by Erin Raegan
But this dress seemed molded to me, made just for me. I didn’t know what other alien females looked like. Thinking on it now, it seemed all alien kings were that man-brained, because the Dahk never had females on Earth or the Xixin. But I’d heard from Lahn and Kayd they did have females on board their giant ass spaceships.
“He’s collected many things for you,” Oren said from the doorway, startling me and Bets.
“Thought you couldn’t read minds,” I drawled spitefully.
Oren just shrugged. “You are very expressive.”
“Reading faces is an admirable talent,” Bets said with a smile. Back to loving on them all as she once did. Oren flushed and shot her a hesitant smile. Bets’ lashes fluttered and her hand flew to her chest. “Oh, it’s so good to see you smile.”
Oren shifted, nearly bashful over her gushing.
“What do you mean he collected things for me?”
Oren stood straight. “He’s been preparing for your arrival from the moment he left you behind.”
I rolled my eyes. “So you claim, he may never have come back.”
Oren shook his head. “No, he was always coming. He may not have realized the fact himself, but in our travels, he thought of nothing but you. You have gowns and treasures and artifacts all stored on the ship should he find the courage to present them to you.”
I shifted uneasily. “Killian doesn’t need to find the courage, he has plenty.”
Oren grinned. “Not when it comes to his queen.”
Bets sighed dramatically. “A queen. My Theo.” She turned to the door to shout, “Can you believe it Sal? Theo is a queen!”
“Nope. Can’t believe it,” he called back dryly.
“Oh, this is so exciting,” she gushed, fanning out the gown around my feet. “This dress makes perfect sense now that I’m thinking of it. He can’t have his queen walking at his side in ratty old clothes.”
“I’m not a queen,” I mumbled, shifting anxiously. “We aren’t even married.”
Bets eyes lit up and mine widened. Oren chuckled.
“Not that I want to marry him,” I rushed to say, watching that horrifying excitement wash away from her face. Not yet anyway.
He needed to grovel a little more.
God, was I really doing this? Letting Killian court me again? After everything?
Killian pushed past Oren and into the room. Tight black leather textured pants encasing powerful thighs and a hefty bulge between them. A flowy white linen shirt, parting from neck to sternum to show off the smooth valleys of this chest. Gold at his neck and wrists. Those pretty beads coiled into his silky long hair, past his shoulders.
A wicked grin aimed my way.
Yes. Yes, I was doing this.
“You look positively ravishing, sweets,” he purred, standing before me.
From the corner of my eye, Bets backed away, her hands balled under her chin and her eyes lit with joy on the two of us standing there dressed in Killian finery.
“It fits,” was all I said. Shifting in the revealing dress. “But no shoes.”
Killian knelt before me and lifted the hem of the dress, his clawed fingertips delicately running along the tops of my bare feet. “Hmm, this will not do.”
“You have no shoes?” Bets fretted. “Oren said you thought of everything.”
Killian looked at Oren over his shoulder. “My second has been telling tales then?”
“Not tales if it is truth,” Oren said dispassionately. “Yet somehow my lord had forgotten humans, too, have feet.”
“It’s fine,” I told them, trying to dispel the tension and walked to the bed, sitting to pull on my black boots. “I like these just fine.”
Killian scowled at the cracked leather. Honestly though, they looked kind of awesome paired with the dress.
“The gown was designed in regard to the old Kilbus female royals,” Killian pulled me to my feet. “They did not wear foot coverings.”
“You do,” I looked down at his own leather boots, thick and tall, nearly to his knees.
“Now we do,” he said with a smile. “But it was not always that way.”
“Well if you can wear boots then so can I,” I told him.
He nodded and held his hand out to me gallantly, “You are nearly ready then.”
“Nearly?” I looked down, I was wearing the gown and had shoes. What more was there?
Killian’s claws smoothed into my shoulder-length hair. He frowned at the shorter cut from my time under captivity but true to his word, didn’t mention it. It would grow back.
Swiftly, with talented fingers, he braided several strands of my hair. I watched as he lifted a delicate bead from his own hair and twisted it into my braid. Oren stood stiffly as he did this, not in anger, but with a strange reverent look on his face.
“Only one for now,” Killian murmured softly, “more will come after I claim you.”
I fingered the glittering bead, watching his eyes closely. “This is another queen thing?”
His eyes smiled.
Then Oren was there, holding out a delicate gold chain to Killian.
Killian looked the chain over, so very carefully lifting is from Oren’s fingers. “Turn around.”
I did, my breath picking up as Killian’s fingers gently pulled my hair back. The chain fell around my neck, short and resting at the base of my throat.
Oren cleared his throat and motioned for Bets, both of them leaving without a word.
Warm fingers caressed the back of my neck as the chain rested. “It’s pretty.” So thin and bright, I’d never owned a thing this nice.
“Only the best Kilbus gold for you,” he softly purred in my ear.
My dress felt impossibly tighter as his mouth dipped to my neck, his warm tongue tracing the line of the chain around my neck to my throat. My fingers reached up and tangled in his hair as his came around my waist and pulled me back into his chest. His large hand encompassed my belly, lying flat, inches above where his roaming tongue had me aching.
