Star Crossed (Harem Station #2) Read online

  Contents

  Star Crossed

  DESCRIPTION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWLEVE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Edited by RJ Locksley

  Cover Design: JA Huss

  Copyright © 2019 by JA Huss

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-978-1-944475-84-0

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Find Julie at her website

  www.JAHuss.com

  See all her books in KINDLE UNLIMITED HERE

  CLICK HER FOLLOW BUTTON

  to get notices of all new releases and pre-orders.

  Chat with Julie

  On Facebook

  On Twitter

  On Instagram

  Follow Julie

  On BOOKBUB

  DO YOU LIKE TO WIN BOOK PRIZES?

  Join her Facebook Fan Group to enter to win!

  DESCRIPTION

  KC Cross is the pen name of New York Times bestselling author, JA Huss.

  Twenty years before Serpint brought Queen Corla home to Harem Station she met Crux for the very first time. They were destined to be soul mates but could never be together.

  All they had was just one night.

  This is the story of Crux and Corla and how all the outlaw brothers came to reside on Harem Station. Meant to be read after Booty Hunter and before Big Dicker, it contains a star-crossed love story and secrets that are as deep and dark as space itself.

  CHAPTER ONE

  There are love stories and then there are star-crossed love stories.

  Mine is the second variety.

  When I met Princess Corla we were sixteen years old. I was still living in Akeela System. Still the son of the Wayward Station governor. Still had a future in politics.

  She was the seventh daughter of the Cygnian king, destined to be his queen the day she turned twenty-three. So innocent.

  But all that disappeared the moment she told me she was pregnant and convinced us to help her escape.

  Twenty Years Ago

  “Do you even know what you’re doing?” I yell at Jimmy as I brace my hands on the two cockpit seats and lean over his shoulder.

  The ALCOR gate is half a million klicks in front of us. Warnings are blaring on the comms system, telling us to turn back immediately or we will be annihilated into dust by more than a dozen SEAR cannons armed and locked on this piddly little piece-of-shit ship as we coast towards them on leftover velocity.

  “Back the fuck off,” Jimmy growls. “I said I got this and when I say I got this, I fucking got this. OK?”

  “Akeelians are closing in,” Valor says in the seat next to Jimmy, his voice squeaking a little. Then he yells, “They’ve locked on! Firing sequence imminent!”

  “I’m sending the code to the ALCOR gate now,” Tray says. “Hold for transmission.”

  “I’m arming the cannons, ready to fire back,” Luck says behind me.

  “A lot of fucking good that’ll do,” I mumble. “This piece-of-shit defense system won’t save us.”

  “He’s just working with what we have, asshole,” Valor mumbles back, taking Luck’s side.

  Draden bumps into me, laughing and yelling as Serpint comes at him with a toy light sword.

  “Got you!” Serpint yells. “You’re dead! I got you!”

  “You did not!” Draden screams back, grabbing on to my legs and hiding behind me.

  “You’re dead!” Serpint growls. “You died! I killed you! Go to regeneration for five minutes!”

  “Would you two shut the fuck up!” I yell.

  The whole ship goes silent. Well, as silent as a ship can when it’s blaring emergency warnings at you. Draden looks up at me with those wide violet eyes of his and mumbles, “Sorry, Crux,” as he and Serpint slink away.

  “They’re just fucking kids,” Jimmy says, starting reverse thrusters to slow us down and give us a few more precious seconds to convince the ALCOR gate that we’ve got legitimate business.

  “In case you didn’t notice,” I growl back, right in Jimmy’s ear, “we’re all fucking kids.”

  “Transmission sent,” Tray says, his voice calm and steady.

  “Cannons locked on the lead ship,” Luck says, his voice the opposite of calm. “They fired! Firing back!”

  We thrust forward towards the gate when the cannons fire, and Jimmy says, “Fucking hell! I’m trying to slow down, asshole! You know, trying to look like we’re not gonna crash the ALCOR gate!”

  “What the fuck do you want me to do?” Luck yells back. “They fired! I have to fire back, right, Crux?”

  “Keep firing,” I say, trying to remain calm. Maybe Tray should be in charge? He’s the only one who isn’t shitting his pants right now.

  But the reason he’s calm is because he’s… not right. There’s something not right about him. They did something to him last week. I’m not sure what. I’m not even sure I want to know.

  “Ha!” Luck yells. “I did it!” Then he laughs. A manic, maniacal laugh. “They don’t fucking call me Luck for nothing!”

  The ship shudders and even more alarms start blaring.

  “Oh, fuck!” Valor says. “We’re hit!”

  “What’d they get?” I ask, taking a deep breath.

  “Cargo bay,” Valor reports. “But it’s mostly contained.”

  “Incoming transmission,” Tray yells over the new, louder alarms. “Hold for screens.”

  “What part of it is not contained?” I yell, leaning down into Valor’s shoulder so he can hear me.

  “Life support,” he yells back.

