Harem Assassins : King Sekton's Harem Planet, Book 2: A Space Opera Harem Adventure by Baron Sord (mobi ebook reader .TXT) 📕

not wanting them to see. Without my ring, I was useless. I was no hero, no king. I was nothing.

Cygna said, “Did something happen to your ring, my king?”

“No!” I lied. “It’s—!” What was I going to say? That we were all seconds away from certain death?

Sirius smirked, “Your ring is gone, isn’t it?”

“No, I—!” My eyes wide and frightened beyond belief, I looked at the four of them in turn.

Their faces tightened with fear and anger.

“What did you do with it?” Oia demanded, her tone implying that I’d been too stupid to hold on to the most important object in the universe.

“I didn’t do anything with it!” I bleated. “It was on my finger! I swear!”

“You lost it?” Venus asked, disappointed and hurt.

Cygna said, “Does this mean we’re going to die?”

“No!” I insisted. “We’re not going to—!”

“He lost it,” Sirius smirked. “I knew he’d skrucking lose it. We never should’ve given the ring to him.”

“No!” I barked. “I didn’t lose it! I—!”

Kra-KOOM!

Before I could finish my sentence, the cruel hand of Fate finished it for me, handing down a death sentence to the five of us as the Artemis slammed into the surface of Zalaxia. I had just enough time to see the ship’s bulkheads crushing us into the ground at the same instant the Fold Wave tore us apart in excruciating agony.

“Guck!” I gasped and lurched awake.

I wasn’t dead.

Neither were the Bombshells.

I sat in a recovery room in the medical wing of a jungle outpost somewhere on the backside of Zalaxia, watching over Oia, Venus, Cygna, and Sirius sleeping in their beds. At this point, the only thing left for me to do was hope they recovered quickly and completely from the savage beatings they had endured by order of the former King Sekton.

Only a few hours ago, I had killed the previous King Sekton Darkstar and taken his True Ring. That victory was the last thing on my mind now. I was too worried about my beloved Bombshells.

Their lives hung in the balance, but there was nothing left for me to do except wait and hope time was on my side and theirs.

I shook off the clawing and ghostly tendrils of my stress dream as best I could, but the phantom beasts of PTSD hung on stubbornly like some ghastly, rotting, mental zombie weighing me down as I tried to lurch my way out of this dark graveyard of mental despair.

No, it wasn’t that.

It wasn’t the remnants of my dream weighing on me.

Since crashing on Zalaxia, my life had become a waking nightmare. I had lived that crash. It wasn’t just a dream. It was a terrifying memory. Granted, it hadn’t ended in death for everyone, but it had come damn close.

There was no escaping it. Being the acting king of Zalaxia was inherently dangerous. Like any king, I would always be in danger, always targeted by someone or some group. That was the nature of it. I should have known better. To my credit, when the Bombshells had offered me this job back on that roof in sunny Venice Beach, California, their beauty had outshone any thoughts of danger.

Oh well.

My only option now was to accept the stressful reality of my new life.

Or walk away from it.

No.

I couldn’t leave my Bombshells.

I glanced at them in their beds. They had risked their lives to find me and I would risk mine to make sure they were safe going forward.

Best thing I could do now was try and rest. Even if I couldn’t sleep, I could just sit here quietly and not run, not fight, not kill yet another enemy.

Just … rest.

I reclined in the long visitor’s chair with my legs stretched out on the cushions. The comfortable chair was designed for sleeping if needed. I fought the urge to close my eyes, afraid if I dozed off, the Bombshells would be gone when I woke.

Gone as in dead.

Taken from me by one malevolent force or another.

At least I still had my rings.

Suddenly worried someone had slipped them off my fingers during my nightmare, I lifted my hands to look at them.

Both rings were still there. Two plain gold bands that had 10x the power of Tolkien’s One Ring and every other ring in Middle Earth combined.

They also had a purple HUD that I now took for granted. I’d gotten so used to seeing it in the corners of my vision, the only surprise would be if it wasn’t there.

But no, the HUD was there and my rings weren’t going anywhere.

I closed my hands into fists and folded them protectively across my chest. Didn’t want anyone trying to slice my fingers off to get at them.

Man, I was wired.

Seeing enemies around every corner and hiding in every shadow.

With good reason.

After the nonstop pirate violence I’d endured since meeting the Bombshells back on Earth, another pirate attack seemed inevitable and imminent.

I yawned dramatically.

Only question was, who would attack first? Sinister Sandman, a 20th-level chaotic evil space wizard with an army of lesser demon henchmen armed with +5 Sand Cannon backpacks — think flamethrowers but instead spewing sparkling golden sleep dust — or more of Crewd’s actual space pirates who I’d fought countless times already?

Smirking to myself, I decided I’d rather fight a fun-loving figment like Sinister Sandman and his comically buffoonish lesser-demon army over Crewd’s vicious space pirates any day.

Man, I really needed to relax.

Whether I slept or not, I needed to wind down. Otherwise, being constantly wired would ultimately eat me alive. My rings gave me nearly unlimited power, but they didn’t take away my need for sleep.

I slouched deeper into the chair cushions and yawned at length. Turned out Sinister Sandman was already getting the best of me.

Before I knew it, I was fast asleep.

Kra-KOOM!

A thunderous sound ripped me awake.

Savage roars followed, icing my veins.

Controlled bursts of automatic blaster fire followed.

BRAP!

BRAAAP!

BRAAAAAAP!

Chaos erupted outside the Bombshells’ recovery room.

I jumped up from my sleeping chair and hurried to the open hexagonal hatch. In the corridor. Zalaxian doctors and nurses