Alien Prince Protector (Space Marine Hospital Book 3), page 1
Alien Prince Protector
HARLYN MOXIE
KDL PUBLISHING
Copyright © 2021 by HARLYN MOXIE
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to places, events, aliens or people are coincidental.
ISBN: 978-0-473-58042-1
Cover by Harlyn Moxie.
Editing awesomeness by total legend: Sara Dawn Johnson.
Proofreading prowess by heroic supporter: Ma.
Also by HARLYN MOXIE
What else can I read in the Moxie-verse?
SPACE MARINE HOSPITAL SERIES
* * *
*This series has a PREQUEL*
ALIEN LOGIC is Summer and Xinnick’s story!
This book is available to anyone on my mailing list. You can get it FREE when you join the list HERE
* * *
GLITCH OF THE HEART
(Maeve & Xintari)
* * *
HYBRID RELATIONSHIP
(Kathryn & Jerry… & Baxter)
* * *
ALIEN PRINCE PROTECTOR
(Emery & Kam)
BIG GREEN BANG
(Luana & Gav)
I love that you’re reading this book!
But if you didn’t get this copy from Amazon, then we’ve both been swindled by pirates!
* * *
Book piracy is bad!
It can lead to digital viruses, hacker attacks and author starvation.
Hungry authors are sad and produce shitty books.
* * *
Please kick book pirates in the balls!!
* * *
Protect yourself and make sure you’re getting an author’s best work by sourcing their books through legitimate channels.
Thanks for supporting authors! X
Contents
1. Kam
2. Emery
3. Kam
4. Emery
5. Kam
6. Emery
7. Kam
8. Emery
9. Kam
10. Emery
11. Kam
12. Emery
13. Kam
14. Emery
15. Kam
16. Emery
17. Kam
18. Emery
19. Kam
20. Emery
21. Kam
22. Emery
23. Kam
24. Emery
25. Kam
26. Emery
27. Kam
28. Emery
29. Kam
30. Emery
31. Kam
32. Emery
33. Kam
34. Emery
35. Kam
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR…
BIG GREEN BANG
ABOUT HARLYN MOXIE
Also by HARLYN MOXIE
ALIEN PRINCE PROTECTOR
I’ll keep his royal secrets… for a price.
* * *
When a missing alien prince falls into my lap, wounded, hunted, and desperate for sanctuary, I do what any black market queen of trades would do — I begin planning my mansion on easy street.
* * *
But if this impressive alien warrior doesn’t live long enough to claim his throne, the hefty reward he’s promising in return for my help will die with him — along with any real chance I have at saving my kid brother from a living hell.
* * *
Protecting His Highness, Kam of Frage, had better be a worth all the trouble he’s causing — because if I have to trade every one of my hard-earned blackmail bribes and favors just to keep him alive…
I’m going to kill him!
1
Kam
Some things can’t be properly understood until you’ve experienced them for yourself.
Space is colder than cold.
It makes freezing feel like a cozy fire in a misty winter swamp.
The extra-large suit I’d stolen before slipping overboard doesn’t fit right. It clings when it should have a roomy gap between my skin and the outermost layer. I should be provided with a comfortable, insulating buffer against the harshest climates.
I am not.
Every stitch of engineered fabric is stretched taut across my skin. Either extra-large means something very different from what I thought it did, or everyone aboard the hospital ship Nightingale is a dang midget.
As I work my way slowly along the outside of the ship’s massive hull, I get plenty of time to experience the joys of a subzero stroll.
I’m not a fan.
And the uncomfortable journey to the ship’s underside is made all the worse when every awkward step I make is hindered by an inability to keep myself from going off course due to excessive trembling as my body tries to shiver itself warm. I’m literally shaking in my dang space boots, and every quaking step threatens to dislodge the suction mechanism on their soles.
I glance over my shoulder, checking for signs of pursuit.
The cold might not be entirely to blame for the issue. My uncontrollable shivering could also be a result of the injuries I’ve sustained, which I believe a medic described as “catastrophic.”
It’s not often I’d believe that sort of diagnosis if it’s coming from a puny, soft-bellied human, but knowing my threshold for injury rather intimately, I can’t disagree with his assessment — and if I think about that too hard, my vision gets blurry. Blurrier.
Pushing the pain from my mind, I focus on taking one more step toward my destination. One more step forward, and not floundering about like some tidal creature when my shaky legs have no gravity to limit their unbidden drive to remain wayward.
