Toss of a Coin [Other World 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) Read online

“I like you a lot.” Thavon grinned broadly as he plopped the meat into his mouth.

  Luken swallowed and then nudged his brother’s arm. “I need you to reprogram the scanners so that they give us the breeding status information and then married status next. Right now the two are separated by a lot of data. It takes too long to know if the female is available. Move the breeding channel depth up closer to the top of the list as well.”

  Thavon nodded. “I’ll get on it today. With you and Tor bringing home two females, I expect more males are going to want to start the search for a mate.”

  Keneese looked around and realized she was the only female in the restaurant. They needed women just as badly as Earth needed medicine. At times like this, she could see how important human females’ roles were here. She felt a touch of pride in being picked.

  Macklon came out with a few waiters and loaded their table down with aromatic food. It all looked as good as it smelled. The waiter bowed and left. Macklon wished them well and bowed deeply, before heading back into his kitchen.

  Their plates were so filled with food, she knew she’d never be able to eat it all. Keneese settled for trying everything and then devoured her steak. It was so tender and well-seasoned that she couldn’t stop eating it. Macklon was an excellent chef.

  Keneese licked her lips and looked at Luken. “Can we force him to cook for the royal family?”

  All three of her companions burst out laughing. When Luken was under control, he answered, “No. We don’t run that kind of kingdom. We believe free people are happy, loyal people. This restaurant has been in Macklon’s family for a thousand years. He feels honor bound to keep it going and one day teach his own sons to work it.”

  Macklon must be a last name. She felt bad about trying to take him away from his family’s business. A grin curled her lips. She knew it had to look sheepish. “Sorry. I let my taste buds temporarily rule my better judgment. Your way of freedom for all is the best way.”

  Tor nodded approvingly. “You’ll make a fine queen one day, your highness.”

  After she tasted her divine dessert, she was doubtful of Tor’s words because once again she wanted to demand Macklon be their personal chef. The red and blue fruit was in a delicate butter crust and covered in a cool, creamy sauce. Her rational side pointed out that they could eat here anytime they wanted. That made her feel better.

  Keneese frowned as she wondered why she was having such greedy and somewhat mean thoughts. It wasn’t like her to even consider taking a person’s freedom from them, not even for a short amount of time.

  Luken rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Yes.” At his doubtful look, she sighed and added. “I just had a strange thought. It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Strange how?” her mate asked with concern in his gaze.

  She shook her head and smiled. There was no way she was going to confess her uncharacteristic thoughts. “It was nothing really. I’m glad you brought me here. Everything was excellent.”

  Thavon patted his flat belly. “Let’s walk around the market. I think Princess Keneese needs to see it.”

  “Yes, I agree.” Luken grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet.

  Thavon put several oval-shaped gemstones on the table. It startled her at first and then she remembered that precious gems were their form of currency. From what she could remember, it looked like Thavon had paid well for their food. That was definitely good for people relations. The DeZaccherus family were perfect royalty. The people in the restaurant stood and once again bowed to them as they left.

  Instead of getting into the vehicle, they started walking down a well-maintained, extra-wide stone-lined path. Not far from the restaurant they entered an outdoor market that went on farther than the eye could see.

  She loved the way they’d made the market so that the stone path rose up into tables on both sides of the thirty-foot-wide path. The merchants had different-shaped shops. It was a sight to see. Some were huge and others were cozy. They were all built of colorful wood with at least fifteen-foot ceilings. Each ceiling was of a different architecture. Seeing all of the interesting shops made her smile. When she realized she was one of very few women, her smile slipped. It was devastating to see so many single males.

  She was getting the hang of everyone bowing to them. Once again she and Luken were wished many children. It could take time to make the babies these guys were confident they’d have. She hoped the people weren’t too disappointed if she didn’t produce a child anytime soon. She could already be pregnant, or it could take years. That had happened to a few of her coworkers.

