Alien Orc’s Prize (Starlight Brides)

11. Luna

CHAPTER 11

LUNA

P rince Gal’s chambers were large and luxurious, with their own impressive bathing room, much like the guest suite I’d first been shown into. Unlike that other room, though, this one sported the most extraordinary set of carved crystal doors and windows I ever could have imagined, leading out onto a gargantuan balcony that overlooked the sea. The palace was perched on a high cliff above a sandy cove, and looking out the windows and doors gave me the impression that we were floating above the black waves. The rising and crashing water looked like the flap and fall of wings, tips painted silver by a big, low-hanging moon.

I inhaled shakily, a few tears pricking at my eyes. I’d seen more beautiful things today than I’d probably seen in my entire life.

“Are these yours?”

I spun at the sound of Prince Gal’s charred and rumbly voice. He was holding the clothing I’d worn here in his hands. Fervently, I hoped they’d been washed by whoever had brought them here. He’d already complained about me emitting smells , whatever the hell that lovely little comment meant. I did not need him getting a whiff of my worn-out grey travel suit and sweaty undies and sports bra.

“Yes. I suppose I exaggerated a bit when I said I had no things.” But only a bit. The clothes were all I’d come with. I didn’t even have a comms tablet anymore. Selling it to buy food had been the final nail in the coffin for my sad, single-girl life. It had been the day after selling it that I’d girded my loins, slapped an optimistic smile on my face, and joined the Starlight Brides program.

“They are not well-made.” Prince Gal said it like my cheap clothing was a personal affront to him.

“At least they fit me!” I said with a slight chuckle, tugging up on the front of my gaping dress until the fabric rustled meaningfully.

“You’ll have new things made to fit you immediately.”

It was nearly an off-hand comment, he said it so easily. As if procuring new, beautiful, made-to-fit clothing was nothing at all. And maybe it was nothing at all to him. He was literal royalty, after all.

But it was something to me. A great big something. And it meant a hell of a whole lot.

“Thank you,” I whispered, my throat feeling thick.

He looked startled by my gratitude. Then he suddenly frowned, leaning forward. After a long inhale through his nose, he closed his eyes and roughly jerked his head a few times, as if trying to dislodge water from his ear. His eyes opened. Their heated darkness went right to my face.

“You smell good right now.”

“What do you mean, right now ?” I gasped. I couldn’t tell whether I should be offended by his continuing comments on my various human odours, or if I should be glad that he currently approved.

Ridiculously, I was leaning towards the latter. An undeniable spiral of pure pleasure wound through my belly at his blunt, spare praise.

“Your scent keeps changing,” he said, almost sounding a little exasperated that he had to explain. “And it keeps making me want to do things.”

“What sorts of things?”

“When you were in pain from the pins in the hall, and your scent hit me, I wanted to kill somebody. Not you,” he clarified with grunting quickness when my horror no doubt registered on my face. “It was very… nice when your scent returned to something sweeter. Calmer.” His dark eyes regarded me steadily. “If you could attempt to keep your smells on a somewhat more even keel going forward, that would be better.”

“I don’t know how to do that!” I stammered. “I didn’t even know my scent changed with my mood!” I gathered the gold dress around myself as if it were some sort of shield. “If you’re the one so bothered by it, maybe you should wear nose plugs or something!”

“You’re doing it again,” he said. He put my clothing down and came closer. He stared down at me in a way I would have found quite menacing if he hadn’t just spent fifteen minutes on his knees pulling pins from my dress out of an absurd concern about blood loss.

“I can’t help it!” I cried.

“It’s making me rather antsy.”

“Go stand further away from me, then!”

“I don’t want to.”

Oh. My. God.

Had I married the most idiotically stubborn man alive?

Is this because he’s an orc? Or a prince? Or a male?

Or all three?

Whatever it was, he was glaring down at me like he expected me to solve a problem I hadn’t known, until this moment, even existed. It was like he was asking me to never blink again simply because watching the eyelashes flutter was a bother to him.

“Well, like I just said, I truly can’t help it. I wasn’t even aware of this issue until you brought it up!”

