Bridal Pact
Leora Gonzales
Poppy is bored to tears with her dead-end job and dull life, so when a species of alien warlords arrives on Earth, seeking women to help repopulate their race, why wouldn’t she sign up? She doesn’t care who she’s matched with—until she meets him. Sexy, long-haired and leather-pants-wearing Wheaton.
Diplomat Wheaton expected a cultured Earthling to help in his mission, not some crazy-haired woman named after a flower and whose speech baffles his translator. Pardon my French? Knock it off? But Wheaton is soon smitten and eager to turn Poppy’s good-morning kisses into an all-day affair. Doing the nasty? Bring it on!
But Poppy must do battle with the slimy councilor Demascus, and an extremist group opposed to the Pact. And that’s before a glitch in the Bridal Pact program makes all existing matches invalid, and glossy Hannah, the perfect politician’s wife, arrives on board. Her match: Wheaton.
Reader Advisory: This story has graphic sexual language and scenes—no closed bedroom doors (or other rooms) here!
An adult science fiction romance from Ellora’s Cave
Bridal Pact
Leora Gonzales
Dedication
I would like to give thanks to my family and friends who have been supportive while I stumbled through writing my first book.
Special thanks to my friend Andrea. A bumper sticker brought us together but wonder twin powers keep us going strong.
Tina, you have become a close friend and I will never get bored talking to you. Your talent, life experience and generous heart make you an amazing woman. Plus, you get bonus points for putting up with Richard…that’s kind of a big deal.
Most importantly, I want to dedicate this to my husband. I was lucky enough to find a man who is super smart, loving, hilarious and also diabolical. When I said that I wanted to write but had no computer, I had no idea he was going to surprise me with a new laptop. There went my list of excuses. Touché, Richard. Touché.
Chapter One
Poppy Williams jerked awake at the sound of police sirens. Sitting up in bed as if she’d been electrocuted, she looked around for a minute. What the hell was going on? Confused from sleep, Poppy blinked a few times to focus her eyes. The amount of sun streaming through the window could only mean one thing.
“Holy fucking shit!”
Not only had her alarm not gone off but she’d apparently overslept by more than an hour. Scrambling from under her comforter, Poppy stumbled and ending up face-planting on the floor by her bed, landing in a pile of shoes.
“Motherfucker!” Now she was not only going to be late for work, she’d have a shoe imprint on her forehead.
Snatching her phone from the nightstand, she hit the icon to call work. When all she got was a busy signal, she tossed it onto the bed and ran to her closet to find some clean clothes. After getting dressed with a speed she thought would impress the Flash, she moved to the bathroom to clean up her face.
The only way to tame her curls would be to start over with a shower and since that wasn’t an option she pulled her hair back and piled it into a bun on top of her head. As she brushed her teeth, she tried to smooth down some of the curls around her face.
“Stupid hair,” Poppy muttered. She actually loved her long curls but only when she had enough time to tame them. Glancing into the mirror one last time, she took in her image. Standing at five foot three, she had some serious curves. Poppy normally weighed herself every morning out of habit and knew the one hundred and eighty pounds that showed on the scale would make most women cringe. She however had decided long ago to accept what seemed to be her “normal”. No, she took that back. She not only accepted herself, she liked herself.
Leaning forward to make sure she didn’t have toothpaste on the side of her mouth, Poppy took a second to clear the sleep from the corners of her brown eyes. Another good thing was that she appeared closer to twenty-three than the twenty-seven years she was pushing.
She’d wasted enough time in the bathroom and raced to the door where her other shoes were. Slipping them on as she walked caused Poppy to almost fall for the second time this morning. As she redialed the office, she noticed the time at the top of the screen. Well shit. Why weren’t they answering?
In her hurry to get out the door, she barely missed slamming into the man blocking her path to the stairs. She brushed by him at the last minute, narrowly avoiding knocking both of them over. She stopped dead. Something wasn’t right.
Work forgotten, she saw almost all her neighbors were standing on the open-air staircase. That was when she remembered what had originally woken her up.
Sirens.
Walking back a step to the man she assumed was her loud next-door neighbor, she asked, “Is one of the buildings on fire?”
When he didn’t answer her but instead simply stared across the parking lot, Poppy turned around to see what had everyone in a trance.
“What the fuck?!”
Not believing her eyes, she blinked a couple times and then pinched her arm for good measure.
There, hovering in the sky, was a strange plane. Studying it closely, she realized, no, that wasn’t a plane. It was some sort of ship. A bright, shiny silver ship like something straight out of the movies. Just floating in the air as if it were guarding something, it cast a shadow over a few of the buildings it hovered above.
Poppy jumped when a hand clasped her shoulder hard from behind.
“Didn’t you see the news?” Her neighbor was still staring at the ship with a panicked expression on his face.
“What? What news?” Shaking her head to clear it, she blinked a few more times and whispered, “What the fuck is going on?”
“It’s aliens. There are aliens…aliens…”
As his voice trailed off in disbelief, Poppy looked frantically around, trying to figure out what was happening.
