by Emma Castle
“I did speak with Arus. Who are you?” her father asked.
“My name is Soren. Arus has assigned me the role of…” Soren paused, his lips twitching in a near smile as he seemed to search for the right word. “Ambassador.”
Bianca strained to see over the shoulders of her Secret Service detail. They wedged her between their two large bodies and the wall, smothering her with fear and panic as wild thoughts of a hundred alien invasion movies swarmed in her head. There was a soft rumble to the man’s deep voice that seemed to put her at ease as her instincts screamed that nothing was calming about facing off with an alien.
In fact, she knew without a doubt that something was terribly wrong, because she should have been screaming and trying to escape…yet her voice wouldn’t work. She was rooted to the spot in horror and fascination.
“I am to represent the needs of the Krinar people on Earth. Any issues that arise will be dealt with by me.” The man crossed the room and seated himself in an armchair, the one her father liked to sit in at night and smoke a cigar when he had the chance.
“You have been poor custodians of such a precious planet. You have ruined it. We are here to fix what we can, and you will be thankful for the intervention.”
This man…alien…who called himself Soren, simply leaned back, hands on the armrests in a picture of complete ease, watching them without fear. His casual, carefree attitude warned Bianca that whoever these Krinar were, they weren’t afraid of humans at all. That meant they had power, and lots of it.
Soren cleared his throat politely and continued. “I assume you don’t mind if I procure a residence close to yours. It will give me time to acclimate. I have not set foot on your world in more than five thousand years.” Soren chuckled. “Much has changed.”
Her father seemed to recover himself. “Five thousand years?”
“Yes. I was checking in on your progress. Egypt was the center of advanced technology. They were quite gifted.”
“Our progress?” Bianca spoke up, only to have one of her agents mutter a curse and try to remove her from the room. But she dug in her heels.
“Stop. Leave her be.” Soren’s commanding voice stilled the agent gripping her, and his hold loosened. “Who is this?” Soren seemed to notice her for the first time. Her father stepped between her and the Krinar man.
“My daughter, Bianca. She normally wouldn’t be in here, but your little magic act has my security team noticeably concerned, and they thought it best to bring her to my room.” Her father waved at the agents hovering near him and Bianca.
Soren raised a dark brow, studying Bianca. There was a knowing look in his gaze, as though he could read every thought she’d ever had. There would be no keeping secrets from him. A sudden shiver rippled down her spine at the thought of feeling so powerless against a man like him.
“Today is your birthday?” he asked as he looked down at his palm. Had he written notes on it, like she did when she was worried she’d forget something? The idea of a powerful alien needing to scribble down notes on his hand struck her as both funny and bizarre.
“Y–yes,” she replied. He then moved a few steps closer, and she saw that his palm was empty of notes. What had he been looking at? And how had he known about her birthday?
“Happy birthday, then. Sixteen is an important year in a human’s life, I’m told.” Soren smiled and turned his focus back to her father, having lost all interest in her.
“Now, Mr. President, it’s time we talked peace terms in order to prevent millions of innocent deaths.” He rose with confidence and preternatural grace from the armchair and came face-to-face with her father. “Here’s how Earth is going to surrender to Krinar control.” Bianca felt like she’d swallowed her tongue whole as she stared at the gorgeous, scary-as-hell man who had just announced that his people were not only invading, but had already won. All she could think was that he reminded her of a leopard she’d once seen in a zoo. So close against the glass, golden eyes hungry with dark intent…
A predator.
Bianca opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
Chapter 1
Bianca bolted upright in bed, heart smashing against her ribs. Her roommate, Claudia, stared at her. The other girl flipped on the light between their two beds and watched her nervously.
“You’d have that dream about him again?” Claudia asked, her blue eyes wide. Bianca nodded. Mortification deadened her limbs as she realized she’d woken up her roommate with her screaming.
Today was her twenty-first birthday, and like clockwork, the nightmares had come back. K-Day. The day the Krinar had arrived and taken over. Everything that Bianca had believed about her life and even Earth itself had been turned on its head once the Krinar had made some announcements to the world.
Thousands of years ago, the Krinar had modified existing life on Earth to become compatible with and originate from Krinar-based DNA in order to create humans. Humans were nothing more than ants in an ant farm to them. She couldn’t help but fear the day one of those Ks would give their little ant farm called Earth a mighty shake.
“I’m just glad the agents have the night off,” she muttered.
Claudia nodded. The first couple of times she’d had nightmares, her agents had rushed into the room, guns drawn. Claudia had almost asked for a new roommate from Princeton’s college housing. But Bianca had convinced her not to, and they’d told the agents they had to take nights off. All that really meant was that they took up a post in an SUV parked in front of the dorm. At least from there they couldn’t hear her scream. She had to wear her panic button around her wrist at all times. She was glad the White House tech team had been able to make it so small. Embedded in a leather bracelet, it looked more like a fashion accessory than a personal security device.
Claudia slipped out of bed and headed into their shared bathroom. “Want me to get you some water?”
