“Give me a break. I was a nurse un­til seven months ago, not a dancer.”

  Michaela dropped her drill sergeant at­ti­tude. “You’re do­ing very well, Jes­sica. Thanks for work­ing so hard to make this work.”

  Jes­sica re­turned her smile. “It’s been fun. I hope what­ever clan I end up with lives close to yours. I’d like to con­tinue bel­ly­danc­ing, even if it’s just to en­ter­tain my three spouses.”

  Her friend nod­ded. “I don’t want to lose you. You’re the clos­est thing I’ve had to a fam­ily since my par­ents died.”

  Michaela was leery about be­ing touched, hav­ing avoided close­ness with oth­ers all her life, but Jes­sica hugged her any­way. Af­ter a mo­ment’s hes­i­ta­tion, the younger woman re­turned the em­brace.

  “See you in an hour?” Michaela’s voice was husky with emo­tion, her eyes bright with tears.

  “I’ll be there,” Jes­sica whis­pered.

  * * * *

  Ko­rkla’s clan es­corted Michaela and Jes­sica to one of Pla­sius’ bet­ter eater­ies. It had out­door din­ing, and Jes­sica was glad de­spite the cooler tem­per­a­tures. Pla­sius’ sec­ond sun was set­ting, leav­ing the sky a deep pur­ple streaked with laven­der. Light­ing globes teth­ered to the din­ing ta­bles lent a soft glow over each set­ting. In the cen­ter of the stone-walled area a firepit crack­led, min­gling the sweet, musky aroma of scent­wood with mouth-wa­ter­ing smells of de­li­cious food.

  “The ser­vice here is good. You don’t have to wait long for your food,” Govi said, ush­er­ing the Earth­ers through the stone arch of the en­trance.

  “A smart busi­ness, con­sid­er­ing how the Plasians are,” the broad­shoul­dered Raxs­tad chuck­led, his pur­ple eyes look­ing over the out­door room. A few moans in­ter­rupted the hushed voices, in­di­cat­ing at least heavy pet­ting was go­ing on in the shad­owed cor­ners.

  Govi laughed softly. “If they have to wait too long, baser ap­petites take hold.” Sud­denly the hu­mor went out of his voice. “That’s not a good sign.”

  Jes­sica looked in the di­rec­tion of his stare and no­ticed a lone Kalquo­rian sit­ting at one of the ta­bles next to the firepit. He stared mood­ily into his drink, the an­gu­lar planes of his face ac­cen­tu­at­ing his an­gry ex­pres­sion.

  “Is that Prince Egilka?” she asked, know­ing it was.

  “He doesn’t look very happy,” Michaela said. She looked at the wor­ried clan sur­round­ing her. “Do you want to make sure he’s okay?”

  Ko­rkla fa­vored her with a re­lieved smile. “If you don’t mind. Thank you.”

  He led the group to Egilka’s ta­ble. A bot­tle of a rust-col­ored liq­uid sat be­fore the Imdiko prince, three-quar­ters empty. He glanced up at them as they came close and drained his glass. He put his glass down, and his too-bright eyes looked them over.

  “Hello Ko­rkla, Govi, Raxs­tad.” He looked at Michaela and Jes­sica, and his lip curled a lit­tle. His voice went harsh. “Both of them?”

  Ko­rkla col­ored. “Jes­sica is our chap­er­one this evening, my prince.”

  Michaela whis­pered to Jes­sica, “What do you think is wrong with him? Be­sides the drink­ing.”

  “Be­vau said he and Cla­jak had an ar­gu­ment,” Jes­sica whis­pered back.

  Egilka stared hard at them. “Ap­par­ently you’re not aware of the ex­cel­lence of Kalquo­rian hear­ing. What were you do­ing with Be­vau, Earther?”

  He said Earther as if it was an in­sult, and Jes­sica’s tem­per flashed bright. She snapped, “The bet­ter ques­tion is, what didn’t I do with him? For your in­for­ma­tion, he was quite happy with my com­pany. What­ever your is­sues, don’t take them out on me, Kalquo­rian.” She spit the word out with all the venom she could muster.

  Govi put a hand on her shoul­der as if to warn her. She re­sisted an urge to shake him off. His tone was sooth­ing. “Is there any­thing we can do to help you, my prince?”

  Egilka poured him­self an­other glass of what­ever he used to drown his sor­rows. “They took my fund­ing away. All of my re­search is as good as dead. Now I’m sup­posed to hap­pily hand over the fu­ture of our peo­ple to her—,” his bale­ful glare went back to Jes­sica, “—and those like her.”

  Jes­sica had reached her limit. She smiled sweetly at Egilka. Michaela, who knew her so well, breathed, “Oh shit.”

