Page 4 of The Bride Contract (Princes of Xaavia #1)

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Chapter 4 - Niska

I can practically feel the hulking frame of the new guy following me over to the booth, and once we get there, I turn, catching his eyes focused on something lower before they fly up to meet mine. I take a moment to look at him properly now that we’re further away from the threat of the Yoxxarii. Not only is he tall, and topped with shiny black horns, he’s broad-shouldered and muscular. I’m pretty sure this guy could take on most of the patrons in this dive club and win through sheer size advantage alone. Those tight pants are a tan-sort of color and remind me a lot of riding breeches from those fancy period dramas where a handsome duke falls in love because he saw the lead woman dancing at a ball one time.

Speaking of period dramas, he’s wearing a flowy white shirt, not unlike a Georgian gentleman, undone right down to his navel, showing off a sliver of his impressive chest. Come to think of it, he’s wearing black knee-length boots too. If he weren’t… you know , a giant, horned, gray dude, strapped up with two space blasters to his bulging thighs, I’d say he’s cosplaying Mr Darcy pretty spectacularly right about now.

Except, there’s definitely an air of danger that Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley could never pull off - no offense to Colin Firth.

The new guy slides into the dirty booth, his thickly-muscled legs parted wide and his arms hung along the back of the seating as he quite literally takes up the whole space. His ear flicks like he’s agitated, and that’s the first time I notice that they’re long, like an elf, with a few golden studs. There’s a glint of a gold chain at his neck and chunky gold rings on his darker fingers too.

So maybe, more Georgian pirate, than landed gentry? Either way, this whole look is-

“You do not have to stay if you do not wish, but I’d wager those Yoxxarii will corner you again if they see you unoccupied.”

His deep rumbling voice cuts through all my mind-babble and brings me right back to the danger I’m still in. I don’t even need to look to know that those Yoxxarii are still staring over at their meal getting away. “No, I definitely want to stay,” I say, sliding into the booth and onto Mr Space-Darcy’s lap. He stiffens instantly, and not in the fun way - as in, his whole body tenses like he hadn’t expected me to take him up on his offer, and now that I have, he’s not quite sure what to do about it. “Thank you so much for saving me back there,” I tell him earnestly. I don’t normally like the thought of having to be saved - especially by a man - but I’m not stupid. Sometimes a damsel is genuinely in distress. And there’s nothing a man likes more than to play savior, so I will shamelessly play that card. “I don’t know what service you want in return but-”

I glance at my little floating friend - the money-collecting orb - only to see the amount shown shining on the surface is far more than when I’d last taken notice. “ You paid twenty million credits?! ” I gape at him.

The male swallows and rubs the back of his neck. “Is that not enough? I’m happy to book your time until close so you do not have to resort to entertaining the Yox-”

“Enough?” I shift in his lap to face him better and I don’t miss the way his breath hitches at my movement. “You could outright buy thirty of me for that amount! That’s-” I suck in a breath.

Why did I say that?

I don’t want to highlight the fact that I can be purchased to anyone here in this club! Niska, think before you speak, for God’s sake!

The gray male’s eyes drop to my throat briefly before he’s looking away and shifting his hips beneath me. “I am not in the habit of buying people,” he says, holding up two fingers to one of the Raxilli servers nearby. I watch as her eyes widen and then she scurries away to go and get the man’s drinks. “Nor am I in the habit of frequenting places like this. I came here to find my brother. I know he’s down here somewhere.”

‘Down here somewhere’ . Oh, this guy is definitely from the upper levels. If the giant tip he’s paid wasn’t enough of a giveaway, he’s too clean, and he smells lovely - like sea salt and vanilla. I still don’t know what he is exactly, but whatever it is, I have never seen his species come into Mama Z’rykby’s looking for a house-servant or bed-slave.

“Well, I’m really happy you happened to be here to help me out with… you know ,” I jerk my thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the creepy Yoxxarii, “… that situation .” It’s just as my arm falls back down to my lap that I’m reminded of a teeny-tiny detail that should have me freaking-the-fuck-out. The details stamped on my arm - details that those assholes saw. “ Oh, shit !” I gasp, slapping my arm tightly to my chest. “ Ohhh, no. No, no, no.” My hand slides up my face and into my hair, gripping it tightly at the roots like I might start pulling it out.

“What is it?”

“The Yoxxarii,” I say, holding out my arm now for my new friend here to see. “They saw where to purchase me. They’re for sure going to buy me as soon as they can, and then-” God, I might start hyperventilating. What if they buy Jaya and Lois too? There’s three of them. What if they each want food they can fuck to really round off the night perfectly?!

