Free Alien Prince: (Bride of Qetesh) An Alien SciFi Romance by Juniper Leigh Page B

Quarter Moon slavers had gotten ahold of me and some other people from the Atria , and that I had escaped. I was asking if she knew the names of any of the other women, but she does not.”
    “She has been with me for many years now,” Waelden said. “I am her whole world.” Vanixa turned her back on us then and headed back toward the tents with the bowl of fruit in her arms. She was stern and stoic, and I wondered if my friend might not be happier with me in my bachelor’s cottage instead of his marriage bed. “Come,” Waelden said, clapping me on the shoulder. “You will stay with us through the Winternight here at our little camp.”
    “We would be delighted,” Lore said, smiling. And I smiled back.
    Waelden had aged considerably in the years since I had last seen him. There was a crease between his eyes that I did not remember seeing there before. Still, he was a proud specimen, virile and strong, and I wondered at the fact that he had not yet gotten his young wife with child. The four of us huddled in the mouth of one of the two tents, close to the fire, and nibbled on meat and fruits. When our bellies were full, as we passed a wineskin of Panyan liquor back and forth between us.
    Lore attempted all evening to draw Vanixa into conversation, but she would have none of it. The Europax woman was beautiful, to be sure: fine featured with dark hair and darker eyes, but she was cold. She preferred the company of her own thoughts over ours or, indeed, over her husband.
    During one brief moment of reprieve when Lorelei was able to draw Vanixa into something of an exchange, I turned to Waelden: “Are you happy, friend?”
    And he lifted his broad, round shoulders in a shrug. “Happy enough,” came his tepid reply. “I will be happier when our union bears fruit.”
    I nodded. “I was curious about that. Do you…?”
    “Yes,” he confirmed, “if infrequently. I get the sense that she finds me altogether distasteful. But she is my fate, and I hers. We shall make a life of it one way or another.” He grinned, somewhat abashedly, and scratched absently at a spot just below one of his horns. “That is why we are out here, in fact,” he said by way of explanation. “I thought it might do us some good to…you know, foster intimacy outside of the strictures of everyday life.”
    “And has it worked?”
    “Not as such, no,” he said grimly, and drank deeply of the Panyan liquor. “But what of this human girl of yours?” he asked, his tone hushed. “How did she come to be here?”
    I told my friend the story of finding her escape pod, of fishing her out and nursing her back to consciousness. I told him of her quest to help her friends, but was stricken to see my dear friend go suddenly pale. “What?” I asked at length. “What is it?”
    “They will come for her, Calder,” he said, his tone loud enough to draw Lorelei’s attention. Waelden looked at her then. “They will come for you, my lady. They will track the pod and come for you, and when they do, the Qet cannot protect you.”
    “What do you mean?” she asked, sitting so that she hugged her knees to her chest. “They wouldn’t just…give me back to them, would they?”
    Lorelei’s eyes were frantic as she searched first Waelden’s face, then mine. “Surely not,” I assured her. But Waelden had another answer.
    “We have dealt with the slavers before, and we know better than to stand between them and their profit. If the choice is between bringing back one girl and risking them take all of our new mates at gunpoint, we’ll give them back the girl.” Waelden glanced between Lorelei and myself, his expression full of an apology his lips never made. “They will come for you, and when they do, we will have no choice but to hand you over.”
    “Then we’ll hide,” I said plainly. “We’ll hide outside the city, and—”
    But Waelden shook his head. “All they will need to do is use a heat scanner during the Winternight. It’s as easy