  “Prince Egilka?” Jes­sica purred, so an­gelic she could al­most feel the halo on top of her head, “Are all your kind ass­holes like you, with a few like Be­vau the ex­cep­tions to the rule?”

  His mouth dropped open, and he stared at her speech­less, his glass half­way to his mouth.

  Jes­sica turned to her wide-eyed friend. “Sorry Michaela, I’m not stick­ing around to be in­sulted by this gurluck. Have a nice din­ner.”

  She turned on her heel and stormed to the exit, her head held high. She wasn’t sure what a gurluck was; she just knew it was the worst in­sult Kalquo­ri­ans used. As she walked into the dark­en­ing night, she felt a stab of tri­umph. Let the high-and-mighty Imdiko prince stew over that one!

  “I hope I didn’t screw things up for Michaela,” she mut­tered to her­self. She ap­proached a kiosk where she could call for a shut­tle to trans­port her back to Is­rala’s home.

  “I wouldn’t worry. Ko­rkla’s clan seems to be quite en­am­ored with your friend.”

  Jes­sica gasped and spun around. Egilka loomed over her, and she stag­gered back. Los­ing her bal­ance, she fell.

  He caught her and dragged her to him­self. Pressed hard to his chest, she shoved against him. “Let me go!”

  The Imdiko prince laughed in her face, and she smelled the bit­ter­sweet aroma of drink on his breath. “Such a nasty tem­per to go with that nasty mouth of yours. I think you need tam­ing, girl.”

  “And I think you need a les­son in man­ners,” Jes­sica snarled back. “Les­son One: don’t in­sult peo­ple you know noth­ing about!”

  “I have a few lessons for you too,” Egilka grinned, hold­ing her wrig­gling body eas­ily. “I’m of a mind to know what it is my peo­ple find so ir­re­sistible about Earther women.”

  He tossed her over his shoul­der like a sack of pota­toes and walked into the line of trees that bor­dered the path. Jes­sica yelled and cursed, pum­mel­ing his back with her fists. Egilka took no no­tice of her strug­gles, cov­er­ing the ground with long, blur­ring strides un­til they were deep in the thicket of trees.

  “Your first les­son, my pretty lit­tle piece of fluff, will be treat­ing a prince with the re­spect he de­serves. You will learn not to call me filthy names.” Egilka swat­ted Jes­sica’s back­side with a hard hand. Heat pulsed from her flesh, and she felt the first stir­rings of arousal. Her body’s trai­tor­ous re­ac­tion made her an­grier.

  “I am not fluff, you self-im­por­tant piece of alien crap!” She reached up and yanked hard on his long braid.

  Egilka re­warded her with a hiss of pain and dumped her on the ground at his feet. Jes­sica kicked at his shins, un­mind­ful of her skirt rid­ing high up on her thighs. He jumped back to avoid her strike.

  “You are what­ever I choose to call you.” The glow of the first ris­ing moon shim­mered off the Imdiko’s fangs.

  Jes­sica jumped to her feet, her fists clenched. “And you are ex­actly what I called you at the café. I’ve known bums on the street with more re­gal bear­ing than you have!”

  Egilka blinked at her for a mo­ment as she stood be­fore him, tensed and ready to pound on him. Then he leaned against a tree and laughed at her. All his anger seemed to dis­si­pate in an in­stant, and Jes­sica stared at him, stunned by the abrupt change. What the hell was wrong with him?

  What­ever it was, she didn’t like be­ing made a fool of. It didn’t mat­ter how hand­some the bas­tard looked when he laughed ei­ther, Jes­sica told her­self. She picked up a stick and threw it at him.

  Egilka bat­ted it away and laughed harder. “What a treat you are,” he man­aged be­tween guf­faws. “Oh, my lit­tle Earther, you are adorable! Alone in the woods with a man twice your size and sev­eral times your strength and out of range of any help what­so­ever. Yet you rage on as if you could tear me to pieces with your anger alone!”

  Jes­sica looked around as the im­port of Egilka’s words struck her. In­deed they did seem to be deep in the dark woods with­out even the dim glow of the cap­i­tal city’s lights reach­ing them. Only the ris­ing moon fil­tered light through the branches over­head. Who knew how far the Imdiko prince had car­ried her with his Kalquo­rian quick­ness?

  The stab of fear couldn’t make all of her anger go away. “I’m glad you find me so amus­ing,” she grouched. “I sup­pose it’s bet­ter than be­ing an ob­ject of dis­gust.”

  “That tem­per of yours is some­thing,” the prince said, his laugh­ter eas­ing. “You re­mind me of Cla­jak. He can’t con­trol his mouth when he’s mad ei­ther.”

  “I am noth­ing like Cla­jak!” Jes­sica flared. “He’s an im­ma­ture brat.”