  A touch of doubt about her ability to give them what they wanted filled her. So far, from what she’d seen, VisOrrentians were take-charge kind of people. They went after what they wanted whole-heartedly. Their pact with Earth was just one sign of this. They were possibly about to get knocked down a peg or two when they discovered that humans couldn’t be expected to fill one of their desires at the first bump of naked hips.

  The market was a lively place with music coming from several shops. The scent of flowers and food dominated the air. Men were laughing and some were loudly bantering for the best price. A couple of VisOrrentian males moved and she barely held back a gasp when she saw two three-armed beings. Two of their arms were normally placed and the third was coming from their right hips. She could hear them haggling for a large amount of herbs for their planet.

  One of the aliens turned and all four of his eyes stared at her. He flinched and then nudged his buddy. Four more eyes landed on her. This alien grimaced and then smoothed his features quickly.

  The first one to spot her said, “That’s an ugly being. We best make sure it doesn’t try to get on our spacecraft.”

  A menacing growl came from beside her. Keneese looked over and saw that Luken had turned dark blue and his sky-blue eyes were thunderous. Both of the three-armed aliens started sweating. They bowed at Luken and Thavon. One of them whimpered in fear.

  Needing to stop this, she placed her hand on Luken’s arm and looked at the bowing aliens. “I believe what you meant to say is that I’m unique, wasn’t it? You wouldn’t want to insult Prince Luken’s mate, would you?” The last thing she wanted to do was be the center of a war. Her prince looked ready to kill the rude men.

  Both of the aliens shook their heads and the one that had insulted her held up all three of his arms in surrender.

  The one who hadn’t insulted her nodded his head eagerly. “The princess is correct. My friend didn’t mean any disrespect. He’s a little slow.” The man touched his own head and then twirled his finger in the air. “I only brought him with me because he is wonderful at picking out food our leader loves.” He bowed again. “Please accept my sincere apology, princess.” He straightened and all four of his eyes beseeched her.

  Keneese inclined her head in a way she hoped looked princessly. “He is forgiven, but he must be more careful what he says from now on. We won’t tolerate that behavior on this planet.” She’d learned long ago that people didn’t change without a good reason. A small threat usually worked well.

  The one that had offended her looked into her eyes. “Thank you, princess. I apologize for my behavior.”

  His friend glanced at Luken and Thavon. Tor grunted and shooed them away.

  Luken was slowly regaining his normally tan appearance.

  She looked at the males with her and quietly asked, “We don’t put up with that behavior, do we?”

  Thavon looked at his brother. “Not anymore. Some roughhousing goes on here at the market, mostly because of the visitors. That’s why we don’t like our females to come here often, and never alone.”

  “You handled that like a queen,” Tor said with pride in his tone.

  “Yes, it looks like you’ll make a great queen one day.” Thavon rubbed his thumb along outer edge of his lower lip. “The people of their planet aren’t strong or smart enough to go to war with us.”
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br />   “Let’s head to the vehicle. I’ve had about all of the market I can handle right now.” Luken started guiding her down the stone path.

  Shimmering, one-foot lengths of material caught Keneese’s attention. Letting her feet be her guide, she walked up to the open shop and touched a pretty red, glimmering hair tie. It would look great in her hair. She was about to look to Luken for money when the man working the shop just pulled it from the rack and handed it to her.

  “A beautiful hair tie for a beautiful princess.” The big male winked at her and then bowed.

  Luken growled and pushed her behind him. He was turning darker blue by the second. Fast as lightning, her prince swiped out his claws and scratched the man across the face. Four long gashes transformed the left side of the man’s face into a bloody mess.

  Keneese screamed and her hands started shaking, causing her to drop the hair tie. Luken snarled at the man. He turned and grabbed her hand. She was quickly surrounded and pulled away from the market. Tor and Thavon’s faces were grim masks.

  Her nerves going on high alert made her whole body tremble. She almost stumbled into Luken when he stopped at their hovercraft. She was hurried into the vehicle. Before she was good and settled, Tor started driving off.

