Claimed for the Alien Bride Lottery

by Margo Bond Collins

  And they were headed back to her room.

  Fury burst through me, but a glance in the mirror at Josiah reminded me to keep it under control until I was out of his sight. “I’m going to get your mother,” I said casually, calmly standing up from my seat in front of the mirror.

  “Okay,” Josiah replied with the insouciance of childhood. “Can we play when you get back?”

  I nodded, anxiety coursing through my veins, urging me to hurry to save Mia. But I continued to move slowly for Josiah’s sake. At least until I closed the door behind me.

  Once the door shut, though, I put on a burst of speed, ducking around anyone in my way, racing to the lift and sliding into the tube. A single phrase beat an insistent tattoo in my head, over and over again in time to my footsteps. Save Mia. Save Mia. Save Mia.

  I slid around the corner into the Brides’ Quarters hallway, slamming to a halt outside my mate’s door.

  I tried to open it, but it was locked. Without my wristcom, I couldn’t override the system or call anyone else for help.

  Some commander I am, rushing headlong into a dangerous situation without proper assessment.

  At least no one onboard Station 21 had weapons—not outside the shuttle bay, where we were all required to check them in.

  If Frank had transported aboard, any weapons on his body would have been left behind. So he was almost certainly unarmed.

  I leaned my ear against the door, hoping to hear something that would help me decide what to do. Go for help? No. Frank was a violent, dangerous male. Unless I couldn’t figure out any way to get into the room, I would not leave Mia with him, not if I could help it.

  “Tell me where he is,” I heard Frank's voice say.

  “He’s not here, I told you,” Mia replied. “I don’t know why you think Josiah is on the station, but he isn’t.”

  She had him talking. That was good.

  But then I heard the crack of a fist against bone. “Tell me where he is!”

  I had been in battle before. I knew the feel of battle lust, a Khanavai trait that made us great warriors. And I had heard that the mate bond could cause a similar kind of rage.

  Everything I had heard was wrong.

  It wasn’t similar at all.

  Mate-bond rage was a million times stronger, like comparing a single ray of light to the strength of a burning star.

  My protective fury swelled inside me, erupting from me as a roar that echoed up and down the hallway.

  Even as I reared back and slammed my shoulder into the locked door, from inside the room, I heard Frank exclaim, “What the fuck was that?”

  The door flew open, its broken lock whirring as it stopped halfway.

  I wrenched it the rest of the way open and strode into the room to find a human male—bigger than most, but not as large as a Khanavai warrior—with one hand fisted in Mia’s hair, tugging her head backward, the other raised above her, preparing to strike her again.

  The man was pale-skinned compared to Mia, but his own rage had turned his face a shade not far from my own.

  In the corner, a round woman with golden hair huddled with her arms over her head, her cheek purpling in a bruise. Becca, I assumed.

  Frank quickly shifted his hold on Mia, tugging her in front of him to use as a shield. “Come one step closer and I will snap her neck,” he warned.

  I skidded to a halt, eyeing the tableau warily.

  Slowly, Becca began shifting toward something under the bed. She glanced up at me and put a finger to her mouth.

  “Let her go,” I said to Frank, as much to distract him from Becca’s motions as out of any sense that he would do what I told him too.

  “You’re the son of a bitch trying to steal my family from me,” Frank growled.

  “No. You lost them long before they ever met me.”

  Behind Frank, Becca slowly pulled the blue gym bag out from under Mia’s bed.

  “I don’t care what happens to me,” Mia said to me, her eyes pleading. “Just don’t let him get Josiah. Don’t let him hurt my baby.”

  “Shut up, bitch,” Frank snarled, shaking her a little.

  Becca pulled one of the paint guns out of the bag. Under the guise of calming Frank, I held out one hand, straight in front of me.

  “Everything is going to be okay,” I promise Mia.

  Then I flicked my gaze toward Becca.

  With a nod, she stood up and tossed the paint gun to me. In one smooth motion, I flipped it around and shot the paint directly into Frank’s eyes.

  He screamed and grabbed his eyes, releasing his hold on Mia, who darted directly to me. I slung her around behind me and tackled Frank to the ground. Holding him there, I instructed Mia, “Contact security. Get them here now.”

  Frank lay on the ground writhing and cursing, but I held him there with one hand.

  “You must be Becca,” I said to Mia’s friend. “Nice to meet you.”

  “That was amazing thinking,” Mia said to Becca.

  “After he hit me, he wasn’t watching me at all,” Becca said.

  So it hadn’t been Mia he had hurt.

  I glanced up at my mate, who had retrieved the second paint gun and was holding it aimed directly at her ex-husband’s face.

  “I guess Frank didn’t learn one very important lesson from you,” I observed.

  Mia’s gaze flickered toward me for long enough to frown before going back to watching Frank warily. “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “He needed to learn to watch his six.”

  An hour later, we had given our statements to station security.

  I let them think that I had brought Josiah up to the station. I had the authority to approve that, after all.

  Becca was in medical, having her bruised face seen to. They were going to keep her overnight to make sure she didn’t have a concussion.

