by Sue Mercury
As they waited, Zarr announced the meeting would take place in English, since most of the humans in attendance spoke at least a little English.
At last, the crowd parted for the arrival of the final couple, and a collective gasp went up in the air. The tall Sepkarian male, his expression unreadable, carried a limp woman in his arms. Her arm was swollen and red, with a fierce looking wound oozing near her wrist. Her skin was grayish, all the veins in her body dark blue and pronounced.
She was dead.
Elizabeth stiffened beside Zarr and covered her mouth, fearing she was about to become sick. What had happened to this poor girl?
“Errbon, my friend,” Zarr said compassionately. “What has happened to your new mate?”
“She disappeared for several hours this afternoon. I went looking for her in the forest, fearing she had tried to run away from me. We had quarreled last night after the wedding ceremony. She refused to consummate our marriage and bear my mark upon her neck. I thought she needed some time to warm up to me, so I left her alone.”
“Where did you find her?”
“I eventually returned to my home to discover her curled up in our bed. She was already dead. It was too late and I could not heal her.” Errbon placed the limp body on the floor. His gaze swept up and down the council table. “She left a note. It’s written in her native tongue, which I cannot read.”
“Will you read it?” Zarr asked Elizabeth. “We listened to recordings of your language to learn how to interact with humans, but we have not yet learned to read your tongue.”
“Of course,” she replied with a nod, though her stomach tightened. What would the note say? The poor girl was dead, and by the looks of it, it appeared she had suffered greatly. Elizabeth shuddered to think what had happened to her.
Errbon handed her the note and stepped back.
Her heart plummeted as she scanned the missive.
“Will you read it aloud?” Zarr asked.
She glanced up at the villagers. The dead girl’s writings were tragic and though Elizabeth hadn’t known her, she mourned her death nonetheless. None of this had had to happen. The girl could’ve forgiven her, forgiven Elizabeth’s family, and had a happy life herself. But no. She’d held fast to a grudge. And the hatred that had cemented in her heart had led to her death.
Elizabeth cleared her throat and began reading.
“Errbon, I came to your planet because an enemy of mine was also scheduled to arrive on Sepkar. Princess Elizabeth. Her family is responsible for the deaths of many in my home country, including my parents and my three brothers. On Earth, back in England, I was part of a movement to locate Princess Elizabeth and see her pay for her family’s crimes.
“My father and brothers were drafted into fighting in a war England would never win, and the day after we received word that they had all perished, my mother killed herself.
“By the time you see this note, both the princess and I will be dead. I studied your planet for a long time before coming here in an effort to learn how to make the princess’ death appear an accident. You’ll know that I was bitten by a hunnma snake, and after learning the same kind of snake has devoured the princess, I assume you will put the pieces together and realize I had a hand in her death.
“She deserved to die. Her parents deserved to die too. I was there the day they died, and it was one of the happiest days of my life.”
Elizabeth was openly crying now, her voice cracking as she tried to get through the letter as quickly as possible. She wanted to run off and hide from the villagers who were intently staring at her. The room had grown quiet and all eyes were on her. She could only imagine what they thought of all this.
And the poor dead girl. Elizabeth couldn’t imagine hating someone as much as the girl had hated her, and she felt sorry for her and wished there had been something she could’ve done to prevent this. She reminded herself that she’d been twelve at the start of the war. None of this was her fault. So why did she feel responsible for the girl lying cold and still on the floor?
“I brought a tranquilizer gun with me to Sepkar, and I used it to shoot the hunnma snake. Unfortunately, when I first tried to pick it up, it wasn’t quite passed out yet, and it bit me. I know from my research of Sepkar that my body will soon be completely paralyzed. I will suffocate to death when my lungs can no longer take in air. I had thought once the princess died, I might be able to move on with life and be a wife to you, but that will never come to pass. From Madeline.”
Madeline. That was the poor girl’s name. Elizabeth sat the letter down and placed her hands in her lap, bowing her head. Zarr put an arm around her and stared at the gathered crowd.
“My wife is not responsible for this girl’s death, nor the deaths of anyone on Earth. She was a child at the time the war begun. I think all of us know how especially innocent children are during wartime.”
Elizabeth glanced up in time to see the villagers nodding. They murmured their agreement with Zarr. She felt relief at this, but still…a girl was dead. A girl was dead and damn her, if she hadn’t been so filled with hate, she could have thrived here on Sepkar. Though recovering from war itself, Sepkar was a wondrous and safe planet compared to Earth. Sepkar meant a second chance for all the women who arrived here on the Starship Matchmaker.
Errbon looked at Zarr and Elizabeth. “I am glad neither of you were harmed today.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Elizabeth said, meaning it.
“Thank you.” Errbon picked Madeline up. “I will bury her near the waterfall deep in the forest. Perhaps her soul will find peace in the beauty there.”
Zarr nodded and Elizabeth’s throat closed up. God, why had this happened? It was all so senseless, this girl’s death.
The meeting concluded, and with the mystery of the hunnma snake’s appearance in the village solved, the villagers departed the large stone building in silence, filing out into the warm evening air. Zarr grasped Elizabeth’s hand and led her home underneath the starlit sky.
*
Time passed, bringing cooler weather and the harvest season. The horror of the day Errbon’s wife died while trying to kill Elizabeth had begun to fade. Errbon indeed buried Madeline near the waterfall, and he had moved on as well. When the Starship Matchmaker next arrived, it would bring his new mate, along with ten other women for the males in his village.