  Pressing a shaky hand to her forehead, she began to think about how this incident could affect everyone. Prince Luken had just attacked a man for being nice to his mate. This wasn’t good.

  Keneese put her hand on Luken’s thigh and forced herself not to think about how strong his thighs were. She gazed up at him. “I believe you need to apologize to that man.” At his raised brow, she pressed her lips together. “You openly attacked a man for no good reason. On Earth, you’d go to jail for that. This is serious.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “You have to apologize. If Kalen could have been here, he’d agree with me.”

  Thavon swiveled his chair around and stared at her thoughtfully. “Luken did nothing wrong, princess.”

  Her eyebrows jumped up. Was he serious?

  Luken took her hand and kissed it. “This isn’t Earth, little one. I didn’t do anything wrong. On VisOrrenta we don’t apologize often and never when we aren’t wrong.”

  “The man was just being nice to me.” Can this glorified caveman not see that he’s wrong?

  “He was flirting with you.” Luken’s tone was cold.

  She could be cold too. Raising her chin, she glared at him. “Wasn’t scarring his face extreme?”

  “No. His friend will heal him. I realize this is hard for you to understand, and I’m sorry about that. We are starting to go through some major changes on VisOrrenta. More females are going to be here. It’s important for the men to know they can’t flirt with another man’s mate without getting clawed.” He kissed her hand again. His eyes scanned hers. “Do you understand, delicate princess?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t want to though. Why couldn’t people just get along without all the complications?

  Thavon nodded and swiveled back to face forward. She grinned up at Luken as best she could. His anger had been a scary thing to see. She didn’t want to see it again.

  Keneese thought back over her experiences and came to the conclusion that the alien thinking she was ugly wasn’t a threat, but the VisOrrentian flirting with her was. That made sense, to a point.

  Luken was right. This planet was about to go through a change. Now that plans for more females to be brought here were in action, the population was going to start growing. From today’s experience, it looked like it was going to take time for everyone to get the hang of it.

  Keneese didn’t know if she’d ever get used to the VisOrrentians aggressive nature. Luken put his arm around her and kissed her lips softly. She could easily fall in love with this side of him. As they rode, she sank into him and melted into his comforting embrace.

  Chapter Eight

  After spending a few productive days in her new home, Keneese had learned how to turn all of the household devices. She could put dirty clothes in one door of the machine and come back later, open a larger door and pull out fresh folded and hung clothes.

  Their cooking device was also a miracle. It was kept well stocked and all she had to do was tell it what she wanted and it mixed it and made it for her. No more burned food for her.

  The entertainment center was still a bit of a mystery. She’d get the hang of it soon enough, though. Their computers were faster than anything she’d ever seen. They had a lot of information on the planet. She’d seen too much information to remember it all. At least she could look it up at any time.

  Today she was going to see Alicka. The chiming of her door drew her attention. Zallion, one of Luken’s personal guards, was now assigned to her anytime she needed to go somewhere or for safety’s sake. He was a mature male who barely smiled or spoke. He wasn’t mean, he was just very serious.

  The guard nodded his head toward her. “You ready to leave, princess?”

  “Yes, thank you, Zallion.” She grinned as he looked around for danger while he guided her to the stone path that led to the palace. It was a beautiful day. Clear and sunny. It rained at least once every other night. Luken had told her it never rained during the day. What an awesome place. The regular night rains added greatly to the lushness of the planet.

  In a few minutes, they arrived at the palace. He led her to a courtyard near the back of stone building decorated sparingly with blue gemstones. A table was set with fruit and drinks. Alicka was looking out at the distance field of fruit trees. The mass of blue trees looked pretty.

  Alicka turned and smiled widely when she saw Keneese. “Hi, I’m Keneese. How have you been?”

  “I’m Alicka West. It’s so good to see a human face. I’m doing pretty good. How about you?” The brunette gestured toward the table. “Would you like a snack? The food is good here.”

