X. Also Known As Xyib*eepthxnin

 

 

 

I MADE MY second trip to the planet Earth on my own. No warriors to watch my back. No nosy relatives keeping tabs on my every move. Just me, a wormhole, and my sweet new Lex model XXXRAWR shuttle rocketing through the space-time continuum to end up in 2018, Earth.

I’d decided to outsource for my future mate, traveling across the universes because, to be completely fucking honest, Zenithian chicks were flat-out scary. And from what I’d studied of American culture—music, history, and TV readily available due to our superior know-how—Earth babes were completely docile.

In fact Earth Girls Are Easy set the marker for my conquest of human maidens.

Also, I was considering the possibility of taking over the planet and putting the human race under my thumb. Just because.

For I was Xyib*eepthxnin, the King of Zenithia in the Sharonite Galaxy. But for the purposes of my sojourn to Earth, I was simply called X because humans couldn’t pronounce that shit.

My goal was to bag a hot breeder-worthy Cali babe. Hence landing in the 90210 zip code.

Holed up in The Beverly Hills Hotel, I feasted on prime rib, tanked back gallons of Herredeura tequila, and flicked through channels—shaking my head at the paltry human technology that amounted to Siri, Sirius, and Satellite TV—searching for a way to discover my new queen.

Despite my royal status—or perhaps because of it—loneliness had become a constant companion during my very long life. As the king of an entire race, I was held separate from all others. The females I fucked always sought some special favor. They might’ve liked my cock, but they liked my plentiful coffers even more. I couldn’t trust Zenithian babes to show me true emotion when they were too busy kissing up to me.

Just another reason to seek a human mate, right?

****

I am the king. Looking for my queen. A female who’s smart, subservient, breedworthy.

Within seconds of setting up my Tinder profile complete with a photo of me in full warrior gear—torso bare beneath a hammered metal chestplate, leather kilt dropping to my overly muscular thighs—I was pinged with notifications of nearby hookups.

Not a moment too soon either. Earth bored me. Too many blondes. Buffering when I trawled websites. Vehicles that didn’t travel at the speed of light. And everything tasted like chicken. Give me a big roast of tazek and a tankard of dark ale with a big-assed woman perched on my cock, and I’d be happy.

At least I’d come to one conclusion. I wouldn’t be trying to take over the planet anytime in the near or far future. Because yawn.

I set up a series of dates over the next twenty-four hours, eager to find my match then get back to Zenithia.

The first candidate met me at an upscale café, but at first I was unsure she was the female whose profile matched with mine. Then the girl squeaked and waggled her fingers at me.

She bopped forward, wide vacant eyes rising up, up, up as I stood from the little iron chair.

As an alien, I stood seven foot-and-then-some tall. Built like a brick shithouse was the local term I’d heard tossed around in my presence, and I made no attempt to conceal my somewhat exotic appearance. Zenithians looked mostly humanoid—just bigger, stronger, with certain special abilities, and skin markings like tattoos that evolved over time.

We were nothing like the lizard-looking freakshows from the rival planet Skeer. The power-hungry reptilians could’ve been Sleestaks straight out of Land of the Lost. For real.

When the girl blew a pink bubble of gum then smacked it back between her glossy red lips, I rolled my eyes. The deep green of my irises probably flipping to golden topaz and back again.

“O-em-geee! X?”

I nodded curtly, wondering about the validity of this Tinder thing.

I’d lied about my age out of necessity, but apparently I wasn’t the only one. This chick Brittney was ripe . . . ripe for a teen role on the CW maybe.

“You said you were twenty-five.” Accusation rumbled through my voice.

Brittney plopped down onto a seat. “That’s my older sister’s photo on my profile.”

She gave a giggle and a hair twirl.

“So you’re exactly how old?”

“I just turned like eighteen?”

I blew out an exasperated breath she probably didn’t even notice. She was too busy bouncing in her seat like she was high on a huge dose of nycane powder—the most powerful narcotic on Zenithia.

“You’re so freakin’ hawt.” Brittney smacked her gum ferociously.

The perky blonde who was barely legal had clearly never met an intergalactic king before. I commanded armies, ran an entire planet, and my treasuries ran over with the finest riches in the universe.

“And you’re really too young.” Too ditzy, too annoying.

“Are you sure though? Because we could totes be a power couple.” Leaning forward across the table, she made sure to drop a huge amount of cleavage in my vision.

I only felt revulsion.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Brittney didn’t give me a chance to say no. “Ummm. I kinda wanna be like famous for being famous? And I think with our looks and you being a king and everything we could defs do that.”

That interminable day, Brittney was only the first in a long line of completely unsuitable queen wannabes.

Each and every woman was closer to a girl than anything even remotely resembling royal material. Sure, I wanted someone malleable, but fuck my ancient life.

Goddamn bleached blondes.

Fake boobs to go with their fake smiles and shallow answers to simple questions.

All I could do was grit my teeth, glad my fangs didn’t punch out of my gums, and mental-fucking-facepalm with each subsequent mediocre offering.

Seemed the Tinder bimbos had taken the subservient thing too seriously. It was like Invasion of the Body Snatchers up in here—mashed up with the Stepford Wives. I had nothing to do with the genesis of either movie, by the way.

