by Sarah Marsh
Coalition Mates 2
Talia’s Match
Talia Booth finds herself kidnapped from her home planet of Earth while hiking and wakes up in an auctioning facility on a strange planet surrounded by aliens. Luckily she catches the eye of a couple of beautiful men who are familiar with her species and they decide to rescue her from a dreadful fate.
Asher Rhodan and Grae Derhsavve have been looking for a third to complete their relationship and start a family and when they see Talia, they both know she’s the one. All they have to do now is convince her that a relationship with both of them is possible.
The Prince and the dragon may not be the type of males that Talia is used to, but before long she finds their attention and steamy teasing impossible to resist. Asher’s complicated family situation threatens to destroy the new happiness the trio has found. Can Talia let go of her inhibitions and let herself love the men that destiny has brought her to?
Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Science Fiction
Length: 25,888 words
TALIA'S MATCH
Coalition Mates 2
Sarah Marsh
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
TALIA'S MATCH
Copyright © 2015 by Sarah Marsh
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-031-2
First E-book Publication: March 2015
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
To Marissa, once again thank you for all your support and feedback! I look forward to one day being able to return the favour with your own writing. Also to my parents, thank you for always being there to support me even though what I get up to may not always be that conventional.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
About the Author
TALIA'S MATCH
Coalition Mates 2
SARAH MARSH
Copyright © 2015
Prologue
“Asher, is it really necessary for us to attend this summit?” Grae asked, wiping his mouth with his napkin as they finished their breakfast. “You know how I feel about those disgusting slavers.”
Asher set his tablet down and gave his consort a sympathetic look, but the truth was, he abhorred the slave trade just as much as Grae did. “Unfortunately, these negotiations are crucial to our mining operations. It will be distasteful for many of the delegates, but it is part of our job to tolerate other cultures no matter how much they may be against our own ethics.”
He got up and walked around the table, embracing his lover from behind as he kissed his neck lightly. “I promise we won’t stay a minute longer than required, and we may even have time to swing by Lawri on the way home and spend a few days naked on the beach.”
Grae let out a laugh. “Your negotiating skills are unparalleled, my Lord. You know just what to tempt me with. When we return home, we can begin looking for our third,” he said, innocently looking up through his lashes to see Asher’s response.
Asher stood back up and let out a loud sigh. “Yes, my love, we can begin our search once we return.”
Chapter One
Talia had counted fifteen days that she had been inside this cell. The first week or so had been shocking. She’d finally come to terms with the fact that she was no longer on Earth and that it wasn’t looking good that she was ever going to make it home. She had been enjoying her Saturday afternoon of hiking in the mountains, thinking about how decadent it was to be there all alone, no phones ringing or reports to write, and then the next thing she knew, she was caught up in the alien slave trade. What the heck had she done in a previous life to deserve this?
When she had first awoken and a strange, small, fat, purple man had brought her some food, she had screamed and fainted. When she was revived, he was mumbling and scolding her that she had fallen and scratched the “merchandise,” and she abruptly fainted again.
Once the initial shock had worn off and she was able to get a better look at the odd little alien, it was almost comical how nonthreatening he actually was. Some of the females, at least she thought most of them were females, in the cells surrounding her were way more frightening. Talia was in the middle of a menagerie of captive alien women and she
had no idea how she had gotten there.
Every day, the little man would come and lecture her that he offered the most rare and exceptional females in the known Universes. She was told she needed to pull herself together so her training could begin, as she had been acquired late and he had a special occasion in mind for her unveiling.
So, naturally, she put all her energy into irritating the jerk and doing her best to make an impression of what Earth females were capable of. In the other cells around her, she saw a wide variety of female species, but no other humans. She was rather surprised at how complacent and cooperative the other captives were, as they seemed to be training hard and taking all his instructions to heart. What idiots! How could they not be upset that they had been kidnapped and sold into slavery?
“Female, are you ready to train now?” the little man sidled up to the bars and asked her again, just like every day before that.
“Sure thing, you little eggplant. As soon as you drop me back on my own planet, I’ll get right in my time machine and travel back a hundred years to go to finishing school and become a proper little slave,” she answered him in a tone dripping with sarcasm, arms folded over her chest.
He looked back at her with a confused, then exasperated face, “You make no sense, female. Your primitive planet is nowhere near capable of time travel. You’d best resolve yourself to the fact that you will never again be seeing your home. The other females are training to make the most of their price and ensure an advantageous placement. If you have no skills, I will have no choice but to sell you as a straight pleasure worker. Try to understand that this is for both of our benefits. I took a sizable risk acquiring you from the poachers, as humans are virtually unknown to us, but there has been a recent discovery that one of your females was able to successfully breed with a Zornan clan. Proven breeding species are extremely valuable, and until the United Coalition Council approves approaching Earth directly for breeding stock, then black market humans such as yourself will make me many credits.”
Talia couldn’t believe what the horrible little man just told her. “Earth would never let you take people for breeding stock! That’s disgusting! You call us primitives, but we outlawed slavery ages ago. You can’t just steal people and sell them!” she spat in his face, wishing she could get her hands on the awful little male.
“When I get out of here, I’m going to beat you to another shade of purple, you little cretin!” she continued.
With that threat, his eyes lit up. “So you are trained for battle, then?” he asked excitedly, while bringing his tablet up to his face to make notes. “That’s very marketable, very good.”
