Her family’s saving grace was that they didn’t care; she was surely the only one of them that felt any sort of shame.
“Just hope that this warlord has a small dick,” her elder sister had told her one afternoon. She had made a rare visit to see Kayla ‘before she took off’ (as if she thought Kayla was going skiing...). “A big dick is not ideal for a first time. It’d be great later. But maybe, just in case, you should use a dild—”
“For all that’s holy, Janette,” Kayla sighed with exasperation. She threw another book-disc into a trunk. “Don’t finish that sentence. I’m just going to do what the books said. Turn out all the lights and close my eyes and try to breathe.”
“You sound like you’ll be a riveting sex partner,” her sister had said with cynicism.
She’d peered at her beautiful sister between her narrowed eyelashes. “Yeah, I guess mom and dad aren’t sending you because it’d make the guy too happy.” By her expression, Janette had taken that as a compliment. All Kayla could do was groan with displeasure. “What’s a normal... you know... phallus size?”
Janette had shrugged. “About six inches. I mean, it’ll hurt the first time, probably. It doesn’t always, but when you’re uptight like you...” She’d squinted her eyes judgmentally at Kayla for a moment and then continued, “then probably it will. But you’ll get used to it. Might be good to get you to think of something other than stupid plants all day.”
“I like to think there were other methods available to get me to widen my interests, if that’s what our parents were going for...” Kayla had replied, with a roll of her eyes.
“Hey, you being an acceptable trade for their peace-treaty surprised us all, believe you me. I bet if they had asked for all of the princesses, they would have gotten us. But they only asked for one,” Janette had reminded. She’d waved her hand loftily in the air and said, “But you’re smart. You can figure out to handle a man. They’re like dogs. Just rub their tummies, say ‘good boy’, and throw them a bone every now and then, and they’ll follow you around like you hung the moon.”
And that was (unfortunately) the most helpful conversation Kayla had been party to all week. The rest of her visits from family members weren’t exactly productive. She wished they would stop coming by, because the more they told her not to worry about her fate, the more she worried. If she had known she was going to be a sexual consort, perhaps she would have just led a consequence-free lifestyle like the others. She wouldn’t have tried so hard to stand apart.
As it was, she knew botany—and only botany—which was quite unhelpful in this situation.
Just as she was beginning to wish she could get this settled and get away from her family already, a servant came to her, bowed, and said, “Princess, excuse me, but you have been summoned by your parents to the throne room.”
It made her wish that she had a few more months of company with her horrible family. She knew that summons could only mean one thing, and she completely unready for it.
She searched inside herself and tried to calm the fear, but she only felt her stomach clench around what seemed like a cold block of ice. “I...” She blinked at nothing in particular for a long moment before she finally remembered how to speak. “Tell them I’ll be with them shortly.”
She tiptoed quietly towards the throne room, where deep voices could be heard clearly down the hall, although there was no shouting. Everyone seemed to be speaking in normal tones, but she could easily recognize at least two voices that didn’t belong to her parents.
Shyly peeking through a slit between the two shut doors, she was able to make out at least one man she didn’t know. She couldn’t see him well since his head was turned. Somehow, she had gotten into her head that the Grerians looked like barbarians... but she could detect no furs, no beards, no fuzzy boots. Apparently when they were commonly described as ‘modern-day Vikings’, that was more due to their prowess in battle than their appearance and manner of dress.
Kayla straightened, took a deep breath, and then pushed open the doors. At first, her entrance didn’t seem to be noticed by anyone. She had come in behind the thrones where her parents normally entered rather than through the main entrance, and she was able to stand and see much better than through the slit in the doorway.
There wasn’t one Grerian there, as she had anticipated. There were two men, and apart from maybe inch or two of height, their hair length, and the general way they carried themselves, they were were extraordinarily similar to one another, making her certain they were closely related.
Their postures were different, however. One leaned back easily as if he felt very comfortable in this palace that he could have easily conquered and made his own if he’d had the inclination. He had long hair that was tied back into a ponytail. The other looked tense, his shoulders hunched with impatience and his hands curled into fists. His hair was shorter, but both men had braids with jewels that shined in the opulent lights of the throne room. The shorter, surly looking one had a looped piercing in one eyebrow, and the other had jeweled earrings running down the full length of one of his ears.
They were pirates, she thought to herself with surprise, but then scrutinized them as quickly as she could, trying to decide which one her parents had promised her to. At a glance, she could find no clues as to which one was higher ranking. They both looked wealthy and strong, and they were talking with each other in a manner that seemed colloquial.
Just then, the one with the eyebrow piercing stopped talking and his head whipped towards her, his discussion with the other stopping in an instant. This made the other stop and turn as well.
Their eyes were a very pale grey, she noticed. She hadn’t seen anything like it before. They were looking steadfastly into her face before their eyes dropped down to the rest of her.
Their silence seemed to snap her parents into awareness, and in moments, her father droned, “My lords, may I present my youngest daughter, Kayla. Kayla, these are King Braun and King Nole of the Grerians.”
