His Human Prisoner (Zandian Masters 2)

Almost.

Chapter One

Rok glared at Lamira, the human female who looked just like the one who’d stolen his ship and left him stranded on the abandoned planet Pifany eight months ago. It had taken him and his crew three weeks and a lot of sweet-talking to find a lift back to civilization. Then it had taken another six weeks of the most dangerous smuggling work—piloting a borrowed ship loaded with weapons into a war-torn planet of Jesel—to earn enough to buy a new airship.

In fact, he still hadn’t recovered financially from the setback.

So to find a human who claimed to be Lily’s sister peering from behind the so-called Zandian prince annoyed the veck out of him.

“Where is your vecking sister?”

Prince Zander drew himself up. “You will speak with respect to my mate.”

Mate, huh? That gave him pause. The slip of a human was dressed in finery, but she wore a collar around her neck like a slave. Granted, the collar was embedded with enough Zandian crystal to buy him five new airships.

The crystal was the only reason he’d come to the Zandian prince’s pod. His body required energetic recharge through crystal-amplified sunlight, and Zandian crystal was impossible to come by anywhere else.

For one half-moment, he considered picking up that little human—with the collar, of course—and making a break for it to his ship. He had no problem punishing one female for her sister’s misdeeds, and this one was certainly as pretty as Lily, although his body didn’t have the magnetic attraction he’d experienced the moment he laid eyes on her. That’s how the little witch had tricked him.

Too bad Zander had security guards everywhere and, unlike him, they were around the crystals all the time, getting constant recharge. So while he had a lifetime of street fighting behind him, their strength probably outmatched his.

He met the darkened stare of the male who called himself prince. Prince of Nothing. Zandia had been occupied by the Finn for over twenty solar cycles.

The male glaring back did not look as weak or pampered as he’d imagined the royal nothing would be. In fact, he looked every inch the warrior—eyes alert with an assessing, intelligent gaze, hand on the hilt of a sword, not a laser gun.

He had to give grudging points for that. Maybe Zander wasn’t just a pretty boy living out his life on his country’s remaining wealth.

Rok cleared his throat. “Forgive me, Your Highness.” He didn’t quite keep the mocking tone from his words.

The prince’s eyes narrowed and then, before he had a chance to react, Rok found himself shoved up against the wall, the sheathed blade of the sword pressing down on his windpipe. “My

mate asked you a question. How do you know Lily?”

He didn’t fight back, knowing it would be useless in the prince’s own pod, with his guards everywhere. When Zander let up enough on the sword for him to speak, he croaked, “She stole my ship!”

The prince released him, surprise flitting over his features.

“So she is free!” Lily’s sister bounced on her heels, looking excited. “Where? When?”

“Eight months ago, leaving Ocretia’s capital. She and two dozen escaped slaves overtook my crew and forced us to land and disembark, so if you know where she is now, I’d really love to get my ship back.”

Lamira licked her lips. The memory of her sister’s lush mouth closing around his cock flashed through Rok’s mind.

Yes, that was part of why he was so vecking mad. He’d known it was the oldest trick in the book and he’d still let Lily tempt him. His cock had taken the lead, and he had lost everything he’d owned. What had it been about that pretty little human slave that had tempted him?

Mierna had said they had some sort of connection. What in the stars could it be?

“I’ve never met her, actually.”

That surprised him.

“She was taken from our parents when she was just three, before I was born. I’ve spent my whole life hoping to meet her.”

Zander extended his arm, fist raised at a ninety degree angle in the traditional Zandian greeting. “I am Zander.”

Something painful tightened in his chest. He hadn’t seen the gesture since he’d left Zandia, but he remembered its use. Remembered his father, a palace laborer, using it when he greeted other beings. He crooked his arm into the same shape and touched fists with Zander.

“Rok.”