Xacier's Prize (Galactic Courtship Series Book 1)

by Lily Thomas

  She surveyed the area, and then froze. It was Captain Leigh! Her first instinct was to feel repulsed, but on second thought he might be her only choice. He might be a sleaze, but she knew she could grovel to him and get passage on his ship. And she definitely knew she could get passage if she slept with him, not that she would. She couldn’t demean herself in such a way.

  She could find another way to see her mother. There was no need to sacrifice her body to a man, as disgusting as him. A shiver ran through her body, as she thought about spending a night with Captain Leigh. After he sold her to the Frirens, she held nothing but contempt for him.

  “What’s wrong?” Xacier looked around them, and then back down at her.

  He picked up on everything, didn’t he? She hadn’t thought her shiver had been that noticeable.

  “That man over there is Captain Leigh. He’s not the nicest of men, but I might be able to book cheap passage on his ship.”

  “There is more.” Xacier prompted.

  “More? More to what?”

  “More to your story. What are you not telling me?”

  Samantha gulped. She didn’t know how Xacier might react to the full story. She didn’t need him going over there and causing a scene with the only man who might grant her cheap passage.

  “He wants me in his bed. That’s the reason I know he’ll give me cheap passage to Drein.”

  Xacier watched her shapely behind leave him. She was willing to risk this captain pressing her for sex?

  Either way it displeased Xacier to think of her being in such a dangerous situation, and he was the reason she was in this position. If he could hold off on getting back his throne, he could deliver her to Drein.

  He’d been gone from his people for about six months. What would a few more days matter? Then again it might be weeks. He wasn’t exactly sure where Drein was located. But did it matter? Then Samantha would be safe without the unwanted attentions of an old lecherous man.

  He knew his eyes had changed from blue to black with all the wary glances from nearby aliens, but he didn’t care about them. He was focused on the grubby man Samantha was walking over to.

  Everything told him to just walk away and let her take care of herself, but he found his feet moving in their direction.

  They were talking, but he didn’t care. He sidled up to them and threw an arm around Samantha’s waist, tugging her into the side of his body.

  Captain Leigh’s eyes bulged out of his head, as he looked up at Xacier. It was probably his dark eyes that were causing this man to be concerned, and concerned he should be.

  Xacier watched with amusement, as the captain puffed up his chest and went on to ignore Xacier’s presence. Did the captain feel safe because he was in public? Xacier had no fear of killing a man with a million witnesses. He had nothing to fear.

  “I’ll give you passage to Drein, but we need to make sure I get a few rides as well.” The captain licked his lips, and then brushed his fingers over Samantha’s arm.

  Xacier snapped. His fist whipped out, and he heard the satisfying crack of bone. Blood poured down the captain’s face, as he took a couple stumbles back.

  Samantha stood beside him with her mouth gaping wide, as she watched the captain try to stem the flow of blood.

  Xacier wrapped his hand around her arm and led her back to their ship. She was in shock, which made it easy for him to get her through the crowd quickly. When the hatch to their ship closed, he sat down in the cockpit, and she came to stand over him.

  “Why did you punch the captain? You just ruined my chance at getting back to my mother! She’s on her death bed, you asshole!” Samantha then proceeded to beat him with her tiny fists.

  Turning around he grabbed her arms and yanked her into his lap. She continued to struggle against him.

  “Samantha. Calm yourself. I will take you to Drein myself.”

  She stilled and looked up at him. “Why? You seem to be in a rush to get back to your people.”

  “It will put back my time table for reclaiming my place among my people, but I couldn’t see you being used by that man!” Even now the rage that coursed through him demanded he go back and kill the captain.

  “Was it necessary to punch him in the face? Couldn’t you have just pulled me aside and let me know?”

  “He stroked your arm.”

  “So he deserved to get decked?”

  “It wasn’t the act of stroking your arm, but the intent behind the stroke.”

  Samantha smiled up at him. “My dear warrior, I do believe you were jealous.”

  He grinned at her, but didn’t answer. It wasn’t like he could say no, because he had been jealous. For now, she was his, and he wasn’t about to share her.

  Samantha leaned up and placed a kiss on his lips. He might look like a demon from the worst human nightmares, but he was a doting alien male.

  She turned in his lap to straddle his waist. Instead of feeling horny she knew she should be repulsed by what he’d done to the captain, yet she enjoyed his possessiveness. It made her feel treasured and desired. Besides the captain had a decking coming. She was sure some other man would have done it, if Xacier hadn’t.

  Slowly, she ground up against his pelvic area, until she felt his hardening cock against her pussy. Through all of this she didn’t let up on her kissing. Her hands reached up to stroke his horns, from base to tip and back again.

  He growled against her lips, and she felt his larger canines graze her lips. It sent a tingle to her stomach, and she felt her pussy become soaked. She needed to get out of her pants. It was nice of him to get them for her, but now she just wanted to be naked.

  Samantha pulled away from him, only long enough to strip off her pants and underwear, and then she straddled his hips once more.

  Reaching between them she loosened his pants and out sprang his hard cock. She let out a little gasp of pleasure at the sight of his hard member. She couldn’t wait to feel him moving inside her again.