“They will not,” my big patron drawls.

All I can do is stare at him, silently wishing he had blasted their brains out right here in the club when he had the chance. My tongue rolls out to wet my lips and I ask, “they won’t?”

He clears his throat and shifts his hips beneath me again. “Because I will follow them from this place and kill them.” He’d said the words so calmly, and yet his jaw ticks as he looks over at the group of paper-white, people-eating assholes. “I would have done it earlier but I’d prefer to be discreet.”

He was so damn casual about it all that it instantly started to calm my oncoming panic attack. It was like he’d just offered to give me a ride home or something, not take out three, incredibly dangerous males.

I stare at him, so very grateful for the offer of casual murder on my behalf, but still a bit confused. “What are you?” I need to figure out if I can trust him. Do I go along with his offer to just stay here on his lap or do I leave? What services is he going to want? Will he want some kind of repayment for saving me or killing those Yoxxarii?

The gray alien’s mouth tips up on one side. “ Xaviann ,” he answers, like I’m meant to know what that means. I start trying to wrack my brains as to whether Yix has ever told me anything about the Xaviann race. “And what are you, little creature?”

“Human.”

He nods his head contemplatively. “Are human females normally so trusting of males?”

“What makes you think I trust anyone here at all?”

Because I really don’t.

His green gaze lingers on my neck and collarbone before the Raxilli server returns with two tall, slim glasses filled with green bubbling liquid. My new Xaviann friend thanks her before he takes one and indicates for me to take the other. I pick up the glass but don’t drink. I’m thirsty as hell, but I don’t know what this stuff is or how it affects humans. Besides, I need to keep my head clear in a place like this.

“Because females where I am from would not freely seat themselves on the lap of a male,” he says, answering my previous question. “That would demonstrate great trust in the male indeed,” he adds, taking a gulp of drink and putting the glass back down. I watch as he idly wipes at the condensation on the outside with his big, charcoal gray thumb.

“But it wasn’t free, was it?” I comment, tipping my glass toward the glowing credit-orb lit up with the obscene amount this man has paid to get me out of a fucked-up situation.

He says nothing, but I can feel his eyes on me as I look away to scan the room, my gaze barely flitting over where the Yoxxarii still sit, glaring at me. I can also feel that this guy is still tense, and that he’s not touched me once. Normally when I have no other choice but to sit in a lap, there’s touching. Even the most respectful guys in here (which isn’t saying much), pull me in close and wrap an arm around me.

Maybe he doesn’t even want me to sit on him? Maybe that’s why he brought it up?

My cheeks flame at the thought. “I’m sorry,” I say, making a move to get off him and find somewhere else to park my butt in this booth. “Did you not want me to sit-”

“ No ,” both his huge hands come up, practically covering my thighs as they grip and pull me back down. As soon as he’d initiated the touch, it leaves me, like my skin had burned him or something. “ Sorry ,” he says, holding his hands up as if in surrender. “I don’t want you to leave my lap is all I mean. Please-” I watch as he swallows thickly, “-please stay. I’m just not used to females allowing such close contact. It is only done in very special circumstances where I am from.”

“Special circumstances?”

My Xaviann friend nods and I’m struck by just how handsome and strong his features are.

“Like what?” I hear myself asking, melting into him a little.

His gaze roams my face, lingering on my mouth. “ Breeding ,” he answers, and for a moment we just stare at one another before he seems to be the one to shake us out of the stupor. He clears his throat and takes another gulp of his bubbly green drink.

I don’t know what it is, but my gut feeling about this guy is that he won’t take advantage of me. He’s not like the usual patrons in this place. I need to keep this man on my side. I need for him to make good on his promise of casual murder on my behalf. If a little bit of proximity and some touching will do that, then I am more than down for that with him right now. Hell, if it means Jaya, Lois and I don’t end up in the belly of a Yoxxarii, then I’ll get on my knees and blow him right here, right now.

I wiggle in his lap a little, shifting until I feel a sizable swelling in those riding britches of his. He sucks in a breath and holds it as I continue to make myself comfortable, the front strip of fabric from my ‘skirt’ - if you could call it that - falling between my thighs, leaving my legs completely bare all the way up to my hips. I’m a curvy girl with more than my fair share of wobbly bits and cellulite, but considering the situation I’m in now, for once in my life, I couldn’t give a shit. Taking the male’s drink from his hand, I place both of them back down on the table and grab him by the wrists, guiding his hands to touch my thighs, just like he had with his knee-jerk reaction to me leaving his lap. “You can touch, if you like,” I tell him, shifting and leaning back against his chest.