Bianca rubbed her eyes and drew in a slow breath. She wasn’t sixteen anymore. She was finishing her final year at Princeton. She wasn’t helpless, wasn’t trapped beneath Soren’s predatory gaze. Yet even after five years, thoughts of him, the first Krinar she’d ever seen, wouldn’t go away. Her stomach knotted, and she suppressed a moan as she fought off the wave of nausea that came with it.
Flashes of memories, slices of that moment always came back. Predatory golden-brown eyes that threatened to swallow her whole. After she had seen him, heard his calm demands all those years ago, she had been escorted to her room and kept under lock and key while her father, the president, had spoken with him for the next four hours about the future of mankind and how best to protect the American people from panicking. It was why her father had been reelected by a landslide. He’d kept the Great Panic that had followed the invasion limited. America and the other major countries of the world had kept the confusion and casualties as low as possible.
“Here.” Claudia held out a glass of water, which Bianca gratefully accepted. She curled her fingers around the glass and drank deeply. There was something purifying about water after she had nightmares, as it washed away the metallic tang in her mouth that always accompanied her nightmares.
“It’s been five years. You’d think you’d have adjusted by now,” said Claudia.
“You weren’t there,” said Bianca. “I didn’t have any kind of warning to cushion the blow like most people did.”
“I can’t believe you were up close to Soren, on K-Day no less.” Claudia sat cross-legged on the bed and ran her fingers through her red hair. Now she was awake and wanted to talk, but Bianca just wanted to curl up in a ball and try to make the dreams go away. Ever since K-Day, she had seen Soren everywhere. His arrogant, handsome face appeared on TV interviews, magazine covers, and internet articles.
The Krinar male was handsome, she could acknowledge that, but she hated him. Hated him because he’d been the first person to really look at her and then just as quickly dismiss her. She was one small, meaningless part of a race his had experimented o
n over eons. Just a kid. But now? She wasn’t a kid anymore. What would he think of her if they came face-to-face again after all these years? She hoped she’d never know. Going to college had helped her avoid most of her father’s political functions. Her mother had died before he took office, and Bianca had taken the unofficial position of her father’s “plus one” to every gala and state dinner. But after the Krinar invaded, she’d been invited to fewer and fewer of those events for safety reasons, which was fine by her.
“Soren’s so intimidating,” Claudia continued. “But in kind of a hot way, you know? Like if he kissed you, you would just melt through the floor. My sister’s friend went to an X-club, you know. And wow, she can’t even talk about it. She gets this dazed, swoony look on her face.”
That had Bianca sitting up. “Your sister knows someone who went to an X-club?”
Those were Krinar sex clubs. Well, that’s what the news called them, but Bianca wasn’t so certain. They were clubs run by the Ks, but they let humans come inside. The only humans who tended to go in were xenophiles, or K obsessed humans, which was why the clubs were called X-clubs. And once a human went inside, the odds of him or her ending up in a K’s bed were high. Bianca knew why.
As the president’s daughter, she had been educated about the Krinar more than just about anyone in the general public. She knew only too well which rumors were true and which weren’t. The worst details about the Krinar, well, those were the ones that were mostly true.
The Krinar drank human blood. Not often, but they did it when having sex. Apparently it gave them some kind of pleasure high, and humans were similarly affected, like being given ecstasy that enhanced their sexual arousal beyond imagining. That wasn’t something Bianca wanted to think about. The Ks were basically space vampires—not that she’d ever say that to their faces.
“Mandy said that her friend Lucy was sore for days.” Claudia pointed discreetly below her waist.
“Seriously?”
“She didn’t say where, though,” Claudia giggled.
Bianca wished she wasn’t fascinated, but she was. She was still a virgin, thanks to her agents. Any man who got too handsy with her was escorted home by her assigned Secret Service watchdogs. Daddy’s orders.
“Oh yeah. She says she doesn’t really remember much about what happened after one bit her, just that she was in some crazy kind of orgy.”
“Orgy? Come on, Claudia, be serious.” Bianca laughed. Orgies? Was she kidding?
“I am serious.” Claudia frowned. “She slept with three guys, at least she thinks it was three. They were in some basement, and the furniture was floating.”
Bianca snorted. Sadly, there wasn’t an extra pillow on her bed to throw at her roommate. She was totally pulling her leg.
“Orgies and floating furniture? Why don’t we just go back to sleep? We have two weeks until finals, and we should focus on that, not Krinar X-clubs and floating furniture.”
Claudia huffed and turned off the light. Bianca settled back in her bed, pulled the covers up to her chin, and closed her eyes. But tonight she knew she would get little sleep, because Soren was there, a seductive, threatening shadow in the back of her mind. She stated known facts in her head to calm down.
Ks can’t read minds. Truth.
Ks can’t watch you sleep in your bed. Truth.
But they could see you in your dorm room if they decided to put cameras in here. Scary truth.
Soren doesn’t know where you are, and he doesn’t care. You’re just the human president’s brat he met once five years ago. Truth? She hoped so.
She drifted into a light, restless sleep and wondered why she couldn’t shake the sense that someone was indeed watching her.