  She rocked her hips, allowing her wet lips to surround him, as she stroked up and down his cock without allowing him inside her body. He groaned and rocked his own hips in rhythm with her movements.

  “Want to be inside me?” She whispered into his ear, dodging his deadly horns.

  “Yes.” He growled into her own ear.

  “I don’t know.” She bucked her hips against him a few more times. “Maybe I should just finish you like this.”

  He gave a deep rumble in his chest, grabbed her hips and plunged her wet hot center over his cock.

  A sigh escaped her, right before she moaned, as he thrust into her with a vengeance. She loved every single moment of it. This is what she’d been missing in all her past relationships, a man who knew how to take control and knew how to hit every spot.

  “Please!” She begged. Her body was growing hot, and she felt her cheeks flush. Her inner muscles trembled, but she wasn’t quite there yet.

  His chest rumbled with pleasure. He gripped her hips harder, and then rose with her only to set her down on the control console. Xacier pumped into her, driving his cock into her slick entrance.

  As her inner muscles started to milk his cock, he bent her neck and gave her a small encouraging bite. A scream ripped through her mouth, as pleasure soared through her body. She’d never assumed an intimate bite could be so thrilling.

  She sagged against the console and smiled lazily, as she heard her bottom pressing buttons.

  “We might want to watch where we have sex. I don’t want to accidentally blow myself into space.”

  He laughed, a nice rich sound that pleased her ears. “The blow-you-out-into-space button is over there.” He pointed to another console.

  Samantha cracked a smile. A warrior with a sense of humor, who would’ve thought?

  “Let us make sure we haven’t been followed by anyone from the space station.” Xacier placed her on his lap, as he sat back down and checked their sensors. “We appear to have made a clean get away.”

 
Xacier watched, as the planet Drein grew larger on his view screen. It was a world of blue and green, with a little brown mixed in at certain areas. Very different from his red-hot planet. Water was a valuable resource there, yet here was a planet basking in the glory of water.

  If only he could bring back all that water to his people.

  Xacier pulled up the sensors and scanned for the human colony on Drein. This planet was far from Earth’s reach. Samantha had taught him a lot about humans, since humans didn’t usually travel to Kell or the area around their space. Kell weren’t known for having a friendly airspace, when it came to alien ships.

  He was amazed to know she hadn’t set foot on Earth before. Earth was still in use, so why wouldn’t she? If he’d been born off the home world, he would’ve made sure to visit the planet his people came from. Clearly, humans didn’t have a strong connection with their home planet.

  The ship pinged. “Colony found.”

  Xacier picked a landing platform on the edge of the colony. He didn’t want to be in the middle of a human colony, if they started to freak out because of his presence. He wasn’t sure how they’d handle him walking among them. He wasn’t even sure he should leave the space ship. It wasn’t like he’d blend in with a crowd of humans.

  “Are we there yet?” Samantha leaned over his shoulder, her eyes zeroed in on the planet in front of them.

  “We are in the process of landing.”

  A smile spread across her face, and he took a moment to soak in her happiness. Her face was beautiful, but when she smiled he found his breath getting caught in his chest.

  Now that they were landing on Drein, he could leave her here with her mother and go back to his people.

  The shuttle shook, as it passed through the atmosphere, and then there was one final jolt, as they stopped on the landing pad.

  “We have arrived.” He popped the hatch and sunlight streamed into the ship.

  Samantha ran over to the hatch, and he heard her take in a deep breath of fresh air. Then she turned her dazzling smile on him. “Come. You must meet my mother. She’ll never believe my story, without some sort of proof.”

  He smiled at her. How could he leave her here, when she still wanted his presence by her side? And he was a bit curious about getting a glimpse into one of their colonies.

  “Come on! You have nothing to worry about, on Drein. It might be a human colony, but trust me when I say there are a lot scarier aliens here than you.”

  He frowned. “Scary?”

  “You didn’t see yourself with my eyes, when I was first placed in the arena.”

  “Do I still scare you?”

  “Do you believe I’d have sex with a man who terrified me?” Samantha asked.

  It wasn’t really the answer he was looking for, but it was an answer. There was no fear, when they were touching, she was all confidence.

  “Now come on! I can’t wait to see my mother again.”

  Her excitement was infectious. He found himself smiling uncontrollably, as they left the ship. He looked around at the large colony surrounding them. He hadn’t thought the colony would be this large, there had to be hundreds of thousands of inhabitants.

  Before leaving the ship he’d made sure to grab a couple plasma pistols as well as a couple daggers and a sword. Samantha had raised her eyebrows, but he’d rather be safe than sorry. He wanted to be ready for close combat as well as long distance combat.

  As they left the landing platform, he found himself on edge. The crowd was large, and he touched the butt of one of his pistols. Large crowds were harder to watch and harder to predict.

  As they walked through bustling streets, he marveled over how many aliens there were on this human colony, and a lot of them appeared to be in alien human relationships. There were a few Kell alien relationships on his planet, but it wasn’t on a scale like this.

  Most species tried to keep their bloodlines clean, especially the humans. The humans had groups who opposed interbreeding, but they’d just have to face it would happen.

