Alien Orc’s Prize (Starlight Brides)

9. Luna

CHAPTER 9

LUNA

T he big, hulking, brooding lug who was my husband wanted me to sit. On his lap.

The same man who hadn’t even greeted me when he’d walked in the damn hall now wanted me to saunter over there and just plop my ass down on his knee? No , It’s a pleasure to meet you, my glowing bride! No , How was your journey? Not even a freaking hello! Just a monosyllabic sit.

Like you’d give a dog.

But I couldn’t afford to get pissed about this. I couldn’t afford to have pride. And, maybe this was a good sign. He at least wanted me to sit with him. And he was moving me into his bedchambers which was…

Good. Right? It had to be good. It meant he was acknowledging me in some way after not even attending our own wedding. Acknowledging that I was actually his wife. That this hadn’t all been some big, embarrassing mistake that meant I was going to get shipped off-planet any moment.

I’d always been an optimist. Much more so than my older sister Lyric. It was why I’d taken this opportunity in the first place while she’d gone on and on about how terrible an idea it was. Not that I’d had much of another choice, but still. I’d gone into the Starlight Brides program with an open mind and a hell of a lot of hope.

I was here. So was my husband. He wanted me to sit with him and I was going to make the most of it.

“Of course,” I said, giving him a bright smile and gathering up my heavy golden skirts. I rounded the corner of the table and approached his chair. It was huge. Bigger than any other. Almost like a throne at the table. Shiny red-stained wood, intricately carved with symbols I couldn’t read, as well as images of weapons that were like smaller, less deadly versions of the ones Prince Gal wore at his belt.

He'd leaned back, but hadn’t actually pushed his chair away from the table. Which meant there was very little space to squeeze in and spin myself around in front of him. I felt the keen press of his dark eyes on the back of my bare neck as I attempted to get myself into position to perch on his knee.

Only, I wasn’t used to manoeuvring with skirts like this. In the tight space, I got twisted and tangled, and before I could do anything to stop it, I was tilting. My legs were clamped together in the tightly-wound burrito of my skirt. My arms windmilled wildly, one of them knocking over Prince Gal’s cup and sending his drink spewing so far across the table that Noona jumped up out of her seat to avoid getting splattered.

I was going down . Hard.

A rough, calloused hand – surprisingly warm and very strong – clamped around my upper arm and jerked me back. My legs were still too tangled up to properly right myself, which meant I couldn’t regain my balance and was still falling, just in a new direction.

It was only Prince Gal’s lap that kept me from tumbling heels over tits and smashing my skull open on the stone floor. I landed awkwardly on my front, lying across his legs with my ass up in the air like I was waiting for him to smack it.

“Steady, lass,” came the smoke-deep voice of Prince Gal from above me. “I said, ‘sit.’ Not ‘fling yourself at me like you’re trying to break your own ribs.’”

Ooh. The bastard. Obviously, I hadn’t thrown myself down on him like that on purpose. If anything, it was his fault for grabbing me and yanking me back onto him! Maybe he didn’t know his own strength in comparison to my much smaller human body. Even in that brief pressure of his hand on my arm, I could feel how incredibly strong he was. He probably could have popped my arm out of its socket as easily as pulling a little twig off of a tree.

“I didn’t… I wasn’t trying to… It’s these skirts!” I cried, slightly wheezy from the collision my lung-and-sternum area had just been subjected to against the orc’s rock-hard thighs. I was no longer convinced that landing on Prince Gal’s lap was any more comfortable than the floor would have been. At least the floor wouldn’t scold me about it.

I bucked and kicked, trying to slither off his lap so I could stand up and attempt this all again, preferably without looking like an idiot this time, but it was no use. The beautiful fucking dress was wrapped around me like a shiny, vengeful serpent. The kind that squeezed their prey to death. I gave one last wriggle then went slack, sagging with sudden, obliterating exhaustion. I hadn’t really had a chance to recover from the journey and whatever they’d used to knock me out on the shuttle. All at once, it became too much to move.

Something else moved, though. Something in the vicinity of Prince Gal’s crotch. It stiffened and twitched against my side. Heat exploded in my cheeks and, unexpectedly, between my legs. Prince Gal’s huge hand came to rest briefly on my lower back. Not quite a caress. Just the tiny exertion of pressure, as if he wanted to keep me there but then thought better of it. His hand moved away, only to grip one side of my waist, his other hand doing the same on my other side. As easily as he’d be able to manhandle a doll, he lifted me in the air, gave me a merciless little shake to let my skirts unwrap, then set me down upon his left knee.

He kept his left hand on my waist as he released me with his right. During the commotion, his drink had apparently already been replaced and the spill mopped up.