Then came Desiree. Her name had captivated me as well as her beautiful cocoa-colored skin. But she turned up wearing some kind of glitzy costume complete with a gaudy cape and a big sparkly D on her chest.

“My cozplay name is Destiny.” She pushed her cape over her shoulders then stood with her hands posed on her hips. “So are you here for Comic Con too?”

I snorted. “Not likely.”

“But you were dressed up on your profile, right? I thought you were going for Thor.”

I frowned. “Don’t I look more like Loki?”

She tilted her head, squinted her eyes. “Maybe his head on Thor’s body?”

Oh fuck me. This one was completely bonkers.

Still standing in front of me, she plucked a phone from somewhere within her tight-fitting outfit. “Do you want to pose with me for a selfie? Destiny has a huge following on Twitter. And I’ve already got a handle picked out for our first kid: @DestinysChild!”

“Enough!” I snarled, the fangs I usually held in check ripping from my throbbing gums.

“Holy shit!” Destiny immediately clicked her camera at me. “That is so cool. Forget about Thor. Let’s make you into a vampire for Comic Con.”

My frown even fiercer, I glared down at her. “Vampire? That’s an insult to my race. I am the king of Zenithia!”

I’d been fucking catfished not once, not twice, but so many times I’d never live it down if word got back to my planet.

And I was tempted to open up the wormhole right then and there, jet straight back to Zenithia.

The final straw came with Phyllis. Her profile picture showed a creamy-skinned, auburn-haired, twenty-nine-year-old beauty.

The Phyllis who showed up at the bar had to be in her seventies at least. She teetered over to me on high heels with an animal stole of questionable origins slung around her bony shoulders.

She embellished her wrinkly features with bright blue makeup on her eyes and two tawdry pink spots painted on her cheeks.

“X.” She lifted a frail hand up to me like she already thought she was a queen.

“Phyllis.” I sighed, at the end of my patience.

Not only was she way too fucking long in the tooth, she was a total lush, I quickly discovered. The scent of alcohol wafting off her nearly overpowered a disgusting mothball-rose fragrance.

Before I could just get up and leave, she ordered three martinis. All for her.

“Soooo, handsome, after these drinks how about you take me back to your place?” But she was so sloshed the words slurred around her mouth—lips painted outside the lines in garish red—like her tongue had come loose.

My flesh shivered when she reached across to drag scrawny fingers over the back of my hand. Shivered, not in a good way. I wasn’t taking Phyllis back to my hotel, and no way in hell was I taking the old tart back to Zenithia.

With Phyllis leaning sideways and slurping on her drinks, I slammed a wad of cash on the bar. The old gal probably wouldn’t even notice I was gone.

What a total waste, and I still needed potential babes to weed out.

Or try to deep throat me.

Huffing out a choice Zenithian curse, I shoved off my stool, shoved my arms into my suit jacket, and stalked from the bar.

So-called advanced civilization . . . and dating app bullshit.

****

Jaw clenched, I stood on the sidewalk outside the bar, big booted feet planted wide.

Anger still zinged through me.

Anger echoed by a low feminine growl in my vicinity.

There, on the side of the busy road, a busty woman with kinky red-blonde hair sucker-punched a middle-aged man in the stomach.

“I said I’m not a goddamn pickpocket!” she screeched.

“You stole my wallet, princess.” The balding man wheezed from her wicked hit.

Princess? Surely that’s a sign.

She spat near his feet. “Screw you and your AmEx.”

“I should call the cops on you.” The windbag slowly straightened but shook his head when she raced toward a screaming-red Ducati parked close by.

The curvy woman slinked fast, unaware of the immediate effect she had on me. I’d caught sight of a small gap between her two top teeth. She had freckles sprinkling her nose and cheeks. Her mane of hair a shock of color so much like the suns reflected across the Idris Sea at dusk.

An unmistakable bolt of arousal replaced the anger from my day spent with drone-women.

“You. Stop!” I ordered.

The woman swiveled her head, fingers gripping the handlebars of her bike. Eyes the color of the pale green verdra gem flicked to mine.

Maybe my command stunned her into silence. My cock in her mouth would too.

She halted with her foot against the kickstand, thighs straddling the red bike.

“What the hell?” The woman dismounted slowly. “Are you vice squad?”

“Not vice.”

“Interpol?”

“No.” My gaze raked over the woman’s luscious body presented in ripped jeans, a loose tank top, and the dozens more freckles delicately dotting her shoulders. “Not Interpol. More like extraterrestrial.”

“Wha-a-a-at?”

“Princess?” I approached. “He called you princess.”

She snorted, standing with hands on her hips. “That was an insult, not a compliment.”

In front of her, my blatant arousal causing calamity within my pants, I cupped her cheek in one hand. “You’re more than a princess. You have perfect childbearing hips, good breeding bones, and you’re feisty.”

Snatching back, she hurled out viperish words. “Are you off your meds or something?”

“I don’t need to take meds.” I grinned, looming over her, the heat beating off her curling right into my cock, which had quickly filled to full erection. “You are my mate, woman.”

She wound back and slapped me right across the face.

And I laughed, because no mere human blow could hurt me. And this princess? She was destined to become my queen.