The big male groans, and lets his head fall back as if I really were taking him in my mouth right now. His hands twitch on my legs as though they’re resisting the urge to squeeze me. I move his hands for him, guiding him up and down the tops of my thighs, my hips, my waist.

His head has straightened again - I can tell because I can feel his ragged breath in my hair. “You are… very soft ,” he murmurs, sounding almost transfixed. I lean back further into him and I swear I can feel his heart beating a mile-a-minute at my back. “You should not be so… uncovered,” he leans down to tell me, his breath now tickling the patch of skin behind my ear. “Such a soft female should never be left so vulnerable.”

“I think that’s the whole point to a place like this,” I tell him, my hands leaving his movements, allowing him to continue gently mapping out the hills and valleys of my body on his own. I find myself reaching up and back, my hands blindly locating his big, ridged horns and smoothing up before wrapping my fingers around one of them.

“ Fuuck ,” the Xaviann curses. “This really isn’t wise, little human,” he protests weakly, one of his arms banding up and across my chest, holding me to him like a firm seatbelt, his thick fingers starting to delicately trace my collarbone and brush over my throat. I can feel his hot breath, sending goosebumps skittering all over my skin as he softly runs the tip of his nose up my neck. “I have never met a female so trusting,” he says, as if talking to himself. “It is intoxicating.”

His words are spoken so closely to my skin, I can feel the brush of his lips on my neck. And somehow, it all feels so terribly erotic all of a sudden. I don’t know if I’m running on adrenaline from being in such a dangerous situation, or if it’s the fact that this huge, powerful male seems… in awe of me ?

Is that a crazy thing to say?

Probably. All the aliens I’ve encountered have treated humans as pets at best, and disposable things to own and use at worst.

Still, this big guy came busting in here to save my life and now he’s acting like this ?

Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe I’m stupid to be horny right now, but I don’t think I could stop myself from grinding my ass back on that man even if I wanted to.

My Xaviann friend apparently didn’t get that memo though, because his huge hands grip my hips tightly. “ Don’t ,” he hisses in my ear. “I won’t be able to control myself if you keep moving that way.”

The words are spoken into the side of my throat where I feel a gentle graze of his teeth.

“Well, well, well, what’s going on in this dark corner?” comes a voice to our side.

I don’t know if the guy I’m sitting on is just lightning quick, or my reflexes are just too damn slow, but by the time I look to see who had spoken to us, he’s already pointing one of his blaster-guns at the newcomer.

To the new guy’s credit, he doesn’t seem to react in the slightest. He’s another Xaviann, similar to my guy but perhaps leaner, wearing more gold jewelry, and has his otherwise long hair shaved at the sides. He stands there with an amused look on his face and his arms crossed over his chest.

“I swear to all four Goddesses, if you scare off this female, I will not hesitate to pull the trigger, Zann,” my Xaviann seat growls.

The other Xaviann chuckles and bats away the barrel of the blaster currently pointed right at him. “Nice to see you’ve been missing me, brother,” he grins and then promptly urges us to move along the circular booth seating so that he can join us.

“ Zann ,” my guy glares at the newcomer over my head while his free arm tightens around me and the other puts his gun away. “She trusts me. Do not scare her.”

This ‘Zann’ raises a single eyebrow. “She shouldn’t,” he says, leaning back with his hands behind his head looking very smug for some reason. “Not when Prince Kiahn is out here with his fangs out for all to see.”

“ Shit! ” My guys hisses, releasing me and covering his mouth with his hand.

I shift in his lap to look back at him. “You have fangs?” I ask, genuinely curious because I didn’t notice them before at all. But then another part of information dropped by his brother rings in my ears. “You’re a Prince?! ”

“ Prince Kiahn of the Northern Principality , to be precise,” Zann supplies before swiping my untouched drink from the table and then gesturing with the glass to my credit-orb, “and purchaser of females now, apparently too. Aunt Zalora is going to love that,” he adds before taking a swig of the green liquid and giving me a wink while he’s at it.

“I am not purchasing this female,” ‘Prince Kiahn’ hisses from behind his hand. “I came here looking for you , you giant drak-shit! But she needed help.”

Zann grins over my head at his brother. “Sure she did. Looked like you were helping her real good .”

“He was,” I feel compelled to say, feeling tiny sitting at this booth that’s stuffed uncomfortably close with both these huge males. “He saved me from a group of Yoxxarii.”

Zann grimaces, his green drink paused mid-way to his mouth. “Yoxxarii?” he asks, shuddering in disgust before glancing around the club. “Where?”

I look around too.

Oh, shit.

They’re gone.

And my knight in tight pants didn’t follow them out!