The Pirate Prince (24 page)

“Ah!” a woman screamed. “Lys-s-a!”

“Get them out!” another ordered. “Quinn, you’d better keep your brothers out of here!”

“Yes, Tori,” Quinn hollered. “I love you!”

“I love you, too,” was the woman’s answer. “Now quit talking. I have to concentrate.”

“Sam?” Falke called.

“Yeah, yeah, I love you, too!” Sam said.

“How is she?” Falke demanded.

“Everything’s fine,” Sam answered from the other side. “Leave us alone. Go away!”

“Jarek’s here,” Falke yelled back. “And he’s got a pregnant wife with him. She’s as tiny as you are!”

“What?” the words was yelled in unison, in a chorus of female voices.

“I said, Jarek is here and he brought a pregnant wife with him and she’s as tiny as Sam—” Falke tried to repeat.

“We heard you the first time,” Sam yelled. “Blessed Stars, here it comes! You can do it, Jas. Tell her not to go anywhere. Jarek, you’d better not take your wife anywhere.

We want to meet her.”

“See!” Ulyssa pushed the men hard before going into the room once more. “Stay out.” Then glancing at Mei, she waved and then ran back into the room.

Mei wanted to laugh at how easily the women ordered about their husbands and the men seemed to

listen to them quite well. They trailed back into the room, still looking worried. Jarek came to her side, holding her close as all four big men stared at the door, waiting.

Suddenly Reid burst from the room. “Girls!”

“What?” the brothers said in unison.

“Twin girls!” Reid proclaimed, holding a swaddled baby in the crook of each arm.

“I swear it on our dead father. They’re girls. I made Tori check them to make sure nothing fell off. It’s definite. They’re girls.”

Mei tried not to choke on her laughter. Reid said it with such seriousness.

“They’re lovely,” Mei told him.

“Yeah,” Reid agreed, completely enamored with his children, “they are, aren’t they?”

“Um, I think now would be the best time to remind you of what you said to Falke the day Payton was born,” Quinn said. “You’re going to have your work cut out for you.

There will be a lot of boys—”

He never finished the words. Reid paled, groaning loudly as he pulled his daughters closer. “You’re right. We’re going to have to tighten up security around here. And I’ll have to find some female maids, perhaps from father’s old harem brides. Oh, and they definitely aren’t going to be leaving the palace.” To his daughters, he cooed, “That’s right, girls. Daddy’s not going to let you out of his sight, ever.”

“Reid, you will do no such thing!” Ulyssa came out of the room followed by two women. She came forward, cooing to the baby, “Don’t you worry sweetheart, Aunt Lyssa will make sure your mean old daddy doesn’t keep you locked in a tower.” “A tower,” Reid repeated. “Hey, you know, that’s not a bad idea. Kirill, I’ll need the palace architects to get started on a tower right away.” “But, you live in the outlands,” Kirill said, arching a brow. “Oh, right. Well, in that case, I’ll need the architects to come out to the forest and build one there. And I’ll need Falke to start training female guards.”

Ulyssa rolled her eyes. “Reid, you are not hiring a bunch of female guards. In case you forgot, this is a male dominated planet. You’re not going to find women that are equipped to fight.”

“Eunuchs?” he suggested hopefully.

“Girls, you are so lucky you have us,” Ulyssa said to the babies. Then, seeing Mei, she smiled. “You must be… Welcome to the family…ah?” “This is my wife, Mei,” Jarek said. “Mei, this is Ulyssa, Tori and Sam.”Tori wore all black and had long dark hair and dark eyes. Sam was petite with short, choppy blond hair. A streak of purple slashed through the bangs. The lock fell forward over her face, partially hiding her round violet eyes. She wore pants and a tank shirt with cross laces like all of the men. A blue tattoo wound around her upper arm. “And she’s pregnant,” Falke offered again.

Sam grinned up at her giant of a husband. “You’re just a big softy, aren’t you, baby?”

“Congratulations,” Tori said. “We are so happy to meet you!” Princess Tori’s sentiments were repeated by the others. The women instantly rushed forward in a scene very much like the one their husbands had

put on when they found out.

“You have to tell us everything. How did you and Jarek meet? Where did you come from? Where can I get a skirt like that? It’s gorgeous!” Ulyssa exclaimed, taking Mei by the arm.

