Alien Prince: (Bride of Qetesh) An Alien SciFi Romance Read online

  ALIEN PRINCE

  (BRIDE OF QETESH)

  By Juniper Leigh

  Copyright 2016 © Enamored Ink

  Alien Alpha (Qetesh Warrior), the first part in the Qetesh series, is available for FREE as a bonus at the end of this book!

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  PROLOGUE: CALDER FEV’ROSK

  The clouds hung low in a cornflower sky the day the last of the Qeteshi matriarchs died. I remember how they grew round-bellied with the wanton rain, and I prayed to the Goddess Ur’Tesh to keep the coming night as warm as possible for our struggling mother. But Ur’Tesh turned a deaf ear to my pleading. The clouds broke open to rain upon our mourning village, even as the day star sunk low on the horizon and the tall grass of the plains pressed back into the dirt.

  I held our matriarch’s hand as she succumbed to the sickness that had claimed all Qeteshi women, one at a time, picking them off like a great beast might prey on weaker ones. The passing of each of them had been a tragedy, but this was different. This was our leader.

  Her name was Ramari Ro’quare, and she was a beauty. Even in illness that had turned her pale skin almost blue, she remained lovely. She was old when the sickness befell her, but she had forever maintained her regal air. She was our Queen, and we her people. Her horns were a fine silver, and they glinted in the waning light as if she wore a crown. Her mouth pressed in a stern line, but there were wrinkles around it born of years of proffering her warm, ebullient smile. She wore her black hair in thick braids, now flecked with grey and white, and the tribal tattoo across her forehead bespoke her high status. She was a rare bloom, though she had wilted.

  I wish she had had a few more cogent moments, wish that as I took her hand she would have opened her eyes and smiled to see me there beside her. I wish she could have imparted some wisdom to me that I could have taken with me beyond her passing, any scrap of insight into what I should do in the wake of our great loss. But there was nothing like that. I merely crept quietly into her chamber in the Spire at the center of our village, took a seat in the chair beside her bed, and held her hand.

  It was thinner than I remembered; she was thinner. But then, that was to be expected after nearly two years fighting for her life against a disease we did not understand. She did not know she was the last of our women: she had lost consciousness when there were still a handful of others, sick but living. But because we focused the full force of what medical care we had available to take care of Ramari, the other women died off before she did. We were a community of beleaguered men, constantly shrouded in sadness. We did not know how to purport ourselves in the grieving of our women.

  As the light went out and the rain grew heavy, Ramari Ro’quare drew her last breath. The air in her bedchamber was so still even the candlelight did not flicker. I sat there beside her in silence for the length of several heartbeats before rising to my feet to speak to the crowd gathered outside her door.

  “Friends,” I began, my tone low and tremulous, “it is my sad duty to inform you that Ramari Ro’quare, leader of this great tribe, has entered immortality.”

  “Is it really over, Calder?” someone asked. I did not see who, I simply nodded my head. There was an anxious stirring in the crowd as they began to murmur and shake their heads, unsure of what to do next. I witnessed what I thought was the death of our kind, the end of our species.

  “You will lead us in her absence, Calder,” someone else said, “will you not?” But I shook my head, and pushed through them all. I needed air, I needed space. I needed to demand answers from the gods I had served for so long.

  “You cannot leave us now,” a third voice protested. Someone grabbed me by the shoulder, and I wheeled around, full of venom for anyone who would obstruct my path. They must have seen the fire in my eyes, because the lot of them fell silent under the weight of my gaze.

  “Hear me,” I said, my tone a low rumble in my throat, “and hear me well, for I shall say these words but once: I am not your leader. Your leader is dead. And I hereby relinquish my role as Qulari Priest and spiritual advisor to the Qeteshi people of my clan. Put whomever you please in power — it does not matter to me now.”

  “But Calder—” I pushed past my people into the great hall where she so often held audience, and I heard my footsteps echo against the walls as I tromped through. No one followed me, or if they did, I did not notice them.

  I do not recall much after that. I do not recall stopping by my dwelling to collect what few belongings mattered to me, though I must have for I have them still. I do not remember that first Winternight on my own in the frozen plains outside my village. I have no memory of building a new dwelling for myself on the outskirts of town, far enough away that I could no longer see the glowing orange lights in the windows of the village.

  I remember so very little of those early days on my own. Except this: the sharpening of my horns. When the Qet join the Qulari order, their horns are blunted. This is so someone can see at a glance they are of the cloth, that they are one with the gods and goddesses of the spirit world. In essence, it is how we signal to the rest of society to leave us be. We are not challenged to battle, we are not called upon to fight. We are ourselves blunted. I joined the order when I was very young, and I do not remember what it felt like to have my horns blunted, but I do remember what it felt like to sharpen them again.

  Agony, searing agony, from the first moment to the last. It was my final bit of business before I left my village, and I remember it with startling clarity. The village was a ghost town that night, with everyone having traveled to the Spire to await news of Ramari’s condition. Because she passed as night fell, and because the temperature quickly dropped to freezing, many of the men decided to spend the night in the Spire. That left me free to wander the village at my leisure. So I let myself into the smithy.

