Page 19 of The Bride Contract (Princes of Xaavia #1)

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Chapter 19 - Niska

Jaya is softly snoring beside me when I turn over for what must be the twentieth time now. Normally, when I drink, I peace out into sleep pretty quickly after my head hits any kind of pillow - and that has included a few of my friend’s couches over the years, too. My head is a little clearer than it was before, and that serious case of the giggles we all got has mostly faded. I think normally by this point, if I’m not already asleep, my stomach would start to protest the amount of alcohol I’d subjected it to and would start acting out its impression of a tumble dryer.

But there’s none of that, either.

‘God bless this alien alcohol’ is all I’ve got to say about it.

Even if it doesn’t seem to want to let me sleep.

I can’t stop thinking about Prince Kiahn. About how he would look at me while I must have been babbling away about all kinds of stupid stuff. I’m sure at one point, I explained my favorite parts of the movie, Pretty Woman to him, for Christ’s sake!

I grin up to the dark ceiling when I recall how he’d offered to force some poor Xaviann tradesperson to pretend to be mean to me so that I could have a ‘big mistake! Big! Huge!’ moment of my very own.

‘Though, it would take a very brave Xaviann to insult his Prince’s bride,’ he had said, his possessive gaze burning into mine as he took another slow sip of his liquor. ‘And I would have to pre-approve all their comments ahead of time. Goddess Nex help anyone who actually insults you.’

So protective, I think to myself, my grin broadening in the dark like a crazy person.

But my smile falters. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s all for the contract, and I need to keep reminding myself that. The goal is to get him used to ‘being’ with a woman so that he trusts himself to enter other contracts after ours.

It takes what feels like only thirty more minutes of ruminating before I finally give up on sleep. The weird alien liquor is affecting me, not to mention the fact that my sleep schedule is still fucked up.

With a sigh, I get out of bed but quickly find myself feeling exposed. Vel had given us very simple ‘undergarments’ which consisted purely of some silk shorts and nothing else, apologizing profusely that we will be equipped with a proper wardrobe once we arrive at Xaavia. Knowing that I can’t just go wandering around the ship with my taa-taas out, but not wanting to put that day dress on again, I rummage around in Az’s closet, coming up victorious with a very soft, white shirt with sleeves that hang and billow on my smaller frame. The hem of the shirt stops just below my knees, so I feel more than sufficiently covered to go for a little walk.

My first stop - unsurprisingly - is the lagoon room. I know as soon as I feel the tinge of disappointment when I find it empty, that I’m not really wandering around aimlessly right now. I’m looking for him .

So it really shouldn’t surprise me at all when I find myself standing outside his door.

This is stupid.

I stare at the electronic panel to open the double doors that will reveal Kiahn’s rooms.

He’s probably asleep. I should go.

It’s once I’ve turned, ready to walk away with embarrassment nipping at my heels that I hear it.

It sounds like my name - like Kiahn saying my name from inside his room. Does he know I’m here? Maybe there are cameras? It wouldn’t surprise me. Great - now I have to go in there and explain myself.

“ Niska ,” he says again from the other side of the doors. But the tone of his voice isn’t one of curiosity as to why I’m standing outside his door like a crazy stalker - he sounds-… it was almost like a moan.

Memories of last night in the lagoon flood my mind, and suddenly I am almost desperate to be that close to him again - to watch him come apart for me, even if it’s only us getting ourselves off again.

I touch the control panel, making the doors whoosh open, and for some reason half of me wants to run and hide at the brazenness of my own actions. But the other half?… well, she wants to play. So, with cheeks warm with potential embarrassment, I step inside. Kiahn’s rooms are similar to Az’s, except possibly larger. There’s windows out to the endless void of space passing us by, a bathroom, a seating area and that huge, four-poster bed that somehow looks like it sprouted up from the floor and grew there organically.

But Kiahn’s not on that massive bed like I’d thought he’d be. He’s not standing by the windows, and he doesn’t come to see who’d entered his rooms if he was in the bathroom or in his closet.

There’s a groan that breaks the silence as I stand there like an idiot wondering what I do now. But that groan came from… the weird door in the corner of the room? Az has one of those too. We’d tried to open it to see what it leads to but found it was locked.

I blink at the lit up panel beside the mystery door - there’s also a light above it, too. Az’s one hasn’t been lit up once since we’ve been in there. “ Kiahn? ” I ask tentatively, taking a step closer. My quiet call is met with another groan and a shuffling noise from behind that door.

Before I know it, I’m stepping closer still, my fist raising to knock on the surface.

But I don’t get to do that. The door slides open automatically and I squint at the influx of blinding light. It takes me a couple of seconds to realize it’s not actually light per se, more that the whole room that’s just been revealed to me is a stark, sterile white with nothing to break it up. That is, nothing, except Kiahn…

Who is on his knees…

His face hidden between the thighs of some woman…

She’s completely naked as she perches on a white surface that blends into everything else, her hands braced on his black horns…

And his pants shoved down his thighs as he jerks himself off while he… eats .

“ Oh my god! ” I squeak, my hands flying up to cover my mouth. I turn away from the scene, but not fast enough to miss the way he lifts his head to look at me with shock and guilt in his eyes.

Oh… My God . Why does this hurt so much?

I’m so fucking stupid.

And I don’t even have the right to be angry at him.

“I’m sorry!” I rush out, taking one breath before I prepare to bolt. “I’m so, so sorry!”

Why did I ever think there was anything between us?