Kayla, instead of nodding in recognition, raised an eyebrow with alarm. Two kings? How could a kingdom possibly function with two kings? And even if that was possible, now she had no idea which one her parents had given her to.
The kings bowed in the same graceful way, then stood straighter than ever. “Kayla,” her father said, “There seems to have been a miscommunication during our negotiation!” Her father sounded excited, and this made her hope that they didn’t want Kayla after all. Or perhaps they just needed a botanist for some sort of garden project, and...
“They are brothers, and they want to take you as their queen!”
Her eyes fell out of her head. Or they would have, she was certain, if they weren’t attached, because she’d never widened them so much before. She liked to think she was a wise person who could have seen this coming, but through the fretting and the self-pitying, she hadn’t even come up with the idea that they would have ever wanted her to become queen.
And there were two of them... Two? How was she supposed to handle two men? Women just didn’t handle two men! She only had one vagina... Did they know this? Did they think she was a strange sub-species that had two?
“They?” she repeated, slowly. “You mean, both of them?” She was blathering out words like she was a parrot. A very annoyed, frustrated parrot. It was so ridiculous of a concept that she told herself to calm down and start doubting her understanding of the whole idea. She frowned and tilted her head suspiciously. “Is this some sort of strange joke?”
“Kayla!” her father barked, as if she needed to be silenced. Apparently, he did not think he was joking...
“You’re not the first queen our people have conquered,” said the taller one with long hair. He was wearing a smile, showing his white teeth. “I can imagine how two husbands could seem slightly daunting for a girl coming from your society, but there’s no need to worry.”
When, she wondered, did this man think it was appropriate to worry, if not right now?
&
nbsp; The long-haired man put out his hand to her, and as he was not moving forward, it seemed to imply that she had to cross the distance between them. She wished she was on a whole other planet, so she just looked at them, wishing that they’d disappear, that she’d wake up and discover this was all a very bad, elaborate dream.
The other man grunted, snapped his fingers, and then stabbed his index finger towards the floor in front of him. “Come and let us see you then,” he demanded, his tone far from the friendliness of his brother.
“You can see me from here,” she returned, even stepping away a foot. He didn’t scare her, but there was something intense in his expression that made her extremely uneasy. Her stomach felt like it was turning into knots; nobody except her parents had ever spoken to her firmly.
He raised an eyebrow that seemed threatening to her. She took it as a silent warning not to be difficult, as if he would enjoy doing things the hard way much better than he would if she did things the easy way. And so, in acknowledgement that she would prefer the easy way, she just sighed wearily, shook her head, and slowly walked over to them.
The taller of the two reached out to her as she approached, and after a moment’s hesitation, she gave him her hand. He in turn used her hand to seemingly keep her still as his other hand squeezed her upper arm, then reached for her hair, which he brushed his long, thick fingers through. “Soft as a rabbit’s pelt,” he purred, his eyes distant and dreamy as he continued to touch her hair, something that she found was a much more intimate feeling than she would have anticipated. “And she smells like clover honey. I think we chose well.”
His brother was walking around her in a circle, his hands behind his back, his eyebrows raised. He was appraising her more like one would a brand-new spaceship at the dealership. “I do like her height,” he finally said, turning his head in his brother’s direction. “Her posture’s good. Long neck. She’s got a sneer on her, though...”
“I am right here,” she said flatly. “You know that, right? I can totally hear everything you’re saying...”
“And the voice is quite pleasant in its way. Not screechy or irritating,” he continued.
“Well, you’ve said that before. We’ve watched her on programs,” the longer-haired man reminded with a grin. “And as for the scowl... Firstly, we are talking about her like we’re planning to adopt a pet, not marry her. Secondly, she doesn’t have much choice in all of this. Thirdly—you wouldn’t like one without a healthy bit of attitude, anyway. Admit it, Braun, cheerfulness bothers you immensely.”
King Braun shrugged at this without argument. He looked her over again, his gaze scanning her from head to toe, and then he gave an almost undetectable nod and turned to her parents. She turned as well and saw her parents look at the brothers with a detached, cold look. They don’t even care, she told herself, feeling her blood rise quickly to a boil. Her hands clenched into fists before Braun had the chance to further ruffle her.
“We require the use of her chambers,” he informed her parents in a tone she commonly heard her mother use with her servants. Braun then turned his head and looked at her, made very fleeting eye contact, apparently not seeing, or not noticing, the look in her eyes that hoped his head would pop like a grape, and then continued, “And we shall leave tomorrow evening. Bring food and drink to the room.”
Her parents were not accustomed to being ordered about. A shade of pink rose to both of their faces and they pursed their lips. Perhaps they had hoped that Braun and Nole would leave straight away. But her father swallowed, probably knowing that there wasn’t much to do after losing the war so utterly, and nodded. “It will be done.” He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture then, as if to erase the whole of the matter from his memory.
“Good.” Braun then turned to Kayla, looking steadfastly at her with an intense sort of gaze. With his hand, he waved her parents away.