  “Yes, the food is. I’m doing well. What’s been happening to you?” Keneese needed to know that Alicka was well. Otherwise, her training was going to kick in and she was going to fight for human rights.

  The brunette shrugged her shoulders. “Not a lot. I’ve learned some things about VisOrrenta, a few men have come by to meet me in hopes of being my…” Alicka pursed her lips. “Natural mate. That’s what they called it.” Her lips turned down. “I wasn’t overly popular on Earth, being short and plump. Looks like I’m not too popular here either. Not that I’m desperate for a man, mind you.”

  Keneese leaned forward and squeezed the nervous woman’s hand. “Nobody thinks you’re desperate. The men here seem very nice and gentlemanly.”

  “Yes, but I don’t understand why I’m here. I’m too short, plump and my clock is ticking loudly. I’ll be thirty in six months. If human males weren’t interested, what made Tor think a tall-ass VisOrrentian would want me? It’s one thing to be rejected on one planet, it’s downright painful to be rejected on two. If I ask to go home, do you think they’d take me? No, that may cause problems.”

  The sadness and desperation in Alicka’s voice was heartbreaking. “Give it time. They need us. If you don’t have a natural mate here, I’m sure one of them will take you as a chosen mate. You’re too pretty to go unnoticed. Keep in mind that they have to give your natural mate a chance to meet you before they can let a male chose you.”

  “What if I become a chosen mate to a man I’m not attracted too? To have children, they have sex, from what I understand. What if I don’t even like the man?” Alicka’s leg started shaking.

  Keneese looked around for Zallion. After catching his eye she waved him over. “Could you have Prince Kalen join us?”

  “I’ll call him right away, princess.” He walked a few feet away and made the call.

  “Help is on the way.” She diverted Alicka with talk of the plant-life on VisOrrenta for a couple of minutes. When she noticed the pretty brunette clutching her abdomen, she asked, “Are you okay? Does your stomach hurt?”

  Alicka looked down and eased the grip she had on her midsection. “I’ll be f
ine. I just think it’s the stress. What if I have to be returned? Will they short Earth a shipment of medicine? I can’t be the cause of someone dying.”

  A masculine voice drifted over to them. “We’d never short Earth on needed medicine.” Prince Kalen walked over to them. He took Keneese’s hands and growled softly as he touched his forehead to hers. He then nodded to Alicka and took a seat. “Why are you concerned about being sent home?” Kalen’s voice was soft and calm.

  Alicka stood and placed a hand on her heart and then bowed to Prince Kalen. Sitting back down, she waved her hands as she talked. “I’m too short and plump. I’m getting older as well. In a few months, I’ll be thirty. I’m not good enough to represent Earth.” Alicka’s leg started shaking again.

  Kalen pushed to his feet and went to Alicka, he knelt in the blue-green grass and placed his large hand on her leg. It stopped bouncing immediately. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Did Tor tell you why he picked you?”

  The cute brunette bit her lower lip. “He said because I passed the test and because his gut told him to.”

  The prince looked into Alicka’s bright blue eyes. “Tor’s gut has never failed him. You are here because you were meant to be here. As soon as you know more about our world, we’ll introduce you to more males. Give it time. Your mate is somewhere on this planet and he’s going to think you’re perfect.”

  Alicka’s eyes brightened. “You think so?” Hope filled her voice.

  “Yes, I do,” Kalen assured her in a tone that eased the last lines of worry from the pretty woman’s face.

  Kalen’s communicator beeped. He pushed a button on it and patted Alicka’s leg. “I have to go. Let me know if you ever need any help. I don’t want you worrying needlessly.”

  Alicka gave Kalen a shy smile. “Thanks for talking to me. I feel better.”

  He gave her a short nod. “Any time.” Kalen looked at Keneese. “It’s good to see you, princess.”

  “You, too. Thanks for coming so quickly.” She hadn’t been sure he’d show up at all. That he did endeared him to her.