by Elise Jae
Laurel
Becoming a mail order bride is the only thing I’ve wanted since first seeing the alien men in need of mates. Richter is more delicious than I’d hoped to imagine, but problems I’d hoped to leave behind are catching up to me. He’s a part of a military branch meant to stop the monsters in the icy wastes from reaching civilization. I’m a spy whose new world is turned on its head by the new life I’ve found. Doing my duty would be betraying myself.
Richter
She’s exactly what I never knew I needed. And now, she’s mine. But keeping her is its own sort of problem. There are monsters in the shadow zone that want to kill her. And protecting her is more important than protecting anyone else on this planet. But if she finds out what I am… what our baby will be… she may never forgive me.
Alien Passion
Book 1 The Shadow Zone Brotherhood
By Elise Jae
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
THANK YOU!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
For those who want the vastness of space… and a romance to fill it.
ONE
LAUREL
I can still remember the day the Sian envoy arrived.
April 13th. 2013.
My tenth birthday.
The news went apeshit. My parents thought it was the end times…. and I couldn’t stop staring at the beautiful spaceship suspended in low orbit.
That moment put me here, fifteen years later. Sitting in the chair at the space terminal, signing the last of the paperwork, about to get on a nearly identical ship outside the window.
It had just been the ships that fascinated me at first.
Then there were whispers.
And at seventeen, I learned the real reason they’d come to us… the reason that wasn’t spoken of to little girls.
A friend snuck her older sister’s login and I finally saw a Sian man.
Their images were hidden behind paywalls. And it wasn’t hard to tell why.
They were gorgeous, muscled creatures. The sort of men you only read about, or saw on a movie screen.
Something in their physique, the way their planet’s gravity affected their musculature… I might have been seventeen, but that didn’t mean I was immune to salacious dreams.
The real reason they’d come to us was the one that set my mind ablaze with ideas… and left me exploring my own body at night, wishing it was their hands.
Maybe I was crazy, but none of the earth boys could compare to what I imagined of the Sian men whose photos were found behind paywalls and on free sites that had severely incriminating ads.
There were, of course, the hate groups who thought women like me were fetishists, and that we were little more than cattle to the men on the planet I was headed to….
At seventeen, the idea of being a bondmate to a Sian man had been a pure fantasy.
One I was willing to do anything to bring about.
Now.
Here.
Waiting for that final stamp of approval. It was a reality millimeters from my grasp… and I intended to seize hold of it with both hands…. And I wasn’t about to let go.
“Please sign here,” the agent tapped the lower half of the pad in front of me. “To confirm that you have read the terms and conditions.”
The terms that said there was no going back. The conditions that acknowledged I was entering into a lifetime commitment….
Because that was the only way to terminate a Sian bonding. One or the other bondmate had to die.
With a quick flourish of the stylus, I’d done it.
“Congratulations!” The agent’s smile was wide and warm. “You’re all set to go. Take off is in one hour, and we have three others to get through processing, so please, get your bags and go to the staging area. Good luck.”
“Thank you.”
She nodded and turned back to her stack of discs.
Moving through the wide halls, I dropped my bags off with the claims desk and sat in one of the wide, plush seats among a half dozen other women.
There was only one thing left to do.
With the bright daylight streaming in through the windows, the dark hull of the Sian ship filling half of them, I read through the email again. It was the fifteenth time, but there were some things that couldn’t be said in a hasty line or two. Blowing out a long breath, I ignored the tiny knot coiling in my stomach.
But there wasn’t anything else I could do to polish the email to my family.
So, I set the delivery delay and pressed send.
By the time it delivered, it would be too late for any of them to try to stop me.
I’d be on that ship, on my way to a whole new planet. A whole new life.
My computer vibrated in my lap and I all but jumped out of my skin.
But there was no way I’d accidentally sent the message.
That didn’t make it any easier to open the screen to see what had come across. But the missive, a simple question from someone who should have known better than to contact her, wasn’t one I needed to fear.
I tapped out the response, a simple text, “Confirmed departure.” And closed it back up again.
Sitting in this chair had always been the plan. Getting here had always been the problem.
The resume required was long and polished. As soon as I’d gotten my hands on the requirements, I’d set about fulfilling them.
While my family had remained oblivious… others had not.
The military had approached me in my senior year of high school. A beautiful woman in a crisp uniform had offered to help. In exchange for a few, simple things.
Things we all knew I might have no chance of doing once I got there.
They thought this was entirely their idea, that I just happened to fit the requirements. A happy coincidence.
