Enemy of the Alien Bride Lottery

by Margo Bond Collins

  I frowned. “Circus?” My translator rendered the Earther word for me. “You think the Bride Games are an animal show?”

  She snorted a short, harsh laugh. “Well, they are, aren’t they? I mean, they put us through our paces, showing us off so we can be bred.” She began moving down the corridor, and I fell into step beside her, shortening my stride to match hers.

  “A friend of mine back on Earth called it a livestock auction. So I guess, really, it’s like that, too. Like a circus where we perform to entertain the masses and then are sold off to the highest bidder afterward.”

  My steps faltered and I stopped to face her in the hall. “Do you truly believe that’s what the Bride Games are?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Not at all. I mean, look at Amelia and Zont. They are happy together, I would say blissfully so.”

  Deandra pursed her lips shook her head. “No. They’re just one example. For all we know, they’re the exception that proves the rule. Besides, they’re newlyweds—give it a decade, and then we can talk about how happy they are.”

  “So cynical,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Maybe I am. But can you blame me? I was dragged up to Station 21 against my will. You can’t expect me to be delighted to be here.”

  My heart squeezed in my chest and an inexpressible sadness rolled through me. I wanted to take Deandra in my arms, explain to her how Khanavai mating worked. Show her the kind of bond Khanavai males could create with human females.

  But I sensed now was not the time.

  I have the rest of the Games to convince her.

  And I would do everything in my power to make sure that happened.

  “Can I walk you back to your room?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure, I guess.”

  We didn’t speak the rest of the way, each of us lost in her own thoughts. When we reached the door to her room, she keyed it open and stopped with her hand on the doorframe. She turned halfway back toward me, and for an instant, I thought, or at least hoped, she was going to kiss me again.

  Instead, she simply said, “Thanks for the escort back. Good night.”

  She stepped inside, and the door slid closed behind her.

  I reached out with one hand and pressed my fingertips against the door.

  Deandra might be cynical, I thought, but there’s more to her attitude than just that.

  I think she’s in pain.

  I stood there for a long moment, considering what I might do or say to convince her to give us a chance.

  Eventually, I left without any answers.

  But I was determined to find them.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dee

  I awoke the next morning from a dream about Wex kissing me. But in my dream, that kiss kept going. I woke myself up moaning his name.

  Disoriented, I glanced around my lace-festooned room. “Dammit,” I muttered as I swung my legs off the bed and moved into the shower, trying to wash away the memory of his touch.

  When I got out, I checked my wristcom. No response from Roya.

  I hope she got everything she needed. I’m not risking prison again.

  Moments later, my two assistants bustled into the room.

  “Have you seen?” Plofnid asked, the rill on its back fanning in its excitement.

  “Seen what?”

  “The grooms you have matched with,” Drindl said.

  “Fuck,” I muttered.

  Drindl stopped, her eyes growing wide. “What’s wrong?”

  “I forgot I was supposed to choose some of them.”

  Not that I wanted to.

  “That’s no problem.” Plofnid waved one hand, sending its nose-braid swinging in the breeze it created. “Several of the grooms chose you, so you don’t have to worry.”

  As if I was worried about not being chosen.

  “Sit down, and we can look at them while we do your hair and makeup.” Drindl waved me into the chair in front of the screen that doubled as a mirror.

  I sat down with a sigh. So much for my hopes of getting out of here without attracting anyone’s interest. Apparently, Hates the Bride Lottery and Everything it Represents was a popular category for these grooms.

  Or, since they were all second-chancers, maybe they were just desperate.

  Drindl pulled up the screen in the dressing table mirror, as Plofnid pulled over a stepstool and began brushing out my hair.

  “There it is,” Drindl trilled. She began scrolling through the grooms, calling out their names.

  I hadn’t even bothered to check the list of bachelors. But apparently, four of them had chosen me. I recognized only one.

  Tiziani Mencono.

  When his picture popped up, I grimaced. “Isn’t he the one who was so awful to Natalie Adredoni during the games last year?”

  Drindl pursed her lips and nodded, her silvery hair swinging around her shoulders. “Indeed he was. But station rumors have it that he has been working with a counselor to clean up his behavior.”

  Plofnid snorted. “It’s not doing any good, if the way he acts toward the rest of the staff is any indication.”

  “The rest of the staff?” I met Plofnid’s gaze as the mirror went blank.

  “Tiziani is working as a kind of intern,” the Poltien told me. “Officially, he’s been assigned as a guardsman to Station 21 by the Prince Aranov himself.”

  “Unofficially,” Drindl picked up the thread of the conversation, “he is here as punishment for having attacked Cav Adredoni after their formal duel concluded at the end of last year’s games.”

  “I do not want him,” I said.

  And that was when it hit me.

  Wex was nowhere to be found on that list of grooms.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Open that list again?”

  Drindl tapped in her code, and the four bachelors’ pictures popped up.

  Definitely no Wex.

  I placed my fingers together in my lap, clenching my hands together tightly. “Can we look up Wex Banstinad and see who he matched with?”

