Free Billionaire Romance: MAXIMILIAN (An Alpha Bad Boy Contemporary Mystery Romance) (Mysterious Billionaires Book 3, Anthologies & Collections) by Nicole Banks Page B

the most prominent and famous people from dozens of planets.  But was it really so much to have to endure?  Was it really so bad that her parents had managed to cajole her into coming all this way for this occasion?  This evening was a rare thing, to be sure.  It wasn't every day that even a woman of Danielle's wealth and in Danielle's position was introduced to a prince.
                  Yes, the ball was being given for a prince.  And not just any prince, but the prince of another planet.  And moreover, this was not just any other planet.  Sarma and its relationship with the planet Earth had become the talk of the galaxy.  Against all odds, against all the laws of biology and probability, Earth had made contact with an extraterrestrial species that so closely resembled humans that it was widely believed they shared a common ancestor.  It was practically all that one ever heard about in space these days—how scientists had speculated that unknown aliens visited Earth eons ago, captured early humans and whisked them back to their own planet, molded them into warriors, then disappeared for reasons equally unknown and leaving the descendants of their breeding subjects to their own devices.  Those descendants were the proud inhabitants of Sarma, distinguishable from Earth humans only by the hair that descended in a tapering, narrowing pattern from the scalp hairline to the bridge of the nose.  The Sarmians: civilized, with their own arts and technology and their own space travel capabilities, yet warriors at heart.
                  Even Danielle, mourning what she had thought were the prospects of marriage to a desirable man, had taken notice of the Sarmians.  She had not actually met any of them yet. She knew only what was most generally known of them—that their planet had been through a time of devastating struggle over the throne of its aging king, and that the royal family had barely won out.  The elder prince, Dantar, had thus taken the throne.
    It was probably only the badly broken infrastructure of Sarma, and the need for its people to regroup and recover from the wars, that had made their first contact with Earth a peaceful one.  Now terrestrial humankind, excited and fascinated to have found brothers across the stars, was keenly interested in staying friends.  So it was that when Dagin, the younger Prince of Sarma, decided to take some time traveling in human space, the government of Earth wasted no time throwing a party in his honor.  And so that was what Danielle Dryden was doing billions of kilometers from home:  preparing herself to meet the prince of another world.
                  Danielle plucked her linker from the discreet pocket on her left glove and checked the opaque crystal for the time.  If the party were being given aboard one of the other habitats in the Saturnine system, she would have used the linker to call for a shuttle.  Given that her destination was on a lower level of Titan II itself, she had only to walk to the ball.  She made for the hatch of her suite and stepped out into the corridor of the resort that rotated so gently above Titan to simulate Earth's gravity.  The lights dimmed, the hatch shut itself behind her, and she was on her way.
    Already the corridors of Titan II were filled with dignitaries dressed as elegantly as Danielle, all headed in the same direction, and she smiled politely at them as she passed.  Among the aliens present, she caught her first glimpse of some Sarmians.  There were a couple of them who she assumed actually were a couple, decked out in shiny golden outfits that hugged the contours of their athletic bodies and made them look as if they were wearing the gilded skins of dragons.  Gracious, she silently wondered to herself, do they all look like that?   She would know in a few minutes.  There would be a great many more of them where she was going.
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                  The ballroom