Ramliel
The Teague Bride Experience (Intergalactic Dating Agency)
A.M. Griffin
Copyright © 2021 A.M. Griffin
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to Mia. The strongest person that I know.
Mia – you are the heroine of my story and yours. I love you, baby girl.
The Teague Bride Experience (Intergalactic Dating Agency)
The Yatur sent a spaceship to Earth with a seemingly simple exchange. They would provide humans with advancements in technology for medical and scientific purposes, and the only thing humans had to give in return were women.
Welcome to the Teague Bride Program. You have been chosen to mate with a hairy alien from a cold and distant planet. Whether you want to go or not, the choice is not yours. Many women and the aliens they are paired to mate with see this is an experiment, not program.
Be prepared for feisty females and hunky aliens as they have a battle of wills of who will give in to love first. Buckle up because the transport ship leaves in:
One...
Two...
Three...
Series Reading Order:
Ramliel
Cohn
Zephon
Ramliel
The Teague Bride Experience (Intergalactic Dating Agency)
The Yatur sent a spaceship to Earth with a seemingly simple exchange. They would provide humans with advancements in technology for medical and scientific purposes, and the only thing humans had to give in return were women.
When Mia Brown is chosen to travel to Teague to mate with an alien, her normally mundane life is turned upside down and there’s no way out of it. Now, she has no choice but to pack her bags and spend the rest of her life on another planet, far from Earth. Too bad that once she arrives, the new and happy life she was promised is anything but.
Her mate doesn’t want anything to do with her.
Ramliel Takeria has always known his mate was traveling from a distant planet and he’s spent his entire life trying to forget the momentous occasion was fast approaching. The contracted bond wasn’t something he wanted. His father had contracted the union when he was born. Determined to live his life as his own and not shackled to a human, Ramliel vowed to set her up in his childhood home and never cross paths with her.
But a chance meeting between Mia and Ramliel leaves Mia furious that her mate doesn’t recognize her and Ramliel intrigued by the female he has distanced himself from.
Ramliel will do anything to earn his mate’s forgiveness and have her welcome him with open arms.
Their love is short lived when a lie breaks them apart. After heartbreak and pain, can Mia trust Ram with her heart again?
Chapter One
Mia Brown stared at the letter in her hand. No matter how many times she’d read it, her brain couldn’t seem to wrap around the words printed on the paper.
Dear Ms. Brown,
You have been chosen to participate in the Teague Bride Program…
The letter seemed so innocuous but was far from that.
“Chosen to participate.” Mia snorted as she re-read those words aloud.
As if the government had given anyone a choice in any of this. From the moment the alien spaceship had shown up, hovering over Egypt, nothing had been the same and never would be. Life as she’d known it was officially over.
Bride Program.
Bride experiment was more like it.
The aliens had arrived on Earth as if out of nowhere with a seemingly simple exchange. They would provide humans with advancements in technology for medical and scientific purposes, and the only thing humans had to give in return were women.
While there had been plenty of pictures provided on what the aliens looked like—seven-feet-tall, hairy humanoids—the aliens themselves hadn’t shown in person. They’d sent their ship unmanned and controlled by artificially intelligent robots.
Officials around the world quickly became divided over whether to trust the aliens or not and chaos had ensued.
Why didn’t they come directly and show themselves?
Why did they want women who were a specific blood type. Mainly Rh negative?
Could they be trusted to uphold their end of the bargain or would they take the women and vanish?
Would they start a war if Earth refused?
What countries would send women and would the advancements be shared with all or only those who sent women?
In short. It. Was. A. Clusterfuck.
The first two months had been a panicked mess. Old religions folded and new religions sprouted. The economy tanked because people stopped working and panic bought supplies and weapons. Pretty soon, when the aliens didn’t march out of the spaceship and round up everyone to eat or enslave, life went back to normal—well, the new normal.
But now, a year later, the alien ship still waited on its precious cargo to fly back to their planet, and things had settled down tremendously.
Mia hadn’t had the opportunity to quit her job and hide out like most people. As a registered nurse in a busy trauma one emergency room, she’d been swamped more than ever.
It was easy to pretend things were fine and life would go on as regular. She ignored the news and any talk that involved aliens and their spaceship. But while holding the letter in her hand, she realized there was no ignoring it any longer.
Chosen to participate.
She read that part, yet again. It made her blood boil each time she did. She didn’t choose to participate in anything.
She hadn’t chosen to have blood work completed against her will or to undergo an invasive physical. That in itself had been a major violation.
