by Cara Bristol
“Well, we’re all here now. It’s kind of like being a ’net-order bride,” the brunette said cheerfully. “By the way, I’m Tessa Chartreuse. I ran an escort service for an elite clientele.”
“So why are you here? Prostitution isn’t illegal.” It had been decriminalized a long time ago.
“No, but money laundering is.” She shrugged.
Andrea laughed. “She’s an entrepreneur.”
I took a deep breath. “Any idea what the aliens look like?” I’d kept to myself, but I’d heard rumors our intended “mates” were scaly blue with long tails. Only recently had Terra One World made contact with Dakon. I’d been told the aliens “looked like us,” but I had little confidence in my government to tell the truth.
“I did a little ’net research before they transported me to the shuttle,” Andrea explained. “They are humanoid, genetically compatible with us, but they’re taller, much more muscular, and bigger.” She held her hands about a meter apart.
“Are you talking about their penises or their bodies in general?” Tessa asked.
Shit, I hoped Andrea was referring to their bodies. I eyed the span between her palms.
Andrea rolled her eyes. “Their bodies in general. I did not research their junk.”
“It would be proportionate, though, wouldn’t you think?” Tessa persisted. You could take the girl out of the escort business, but you couldn’t take the escort business out of the girl.
Andrea placed her index fingers to her forehead so they stuck up. “And they have—”
“Antennas?” My jaw dropped.
“More like horns.”
“That’s worse!”
“Vestigial horns. Mostly hidden by their hair.”
“So we’re the court-ordered brides of horned aliens who may or may not have big dicks,” I said.
“That’s the size of it.” Andrea snickered.
I got up and moved to the observation window. Without the filtering effects of a planetary atmosphere, stars in space didn’t twinkle. They appeared as solid points of light. We’d traveled far enough that none of the constellations were familiar anymore.
“Dakon must be very far away.” We’d been on the ship for two months with thirty days left to go.
“It’s hyper speed compared to the three-year round trip the first contact took. Thanks to the illuvian ore, we’ll do it in three months,” Andrea said. “The Dakonians have been waiting a long time for their mates. After the first contact ship returned to Earth, it took a year to set up the program and recruit the first group of women.”
Tessa giggled. “They’re going to be really horny by now. In more ways than one.”
“What happens if they don’t like the brides they receive?” I asked Andrea. She seemed to be in the know.
“Then we’ll be sent back to serve out the remainder of our sentence,” she replied. “With credit for time served on Dakon.”
In my case, that still meant life without the possibility of parole, not the usual sentence for second-degree murder, but my attacker hadn’t been the usual victim. Fortunately, despite the Carmichaels’ influence, they hadn’t been able to charge me with first-degree murder because security vids showed Jaxon’s laser pistol falling out of his pocket. But the jury hadn’t bought Maridelle’s self-defense argument. Excessive force, the prosecution had argued and won. Two weeks after being sentenced to life in prison, I’d been shuttled to the SS Australia where a government agent deactivated the electrocuffs, shoved a duffel of my possessions into my arms, and announced I’d been inducted into the Terra-Dakon Goodwill Exchange pilot program.
Or, as I thought of it, Rocks-for-Brides.
“I don’t see them rejecting any of us,” Andrea said. “They’re desperate. They have a critical shortage of women.”
Tessa nodded. “An asteroid killed them.”
I moved away from the window. “Like the one that hit Earth and killed off the dinosaurs by causing a massive winter that destroyed their food supply?”
“Just like that. The planet is still suffering the winter it triggered,” Andrea answered.
“But how would an asteroid strike kill females and not males?”
“They think it carried a virus to which only women were susceptible, and it caused a genetic mutation. Each subsequent generation has produced fewer and fewer females. The planet is 90 percent men now. No worries, though. Everyone who got the virus died a couple of hundred years ago.”
I gawked in awe. “You had time to research all that?”
She shook her head. “It was in the orientation packet.”
I frowned. “Orientation packet?”
“On the little disk,” Tessa supplied. “Everyone got one in their cabins.”
“Oh, yeah.” Vaguely I remembered seeing something like that. I’d found it when I’d boarded the ship but tossed it into a drawer. A depressive fog had engulfed me since the verdict. What difference did anything make? My future was out of my control.
However, Andrea and Tessa had sparked my curiosity. I would pop that disk into the vid player and watch. Horned? I still couldn’t get over that. Would the planet resemble Terra? An asteroid-induced winter sounded freezing. It couldn’t be that cold, could it? People lived there. Male people, anyway.
Terra had the opposite problem, although not as severe. Women outnumbered men with more than 10 percent more females surviving to adulthood than males. Another reason female convicts were expendable. “Ninety percent men, huh? That’s a lot of testosterone.”
“I know, right?” Tessa rubbed her arms.
“Assuming they produce testosterone. They might have alien hormones,” Andrea pointed out. “In fact, that’s pretty much a guarantee seeing how they are aliens.”
“But we’re still genetically compatible?”
“Theoretically, according to preliminary lab tests. We can’t be certain until we start producing children.”
Even though I’d been in the grips of an I-was-wrongly-convicted funk, I recalled a couple of blood draws. How could my life have come to this? Sent to a planet light-years away to become an alien’s bride. I hugged my midsection. I gave birth to an alien baby. It sounded like a story from one of those cheesy ‘net vid-zines that focused on celebrity gossip—and sensational news items like my trial.
