by Cara Bristol
Alien Mischief (Alien Mate 4)
Cara Bristol
Will a little mischief jeopardize her second chance for love?
My name is Madison Altman. Don’t think because I’ve disguised myself as a man and have accepted a job that takes me away from Earth that I’m running away from love. That’s not true. I met the love of my life—but he was killed on our wedding day.
Chaperoning crazy women traveling to Dakon to become the mail-order brides of aliens is just a way to pay the bills. Unfortunately, on this latest assignment, the ship returned to Earth without me! Luckily, Enoki came to my rescue. He might be hot, and sexy as hell with his gravelly voice and throbbing horns, but he believes I’m a man, and we’re friends, not lovers. That’s how I want it. That’s how it has to be. As soon as Enoki can get me a flight to Earth, I’m leaving this frozen planet for good.
I’m Enoki, leader of Dakon. For the longest time, whispers in the wind told me my Fated mate was coming. Whispers turned to shouts when the recent shipment of females arrived, but none of them was mine. I must accept the Fates were wrong. I’ll never get a mate.
My purpose now is to help the stranded Earth man return to his home planet. Even though Madison is a Terran, we’ve developed a strong bond. I know I’ll miss him, but because we’re friends, I intend to do everything I can to help him leave.
Why do the whispers tell me not to let him go?
Alien Mischief (Alien Mate 4)
Copyright © January 2019 by Cara Bristol
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
eISBN : 978-1-947203-06-8
Editor: Kate Richards
Copy Editor: Nanette Sipe
Proofreading: Celeste Jones
Cover Artist: Sweet ’N Spicy Designs
Formatting by Wizards in Publishing
Published in the United States of America
Cara Bristol
http://www.carabristol.com
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
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
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
Chapter One
Madison
I pulled the compression band over my head, slipped my arms through it, and tugged it over my torso to flatten my modest breasts. I donned my shirt and tucked it in carefully to avoid dislodging the sock stuffed in my pants. A quick comb through my boy-cut short hair, a dismissive smirk, and I was ready.
“How do I look?”
“Like the jerk people think you are,” Garnet replied.
“That’s what I was shooting for.”
“You nailed it. The women on the ship hate you. How long are you going to continue this ruse?”
“Until I win the lottery,” I quipped.
She focused a direct, but sympathetic gaze on my face. “Mads…Matt’s been gone three years now,” she said gently. “Isn’t it about time—”
“This has nothing to do with that!” Sure, I’d gone through a hard time, but I was on an even keel now. The disguise was a lark. I was fine. I glowered at Garnet.
She raised her hands in self-defense. “Okay, okay. Whatever you say.”
Anger deflated, leaving me feeling ashamed. My bestie had stood by me through thick and thin, comforting me with a soft shoulder, boxes of tissues, and a bottomless bottle of wine. No matter what time I called her, she answered. She came running whenever I needed her. I couldn’t have gotten through Matt’s death without her.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just proving a point to Dayton.”
Garnet’s lip curled with amusement. “Has your brother conceded you’re right?”
“Not in so many words.” In no words, unless you counted, “this is the craziest fucking thing you’ve ever done,” a concession. Honestly? I never expected the charade to last this long. It had been intended as a short-term stunt to prove a point. Sibling rivalry spurred me on. I had to be right.
Then the money had suckered me in, getting me accustomed to a certain lifestyle like being debt-free. I’d paid off the wedding that never happened and my student loans. I’d never admit it to my brother or Garnet, but I might have let the pretense get a tad out of control.
“Why don’t you tell the exchange program the truth? You’ve been a great employee for two-and-a-half years. They might understand—”
“That I misrepresented myself and lied on my employment application?” I shook my head. “Of course, if I were a man, they’d forgive me.”
“Because men call the shots.” She rolled her eyes. She’d sided with my brother. Garnet tended to go with the flow, while I tilted at windmills. Her words, not mine. She’d thought I was crazy to pretend to be a man.
She might have been right. Maybe. The jury was still out.
I glanced at her. “With regard to employee rules—no one saw you sneak back to my cabin, did they?”
“If course not. I was careful.”
“Okay, good.” It wouldn’t look good if a “male” employee was caught with a female passenger in his cabin. Just another example of how outdated rules were still in effect. “If you don’t think men need only to snap their fingers to get what they want, then why are you here? Why are you on the SS Masquerade flying across the galaxy to become an alien’s bride? Why not stay on Earth and find yourself a nice accountant or ’net programmer?”
It blew me away that Garnet had chosen to go to Dakon. After me telling her how crazy these women were, what did she do? She applied to the program! Not only that, she gave my name as a reference to ensure she got accepted.