  There was the whetstone we used to sharpen everything from knives to swords to arrowheads to sewing needles, and I took a seat at a crude wooden stool next to it. I looked around the quiet room, dim with candlelight and abandoned by its master, and I waited. I waited for the Goddess Ur’Tesh to tell me why she had not answered my prayers, or for Qi’Toraq, the God of Death, to tell me why he had taken our Ramari. I waited for Khal’Tari, the Mother Goddess, to tell me why she had forsaken her only remaining daughter, or for Te’Ovid the All Father, to explain why he had forsaken me, here, now. As is the case so often with these fickle gods, no answers came.

  Pumping the whetstone with my foot, I got the stone going in a circular motion of increasing speed. Then I bent forward, pressing the blunted nub of my left horn to the stone wheel. It rubbed me raw, and I could feel all of it. I gritted my teeth, moving my head back and forth, and saw the sparks fly from the friction. I cried out, a bellowing sound that filled the empty air around me.

  I reforged myself in fire that night, and when I lifted my head again, I could feel the pulse of my nerves in the tip of my sharpened horns. And when I peered at my reflection in the rounded belly of a silver shield, I could see I had cast off the livery of my former life. I was no longer a Qulari priest, but something else: a man looking for a fight.

  CHAPTER ONE: LORELEI VAUSS

  Even at the age of twenty-four — ostensibly well into adulthood — my first thought upon being abducted by a bunch of intergalactic slavers was, “My parents are going to kill me.” I suppose that’s largely due to the fact that a myri
ad of equally bizarre things had already happened to me, and I had been trained through trial and error not to expect any truly dire outcomes. Not when my parents held high offices in The Echelon, an organization which had their fingers in every pie in the known universe. Whenever I got into any sort of trouble, I guess I figured they’d know and come find me. And getting abducted was no different.

  Or so I’d thought.

  I guess I’d put myself in a vulnerable position in the first place. Home was the Atria, Federation Ship 4199, and my neighborhood was in the vast blackness between star systems. Although I was human, I’d never set foot on Earth, not once. I wasn’t even born there, I was born on the Atria and it often felt like I would die there, too. I’d spent countless evenings scrolling through images of Earth, images of beaches and cities, mountains and forests, deserts and volcanoes. But mostly, I looked at other people. There were few humans aboard the Atria aside from my parents and me, and very few my own age. I wanted to know what it would be like to live a normal life, on a normal planet. I watched human television shows and movies just to feel like I could be around nice, normal people who didn’t know that this organization even existed. What bliss it must be, I thought, to think you were alone in the universe.

  When I was growing up, none of it had seemed so strange. I had friends from multiple species, and we went to school together. Using in-ear translation devices, we could exist peacefully, if not warmly, speaking the language of our people without losing out on understanding one another. But because there were so few humans, I always felt like I was left out, even with the translation device. So I began to learn languages. I learned Europax, Pyrtas, Qeteshi, Keldeeri, language after language, until I didn’t feel so strange.

  And I was an adept pupil. My teachers constantly remarked on my ability to pick things up with startling quickness, and as such, my parents had big plans for me: a position within the Echelon itself, just as they had.

  I had done everything my parents had asked of me. I studied languages, and could speak 17 different ones; five of them were Earth languages, and the other 12 were languages from the planets with which the Echelon had the most contact. But instead of that grand diplomatic position my parents wanted for me, I was working in intergalactic customer service. And I wasn’t even the person who solved problems; I was just on the phones, connecting them to the people who could.

  I began to wonder if I could just leave the Atria, if my parents would help me get set up on Earth. They loved me, after all. I knew they only wanted the best for me. Finally, a few months before my 25th birthday, I decided to test the waters.

  Even though I had my own living quarters aboard the Atria, they were nothing compared to the spacious suite my parents shared. The suite featured picture windows overlooking the sparkling expanse of endless space, with plush white carpeting in the sunken sitting area. The furniture was sleek and modern, but there was a crystal chandelier that hung over the living room, with a white baby grand piano that nobody played.

  Keenly aware of the interest I had taken in Earth and its cultures, my mother made a point of making a home-cooked “American” meal for me once a week. There was always a friendly fire burning in the fireplace at the far end of one room.

  “Hi, peanut,” my father said, smiling under the bush of his thick, greying moustache. He pressed a kiss to my forehead, and shuffled past me with his tablet in one hand and a half-empty beer bottle in the other.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said to him as he passed.

  “Is that Lore?” My mother called from the kitchen, and my father confirmed her suspicion. Mom popped her head out of the kitchen and proffered a broad smile.

  “Hi, honey! I’m making pot roast.” Even at nearly sixty years old, my mother was still a beauty. She had deep dimples around her full lips when she smiled, and her eyes were a glittering green.

  I reflected my mother’s smile and headed over to join her in the kitchen, but she caught me in a hug first. The room smelled of roasting meat and simmering vegetables, and with my back to the windows, I could almost pretend like I was any other normal person, having a normal dinner, with her normal parents.

