Page 9 of Alien Prince

The soft auburn waves of hair cascading across the faded sage colored pillow as her chest rises and falls with each breath are mesmerizing. For a moment, I can imagine her laid out in a field of green grass, sun shimmering down on her, illuminating her like a being of infinite light.

I am drawn to her as if there is some kind of invisible force guiding me towards her, like a meteor is drawn to ravaged, abandoned planets. And then, without thinking, I make the absolute worst and best mistake of my life.

I slip inside the beautiful sleeping brunette and attempt to connect.

Chapter Six

Gemma

The first time I’d heard about the closets, I was six. My mother and father were arguing over something—or someone, really. A young blonde girl, who at the time I thought was an adult, but came to learn later wasn’t. She was barely sixteen. My father had argued that keeping her in our house, in our presence, was dangerous. My mother insisted that not a day goes by where we aren’t in danger, doing the work we do.

I remembered the look on the girl’s face as they argued back and forth. The cold, vacant stare of those gray, dull eyes. Like she’d been defeated, beaten down. Used. Like there was no fight in her anymore, if there had been any to begin with. No life.

She was just… a shell. A pretty, young, blonde shell.

My mother suggested the girl could be useful to us, even though she was sitting right there in the same room, but stars away in her mind.

“She can help us understand the process, Vitus,” my mother said. “A discarded skin who knows the inner workings of the closets. You know how rare that is.”

I watched my father stand there, his gaze flicking back and forth between my mother and the girl, who I came to know later as Cassie, weighing his options.

Ultimately, knowledge overruled the danger in his eyes, and it’s hard to think of what my life would be like if he had turned her away.

Because of her, we’d learned valuable knowledge about the royals and about the closets. About what being askinwaslike. Between Cassie and my mother, we knew more about the monsters that possessed their slaves, and with Boomer on the inside, we had a strong foundation to build the perfect soldier, the perfect slave to infiltrate the royals’ walls.

I had many conversations with Cassie about what to expect when I would inevitably be taken over by one of those perverted monsters. I remember the tears in her eyes as she told me the things they made her do. How her mind and her body were two entirely different entities, at war with one another, controlled by the princess of the people. Sabella.

“You’ll never see them coming,” Cassie said. “But you’ll know. You’ll feel their presence, hovering like a shadow. And then your voice will be diminished.”

She had no control of her limbs, but yet she felt everything. Every touch, every sensation. She could hear herself, but she could also hear Sabella in her head. She’d told me it was best not to resist when the time came. It was a smoother process if you gave in and didn’t put up a fight.

Which I knew would be the hardest part. I have been raised to fight, so submitting to anyone isn’t in my nature.

But if I was going to do this mission right, I needed to check my own desires and be as convincing as possible. I needed whatever monster I ended up with to feel comfortable with me. I needed to be a skin they’d use more than once.

The royals need our bodies so they can operate undetected and experience the world they rule by touching and seeing it. To pass as one of us, so they can violate us, manipulate us.

Without our bodies, they are just cosmic ghosts, parasites in need of a host.

Even my mother, who had worked in the palace for ages before finding my father, had never seen one of the royals outside of the skins they wore.

The first thought in my brain as I watch the mass of navy blue, black and plum smoke make its way towards me, is that this—seeingthem—was most definitely not covered in my training.

But I know. I know as the hazy, smokey amoeba glides toward me, a magnificent cosmic cloud of swirling gasses with speckles of stars and tiny galaxies gracefully dancing within it; as the colors shift from deep purples to bright blues and pinks, creating a mesmerizing scene that carries my eyes to the literal contained universe, that they arenotaliens in the sense we know them to be. They are much, much more.

The birth of a new galaxy unfolds before me, sparking like a petulant flame. Brilliant pulses of light dash across the space within, illuminating the dark surrounding it as it creates, as it sinks its stellar claws into the unknown. They are creatures who hold immense power, grasping the glimmer of life in their nebulous grip. Quite impressive, considering I can’t see any actual energy-shaped hands…

I know when I gaze upon their grandeur, thatthis…this being of infinite possibility iswhatthey are. Chaos and order.

The royals are not just aliens. They are stardust. They are life. The spark of greater magic, the boom that can give in the same breath it takes.

It’s shockingly as beautiful as it is dangerous.

The shape of thegalaxybefore me—because that’s the only way it can be described— forms the silhouette of a man; tall, towering over me, with broad, rounded shoulders that taper down to a narrow waist. His form is composed of a swirling mass of smoke and stardust, each tendril intertwining with the next to create the illusion of a solid figure. The tendrils of smoke that compose his form gently swirl and shift, as if he is made completely of mist, and they fade into nothingness at the wrists and knees.

But it is the eyes that chill my bones. They are truly mesmerizing, with a bright aqua glow radiating from their center; the intense, otherworldly light shining like two sapphire orbs, the irises themselves a deep, electric blue with a subtle hint of green that dances in the light. The pupils are wide and dilated, giving an almost hypnotic quality that is both alluring and unsettling.

Looking into this being’s eyes is like peering into the depths of the cosmic ocean, with all its mystery and danger lurking just beneath the surface.

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