Page 25 of Alien Daddies
Relief. That’s the emotion she felt strongest when she imagined never returning to Earth and never seeing her father again. Or her siblings. Neither her brother nor sister treated her with very much regard either. She hardly saw them and when she did, they barely had time to say hello before they were taking work-related calls and answering messages on their phones.
She rose from the bed, walking fast across the room in an effort to shake the memories away.Daddy Torin. Daddy Aras. Daddy…She said each of her daddies’ names in her head, trying to picture their faces in her mind’s eye. This mental exercise brought her comfort, and her breaths starting coming slower and calmer.
They wouldn’t allow her to do as she pleased. But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. They had rules and expectations for her, and if she disobeyed there were consequences she must face. However, the way they looked at her… she knew deep in her heart they only wanted what was best for her. They cared for her and looked at her as if she was the most important person in the entire universe to them.
Khanndoran males were notoriously dominant, but they also had a reputation for being protective and loving to their mates. And not only did they mate for life, but they didn’t cheat or have affairs ever. They were also attentive fathers to their offspring. She recalled this little fact from a news article she’d read several years ago about a human woman who’d mated with azoshinthat consisted of four Khanndoran brothers. However, the article hadn’t mentioned spanking or any sort of punishment a female mate of azoshinmight face if she broke the rules.
But perhaps her exact relationship with Daddy Torin and the rest of his brothers would be different since they apparently sensed her secret longing for a loving daddy, which though she would not admit it out loud did include a desire to be taken in hand and held accountable for her actions.
She paused in the midst of her pacing and cupped her sore bottom. Then she rushed into the bathroom, pushed her panties down to her knees, and lifted her dress up to peer at her backside in the mirror. Her cheeks were still slightly reddened, but there weren’t any bruises and she suspected the pinkness would fade by morning.
Could she live as their mateandas their little girl, subject to their rules and their discipline?
“You have the most adorable little bottom,” came a deep voice from the bathroom doorway.
She gasped and quickly righted her clothing, yanking her panties up and pushing the skirt of her dress down to her knees. “Don’t the six of you ever knock?” she asked, staring at Daddy Aras in the doorway and his five brothers who were approaching from behind him. Large as they all were, she couldn’t believe how stealthily they all moved. She was probably a fourth of their weight and she made more noise when she breathed.
Daddy Aras held out his hand. “Come here, little girl. We have to talk.”
* * *
Aras
His cock had hardened the moment he’d caught little Kenna staring at her punished behind in the mirror. Aras’ palms tingled and his blood heated at the memory of spanking her so recently, having her struggling and writhing over his lap as he swatted her curvy cheeks. He tried to tamp his sudden arousal down and waited for Kenna to grasp his offered hand.
She took two steps forward, very tentatively, and finally accepted his hand. He gave her a smile, hoping to comfort her, and led her to the large plush chair. After conferring with hiszoshin, they had decided they must extract the truth from her before they reached Khanndora. If she was running from something or someone, as he suspected, it would not do to learn this information after she was already on his home planet about to stand before a judge.
He sank down in the chair and brought her down into his lap, loving the feel of her in his embrace. He took a moment to stroke her back and offer her a look of reassurance, though she appeared increasingly worried as she gnawed delicately on her bottom lip and kept glancing nervously around the room.
“Wh-what is it you gentleman would like to talk about?” she asked with a forced air of nonchalance.
Torin, Kameel, Nagen, Vilad, and Zane approached, all of them standing around her only an arm’s length away, ready to reach out and touch her lest she require extra comfort. While Torin had questioned Kenna during dinner, Aras had paid close attention to the emotions rolling off her, each one a distinct vibration of mood, some of them so strong he had actually glimpsed images of her recalled memories. More than once, he’d seen a vision of a man shouting at her and throwing things at her. He’d felt the cold jolts of her fear as those memories surfaced in her consciousness. He’d also felt the sense of helplessness and guilt surging through her as she told a lie, and he was certain she’d told several untruths as she’d answered Torin’s questions.