  “Per­haps.” Egilka looked her over, his slanted eyes lin­ger­ing as if with his gaze alone he could feel her body. “You’re cer­tainly love­lier than he is.”

  “Don’t try to get on my good side. I no longer have one where you’re con­cerned.” Jes­sica couldn’t deny the flut­ter­ing in her stom­ach at his eval­u­at­ing stare how­ever. Damn, the man was riv­et­ing with that in­tense look. Per­haps he didn’t pos­sess Be­vau’s gor­geous per­fec­tion or Cla­jak’s grace­ful charm, but Egilka had his own claim on mas­cu­line beauty.

  “I don’t care if you like me, Earther.” Egilka pushed away from the tree and glided to­wards her. “I just want a taste of what you’ve given my clan­mates.”

  “You don’t de­serve me.” Jes­sica backed away, her foot­ing un­sure on the soft, spongy ground.

  Egilka kept com­ing, his fangs peek­ing out from be­neath his mus­tache. His eyes were sharp. “I’ll have you any­way. There’s also the mat­ter of pun­ish­ing you for call­ing me a gurluck. Yes,” he hissed, his eyes trav­el­ing up and down Jes­sica’s body as he edged closer. “You most cer­tainly must be brought to task for that.”

  “I thought you didn’t like Earth­ers that way.” Jes­sica looked around for an es­cape route, but it was grow­ing darker, and only the dim shapes of trees showed them­selves. If she screamed for help, would any­one hear her?

  “I don’t want your kind di­lut­ing my gene pool, but to warm my body with … well, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. Not bad at all.”

  I can’t out­run him. If I fight, he might get re­ally nasty. Jes­sica tried to ig­nore the flut­ter of de­sire in her belly and stopped mov­ing away. “If I give you what you want, will you prom­ise not to hurt me?”

  Egilka halted his pur­suit. He looked at her, his eyes glint­ing in the moon­light that streamed through the trees. “I never had any in­ten­tion of caus­ing you dam­age. In fact, if you don’t en­joy be­ing with me, I won’t get any­thing out of it ei­ther.” He drifted closer and let his fin­ger­tips stroke her hair. The threat went out of the Imdiko’s pos­ture and he sighed heav­ily. “It’s not that I dis­like you per­son­ally, you know. You are pretty and you’ve made me laugh when it’s the last thing I feel like do­ing.”

  Jes­sica didn’t know what to say to that. She also feared speak­ing would tell the prince how much she liked his gen­tle touch.

  He went on. “I am drunk and in de­spair, lit­tle Earther. All I’ve worked for is gone, an en­tire life­time of re­search tossed away by those with the power to do so. I want some­thing warm and sweet to con­sole my­self with. Is that such a ter­ri­ble thing?”

  His voice was heavy in the dark­ness, and de­spite her over­all dis­like of the man, Jes­sica felt a twinge of sym­pa­thy. She shoved the sen­ti­ment away. “Let’s be clear on one thing: I don’t want this.”

  Egilka took a deep breath. “I smell oth­er­wise. Your body is aroused, even if your emo­tions aren’t.”

  “I’m giv­ing my­self to you to avoid in­jury. I don’t like let­ting you have me.” Jes­sica hoped he couldn’t hear the lie in her words.

  Egilka sighed again. “Then that will serve well enough for your pun­ish­ment. Still, I in­sist you en­joy this so I’ll bite you.”

  “Just don’t leave me out here lost af­ter­ward, okay?”

  “I’ll get you back to your quar­ters safely,” the prince agreed.

  Ne­go­ti­a­tions com­plete, Jes­sica sub­mit­ted as his mouth closed over the side of her neck. His fangs slid into her skin. She moaned at the twin pin­pricks of pain.

  Egilka with­drew mo­ments later, hold­ing her sway­ing body up­right. His long fin­gers ran over her lips. “Soft,” he breathed.

  Jes­sica closed her eyes, en­joy­ing the but­ter­fly sen­sa­tion of such a del­i­cate touch. Swept up in the bite’s eu­pho­ria, she ran her hands over his torso. The Imdiko was the tallest of the clan, his mus­cles leaner than the other two princes. She liked the sin­u­ous feel of him.

  He bent to­wards her, and she lifted her mouth to his. His lips stroked over hers, and his mus­tache and goa­tee were lux­u­ri­ant against her face, not bristly as she’d ex­pected.

  Egilka kissed her with slow ten­der­ness, as if sa­vor­ing a fine wine. As his lips moved over hers, Jes­sica’s lower body tight­ened in an­tic­i­pa­tion. His hands cupped the back of her head. She wrapped her arms around him, feel­ing the hard mus­cles of his back. She traced the line of his spine with her fin­ger­tips as his hands drifted down her neck, shoul­ders, and back. His touch slid over the round­ness of her but­tocks and pulled her even closer to him­self.

