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Prince Mikol of Tygeria, the pride of his illustrious parents and heir to the throne of the Supreme Axis, rolled off the bed, hit the filthy floor and then rolled to his knees, looking around warily for whoever it was that had just attacked him and driven a spike through his head.
Realizing there was no actual spike and managing to climb back on the side of the bed, Mikol thought it likely he’d been this drunk a time or two before in his life, but he couldn’t quite recall when that might have been. He sat up and glanced around the room to see if he’d disturbed any other occupants, but he found himself all alone. Staggering to his feet, he decided to rest a minute before making his way back downstairs, changed his mind after a couple of staggering steps back and fell down on the none too clean, tangled bedcover. He tried desperately to remember where he was.
It began to come back to him in a series of fuzzy, half-formed images. He and Florin at a bar, drinking visu punch as a huge fight broke out behind them. A very young Drex was being accosted by three Lycans, who seemed to think the young man had picked one of their pockets. One Lycan was holding the Drex’s arms behind him as the other one drew back his fist and began punching him in the stomach.
Were the Lycans right about what the Drex had done? It seemed likely, but Mikol still didn’t like what was happening. Three Lycans against one small Drex? It seemed a bit much. He turned and shouted at them.
“Let him go—he’s had enough!”
One of the ugly bastards turned toward him and snarled. “Mind your own fucking business, Tygerian scum, or you can have a piece of this too!”
Mikol turned to look at Florin with his eyebrows raised, and then they smiled at each other.
“I think I’d like that,” Mikol said, sliding off his stool. “Why don’t you go ahead and give me some?”
He and Florin both leaped forward into the pile of Lycans, and the fight was on. A ferocious and barbarous brawl broke out and when the smoke cleared and the dust settled, and the many bouncers who had swarmed out of the woodwork like roaches had tossed everyone outside on the street, time seemed to click back into place. The Drex pirate was long gone; the Lycans were unconscious, and Mikol sat up beside Florin and slapped him on the back. “Good fight. But I never got to finish my drink.”
They got up and moved down the street to the Starlight bar, and after that, the sequence of events included lots of drinking and even some dancing. At least he was fairly sure he remembered dancing to wild music in the bar with a variety of partners including a cheerful, red-headed person wearing a dress. He didn’t recall much after that until he woke up here in this room. He wondered if he’d passed out at some point, and Florin had taken him upstairs to lie down a while. Since he was fully dressed and still had his money, that seemed the most likely scenario.
He felt better, but still dizzy as he stood up. He knew he was inebriated, though now it was more like a floaty feeling and a nice buzz in his head. Now that his headache was receding a little, he was thinking he should head back downstairs to find Florin and get back to the ship. He had a big day ahead of him tomorrow. That’s when a loud knocking started up on the door. Three big thumps as if from someone’s fists and then there was frantic rattling of the doorknob.
“Hello?” came a panicked voice from outside the door. “Are you in there?Hurry up and let me in!”
Since the voice sounded a bit desperate, Mikol pulled it open to find a perfectly beautiful young humanoid person standing in the corridor. And when he said perfect, he meant exactly that, though he wasn’t sure exactly who he was or where he came from. Judging from his extreme good looks, Mikol thought he probably worked here at the brothel. He looked like a slightly larger than a normal human male, though many humans worked as love slaves. They were among the most popular, especially with Lycans and Tygerians, though all the humanoids were sought after.
The man’s body was especially nice—he was tall, though still a full head or more shorter than Mikol, and he had a lean, but muscular frame. Mikol thought he might like to run his hands over that sweet body. The man’s hair was gorgeous too. Dark and wavy, it was tied behind his head, but little wisps had escaped the binding and were curling around his beautiful face. His lips were full and parted slightly and those eyes—they were blue, a color that was rare throughout the universe.
They reminded him of a sea he’d once seen on Earth. Blake had called it the Mediterranean, and he said the water there was such an unusual shade because the bottom of the sea was white sand. The light from the sky came down, hit the bottom and then was reflected back up through the waves, but whatever the cause, it was strange and unique. Mikol had never in his life expected to see eyes the same shade of sapphire as his omak-ahn’s. Blake had long been a celebrated beauty partially because of his gorgeous eyes. And then there was this human’s face—high cheekbones, a straight little nose and full, passionate lips. Gods, he really was a fucking beauty.
Mikol blinked a few times to make sure this vision in front of him was real and not a figment of his fevered imagination. The young man standing at his door swayed a little, looking a little frantic. “Help me,” he said. “They’re after me.”
“Who is?”
“Those men,” he said, looking over his shoulder and then peering past Mikol’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t happen to have any Jayronian girls in here, would you?”
Mikol smiled, hoping this pretty man in front of him was real and not an illusion cooked up by his brain.
“No, just me.”
“I have to admit I’m lost then, I think. I’ve been up and down every hall, and I believe I’ve knocked on every door. Maybe…” His eyes grew large, and he suddenly ducked. “Watch out!” he cried.
Mikol dropped down to a crouch instinctively, before he realized there was absolutely nothing there to dodge. The boy thought Mikol had been hit by something, however, and knelt beside him, brushing the thing only he could see off Mikol’s shoulders.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, looking genuinely distressed. “I don’t think it will stain.”
The handsome boy stood back up, reeling only a little and his voice trailed off as he made a sweeping gesture toward the other end of the hallway. “Don’t worry, the other ones are gone now. They shot off down the hall.”
“Who did?”
“The orbs.”
He almost tipped over, grabbing the doorframe for support. A loud shout came up the stairs from the floor below and the young man heard it. It seemed to alarm him again, and his eyes got impossibly wide.
“Oh no, I-I’ve got to hide so they won’t find me.”
“Come inside then,” Mikol quickly told him, grabbing hold of his arm to steady him. This had to be one of the love slaves who worked here and who’d had a bit too much to drink. Or maybe he’d had one of the stimulant drugs so common on Belline, known as Rapture. They were relatively harmless in small doses, but they made the user disoriented, extremely uninhibited and provided vivid hallucinations as an extra added bonus attraction. Perhaps this man had taken one or more of them. He was definitely very drunk, and it really was unsafe for him to wander around a place like this in such a condition.
“Do you work here?”
