Chapter 6
He couldn't sleep.
Some nights were like that. They were so close to the desert in this place but trapped in the urban landscape of the metropolitan city. His heart longed for the vast open distances of his own planet.
There was no question at home. Royalty, however minor, however many absurd steps from the throne, served in the military.
He'd gone in with Pan, the two of them only a year apart, but once in, Pan changed.
His anger was quicker, his temper fraying daily, and his size increased with the training he adapted to.
It was just bad luck that Earth came to the attention of one of the exploratory fleets before either of them ended their tour of duty.
There was nothing simple about Vampyren military. The commanders were stone killers. The enlisted were disposable. Those who went in as commanders like Pan and Alek were hated by those who couldn't. And always it was the training against the day the Lucian would return to the Vampyren home world.
The Lucian were savages little more than animals and planet killers to boot. They overpopulated their own home worlds and then went in search of others to conquer. When they could, they simply followed the explorers of other worlds, taking their prizes.
They would eventually make their way to Earth if they hadn't already, following in the footsteps of the Vampyren.
They had the technology, some of it better than Vampyren tech, but they chose to follow rather than lead.
They'd wait, and make sure they could conquer the race on the planets where the Vampyren were simply trying their luck.
There were some rumors they were already there on Earth but Alek thought that was wrong.
If the Lucian were on Earth, there'd already be humans dying.
Savages, he thought again, shifting in the bed so the sheet would stop rubbing against his cock.
He was naked and hard, and the girl from the condo kept flashing back into his mind, the one with the long dark hair and the nearly Vampyren cheekbones.
The one with a mouth he wanted to do things to.
Kiss. Hit. Thrust his cock into. He didn't know.
He couldn't sleep.
When the Lucian came, the fight would rage. When the Lucian came, there was a chance that both the secondary invaders and the humans would understand that the number of Vampyren on the planet was much lower than the claims they had made as they overtook the governments on this world.
Dangerously low.
So by the time that happened, they had to have increased their numbers, to have forced into service men like they'd taken today. Men whose families they could hold to force those men into compliance. Men who would increase the numbers of Vampyren soldiers.
He shifted restlessly and the sheet caressed him again.
He stood fast. Vampyren did not self satisfy. He knew where she was. He had no reason not to go and take her. Just because he had admired her spirit was no reason not to have her.
It was all the more reason to break that spirit and take her as his.
Alek shoved himself out of the bed and padded naked to the door of his suite.
There was no reason to dress for his journey through the halls.
The hotel was wholly Vampyren held and safe enough and his physique was perfect, an object of honor among his kind.
They wore clothes for protection from a sun they were unaccustomed to and to protect themselves in battle and because once outside it was more comfortable.
But they didn't have shame in their bodies.
His erection led the way. Every step that led him closer to her he seemed to grow harder. Guards at their posts nodded to him, or greeted him by his rank. Alek responded in kind.
At the door to the harem he stopped. They weren't assigned quarters but he knew where the new girls had been left. Humans tended to stay places they felt safe and to feel safe in places where nothing had happened to them yet.
If he didn't find her in the first room, he'd send someone to go looking.
Stepping into the suite, he began to raise his body temperature.
When Vampyren males were aroused, they gave off a hormonal signature.
For females of their own race, it was a siren call that was hard to ignore.
Depending on the female's cycle, it could signal breeding and endanger the male, or cause her to want nothing more than the unbridled passion the male was offering.
For human women, the effect was something like narcotics mixed with amphetamines mixed with aphrodisiacs that didn't actually exist. Human females exposed to Vampyren males in their rampant state were overcome by lust.
He didn't think she'd hit him with a lamp this time.
The suite smelled of sleep. The soft sound of breathing came from the rooms. He assumed the girl he was looking for – Mindy, she'd said, he thought – would be with her friend. Humans seemed to mistakenly believe there was safety in numbers.
If he found them together, he could take them together. They'd be powerless to resist him. No Vampyren soldier would turn down such bounty, but he felt a small resistance to the idea.
He wanted Mindy by herself. The thought made him hesitate for just a second before he continued into the suite.
Well? Why shouldn't he want her alone? More time to concentrate on the things he wanted to do. He was a prince, however far removed from the throne, and he was a general, with men at his command. He could have whatever he wanted.
He strode into the first room and found two girls sleeping in the bed, but neither the one he was looking for. They'd doubled up in here, even though he'd left only Mindy and Candy there.
He'd probably have them punished for that. There had to be controls, even in the strangeness of the harem.
Into the other room, then and he knew he'd found her before he saw her. In the thin light of the city coming in the un-curtained windows he saw her dark hair fanned out across the pillow, her lips parted in sleep, her long lashes brushing her cheekbones.
Next to her in the bed, her back turned, the sheets clutched against her chest, was the blond girl, the one called Candy. She snored lightly, her eyes tightly closed as if she forced herself to stay asleep.
Humans sometimes believed they were safer when asleep. There was no safe anymore, not for them.
He moved soundlessly to the bed, bent, and put one hand over Mindy's mouth even as he coiled a length of her hair around his other fist.