ROMANCE: MY ALIEN KING: Scifi Alien Invasion Abduction Contemporary Romance (Paranormal Fantasy BBW Alien Contact Anthologies & Collections Book 1) (7 page)

              He grinned and sparkled his eyes at her.  "You see?  We are different—yet not so different."

              "For someone who's not used to being around Earth people," she said, "you don't seem to have any trouble dancing like us.  You waltz better than a lot of Earth men."

              His grin widened.  "May I tell you a secret which only we will know?"

              "What?"

              "Before I left Sarma, I consulted with some of the diplomatic corps that was sent to our planet to establish Earth's embassy there.  I had them teach me things of the graces and niceties of your people.  One thing that I learned was how to dance with an Earth woman."

              Danielle arched her eyebrows at hearing this.  "You had an Earth dance instructor?"

              "Yes."

              "A woman?"

              "Of course."

              She looked off, and Dagin saw an expression come over her face as if she were looking at something far beyond the far side of Saturn.  "You are quiet again," he said.  "Why?"

              "It's nothing," Danielle answered softly.

              "
Nothing
does not make a woman lose her voice and take her eyes from the man in her company.  It is something."

              Still averting her eyes from his, she asked, "What was she like—the woman who taught you to dance?"

              "She was pleasant, charming.  She was very patient.  She had to be patient, as I had much to learn about moving with a partner instead of an opponent."

              At this, Danielle was quiet again.  Dagin began to grow mildly vexed, still not grasping the reason.  It seemed as if she were retreating far away from him and withdrawing into herself at once.  He ventured, "Is there something else you wish to ask?"

              Danielle shook her head.  "No, it's really nothing."  But in her mind was an image of a beautiful woman diplomat, not very different from the dark woman Dagin had so unexpectedly passed in the ballroom to get to Danielle.  In her imagination the woman who taught Dagin to dance was tall and willowy, like a long-stemmed flower.  And Dagin danced her around the royal throne room of the planet Sarma—and off to his princely bedchamber, where their clothes floated to the floor and Dagin spread her across his bed, lay his perfect princely body atop her, and passionately penetrated her long into the night.  Danielle's heart sighed at what her mind saw.

              She could not go on sitting with him, with that image whirling around in her head. Making herself face him again, Danielle asked, "Why did you decide to leave Sarma?  Just to travel?"

              Dagin sensed that there was still something that Danielle was not asking, but he addressed the question at hand.  "Partly.  Earth and its people have presented me with an opportunity.  You see, I am a Prince of Sarma, but I am not the Crown Prince.  The line of succession from my father passes not to me, but to my elder brother Dantar.  'Tis Dantar who now ascends to the throne.  As his brother, I am still prince, but I shall never be king save that something should befall him.  Remaining on Sarma, I would be a member of the Royal Court, and I would have duties and obligations—but as this is now a time of peace on our planet, there would be little for me to do but drill our warriors and act royally.  The tedium of it all would be more than I could bear.  Therefore did I choose instead to take my leave of the home planet and explore the greater galaxy and the things that it has to offer, to experience other worlds and other beings that I would never know if I were simply to remain in the Royal Court.  Do you not agree that life is not meant to be allowed to pass without living it?"

              Danielle answered wistfully, "Yes... I guess I do."

              Now he just had to know:  "Why do you seem so sad when you say that?"

              "I guess it's because before I let my parents talk me into coming here, that's pretty much what I was doing—letting life go by."

              "It is because of
him,
is it not?  The one who accosted you on the receiving line, the one who upset you—he was your lover.  He did not treat you well."

              At this, Danielle gave a rueful little laugh.  "Oh, he treated me just fine.  He was kind and sweet and passionate and... and he treated me like you would treat a princess.  And I guess that's what I was to him, a princess who could give him what he wanted.  Braden treated me like he wanted me, but... he really wanted something
from
me."

              "He did not truly love you."

              "He loved what he thought I could give him.  What he really wanted in a lover... he couldn't get from me."

              "There was another," Dagin said knowingly.

              Danielle almost snapped at him, "Yes, there was another!  And she... she wasn't like me."

              Now they were getting somewhere.  "What was she like?" Dagin asked.

              A sour expression came over Danielle.  "You really want to know?  Really?"

              "I would not ask if I did not wish to know," he said.

              She fixed him with a look as if her eyes were two red-hot branding irons.  An edge came into her voice, an edge of hurt and sorrow and despair—and anger, long denied but long and keenly felt.  "She was like the women that you must be used to!  She was thin.  She wasn't built like some kind of... of...
moon! 
She was what men like you always want!  The women on Sarma—they're warriors, aren't they?  They must all be these gladiator women, built for battle, all muscle!  Not like me!  I let myself believe I was what Braden really wanted because for someone like me, a man like Braden comes around one time or never!  I talked myself into thinking he really wanted me because I didn't want it to be never.  I wanted someone like him—and I got what was coming to me."

              Stung by her words and the way she spoke them, Dagin sighed and frowned and sat back in his seat.  This was something for which he was not prepared.  He asked, "If men such as me never desire women such as you, why then did I ask you to dance?  And why then did I ask you for your company after the dance?"

              "Maybe it's like you said, because I'm something you'd never know if you stayed on Sarma.  Maybe I'm part of this great exploration of yours."

              Dagin frowned more deeply.  "This does not reflect well on you or on me.  You make great assumptions, Danielle.  You assume that there are no women such as you in a race of warriors.  You assume that a man such as I can see nothing to desire in a woman with a body that is not hard and tight.  You assume that there is nothing truly to desire about yourself.  These things, were I to be less diplomatic, I would call prejudices.  Are you truly so prejudiced?"