First, the government officials had asked for eligible volunteers. All the crazies hoping to marry the hairy aliens had come forth, of course. Then others said it had been a calling from their God to give themselves to the aliens and raced to sign up. Some had wanted a change of scenery and a new start on an alien planet.
And the last ones? Well, there were hundreds of chat rooms and online groups devoted to sex and the exploration of what that would entail.
Mia had laughed at every woman who’d willingly participated and hurried to sign up for the program. She’d chalked them up to being desperate. Why else would they have volunteered to leave Earth to go to another planet to be some alien’s mate?
Then, even after all of the millions, if not, billions of women who had volunteered, every female between the ages of eighteen and forty-five were mandated to complete a physical with blood work and other diagnostic tests. Anyone who didn’t show for their scheduled appointment was tracked down and for
ced to comply.
After knowledge of the latter became known, groups had formed to help hide unwilling women in compounds. Many families had gone off the grid in order to protect their loved ones.
Mia shuddered in remembrance of the widespread horror and panic. If her father was still alive, he would’ve hidden her. But he wasn’t and the idea of living out the rest of her days in the woods, hunting and cooking her own food and giving up the comforts of home and pizza didn’t seem like a good way to live. Last time she had checked, tacos didn’t grow on trees and neither did string cheese.
So, she’d done what every non-prepper skilled lady had done and completed her physical and forgotten about it. Why focus on something she couldn’t change? There wasn’t a need to really worry.
Afterall, from what they reported on the news, only four thousand women would be picked because that’s how many stasis chambers were available to transport. What were the odds that she would be one of the four thousand?
Mia read the next line of the letter.
You are allowed two pieces of luggage weighing no more than one hundred pounds combined. No animals or organic substances are allowed.
Mia tore her eyes away from the piece of paper and glanced around her living room. She didn’t have much, but what she had she’d worked hard for. After her dad had died, she’d left everything behind and was only allowed a small carry-on when she’d moved from their modest home in Colorado to her uncle’s house in Tampa. Her uncle’s wife had agreed to take her in but she hadn’t wanted any of the “extra baggage” as she’d called it. What Aunt Denise called baggage, Mia had called mementos, pictures and her clothes.
A rock formed in the pit of her stomach as memories from one of the lowest points in her life came roaring to the surface. She wasn’t a scared twelve-year-old girl anymore, but as the memories came flooding back of her having to leave her dog, personal items and grandmother’s knickknacks behind and only being able to take some of mother’s jewelry and dad’s personal effects, so did the feeling of being alone and her abandonment issues reared its head.
She was leaving. Again.
But at least this time there wasn’t a cat and dog to re-home.
But she was moving off-planet.
Jesus.
Bile rose to the back of her throat.
Was this really happening?
Why the hell did they select her?
There wasn’t anything special about her.
Her forehead prickled with heat as a soft sheen of sweat dotted her skin.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
The old school ring tone on her cell phone jolted her out of her spiral. She fished it from the pocket of her scrubs and glanced at the number. UNKNOWN displayed against the front.
She selected the accept call button. “Hello?”
“Ms. Brown? Mia Brown?” came the cheery feminine voice on the other line.
“This is she.”
“Hello! This is Jessica Sanders from the Homeland Security Office. I trust that you’ve received your letter?”
Mia tightened her grip reflexively on the letter. It crumpled within her grasp. “Yes.” Unfortunately.
“Good! I know this must come as a shock to you and you probably have a ton of questions. I’m here to answer anything that pops into your mind and help transition you on your journey.”
The woman on the other end made it sound like Mia had won the golden ticket to the Chocolate Factory and wasn’t about to be stuffed into a spaceship and shipped off to God knows where.
“I…um…” She had a lot of questions. Too many to think of now.
After her shift at the hospital, she’d found the official looking letter in her work mailbox. Not thinking anything of it, she’d stuffed it into her pocket and gone home and crashed after working her third twelve-hour night shift in a row. She hadn’t thought about it again until two days later when she’d heard the crinkling of paper when she’d added her top in the washing machine.
She didn’t know how long she’d stood in front of her stacked washer and dryer, holding and re-reading the letter, over and over again.
“It’s a lot to take in! We understand how both excited and scared you must feel.”
This lady didn’t know the half of it, because if she did, she wouldn’t be speaking to Mia in such a happy go-lucky voice and as if they were discussing an all-expense trip to a tropical island or something.
