by Lisa Lace
Even though my mother held the data close to her chest, I knew she was keeping meticulous notes on each couple’s progress. When I asked about the details, all she would say was that things looked promising. She was a genius at predicting compatibility between two people. It was one of the reasons TerraMates was so successful. I trusted her, but living through the experience was nerve-racking.
I remembered that I had promised Arnon tonight would be about us. I shouldn’t let any thoughts of the world around us intrude on our evening together. I gave him a squeeze and gazed at the stars.
We flew on through the night, and I let my mind wander, enjoying nature’s beauty and being close to Arnon without needing to talk or worry about the future. I remembered how I had wanted to fly as a child. This was as close as I would ever get to fulfilling my dream, and it was more than I had ever hoped.
When we landed, after I slid off of Arnon’s back I was so flabbergasted by the view that I stood slack-jawed and eyes wide. I couldn’t believe it.
We stood on a cliff that overlooked a beautiful moonlit vista. We were somewhere in the middle of the vast national park north of the city. But the rest of the scene was what took my breath away.
A small waterfall trickled daintily into a pool before the water made its way down the cliff face. Red rose petals floated on top of the lake. Around the cliff were dozens of candles, lighting it in a scene that screamed romance. A blanket covered a large, flat rock and looked perfect to sit on. Whoever had worked this magic had brought in a table and a picnic basket too.
I looked at everything in surprise and ended up staring at his face. “What is all this?”
“I did some research on what Earth women think is romantic. Is it?”
“Definitely. I’d say that’s the understatement of the century.”
He smiled. “So you like it?”
“Anyone would like it. But why would you do something like this?”
“I wanted to treat you to something special because you deserve it.”
I felt like my heart was melting. Arnon had done all this just to please me. He made me feel like a queen. Come to think of it, if this relationship continued, I might become a queen soon. I didn’t think I was royal material.
“What’s the matter?”
“I appreciate everything, I really do. But you’re treating me like something I’m not.”
“You promised you wouldn’t think about everything tonight.” He looked worried as he approached me.
“I didn’t before, but this is overwhelming now. I’m not ready to be a queen, Arnon. I’m just a regular girl from Earth. I’m nobody. I’m a psychologist, for goodness sake.”
“Look at me.” I raised my eyes and what I saw in his face made me stop worrying. “Tonight is for us. There’s no one else here. You don’t need to think about the future.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay.”
He smiled at me. “Take a seat. Are you hungry?”
Arnon led me to the blanket-covered rock, pulling out food from the picnic basket. He produced a tray of vegetables with different kinds of dip. I saw my favorite kinds of crackers, cheeses, and an array of meat. The last plate he pulled out contained dainties and included my favorite kind of date bar.
“This is what I like to eat.” I glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. “But how did you know?”
“Your mother revealed everything when I asked her about your preferences.”
“She told you what my favorite foods were?”
“As a matter of fact, she gave a detailed list.” He winced. “Is that a problem?”
“Of course not. I just can’t believe you went to all this trouble for me.”
“You’re worth it, Jayne.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it, but you don’t have to impress me.”
“I didn’t do it to make you think highly of me. I wanted you to remember this night. Let’s eat now.”
I reached out to try a cracker with cheese. “It tastes fantastic.”
Arnon tentatively tasted a piece of meat and made a face.
“Is something the matter?”
“I’ve never had food prepared like this before.” He chewed thoughtfully, as if he regretted putting the meat in his mouth. “Usually we have a chef that makes the same food for us no matter where we travel in the galaxy.”
“For someone who has done so much space travel, it sounds like you haven’t experienced a lot.”
“We’re typically not subject to culture shock because we keep to ourselves.”
I watched him carefully. He still hadn’t swallowed. “You can spit it out if you want. Nobody’s watching.”
He picked up a napkin. “Sorry.” He dug out another bag from the picnic basket.
“It’s okay. What’s that?”
“Food for me. I like to be prepared.”
“No worries.” I started laughing. “You eat what you like, and I’ll eat what I like.”
We ate, talked about our childhoods, and the night passed quickly. Arnon packed up the picnic basket when we were done and brought out a bottle of wine, pouring us each a glass.
“Your alcohol is something I could get used to.”
“You don’t have red wine on Auxem?”
“We don’t have anything like this.” I was surprised at how quickly he was drinking.
“You still have to metabolize the alcohol, right? Slow down or you’re going to get drunk.”
He set his wine glass down on the table. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
There was something about the way he spoke that made me nervous and excited at the same time. My mind immediately jumped to conclusions. “Are you dumping me?” I stood up and set my wine glass beside his. “You didn’t have to butter me up before you did it.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Whatever they call it on Auxem. Breaking up with me?” He stared at me blankly. “Telling me that you don’t want to become bond mates?” I couldn’t understand the source of the tension in the air between us.