I’m not used to running away, but there’s danger afoot, and I’m easy prey right now.
So dang easy.
I need help.
One might wonder: what would cause a wounded soldier to leave a setting in which he’d receive the medical assistance he desperately needs — and for a survival-focused Fragen like me, there is only one possible reason to avoid that scenario…
It would’ve been more dangerous to my health if I’d stayed.
My people have evolved over eons, and our skills of self-preservation are indisputably the best in the universe. They’ve had to be when even our own planet takes every opportunity to kill us.
I was raised in the harshest of environments, and my survival instincts are honed to perfection. I know what I need to stay alive, and right now it’s an unauthorized spacewalk.
I need the cold.
It’s doing a fine job of slowing the bleeding. I believe it’s actually frozen the blood that was pooling in my boots, which is keeping the swelling under control and supporting the broken ankle that’s now helpfully numb — allowing me to continue walking on it.
I force my feet forward. After all of the training I’ve been through, I have no doubt that my system will keep me alive while I get where I need to go.
A hot-blooded Prince of Frage is a specialist in the art of survival — or he dies before he can obtain the title. The trials and tribulations forced upon me throughout childhood have brought forth a certain level of invincibility I can be proud of. Much hope comes of being able to tell myself that I’m going to be fine when there is very little evidence to actually back that up.
It’ll take more than extensive tissue damage, blood loss, and mutinous betrayal on the battlefield to keep me down.
Feigning death and then dragging myself toward the med-evac shuttles when they arrived for the other wounded, I’d boarded one destined for the Nightingale, knowing it held my best chance at staying alive.
Rumor has it that this support vessel of the Intergalactic Alliance has a black-market trader with an excellent reputation for delivering obscure requests… and I’m about to ask for something so difficult to pull off that I can only hope the Goddess of Good Fortune will hear my prayers and prove the rumors true.
Finally approaching the stern of the ship’s underbelly, I avoid the outer sensors to access the garbage disposal hatch. My frozen gloved fingers grip the outer handle and test it.
Locked tight.
There’s no way I’ll get in unless I’m let in.
I lean toward the nearest porthole and rest my visor against the hardened glass as I peer through. It’s dark inside, but having exceptional night vision can do little for me when the room is empty.
The ice crystals rimming my vision are starting to close in, and I brush at my visor to maintain a line of sight. Pressing my freezing lips inward to try and warm them, I consider my options.
I test the handle on the outer hatch again, but my strength is waning. My chest barely expands as I attempt a deep, calming breath. I’ll need to conserve oxygen and focus my remaining energy on keeping my organs warm enough to function. My heart is beating too fast from having to pump a pitiful blood supply around my compromised system. If my hypothermic limits are breached, my heart will slow irreversibly, along with the flow of my blood. It’ll freeze — crystalizing in my veins like billions of tiny daggers…
It’s already happening in my feet, and I shudder to think what that frozen tide will feel like when it travels upwards to my cock.
I thump on the hatch.
“Come on, Trader! Check your dang access points! Every hour — that’s what I heard. Don’t tell me I’ve just missed you. I can’t afford to wait another dang minute!”
Movement in the darkness catches my eye, and as I watch, a small human female pushes a cleaning cart into the room. She spins it in a wide circle as she holds her other hand to her ear and sways her hips as if some invisible lover is treating her to a slow and sensual time. Her eyes appear relaxed and closed, but her mouth opens and closes as if she’s yelling.
I quickly check the door behind her to see if she’s being pursued, but as the lights flicker on and she abandons her trolley of wares to twirl and roll her body seductively, I realize that she’s not yelling but singing. Loudly.
Straining my ears to their limits, I catch a few off-key notes and cringe.
She should stick to dancing. I reckon she could make herself a tidy profit entertaining males. If my cock wasn’t about to freeze off, it’d be mightily impressed by her moves.
I glance over my shoulder but see no evidence of any smuggler vessels awaiting the trader as I do. When I turn back to the door behind the dancing girl again, no criminal mastermind appears to greet me, and the girl’s dancing behavior is far too flamboyant and cavalier for someone who’s expecting an audience.
My timing is off.
Either the cleaning girl doesn’t know she’s in danger of the trader discovering her in his territory, or she’s not in danger of being found by him — because he’s not coming…
I’ve missed my opportunity for trade. Probably by mere minutes. If someone doesn’t let me inside right now, I’m going to die out here, stuck to the ship’s ass like a perverted icicle as I watch this tiny dancer.