  The screens come to life and a digital face appears. I’ve heard of this ALCOR thing. Some remnant, rogue AI left over from who the fuck knows when. And the reason I’ve heard of him is because he’s been monopolizing the two gates leading in and out of his system for thousands of years.

  Anyone who gets close is just… vaporized. Totally annihilated by the SEAR cannon weapon systems around the gates on both sides.

  But Corla gave me a code. She pushed it into my hand just before I tucked her inside a cryopod and launched her into the Akeelian spin node, trying to get her away from her father before he took her back to Cygnus System to do terrible things with her.

  And our baby, I remind myself.

  “Where did you get this code?” the digital face on the screen asks us. The face is humanoid, but made up of numbers, symbols, and letters in the shape of a face. They fall down the screen like water.

  “You’re on,” Tray says. I look up at the screen, the red light blinking to let me know the digital face can see me.

  “Princess Corla of the Cygnian System,” I yell over the blaring alarms. “We’ve got a message for the AI ALCOR but the Akeelians are firing and we’ve taken a hit. We need to get through your gate. Now.”

  “Please state the message,” the code-face says.

  “No!” I yell. “You let us through and we’ll give you the message.”

  “That won’t be possible.”

  “Then you know what?” Jimmy says, leaning his face up to the screen. “You can just fuck off, OK? We’ve got an important message from the future Cygnian Queen, motherfucker! You hear me? And if you want to survive what
’s coming, let us the fuck through! Now!”

  “Shut the fuck up,” I say, pushing him back into his seat with a strong grip on his shoulder. “We’re taking fire,” I yell at the screen. “They’re gonna take us out and—”

  “Incoming!” Luck yells. “Incoming!”

  “Last chance,” I say to the screen. But really, I’m talking to us. This is it. We either get blown to bits in a matter of seconds or the universe saves us and we get through that gate.

  There’s a massive burst of light. So bright, the black-out screens activate on the windows. But this ship is truly a piece of shit. And it’s not enough. Not nearly enough to block the light from the brightness of a SEAR cannon burst.

  “I can’t see!” Draden screams. “I can’t see!”

  “Don’t look at the windows,” Luck yells. “Don’t look!”

  And then… everything goes dark and silent.

  The gravity drive fails, the alarms stop, the digital face on the screen disappears. I float upwards but my hands still have a death grip on Jimmy’s and Valor’s seats.

  “I’m flying!” Serpint says, clearly excited about the lack of gravity.

  “I can’t see!” Draden whines. “I dropped my weapon and I’m floating!”

  “You’ll be OK,” I call back to Draden. “Just hold on to something.”

  I should’ve had them buckled in. What the fuck is wrong with me? Who put me in charge? I can’t even remember to put the damn kids in their safety harnesses.

  Jimmy says, “What the fuck just happened?” in a voice that’s now way too loud.

  “That,” Tray says, in his new, ever-calm tone, “was the Akeelians being turned to dust by the ALCOR defense system.”

  “We did it!” Luck laughs. “We did it!”

  “Incoming click message from the ALCOR gate,” Tray says. “Decoding now.”

  We wait in the darkness for what seems like eternity. Breathing in and out. Knowing every breath could be our last because life support took a hit.

  This ship is dead. We are nothing but floating flotsam in the deep darkness of space.

  “OK,” Tray says. A shudder reverberates through the hull of the ship. “Light beam locked on. We’re heading through the gate. We should reach ALCOR Station in six hours.”

  “Everyone hold their breath,” Valor says. “If you think that’s a joke, it’s not. We’ve got seven people breathing air right now and it’s not gonna be enough.”

  Somewhere behind me Draden or Serpint makes a big production of sucking in a deep breath and holding it.

  I turn myself around, floating and feeling my way down the aisle to the airlock. “Come on, kids, it’s time to put on suits.”

  The tell-tale sound of harnesses unclipping fills the ship as everyone floats up from their stations.

  Because when I said kids, I meant all of us.

  Because that’s what we are.

  Just a bunch of boys who got mixed up with the wrong runaway princess.

  CHAPTER TWO

  WAYWARD STATION

  The first time I saw Princess Corla she was walking down the stairs of the Cygnian shuttle ship surrounded by an entourage of her six older sisters. She was dressed in a pink and silver ceremonial gown, denoting her as seventh daughter of the King and his future wife.

  My father explained that to me on the walk over to the greeting hall.

  “Wait,” I said, as we walked through the door of the hall. “She has to marry her father?”

  “Keep your voice down,” he hissed back. “And smile, for fuck’s sake. You’re the son of the Wayward Station governor. Act like it.”

  “I am acting like it. I’m asking pertinent questions so I don’t fuck up relations with the most aggressive system of people ever to live in this galaxy.”

  “Watch your mouth, Crux.”

  I huffed out a laugh. “Do as I say, not as I do. As usual.”

  “They are a genetically engineered species, as you well know. That question is unnecessary. Seventh generation removed. Use your brain, son.”

  I gave up at that point. Just looked at my feet, mostly. Ignoring the king and his daughter bride.