“You have to meet Jasmine,” Tori said, taking her by the other arm. The women started leading her toward the door. “You can tell us all about how you and Jarek met and got together. And we’ll tell you all about how we found our husbands. We’ll be as close as sisters in no time!”

Mei looked over her shoulder at Jarek, only to see the petite ex-Captain Sam confronting him.

“You’ve had her long enough, Jarek,” Sam said, placing her hand on his chest.

“It’s our turn. We’re going to make sure you didn’t act like your brothers during the courtship. Trust me, if we find out you’ve been a royal ass, we’ll be having a chat later.”

“But,” Jarek tried to protest. He looked powerlessly at Mei. She gave him a smile.

“Nope,” Sam interrupted, holding up her hand and refusing to let him speak.

“I didn’t—” he started.

“Ah, no, not a word,” she said, stepping away. The petite woman was little bigger than Mei was, but she had a presence that could command a room. “We’ll talk later.”

Then as an afterthought as she joined the others at the door, she said to him, “And you’d better have taken care of my crew. I miss that lot of misfits.”

“They’re in the hall, all safe and sound,” Jarek assured her.

“They better be or it’s your head,” Sam said.

“It’s a good thing you got Rick back, isn’t itqin ài de?” Mei winked mischievously at her husband and he tried to shake his head to stop her.

“What? What happened to my Rick?” Sam demanded. Then motioning into the bedroom, she said,

“Never mind. Come inside and meet Jasmine and you can tell us everything. We want all the details.”

The men laughed.

“I’m glad it’s you and not me,” Reid said. “You are in for it now, brother.” “Yeah,” Quinn agreed.

“Trust me, when those women are mad…whoa. I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Give me a niece,” Kirill demanded, crossing over to his brother. Before being dragged into the room to meet Princess Jasmine, Mei saw all five giant Var princes hovering over two very tiny little girls. Jarek looked at her, smiling brightly, his eyes so happy.

“I love you,fea ,” he mouthed.

Mei grinned, trying to answer, but her new friends swept her away too fast. Her heart filled with the love of Jarek’s family. It was in the very air around them.

The End

To learn more about Michelle M Pillow’s other titles or the futuristic series, please visit her website (

www.michellepillow.com).

The futuristic series continues with Princess Zhang Mei’s family in Zhang Dynasty: Seduction of the Phoenix Coming in Print and Ebook March from New Concepts Publishing!

Zhang Dynasty: Seduction of thePhoenix ,

Book One

Prince Zhang Jin is a man raised in honor and tradition, so it is a great surprise when he is compelled to claim a stranger as his bride who has neither. Francesca La Rosa is hardly a match fit for a prince.

Though beautiful, she is a thief with one thing on her mind—stealing the sacred Jade Phoenix of his people. But the mystery doesn’t end there. With the aid of the spirits of his ancestors he must discover who this woman is, why she would destroy the Zhang Empire and most of all, if she could ever return the love that is growing in his heart.

* * * *

And now an Author Recommended Read by fellow New Concepts Publishing Author Mandy M Roth (www.mandyroth.com), Project Exorcism: Paranormal Payload

Excerpt by Mandy M. Roth

Now Available from NCP

Lorelei Janelle plopped behind the control panel in the central observation deck to see what vessel had sparked the warning probe’s alert system. She didn’t like the idea of intruders in their vicinity, but it only happened every now and then so she couldn’t complain. As much as she disliked worrying about outsiders, she did enjoy the company. Her nights had been filled by erotic dreams of a man too good to be true and her days were a rude awakening to the harshness of her world. Her nocturnal lover hadn’t come to her in two weeks and her fear that her mind had finally given up generating him was great. It would, of course, wait until she’d mated mentally with him to pull the plug. “Unit One, this is Captain Vasil of the Alpha Brig Three requesting permission to enter atmosphere and dock. Emergency commission code has been initiated,” a deep, familiar voice said in her earpiece.

Her inner thighs damped and for one brief moment, her breath caught in her throat. Who was this man that sounded so very much like her secret lover? How had he elicited that shocking response from her body with nothing more than his words? Fearing he was another Dsendiyun, she sighed. Lorelei was beginning to think the sex starved planet they came from encouraged them to ‘get lost’ as close to her people as possible. It wasn’t like they got any sort of sexual stimulation while they were here. Not unless they considered being chained together good fun.