But there would be no more lies. They would get the truth out of her once and for all, and then the seven of them would face it together. Whatever protection she required, they would give it. Whatever help she needed was hers.
“Kenna.” He placed a finger beneath her chin. Her gaze danced to his and she tried to pull away from him, so he grasped her face between both hands, giving her no choice but to hold his stare. A little gasp escaped her and the rise and fall of her chest increased. “We want the truth from you. The whole truth. We want to know your full name, as well as the reason you snuck aboard theRithona.”
She drew a deep breath. “I already told you. I—”
“You were not entirely honest with us, little girl. We want to help you, but we won’t be able to help you properly unless you give us complete honesty.” At the look of alarm in her blue gaze, he added, “We realize you lied to us because you are frightened and we will give you this one chance to speak your truths and we will not hold your lies against you.”
“What Aras means, little one, is that if you talk to us right now and tell us the truth, we will not punish you for the lies you have been telling us about your past and about your reasons for sneaking aboard our vessel,” Torin said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
A look of relief lightened her gaze and she relaxed slightly on his lap, no longer a rigid little mass of tension. Aras released her chin and waited for her response, praying she didn’t continue down her path of lies. Her breath hitched and she peered from brother to brother, a glimmer of hope joining the relief in her startlingly clear blue eyes. She swallowed hard and drew a long, deep breath, folding her hands in her lap and fixing her stare on a spot on the floor.
“I-I’m not an orphan.” She kept her eyes downcast. “My name is Makenna Vega, though all my friends do in fact call me Kenna. Perhaps you’ve heard of my father, Collin Vega? He’s one of the richest and most well-known men on Earth and—”
“Is he the one who yells at you and throws things at you? The one who makes you cry?”
Her gaze shot up and she regarded him with open shock, her parted lips moving wordlessly for several seconds. “You-you read my thoughts!” she finally said in an accusatory tone.
“I can’t read your thoughts precisely, little girl, but if you are extremely emotional about something I might see flashes of what you’re thinking about. Please answer my question. Was it your father I saw shouting and throwing things at you?”
“Yes, that was him. He hasn’t been himself since my mother passed away when I was ten years old,” she said. “He’s obsessed with his work and becomes agitated easily, and he takes stimulants on a regular basis and probably other drugs I don’t know about.”
All of Aras’ brothers stepped closer and put a hand on Kenna. He rubbed her back with one hand and reached for her hands with his free one and squeezed them, willing her to continue with her story. She wasn’t an orphan, after all. And she wasn’t poor or homeless as she’d previously claimed, not to mention she hadn’t grown up in the group homes she’d talked about. He was a bit shocked by the level of detail she’d put into her lies, but he reminded himself she was frightened and when Torin had discovered her she’d likely believed the lot of them to be barbarians from a world with laws much harsher than Earth’s. But she’d stowed away on an interstellar vessel—dangerous business for a female—and he wanted to understand what had led her to take such a hasty and unsafe action. He remained quiet, though he nodded and gave her an encouraging look when her eyes drifted up briefly to meet his.
“I grew up on Rissa Island,” she continued, “and I’d just finished my first year studying at the University of Rissa. I, um, got really bad grades and my dad was angry with me. You see, we had been fighting for a while about my field of study. I wanted to study Alien Languages, but he forced me to study Interplanetary Business. I didn’t enjoy it and, well… I pretty much failed all my classes this year. As a result, my father cut off my funds and refused to let me travel to Phennulos with my friends for summer vacation—he even alerted the Interstellar Security Administration not to allow me to board any vessels headed for the Interstellar Portal Array. The thought of having to stay on Rissa Island with him all summer… well, I suppose it scared me. All my friends were leaving for the summer. I would have been all alone with my father and his moods, facing a future I didn’t even want for myself. So I decided to leave anyway and I snuck onto theRithona, mistaking it for a ship bound for Phennulos.” She paused and her shoulders slumped. “I must sound like the most spoiled brat ever.”
