Alien Prince: (Bride of Qetesh) An Alien SciFi Romance Read Free Page A

been going, and everything just sort of got back to normal.
    But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I could have my cake and eat it, too. If I could somehow get aboard the transport vessel that made its monthly trek to Earth for supplies, I could go there for a month-long vacation, and be back aboard the Atria before they’d written me off for dead. I would leave a note for my parents to let them know not to worry, and that would be it. Easy, if slightly deceptive. I knew that the transport vessel had only recently arrived, given the Chardonnay, so if I worked fast, I could be on Earth any day now.
    The whole business of figuring out which ship in the hangar bay was the transport vessel (the large one that looked like a giant box) and ascertaining whether or not it had life support (it did, it came standard) and whether or not it would have a manned crew (It would) was a fairly simple one. And, even better, the captain of the transport ship was a Europax pilot I’d grown up with: Teldara Kinesse. She was tall and slender, with long graceful limbs and skin the color of cafe au lait. She wore her hair in a tapered bob that ended in a sharp point at her chin and was longer in the front than it was in the back. With this hairstyle, she could pass for human: her earlessness was hidden, and she was only six feet tall — short, by Europaxian standards.
    In any event, I waited on the scaffolding until I saw Teldara crossing toward the transport ship with an overstuffed duffle bag slung over her shoulder. She wore a fitted black jumpsuit and combat boots, and I could see the glint off the delicate jewel in her nose even from afar. I darted down the metal stairs and across the floor of the hangar bay until I caught up with her, tapping her on the shoulder even as she hauled her duffle bag into the cargo hold.
    “Hi!” I said, beaming up at Tel from half a foot beneath her.
    She inclined her head somewhat, then arched one thin brow high over a glinting blue eye. “Hi…” she responded, her tone as dubious as her expression.
    “How are you?” I asked, all smiles and sunshine.
    “All right, what do you want?” Tel crossed her arms beneath her breasts and glared down at me, though her look was not without a hint of playfulness.
    “Why do you automatically assume that I want something?” I asked, full of feigned innocence.
    “Because I have never once in my life seen you in the hangar bay, and I know by now that when any one of my shifty school friends turns up it’s because they want me to score them something from the shipment, or they want me to deliver something shady, or they want me to smuggle them off the Atria .” She looked at me, and something in my expression must have given me away, because she groaned audibly and slapped her palms against her upper thighs. “You want me to smuggle you off the Atria ?”
    “Smuggle is such a strong word,” I said, even as Tel turned around to attend to her bag. “It’s more that I want you to… give me a lift.”
    “Um, let me think…. No.”
    Teldara shouldered past me, and I followed close on her heels as she headed out of the hangar bay. “Just hear me out,” I said, struggling to keep up with her long strides.
    “Lore, you are always trying to get me into trouble,” she said, and I could see the corner of her mouth hook up in a smile.
    “When have I ever—”
    “That time we went to Europa for spring break, and got drunk on that stuff… oh, what was it called…”
    “Larandi wine!” I said, smiling at the memory. “Nectar of the Gods, I swear.”
    “Yeah, it was delicious—”
    “See?” I interjected. “We have fun.”
    “Until we stumbled onto the Keldeeri Embassy and they nearly took our heads off.” Tel pushed through a door at the far end of the hangar bay, and we were admitted into a bustling corridor full of merchants and military coming and going from the ships they’d docked in Hangar C.
    “It was just a misunderstanding,” I asserted.