I couldn’t be mad at her, because she was my best friend, so I directed my frustration at the other women who would settle for a man, any man, instead of holding out for true love. They thought becoming a mail-order bride to an alien would solve everything, but they didn’t know what they were in for. A smokin’ hot alien couldn’t compensate for the primitive, frozen wasteland he lived on. Unless you’d been to Dakon, which I had twice before, you had no idea what cold was.
“Not everyone can be lucky enough to find true love,” she said.
While women outnumbered men, the true shortage was in marriage-minded, monogamous men. That animal topped the endangered species list. With an abundance of females to choose from, men had discovered they didn’t need to commit to get laid—so they didn’t. With women kowtowing to them and currying their favor, men had gotten s
poiled and had begun to expect—and receive—preferential treatment from women and society.
Sexism was on the rise. Which had been the point I’d tried to get my brother to understand.
However, I knew good men and true love did still exist because I’d been fortunate enough to experience it. I couldn’t and wouldn’t settle for anything less. If that resulted in me staying single for the rest of my life then, so be it.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” I said to Garnet. I’d done everything I could to talk her out of it. Besides the fact that she was making a bad choice, I hated to lose my best friend.
I didn’t intend to work for the exchange program forever, and when I quit this gig, I might never see her again since commercial leisure travel to Dakon didn’t exist. Only exchange program, cargo, and mining ships flew there.
This trip had been bittersweet. Since I had no other friends on board—the women passengers did hate me—it was great to have her company, but saying goodbye would be very, very hard.
“How could I resist such horned alien hotness?” Garnet quipped.
I couldn’t refute they were sexy as hell. Handsomeness seemed coded into their DNA because I’d never seen an ugly Dakonian. Or a short one. They were all over seven feet, with bronzed skin and the cutest damn horns poking out of their near-black hair.
A mental image of an uber-masculine Dakonian called Enoki popped into my head. Tall, muscular, ruggedly handsome, horns a-twitchin’. Talk about alien hotness—whew! Not that I had a thing for him. On my two previous visits, we’d exchanged a few cordial words, and I looked forward to seeing his friendly face after the rudeness of the women passengers.
I went to flip my long hair over my shoulder, encountered air, and dropped my hand. After two-and-a-half years, I still hadn’t gotten used to having a man’s short haircut.
Would I see Enoki this trip? He headed the Council of Dakon, the planet’s ruling body, and directed the mate selection process, which I assumed he could participate in. Would he select a woman this go-round? He’d be quite a catch. If a woman had to hook up with an alien, Enoki wouldn’t be a bad one.
My stomach gave a little flutter, and I shook off thoughts of Enoki and returned my attention to Garnet. “I never should have shown you those vids.” I’d blame myself if this didn’t work out for her. I’d expected her to roll her eyes and share my amusement at how these desperate women had fawned over the Dakonians, not sign up for the program!
Just because some alien dude oozed sex appeal didn’t mean you should lose your head. If these women weren’t careful, they’d spoil another planet full of men.
Matt had been one of the good ones. I doubted I’d ever meet anyone to compare to him.
Garnet planted her hands on her ample hips. “I can’t believe you think I’m the crazy one. Who’s the one with a sock stuffed into her pants? Sometimes you scare me. Is there anything you won’t do?”
“I’m a little competitive.”
“A little?”
My brother Dayton, a man, had insisted sexism had been conquered, when I knew it hadn’t.
To prove it, I’d submitted two applications—one as a female, “Margaret”, one as a male, “Madison”—for a job as the Terra-Dakon Goodwill Exchange Program coordinator, a fancy title for chaperone. My fake credentials had been comparable: same degree from the same accredited university, similar work history, and glowing forged letters of recommendation. As a female, I’d never gotten an interview. Madison, the man, had gotten a call right away. After an uncomfortable interview in which the female program director had flattered and flirted with me, I’d been offered the job. Maybe they feared a woman would fall in love with the aliens and quit, and they wanted to avoid the revolving door, having to keep hiring and rehiring coordinators. However, it struck me as sexist.
Men got preferential treatment over women. Women treated men better than they treated their own gender.
I’d never intended to accept the position. Spending months trapped on a spaceship with a hundred man-crazy women going to live on a planet caught in a freaking ice age? Not my dream job. Then the director informed me what the position paid. Hello, dream salary.
Hey, I wasn’t cheap, but I could be bought.
While the job had enabled me to pay off my student loans and the wedding, the women were driving me nuts, causing me to question whether the money was worth it. I wanted to shake some sense into them. Show some self-respect! Demand the men earn your affection. Grow a set of balls. Unfortunately, I may have slipped and let my disdain show, so none of them liked me.
I swear, something happened to women’s brains when they got around good-looking, available men.