“Killian,” I warned breathlessly.
“I know,” he growled, nipping my throat sharply and then he was backing away. “Come then, lets get this over with.”
“What changed, why am I going with you?” I asked anxiously as we left my room.
“I wanted to keep your presence discreet, but it seems rumors have spread that I’ve taken a human queen. If I do not present you now, and claim you before Litsipith, curiosity will get the better of the most rash of beings. You will walk by my side and me and mine will put the fear of the gods in their eyes. It’s all I can do until we can fix what is needed on the ship.”
“Is it really that dangerous here?” I asked, my fingers tingling in fear.
Noah was nowhere to be found. It seemed Killian managed to remove him and Mike every time he tried to take me from the room. Most of the time Noah couldn’t put up much of a fight anyway, but I had a feeling if he knew I was leaving now, he’d be harder to deter.
Killian nodded, his eyes softening on me. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I nodded. I knew he wouldn’t. But it didn’t stop me from fearing for my family.
Leo was sprawled on a bench as we walked out. He was going to stay here with everyone else along with Jareth. And an army of Kilbus were just outside the door in case some alien did find itself somehow managing to sneak on board.
But Oren was going with Killian and me. Along with nearly three dozen other Kilbus. A few Xixin, like Leo. Careem, and other similar strange looking aliens. A Kilbus named Dereth that looked like Oren and Killian. All of them different looking. All of them Kilbus.
Then there was the crew already prepared to disembark and begin the repairs. We traveled down the ship and into the massive ship hangar we first entered coming onto the ship. Wide double doors, as big as five-story buildings, hissed open. Parting like curtains.
An army waited for us outside those doors. These alien far vaster in differences and odd garb.
“One more thing,” Killian said quietly in my ear. I couldn’t look away from all those aliens waiting for us to disembark. All of them angry faced and tensed. All of them armed.
“What is it?” I asked breathlessly. My eyes wide on the alien world outside the ship.
“I’ll make it up to you later,” he said ominously. I tore my eyes from the scene in front of me, blinking in confusion. But a cold object touched my neck and I looked up into Kilian’s eyes. He winced and the object hissed.
A searing pain shot through the skin behind my ear and I yelped, smacking it away. My mouth opened wide as my ears rang, my jaw popping the air in my ear. “What was that?” I screeched, affronted. That hurt.
“An implant,” he told me, wincing. “I’d rather you were aware of what is being said around you.”
“You could have just asked,” I grumbled, rubbing the sore area.
Killian’s brow rose. “And have you attack me like my poor healer?”
It was my turn to wince. “I told him I was sorry.”
Killian frowned. “I didn’t want to distress you.”
I huffed, angry. “Well, now I know you’re willing to jab me with needles when I’m not looking. Way to go.”
Killian grinned, unrepentant. “Ready?”
I looked back out of the ship again. My shoulders tight. “As I’ll ever be, I guess.”
Alien Greetings
Theo
Killian was not happy.
I’d seen him angry a few times. Enraged even.
This was something else altogether.
That overlord Oren told him had been calling—moments before Killian finally took our relationship somewhere that had been building for a long time—was nowhere to be found.
He’d sent some spindly tall alien in his place to greet Killian.
There were words exchanged.
The alien male clicked and clacked his way through a frightened apology all the while Killian and Oren both glowered at him.
And I understood all of it. Every weird alien word.
We were surrounded by dozens of strangers, all of them shifting on anxious feet, their weapons trembling in their hands.
It made me nervous.
But not enough that I was unaware of my surroundings.
And there was a lot to take in.
The room we stood in was wide and cavernous. Nearly a hundred times bigger than Killian’s ship. It fit more than fifteen other slightly smaller ships than Killian’s inside of it. All of them lined in a row. Their backs jutting out of a round hole with rubber fastenings, no doubt their asses sticking out in space. The wall behind the ships was completely glass-like, revealing a hazy view of space and the end of the ships through the foggy glass.
In front of me, the wall was a grey metal, rusted from liquid that had bled down in streams. Every dozen or so feet was a metal balcony. Dozens of them. Each balcony jutted out from a dark hole. Bright strobing neon lights and crowds moved through the spaces that seemed small from the ground but I knew must be massive caverns inside the weird floating metal complex we were on.
I was hyper aware that I was a small ant in a massive population of aliens, floating in a metal box in the middle of space.
An ant that had an incredible amount of attention directed her way.
The skinny alien waved a three-fingered hand—one of five—toward us to follow him through the space and to a grated metal cage that hung suspended by cables. All of us—Killian’s army—fit inside the box with barely room to spare for the skinny alien and only two of his companions.
My fingers slipped through the front gate as I gazed out at the hundreds of aliens we left behind down below as the box slowly lifted upwards. The Kilbus were already hefting large machines and materials to the side of the ship that I could now see held little pockets and holes of blasted and ripped metal. Killian gently pulled me from the front of the cage and moved me behind both him and Oren. Over fifteen other Kilbus crowding my back tightly, their eyes on everything surrounding us with tight tension lining their faces.
