Alien Prince's Bride: Scifi Alien Romantic Triangle Romance Novel Read online

  ALIEN PRINCE’S BRIDE

  SCIENCE FICTION ALIEN ROMANCE

  BY

  VI VOXLEY

  A LITTLE TASTE…

  He’d sworn he would return for her tournament, to compete for her hand. Violet had spared no words to tell him a firm no. She had never wanted to see him again, just because she wanted to see him so badly it ached.

  He had been the man, the name she had ripped from her heart – obviously not well enough. In the years that passed, she hadn’t allowed her mind to drift back to the man who had made her laugh. She’d banished those feelings with many others. A proper calaya didn’t miss her guards – she looked forward to her true champion.

  And now he was there, against her wish. Standing before her, taller and stronger, and only inches away. For a horrified, guilty moment Violet thought he might kiss her. Horrified by the idea of Areon spoiling her for real. Guilty because a part of her wanted to lean in and take the kiss herself. They were so close she could feel his breath on her lips, but he didn’t touch her.

  Instead he seemed to wake from a daze and, suddenly, Violet heard the increasingly more insistent calls.

  “Oh damn,” Areon said, the smile back on his lips. “I’m late. So are you, I think. Fuck, I should have asked for directions when Forial was dragging me around like a punching bag. I’ll see you soon.”

  Violet watched him run in the general direction of the arena, where a thousand voices roared. She stumbled towards her stage, ignoring the glares from the other girls and from the Overlord. As much as she could tell, Irmela’s gaze was concerned. She took her place on the stage, still obscured by light, and removed her veil.

  Completely unlike her, she didn’t even check to see if her hair was alright or if the dress fell like she’d been practicing for years. Violet had planned for all of it, even spending hours before a mirror trying to figure out her best angle. Irmela had rolled her eyes at her, but she hadn’t cared. And now... Every carefully made preparation was forgotten and the ghost of the kiss she hadn’t tasted lingered on her lips.

  The light disappeared and they were revealed to the crowd and the champions. No amount of willpower could have stopped her from looking for Areon in the mass. When she finally found him and their eyes met, the skip of her heartbeat confirmed everything Violet had feared.

  Oh god no, she thought. Not you.

  Copyright © 2016 Vi Voxley

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Alien Prince’s Bride

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this work may be used, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Vi Voxley. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Cover © Jack of Covers

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  A LITTLE TASTE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  NADAR: ALIEN WARLORD'S CONQUEST EXCERPT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Siege of Salinet wasn’t going all that well. Though it was difficult to tell for whom exactly.

  As much as could be seen from the bridge of Beren, the flagship of the Iron Raiders, everybody was equally confused.

  The Raider Prince thought that it was pretty funny, actually. Things like that happened around him very often. His crewmembers sometimes grumbled that he preferred to keep them as confused as he did their enemies. Of course, they said such things from a considerable distance of a few systems, but still. The Prince always made sure the loudmouths got the chance to repeat those opinions to him in person. He ran a free clan, after all, didn’t he?

  Those with good enough humor even got to live after calling him a manipulative asshole. The Prince wasn’t without mercy and he didn’t really go around killing his own men. Discipline simply needed reinforcing from time to time.

  As such, it was very unfortunate that the “manipulative asshole” claim was completely accurate.

  He regretted it, he truly did.

  Oh well.

  And, of course, the Siege of Salinet was going wonderfully for him. It wasn’t his fault that an armada of Salinet ships trying to blow his clan to pieces didn’t take immediate priority. Only after a particularly nasty missile struck the starboard of his beloved Beren did the Prince look up.

  Someone really unlucky had made him rip his eyes from the screen he’d been staring at for a good few minutes. It was quite a feat – though not for the unlucky sod about to become a thousand little sod-atoms, but for the screen.

  “Who in the name of all the spirits dared to scratch Beren?” he growled at his bridge crew.

  They jumped to sate his curiosity. One of the rookies actually jumped over a bundle of cords on the floor, practically throwing himself on his station. At least four voices shouted the name of the guilty ship to him, speaking over each other.

  The Prince bared his teeth. The owners of all four voices dropped to their knees, necks bared.

  He glanced at the one screen again. A smile crept to his lips. Yes, he could be merciful today.

  “You there,” he said, singling out the rookie. “The next thing out of your mouth better be the name of the enemy ship, not I have four kids and a sickly grandmother.”

  The rookie swallowed hard, sweating bullets. He was tall and thin to the fault, looking like someone had taught a spear to walk. Yet there was a cleverness behind his eyes that the Prince didn’t miss. The rookie’s mouth opened and said the following words: “Bloodbite, my Prince. Five kids actually.”

