Page 34 of Alien Prince's Fake Bride
The hum between us builds, a crescendo that feels like it’s pulling us both apart and knitting us together at the same time.
I’m lost in it, inhim, in the vastness of space around us and the heat of our connection. My nails dig into his back as the pleasure coils tighter. My body trembles on the edge. His thrusts grow faster, deeper, and I meet him, my hips rising, chasing the release I know is coming. His tentacles pulse brighter, a kaleidoscope of colors in violet, gold, crimson, mirroring the chaos building inside me.
“Umbra,” he groans, his deep voice breaking, and it’s enough to push me over.
The orgasm hits like a supernova, tearing through me with a force that makes me cry out. My body clenches around him. He follows a moment later, his own release a low, guttural sound that vibrates through me. It amplifies my own pleasure until I’m shaking, overwhelmed, with stars bursting behind my eyes.
We collapse together. His weight is a comforting anchor as we lie on the transparent floor with the universe sprawling around us. His tentacles curl gently around me, protective, possessive. I feel it, too. The way we belong to each other now, our bodies and something deeper intertwined. I don’t say it, and neither does he, but the truth hums between us.
- - -
There are no shooting stars, because we’re not anywhere near an atmosphere where little grains of interplanetary sand grains can burn up. The stars shine calmly and don’t seem to change, despite Caret’ax telling me we’re moving at several times light speed.
I hide a yawn behind one hand. I’m so relaxed and satisfied that I could just drift off. “I could stay here all night.”
“Ihavestayed here whole nights,” Mareliux says under my head, making my body shake. “It’s lonely, but that just means it’s like life itself.”
“You never had company here? Always alone?” I ask.
“Until now,” the prince says, yawning too. “It’s appropriate that it’s with you. Sweet gods, I’m neglecting the whole Empire and the war and everything. Tell me, are you a practitioner of the Forbidden Arts? Or were you sent by the Vyrpy to make me careless?”
“Yes,” I deadpan. “I was carefully sent out in a tiny, tinfoil shuttle specifically to be abducted by a prince. They said, ‘Umbra, make sure you make him careless in the star dome room. Try to kill yourself in the lightning room by mistake and then make him save you with a weird umbrella. Then make sure he wants to fake marry you.’ Then… well, I don’t know what else will happen. This was all the Vilbi told me to do. From here on, I have to play it by ear.”
“The Vyrpy,” Mareliux corrects me.
I wave my hand dismissively. “Whatever. Those green guys.”
“Gray,” he says. “Gray aliens.”
“Sure. Well, you know what they’re like, with their… their drums and their flashlights.”
He curls a lock of my hair around one finger. “Never saw the Vyrpy with either of those. But it’s all coming together now. It’s a devilish plot to fake marry me. But I’ll outsmart you all. I’ll just… Hmm. I’ll think of something.”
“Don’t. You’ve outsmarted me already. I can only take so much outsmarting.” I squeeze his hand, ending our shared joke. “Is it a lonely life? As a prince?”
“It has to be,” he muses. “A prince is powerful. And a prince who will inherit the throne is especially valuable. Whenever someone wants to get close to me, I know it’s probably a ploy to gain influence. It was like that from the start. I couldn’t trust anyone. Even other children. They would often have some agenda, forced on them by their parents. Sooner or later, all of them would clumsily ask for something big or suggest something they thought I might decide to do, or something I might want to mention to the Emperor, whenever I’d have a chance… It gotold fast. I ended up having no friends at all. Then later, the same would happen with girls and women. There was always the ulterior motive. Sometimes it was obvious, and sometimes it took me a while to find out what it was. It turned into a sport for me. I got really good at it.”
I change my position so I can see his face. “So your love life suffered?”
He nods thoughtfully. “You could say that. Well, there was one girl— never mind. Ancient history, long forgotten. You? Did you have a lover on that space station?”
I wrinkle my forehead, pretending to think about it. “On the station? No. But on Earth… also no.”
He grins with sparklingly white teeth. “Hah! I knew it. You set duty before all. I can hear it now: ‘No lover until Earth rules the galaxy!’”
“That’s actually not far from the truth,” I admit. “I spent most of my life preparing for Space Force. I even did gymnastics to prepare for weightlessness. And Earth hasn’t been a good place to be after the aliens took so many girls.”
He squeezes my hand, too. “It must have been scary.”
“It was. But now your gunships are protecting us. And soon, you will help us protect ourselves with the ships you’ll give us.”
My words hang in the air for a second, and I feel as if the mood changes and goes colder.
“Sorry,” I begin, immediately regretting my words, “I?—”
“That’s the deal we made,” Mareliux says and sits up. “Now I have to get back to my generals. They must be wondering what’shappening with me.” He quickly stands up and puts his clothes on. “Stay here as long as you want. You may enjoy seeing the moon Grefve and its main planet come closer and closer from straight ahead. That direction.” He points.
“Thank you. Really, Mareliux, I’m sorry-”
