N’Ashtar The Alien Prince
Thoherian Barbarians
Roxie Ray
Contents
The Beginning
1. N’Ashtar
2. Dana
3. N’Ashtar
4. Dana
5. N’Ashtar
6. Dana
7. N’Ashtar
8. Dana
9. N’Ashtar
10. Dana
11. N’Ashtar
12. Dana
13. N’Ashtar
14. Dana
15. N’Ashtar
16. Dana
17. N’Ashtar
18. Dana
19. N’Ashtar
20. Dana
21. N’Ashtar
22. Dana
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N’Ashtar The Alien Prince
The Beginning
Dana
I knew from experience it was never good to sit and mull over why you were in handcuffs. It didn’t get rid of the handcuffs, nor did it make you feel any better about them. No, instead, I needed to be thinking about escape plans. There I was, surrounded by my alien captors, and instead of trying to get away from them, my thoughts kept drifting to another alien. One a lot less appropriate.
I’d been kidnapped by the Caterri during a raid on my friends and the aliens that had rescued us. When I hadn’t been content sitting and letting the others defend me, I’d waded into the fray and been punished for it. It had been an interesting experience so far, though. The translator attached to my ear was still there, so I could understand much of what they said, even though they acted like I was stupid.
A Caterri yanked on the chain between my hands, making me stumble and curse. I hated them. I couldn’t get distracted. I couldn’t give myself a break from the emotional load of the situation and think of happier times. I especially couldn’t do that if the happy times were on this planet. We were stranded there, unintentionally, and the moment I could, I was going home. Hot, snarky, snake-like aliens notwithstanding.
Yet I couldn’t help but think about one in particular…
I sat near the fire, chewing on a piece of jerky and studying the aliens that had ‘rescued’ us. Hetta, our astrobotanist, was wrapped in a blanket next to one of them, our engineer, Erica, was still in a coma, watched over by one of the other aliens, and the nanotechnologist of our trip, Jackie, sat next to me chattering away. But I wasn’t paying attention to any of them, no matter how much I should have been. Jackie was almost certainly talking to me, whether or not I was listening.
No, my attention was on the snarky, chauvinistic asshole who apparently was the leader of this small tribe.
“Dana?” Jackie sounded hesitant, then reached out a hand and waved it in front of my face.
Right. Fellow humans. Needed to focus on them first. “Sorry,” I told her. “I’m just tired.”
Jackie gave me a skeptical look. “Are you sure you’re okay? You didn’t hurt your head or something, did you?” As the nanotechnologist, Jackie was the closest we had to a medical officer, since the nanobots we’d been injected with were responsible for healing whatever happened to us.
Not that anything was supposed to happen to us in the first place, because it wasn’t, but it wasn’t like that stopped the world from smacking us anyway.
“No, my head’s fine.” I flexed my ankle, the most injured part of me. I was still bruised all over, but somehow I had survived without any broken bones, just an ankle sprain. Between the wrap Jackie had put on it and the week or so it’d been since the crash, I could walk without too much pain. Not that I really had anywhere to walk with great urgency, since I wasn’t allowed to go back to our ship.
The thought made me scowl, and I glared at the N’Akron responsible. N’Ashtar was their infuriating leader, who, when we had first met, immediately asked to speak to a male.
Let’s just say that didn’t go over well. I’d never needed a guy to speak for me before, and I sure as hell didn’t need one now. Any ‘male’ who thought that could fuck right off. Between that and him dodging my questions about Thoheria and how long their people had been there and everything else, I was pretty much completely done. Throw in his reminders that he was surprised we’d survived so long without males and I was about to space him. Too bad we didn’t have a working spaceship.
Information was the most important currency, no matter what universe you were in, and N’Ashtar seemed uninterested in sharing any he held. Part of it could have been that I wasn’t asking the right questions, but I wasn’t the engineer. No, I was the diplomat, the daughter of a military family with a mother who had never been truly happy. If there was one thing my mother had instilled in me, it was that I didn’t need a man for anything. Even if I wanted kids, there were ways around that.
Yeah, my mom wasn’t really a ‘glass half full’ type of person.
I bit back a snort at the thought of them telling my parents where I was. Or where they’d lost me, rather. As far as I could tell, the Twelve hadn’t sent any signals back and we were still lost to wherever the ship had ‘exploded’. Then again, I still wasn’t the engineer, which was a good thing, because that was one job I had never wanted.
My gaze drifted to Erica, although I became aware Jackie was still chattering in the background. She seemed to be talking about the N’Akron wearing the sash, and her tone was easy and relaxed enough that I didn’t feel the need to pay attention to the words. Jackie had said that the nanobots were taking care of Erica, that the coma was deliberate and the fact she looked like she was sleeping was a good thing, but I still wasn’t used to all the technology thrust on us and would believe it when I saw it.
Nothing about this trip had turned out the way it was supposed to. We were supposed to be on a plush jungle planet, and instead, we were stuck on a dark, dirty, freezing ball of hell. The days were long and the cold moments longer, and that was so not in
