Wooed by the Kagethi Lord: Kagethi Warlord Brides, #2

By Ava York

It was just supposed to be a normal shift at the gas station.
And then the spaceship landed.

"People of Earth." His voice was a deep, resonant rumble. "I am Prince Kerr Litiara the Third. He who devours your heart and smiles about it later. The leader of the Northlands and protectors of its peoples on Kagethi. And I am here for one reason."

He swept his cloak back dramatically and pointed at the lot of us.

"I demand you turn over to me the human known as Jennifer Louise Tiller…now."

Jackson squeaked, and I shrank back against the pump. A mayfly landed on my head, and I barely even noticed.

The big cat man with the scary looking ray gun was looking for me.

Oh man, I'm about to be cat food.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ClockWalk
• Release date: May 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223395430

Book preview

Wooed by the Kagethi Lord

WOOED BY THE KAGETHI LORD

KAGETHI WARLORD BRIDES: BOOK TWO

AVA YORK

STARR HUNTRESS

CONTENTS

Jennifer

Karr

Jennifer

Karr

Jennifer

Karr

Jennifer

Karr

Jennifer

Karr

Jennifer

Karr

Jennifer

Karr

Jennifer

Karr

Jennifer

Karr

Jennifer

Karr

Jennifer

Karr

Jennifer

Karr

Jennifer

Karr

Jennifer

Epilogue: Jennifer

Are you a STARR HUNTRESS?

Opening Move: The Alien Games

Rogue Mate

JENNIFER

Alot of women dream about meeting the man of their dreams.

I was no exception.

When I was in high school, I always thought I’d take some fabulous trip to Paris or London and meet a hot foreign guy who’d worship me, love me and treasure me while also giving me my personal space and not being codependent.

Yeah, that didn’t work out.

Now, before you go thinking this story is something maudlin, let me set the record straight.

This is a love story. It just doesn’t exactly follow the usual trajectory. There’s danger, duels, intrigue, and passionate romance.

It’s like the Princess Bride but in outer space, got it?

At least, sort of.

I should probably start at the beginning.

In this case, the beginning is Cross-Check East. Most people would call it a gas station. If you saw it from the highway, you’d point and say ‘hey, there’s a gas station.’

But the corporate owners didn’t like us calling it a gas station. They demanded all employees refer to it as a ‘store.’

Sure, there was kind of a quickie mart inside. It was an older station, so there wasn’t a lot of stuff, but there were candy bars, alcohol, cigarettes and a smattering of groceries.

Mostly canned and boxed stuff, but once a week the bread guy would come by and give us fresh loaves, while taking the other, largely unsold stales with him when he left.

So, there I was, working the mid-shift at the ‘store.’ If you’ve never had the pleasure of working in one of these establishments, let me just cut to the chase—it sucks.

Most customers were all right, but the ones that weren’t usually made you miserable enough as it was.

You’re on your feet for eight to ten hours a day without an official break. You’re supposed to get to sit down once in a while, but it doesn’t usually work out that way.

All of that was enough to deal with, but then I also had to work shifts with my shift manager.

Who also happened to be my ex-boyfriend.

Jackson and I dated for about three weeks, six months ago. He seemed like an all right guy, but it was all just a façade.

He got to be a real prick, real fast once he thought he’d sufficiently seduced me. I saw the light and cut my losses before I’d even wasted a month of my life on the loser.

It wasn’t so bad when we first broke up, but then he got a promotion to shift manager and became my boss.

Not only did we have to work in close proximity to each other, but he took it upon himself to give me all of the shit jobs.

The night my life changed forever started out pretty mundane.

I punched in for my shift at three PM, grimaced when I saw that Jackson’s name was on the schedule, and then put on my apron and went to count the cash register to make sure the previous shift hadn’t run off with the till.

Once that was done, I spent several hours checking out customers and trying to keep our ice chest full. We had an ice maker in the back, a big restaurant style one. Our owner was cheap and made us bag the ice ourselves and use what looked like a giant pair of pliers to close a metal ring around the top.

It was backbreaking work, and a ton of people kept buying ice for their coolers.

It was one of the reasons I hated working Friday nights. Jackson just sat on his ass in the tiny manager’s office, playing on his phone and pretending to do paperwork.

Hey, Jackson. I came around the corner to the office. The office was adjacent to the cash register, where you couldn’t get to it if you didn’t come up onto our platform and you knew where to look.

What is it?

He turned toward me, stroking the scrabbly hair on his face he no doubt thought of as a beard. Dude started trying to grow it after making shift manager to look older and more sophisticated. He just wound up looking like a camera man at a porno shoot or something.

I need a break from the register. How about you come out here for a bit and let me sit down for ten minutes or so?

Jackson sneered at me. You need a break from the register, go out and clean the pumps.

I stuck my tongue out in disgust.

Oh gross, come on. It’s mayfly season and you know how much those things creep me out.

They don’t bite, they don’t sting. I don’t get what your problem is. Just knock them off the pumps and wipe them down.

Will I get to sit down after I do this?

Yeah, I guess so.

That was about as good as it was going to get. I headed outside with a bucket of water and a wash rag.

