EXCERPT

Lords of the Var:

THE ROGUE PRINCE

By

Michelle M. Pillow

Dedication:

To Brent, one of the coolest people I know.

“Women are like fruit on a tree, to be tasted, enjoyed, and then discarded for the next piece. Hold one too long and it will be sure to rot in your hand.”

-King Attor of the Var

Chapter One

Prince Reid, Var Commander of the Outlands, grinned before even opening his eyes. Oh, yeah. Life in space was good--real good. Bless his twin brother, Jarek, for knowing all the right places to stop. And bless their pilot, Rick, for having the foresight to book the Galaxy Playmates mansion in advance.

He was in one of the playmate’s bedrooms. The whole place was bedecked with pink silk and gauze. It was soft and feminine, just like his company on the bed. Grinning, Reid ran his left hand beneath the covers to touch a woman at his side. His fingers skimmed her naked breast causing her to sigh in her sleep. She was brunette and gorgeous, with a dancer’s body--if not a little genetically altered. Then, turning to his other side, he suppressed a groan to see the blonde. She was smaller, petite, and just as beautiful as her friend. She’d taken more convincing to join the party, but if anything Reid knew how to charm the women. Besides, being Var it was easy to sense a woman’s longing and she’d been more than willing. Feeling a stir by his leg, he sat up. He didn’t need to look under the covers to know a fiery redhead curled between his knees fast asleep.

With a skill born of years of practice, he artfully untangled his limbs and got out of bed without waking anyone up. Jarek wanted to get going early this morning. He couldn’t blame his brother. Duty called and they were already overdue.

They were supposed to be on an ambassadors’ mission to Nozando. But, hey, ‘duty’ happened to call to the Galaxy Playmates mansion. Rick couldn’t get a refund on his money and who were they to say no to duty?

Normally his youngest brother, Prince Quinn, would take care of such ambassador trips. But Quinn’s wife was having a baby and he didn’t want to leave the Var palace. Reid frowned, pausing as he got dressed. His brothers Falke and Kirill were also having children. He was happy for them, of course. He liked children well enough and they seemed to like him. He’d be proud to hold his nephews in his arms and to help raise them, as was the Var way.

The children weren’t why he frowned. Reid frowned because his brothers were having children with lifemates. Each was married and would be mated to one woman for the rest of their long lives. For the Var who lived hundreds of years, it was a long time indeed. If their mates died, his brothers would be forever alone.

Lifemates were a privilege best reserved for the lower classes--tradesmen, farmers, even hunters and lower ranked soldiers, all men who could ill afford to keep many mates on a planet so barren of women to begin with. His home planet of Qurilixen suffered from blue radiation which made female children damn near impossible to conceive.

Yet, being surrounded by mostly males hadn’t stopped Prince Reid from finding the pleasures of the female sex at an early age. Thank the stars for these ambassador missions and for his father’s harem of women. His father, King Attor, had only slept with half of the women, leaving the other half as fair game to his sons when he died. Reid unabashedly took advantage. He glanced over at the bed with a sense of male pride and vanity.

“Mmm, prince.” The brunette on the bed moaned, distracting him from his thoughts. She tossed but didn’t wake up. Reid watched her flop her arm around where his heat had been. He knew they’d all probably sleep in. He’d demanded a lot out of all three of them the night before. Poor women had to try and keep up with his stamina. They’d done an all right job and he couldn’t blame them for not fulfilling him completely. He was a Var, a catshifter, and his carnal appetites were hard to sate.

Reid studied his dark complexion in a mirror as he pulled the cross laces at his waist. Running a brush through his long, dark locks, he straightened out his waist length hair. He knew women considered him handsome and so what if he knew it as well? He was in top physical shape and knew how to carry himself.

“Mmm, prince,” the feminine words were followed by a soft giggle. This time he didn’t turn around.

Reid wore the clothes of his people, mainly because they showed off the muscles of his outer thighs through the side cross laces. The shirt was more of what Jarek called a tank, with laces on the side of the ribs beneath the arms. He’d been listening to his twin brother, trying to pick up on Jarek’s worldly ways. Though he did find being the ‘sheltered’ barbarian drove the women wild. They all wanted to train and tame him. He let them pretend, but the truth was Prince Reid would never be tamed.

Looking at the three very satisfied women, he knew he’d never be happy with one woman. There was no way one woman could satisfy his unrestrained needs. He’d cripple the poor thing in less than a week if she were to try.

No, Reid couldn’t understand why three of his brothers chose to bind themselves. To his thinking, lifemating wasn’t wise with the Var kind. Once lifemated, it couldn’t be undone. The Var lived a long time and passed that long life on to their lifemates--aided by the same mystical power that guided them and the radiation from the blue sun. But a lot could happen in the hundreds of years they lived. If a lifemate died, the widower would be condemned to centuries of heartache. Many Var had died from such a fate.

That’s why Reid and his twin bother Jarek planned on never falling in love. What was the point? With so many beautiful women out there to sample, who wanted to choose just one and risk centuries of unhappiness? Sure, they might take half mates eventually. A man did need to have sons. But, never a lifemate.

He looked at the women on the bed. The blonde sighed, tossing in her sleep. Her hand fell on the brunette’s chest. He grinned.