  “Of course.” Drindl’s long, agile fingers danced across the screen until Wex’s image popped up.

  No matches, it said in bold letters under his picture.

  “That’s odd.” Plofnid paused in its brushing. “I heard director Vos specifically invited Wex to participate in these games.”

  “But even if none of the brides chose him, he should have at least chosen one.” Drindl gave me a sidelong glance, then busied herself with the vials and tubes of makeup she was setting on the counter.

  “Maybe none of the brides appeal to him?” Plofnid said doubtfully.

  “I don’t think that’s it,” I said quietly.

  Maybe all my talk the night before of selling human women off like cattle had convinced him not to participate at all.

  I should feel good about that.

  So why was my stomach balled up into a tight knot—and why were there tears pricking behind my eyes?

  Drindl leaned in to begin applying my makeup, then paused, her face crinkling in concern. “Plofnid, why don’t you go see what you can find out about what happened with Wex?”

  The Poltien nodded, rolling my hair up into a final heated rod. “I’ll be back soon,” it promised, scampering down the steps of the stool and heading out the door.

  “I think there may have been some kind of mistake,” Drindl tried to reassure me. “We will find out what’s going on.”

  I nodded mutely, fighting to hold back the tears welling up in my eyes.

  What the fuck is wrong with me?

  I didn’t want to be here at all, much less married off to the green bastard who had put me in prison.

  So why was I crying?

  “Here, take these.” Drindl handed me a handful of tissues and I blotted my eyes carefully. She turned and changed the screen so that it once again showed the four Khanavai warriors who had chosen me.

  That’s no better.

  A moment later, Plofnid returned. “
I have Klunjt working on getting the information,” it announced. “As soon as she finds out, she will let us know.”

  “There,” Drindl said, her voice comforting. “There’s never been a secret or a rumor Klunjt couldn’t track down.”

  Plofnid took the curlers out of my hair and finished brushing it out into soft waves. “We’ll get you dressed while she gets the information for us,” it said.

  “In the meantime,” Drindl added, “you just go through the motions. Remember, you do not have to mate with any of those males.” She waved an elegant hand dismissively at the image of the four Khanavai warriors who had chosen me, and I found myself laughing, even through my tears.

  Stupid tears.

  “Okay,” I said, drawing a calming breath. “I’m ready. Let’s go play out the rest of this farce.”

  But as we left the room to head to the first round of Bride Games, I couldn’t help but wonder…

  What if Wex really wasn’t interested in me?

  And what if I decided I was interested in him?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wex

  I woke up still wondering what I could possibly say to Deandra to convince her she would be happy with me.

  Before I had fallen asleep the night before, I had gone into the Bride Games catalog and entered my request to be matched with her so I would at least have the chance to begin—what was the word humans used?

  Wooing? Or pitching woo? No. That brought up images of throwing things at her.

  There was a better word.

  Oh. Courting. That was it. I would begin courting her at the brunch today.

  I sat up and stretched, planning a leisurely shower. Then I would put on my best formal uniform and make my way to the assigned room early enough to get the best seat—and to hold the one next to me for Deandra.

  But when I reached over and keyed on a light, I realized that the timer on my mirror-screen had gone dark. Frowning, I tapped in a few more commands, pulling up the time.

  Vulking calderfrits.

  How in all the Zagrodnian hells had I overslept by so much?

  If I hurried, I could still make it to the brunch in time. Grabbing my uniform from the previous day off the back of the chair where I had dropped it the night before, I pulled it on while tapping in a request for my schedule for the day.

  I froze when it scrolled onto the screen.

  Nothing?

  How can I have nothing scheduled for today when I’m participating in the Bride Games?

  Quickly, I opened the Bride Games program and ran a search for the meeting room.

  Nothing came up under my name.

  This isn’t happening.

  I scrolled over to the matches, pulling up my name again.

  No matches.

  Something had gone horribly wrong here. Quickly, I pulled up Deandra’s matches.

  Four Khanavai warriors.

  But I wasn’t listed there.

  “No, no, no,” I muttered, tugging on my boots and pausing only long enough to clean my teeth quickly.

  I checked one last time and made note of the games room for Deandra’s meeting with those four…interlopers.

  As I dashed through the corridors of the station, two words repeated over and over my mind.

  She’s mine. She’s mine. She’s mine.

  The door was already closed by the time I got to the room. Without my wristcom, which was still in the command center, I didn’t even know how late I was.

  Not that it mattered, since I wasn’t on the official guest list, anyway.

  Servers had to get in and out, so the door wouldn’t be locked, right?

  Holding my breath, I pressed against the panel, willing it to slide open for me.

  I was pressing against it so hard that when it finally did open, I stumbled through.

  Gazing around frantically, I searched for Deandra.

  There.

  One of the other Khanavai stood, leaning on the table and bellowing, “What the vulk?”

  I didn’t even glance in his direction, instead heading toward Deandra in a line as straight as an arcnav desert beetle’s.

