There's always something good to read on Cover Reveals: Taken by the Barbarian by April Vine

Taken by the Barbarian
by April Vine
Having spent her life confined behind the walls of an opulent palace where she could be kept safe and pure, twenty-year-old Princess Saraska is innocent, naïve, and utterly unprepared for what is in store when she is taken captive by Roark, the barbarian ruler of the planet Sentara.

To her surprise, Saraska quickly discovers that while Roark will not hesitate to bare her bottom and spank her thoroughly any time he feels it necessary, the tall, handsome king is far from the ruthless savage she expected. His stern discipline and his bold, intimate exploration of her virgin body leave her quivering with need, and when at last he claims her completely his skilled, dominant lovemaking brings her pleasure more intense than she could have ever imagined.

Though Saraska grew up believing her people were peaceful, she soon begins to realize that she has been lied to her entire life. But when her own father conspires to turn her against Roark, will Saraska see through his schemes and trust in the man she has grown to love?

Genre: SciFi Romance
Content/Theme(s): Aliens, Princesses, Warlords, Spanking, Futuristic
Release Date: March 11, 2017
Publisher: Storm Night Publications

Excerpt & More

Purchase link(s): Amazon iTunes Kobo B&N
Excerpt:
Saraska could barely understand Avelyn’s distraught, nonsensical, and dire warning, when the shriek of shattering glass pierced her ears.

The sound echoed through the great halls of the palace. Emeralds, rubies, and diamonds burst into the air as their enemies forced their way in. Outlined in the white sunlight loomed the beast and his navigator. Up close, they were even more humongous.

Saraska grabbed a heavy vase as her weapon then took a stance before the priestesses, who were locked still with fear. She spread her arms to protect the women who had become her only family. But they seemed to have found their feet and moved forward, spanning out beside her, matching her fear tremble for tremble.

“Who… who… who…” She couldn’t get past that one single word when fear the size of a spacecraft lodged itself into her throat. She sucked in some air, enough to at least start again. “Who… are you, and… what…” Oh, they were all going to die. No. That was not going to happen this day. “And what dealings have you here?” She tried for valiance at the end but she might have failed to mask her overall fright at the sheer fear that she was looking at a… male. In person. And yet he could very well be the giant from one of the articles she had read.

What kind of sun did he have where he came from if his skin was tinted a heavy shade of bronze? She couldn’t fathom anything other than a white sun. His hair was shaved short on either side and the rest of it gleamed midnight black on the top of his head, and seemed to be tied back with a strip of fabric. What a strange man.

What looked like an old scar ran from the right side of his forehead, over his eye and down his face to his chest. His angular jaw astonished her. It gave his face a shape she couldn’t stop staring at. She had no idea it was possible for any breed of creature walking on two legs to grow hair on their faces. Via the Plexus she knew all Actuals, men and women, only grew hair on their heads. But this man’s jaws, locked tight, were dusted with rough facial hair. His lips remained straight and tight. His eyes, a multitude of black, blue, and green evoked a staggeringly dangerous feeling in her and revealed the very soullessness of his nature.

In truth, everything about the way he looked both fascinated her and petrified her. At once she believed touching him would burn her alive. She allowed herself to whimper with new forebode but for a moment only.

“Speak your case.” Perspiration trickled out of the pores in her palm; the bulky vase threatened to slip from her clammy grasp, robbing her of a chance to use it on his head should it be required. “Speak, I say.” Her command screeched across the crystal-delineated floor.

He remained impassive. But a harrowing grunt from the monster provoked cries from the women playing brave alongside her. They huddled closer to each other. She understood the courage they exercised standing at her side. Her own legs demanded she run, but her mind kept her planted firmly in front of her enemy, to face him as if she could succeed.

She lifted her chin and used her most imperial voice. “I demand you speak.” She hoped her clattering teeth would not make a mockery of her request. “You hide behind your beast like a… coward.” She challenged him, not taking her eyes off the teeth of the four-legged ogre as its sneer widened. Would they be eaten alive? “Dismount and stand as our equal.”