Elizabeth had been quiet for a while after Madeline tried to kill her, but she gradually came out of her silence and had begun to enjoy life in the village. She made friends easily and everyone adored her. No one held her responsible for the human girl’s death or thought her guilty for her parents’ supposed crimes, though he doubted they’d been guilty of any wrongdoing.
He knew from experience leadership came with many difficulties. If Sepkar faced a war again, he would have no choice but to lead the men from his village into battle. He hoped the day never came though. The Emmians were all dead, and if Goddess Tika was merciful, peace would reign over all of Sepkar for one hundred times one hundred years, or more.
Zarr’s children—including the child now growing inside Elizabeth—would never know the hardships he’d known as a child, or the terror Elizabeth herself had known on Earth.
They would get the second chance at happiness they desperately ached for. Together.
Sweating and aching from a long day working in the fields, he hurried home, his mind on his wife and their future. She was only halfway through her pregnancy, but he still kept a close eye on her in case she went into labor early.
Sepkarian babies didn’t gestate as long as human babies, and most of the human women who gave birth weren’t pregnant nearly as long as they’d anticipated, though luckily their babies weren’t born weak or too small. It was fortunate that the Sepkarians had been able to find a race compatible with their genetics. In a few generations, his people would be thriving and the great war against the Emmians would be but a memory passed down as a story from parent to child.
Zarr
entered his home and inhaled the aroma of something delicious. Elizabeth, though unsure of herself in the kitchen at first, had become a most excellent cook. She enjoyed staying home and keeping house, but she also spent plenty of time in the village, usually checking on the elderly and making sure no one was without medicine or food. She fulfilled the role of a village chief’s wife perfectly and he was proud to call her his.
“Elizabeth!” he called, finding the kitchen empty. A pot of stew simmered atop the heating element and a loaf of fresh baked bread was cooling on the counter. His stomach grumbled at the sight and smell, but he headed upstairs in search of his sweet wife, hungering for her more than food. “Elizabeth!”
He found her sleeping in their bed, curled up atop the covers, as if she had only meant to rest her eyes for a short spell. He smiled at her and leaned down to press a kiss to her cheek.
“Mmmm,” she said, turning over and opening her eyes. “Zarr?” She blinked up at him. The lights dotting the ceiling and walls glowed faintly upon her face.
“Yes, love? You aren’t burning my dinner, are you?”
She sat up and gave him a mock angry look, then stifled a yawn. “I haven’t burned your dinner in ages. I know how to cook now, thank you very much. The stew can simmer all day and be fine.”
“All day? That means I have time to tumble my wife before dinner.”
She shrieked when he pounced on her. He straddled her, mindful of her swollen stomach, and drew his teeth along her throat. She giggled.
“That tickles! Stop it or I’ll…I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” he asked, peering down at her, thinking her the most beautiful female on the planet with her face flushed and her hair spread out upon the pillow in disarray. Ah, and she was all his. She bore his marking upon her neck, and his child was growing in her stomach.
“I’ll make you sleep on the floor!”
“Is that so, wife?”
She nodded, trying to hold back a grin.
He growled, and in a matter of moments, had her divested of her dress. She’d taken to wearing the Sepkarian style of clothing, and fortunately it was much easier to take her clothes off now. Human clothing had too many buttons and zippers to fight.
Next, he stripped off his pants and shirt. She giggled again and parted her legs.
He gasped to discover her soaking wet. “Goddess Tika, Elizabeth. What were you dreaming about?”
He pushed into her with ease and began pumping hard and fast. She moaned and parted her thighs wider, and the headboard knocked against the wall with their rough movements.
Reaching down, she grasped his umblina and guided it to her entrance. He grinned, knowing exactly what she wanted. Oftentimes he made her wait and beg, but his need for her was great and throbbing, he didn’t have the stamina to tease her. Maybe later, after dinner, he could torture her with pleasure, but for now he needed to feel her muscles contracting around him as he pounded into her.
He thrust his umblina into her pussy, right alongside his cock, and felt around until she screamed with pleasure. Human females had a marvelous thing called a g-spot, just as Sepkarian women did, though in his tongue it was called a hieanska, the word for ‘deepest pleasure.’
He gripped her hips and built a faster rhythm inside her. She threw her arms around him, dragging her nails down his back as she cried out his name. An intense orgasm ripped through her, making her convulse wildly, and the exquisite feeling of her tightening around his cock propelled him into his own ecstasy. He spurted into her, his cock jerking again and again as he filled her with his essence.
“My wife,” he murmured, stroking her hair. “Do you know how much I love you?”
When her eyes fluttered open, she smiled and drew him down for a kiss. “I’ve an idea, husband, and I love you too.”
A note from the author:
Thank you so much for purchasing or borrowing Alien’s Princess Bride! I hope you enjoyed reading about Elizabeth and Zarr. More books are planned in the Mail Order Human series, so please check my Amazon Author Page for regular updates or visit Sue Mercury Sci-Fi Alien Romance.
About the author:
Sue Mercury writes sci-fi romance. She lives in Maryland with her husband and children, where she hopes one day she’ll turn on the television to find a breaking news report about sentient alien beings contacting Earth. She also writes romance of the much kinkier variety under the name Sue Lyndon.
Follow Sue on Twitter @SueMercury
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If you like BDSM erotica and spanking romance, you might enjoy these naughtier sci-fi titles by Sue Mercury writing as Sue Lyndon:
Owning His Bride
Claiming Their Maiden
Big Blue Valentine
Surrender (Alien Warriors, Book 1)
Commander’s Slave (Alien Warriors, Book 2)
His Naughty Little Mate
www.suelyndon.com