“Of course not.” He frowned. “Settle down. This might not come out right, but try to listen to everything I have to say.”
I took a breath and tried to relax. My heart was racing in my chest. I didn’t know what was happening, but something felt significant.
“Jayne, we haven’t known each other very long.” He looked up at the stars, then down at me, making me feel pinned by his beautiful brown eyes. “Ever since I saw you for the first time, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. You’re smart, beautiful, and have a great sense of humor. You bring fun into my life.”
He scanned my face quickly. I sat frozen, wondering what was happening.
“When I’m not with you, I want to find you. I have an ache inside of me.” He put his hand over his heart. “I don’t usually say things like this. If my brothers saw me right now, they would be hysterical.” He dropped his gaze, staring at his hands as if he felt embarrassed.
I reached out to touch his hand. “Your brothers aren’t here. I am. I would never laugh at you.”
He pulled out something he had kept hidden behind him. It looked like a jewelry box. He opened it and pulled out an unusually sized silver band that looked too big to be a bracelet, but too small to be a necklace. It was beautiful, gleaming in the candlelight. A rainbow of colors reflected off the metal.
“What’s that?”
His hands were shaking. “It’s a titanium arm band.”
“We don’t have those on Earth. What’s it for?”
He looked down at the band in his hands. “It’s something given to women on my planet when a man asks the woman he loves to become his bond mate.”
I stared at him for a moment, then down at the band. He stood up and spread his wings. Was he going to propose to me?
Arnon held the band in his hands in front of him, and I stared at six feet of a regal angel before me, unable to speak.
“Will you do me the honor of b
ecoming my bond mate?”
Would I?
Chapter Ten
JAYNE
Had he just said that he loved me? What was I supposed to say after all this? Did I love him? I couldn’t move.
A thought popped into my head that brought everything into perfect clarity. What would I do if he went back into his spaceship and disappeared from my life forever?
The idea twisted my stomach into knots. I would be a mess, and I didn’t know if I would ever get over it. I wanted Arnon. Maybe it was more than that. I needed him. I didn’t know why or how it had happened. I only knew that I couldn’t live without him, no matter where it ended up taking me.
He was still standing there after the thoughts passed rapidly through my mind, but he was starting to look nervous.
“Yes,” I said, tears coming to my eyes. “I will, Arnon. I’ll be your bond mate.”
A huge grin spread across his face, lighting up his entire body. He stepped forward and took my left arm, gently sliding the band up to my bicep.
“Is that too tight?”
I shook my head as a single tear ran down my cheek. He pressed gently and the band molded itself to my skin. He gazed at it for a moment before he looked up and met my eyes. Before I knew it, I found myself in his arms, and his lips were on mine.
The kiss was passionate this time and filled with emotion. We knew that we had made a momentous decision without any idea how it would end. But we didn’t care. There was no way to see the future, after all. I had wanted to choose my love but, against my will, love had chosen me.
My mother had been right. At that moment, I didn’t give a damn. There was only the two of us and a fire that burned between us hotter than anything I had ever known. We sat down on the rock again without breaking the kiss. Arnon pushed me down on my back as he covered me with his body.
I wanted him so badly.
His hand slid up under my shirt and roamed around. When he realized that the shirt had a built-in bra that gave him immediate access to my breasts, he made a surprised noise and then a grunt of appreciation. My eyes rolled back into my head as his hand made contact with my nipple. He pinched it gently, and I moaned, wrapping my legs around his thigh.
Things started to get hotter, and I don’t know what would have happened if a wolf hadn’t howled, startling us out of our passion. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be doing this.” I pushed him off me. We were both partly naked at this point. Neither one of us was thinking clearly. Arnon looked appalled that things had gotten so far.
“I’m sorry about that.” He helped me pull down my shirt and put on my pants again.
“I’m just sorry we had to stop,” I muttered. “You have no idea how badly I want you.”
“I think I know what you mean.” He gave me a smoldering glance.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to eat me alive.”
“We won’t have to wait much longer. We’ll be married soon.” He wrapped his arms around me, and I felt my heart begin to flutter. “After we bond, we can make a baby.”
“Heaven help me.”
My mother didn’t take the news well. “Why would you do that?” she shouted.
She made me feel like I was thirteen again, and was reluctant to let me do whatever I wanted. But I wasn’t a teenager anymore, and I didn’t need her permission or approval to marry Arnon. I was willing to proceed without her blessing if I had to.
But I wanted it.
“Because I love him.”
“How could you know that so soon?” I glared at her. “I suppose your father and I married quickly too. Jayne, you’re still my baby, and this decision can affect the rest of your life. I feel like you’re not thinking things through.”
“You didn’t just get married quickly. You married Dad after only knowing him for a few weeks.” I knew my tone was caustic, but she was upsetting me. “You gave up everything to save him. All I’m doing is marrying Arnon.”