Her parents startled at this command, then narrowed their eyes. “How dare—?” her mother began, but her father put his hand on her knee and she silenced. Within moments, they had stood up and left, walking within a foot of Kayla without a backward glance at her.
“They are insufferable, are they not?” Nole asked, stepping up behind Kayla. She whipped around with a mind to chide him and then decided against it. She wasn’t crazy about her parents, either, and keeping loyalty towards them was seeming more meaningless by the second. “I’m Nole, my dear,” he introduced himself with a bow just as deep as the first. “This is my brother, Braun.”
“You may call us by our given names,” Braun allowed with a small nod and without even a hint of a smile, though she had a feeling that he thought himself generous by that allowance. She narrowed her eyebrows further and he added, for clarification, “It is the custom in our culture that the wife share a more colloquial relationship with her husbands, though if you don’t feel like being on intimate terms outside of the bedchamber, then ‘my lord’, ‘my king’ or even ‘my husband’, would be very acceptable as well...”
“Acceptable?” she repeated, now incredulous. “Any of those names are the furthest things away from what I’d wish to call you.” She inclined her head in the direction of Nole to include him in her sentiments of complete hatred for them both. “I would rather chew glass then marry either of you. I didn’t agree to any of this.”
“You don’t need to agree,” Nole said with a shrug. He was much less brooding, and unlike his brother, had signs of laugh lines around his eyes, but his words were far from apologetic. “We won the war. You are our prize, Kayla. We’ve fought hard to be able to take you to wife, and it is now your duty to comply, even if you’d prefer not to.”
“And I get no choice in the matter,” she further stated, mostly because it somehow felt better, despite the lack of either sympathy or empathy she was receiving, to make sure she was at least on the same page with them.
“We could just take over your entire kingdom,” Braun cut in grimly. “Easily.”
She rolled her eyes. So there was no other choice she had. Despite the fact that her family apparently did not care much for her approval or admiration, she wasn’t going to allow the home that she’d grown up in to completely fall to these people. Losing one planet—one-fourth of her family’s kingdom—had been horrible enough. “Please say you have other wives?” She didn’t even attempt not to sound hopeful.
They snorted with derision in response. “No. It will be only you. And you,” he put his hands on her hips, looking directly into her eyes, “will have only us, my little bride.”
She had never been kissed before, so when he brought his lips down hard on hers she didn’t know what to do. She certainly didn’t want his lips there—she tried to pull back, would have pulled back if it wasn’t for his hand on the back of her head holding her in place. But then, there was a warmth. This warmth spread from her mouth to her breasts, then lower to her nether regions.
He pressed his body against her at the same time his tongue penetrated her mouth. For a moment all she could think of was how his breath tasted like spice, and then when she realized she was actually accepting this affront, she was alarmed. They may own her, but she wouldn’t gratify them by being passive about it. She had vowed that her master wouldn’t get the slightest bit of compliance as soon as her parents had told her about this outrageous agreement they had made.
She pushed him back, or tried anyway, but when he held her even tighter in response, she pushed his tongue out of her mouth with her own and then bit down on his lip.
He pushed her away from him and put his hand up to his lip, which was lightly bleeding. The air was tense, and she stepped back from both of them, their thunderous expressions assuring her that they were going to strike her.
But then Nole grinned and told his brother, “Well, that has never happened before...” His pale gray eyes danced with amusement, looking her over once again as if there was something about her that he hadn’t noticed. “Feisty one, that.”
“It’s not wise to war a
gainst that sensation,” his brother lectured, looking far from impressed. In fact, by the way he held his shoulders it seemed like he was slightly put out by her. He seemed to know the exact feeling she had, the nearly drugging effect it had laid upon her. “It’s supposed to help with your enjoyment as we mate you for the first time.”
She spat on the ground at his feet. “Go and fuck yourself,” she snapped, turning around to run from them, from this. She was not going to start her ‘first time’ in her parents’ throne room with two men at once. It was obscene! “Both of you!”
She didn’t make it out of the room. They watched her quietly as she stomped toward the door, but then suddenly she was grabbed around the waist and pulled back. She screamed angrily and tried to wretch her way out of the hold, but Braun practically picked her up off the ground and carried her to the stairs that led up to her parents’ thrones, where he let her go just long enough to sit down on a step before throwing her unceremoniously over his lap.
What he was doing didn’t dawn on her at first. What was happening made no sense, but panic climbed after he yanked down her dark blue trousers so quickly and with so much force that she could hear the fabric tear. Her panties were also pulled down, leaving her intimate parts humiliatingly bare. She squinted, sure that he was going to force something inside of her.
The first spank she received, therefore, was jarring. It was hard, the sound of it resounded in the room, and the pain of it spread in white heat across her bottom.
He was spanking her. Spanking her? Like a child? Not like the children on her planet, either—the practice had been outlawed in her kingdom for generations now. It was an old practice, one only used by more ‘traditional’ and ‘less advanced’ cultures, mostly in the outer rim. She had watched movies that had a spanking or two, but never of an adult. It was unheard of!
Alien Alphas: Twenty-Three Naughty Sci-Fi Romance Novellas Page 67