She is my only hope of surviving.
I watch her a moment longer, weighing up the risks, but I’m all out of options.
Banging on the hatch, I then wave at her through the porthole.
She keeps dancing. Either she hasn’t seen me, or she’s ignoring me.
Either way, my anger lends extra force to the thump I land on the side of the ship. It’s hard enough to dent one of the shields, and the flashing alert that sets off inside her room is finally enough to get her attention.
Brushing at her ear, she takes a step closer. Her round eyes stare at me through the porthole before they narrow into a squint.
She won’t be able to see inside my reflective visor, so I’m not sure why she’d bother trying.
She raises her wrist, taps a few times on her infoband, and the warning lights around her stop flashing. Slowly — purposely — she folds her arms and tilts her head at me.
My gloved fingers point toward the garbage hatch.
“Let me in!”
Her nose wrinkles a little as her mouth hitches up at one side. Then she shakes her head.
I nod mine and then make the human gesture for praying.
She shrugs as if she doesn’t understand, but her shrewd gaze is locked on me. She knows exactly what I’m asking.
I steeple my hands again, then point to myself and make a choking gesture at my throat.
The small woman steps closer until she’s as close to me as the ship will let us get. She gestures up and down my person and then lifts one of her shoulders. I take that to mean I’m worth nothing to her.
I lift my hand in front of my face and rub my gloved thumb in a circle against the tips of my other fingers.
Money.
Her eyes sparkle, and I nod.
She doesn’t have to know that I don’t have any cash on me just now. I’ll see that she gets paid eventually… when I can feel my dang face.
The dancing cleaner lady gives me a firm nod and then points at the hatch on her side.
Oh, thank Goddess!
This girl’s about to get the biggest hug of her life!
2
Emery
The cheek of some people!
Showing up to my door while I’m on break?
I keep trading hours for a reason, dammit! If this clown says one word about my dancing, I’ll let the vacuum pressure suck him straight back out the garbage chute.
My palm hits the button to seal the outer door once he’s stepped inside the trash incinerator unit, and I wait for the pressures to equalize. Slipping the taser from my utility belt, I ready the charge.
It’s pretty much only garbage that ever moves through this airlock, and it only makes sense for a girl to be prepared for such.
I hit the door release and it gushes open with a host of frigid air as a spacewalker too large to be human comes stumbling through the door.
“Oh, thank Goddess! Thank you!”
Goddess? Must be a fucking Fragen.
His big arms are wide and they’re threatening to close around me. I squeal as the cold of his suit burns my arm when I fend him off, then I jam my taser where his balls should be and send him a high-voltage message about proper entry etiquette.
He cries out and crumples to the floor in a heap as he spasms.
Once he’s stopped twitching and has the ability to moan more coherently, I stand over him.
“Don’t fucking touch me or I’ll kill you.”
For a moment, he doesn’t move, and then his gloved hands rush to grapple with his helmet clasps. Once he’s released it, he shoves it aside and takes a massive breath as if he’s short on oxygen.
While he’s distracted, gulping down air like a fish out of water, I take the opportunity to get a better look at him.
He looks as if he’s been in the wars.
Literally.
His dark golden-white hair has been singed black in places, and judging from the charring, the swelling, and blood smears all over his face, he’s come straight from battle.
Looking more than a little dazed, he glances around and soon collects himself enough to glare at me with the most penetrating set of eyes I’ve ever seen. For a moment, it feels as if he’s seeing inside my soul, but then he blinks and shakes his head as if there’s something rattling around in there.
Since Fragens have such a rapid evolutionary cycle, the way they look often depends on their inherited genetics and the environments in which they were raised. This guy looks as if he’s survived all sorts of shit. His eyes are those of a predator who hunts by day and night, and his thin, vertical pupils expand and contract into the green-rimmed gold of his irises as he focuses them on me again.
“What did you do that for?” he demands in a hostile tone before he spies the ready taser I’ve re-targeted at his crotch. His gloved hands rush to cover the area. “Please don’t.”
“Then don’t fucking touch me.”
He frowns, and his slitted pupils expand until the dark centers fill so much of his eyes they’re turned almost fully black. The look changes him from deadly predator to… some kind of kitten trying to be cute.
Leaving one hand to guard his balls, he takes the other to his ear and jiggles it against the side of his head.
“I think you fried my translator,” he says in a booming voice before rapidly massaging his ear again. “Say something?” he asks, still talking as if I’m deaf.