“Sorry,” I said, red-cheeked, lobbing the apology out into the air. I wasn’t exactly sure who it was aimed at. Partly Noona, for almost dousing her with her brother’s drink. And partly the orc servant or butler or whatever he was who’d probably been the one to clean it up.

“You don’t need to apologize to my sisters or to Ulreth,” Prince Gal admonished. He leaned forward, sealing his front briefly to my back as he retrieved his fresh drink. “You’re the high princess now.”

“High princess or not, I always think it’s best to apologize when I’ve made a mistake or done something wrong,” I told him. “Don’t you?”

I turned my head to look back at him. His black brows were low over his eyes, eyes that now searched my face for meaning as if I’d said something in a completely different language. Which, to be fair, I had. But we all had translators. So he must have understood me at least in a literal sense.

This is a man who isn’t used to saying sorry. To anyone.

He was a prince, I supposed. He was used to everyone jumping to obey his orders. And some of it may have been related to orc culture, too. He’d also seemed surprised when I’d said sorry about the death of his mother’s friend.

He hadn’t yet answered my question, and he was still looking at me like he was trying to use his eyes as drills to bore right through my face and into my brain, so I cleared my throat and faced forward just in time to see Ulreth placing my plate down beside Prince Gal’s. He then served me what looked like some sort of roast meat with honest-to-goodness vegetables. I mean, I assumed they were vegetables, anyway. They were colourful and plant-like and made my mouth water just to look at them. Ulreth filled Prince Gal and his sisters’ plates, too, then sliced into a big, fragrant ball of…

“Is that bread?” I gasped, leaning forward on Prince Gal’s knee to get a better look at what Ulreth was doing.

“Of course. It’s a staple. Humans don’t have bread?” He asked it like such a thing was inconceivable.

“Some humans do. The rich ones,” I said, my eyes glued to Ulreth’s slicing motion. “Most of us on ships just eat processed nutri-packs.”

“So you’ve never eaten bread before?”

I shook my head.

“Never.”

Prince Gal leaned forward again. I tensed, feeling the broad, hot wall of his front connect with my back once more. His hand was still on my waist, huge, encompassing, and searing with heat through my dress.

With his free hand, Prince Gal plucked a slice of bread from Ulreth’s tray. I gaped at the exquisite fluffiness of the soft inside bit. It would be like biting into a warm, golden cloud.

Prince Gal held the slice up in front of my face.

“Try it.”

He didn’t let go or give me the bread. Just left it dangling there in front of me while my stomach contracted with hunger.

Fuck me. I really wanted to try the bread.

Oh, well. I’d already decided I didn’t have any room for pride here. I tilted forward and caught part of the bread between my teeth.

I couldn’t help the moan that escaped me. My eyes fluttered closed as I started to chew the crunchy-fluffy-doughy-salty-sweet miracle that was Orhalla bread.

When it came time to swallow, I almost didn’t want to. I didn’t want this moment to end, despite the fact that I knew there were more slices waiting for me if I asked for them.

But, eventually, it got to the point where I was just masticating bread-sludge. So I swallowed and opened my eyes.

Prince Gal was staring at me once again, this time his expression so contorted with tension I almost leaped right off of his lap in shock. He looked… Not angry , exactly. But thunderous. Potent. Dangerous.

His ferocious eyes were locked on my mouth, as if my lips had done him some grave injustice that he wanted to punish them for. The fingers of his left hand dug into my side. He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. His right hand remained aloft, holding the rest of the slice of bread, floating and forgotten.

I took a deep breath.

Then raised my hand and flicked him on the forehead. Right between the eyes.

He recoiled, his gaze finally snapping upwards from my mouth to my eyes.

“What was that?” he demanded, his brows coming together indignantly as if to gingerly hug the spot I’d so rudely accosted.

I almost apologized. I’d flicked him without thinking, doing something I’d done countless times before, although never to a glowering orc prince. But then I remembered what he’d just told me.

That I never needed to apologize.

I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant even as my heart slammed up into my throat at my own boldness.

“It’s something I used to do to my sister all the time,” I explained. “She’s kind of a worry wart. Whenever she got too bogged down and anxious about the future, I’d flick her like that. It would always distract her and make her laugh, at least a little.”

Prince Gal was silent for a moment. When he spoke next, he didn’t meaningfully respond to a single thing I’d said besides to inquire, “Your sister has warts?” Then he cast an offensively suspicious glance down at my dress, as if I, too, had thousands of secret warts that would be revealed the moment the fabric was peeled away.

“That’s not what I said. Don’t make me flick you again,” I said primly, facing forwards on his knee. I grabbed the bread out of his big, green hand and ate the rest of it all up.