“Baby, you know it will mean a lot more than that. What do you want from me? Okay. I’m happy for you.”
“You’re making it sound like a question.”
“We haven’t even met him. Your father’s not going to like this.”
“I’ll tell him. Don’t worry, Mom. That’s not your job.”
“I hope you aren’t making a terrible mistake. You’ll be so far away from us. I always hoped you and Maria would settle down close by.”
My eyes filled with tears. I had only been apart from my parents when I went away to school. Even then, I visited frequently, transporting down almost every weekend. I was going to be on my own for the first time.
“You can visit, Mom. They’ll pay for it. Their planet is rich, and the family has plenty of money.”
“You’re not doing it for the money, are you?” she asked, looking up suddenly.
“Of course I’m not.”
“I’m sorry. You’ll understand when you have children of your own. I’m sure you’ll be happy.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I gave her a hug. But if she believed what she was saying, why did she think I was making a mistake?
ARNON
“You’ve done what?” My father glared at me.
“I proposed to Jayne Lynch, and she accepted. I thought we came to this planet to find mates. Are you having second thoughts now?”
“Well, I didn’t know you were courting her. Why didn’t you tell me you intended to ask her to be your bond mate?”
“You’re too busy to trouble yourself with all the minor details of my life, Father.” I had to fight to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Usually, he didn’t care what I was doing. Why did he want to play the role of an involved parent now? I’m sure it would have been easier to get over my mother’s death if my father had been kind to his children. I respected him, but I didn’t love him. He had hurt my brothers and me too many times for there to be any love between us.
“Anyone would want to know who the crown prince plans to marry.”
“I didn’t realize this was a political meeting. I was surprised that you found me so fascinating tonight.”
“I’m interested, Arnon. There’s no need to be sullen.”
I fought to control my temper. “I have been courting Jayne, and that is no one’s business but our own. I asked her to marry me, and she accepted. Now you know everything.”
“Yes, I suppose I do.”
For a moment, he didn’t look like a heartless father or even a monarch. He seemed like a tired old man. I wondered what it was like walking in his shoes.
“That doesn’t mean I have to approve it. There were a dozen women in the mix more suitable than Jayne Lynch. I made sure of it. You should have chosen one of them. You haven’t given her a band, have you? Perhaps you can still get out of it.”
“Father.” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice any longer. “I love her and I have given her a band. I have no intention of reneging.” I shook my head. He might have had the comfort of five sons in his old age. Instead, he only had our anger and resentment. My father was a fool.
“I will leave now before I say something I regret.”
“Mark my words, Arnon,” he said to my back. “Nothing good will come from this.”
I stopped and turned around slowly, keeping a tight rein on my temper. “Jayne is not nothing. She will be my bond mate.”
He didn’t answer as I left the room.
Jayne and I met the next day to go down to TerraMates and tell them about our decision to be bond mates. I thought we were fast, but we weren’t even the first couple to declare. Wedding preparations began almost immediately.
We would have a mixture of Auxem and Earth customs. All the weddings would start the day after round three was over. Even if we weren’t the first to finish the process, we were going to be the first wedding. We had a group of priests with us who would conduct the ceremonies. Based on projections, we would have enough couples and the ev
ents would take about four days.
Once the ceremonies were complete, we would start the journey back to Auxem. Our planet was on the other side of the galaxy. If everything went according to plan, some of the women would get pregnant immediately. We would give fertility treatments to those who couldn’t conceive and implant fertilized eggs into their wombs. By the time we arrived at our planet, the first group of women would all be carrying children.
About nine months later, Auxem would see its first female babies in a generation. And it would just be the beginning. Women would come from Earth to repopulate our planet.
We hoped every man who could produce a child would find a mate. The marriages would happen on their own after the women moved to Auxem. If anyone needed help selecting a mate, they could go to their local TerraMates office for assistance.
Everything seemed perfect, and that made me nervous. The last time things in my life were perfect was when I was ten years old. The next thing I knew, all the women on my planet started dying. Was our journey complete? The thought that we might finally have found women who were willing to come back and help us rebuild society was liberating.
Some of the descendants of the Great Race clung to the antiquated notion that men were more important than women. Not me. I didn’t think men were less important, either. But when you lost the glue of every family on a planet and couldn’t reproduce anymore, when you did’t have anyone soft to hold onto and no one to help little boys when they skinned their knees...you started to understand how important women were, and not just in the physical sense.
My father hadn’t always been cold and unkind. When I was little, he was a great dad. He played with us, read to us, and explained things to us. He was different after he lost his wife. At first, the changes were imperceptible, but they grew more noticeable the longer she was gone. Mom had brought out a soft side in him that vanished. Whatever magic her love had worked on him faded away. A shell of our father was all that remained.
Everyone on the planet was affected by the tragedy, losing a wife, mother, or sister. We endured an unspeakable pain in a short period. The memory made me shudder.