Not me. I appreciated male company—I had needs like every other woman—however, I refused to lower myself or settle. Nor was I willing to leave Earth permanently to live in a frozen wasteland to gain a bed partner. Despite pretending to be a man, I wasn’t crazy.
The engine hum changed to a growl, signaling the SS Masquerade had begun to descend to the planet’s surface. I rechecked my appearance and practiced my smirk. “I need to get out to the observation lounge,” I said to Garnet. “We’ll be landing soon. You should go suit up.”
“Okay!” She leaped to her feet. “I’ll meet you there.”
She was halfway out of my cabin when I called her. “Gar—are you really sure you want to do this?”
“Yes! Stop trying to talk me out of it.”
“Okay.” I let out a huff of air. “See you in a bit.”
I logged onto the ship’s computer from the console in my cabin, verified the ship was landing, got the ETA, and opened a ship-wide comm link. “Attention, ladies! The SS Masquerade will be landing in thirty minutes. Please dress in your cold-weather gear and report to the observation lounge. We will disembark as a group,” I said in my normal tone. My voice was naturally deep and husky—I often got called “sir” when I answered the phone.
It kind of rankled, but one reason I’d been able to pull off the disguise so easily was because it didn’t require much of a stretch. More rangy than curvy, I stood six feet in flats, making me taller than most women and the average Earth man. My hair, which had been my best feature, had been the hardest thing to let go of. Nut brown with reddish highlights, it had fallen to mid-back until I hacked it off. Matt had told me I was pretty, but my hair had been the only feature other people had considered attractive.
If people complimented me, they called me “handsome.” Never pretty, cute, or feminine.
An image of Enoki snuck into my mind’s eye. That’s what I considered handsome.
Like a cross between a bear and a Humvee, he was built. Huge arms, massive thighs. Compared to him, I was dainty. The one time I’d seen him without his kel, his tunic had practically busted at the seams, stretching taut across a sculpted chest and abs. He could be the poster child for the Terra-Dakon Goodwill Exchange Program.
Ladies, this man wants you!
They’d sign up in droves.
Maybe Enoki was plastered on posters, because women were signing up in droves. And, so far, no one had annulled their mating or divorced their alien, so maybe the relationships were working. It seemed so…so…anachronistic. It blew my mind women would leave their planet to become a mail-order bride. In this day and age?
I desired love. Real love. Everlasting with hearts and flowers and moonbeams, children and a house in the suburbs, and a dog. Maybe two dogs. I yearned to wake up next to a husband and have wild monkey sex before driving the school carpool. Come home from work, prepare dinner together—or maybe call for takeout since I didn’t cook—and fall asleep on the couch watching reruns of Sunny Weathers’s Excellent Adventures.
Settle for an extraterrestrial I’d never met? No, thank you.
The women didn’t even get to pick! The Dakonians held a lottery and drew chits for a “female.”
I’d stay single, thank you very much.
Opening
my locker, I pulled out my cold-weather gear: insulated snow pants, a parka, boots, and gloves. Something else I learned from previous trips to Dakon—“govvies” or government-issued scientifically engineered thermal coveralls weren’t worth squat in the arctic conditions. The icy wind cut through them like you were wearing gauze. Were the kels warmer? The animal-skin coats all the Dakonian wore would have to be. The men acted like they didn’t notice the cold. I wiggled into the snow pants and boots then shoved the gloves into the pocket of my parka and slung the coat over my arm.
I slammed my locker shut and exited my cabin. Throwing back my shoulders, I affected a strut and tried not to squeak as I walked.
I ran into Ransom Malloy, the ship’s first officer, which was unusual. Ships flew with limited personnel, so I rarely encountered a real live crew member. The only reason I had proof they existed at all was because before each voyage, Malloy called an all-up meeting for the ship’s crew and exchange-program staff. I was staff. If not for the captain’s cameo appearance at those meetings, I wouldn’t have known the ship had a captain.
“I was going to message you,” Ransom said. “You’ll need to get the women off the ship quickly. According to weather sensors, a huge storm is developing.”
“When isn’t Dakon experiencing a storm?”
“Well, this one will be enough to ground the ship if we miss our launch window.”
“Getting all these women together is like herding cats.” Little digs against my own gender helped maintain my disguise, but I always felt like an asshole when I did it, even if there was some truth to what I said. Every group I’d chaperoned had tried my patience to the max.
Malloy’s bark of derisive, agreeing laughter made me despise him and me. Really, I was a nice person. I didn’t like what the disguise and the job were turning me into. Maybe it’s time to call it quits. Get a life. Malloy slapped my back and continued down the corridor.
I entered the observation lounge to find the women crowded around the viewing windows, talking and pointing.