I’m almost at the doors to leave the Prince’s suite entirely when I feel a huge hand curl around my upper arm, stopping me from fleeing. I try to struggle out of it but can’t. He’s saying something but I don’t want to hear it - don’t want to even look at him, and certainly don’t want to look at her. “I’m ok,” I hear myself say in an attempt to get him to let me go, even though the ache in my chest and my adrenaline-fueled heart tells me that I’m really not.

“You are not ok. You are upset,” Kiahn says and I don’t know why but it makes me whip my head round to glare at him. I don’t have any right to be upset - I really don’t. We’re not ‘a thing’, and I’m the one who barged into his rooms at God-knows what hour. And - for fuck’s sake - he’s a Prince! Of course he has women falling over themselves to keep him happy. I bet he has a different Xaviann woman in his bed every night back on his home planet and-

Wait.

Against my will, my mind re-conjures the awful scene I’d just stumbled in on.

The woman he’d been eating out had brown skin, not gray.

She wasn’t six-feet-whatever.

And she didn’t have horns.

She’s human.

Does he have another human stashed away onboard here? Because that sure as shit wasn’t Jaya or Lois (the very thought has my stomach swooping).

Storming past him, I go back into the blindingly white room to see…

No one at all.

I turn in a circle on the spot. “Where did she go?”

Kiahn is standing there in the doorway, wearing only his undone pants, pulled loosely up his hips, the bulge still very evidently straining against its confines. He looks at me, his face riddled with confusion.

Am I going insane?

“The girl,” I say, gesturing toward where the white ledge had been before, “she was…”

The white ledge she’d been perched on isn’t there anymore either.

Maybe I really am losing it.

Kiahn wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Are you angry that I am using your permission?” he asks. “I checked and double-checked the contract, but if you want to withdraw from that clause, you may.”

I blink at him, my mouth opening without any sound coming out. I close it again. What is he talking about? Permission to what? Fuck other people? Did I agree to that? I don’t remember anything like that being in the contract. But… admittedly, the process of going through it all was long and draining, and, after the first few hours I’d stopped asking Vel to explain every single clause, and I kind of zoned out a bit.

I’m about to ask so many questions , but Kiahn interrupts my scattered thoughts with one of his own. “Whose shirt is that?”

The tone in his voice leaves no room for interpretation; he is pissed .

And that just makes me feel even more pissed right back at him, because I’m still so confused.

And disappointed.

And I can’t get the image of him kneeling with his face tucked between her thighs, and-

Where the fuck did she even go?!

I turn again, trying to see if there’s another door in here somewhere.

“The shirt, Niska,” Kiahn repeats, his voice low and dangerous. “Why are you wearing another male’s shirt?”

I stop my futile search and stare at the prince. “It’s your brother’s. I got it from his closet. Now, explain to me where that woman went before I start looking for hidden doorways in here.”

Kiahn’s brows rise and he takes a breath to speak before seemingly thinking better of it and shaking his head. “You-” he starts, but his glittering green eyes fall down my frame again taking in my attire. “Wait there.” He leaves briefly, but comes back, muttering to himself, a wad of white fabric balled in his fist. “Wear this one instead,” he insists, holding out what I’m assuming is his shirt now. “I cannot concentrate with you in another male’s clothes.”

Staring at the balled up fabric in my hands, I briefly wonder if the alien liquor I’ve consumed is just making me dumb right now? Why would he care so whose shirt I’m wearing if he’s in here fucking someone else? When I look back up at him, Kiahn is standing there, his thick arms crossed over his broad, gray chest as he stares back at me, expectantly.

I can feel heated anger bloom in my belly and spread up my spine to the base of my neck. “ Fine ,” I bite out, dropping his shirt and reaching to pull Az’s off me right here, not turning away for modesty. Just before the material completely blocks my view, I see Kiahn’s arms fall to his sides as he stands straighter.

I see him staring at my now bared chest, his mouth softly agape. I was completely naked with him in the lagoon last night, but I guess he didn’t really get a good look. There’s a certain power in rendering this huge, formidable prince speechless, but I’m still mad at him. So, I throw Az’s shirt at his stupid, handsome face.

Kiahn grunts disapprovingly. And his frustration only grows when he realizes he can’t quickly swipe the offending shirt off his head because the thing got all caught up in his horns. By the time he breaks free of it, I’m already tightening the ties on his own shirt on me. We stare at one another until the eye contact itself feels like a challenge.

“Where is the girl?” I ask, crossing my arms.

Kiahn blinks, and seems to finally realize that I’m annoyed at him right now. He blows out a long breath, his antagonistic stance over his brother’s shirt seeming to deflate. “Vel didn’t explain ‘permissions’ to you, did she?” he asks, reaching up to rub his horn.

I debate on my answer. She might have. But was I listening? Was I asking for clarification? Or did I just want this whole contract signing thing to be over and done with already?

I don’t know.

And I don’t want Vel to get into trouble.

In the end, I elect to keep my mouth shut, making Kiahn sigh. He takes a step forward, but I take a step back - an act that doesn’t go unnoticed. He raises his hands a little, palms facing me as though he’s trying to placate a skittish deer. “The girl you saw me with was…” he bites his lip and tips his head back, looking up to the ceiling of this weird room like he’s begging his Xaviann Goddesses for rescue from this conversation.

“She was what? A sex slave you have hidden away from me?”

“What?! No!” That got his attention. And I won’t lie; his instant dismissal goes some way to calm a part of my brain that had started to question whether I trust this man at all. “It was you , Niska. You !”

I open my mouth, but shut it again pretty damn quickly.

Am I still drunk?

“ Explain .”