He looked at me as if I were stupid. Or maybe that I thought he was stupid, and that I was lying to him.

“You were not aware,” he said slowly, clearly, “that every minute shift in your temperament creates an olfactory display as inescapably obvious as waving a colourful flag above your head?”

“Of course not!”

He stared blankly at me for a beat before muttering, “Let us hope, then, that our children do not inherit your terrible sense of smell.”

Hurt and embarrassment seized my chest. Maybe if we’d been married a while, and we knew how to joke around with each other, he could have gotten away with a comment like that.

But we weren’t there yet. And his words stung more than I wanted to admit.

“Blast. What is it now?” His dark eyes flashed, and he gripped my chin between his fingers and his thumb. “It’s changed again. It’s making me feel… very agitated… with the need to fix whatever is causing it.”

“You’re causing it!” I cried before I could stop and think better of it.

He stilled.

“Me?”

“I’m just reacting to everything you’re doing and saying! I feel things deeply, and maybe I’m too sensitive, but that’s just who I am. It’s who I’ve always been. If you’re not pleased with me, well… I’ll do my best to make this marriage work. But I can only do so much, and I can’t change myself.”

Prince Gal was silent for a long moment. So long that I was sure my scent was now doing something humiliatingly obvious to let him know just how awkward and uncomfortable I felt right now.

Maybe he’s just going to send me back , I thought miserably. Maybe Lyric was right and I was an idiot for thinking this would work. Maybe-

“You please me.”

“Wh-What?” I asked, not sure I’d actually heard or just imagined the words.

Prince Gal’s face was very close to mine. His breathing hitched and his voice went raspy.

“You please me.”

My stomach tightened.

But then, as if he needed to temper the effect of the compliment, he added, “Is your hearing as bad as your sense of smell?”

“I heard you the first time! I was just… surprised.”

So quietly I almost did miss it that time, he replied, “Not as surprised as I am.” Before I could ask what that meant, he gave a ragged-sounding sigh and said, “It worked.” His nose dipped to my throat. I felt the heavy heat of his exhale on my skin and goosebumps rose. “You smell good again.”

“Well, just keep saying nice things to me, I guess, and we’ll be just fine.” There wasn’t any tartness to my reply. I was too busy melting away while replaying the echo of Prince Gal’s raw and fervent declaration inside my head. You please me.

A girl could get addicted to a guy that grumpy telling her she pleased him. The effect was nearly drugging, as was the whispering caress of his lips and tusks against the side of my throat. I shivered and angled my head to the side, just a little, almost without realizing I’d done it. My nipples hardened.

“Blasted seas, you smell even better now,” Prince Gal muttered hoarsely against my skin. “What is that?”

I knew what it was. Oh, yes. That, right there, would have to be the fabulous fragrance of pathetically horny human. Eau d’arousal , if you will. Because there was no hiding from the effect Prince Gal was having on me. His simple statement, that I pleased him, had alighted on some primal nerve inside me. That, coupled with the way his breathing was getting heavier, harsher at my throat, and the way his hands had wandered up to cover my own where they still clutched at the front of the dress, was making needy heat bloom between my legs.

“You said… the different scents make you want to do things,” I whispered. “What does this scent make you want to do?”

“Careful, Luna lass,” he choked out. “You told me you want me to say nice things to you. And the things I want to do to you now aren’t very nice.”

The squeaky moan that emerged from my throat in response to that was absolutely unhinged. I would have paid good money to have successfully blamed somebody else for the sound. But seeing as I was the only creature in the room capable of reaching that highly embarrassing pitch, there was no way to deny it. Instead, I cleared my throat and said, as efficiently and business-like as I could, “Your sisters mentioned your need for an heir. Just so you know, I’m, er, on board. We can start tonight. If you want.”

“Tonight?” There was a strained note of something not quite identifiable in his reply. Hope? Need? Whatever it was, it made my pussy clench.

“Tonight. As in, right now.”

His breathing stopped. I knew it did because my neck felt cold at the lack until he suddenly spoke again in a throbbing, heated rush.

“Take off the dress. Then get onto my bed and spread your legs.”