Maybe they thought they were using me.
Maybe they knew I was using them.
The call to board the ship was met with excited murmurs, and I lined up with the others.
I was one intergalactic ride away from being a mail order bride.
RICHTER
“We don’t need them.” I say, knowing we do.
Knowing that without human women, it’s only a matter of time until we, as a species, die out entirely.
That’s why I’m here.
Waiting for mine alongside my best friend.
Waiting as the dark ship--one on a daily delivery schedule drops its wide docking gate and the delicate female bondmates spill from its passenger compartments.
They’re breakable.
The same problem that arose with the previous attempt at successful crossbreeding. That catastrophe almost killed us all… not that I had been old enough to participate, but I’d seen the effects.
Each woman was led from the ship--snatched up as soon as their feet touched the tarmac--by an agency liaison. The woman led to Core stared up at him with wide-eyed admiration… something I don’t know that he deserved… she’d get to see what a slob he was soon enough.
But ten minutes later, every woman on the ship had been shuffled to her man… and no one stood in front of me.
One of the agents, a slickly dressed man with a wrist comp and a worried scowl hurried up to me. “So sorry, M’lord.”
I bristled at the title and scowled at him. I could only guess what he was about to say.
“Your bondmate was scheduled for the next transport. Our error. I have already received the notice that she’s been signed in and is onboard.”
I tried to feign enthusiasm, but it was hard to do when all I could think of was how relieved I was to have another day to get used to the idea… as if one day would sort out what had been roiling through me for the last month.
Around me, others had begun to disperse, some sweeping up their prizes and whisking them to ground cars. Others, likely, to the nearby hourly hotels to make sure their claim on her was unbreakable.
Beside me, Core looked down at the woman he’d been contractually assigned. His smile was something I hadn’t seen in ages. Something that spoke of hope. A hope I wasn’t sure I could muster anymore.
They shared low words, something said that I couldn’t quite understand, and Core watched her as she joined others, collecting her bags.
Not many let their women leave their side.
They wouldn’t need them--whatever they’d brought.
That was part of our terms. We gave them everything they could possibly want…
Everything was guaranteed but love.
Most of us weren’t capable of that anymore.
Core watched her for another moment. He was clearly pleased with the woman he’d received… though I knew for a fact there were strict requirements the agencies had been tasked with filling… and no woman who stepped off that ship would be anything less than perfect for the man who’d chosen her.
But Core finally took his eyes away from his bondmate and turned to me. Brows pinching, he searched the thinning crowd. “What’s going on?” “
He looked from me to the closing docking ramp, and that smile completely vanished.
“Looks like mine’s running late.”
Core said something I didn’t understand in his mother’s tongue, and I nodded toward his bondmate. “Enjoy in good health, brother. I’ll be back here tomorrow to see if I can do the same.”
And I left.
No point hanging around when no one was waiting… not that anyone was waiting at home.
But there I had things to occupy my mind.
The long drive home, a route I could have navigated in my sleep, gave me too much room for thought… room to question if I had any right to bring a woman back to this desolate place.
Snow had started to fall again as the garage slid closed behind me, but the thermal currents pulsing in the walls and floors made me forget that almost instantly.
I’d been getting used to the heat.
Along with all the other ways in which human women were delicate, they didn’t like the cold.
And I lived in a hellscape encased in ice and populated by those like me… and the few monsters who crawled their way out of the caldera each month.
Walking back into this place, my home, alone… felt oddly like I’d lost someone I’d never had in the first place.
But that was a specter I’d long since become accustomed to.
Those of us who live in the Shadow Zone, know more about loss than most of our kind.
TWO
LAUREL
I don’t know much about their tech, other than that the ship we were on covered the distance in ways that even our top astrophysicists can’t understand. And a little over a full Earth day later, I’m stepping out into the dim blue sunlight of the planet in another galaxy, blinking away the odd colors as I scan the crowd.
I have no idea what my bondmate looks like… but none of the men in front of me are less than expected. Each is gorgeous, muscled, and has that look about them… the kind that makes me wonder if my particular man might just eat me whole before I can even learn his name.
“Right this way!” The man’s suit doesn’t hide his muscles, but he’s not looking at me like I’m his. He’s looking at his wrist and muttering something.
But the man he leads me to….
The agent calls him Richter.
My breath catches in my throat and it’s only the agent’s grip on my arm that keeps me from taking a step back.
The man in front of me is a predator.
He’s cut lean and his eyes rake over me… knowing.