Several cars were parked at our twelve pumps, so I went to those that were unoccupied first. I squealed as I jumped over a crawling mayfly on the stained concrete.

Keep away from me you little shit, I snapped. Yaaah!

I swear one of the things dive bombed me. I thought for a moment it got in my hair, which would’ve been just awful. I probably would’ve died. Or killed Jackson.

When I finally got to the pumps, the tops were littered with twitching bodies of dead and half dead mayflies. Some of them feebly crawled about like zombies.

I had to admit, though, I hated being around Jackson even MORE than the mayflies.

At least while I was outside, I didn’t have to put up with him.

I washed the pump, taking a moment to look up at the sky. Only the brightest stars were visible from the parking lot, because of all the light pollution. I wished I was on another planet.

Any other planet than Earth.

I even volunteered for the DNA match thing one day out of desperation.

Only I hadn’t matched with anyone. Story of my life, that even a decent man from outer space didn’t seem to find his way into my arms.

Hey!

I lowered my gaze from the sky to see Jackson storming across the parking lot toward me. He moved with stiff legged strides, pumping his arms like he was running, but he wasn’t. It was more like a very rapid walk.

Jennifer, did you reset the V-root system like I told you to?

I scowled at him.

I don’t remember you telling me that at all.

Well, I did, and now it turns out we’ve been selling gas at the wrong price for hours! If you were a manager like me, you’d know how important it is to raise the gas prices a little on Friday nights. Everyone just got paid and they’re all excited and they don’t even notice they’re paying a little bit more.

Yeah, I get it, you’re a real sales genius. You should’ve made sure that I heard you tell me to do that, Jackson. I’ve been nonstop busy since I walked in the door this afternoon, so why don’t you cut me some slack?

Slack? See, THIS is why you didn’t get the manager job and I did. You don’t ask for slack if you want to succeed. You find a way to get the job done despite the circumstances.

I was going to sprain something in my eye sockets, rolling my eyes so hard.

Jackson, short of building a time machine and going back to the start of my shift to tell myself that you muttered something about the V-root machine, I don’t see how I can ‘gumption’ my way out of this one. And besides, the reason you got to be manager is because our owner is a backwards-thinking, misogynistic jerk who thinks women don’t make good management because they’re natural nurturers…

My voice trailed off, because one of the stars in the sky kept getting brighter and brighter.

Bigger, too, until I realized it wasn’t a star at all. It moved closer, a blue glowing light with an orange nimbus around it.

The light it cast was intense enough that the whole parking lot, Jackson included, turned to watch it.

What’s that? Jackson sputtered.

The glow stopped, and a silver shelled craft appeared where it’d been. It looked like your classic flying saucer, only with a more elaborate hull design.

What looked like some sort of family crest had been carved at intervals in the sloped dome’s sides.

I think it’s a spaceship.

Shows what you know. They’re called’ starships, because they go from star to star.

Shut up Jackson, do you have to be right about everything?

I don’t have to be, but…

Just shut up.

The flying saucer extruded four clawed legs from its base, settling on the corner of the parking lot.

The carapace cracked open into a rectangle of light and a beam of blue light shot down from the opening, forming a gangplank. A dark shape appeared silhouetted against the rectangle of light.

The figure stepped onto the beam of light in a very practiced, graceful manner. Then, he seemed to glide down. It took me a moment to realize the beam of blue light functioned something like an escalator, so he didn’t have to move his legs.

Cool. Terrifying, but cool.

Once he passed the pool of radiance cast by the glowing rectangle, his features resolved themselves.

My first impression was his eyes. They didn’t look like a human, or even like any of the Madhfel’s I’d seen videos of.

His blue eyes were slitted, like a cat’s. It looked right on his face, though, considering the layer of white fur with black spots and all.

Cat man alien cat.

Oh hell.

His ears were located higher up on his head, pointed, and moving around like radar dishes. His facial features were human looking…a good-looking human at that, with a strong jaw and high cheekbones—but mixed with some big cat aspects. Like whiskers.

The cat man wasn’t wearing a spacesuit. Instead, he wore this elaborate, brocaded gold doublet with long, frilly flared sleeves revealing his white furred hands. A blue cloak draped over his shoulders made him look even bigger than he already was, and he was huge to begin with.

In spite of his medieval looking attire, there were touches that reminded me this was an alien with access to high technology. He wore a leather belt with a holstered, sleek pistol. The same belt also contained pouches and compartments with bits of technology I couldn’t identify.

Is that one of the Vaznik? Jackson asked, cowering behind the pump I’d just cleaned.

No, I murmured. They’ve got horns and less fur.

I stared in wonder at the approaching person. The more I took him in, the more I realized…he was fucking gorgeous. The whole cat thing worked for him. It really did.

It must be one of the other ones! Jackson’s whiny tone bordered on panic. The Sucklick!

I wanted to roll my eyes, but couldn’t tear myself away from the alien in front of us. That’s Suhlik, and they’re snake people. That’s a cat person.

The cat person stopped at the bottom of the gangplank and put his hands on his hips like a superhero or something. He just exuded confidence, or maybe arrogance.

Possibly both.

People of Earth. His voice was a deep, resonant rumble. "I’m Prince