It was like their father always said, “Women are like fruit on a tree, to be tasted, enjoyed, and then discarded for the next piece. Hold one too long and it will be sure to rot in your hand.”

Reid didn’t relish the idea of rotted fruit. He liked his refreshments new, ripe, and so very juicy. With that in mind, he glanced at the brunette’s larger breasts and grinned. No, he’d never fall in love. He didn’t want to. Taking the memory of the Playmates with him, he left the seductive bedroom.

“About time,” Jarek teased, pushing up from the wall when Reid came out of the bedroom. Though he looked like Reid physically, Jarek was dressed as his crew--tight black pants and a looser shirt. His long, dark hair was pulled back from his face showing off a black tattoo. “I was about to send in reinforcements. I was worried you wouldn’t be able to handle so many.”

Reid laughed. “You should be scared that I’d bring a couple half mates onto the ship with me.”

“Don’t even joke about that.” Jarek rolled his eyes. “I already caught Rick trying to smuggle two of the girls onboard. If not for their protesting, he might have been successful.”

The Var princes were born of different women--all but Reid and his twin, Jarek. Kirill, the oldest, was the new King and the first to fall for a woman. It hadn’t surprised Reid much that Kirill had found a lifemate. Ulyssa, the new Var Queen, was a good woman. She used to work for the Human Intelligence Agency and made a good match for the Var leader. She was smart, cunning, and knew how to use a weapon. To her credit, she loved Kirill very much.

Still, only one woman? Reid didn’t understand it.

The second to fall, Prince Quinn was the Var Ambassador. He had mated to an ESC scientist who’d come to Qurilixen to rid it of bioweaponry. Dr Tori Elliot was highly intelligent, if not a little overly serious, also a good choice for the royal family. King Attor had brought the weapons to the planet to kill their long time enemy, the Draig--a race of dragon shifters. Though now it seemed their father’s hatred for the Draig was unwarranted, for Kirill had managed to make peace.

The biggest shock of all was when the stoic Commander of the Var armies, Prince Falke, lifemated to the Space Captain who’d kidnapped him. Reid had been positive that Falke would never succumb to one woman. But Samantha had captured his brother’s heart somehow, making the big bad warrior feel. Now Sam was highly intelligent, but she was no ex-undercover agent like Ulyssa and no overachiever scientist like Tori. She was, on the other hand, a bit of a hardheaded smartass and Prince Reid could more than appreciate that quality in her. In fact, to Falke’s irritation, he gladly encouraged it.

“Are you sure we have to go to Nozando?” Reid asked, falling into stride with his brother. It wasn’t far to the docks and, being early morning, they were alone in the lavish hallways.

“Duty calls and unfortunately it calls away from here,” Jarek said. Out of the two, he was the quieter one.

“I say you should’ve let Rick take his stowaways.”

“There is always nef,” Jarek teased, “if you feel yourself too distracted to do your duty to our kingdom.”

Their father, King Attor, had been killed in battle not long ago. He was a good King, one who worked hard for his people, but he encouraged men to have too much control in the bedroom, to drink nef--a drink that calmed the Var sexually and gave them restraint. Reid never drank the stuff himself.

“Ugh,” Reid grimaced. “Our father was a good man, rest him, but I never agreed with his views on complete sexual detachment. Why should we tame our natures? We are Var. We should be proud of our prowess.”

Long ago things had been different for the Var people. It was a wild time, a time when the Var let emotions rule their heads and their hearts. They acted rashly and on pure instinct. Reid liked his ancestors’ way of thinking. Life was too short to hold back from sexual pleasures, from any worldly pleasures. No, the only use he found for a mate was to keep his house clean and to cook. He could well hire a servant for that with less of a headache.

There was no way Reid would drink nef to calm his appetites.

The old King had been a hard man, but Reid respected his father and his ideals. Attor had urged the Var men to prove their worth and dependability with emotionless detachment. He taught by example that to prove great prowess in the bedroom showed prowess in the field of battle, until strength in one meant strength in the other.

If this was true, Reid knew he had more than enough prowess to make up for three of his brothers settling down. In fact, he should be damn near immortal.

“Besides,” Reid said as they waited for the metal door leading to the space docks to open, “you’re one to talk about duty to the kingdom. While I have been down fighting a war, you have been up here, flying around space at leisure.”

It was an old argument, to which neither one of them took offense.

“Ah, not again. I have four brothers who do not need me to help run the kingdom.” Jarek dismissed Reid easily. “It was decided that I would go out into the universe and learn its ways. That is what I have done. I didn’t hear any complaints when I sent back the new mainframe parts for the palace’s central computer.”

“Speaking of which, Kirill still wants you to change the settings,” Reid said. “Siren lasered Tori in the ass and locked me in the weapons chamber because I called her a rusted piece of cyber trash.”

Jarek laughed. Siren was what the computer mainframe called itself--ever since Jarek programmed the finicky female personality into the Var palace.

“You think that’s funny?” Reid arched a brow.

“No, what’s funny is that I don’t remember the security codes to go in and fix her.” Jarek grinned.

“Are you guys coming or what?” Rick yelled from the ship. “If you plan on standing there talking, I’ll just go find myself another playmate to--”

“We’re coming!” Jarek yelled, waving his hand to urge Rick back inside. To Reid, he said, “Come on. Let’s go get this over with.”

© copyright Michelle M. Pillow, October 2004

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

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