He was still mumbling happily to himself as he walked away. It was obvious she was going to have to try a different approach. She lay back down on her cot and covered her eyes with her arm, trying to figure out what to do when she heard a quiet voice to her left.
“You shouldn’t try to aggravate him, female. What he says is true. You need to begin to train. The summit is only two days away,” said the small woman in the next cell who’d previously ignored all of Talia’s attempts at conversation.
“So you can speak English, huh?” Talia answered her with a note of irritation.
“No, silly female, you speak United, since you have a translator chip in your stubborn head,” the stranger said as she stood and walked closer to the bars. “You need to adapt and catch up, or I promise you will find yourself on a brothel cruiser servicing some of the vilest creatures you can imagine.”
The fear that Talia felt must have finally shown through the bravado, because the strange woman’s face softened and she seemed to rein in her own frustration.
“I don’t say these things to merely frighten you, human, but most of the females here are either paying for crimes or here to earn an income. There are only a few of us that have been captured against our will. You must try to make the best sale you can and pray to your gods that you will survive the life that has now been chosen for you,” the woman said before she settled herself on the floor beside Talia’s cot.
Tears finally leaked past her eyes and Talia said in a small voice, “I don’t know what’s happened to me. What am I going to do?”
“Well, that’s the easiest question to answer, my dear. You’re going to survive,” the stranger said as she smiled gently.
Chapter Two
As the two days before the conference passed, Talia had spent all day training with her new friend Delai. They spent all night talking about where they had come from and what Talia could expect from her new life to come.
Delai was from Tertia, a planet that was over eighty percent water. Her tinted blue skin could take oxygen out of the water, which meant that she could survive for long periods of time without breathing. That was why females of her kind were stolen for bathing slaves. Without being told, Talia could read between the lines of what some perverted, sick slavers would have a Tertain female doing in their bath. Delai explained that by training and enticing an advantageous benefactor, their lives would be much preferable to the riff-raff and criminals who would purchase them in the general auction.
Talia was still in disbelief over the prevalence of slaves in the first place. I mean, one would think that advanced civilizations capable of space travel and so much more would be socially and morally as advanced as well. I guess it just goes to show you that no matter the type of being, assholes are universal.
The planet that they were currently on was called Plione. It has two main industries, mining and slave trading. Plione was a very large trading planet, and, even though abducting free beings to be sold into slavery was illegal if the persons in question were citizens of a planet within the United Coalition, any citizen of a planet not belonging to the Coalition was very conveniently not protected under law.
It was illegal to make contact or interfere with these unaligned planets, but for the slave traders, it was all too easy to say that they were offered slaves for purchase, not knowing where they originated from, nor caring. Unfortunately for others like Delai, even though Tertia was part of the Coalition, the slavers made too much profit from certain rare species on the black market, and there were always those willing to break the law when money was involved.
As the women groomed themselves in preparation for the conference, Talia began to get nervous. Apparently, each of them would only get to interact with the delegates for about a half-hour before they were replaced by another, and if she couldn’t convince someone to bid on her during that time, she would be subjected to the general auction. So, as much as it made her furious to dress up like some harem girl and flaunt her assets like a hooker, she gritted her teeth and did her best to look the part of a demure female ready for submission. What her benefactor got once the deal was sealed was going to be a surprise, but as the little purple slaver named Halko liked to remind them, “No refunds.”
Chapter Three
Asher looked over at Grae once again, noticing how avidly his consort tried to pay attention to the delegate from Solan as he spoke about the benefits of new terraforming techniques. The first portion of the evening was a meet-and-greet so the gathering delegates could discuss potential trade alliances with representatives from other planets on neutral territory.
He’d already wrapped up the deal with the Zorn delegate for mining technology and a learning exchange program. It was just a few items that they had needed to discuss, as he had good friends who were Zornan that had set him up with the opportunity months ago. Daegan and his bond mates had just visited them recently, with the intriguing addition of a pregnant female bond mate who was a species previously unknown to the Coalition. She was an exceptional female, and with meeting her, Grae’s pressure to take a third in their relationship had only intensified.
On Asher’s planet of Adoan, many had same-sex partnerships and Asher was quite happy in his relationship with Grae. As a prince who was third in line for the ruling position, his family had been pressuring him for years to settle down, add
a third to their household and create an heir.
Grae was from a planet called Dali, where a triad marriage was the norm. On a planet full of shifters, a female needed the protection of two males just to make sure she wasn’t stolen, as the law stated that if the males in question were not strong enough to keep the female then they did not deserve her. They obviously didn’t have to worry about that on Adoan, where they lived, but it was obvious to Asher that Grae missed having the softer touch of a female in his life on a regular basis, so Asher would do whatever it took to keep his lover happy.
As the dinner and entertainment portion of the evening was announced, Grae made his way back over to Asher and they found their seats. The Plionans who were hosting this event were notorious for their slave trade, with most of the females and males sold leaning toward the sensual talents, so the seating in the dining area was set up with a booth for each delegate party which would provide privacy for the entertainment provided.
Both of the men were prepared to ignore this portion of the evening and simply enjoy their meal, as Adoan and Dali had abolished slavery of any kind hundreds of years ago and they both found it repulsive. However, as the slaves up for purchase entered the room, Asher felt Grae’s hand on his thigh tighten to the point that he almost spit out his mouthful of wine. As he looked over to see what the matter with his partner was, the look of sheer lust that was etched on the other man’s face made his body harden immediately. He followed Grae’s smouldering look to the other side of the room to a line-up of scantily clad females.