  The Raider Prince laughed. Attitude – sometimes it was a welcome trait.

  “I like you, rookie,” he said.

  The man dared to breathe again, a relieved smile on his lips. “Thank you, my Prince. Shall I fire back at the Bloodbite?”

  The Raider Prince stole another look at the screen and the flash of violet there, before shutting it off. Then he turned his control throne to the bridge and the battle raging before it.

  “I already did that. There it is, in the motherly embrace of Salinet’s gravity,” he told the rookie, enjoying the look on the man’s face as he watched the pieces of the Bloodbite fall towards the planet after getting hit by a barrage of missiles.

  “Great spirits, I have to do everything on this ship.”

  The rookie looked petrified, but the Prince was in a good mood. “I’m giving you a chance to prove to me you’ve got more skills than breathing. Go and see wha
t the damage to Beren is and send Reim to me.”

  After the doors had slid shut behind the fleeing rookie, whose name he still hadn’t bothered to learn, the Raider Prince sat back in his throne. His fingers hadn’t stopped working on the throne’s keyboards for a second. His rarely-used sense of compassion felt bad for his crew, simply sitting there, watching him play with the enemy ships.

  But time was short. He’d been planning to drag this game out for a while, raiding Salinet’s rich ports and eluding his pursuers, but there went that nice activity – much more pressing matters had arisen.

  He took time to tuck the lone colored strand in his dark brown hair behind his ear. For that day, he’d chosen ivory, which happened to be its real color. The Prince knew quite well what blasphemy it was to color the mark of his heritage, but he barely cared. In fact, he cared just about enough to use it to provoke some people who were just so very fun to poke.

  The calaya blood in him was strong enough for the Prince to feel safe. The Siege had been won the moment he decided to take part in it. While everyone else was running around trying to piece together a fraction of what was happening, he felt fine. Every single thing had gone as he’d already decided it would.

  In fact, there had been two lone surprises in his day. One was the rookie having a sense of humor. That was nice. The Prince appreciated people who didn’t bore him. Once the boy grew some balls – how had he managed to father five children? – he could actually be useful.

  The other was the screen. Merely thinking of it made the Prince smile again. His calaya mother had given him a multitasking ability bordering on the supernatural. The blood was especially strong within him. It was the main reason he was the leader of the Iron Raiders – god alone knew it wasn’t his winning personality.

  So for him – a man who could control the entire siege and observe tens of screens at once – to focus on one was quite a feat. If it had been an enemy, the Prince would have already decided upon the manner of his death.

  But it was not. It was a challenge of a much, much better sort.

  Scary how fast time flies when you’re conquering worlds, he thought with a smile.

  Had it been so long already?

  “Look alive now,” he growled at his crew, making them wince at the change in his voice.

  That wasn’t nice of him, but his own bridge crew should get used to it. Usually the Prince allowed for a slower change in his personalities, switching between the carefree rogue and the true warrior he was underneath. He let the latter take over, bringing him to the surface where moments before the rogue pirate had smirked at the world.

  They hastened to obey him.

  “Let’s finish this up,” said the Prince. “I have something fun on the horizon.”

  The looks they sent him were confused and disbelieving. It didn’t matter to him. He was used to being doubted, day after day. After all, hadn’t wise warriors predicted that the siege would last for months?

  The Raider Prince smiled.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Violet knew she was a prize.

  Not just a jewel or a treasure, no, an actual, living, breathing prize.

  Violet was a calaya. Men would travel the stars and engage in battles and possibly die for the right to be hers.

  To merely stand beside her was a sign of might and rank. To talk to her, a symbol of the highest honor. To touch her... That was reserved for only one man and she’d find out who that one was soon enough.

  Unless you counted... No. That didn’t happen – I mean... that didn’t count!

  Calaya had been her first word, as it usually was with those marked as calaya. It wasn’t exactly the easiest word to pronounce in the language of the Atreens, but Violet and her five younger sisters heard it from the moment they were born and would hear it until their last – so it made sense that it would be their first word.

  Violet loved her sisters. More than her friends, more than their parents, even. She’d always felt closest to them. They were calayas too and they shared a destiny. An exciting, wondrous, terrifying destiny. It meant they were special.

  As the oldest, Violet felt like it was her duty to prepare the others for their future as well as she could. Being a calaya was both a curse and a blessing.

  On that particular day, the biggest news she’d ever received would catch her in the middle of another lecture.

  “We are Atreens,” she was saying, calmly and slowly so the youngest would understand her.

  The sentence meant more than the individual words themselves, it meant something deeper, more eternal. They weren’t just Atreens – being an Atreen was everything they were.

  “And we are powerful – have always been,” she went on.