  “How’s it goin’, Mama?” I asked, trailing my fingers over the granite countertops.

  “Oh, fine,” she said, untying the strings of her apron. “Except that the Europax contingent is placing sanctions against the Keldeeri, and so your father and I are trying to negotiate against an impending embargo.” So much for normal.

  “Yikes,” I said.

  “Yikes is right.”

  “What do the Keldeeri want?” I asked, crossing my arms in front of me.

  “Women,” she said. “Either human or Europax.”

  “Jeez,” I muttered under my breath, “Not another planet whose women are dying off?”

  “No, no,” My mother said, sliding in socked feet across the kitchen tile and throwing open the refrigerator. “That’s why the Europax don’t want to cooperate. It’s not like Qetesh — the Keldeeri have plenty of women. They want the Europax for, er… sport.”

  “You can say ‘brothels’, Mom.”

  “Well, whatever.” She bent at the waist and procured a bottle of Chardonnay, holding it aloft with a beaming smile. “Look!”

  “Oooh,” I cooed, and stepped forward to take the bottle from her, peering down at the label. “Is this a good year?”

  “I have no idea. But beggars can’t be choosers.” Mom got us a few glasses, and I rifled through a nearby drawer to find the wine key. Popping open the bottle, I poured us two sizable servings, and we clinked our glasses together. They only had shipments from Earth once a month and the supplies were always picked clean. I sipped, reveling in the sharp flavor of the wine.

  “So,” I said, setting my glass down on the countertop, “there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Oh?” Her tone was dubious.

  “Yeah, um.” I cleared my throat. “I want to go to Earth.”

  My mother’s face was utterly unreadable as she lifted her glass to her lips and drank deeply. “Mm,” she hummed, giving a slow nod of her head.

  “So…” I continued, jutting my hip out as I fell into an easy lean against the counter, “is that something that you guys could, like… help me with?”

  She canted her head gently to the side, then turned her gaze toward the empty doorway just past me and shouted, “Jack!” She called his name a few more times before my father came shuffling into the kitchen, his eyebrows arched high over his shrewd eyes. “Your daughter wants to go to Earth.”

  He furrowed his brow and eyed me curiously. “Earth,” he repeated, as though it were a strange request. “What does she want to do that for?”

  “I haven’t the faintest notion,” my mother said, cradling her half-empty wine glass in her left hand.

  I looked between them, knowing that I would meet some resistance but finding it baffling that they should be surprised. “What?” I asked, unable to discern what their oblique expressions could mean. “You can’t think it’s weird.”

  “No, I suppose we always knew this day would come,” my father said, making his way to the fridge to grab himself another beer. “I guess I just assumed it would be later.”

  “Later, like when?” I asked, watching him use the side of the granite countertop to pop the bottle cap from his beer. I blinked owlishly, surprised that my mother didn’t have something to say about it, but her attention was focused heavily on me.

  “Like when you wanted to settle down and have a family of your own,” she said gently. “We know that there’s not exactly a ton of choices in the eligible human male department.”

  “Not that we’re saying we wouldn’t approve of your joining with a member of another species. We’re progressive, forward-thinking types.”

  “But,” my mother interjected, “we know how special it is to have a child. A daughter. We wouldn’t want you to deprive yourself of that.”

  “Some s
pecies support cross-breeding, Cora, you know that,” my dad muttered under his breath.

  “But that isn’t the point,” she shot back conspiratorially, evoking a nod of concession.

  “What is the point?” I asked, finishing off the wine and propping my hands up on my hips as I stared at my parents from across the kitchen island.

  “The point,” my father said at length, “is that we are still very early in our cross-breeding phase. We know that pairings could create viable half-breed offspring, but we don’t necessarily know if they will.”

  “Or if they should,” my mother added.

  “Well, but the Echelon is sending all those human and Europax women to Qetesh. I just assumed—”

  “It’s really only phase one,” Dad said. “Just to see if we can correct a trend before an entire species dies off.”

  I nodded, though I couldn’t shake the notion that they were both putting the proverbial cart way before the proverbial horse. “Well,” I said at length, “I'm not looking to settle down, so to speak. But I do want…”

  “What?” My mother urged.

  “I don’t know. Something else.” I picked absently at my nail beds and I did not look at them. “Something more… normal.”

  My father chuckled low in his throat, and I heard my mother sigh through her nostrils. Jack and Cora Vauss were an impenetrable wall when they were united, which they usually were. “Normal,” my father repeated, like he was turning the word over in his mouth to have a better understanding of it. “What does that even mean?”

  “More like other people,” my mom said, and there was an edge to her tone that put me on edge as well.

  “I’m not passing judgment or anything,” I said quickly. “I just want to try another kind of life, that’s all.”

  “What’s so wrong with the one we’ve given you?” Mom asked, and that was where I lost them.

  “Nothing,” I said, even as I watched my mom turn her attention to the oven and her pot roast. She slipped her hands into her oven mitts and opened the oven door, sending a plume of hot air into the kitchen. “Nothing is wrong with it, I just want something else.”