What he sees, I can’t guess. But it takes all of two seconds for that faint trace of fear to fade… and be replaced by something else entirely.
I guess it’s a good thing the man I’ve just been handed over to has me trying to discreetly squeeze my legs together.
A gasp from my right pulls my attention, and I see one of the women who was on the ship--a shy one who kept entirely to herself--has been swept off her feet and her bondmate has her locked in a kiss so flagrant, I have to look away.
Straight into the chest of the man whose name is the only specific information I have.
Swallowing back the trepidation that tugs at me, I look up and meet his eyes.
There’s the faintest smile, right at the corner of his lips. “Lauren,” his head dips in greeting.
It takes me a second to register the mistake. “It’s Laurel. Don’t worry. Happens all the time.”
Head dipped to the side, he considers me for a moment longer, and then nods toward a strangely shaped counter. “Let’s get your things and go home.”
So many of the others have already indulged in flagrant PDAs… and he hasn’t tried to touch me yet.
But he takes my bags, and there’s something in the movement... I wonder if he thinks I can’t carry them myself.
If the situation wasn’t so weird, I might wrestle them back.
His car--and if it’s not a car, I don’t know what to call it--pops open as we near, and he puts my bags inside, holding the canopy aloft and steadying me as I slide into the seat.
There’s no belt, but the way the seat conforms around me, the cushions molding to hold me in, I don’t think that’ll be an issue.
When he’s in beside me, the top closes, and we shoot forward, flying through a city I barely see, and out, into the blue-green landscape of the countryside.
The car steers itself.
Through fields overgrown to the point they’re encroaching on the road, and over a massive river that carved its way out of a glacier.
That’s when we begin to climb.
He presses a few buttons, and the seat warms around me.
A good thing too. Snow has begun to spiral at the windshield, and the drifts rising on either side have me curling my toes… knowing how icy slush feels against bare skin.
We take a sharp curve, and I reach out to steady myself. A reflex… not a need.
Richter catches my hand, holds it, and he swirls patterns on my wrist. “Don’t worry, I’ve never gone off this road once in my life, and I’ve lived here for fifteen years.”
His touch is distracting, but I don’t look down. “Have you gone off others?”
His smile is sly. “Too many to count.”
That’s when I see it.
Something blue glowing through his pupils. It shifts with the corners. The car isn’t driving itself after all.
But he’s looking at me like he can see straight into my soul, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
“Eyes on the road, mister.”
RICHTER
She’s not what I expected… and not simply because I read her name wrong.
She’s not soft… not delicate in the way I thought she would be.
As I helped her to the vehicle, I felt lithe muscles beneath her long sleeves. She slid into the seat like a dancer and I couldn’t stop myself from wondering how she would move with a blade in her hand.
How she might move in an entirely different environment.
I might be able to navigate the road home in my sleep… but it’s harder with her here.
She’s distracting in the best w
ay, but I have gone off a few too many corners in my life to trust my distracted mind to trace the road ahead of us with certainty.
But I don’t let go of her hand. Not until we’re safely inside, and the garage doors are secured behind us.
I haven’t broken the news to her yet. And once I let her know what’s happening out there, she’s going to have even more to worry about.
As if completely changing her life wasn’t enough.
The lights fade on and snow swirls outside the wide windows.
With a thought my neural key link flicks on the heat current to the center of the room and I move her closer without touching her… I don’t trust myself enough for that.
“Welcome home.”
It feels strange to say that to another person.
Strange, but right.
As if the space had always needed her, been waiting for her.
As if I had too.
She spins in a slow circle and I watch her instead of following her gaze around the room. I know exactly what she’s looking at, but I have no idea what she sees.
I assume everything is self-explanatory, but still. “If there’s anything you’re not sure of… please tell me.”
“I think I can do that.”
She doesn’t look scared, thank Hell for that. When she turns back to me, she has a delightful smile on her face.
A laughing smile.
“Is this the part where you tell me the east wing is forbidden?”
I have no idea what that means.
“The whole house is yours. I would suggest that you not go outside… for a while. You don’t know the land yet, and there are scarier things out there than blizzards.” And the longer I could keep her in doors, the safer she’ll be.
Her attention turns to the white swirls outside, but it’s not until she turns back to me that she says, “I don’t think it’ll be hard to stay inside.”
And that’s when I know I’m in real trouble.
“Let me take your bags back.” I leave her in the main room, trying to get my head back in the right place as I go to the bedrooms.
Pausing by the master, I balk. I can’t put her things in there yet. Not until I’m certain….