  I had commed Thorvid to let it know that we were okay and headed back.

  And I was ready to make Mia my mate in truth and in all ways.

  “Oh,” said Thorvid, taking one look at our faces when we walked into my room, “Josiah, would you like to go on a tour of Station 21?”

  “Yes, please!” Josiah exclaimed, jumping up. “Can Mama and Commander Eldron go with us?”

  “Not this time,” Thorvid said placidly. “We’ll bring them back something to eat from the common area in a little while though.” It turned to me. “I’ll com you before we return.”

  “Thanks,” Mia said with a small laugh. “I’ll see you soon, okay, baby?”

  Josiah put his tiny fists on his hips. “I’m not a baby anymore, Mama. You need to call me something else.”

  She gave a salute. “Will do, ba—buddy.”

  He nodded seriously. “Buddy is much better.” Then he turned and gave me the same salute his mother had given him. “Take care of my Mama, Commander Eldron. We will return soon.”

  I gave him a Khanavai heart salute. “Yes, sir.”

  And then they were gone, and I was free to make Mia my own.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Mia

  We tore at each other’s clothes as if their very presence offended us, our mouths frantic against each other’s skin.

  When we were fully naked, Eldron tried to slow things down, placing me on the bed and moving his mouth to my breast. I writhed against him. “No,” I said. “I don’t want to wait a second longer. Please, Eldron, please make me yours.”

  With a groan, he slid up to cover me, his enormous cock pressing against my opening. I bucked against him, needing to feel him filling me, and he accepted my body’s invitation, pushing into me steadily.

  “Oh, gods and goddesses, you’re so tight,” he said.

  His words made my muscles clench, and as if the tightness itself drove him on, he withdrew just a little, then flipped us over so I was on top and pulled me down hard onto his cock.

  When he’d driven all the way into me, burying his cock to the hilt, he paused, holding me tight against him.

  I cou
ld feel his cock filling me up, swelling, growing, and I ached with it. He paused, apparently having to stop himself from coming inside me. “You feel just right,” he whispered, his voice rasping.

  Eldron’s enormous hands, those hands I had started counting on to save me, wrapped around my waist and slid down as he stroked my ass.

  The sparks of arousal roared into an overwhelming flame, the heat of Eldron’s body against mine and the feeling of his hand stroking from the hollow of my waist to the curves of my ass cheeks making my back arch as I rocked against him.

  Eldron groaned, his fingers playing my skin as my nipples tightened. We found a rhythm together without words, just as we had during our first kiss.

  I shouldn’t be doing this.

  Not until I was truly free from Frank.

  But Eldron had promised the paperwork he’d filed had freed me from any obligation to Frank in the eyes of the Khanavai law.

  That would have to be enough.

  “Thank you,” I murmured as I bent down to kiss him.

  “I will always give you anything you need,” Eldron replied in between kisses. “You are free—and I am yours.”

  And he knows what I need to hear, without me even having to say it.

  My response to him built in my deepest core as he slid into me, filling me up, stretching me out, making me want more of him. I found myself throwing my head back and whimpering with the need to come and the desire to draw this out forever.

  In the end, the need won.

  I began rocking my hips, meeting Eldron stroke for stroke, barely forcing myself not to beg for him to go deeper and harder, to give me more.

  But as if he heard me, he began slamming his cock deep into me, reaching between us, his big fingers rubbing my clit, making me slicker and wetter, while the pressure built up in my abdomen, coiling tighter.

  The wetter I got, the harder he fucked me. And the harder he fucked me, the more I met him thrust for thrust.

  The head of his cock slammed into something deep inside me, prompting me to cry out with ecstasy.

  The sensation spiraled up inside me, sending me higher and higher. I wanted to stop it, to draw this out forever, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t quit moving to the rhythm Eldron set, couldn’t quit feeling the sensations washing over me. And then, as the feelings broke over me like waves, I came harder than I ever had before.

  I screamed with the pleasure of it, and all the muscles in my lower body clenched as the hot wetness of my orgasm sluiced through me.

  As my muscles tightened around Eldron’s cock, he gave one enormous final thrust, crying out my name as he came inside me, holding me tightly against him.

  We stayed like that for a long moment, and then I collapsed against his chest.

  “I love you, Mia,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Eldron

  As we lay together, still entwined, I felt my mating cock emerge from the softening skin of my primary cock—a new experience for me, but unmistakable.

  Startled, Mia raised her head to meet my gaze. “Again?” she asked, surprise threading through her voice.

  We’d known each other only a few days. It was far too early to start tossing around words like love or mate, but I knew that’s what this was.

  “This…will be different,” I tried to explain. “If we continue, we’ll be mated. It’s not like human marriage. This will truly be forever.”

  She swallowed, fear flashing through her eyes.

  “Our life together will be different from your time with Frank. I will never hurt you.” I kept my voice soft, even as my cock, still inside her, grew harder and harder.

  “Promise?” Her tiny question, so full of worry, brought out every protective instinct within me.

  “With everything I am and everything I have, I will protect you—and Josiah. I will make sure you are loved and cared for. Forever.” My words spilled out directly from my heart.

