Alien Conquest: (The Warrior's Prize) An Alien SciFi Romance by Scarlett Rhone Page A

able to do that on your own.”
    “Of course not,” Vega scoffed. “By the grace of the domina I would be brought a med droid.”
    “Your only doctors on this thing are robots?”
    “Certainly. Living hands can’t be trusted to save anything.”
    “Wow.” She shook her head, and Vega thought he saw frustration in her face, but she finished dressing his wound and then stepped back from him.
    He eyeballed the dressing and had to admit it was almost as good as a droid’s. Of course, a med droid would not have used pieces of a slave’s skirt, but he supposed he had to admire her ingenuity if nothing else. Wait. Admire?
    They didn’t have time for this.
    He focused on her eyes. “Any minute now, the guards will burst in. When they do, don’t move and don’t speak. Just agree to everything I say.”
    “What are you going to say?” the donara asked.
    “I’m working on that.”
    “But what if they don’t believe you?”
    Vega glared at her. “I’m respected in this house, even by the domina. They’ll believe me, but only if you corroborate the story. And if you fight, or protest, if you say anything at all, they’ll think you're guilty.”
    “But—”
    “Because you are guilty,” he said firmly. “And I am not. So let me do the talking.”
    That seemed to silence her, finally. She closed her mouth and looked down, nodding, and Vega found himself frustrated because he didn’t want to upset her, but he had to take control of the situation while there was still any small part of it he could control.
    And not a moment too soon.
    Seconds later, the lights in the corridor flickered on, bright and blinding, and he heard the gate at the top of the stairs open once more. He pushed the donara back against the wall, putting himself between her and the guards, and Lohar’s prone figure on the floor. Guards streamed down the stairs in their red and gold armor, surrounding them, plasma rifles drawn. Vega put his hands up, head bowed low in supplication. He was relieved to see the donara do the same, and when he sank to his knees, she followed him, until they were both on their knees and bowing before the circle of guards.
    Then, as Vega had both expected and hoped, he heard the more delicate footfalls of the domina herself as she came down the stairs, walking through a gauntlet of guards. Behind her, the yellow-scaled cleaning slave Nyssa. Vega knew the slave was ambitious, and he was unsurprised to see her. She must have been the one who told the donara that she could escape through the barracks gate, hoping she would get caught, killed. Anything to get her out of the way so that perhaps Nyssa could take her place. It was clever, but it hadn’t worked. This would gain the donara no favors with Nyssa, but at least she was still alive.
    Vega risked lifting his gaze when Domina Lennai stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She was looking right at him, and there was fury in her eyes. But when she looked at him, some of that fury ebbed, and Vega thought there was a chance. He was the favorite. He knew he was the favorite, and he could use that.
    “And just what troublesome madness is going on down here?” the domina demanded.
     

Chapter Eight
    Alaina knelt with her head bowed, watching Lennai’s feet come to a stop in front of her and the violet-eyed gladiator who’d saved her. Her mind whirled with thoughts, not the least of which having to do with him. It was the same gladiator, or, she supposed, cursu , that had been staring at her when she stood on the balcony with their domina. The only one who had not seemed interested in winning her through the games.
    Her hands shook.
    It wasn’t every day two aliens fought over her, after all. She spared a glance towards the other alien’s unconscious figure sprawled across the corridor floor, and then she risked lifting her eyes just enough so she could see the yellow-scaled girl’s toes. Nyssa. She must have sent her the wrong way on purpose, and Alaina wasn’t going