“I can’t believe that the first time we discover intelligent life on another planet, the first action our government takes is trading its female citizens for illuvian ore.” Space exploration had previously discovered alien life a couple of centuries ago, but they were single-celled jelly-like organisms and bacteria. Another planet had had heat-resistant insects, but that was about as advanced as it got.
“Terra One World has been quite civilized compared to what happened the last time Earthers coveted a particular metal ore they deemed valuable,” Andrea said.
She meant the quest for gold. A millennium ago, monarch and church-backed explorers decimated native populations in their avarice to acquire the Earth metal. I was aware of our planet’s ignominious history, even though I was nowhere near as knowledgeable as Andrea. The woman knew her business, and I suspected, everyone else’s. She was sharp—which probably wouldn’t serve her well on Dakon. I predicted that having no ’net access would be her biggest adjustment.
“You never ran across a single still or vid that showed what they look like?”
“Not a good one,” she said. “There was a still in the orientation vid.”
“You couldn’t see much because of the fur,” Tessa piped up.
“Fur? Good mythological gods, they’re furry?” Horns and fur?
Tessa and Andrea laughed. “No, they were wearing fur garments with hoods, so you couldn’t see their faces clearly,” Tessa said. “Just a chin and a nose.”
“How did those look?”
Tessa shrugged. “Like a chin and a nose.”
“Like a Terran chin and nose?”
“Uh huh.”
Be thankful for small mercies, anyway. If the dude looked too alien, I would focus on the lower half of his face.
Find out what happens next. Get Alien Mate from your favorite bookseller.
Falsely convicted, she’s sentenced to life as an alien’s mail order bride…
I'm Starr Elizabeth Conner. Earth's government falsely convicted me of a crime, packed me on a ship with other female felons, and sent us to Dakon, a primitive, frozen wasteland of a planet.
But I'm no barbarian’s 'mail order bride,' even if he is super tall, muscular, and the chief of his tribe. He doesn’t want a BBW blonde, either--it's written all over his chiseled face. He'll be truly angry if he ever learns what my 'crime' was.
I am Torg. I have waited 34 rotations for a mate of my own. With this shipment, I was sure to get a fine, sturdy mate who'll bear me many daughters. Instead, I receive a small, curvy, pale-haired female who looks at me with anger and fear.
It is only when we 'kiss' that I believe things may work out between us. But I'm hearing rumors that Starr and her shipmates are law-breakers. To survive, Dakonians must obey all laws … or be exiled into the frozen wasteland. Just when I have found my mate, will I have to banish her?
Get Alien Mate HERE
Titles by Cara Bristol
Alien Mate series
Alien Mate (Book 1)
Alien Attraction (Book 2)
Alien Intention (Book 3)
Dakonian Alien Mail-Order Brides
Intergalactic Dating Agency
Darak
Aton
Caid
Cy-Ops Sci-fi Romance series
Stranded with the Cyborg (Book 1)
Married to the Cyborg (Book 1.5)
Mated with the Cyborg (Book 2)
Captured by the Cyborg (Book 3)
Trapped with the Cyborg (Book 4)
Claimed by the Cyborg (Book 5)
Rescued by the Cyborg (Book 5.5)
Hunted by the Cyborg (Cy-Ops Sci-fi Romance 6)
Breeder sci-fi romance series
Breeder (Book 1)
Terran (Book 2)
Warrior (Book 3)
Other titles
Destiny’s Chance
Goddess’s Curse
Longing
Naughty Words for Nice Writers (A Romance Novel Thesaurus)
Anthologies
Portals
Body Talk
Audiobooks
Stranded with the Cyborg
Mated with the Cyborg
Books in Print
Alien Mate
Captured by the Cyborg
Claimed by the Cyborg
Goddess’s Curse
Naughty Words for Nice Writers
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About the Author
Cara Bristol writes character driven science fiction romance with humor, heart, and heat. She loves introducing new readers to science fiction romance and likes to say she writes sci-fi for readers who don’t like sci-fi. She’s been a number one best seller in multiple book categories and has hit the USA Today bestseller list twice! When she’s not writing (ha ha ha – she’s almost always writing) she enjoys traveling to exotic destinations and chillaxin’ with her favorite reality TV shows. Cara lives in Missouri with her own alpha hero, her husband.
Cara’s Website: http://carabristol.com/
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Acknowledgments
It takes an entire team to put out a book. I’m so fortunate to have found a great one! A big thanks goes to editor Kate Richards, copy editor Nanette Sipe, proofreader Celeste Jones, my faithful beta reader Lisa Medley, and cover designer Croco Designs. I’d like to thank author Tasha Black for inviting me to write for the Intergalactic Dating Agency series. Last, but not least, I’d like to thank all my readers for giving me such an awesome career. Being a published author is my dream job, and you, the reader, made it happen!
For even more alien hunks, check out the books written by the other authors of the Intergalactic Dating Agency.
Intergalactic Dating Agency
Looking for love that’s out of this world? Strong, smart, sexy aliens are seeking mates from the Milky Way. Just hop on board with your local Intergalactic Dating Agency and become an alien mail order bride! Join thirteen authors as we explore the friendly skies and beyond with trilogies of astral adventure and otherworldly lovers. Warning: abductions may or may not be involved.
Meet your alien hunk here: Romancing the Alien.