  “Then…make me yours. Now. Please.”

  Without another word, I wrapped my arms around her waist and flipped her over on the bed, a possessive growl erupting from my throat. For an instant, I worried that I might have scared her, but then Mia giggled.

  I found myself joining her in laughter, even as I slid deep into her, determined to do exactly as she requested.

  By the time this night was over, she would be mine.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mia

  Somehow, Eldron’s mating cock filled me even more than his first cock had. Everything about it was hot, making me ache with desire like nothing ever before.

  Eldron pulled me up to him, making sure he stayed embedded in me, buried up to the hilt, but I could feel him shivering, trying not to come.

  “Oh, God,” he groaned. “You feel so hot and tight.”

  I shuddered at his words, and his reaction to my body moving around him was to moan again. He began moving. His strokes were like fire, sliding into the deepest part of me—the part that only he could touch.

  Soon, the build-up of pleasure began swirling in my stomach, throbbing and aching, but in a way that made me want my alien to touch me more, not less.

  “My perfect, beloved mate,” he said, rocking me back and forth on his cock. “You are mine.”

  His mating cock grew even bigger and hotter inside me, stretching me as he moved toward an explosion, and the feel of it touching that most intimate part of my body sent me spinning out of control.

  I came hard, waves of orgasm running through me over and over until I sobbed with it.

  My orgasm triggered his, and he trembled inside me for a long time afterward.

  As he slipped from me and gently settled me on the bed next to him, still breathing hard, he said, “Mia? Now that we’re officially mated, I have a very important question to ask you.”

  I turned on my side to face him, running my fingers lightly over his muscled chest. “What’s that?”

  He flipped over so he faced me, as well, and gave me a serious, intense stare—one that was belied by the glint of humor in his expression. “What, exactly, is your name?”

  I burst into laughter. “How did you manage to get my divorce finalized without that information?”

  “I might have run it through the Khanavai courts first so it will simply need to be registered on Earth.”

  “It’s Naomi…well, I guess it can be Naomi Gendovi now, if you’d like. But you can still call me Mia.”

  “I think maybe I’ll continue to call you my vanata.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “Heart’s most beloved.”

  “It’s perfect,” I said, preparing to snuggle down into his arms.

  But then a chime dinged from Eldron’s wrist. “It’s Thorvid,” he said, checking it, “on the way back with food—and Josiah.”

  “Guess we’d better get up then,” I sighed.

  Eldron wrapped me in his arms for one last hug. “Absolutely. I am ready to begin our lives together, my vanata.”

  Epilogue

  Earth, Six Months Later

  Becca

  I climbed down off the witness stand, wiping tears from my eyes.

  I hadn’t expected to cry as I testified to everything Frank Holden had done the night he tried to take Josiah from station 21.

  I was the last witness in the sentencing phase of Frank’s trial. He’d already been found guilty of kidnapping and assault. He’d had the option to be tried by a Khanavai judge. Apparently, he had taken one look at their harsh punishment for spousal abuse and decided to take his chances with a human jury on Earth.

  As I took my seat next to her, Mia reached out to pat my hand. Commander Gendovi reached around her and covered both our hands with his own enormous one, giving us a gentle squeeze.

  Mia is so lucky.

  Or Naomi. Whatever her name was now.

  Of course, she had gone through hell before finding that luck.

  She was blissfully happy now, married—and mated, as the Khan
avai said—to the man of her dreams. Not to mention pregnant with her second child, too.

  I was happy for her, really I was. But seeing them together, I couldn’t help giving a little wistful sigh.

  It would be so amazing to have a relationship that strong.

  I was pretty sure human men were not up to the task of being the kind of spouses the Khanavai men were.

  And as far as I knew, the only way to get a Khanavai man was through the Bride Lottery.

  If only I could figure out a way to sneak in somehow.

  Two hours later, the sentence came down.

  Fifteen years.

  “And by then, Josiah will be an adult and able to decide what he wants to do about a relationship with his father,” Mia said as we walked out of the courtroom and onto the courthouse steps.

  “And in the meantime, he has an amazing male role model,” I said, taking Mia’s arm in mine and leaning in close as if I were confiding something secret. I could tell by the commander’s grin that he heard, though.

  “Josiah will grow to be a fine male,” the commander stated, managing to sound both placid and proud.

  “I am starving,” Mia said, patting her burgeoning belly. “Let’s go meet Thorvid and Josiah and get something to eat before we head back to Station 21.”

  “Now this is done, are you heading back to Khanav Prime?”

  “Yes,” the commander said. “I need to get back to work—there are some new theories about the Alveron Hordeships that I would like to incorporate into potential battle scenarios.”

  “And I want to be there before this baby appears,” Mia added.

  “Well, then, before you go, I might have a favor to ask.”

  “What’s that?” the commander asked.

  “I was wondering if maybe you could pull some strings with the Bride Lottery for me…”

  The commander smiled and tilted his head, clearly seriously considering my request as the three of us headed away from the courthouse, leaving this unpleasant chapter of our lives behind.