  “Told you, you’d be the least scary alien here.” Samantha pointed out a Slidiuean.

  They were hideous rather than frightening. Slidiueans had yellow skin that looked like it had been melted. There were little horns all over the top of their head, and they had no hair. Slidiueans were also well built and usually around Xacier’s height.

  But again, they were uglier than anything else. Xacier looked down at Samantha. Then again she was tiny, pink, and unarmed. It would explain why she found a Slidiuean terrifying. It would explain why most humans were terrified of other alien species.

  Xacier never thought about taking an offworlder as his queen, but he could see the appeal of taking Samantha back to Kell. But would Kell society allow for an alien queen to taint the pure blood royals. His people would expect him to choose a Kell female. Wouldn’t they?

  He’d have to keep thinking about it, but for now he just looked forward to meeting Samantha’s mother.

  Samantha was surprised by the amount of interspecies relationships on Drein. Last time she was here she thought there were a lot of aliens, but now she wondered if the aliens outnumbered the humans. It made her happy though. Drein was one of the planets she had helped to terraform a few years ago.

  She would want any planet that was terraformed by her to be a peaceful place where everyone could gather together.

  “How do we get to your mother then?” Xacier interrupted her thoughts.

  “We’ll need to catch a cyber train.” Samantha took a look around. “This way.” It’d been a while, since she came here, and the colony was expanding.

  Xacier was like her shadow. He was always there behind her, a straight faced menace. He’d make a great body guard. Maybe he was a body guard back on his planet.

  Samantha eyed him. With those large ebony horns curving up from his hairline and around his head he would scare anybody. His height and body size was also intimidating. On his planet, they had to have wider doorways or he’d be wrecking them left and right. Xacier could definitely be a bodyguard. He might not even need a weapon to kill someone.

  The train zoomed past, and then stopped. The doors opened, and after people disembarked, they boarded.

  Her heart wouldn’t stop beating in her chest. There was some apprehension coursing through her veins. How would they find her mother? Would she finally be on the mend or was she just slipping farther away?

  And she could be dead already, but Samantha didn’t want to think about that quite yet. She didn’t want to start blubbering in front of Xacier, when she didn’t even know what her mother’s condition was.

  A large red-skinned hand came out of nowhere and covered hers.

  She looked up into his striking ice blue eyes and smiled. “Thank you.” He was definitely a bodyguard. He was so tuned to her every emotion, and she got the feeling he was always reading the people around him.

  “How soon will we be there?” He asked.

  “Ready to leave?”

  “No.” He growled a bit.

  Samantha held up a hand. “I was only joking with you. Sorry. I forget I’m no good at making jokes.” She sobered up, as the train grew close to their destination.

  “She’ll be fine.”

  Yep, he could definitely read her every emotion. Samantha sent him a fake smile, as she took in a steadying breath. Nothing would be known, until they reached the hospital.

  “Why isn’t your mother on your home planet?”

  “Drein has one of the better hospitals in this area, and it was too risky to transport her.” Not that she really wanted to take her mother to Earth. Sure, the medical attention might be better, but it was dirty and crowded. If her mother did die, she wanted to die on a planet she knew. A planet that still had living plants and animals, which Earth had very little, if any left.

  “You’ve been providing for her?”

  Samantha nodded. “I’d be willing to sacrifice my whole paycheck to her health.” She sent him a wobbly s
mile. Just a few more minutes to go. She could keep it together.

  “You have a large heart, Samantha.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Why?” He cocked his head to the side, as he studied her.

  “I’ve been giving her the best medical help money can buy, but I have to admit… it’s probably because I’m…” Samantha took in a deep breath. “I’m afraid to be left alone in this universe with no family to turn to. So… it’s all selfish, you see.”

  “It’s not selfish to want your mother to live.” His hand reached up and caressed her cheek.

  “Thank you.”

  “How close are we to the hospital then?”

  “Not much more time.”

  “Your mother is already with someone.”

  “Excuse me? You mean she is being visited by a doctor?” Samantha rested her arms on the counter and leaned in slightly.

  “No. It appears as though she already has a visitor.” The alien woman said from behind the counter.

  Who did her mother know that would be visiting her?

  “My mother doesn’t know anyone here on Drein. How could she? She’s been in this hospital for her stay on Drein! She’s never travelled outside the hospital doors.” Samantha tried to keep her tone neutral, but she was starting to panic here.

  “What room?” Xacier barked at the receptionist, causing her to nearly jump from her skin.

  “Room? Ummm…” She frantically flipped through a computer database. “Room 314.”

  “Come.” Xacier grabbed Samantha’s arm, and before she knew it she was in an elevator traveling up to the third floor.

  The moment the doors opened for the third floor, Xacier went barreling out, as he dragged her behind. Everyone lunged back to give them plenty of room, and Samantha was betting it was because of his stormy expression.

  “Xacier slow down! You’re going to run into the door!”

  He raised a foot and bust the door in. Samantha gaped, as the door hung open by just one hinge. Was he completely insane?

  “What the hell is the meaning of this?” An alien male rose from a seat in her mother’s room.