  But that’s the day I decided I was leaving this place. I didn’t know how and I didn’t know when, I just knew in my heart that this future my father had mapped for me was bullshit and I wasn’t gonna waste my one life doing his bidding.

  Little did I know…

  Right now it’s the middle of the night and I’m in the governor’s dining room getting drunk with Jimmy, whose father is the ambassador to Cygnus. Jimmy’s pretty much my best friend by default because I have a very limited social circle here on the station. He’s the only one my exact age, at least.

  Valor and Luck are both a year younger. But we’re talking an Akeelian year. And as far as maturity goes, it’s more like three and half years for most other humanoid species. Luck’s father runs security and Valor’s father is the commanding general of six warships.

  Then there’s Tray, two years younger, and his father governs the AI who runs the station. He’s a weird kid. And ever since he came out of cryogenetics last week, he’s gotten even weirder.

  The only other kids I’m allowed to associate with are Serpint and Draden. Both are twelve, which is super immature compared to sixteen. Their second cocks haven’t even dropped yet. I have nothing in common with them at all. All they do is run around the station with toy guns, playing war games.

  So… I’m stuck with Jimmy. Who, at this very moment, is going on and on about how he’d like to fuck the new queen-in-waiting.

  “Please,” I say, taking a sip of my whiskey. “She’s got more guards than my father. You don’t have a chance in hell.”

  “Did you see her hair?” Jimmy asks. “Don’t you just want to run your fingers through it?”

  “What?” I say, so annoyed by him. “No. It looks like strings of silver. And by that, I mean the actual fucking mineral. Who wants to fuck a girl with metal hair?”

  “It’s not metal,” he says.

  “How do you know?”

  “I touched it,” he says, smiling into his drink.

  “You did not. You can’t get within three meters of that girl.”

  He crosses his heart with a finger. “Swear to the sun, I did. She was walking past me and I just reached out and…” He sighs. “It felt nice. I’d like to pull it.”

  A laugh bursts out of my mouth, I can’t help it. “Sick freak.”

  He shrugs, still smiling as he downs his drink. “You have your kinks, I have mine.”

  “Yeah, I know yours. They all involve sex bots on X Level.”

  “Don’t knock it until you try it, Crux. Those sex bots know exactly what to do with two cocks.”

  “Sick. Freak. How do you even get down there? My father would fucking blow if he caught me with a sex bot.”

  “I have my ways.”

  “Seriously,” I say. “How?”

  He leans in, all secretive like, and whispers, “Tray. He hacked into the AI.”

  “He did not.”

  “Shhh,” Jimmy says. “He did so. They leveled him up when they took him into cryogenetics. And I’ve got a good thing going with that little weirdo, so don’t ruin it for me by blabbing your mouth off to your father.”

  “Like I even talk to my father.” I huff, pouring myself another drink from the decanter the bartender left for us. “And what the fuck does that mean, anyway? Leveled him up?”

  Jimmy opens his mouth to answer but before he can get any words out, the double doors leading into the dining room burst open and three Cygnian guards come through, looking around, subvocalizing security details.

  “What the fuck?” Jimmy says. “Does the king need a midnight snack?”

  But it’s not the king who enters, it’s Princess Corla. Silver hair shining in the overhead lights, wearing a pink dressing gown that looks too pretty to sleep in. Eyes darting straight to mine.

  I squint at her.

  “What’s s
he doing here?” Jimmy asks.

  “No clue,” I say. “But I think this is our cue to leave.”

  “Leave me,” the princess commands. Her guards make protests, but she holds up a hand. “I’m just getting tea.” More whispered arguments from her security. “That one is the governor’s son and the other one is the ambassador’s son. What do you think they’re going to do to me if I have a five-minute cup of tea alone?”

  Jimmy snickers. Clearly he’s got an idea.

  “Enough,” Corla snaps, when the guards continue. “You work for me and I just gave you an order. Either you follow it or I’ll wake the king and get his opinion on the matter.”

  Everyone in the room, including Jimmy and me, just stares at the bossy girl with a mixture of shock and admiration.

  They leave, closing the doors loudly as they go.

  Princess Corla folds her hands in front of her, then smiles at us.

  No. She smiles at me.

  “Good evening, Crux,” she says. “May I have a word with you?”

  I glance at Jimmy, who lets out a laugh.

  “Alone,” she adds sharply.

  “Hey,” Jimmy says, holding up his hands. “I’m going.” He sets his glass down, shoots me a wink, then whispers, “Go get her,” as he straightens his high-necked collar and walks towards the door.

  His fingertips brush through Corla’s hair as he passes her, but before she can turn and shoot him a glare, he’s got the doors open and he’s stepping through into the waiting group of Cygnian security.

  I raise my eyebrows at Corla as the doors slam closed again. “So… what can I do for you, princess?”

  She looks over her shoulder, like she’s nervous, then starts walking quickly towards me. “Touch me,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Quick,” she whispers. “Touch me. I need to know, because if it’s true, it changes everything and I need to make new plans.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”