              With frowning eyes, Danielle replied, "Just answer me this: the woman who taught you to dance—was she like me?  And did you only dance with her?"

              After a careful, considered pause, Dagin answered, "She was not like you.  She was as elegant as you, but slender.  And no, I did not only dance with her."

              Danielle stood up with all the dignity she could find amid what she was feeling at the moment and said, "Well, thank you for the 'elegant' part anyway.  And thank you for asking me to join you.  I think I'll excuse myself now."

              Dagin rose with her, asking, "Why?  After a dance and a few moments of talk, do you know all there is to know of me?  To see me as nothing but my noble station and the shape of my body is no better than what your Braden did, seeing you as nothing but your wealth and your status and what you could do to advance his place.  I thought you were a lady, Danielle Dryden.  But I see that you are a most prejudiced young woman."

              And now she snapped completely.  Her face contorted into a reddened mask that reflected the brokenness of her heart.  One hand clenched into a fist, the other pointed an angry finger right at the face of the startled prince.  She half-shouted, "Don't you
dare
talk to me about prejudice!  Not until you've had to spend your whole life unwanted, or being looked through like you weren't there, or being looked around for someone thinner who was standing behind you!  Or listening to the things men call you and the way they laugh and sneer about your body when they think you can't hear them—or just as bad, when other women do it!  Or knowing that the only way someone that you want will want you back is if you have enough money and can give him things, or you have a doctor take his laser and slice away all the pounds that the men you want don't like!  My whole life has been one big prejudice, Your Highness.  And one big worthless fantasy.  Now if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to reality."

              Indignant, Dagin shook his head at her.  "Very well then," he said.  "Return as you like to that which you think is real.  But your reality is a very small, sad thing.  And take this with you: I think you are too good to be so sad and your sadness is not a life.  And take one thing more as well..."

              What followed was the single most shocking moment of Danielle Dryden's life.  Dagin of Sarma crossed the distance between them with a single stride of his mighty legs, grabbed her, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her with an ardor that made her feel as if she were orbiting Saturn on her own.  Eventually he released her from the kiss, took his arms from her, and took one step away.  She stood facing him, wide-eyed, feeling as if she would fall like an avalanche before him.

              Like a conquering warrior, Dagin said, "There you are, Danielle Dryden.  I, a prince with wealth and station of my own, who have no need of your fortune and want nothing from you but to know who you are and how it would be to share with you the sweetest thing that two beings can give one another, salute you and leave you to the reality that you know, which you think is all there is in your very small universe.  I wish you a good life, whatever there may be of it."

              He spun on his heel and turned to leave.  And from behind him he heard the unmistakable and poignant sound of barely suppressed sobbing.  In spite of his indignation at being held responsible for the callousness of every desirable man on Earth and Mars, that sound was a weight about his ankles that brought him to a stop.  With his back still turned to her, Dagin heard her voice come through tears:  "Y-your Highness?"

              The prince turned around to meet Danielle's weeping gaze and asked, "Do you not wish to address me as something other than 'Your Highness' at this moment?"

              She sobbed again, "Da... Dagin?"

              The sound of her using his name and not his title was enough to make him rush back to her and gather up her fullness in his arms again.  Putting her arms around him in kind, she buried her head on his broad shoulder and cried.  Through her weeping, more voice tumbled out:  "I thought I was done with crying."

              Softly, Dagin said, "You also thought that you were done with him.  You did not need him to come to you again, bringing his false love.  It is not the size of the body that matters.  It is the size of the heart."

              He let her cry it out.  At length, he took her head from his shoulder and looked tenderly into her eyes.  "I wish you to come with me now," he said.

              "Where?"

              "I have a yacht docked here at the resort.  We shall be alone there.  My attendants will know where we are, but they will not disturb us unless I send for them.  Come with me.  We shall sail round the beautiful rings of Saturn—and I shall take you to my bed.  We will lie together and we will share
zazansa
and
gliarra.
"

              "What's that?" she asked.

              "My
zazansa
and your
gliarra
are exactly what you think they are," he replied.  He kissed her, sweetly.  "Now, to my yacht and my bed."

              Danielle left the observation deck with Prince Dagin, hand in hand.

_______________

              Danielle had seen Sarmian ships in the interstellar newsfeed, but they were all war ships and envoy vessels.  Dagin's private yacht was different.  The other vessels were all formidable-looking things, built either to be intimidating or to project an air of majesty.  They had spines and ridges and stalks, protuberances that reminded Danielle of creatures of the sea that had somehow taken to space.  The pleasure craft that belonged to the prince was a shiny thing of graceful, swooping lines and fins.  It looked like a work of art.  It frankly looked like sex.  It reminded her of Dagin himself.

              Once they were through the airlock of the ship, they slipped into magnetic boots that enabled them to walk the floor in zero gravity. The boots were bulky and cumbersome compared to their elegant party attire, but neither Danielle nor the Prince cared.  The interior of the craft was as luxurious as the exterior was sensuous.  The cockpit was a sunken area in front, facing out to the forward viewport, and reminded Danielle of theatre seating.  He helped her into the plush and comfortable seat next to the pilot's seat and took his own position.  The navigation array was a thing of lights that looked like an abstract sculpture.  Dagin operated it with casual and practiced ease.  The craft slipped out of its mooring along one arc of Titan II and glided out into space, following the flow of glittering ice particles in their orbit around the gaseous planet below.