  She sat at the table on a chair raised high enough to allow her to converse easily with the Khanavai males surrounding her—so high that her feet dangled above the ground like a child’s.

  I dropped to my knees, reaching out and clasping both her hands in mine.

  “Wex, what’s going on?” she asked.

  “I do not know why I didn’t show up as a match for you this morning,” I told her.

  Something in her face, a shadow of unhappiness, cleared at my words, but she didn’t say anything yet.

  “And I know you’re right. The Bride Lottery, the Games? They’re ridiculous. We shouldn’t have to go through them—neither human females nor Khanavai males. But right now, I am glad they exist, because they gave me a chance to meet you.”

  A tiny line appeared between her eyebrows as she frowned, and I wanted nothing more than to reach up and smooth it away.

  I rushed in to fill the silence before she could object to anything I was saying. “Khanavai males mate for life,” I told her. “And I know you’re not sure if you could love me.” I held up a hand to stop her as she started to speak. “But even so, the Bride Lottery, the Games, they’re supposed to be about finding love. That’s what happened with Prince Khan and Princess Elle. They fell in love, and they really did live happily ever after. I think we could, too.”

  I stood up, still holding her hands. “So that’s what I’m asking. Let’s walk away from all of this,” I released one of my hands long enough to gesture at the room, the other Khanavai warriors, all of Station 21, “and find out if you could fall in love with me. Because I know, without a doubt, that you’re the one for me. And I want to spend the rest of my life showing you what love is supposed to be like.”

  I stopped, finally having run out of words.

  Deandra gazed into my eyes for a long moment, as if searching for something there. Then she closed her own eyes and tilted forward to lean her forehead against mine.

  When she didn’t say anything, I did the only thing I could think of to try to show her how much I meant what I said.

  I took her face between my hands and leaned in to kiss her—hoping beyond hope that she would return my kiss.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dee

  It took only a few seconds for the magic of my attraction to Wex to work on me.

  His lips against mine were a question, a request.

  But as soon as I moved against him, they turned hard and demanding, an extension of the impassioned speech he had just given.

  If we do this, it is for real, his kiss told me.

  It’s forever.

  I responded with my own passionate message, my mouth devouring his even as his devoured mine.

  We are in this together.

  “Hey!” someone shouted. “What the vulk is this?”

  Wex pulled his lips from mine, and I hopped off my oversized chair to stand next to him.

  “This is unfair,” Tiziani called out. “If an unregistered groom can just walk in and kiss a potential bride, what’s to stop everyone else from doing it?”

  Several of the other grooms in the room muttered among themselves, clearly agreeing with Tiziani’s stance.

  “I demand the chance to kiss her, as well,” the yellow Khanavai continued.

  “Oh, hell no.” I stepped closer to Wex. “Get me out of here,” I said to him. “I am not kissing that son of a bitch. I saw how he acted last year on the games. He beat that shit out of that woman—and she seemed nice when she came to get Amelia.”

  Wex nodded. “I liked her.”

  I turned a suddenly suspicious stare in his direction. “We’re not getting into any of that spanking bullshit, are we?”

  He blinked, muttering something in his own language that the translator rendered as hitting with male bovine feces. “That’s not in my plans, no.”

  “It is my t
urn,” Tiziani said loudly.

  Drindl and Plofnid, who had just entered the room, glanced nervously at each other, and then at me.

  Drindl’s hands began to flutter at her sides, and as she moved past us, she murmured over her shoulder, “Run. I’ll distract them.”

  Wex and I took one quick look at each other, then turned and bolted toward the door, clasping hands as soon as we were on the other side.

  From inside the room, Drindl’s bell-like voice began trilling something incomprehensible, and then it rose, the pitch getting higher and higher. All the way down the hallway, we could still hear her. It must have been ear-splitting back in the room with her, her voice going higher and sharper than any soprano I had ever heard, ringing out across the station.

  As we turned the corner at the end of the hallway, I heard glass shattering in the rooms behind us.

  We dashed through the corridors until I could no longer keep up with Wex. At that point, he scooped me up in his arms and carried me, my arms wrapped around his neck.

  We hit the center of the station at full speed, dashing past the food court. But instead of continuing to some Khanavai-only portion of Station 21, Wex turned and ducked into the garden.

  He didn’t slow down until we were deep inside, even leaving the path and shoving us through tangled foliage.

  By then, I had my head buried against his chest and was laughing hysterically. When he finally slowed down, I caught my breath long enough to say, “Where are you taking me?”

  His chest heaved, and a bead of sweat rolled down one cheek. I reached up and brushed it away, my fingertip tracing his high cheekbone.

  “Somewhere we can talk privately,” he finally said. Carefully, he dropped his arm out from under my legs and lowered me gently to the ground.

  I glanced around at the unfamiliar plants. “None of these are poisonous or anything, right? I can sit down?”

  He laughed and folded his legs under him, gesturing for me to sit on his lap. “Just in case.”

  “So what do we need to talk about?” I leaned back against him, snuggling into the warmth of his body. “It kind of seems like you said most of the important things back there in the dining room.”