Soren frowned at the hologram of the human woman’s dorm room, watching her toss and turn over the next three hours. He hadn’t tapped into this feed in nearly four years, not since he’d assured himself that her college accommodations were suitable. She was the daughter of a great leader whom he respected, after all. It was only natural to check on her. For security. The anti-K rebels had been known to target pro-Krinar leaders and their families. The president wasn’t exactly pro-Krinar, but he was supportive of peaceful relations and cooperation between their species.
Soren stared at the hologram of Bianca, and his frown deepened. Why she held such a curiosity for him, he didn’t know. Perhaps because he knew she was curious about him, frightened by him too. After eight thousand long years of life, nothing much surprised or intrigued him these days. But she did. And it wasn’t simply because she had grown up from a young human girl to an enchanting woman. Five years made quite a difference. He hadn’t looked at her at sixteen the way he looked at her now. Now she was a grown woman.
Her long blonde hair was so unlike the dark shades of brown of his own people, and her eyes were almost a jade-like green with a hint of hazel. This was not an eye color one would see on his planet, Krina. They all had brown eyes, which sometimes warmed to gold whenever they experienced strong emotions.
Bianca Wells. He pulled up her course schedule on the Princeton servers to review the details. Her classes were all biology or zoology related. She would be obtaining her degree in a few weeks. If he understood the college servers’ information correctly, she wished to become a marine biologist.
Interesting.
He leaned back in his chair, thinking. Earth had developed differently than Krina. His home world had but one giant land mass surrounded by a vast ocean. It was too dangerous to live closer than twenty miles from the shore because the strong tides were comparable to tsunamis on Earth. But here on the little blue planet with its separate continents and its many seas, they had the safety to explore it, to plumb its depths and swim alongside its creatures.
What would Bianca think if he showed her Krina and the frightening dark pull of its dangerous waters? But he couldn’t, wouldn’t. He had to keep his distance. The last thing he needed was to find himself in charge of a charl, or what his people called a human companion. While the idea teased him with arousal he hadn’t felt in years, he could not take the US president’s daughter as his human pleasure companion. It would be seen as an act of war by President Wells, a violation of the Coexistence Treaty, and it would give the anti-Ks all the more reason to redouble their efforts to oust the Krinar from the planet, no matter that the Krinar were here to help them, to keep them from foolishly destroying their gift of a healthy planet and the young sun in their solar system. His people on Krina were on borrowed time. Their own sun in their system was dying, which had driven them to desperation, but fortunately this move to Earth had been eons in the making.
Soren turned off the screen, removing the temptation of Bianca from his mind for now.
“Soren?” Arus’s voice came through the tablet on his desk. He waved a hand, activating the small implant in his palm that was connected with his mind. He could turn things on and off as well as perform other tasks in his home with thought alone.
Arus’s face appeared on the screen.
“Arus, what may I help you with?” he asked the Krinar Council member.
“Two of our scientists have been accepted by several universities to start teaching Krinar history and basic science. I have a list of universities I would like them to visit. I’d like you to introduce our two teachers to the first university they will be teaching at this fall. Is this acceptable for you?”
“Of course.” Soren didn’t ask Arus why he wanted Soren to essentially babysit a couple of scientists, assuming Arus must have his reasons.
“Thank you. I’ve sent you the list of universities and the personnel files of our team members who will be meeting with you. They will arrive tomorrow morning.”
“Very good,” Soren replied. He was about to sever the connection when Arus spoke again. “I understand President Wells’s daughter is attending one of the schools. Princeton. I believe you should request her to accompany you on the tour. It will provide good publicity if the campus sees Bianca Wells
walking around with our people.”
Soren cleared his throat, his blood humming with forbidden desire. “Are you sure?” He had just promised himself that he would leave Bianca alone, and now Arus was serving the delicious little woman to him on a platter. It would be impossible not to have a small taste of the pleasure she would give any male who took her to bed. He’d gone too long without a companion, had even gone too long without sharing his bed. He and his people had no sexual taboos the way humans did. They viewed sex as a thing to be shared and enjoyed, which made his relative celibacy rare. One did not need to have a partner or be in a lasting relationship to indulge. In the last five years, Soren’s hungers and desires had been dormant. Seeing her tonight had brought his hard-edged arousal back to the surface.
“I’m certain. Bring Wells’s daughter,” Arus confirmed. Then his face vanished as he severed the connection.
Soren closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. It would take everything in him not to take Bianca tomorrow, take her and taste her. He entertained the thought of contacting an old female friend, someone to come and satisfy his urges, but that would not take the edge off the hunger that had stirred to life after seeing Bianca in bed tonight. He remembered how she had turned and kicked off her covers, revealing sleek, curvy legs and a bottom he wanted to sink his teeth into. And then there was the delicious curve of her neck and the slopes of her breasts beneath the loose cotton T-shirt she wore. What he wouldn’t give to strip her bare and fuck the life out of her until her throat was raw from screaming in pleasure.
In eight thousand years, he’d never known a temptation like Bianca Wells.
Chapter 2
“That’s weird…” Bianca stared at the inbox of her school email on her phone before putting on her short black ankle boots and pulling her jeans down over them.