Some men do.

Lorelei glanced up at the glass ceiling. Seeing no sign of a vessel nearby, she double checked her radar to be sure she hadn’t imagined the entire thing. There was no way she could have received a hail signal yet have the radar detect nothing. The electromagnetic waves that a vessel put out in a non-cloaked state would have shown up before. None did.

Having had many unauthorized vessels attempt to dock in her lifetime, Lorelei knew exactly how to handle them. She tweaked the computer’s controls, demanding a more precise reading. Varying the frequency of the waves being sent off, she hoped to initiate a reflection of some sort, allowing the radar system to accurately pinpoint the vessel’s location. It didn’t work. Tweaking the calibrations even more, Lorelei set the control tower’s sensors to ultra in hopes of catching a pattern of bounce backs consisting of the direct opposite waves than they were sending out. If the outsiders thought they were going to get away with active cancellation they were wrong. Dead wrong. Much to her surprise, nothing showed up on radar. Having never had one elude her, Lorelei tried another approach. She shifted to the Commission based recognition systems they’d installed many years ago after a sanctified vessel crashed into their red sea. Instantly, a blip appeared on the screen. Zeroing in on it, she brought it up closer and began to run a remote diagnostic on it. The main fuel tank had a crack so large that she knew they’d lost the majority of their liquid fuel as soon as it happened. Their life support systems were dangerously close to giving out and their alternate source of power seemed to be having issues as well.

Who would be stupid enough to enter our atmosphere with that amount of damage? As soon as the question formed in her head, Lorelei knew the answer. The Dsendiyuns. Once located on radar, they were easy to spot with their flashy crafts and telltale too strong pick up lines. They would certainly have announced themselves to her by now. The tiny bit of thrill they got from trying to make her work at pinpointing their point of entry would have long worn off and she’d have gotten it right within seconds.

Not to mention their ability to stay cloaked for long intervals within the planet’s atmosphere was almost non-existent. No. Who or whatever approached them couldn’t be the notorious romancers from Dsendiyun.

Disappointment shot through Lorelei, catching her by surprise. It had been a long time since she’d been touched by a man her mind did not create. The two weeks that she’d gone without Sevan coming to her nightly felt like an eternity. She missed the feel of his strong arms wrapped around her, the feel of him buried deep within her and knowledge that even though she’d invented him, he loved her. Her body was reaching the point where the desire to reproduce was almost on her. The only problem being, it had transcended her normal boundaries and infected her mind with a make-believe man whom she mated with in a dream.

It was as absurd as it sounded and although she truly did love the idea of Sevan, she couldn’t live her life married to a fantasy. Waking up and crying every morning would get her nowhere and she knew it.

Irritated, Lorelei stared at the radar, watching the blip approach. “No way would a Commission vessel venture into uncharted territory. The ship’s probably stolen and I bet it was those damn traders again.

Probably want to try to nab off with more of our artifacts or to try to sell us more household cleaning equipment. I will not have my people’s legacy sold to the highest bidder, nor do I need the latest and greatest debris remover. Do I look like a domestic goddess? No. I swear I will shoot them on sight if they attempt to take one thing.” She wagged her brows and smiled. “If they’ve come to take me to bed, I’ll reconsider. Mmm, bloody hell I’m horny.”

Lorelei groaned as her nipples hardened. As much as she wanted to sneak away and ‘handle’ her

current problem, she didn’t. Thinking about sex was the worst thing she could do. It only seemed to intensify her craving for it—for Sevan. And there truly were only so many times she could masturbate before her fingers pruned and her wrist hurt.

Sadly enough, she’d hit that state long ago.

“Excuse me, Miss, but I am no trader, nor am I a thief. Not to sound shallow here but I tend not to agree to fuck someone until I’ve had a look at them. As shocking as it sounds, not all men stick their dick in whatever moves. Plus, as overly romantic as this sounds, I’m the last guy you want. I’m holding out for a dream, honey, and to date no woman can stack up to her.” He cleared his throat and the sound wreaked havoc on Lorelei’s body.

She wanted desperately to come back with a witty comment but the tingling in her pussy fogged her mind enough that she didn’t know or care how to respond to his comments. All she knew was that his voice was divine and so familiar that she was positive she knew him somehow.