Every single neighbor on her floor was out on the stairs watching the strange ship hanging in midair over the buildings in front of her. Some people were whispering, quite a few were crying, but most of them were just staring in shock at the ship.
Poppy tried frantically to unlock her phone with fingers that were now slippery with sweat. Finally getting to the screen she needed, she punched the icon with her sister’s picture on it.
“Pixie. Answer the phone, Pixie.” Poppy heard the voicemail pick up and immediately hit End to dial again. How dare Pixie not answer the phone when there were aliens? Aliens!
“Poppy!” Her sister’s voice had Poppy breathing a sigh of relief.
“Pixie! Are you seeing this?” Poppy peered over the rail on the stairs to see a police car circling on the street beneath her third-story apartment. She covered her free ear to drown out the siren that was continuously wailing. Poppy strained to hear what was being said.
“Stay indoors. Do not panic. Stay indoors.” The words were being repeated from the emergency vehicle in between the siren blaring.
Poppy walked back toward her apartment door even as the rest of her neighbors stayed where they were.
“Pixie? I can barely hear you. What did you say?” Poppy struggled with the door to her apartment with one hand, holding the phone with the other.
“Poppy, the ships…they’re everywhere…it’s all over the news.”
In between crackles she could hear sirens on Pixie’s end of the line as well.
“Hang on.” Finally getting the stupid door open, Poppy ran to her TV to turn it on.
When the screen flickered, it was all Poppy could do to keep breathing. The live shot from the news crew showed not just a single ship but dozens of them. Simply hovering over the city.
As the news alert showed different cities reporting the same phenomenon, Poppy felt her stomach sink.
“Poppy? Are you still there?” Pixie’s voice wobbled over the phone.
“Yeah, Pix, I’m here. Are you at home?” Poppy had the undeniable urge to get to her last remaining family member and make sure she was safe. From her window she could see the police cars still making their rounds on the busy street. From what she could make out, traffic was blocked up and down the road. Fuck. There went that idea.
“Yeah, I was watching the news before I went in to work. I tried calling your office but I couldn’t get through.”
“Well, at least you had the news to prepare you. I missed my alarm and almost mowed a guy down on the stairs. I didn’t know what was happening until I saw that thing in the sky.” Poppy took turns peeking out her window at the commotion below and walking back to the TV.
“What the fuck are they?”
Pixie started talking again but Poppy shushed her.
“Shhhh, Pix, they’re having a press conference.”
Turning up her TV to drown out some of the outside noise, Poppy sank down onto her living room floor. The local news switched over to a national broadcast. She held her breath as she stared at the screen, watching the president take his place behind a podium. He managed to appear calm and collected despite the panic and confusion out on the street. Holding up his hands to quiet down the reporters shouting questions from all directions, he focused directly on the camera.
“My fellow Americans, do not be alarmed. Many of you have been watching the news reports this morning regarding first contact that has been made with an alien species. The truth is that we are no longer alone. In fact, we have never been alone. This race of beings has also made us aware that they are not the only ones in the unknown depths of space. The safety of all Americans is our number-one concern. After our initial contact, we have started negotiations with their leaders.
“While we speak with them, we ask that citizens stay calm. There is no need for panic. We have ascertained that they are here on a peaceful mission and the ships that many of you have seen are there for observation purposes. During this time we ask that nonessential businesses stay closed today and we recommend that citizens stay inside until the streets have cleared. For your safety and others, please only call emergency services if they are truly needed. The State Department also asks that concerned citizens do not try to disturb the ships, which are protected by force fields. Air travel has been suspended except for military flights, and there will be a press release announcing when commercial or private planes will restart.”
Poppy took in a huge gulp of air when he stopped speaking. Her mind was whirling, trying to absorb her new reality. Aliens. Motherfucking aliens.
The screech in Poppy’s ear was loud and obnoxious but managed to knock her out of the funk she’d fallen into, hanging on the president’s every word. Still holding the phone to her ear with her sister on the line, Poppy tried to swallow to clear her throat.
“Did you see that?” Pixie asked.
“Yeah.”
“Holy shit,” Pixie breathed out.
“No joke. So…wait…you can’t come over. I’m here alone, Pixie, and this is freaking me out.” For some reason, Poppy felt on the verge of tears. Overwhelmed, she blinked a couple of times to clear her eyes.
Pixie was the only family Poppy had left. After a car accident had claimed the lives of their parents five years ago, the sisters had been closer than ever before. Poppy had begun to rely on her older sister more the past couple of years. It was hard not to. Pixie seemed to have her shit together. While Poppy worked at the front desk in a medical office, Pixie held a managerial position at a successful restaurant. She had to admit, she was slightly jealous that Pixie had a chance to use her college degree and make decent money doing it. Whoever thought to major in history was an idiot, and that pool of idiots happened to include Poppy herself.
“Poppy, I can’t. There are actually barricades blocking my street.”
Poppy could hear Pixie fiddling with the loud blinds in her living room. “I know, Pix. I’m sorry… I’m just having trouble taking this all in.” She dropped down onto her loveseat and kicked off her shoes to think for a second.
“Is Brian home or had he already left for work when all this shit happened?”
