Page 11 of Tricked By the Alien Prince

The alien seems to recover his senses first. He grabs hold of green-tips and slams a hand against his neck. Green-tips’ whole body convulses and then he drops to the floor like a dead weight.

Oh, no.

Is he dead?

I’m frozen to the spot, staring at the crumpled guards. I probably should be running, but of course my brain chooses now to power down. I’m like a computer - I work most of the time, but when you need to do something right now, I’m slow as heck.

Green-tips’ chest rises and falls, and I find my own breath gushing out of me with relief. He’s alive!

“Female?”

Pale blue eyes and a gray face fill my vision. I gasp and stumble away from the alien. At some point, he has knelt before me, and is now trying to get a good look at my face. His long black hair drapes over one shoulder, matching the light dusting of a beard on his cheeks.

“Female, are you hurt? Do you need medicine?”

“Medicine? You just attacked us! Why are you offering me medicine?” I laugh shrilly as my mind tries to process the contradictions of his words and his actions.

“These males were harming you. I heard you screaming,” he replies. He holds up his hands in the Galactic Common sign of peace. Funny how so many species consider holding hands out in front of them as a sign of trust. Makes me briefly wonder what a species with multiple tentacles does.

It clicks with me that he’s not speaking English, or even Intergalactic Common. The translator that was surgically implanted behind my ear when I was a child is processing his words. It feels like it’s been years since I heard the device overlay what I was hearing through my ears with the translated words. It’s a pretty high-tech model, at least it was back in the day, and even somewhat simulates the husky and deep timbre of his voice.

I kind of want to scream and shout at him for busting in here, but he’s not wrong. From an outsider’s perspective, the four of us humans were making a fair bit of noise. If he thought he came in to help me, rescue me from some unpleasant and unthinkable situation…

“Thank you,” I say.

The alien’s eyes widen and he looks absolutely shocked that I might thank him. The lights on his body pulse, lighting up the area around us with a soft glow.

Oh, at first I thought he was wearing some cool futuristic sci-fi uniform with LED lights running through it all… but instead the lights look like they are coming from beneath his skin.

His very bare skin.

I tilt my head, considering this male before me properly. Even kneeling, his head is at the height of my own. I’m not exactly tall, but this guy must tower over me when standing. His skin is more gray than a human’s, like someone desaturated the color out of a photograph. His aquamarine eyes watch me with an intensity that glows, literally. It nearly matches the constant pulsing and flashing of the lines along his body. If they just glowed, I would have thought someone painted glow-stick paint on him. But no, they pulse in drifting waves down his neck, shoulders, and abs.

“Why are you naked?” I blurt out. My cheeks burn with embarrassment… I blink, realizing belatedly that my whole body is heating up in this guy’s presence.

The male tilts his head, then his lips peel back in a grin. My heart rate picks up. It’s because he scares me, it’s definitely not because he’s drop-dead gorgeous. His high cheekbones, and that flop of long, sleek black hair that falls over his face…he could rival a high-end fashion model.

“I am not,” he smirks at me. He waves a hand, encompassing his entire body, showing me that he does indeed still wear dark-colored pants and leather boots. Across his chest is a leather strap, which holds several small blades and pouches, and a larger strap belted low on his waist.

He wiggles his eyebrows at me, as if saying that he knows I was caught staring at his highly detailed wash-board abs and that V shape that leads your eye directly downwards…

I force my eyes back to his face. Now is not the time to be checking out a guy, not even a sexy alien guy. I have a job to do. Geez, I have a duty to every human in the colony. I need to figure out what the council is hiding, and expose each and every one of those dirty liars.

Now that I’m really studying him, is he the same male that Ariana spoke to in the marketplace? Did he follow me all the way out here?

I glance down at my tablet and the map displayed upon the screen, where one symbol is larger than any other—this here is my destination. It’s my fate.

I move to walk past him, but he just stands there staring down at me.

“Umm… I’m going to leave now,” I tell him. I bite the inside of my cheek as I try to find the courage to look up, and up, at his face. This close up he’s huge and intimidating, even if he did just rescue me.

Still, he doesn’t budge at all. He’s blocking the only way out.

I sigh. Aliens! There’s clearly some cultural misunderstanding going on. If he’s expecting me to pay him credits for coming to my aid, then he’s got another think coming.

Unlike Ariana, I’m broke.

“I’ve got lots of things to do, you know how it is,” I tell him as I edge my way around his body and make my way toward the door. I’m not going to wait around on him to decide what he wants to do with his life.

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