Get ahold of yourself, you damn Dasnek fool. If the empress seizes the ship, she’ll find Morph aboard. And we’ll be more screwed than the time I skipped my mother’s royal birthday to flirt in the alien sex district.
But I couldn’t help myself. I leaned forward in the chair, closer to Lise.
Floral. Salt. Soap.
Warmness began to rise inside me, an aphrodisiac chemical I produced when I was attracted by something. It seeped from my pores, making my skin begin to look sleek with a pale blue-green excretion. It was oily, like damp satin to the touch.
It made for wonderful lubrication.
“What is that?” The human girl who was making my pulse race shifted to look behind her. She glanced at Morph and Evik, but they were both looking at me.
Evik clicked sharply, gnashing and reprimanding me for my loss of control.
“Hypocrite,” I choked out around a wave of euphoria as more of the aphrodisiac added to the sheen across my body, “you smell like fear right now.”
“Alder,” Morph warned.
But it was too late. I’d grown hard in my pants, my dick lengthening to such an extent that it had no rival on Old Earth. It pressed against the thick material imprisoning it, throbbing and wanting to escape.
Lise, confusion across her face, unclipped her restraints and stood up. She staggered towards me, her eyes growing wide as she realized that she didn’t have complete control over her body right now.
I tried to stop it, tried to swallow down the desire that caused my powers to rise. Humans weren’t used to the abilities of the fae. Those came from breeding with the natives of our colony planet.
“What the hell are you doing to me?” The human girl, with her nebula eyes and golden hair flowing wildly around her body, lifted by the waves of erotic stimulation emanating from me, stuttered out the question. She was visibly trying to keep from walking closer to me. “Stop it. Whatever it is.”
“He’s fae,” Morpheus said.
It is what his people do when they lose control, Evik added.
“Alder, we’re facing the Bufo Empress and you’re losing control.” Morph stalked towards me, his wings fluttering in a metallic rainbow. There was only one way to pull me out of it when I fell this far down the sexual cliff.
My much larger—and stronger, though I hated to admit it—companion punched me in the face.
And I passed out.
When I came to, I was shivering and the chemical across my skin had dried into a crusty layer that itched like hell.
I was no longer sitting in one of the crew auxiliary seats on the bridge either. I had slipped to the floor somehow.
“Son of a…” I looked around me and found Lise, Morph, and Evik all prone against the metal floor unconscious. “Blue, Blue do you read me?” I coughed out the AI’s name, realizing my lungs felt strange and so did my throat. Coated with something foul, something that made it hard to draw in a full breath.
I heard a beep and crackle. “I’m here, Alder Regulus. Your vitals are normal, as are Lise’s and your men. The scout ship engaged, boring into our hull and flooding the ship with anesthetic gas. You are only awake, I believe, because of your unique biological makeup.”
“Where is the ship now, Blue?” I tried to sit up, but my head spun and I blinked away stars.
“We are inside the cargo hold of the scout ship, Alder Regulus.”
“Headed where?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“The Bufo Alvarius planet.”
My hearts beat wildly, and my dual-channel pulse quickened. A hiss drew my attention overhead, to a hole. A fresh wave of noxious fog was flooding the cabin, and even with my resistance to it, I was overwhelmed.
The world went dark.
7
Evik
I came out of my deep torpor state slowly, only gradually realizing that I could not move any of my appendages. Even my antennae drooped against the ground.
All my companions lay where they had fallen as the ship shuddered, metal grinding against metal.
Within moments, guards dressed in Imperial uniforms moved onto the bridge, their oddly flexible armor allowing for the way they jumped, their strong back limbs bending and pushing off to send them hopping across the ground. Several of them surrounded us, leaning in to peer at us closely and using their forelimbs to poke at us.
I fought to move when one of the soldiers rolled me onto my back, but nothing happened. Not even my scent gland reflected my sudden fear at having my underside exposed. Whatever they’d hit us with was strong enough to incapacitate me totally.
One of them spoke in a deep croak, my translation unit rendering it as, “Take the traitor to Her Imperial Highness. The female goes to the medical facility for testing as breeding stock. The others go to the slave pens.”
I shuddered at the thought. The Bufo Alvarius Empress’s slave auctions were notorious throughout the known universe. We’d be better off dead than being sold off as slaves.
Of course, there was a good chance Morpheus would end up dead. And if the empress learned that Alder was the wanted fae prince...well, I knew my egg sac and chitin sharing warriors as one mate would rather die than face the fate that awaited him back home.
Several of the guards slid their forearms under my carapace to lift me. Even their coordinated hops jarred me.
If I could reach you with my mandibles, I’d bite those overly long legs off.
I managed to catch glimpses of my companions being carried in a similar manner on either side of me as we were taken off Lise’s ship and into the hold that held it. Apparently, we had made planetside, because the guards continued off the ship and then onto ground transportation. I watched as well as I could until the guards carrying Morpheus and Lise peeled away from our main group, presumably to load them into different carriers.
By the time we reached the slave