  Egilka’s tongue slipped into her mouth. He sa­vored her so thor­oughly she was left gasp­ing. She’d never ex­pected gen­tle­ness from one of his kind.

  Egilka stepped back and tugged at her blouse, un­tuck­ing it from her skirt. Jes­sica raised her arms over her head, and he lifted the fab­ric from her. She shiv­ered, the brisk air chill­ing her.

  “I’ll warm you, lit­tle sweet,” his voice soothed.

  Jes­sica sensed move­ment in the dark, heard small sounds as he un­dressed. His arms came around her to wrap her in his em­brace, and she snug­gled into the heat of his bare skin. His penises were hard against their bel­lies, sand­wiched be­tween their bod­ies.

  Egilka re­turned to sip­ping kisses from her lips while his hands bus­ied them­selves with her bra clasp. He set her breasts free, and the soft mounds flat­tened against the steel of his chest.

  Jes­sica’s hands roamed ev­ery­where she could reach, seek­ing to de­vour him with touch alone. Egilka’s body was a de­light, his hot skin smooth and corded with ropey mus­cle. She couldn’t get enough of feel­ing his hard body against hers.

  He kissed his way from her lips down her chin and throat. He paused to lick the hol­low be­tween her col­lar­bones, where her pulse thumped hard. He con­tin­ued down un­til he buried his face be­tween her breasts. He stayed there for a mo­ment, rub­bing his face against her soft­est flesh.

  Egilka took one nip­ple be­tween his lips and stroked his tongue over the erect but­ton. The light touch sent a vi­o­lent spasm through Jes­sica’s body, and she jerked in re­sponse. The Imdiko prince chuck­led and held her tighter still. He con­tin­ued his slow tast­ing, let­ting his tongue run over her are­ola be­fore en­gulf­ing the ea­ger flesh in his mouth.

  He suck­led with ex­cru­ci­at­ing slow­ness, leav­ing Jes­sica moan­ing low in her throat. Her sex pumped honey to soak her panties, and her scent rose in the night air. Egilka growled but con­tin­ued to maul her in the same me­thod­i­cal fash­ion.

  Only when he’d ex­pe­ri­enced the one breast to his com­plete sat­is­fac­tion did he move to the other. Once more, he took his time, as if he’d never know the soft­ness of a woman again. He was like a con­demned man and Jes­sica was his last meal.

  As he fed at her breast, Jes­sica buried her hands in his bound hair, run­ning her fin­gers against his scalp. Un­like the smooth, sleek feel of his clan­mates’ hair, Egilka’s was coarse, snarling around her fin­gers as if in­tent on cap­tur­ing her. His hair was as rough as his hands and mouth were gen­tle. She closed her hands around his skull and pulled him closer, mash­ing his face against her chest. He re­sponded by suck­ing her

  pli­ant breast deep into his mouth. Jes­sica’s head fell back, and she sighed her plea­sure to the three moons hang­ing over the trees.

  Egilka went to his knees, kiss­ing his way down her taut ab­domen. When he reached the waist­band of her skirt, he tugged it down. His face went to the front of her panties, and she heard him in­hale. He moaned against her pu­bic mound, and she shiv­ered against the vi­bra­tion. His mouth closed over the soaked fab­ric, suck­ing on it and the flesh it cov­ered. Jes­sica grit­ted her teeth to keep from scream­ing with plea­sure.

  Egilka lifted one of her legs, bend­ing her knee over his shoul­der. It opened and tilted her sex for­ward for his hun­gry mouth, and Jes­sica had a mo­ment when she thought the leg hold­ing her up would buckle. She moaned non­stop as he scraped his teeth against the fab­ric bar­rier to her se­cret flesh. Jes­sica wanted him to taste her naked sex with near des­per­a­tion, but she also wanted to pro­long the sweet­ness of his slow love­mak­ing.

  The prince licked, sucked, and nib­bled, his groans as loud as hers. At last he slipped her leg off his shoul­der to slide her panties down her legs. The fab­ric left wet trails down the in­side of her thighs.

  Egilka guided Jes­sica down to lie on the soft ground. “Poor lit­tle girl,” he whis­pered as his hands ran over her goose­bumped skin. “It’s too cold for you out here, and there was so much I wanted to do to you.”

  He cov­ered her with his body. She snug­gled against him, let­ting his body heat calm the shiv­ers she’d barely no­ticed in the de­light of his plea­sur­ing. Egilka was bet­ter than a blan­ket. His skin ra­di­ated warmth. His cocks lay heavy against her belly, and she parted her thighs.