The skinny alien hesitantly complimented my strange alien beauty and I watched as Killian sent him a look so full of rage and warning I would not have been surprised if that alien wet himself in his stiff, pale-beige coverall suit.
We went up and up, past three then four then five levels of the complex. Aliens peeking over the balconies to catch a glimpse of the Kilbus in all their glory crammed inside.
Some had two eyes, some dozens. Some had none at all. Some had mouths some none. Some had beaks and trunks and awkward looking skin flaps in place of a mouth. Appendages were so far and away different it was hard to look away. But then there were the more humanoid looking aliens. Those like Killian and the Dahk and Xixin. While none of them looked nearly anything like a human, there was clearly a relatively symbiotic nature to how they stood and carried themselves on the majority of the different species. They may have had more than two legs, but most only stood on two. Those that had any leg-like appendages at all.
Sal would have shit himself if he were witnessing this while gazing at a massive window into space beyond.
But me? I was just taking it all in with fascinated gaping and bugged out eyes.
Killian hadn’t been kidding when he claimed he would show me things I could never even dream of all that time ago. I’d wanted to travel my world but instead I was traveling many worlds and the things I knew I would see would be so outside of anything I could have conjured up on my own, I knew I would never tire of it.
Not so long as I had my family with me.
We stepped out onto a balcony and faced inside one of those crowded, massive caverns. Bright neon lights nearly blinded me, alien signs in front of huts and rusted buildings. The noise of the crowds was nearly deafening. I could barely hear a word the skinny alien said as he ushered us into the teeming crowd.
My feet stumbled underneath me as my head whipped back and forth, taking it all in so fast it was dizzying. Aliens traded goods on the streets and sang alien tunes while tossing mugs and bowls of liquid around. Shouting and screeching and baying and just so much noise the new translator in my ear didn’t pick up a single cognitive word.
I could feel the thunder of the noisy hall reverberating under my boots as the Kilbus branched out, clearing a path for us to walk through.
At first, most didn’t notice us. But Killian and his crew were hard not to notice for too long. Kilbus was whispered in a steady wave through the crowd, slowly picking up in volume. But then human quickly replaced it with an eerie tone of excitement and hunger.
I inched closer to Killian as all those eyes one by one fell on me. His arm wrapped around my shoulder and he pulled me tight to this side. His cold indifferent face daring one them to take a step closer. None did.
“On such short notice this was all we could provide for you,” the skinny alien bleated frightfully. He waved us out of the crowd and into a tall grey building. I had to blink the neon light’s glares from my eyes as I took in my new surroundings. Red walls and red downy carpets ran through the huge entryway. Several aliens similar looking to our escort stood at attention in front of a long countertop. All of them dressed in beige coverings from head to toe. Each of them with a bulky looking firearm strapped to their bulging backs. “The facility has been cleared for your use. No other resides here.”
Killian looked around with a bored frown. “We won’t be staying on board.”
The alien flushed and twisted his three fingers nervously. “You’ll be staying on your ship?”
His tone said clearly this was not the norm for Killian and crew.
“After this eve.”
I didn’t understand why we were staying even for one night, but Oren had told me it was important Killian at least make his presence known while we were here. It just seemed like an unnecessary risk to me.
The alien nodded. “The lodgings will remain available to you should you change your mind.”
Killian ignored him.
This seemed like an awful lot of special treatment for one group of visitors on a complex that likely housed and entertained more than hundreds of thousands of aliens at any given time. But then again, I was learning Killian and crew were not your average run of the mill aliens. There was something special about them, something dangerous that caused these aliens to fall at their feet to please him.
Killian guided me past the alien and to yet another cage. This one shiny like silver and clearly more maintained than most of the buildings we’d passed. Only Killian, Oren, and Dereth fit inside with us, the rest remained outside, circling the box with their backs to us and their blades and guns ready at hand as we slowly ascended several floors.
“Can I talk now?” I whispered hesitantly.
Killian shook his head sharply and guided me from the cage, walking through a very wide hallway. Down the grey corridor were two black double doors. Outside of it were two more of the skinny five-arm aliens, and both of them held open the doors for us as we walked inside.
It wasn’t until the doors were closed firmly shut behind us that Killian turned to Oren and Dereth. “I could not read many,” Killian started quietly, “but the Veel have spies here.”
Oren nodded. “I spotted a few myself.”
Dereth nodded as well. “The Ockdal are here for repairs as well.”
Killian’s brows rose. “I did not think they frequented the outer sectors.”
Dereth shrugged. “I am as shocked as you.”
Killian sighed. “You spotted them then?”
Dereth shook his head. “No they will not reveal themselves unless necessary. I heard word from the ship. Jareth is paying their commander a visit.”
Killian chuckled. “That should go well.” He turned to me, knowing all the confusion I was feeling. “The Ockdal are an uptight sort.”
“Another enemy of yours?” My tight mouth showed him I was not impressed. Killian seemed to have a lot of enemies.
He grinned wide. “You could say that, though their commander would think himself an ally of ours.”
Oren rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Their animosity toward us comes and goes with Killian’s mood.”