“I’m here to help you out in any way I possibly can!”
Mia hated winter. Maybe once, long ago, living on a cold world wouldn’t have bothered her, but she was a Florida girl in heart, mind and body now. She liked palm trees and mild weather. Thank you very much.
“Help me out?” Mia said slowly. She was only semi-aware of how tight she now held the letter. “You can help me out by taking my name off this list. I don’t want to go.”
Who would want to willingly leave Earth to travel half-way across the galaxy to a planet that had the same weather as Antarctica for most of the year?
“Ah, honey. No need to worry. This will be a new and exciting adventure for you.”
“I don’t want to go,” Mia repeated, hoping the chipper lady on the other end could possibly do something about it. “Maybe I’ll have a quickie wedding tonight. Only single woman are eligible, right?”
“Not going isn’t an option. Any marriage completed after the selection process will be null and voided. This won’t be the first time someone has married to get out of going.” A thread of steel had entered the perky tone.
Mia’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach and her throat tightened.
“Let me tell it to you this way. A lot of women would love to be in your position. We field calls all day from those who are begging to get on the list.”
“Take my name off and add theirs. Problem solved,” Mia begged in a desperate bid to escape this looming nightmare.
The lady chuckled and Mia found that she’d never wanted to punch someone as badly as she did now. “It doesn’t work that way, honey.”
Mia cringed at the endearment. She hated when people who didn’t know her called her honey, baby or sweetheart. Those were endearments she’d heard over and over again after her dad died. Those words had been muttered to her with pitying voices and stares.
“Poor, Mia. First her mother. Now, her father. Who will ever take care of her now?”
“As I’m sure you’ve heard on the news,” the lady continued. “There are certain biological factors that need to be in place for the selection process. You’re very lucky to be selected as a bride for one of the Yatur males.”
Yatur.
Mia hated that name. Only hard-up women who went to sci-fi conventions would want to go to a planet and marry a hairy beast. While she hadn’t had a boyfriend in a few years, Mia wasn’t there yet. She still had hopes of finding a human husband and having kids on Earth one day.
“So, what happens in these situations? I’m sure I’m not the first person who has refused to participate. Is there an appeal process? Do I plead my case to my local elected official, the President or to you?”
“Oh, honey—”
“Stop. Calling. Me. Honey,” Mia said through gritted teeth. “Drop the pleasantries, rainbows and sunshine attitude. I’m not interested in going.”
“Listen.” The happiness in the lady’s voice vanished. “There is no appeal process. There is no refusing to go. Don’t try to run away and hide. The second they received your results back, you were tracked and followed. You will be on that ship by any means necessary.”
“But my rights!” Her eyes burned. Her muscles shook and her knees knocked so hard Mia braced a hand on the wall beside her for support to remain upright.
“You no longer have any. Pack whatever you can fit in two bags and be ready by 0900 hours in the morning. A car will pick you up to take you to the airfield and from there you’ll be on your way to Alexandria, Egypt. Go out and enjoy you last night on Earth. Get drunk, get laid and say your goo
dbyes to your loved ones. This is happening.”
The letter slid from her lax grasp to drift to the floor. It fell in slow motion like the imagined train wreck that was soon to be her life. Mia crossed to her living room window and pushed apart the blinds to get a good look outside.
At only five in the evening, the sun was still shining bright in her small coastal Florida town. She glanced up and down her street, not really seeing the people walking their dogs, children playing in their front yards or the cars driving by as some returned from work. Instead, her gaze landed unerringly on what didn’t belong. The black Suburban parked in front of her house. How long had the truck been there?
Despite the fear and anger raging through her, Mia broke down in tears. There was no getting out of this.
Chapter Two
“Welcome onboard New Beginnings and congratulations on being chosen for the Teague Bride Program! Your new life awaits! Please report to your assigned room. Additional instructions will be found there.”
Mia followed the dark, curly haired woman in the line in front of her. When she’d first heard the recording that blasted overhead, she’d paid attention to it, hanging on every word. An hour later and the same message continued to play. The line to get through the check-in process and board the enormous silver spaceship had been a long, arduous one. Now the repeated greeting had become annoying background noise in a mix of other discordant sounds.
Shock still held Mia in its clutches. She couldn’t believe she was actually here. As instructed, she’d left her home unlocked and car keys on the counter. She’d had a fleeting thought of calling her extended family and telling them to come get whatever they wanted, but a small part of her thought doing that would be so…so…final. If she didn’t give her things away, she could eventually return.
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