He swung his legs over his ugly companion and landed on his feet with a grace that didn’t match his outward gigantic appearance. She gasped in alarm, stumbling a step backward at his massive height. Were there species of men who grew to that height? If ever she’d needed a graphic explanation of the words Alien Warlord, he personified the vision perfectly in her mind.

Blood pooled in her cheeks but she gulped down the riotous panic boiling inside her. The scar that ran from his face, widened into his chest and lower with great intricacy of design and pattern. She immediately likened it to the image of a sword. What an odd scar. How amazing that it had fallen into his skin in the shape of sword but even more disbelieving how it changed into such numerous colors.

That his upper body was bare was a fact she only now realized. Her gaze dipped down onto his chest to reveal an expanse of more bronzed skin and a light cover of even darker hair. Ripples of muscle, four rows of two each, tapered into a lean waist. An uncomfortable-looking matte-like fabric that seemed to hone and shape the extensive width of his thighs covered both his legs. The shoes on his massive feet, made from something not silk, reached up to just below his knees. What a strange manner of attire he’d chosen to wear. Her father, as did all Kilkian men, covered themselves from head to foot in flowing gray robes. Only their faces and their hands remained visible.

But the bulge between his legs, visible and considerable caught her attention and intrigued her even more. His strange effect on her reached even the strictly forbidden place between her legs, forcing her to clamp her thighs together tightly to remove the heated discomfit he conjured. That proved precisely how dangerous he was to her welfare overall.

She felt compelled to look away, as if she were trespassing a sin, but she couldn’t tear her gaze from him either, until the bewildered echoes of shock vibrated around her. The whisper of thirty satiny veils lowered over seeing eyes tickled her ears. What were they doing? They couldn’t fight their enemy if they couldn’t see him. Then it dawned on her.

His cock. No, Avelyn called it a lance. Were they afraid of his lance?

Oh, Seer of All Things, what was going to happen to them? She swallowed her own reserve. She didn’t have the luxury to show her inquietude, no matter the size of it. She lifted her gaze to his. If he meant to kill her, he would soon realize she would not go without the fight of her life, or least until such time as help arrived, lance or no.

“Stand back. I do not wish to cause you harm… Stand back, I say.”

He advanced without a care, the scar on the right side of his face increasing his menace. She wanted to expire on the spot.

“Stand back.” She waved the vase at him, her arms strained, her nerves shattered.

“Princess,” he murmured, his voice a great depth befitting a man his size, before bowing to her. But it was the sinister manner in which he addressed her that scared her beyond reason. Intuition struck hard. This Alien had no inclination to explain himself or have a conversation with her, much less kill her on sight.

He was there to remove her from her palace.

“Run,” she screamed at the priestesses beside her. “Run, hide. Protect yourselves,” she shouted, dropping the vase and bolting away. But she didn’t get very far before a powerful grip around her waist stopped her escape. Everything turned into chaos. Her vision blurred. She could only see white silk flying before her eyes as the priestesses dispersed. The hardness of his body against hers terrified her. And help was nowhere in sight.

Without obvious exertion, he tossed her onto the beast, leaped up behind her, and steered his monstrous vehicle out of her palace.

She felt as if she were wading through thick air the instant the animal surged over the walls of her palace. They rose aggressively into the white-sunned sky. The moment was short and bittersweet as she glanced at the home planet—a mere few new moons short from being released from her luxury imprisonment and allowed to integrate with her fellow Kilkians. Why was he doing this to her?

How could the Kilkians below see her being taken away when they’d scaled so far up into the atmosphere that they would look like nothing but a speck of dust to anyone below? This was how the Alien Warlord had snuck into her palace and plucked her from it, unseen.

But even in the unbreakable vise of his arms, she kicked and clawed though at nothing, screaming with no sound coming from her lips as she, a princess of stature, of Actual birth and nobility, was carried away by an Alien Warlord. One of the barbaric savages of the galaxies.
~~~~~~
Purchase link(s): Amazon iTunes Kobo B&N
Other titles by April Vine: