stress tic, but the way he looks at me ensures that it comes across like a come-on. My breath hitches. I take a bite of a mint macaron. “I will kill your lady-in-waiting, and I am sorry to inform you that we will be mating in front of the entire court, including my parents.”

I … there are no words.

I find myself struggling to adjust to this.

“You’re telling me that it hurts? That it happens in front of the Imperial Court? In front of your parents? Rurik, what the fuck?” I stand up and turn toward the door, looking for a handle when there isn’t one. The stupid thing whizzes open and I dart past it.

I know he said the deal in this restaurant was a ‘you eat so I can eat’ sort of thing, but I don’t want him touching me for a second. I know it’s not his fault, but I’m having trouble holding still. I was nervous about this wedding shit. Now I want to die. If this situation happened on Earth, I’d be mortified. But here? His creepy mom and dad? His super fucking creepy millipede mom. My mother-in-law. Moth babies.

“Where’s the bookstore?” I whisper, turning to face Rurik as he follows me out into the hall. Guards surround us which I can’t stand. What even is my life?

“Right here, my princess.” Rurik takes a bow and holds out his hand to indicate a shop that’s just a few doors down. I turn and walk as fast as I can in the horrible heels, pausing just outside the store to yank them off my feet. I consider throwing them away, but change my mind. They look expensive, and I’m concerned these may be the last pair of human made high heels I ever see. I turn to one of the random guards.

“Ensure these items are taken to my quarters,” I declare, standing there barefoot and wearing a bodycon dress with a bow. It’d be funny if it weren’t so terribly tragic.

“Yes, My Imperial Princess.” The man affects a horizontal bow and then takes off. I just stare after him.

Huh. Wow. Obedient.

Does it make me a bad person that I like that?

“Are your shoes not satisfactory?” Rurik asks, nostrils flaring. He looks homicidal. “Avril was the one who suggested I purchase them.”

“Let’s never talk about her again.”

My annoyance fades as soon as I look over and find the most charming shop in the entire World Station. Well, I suppose that could be debatable, but I’m not in the market for jars of rainbow-colored goo, so this is better for me personally.

I know Jane isn’t here—Officer Hyt already told me that—but being here makes me feel closer to her. Closer to Earth. It makes me feel sane and in control. The shop next door sells alien dildos—I kid you not—and I try really hard not to notice that there’s a Falopex model in the front window. No, the bookstore is a much better place for me to be.

I break away from Rurik and wander in, but the effect is the same whether he’s standing beside me or not. Word must spread quickly here in the Noctuida, and everybody seems to know that I’m the Imperial Princess.

“May your reign be fertile and long,” a creature with long dark hair whispers, backing up as our guards force the crowds aside. She’s wearing a robe, hunched over with bony hands showing beneath the sleeves. Pretty sure I saw more of her kind—lots of her kind—in the market. I ignore her. I give her a wide berth. I almost run.

The bookstore has shelves that reach up to such gargantuan heights that there are several of those weird platform elevator things that I used on Rurik’s ship, when I went up to look inside Abraxas’ stolen den. They zip up and down the shelves, carting customers to the balconies up above. Just ahead of us is another massive window looking down at the beautiful sapphire and emerald gem that is Yaoh. It doesn’t creep me out as much as the endless night I usually see out the windows, and I don’t pass out this time when I stare at it. All is good.

A hand brushes against my hip, a hard body molds to mine from behind.

“Shall I show you where the human section is?” Rurik breathes, sliding his palm over my belly. He tucks me even harder against him, feelers sweeping down the sides of my head and arms. “You do not have to love me to relax or to allow me to make you feel good. You will be participating regardless. It does not have to be an unpleasant experience for you.”

He says what I was thinking out loud.

“Yes, please.”

Rurik slips around me, taking me by the hand and guiding me around the edge of a bookshelf to reveal a dizzying expanse of alien literature. The bookstore has a narrow entrance, but at the back, it’s much wider, seemingly running along the windowed side of the station for some ways on either side. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of aisles bordered by tall shelves.

The space is relatively quiet, Rurik’s boots echoing as he drags me down a ways, hooks a sharp right, and then eventually a left. We’re in a small, quiet corner at the ass-end of the bookstore. It’s cold over here, too, bits of ice forming on the interior wall. Is that normal?

“Is this a regular—” I lift my finger to point at the icicles when Rurik covers me with his body, pinning me against the shelf at my back with an arm on either side of me. He’s nipping and licking and tasting my neck, teasing me with further connection but holding back. I want that stupid blood lace stuff again. I want Rurik to dig into my soul and sift through me, see me, look at me completely bare and without pretense. I’m too embarrassed to ask for that, so I don’t.

His hands roam my curves, fingers slipping under the ribbon-like edges of the dress to press against my bare skin.

“Take your gloves off.” I’m yanking on them already, pulling one off and then examining the sharp-tipped nails on his middle and pointer finger. He put me to sleep with a prick from one of these. Oh well. I shove his hand against my naked skin, and my entire body bows with the intensity.

I nip his lip, and he bares his teeth at me, using one hand to yank my head to the side. He bites down on my throat at the same moment he shoves his hand into my panties, keeping his clawed fingers curled back and using his smooth-tipped ones.

He shows me that he knows exactly where my clit is, gently squeezing it between two knuckles.

Blood lace pours into my neck, digging into my veins and arteries, my heart, my soul.

You are the only good thing that has ever come to me. There is no one else. I am sorry that you are cursed to be my mate. If only I’d never gone to Jungryuk. We would never have met. I would have been able to keep my hopes and dreams and my freedom.

Those thoughts absolutely pummel me, and my heart aches for the prince.

Rurik pulls back, red smeared across his mouth, and watches me through those dark eyes as he works me right up to the edge of an orgasm. Doesn’t happen. His fingers withdraw suddenly, and he releases me, taking a small step back. I’m proud of myself for staying upright, staring at him as the coldness of this strange, dark corner kicks in. Rurik steps to my side and uses his wing to cover me like it’s a cloak.

“These are the only human texts in the store.” He points to a shelf in front of him as I just stand there, barefoot and dazed, my dress rucked up over my hips. Wondering if I should kill him. This stupid arrogant fucking moth.

My attention falls to the row of books, but only the first five are in recognizable languages. Then another section starts, filled with alien shit. I reach up and grab a hand-bound book. There’s a string and a white label stuck to it. Joseon Dynasty, 1735. National Museum of Korea, Seoul. I open it, and I can’t read a thing.

I’ll just put that one back.

“Did you just bring me all the way to orgasm and then leave me there?” I grind out, snatching the next volume. It’s in … I think the language is Czech? Alright, scratch that off the list. There are two copies of Twilight in English for whatever reason, and a 1968 novel titled Ammie, Come Home about a ghost.

That’s it. That’s my entire reading selection. Jane is going to flip all the way out.

“Yes, I showed you what I was capable of, and then I held back.” Rurik looks down at me, still tucked behind his wing with him, nice and warm but still barefoot and turned-on. I hate him. “I will personally source more human material for your reading pleasure. For now, this is all there is.”

I grab Ammie, Come Home off the shelf to take with me.

“How am I supposed to read my alien porn then?” I give him a look, referencing the Falopex. He knows it, too. “Oops. I mean alien romance. They’re romances, not porns.”

“Come.”

Rurik escorts me back the way we came and then down another hallway into a space that’s not only warm, but lit with one of those red flame fireplaces.

“What is this?” I pick up a book, but the language is meaningless to me. I don’t even recognize it in a vague way, like oh, that’s Japanese or anything like that. It’s completely foreign. As I stare at it, the synchronicity contacts kick in and a translation appears. The Pleasures of a Molluscan Mate is the title. I have no clue what that even means.

“Vestalis experience intimacy with a wide variety of mates. Each one of these books is bound to be a profoundly different romantic and sexual experience. Why don’t you pick one in my language, and I will read it to you?”

“Why don’t we take them all home? I’m the princess, aren’t I?” I’m breathing hard, clutching the most readable human book on the ship against my chest.

“I am sorry.” Rurik reaches down and tucks some hair behind my ear. “As the Imperial Princess on The Korol, you cannot have a large library.” He turns me around and gently pushes me into one of the high-backed chairs with the wing notches. His hands reach for his pants. “You may have a small library now, and then you may have a large one when you are queen.”

“We’re in a public place …” I don’t even finish talking. What am I saying? From what I can tell, the Imperial Court has absolute power. People don’t argue or complain. Vestalis ships nuke entire planets. Who would dare talk back?

We’re alone in the space, and I don’t see or hear anyone else.

“Of all the species you might be compatible with, my princess.” He flicks his button, and my toes curl into the carpet that covers the metal spacestation floors. “The Vestalis are the best, and I’ll show you why.”

He pushes his pants down to reveal an alabaster cock spiraled in red. When he reaches down a hand and fists the massive girth, I see that even his long fingers can’t touch. It’s way too big for me. It’s bigger than the biggest form of Abraxas’ that I can handle.

Rurik keeps his eyes on mine, his breathing as unsteady as my own. I toss Ammie, Come Home onto the ground so that my hands are free to grip the armrests of the chair. His fingers tease those red spirals, brush over the pointed obsidian tip at the head of his shaft, and encourage the stripes to unfold. Two red appendages unwrap from around Rurik’s dick, falling to either side of his hips. The black pointed tips become claws, one each at the end of … claspers? I guess that’s what they are, a pair of them to …

I imagine them grabbing me by the hips and holding me close, keeping me still. A sharp breath rushes out of me, almost a laugh. I should be panicking, but I’m not. I’m totally turned on by aliens. I am. I’m already looking forward to feeling the sharp tips at the end of the claspers dig into my skin. As for his shaft now, it’s long and curved and wide, but a much more reasonable size. There’s a patch of bright red fur around the base, and two bulges halfway down the length of his shaft that I imagine are his testicles. The head of his penis is thick and swollen, dusky red and dripping. On the underside there’s a ridge that he strokes with his thumb.

“The very second I tasted your blood, my body altered itself into a state that will work with your anatomy.” He grips the length of himself, just above the swollen bumps of his testes. They’d probably go all the way inside, wouldn’t they? I’m just sitting here imagining the sensation as my cunt gets slick, as it swells, as it makes sitting with my legs crossed an impossibility. “Once I have been inside of you, no other male will be satisfactory.”

He lets his red-stained lips twist to the side in a half-smile, and then his claspers spiral back around his shaft, nearly obscuring it from view. He uses a special strap inside his slacks to keep the appendage tucked against his thigh, and then he buttons himself back up.

“That’s it?” I’m whispering now as he comes over to me, kneeling just in front of the chair and putting his hands on my lap. He reaches up and tucks my hair back again, like he can’t resist the frequent urges he has to touch me.

“Tomorrow, we will mate. Tonight you must make peace with what is to come.”