  Violet smiled, seeing her sisters’ eyes lit up. She had their attention now, as she always did. The younger ones liked hearing about their history. It was as if they were living in a story – it was that miraculous.

  “In our glory days,” she began in a singsong voice. “We made up a huge galactic empire spanning over many star systems. The few others that were unlucky enough to encounter us were quickly obliterated, but loss didn’t spare us either.

  Our greed was too great and the borders of our empire kept pushing outward. Children were born in the outer parts of the empire that never saw the center. And like all things that grow too great, the Atreen Empire finally collapsed. Through war and grudges and raids, the sectors of our empire lost touch. We lost each other in space.”

  As the youngest pouted, Violet smiled.

  “But that was a long time ago. We are more advanced now, and we have found most of our lost children. Only the years we’ve spent apart have left their marks. The blood we share is thinner. Not all Atreens look alike anymore, as you’ve seen. We are all powerful and healthy, especially the warriors – tall and nimble, built for speed and precise skills.

  But we are all but a different species now. The only thing all Atreens share is the desire to be great again. Not just great like we are now, but great like we once were. And as father keeps telling us, it’s no secret that everyone wants to rebuild the empire, with themselves as the central piece.”

  Her sisters laughed. The last part was pretty much common knowledge even for children. Atreen warlords weren’t known for their modesty, and their ambitions were great.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Violet saw her mother quietly walk into the room. Her sisters didn’t notice and an amused smirk on their mother’s face showed she was fine with that.

  Violet shook off an involuntary shiver of annoyance at the sight of her and went on.

  “That’s where the calayas come into play. We are the last of the original Atreens and we have been very rare since the remnants of the old empire made contact with each other again. We are also very treasured and very valuable. Which was why they came up with the tournaments.”

  Now her sisters truly came to life. That was their favorite part, as it was Violet’s.

  “All the calayas are women,” said Violet, “we are presumed to be the secret to how the Atreens became so powerful in the past. Calaya means ‘gift’, but it only passes through the female line, and you recognize a calaya by the colored strand in their hair – just like ours. Calaya-born men have it too. Daughters of the calayas are like their mothers, beautiful beyond compare – that’s us.”

  While her sisters giggled again, Violet sent her mother another glance.

  “We are naturally strong-willed, quick and talented in almost everything we do,” she continued.

  “Sons of the calayas, however, are always great warriors. Every last one of them grows up to be a champion, strong and mighty. Nearly all of the leaders of the Atreens are sons of calayas. But we are still rare, so naturally we’re kept safe. We are prizes. When we get old enough, a tournament is held for our hand. For that time, all feuds and wars and other disputes are put on hold by common agreement. Champions from every corner of the old empire arrive to put their lives on the line for a chance at winn
ing one of us.”

  This time, her sisters saw her looking at their mother and immediately started pestering her for news. There was a reason Violet was telling them the old history – three of them, her included, were of age and would soon have their tournaments.

  With every day that passed, Violet thought more about the tournament. A face, a name rose from her deepest, most carefully buried memories. A face she longed to see.

  No! I don’t want to see him. Nothing happened. He won’t be back. I don’t even want him to come back...

  “Go sit down in the lounge, I have news for you,” their mother said, but her eyes were on Violet.

  The others ran, leaving the two alone.

  Violet was called Violet for the color of her hair – one of many things she held against her mother. The strand of light purple in her hair that marked her as calaya wasn’t something anyone could miss, but still her mother had chosen to name her for it. Violet with the violet hair, really?

  Everyone had told her mother that, out of all her sisters, she would be the one contested for most. When she’d been very young, Violet had liked the idea.

  That is, until the day her mother had ruined everything. With a few words, she’d driven the excitement from Violet’s heart and replaced it with dread. As a result, the closer her tournament age got, the more Violet found herself longing for something even better. She wanted to be the one the absolute champion would pick. After all, at every tournament there were as many victors as there were calayas. The one who achieved total victory over all the rest got to pick first.

  Violet had said for years that it would be mortifying for her if she didn’t get picked by the overall champion.

  Her mother had said for years that to get picked, she would have to shut up until the poor victor had made his decision.

  It was fair to say they had issues.

  “You didn’t tell them about the dangers,” her mother said.

  No, Violet thought. I don’t want them to turn into me.

  The truth was, being a calaya carried plenty of dangers. They were rare, yes, and precious, but that meant that they were also always in danger. Kidnapping, stealing, even killing calayas wasn’t unheard of. The rivalry of the Atreen clans could be brutal and the calaya brides were sometimes caught in the middle. It counted as the second reason Violet wanted to be won by the absolute champion. She could only trust the overall winner to keep her safe.