Brian was Pixie’s live-in boyfriend of two years. Her sister seemed to be on the verge of becoming Brian’s fiancée at any time, if the rumors were true. All their mutual friends hinted Brian seemed to be acting a little sneaky and might have spent some time at a jewelry store recently. Poppy was happy for her sister’s success, both in work and relationships. Although she’d prefer not to have to confess to it, she did sometimes feel a little envious.
“He’d left but only made it down a couple blocks before there was a wreck. By the time he turned around, he noticed people were stopping their cars in the street to get out and look at the ships that’d become visible.”
“Become visible?”
“Yeah, Brian said he was driving down the road and then a ship just appeared in front of him in the sky. He said it didn’t fly down, just popped up out of nowhere.”
Poppy leaned her head back and tried to calm her nerves.
“Well, Pix, at least you have Brian there.” Glancing wryly at her front door, she added, “I may have to keep company with my loud and obnoxious neighbors. I spoke to them for the first time in two years.”
“Once they reopen the streets, you can come here and stay with us,” Pixie offered in her “big sister” voice.
“Yeah, I may have to do that. This whole thing is so unbelievable.” Poppy was now talking more to herself than to Pixie.
“Hey, Pops, Brian just came in. He’s been standing in the front yard watching everything. We’re going to keep watching the news today. Call me in a little bit to check in, okay?” Pixie waited for her sister to agree before saying goodbye.
Without the phone to cling to now, Poppy glanced around the apartment, listening for noises from outside. Nothing but sirens wailing with the continued, “Stay indoors. Do not panic.”
“Well shit.”
Chapter Two
For the next week, Poppy stayed inside her apartment. The doctor’s office she worked for had cancelled patient exams and told her not to bother coming in until she received a call when they’d reopened. That meant that Poppy was using her vacation time, which sucked for a couple reasons. Like many of her friends she lived paycheck to paycheck. She had a little savings, but that amount tended to be enough to splurge on a dinner out every now and then. It was definitely nothing to live off.
Between calls to check in with Pixie, she tried to become more familiar with her neighbors. She quickly came to realize her fellow apartment dwellers could be lumped into the “crazy Floridians” group. Poppy was relieved that she hadn’t felt the need to become friendly before the whole alien invasion. These people drove her nuts. Her first clue to the crazy they subscribed to was apparent when on the second night she heard gunshots in the parking lot and peered out to see the man she’d talked to previously, now with a dangling bottle of Jack in one hand and a handgun in the other. As he fired shots up at the ship closest to them, he yelled, “Come and get me!” This lasted until someone called the police. After some shouting back and forth, Poppy finally had some peace and quiet when they Tasered him and he was arrested.
Poppy felt slightly guilty when thinking back on it. As the shenanigans had been happening outside her window, she’d popped a bag of popcorn and sat watching as if she were at the movies. Who could blame her though? She was getting tired of watching the news and this was more entertaining than cable TV. It seemed every channel claimed to have “inside” information about their space invaders. There were stories being leaked that ranged from missing women who were believed to have been abducted and probed to the aliens being blamed for climate change.
As Poppy sat in her living room flipping through the channels, her phone rang.
“Hey, Pix.” Apparently it was time for her morning check-in.
“Hey, Poppy, how’s the status quo?” Pixie asked. This was obviously getting old if that was her opening line.
“Oh you know, the usual… An alien knocked on my door today to try to convert me to some freaky alien religion, my neighbor went gun shopping again, and I’m pretty sure I’m down to my last roll of toilet paper,” Poppy quipped.
“Hardy-har-har. Very funny.” Pixie’s tone went serious. “These news broadcasts are still freaking me out. Did you hear they believe twenty missing women have been connected to the aliens?”
“Pix, c’mon now. I’m sure the last thing on their minds was coming down here to steal women. The last lady who was interviewed about being abducted was wearing a tinfoil hat. She was a total nut ball.” Picturing the woman in question from the news report caused her to laugh. “But I was being honest about the toilet paper…I have half a roll left and no paper towels. I’m going to need to leave my apartment soon.”
“Poppy, from what I’ve heard, people have been going out with no problem. You’re not too far from the store. You should be able to go pretty quick and be right back.”
That thought made Poppy frown. She hated Mega Mart. It was sometimes fun to go in the middle of the night and people-watch if she was really bored but actually shopping there was no fun at all. So what if everything was super-cheap? The crowded aisles were hell to navigate with their wonky shopping carts that always tended to lean right no matter how many times you switched carts.
“I’d rather drive across town and take my chances at the Super Store than go to Mega Mart during the day, Pix. You know I hate that place.”
Pixie let out a snort of laughter. “So you’re telling me you’d rather take a chance being abducted by aliens than go two miles to Mega Mart?”
“Hellz yes, bish. That’s how I roll.”
Both sisters loved to curse. In fact, they tended to make an art of it and used bad language in every sentence they could. When they were bored and drinking, they’d try to create new words just to mix it up. “Bish” was one of those words. According to Pixie it was like calling someone a bitch but with a little love thrown in. They used it so frequently their phones had stopped autocorrecting it when they texted each other.
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