The Warrior's Proposal (Celestial Mates Book 7)

by Marla Therron

  Rae was already turning to bolt. If she were wrong, well, this would seem incredibly stupid to her in posterity. But she believed her eyes; she trusted her science. She ran.

  And she got out the back exit into an alley before a chain link fence stopped her. The conference center door banged back open behind her and she tried to scale the fence.

  A hand gripped the back of her jacket, dragging her off, spinning her around.

  She stared up into the barbarian’s eyes. Something happened to them. They were dark brown before, but as Garr blinked, they changed, like a chameleon shifting its colors. Now there were no discernible sclera, irises, or pupils. His eyes were solid black and shiny like marbles.

  “I claim you,” he said. “You are mine now, clever creature.” His finger stroked the point of her jaw, and she realized his hands were enormous too. He could have palmed her entire head with just one mitt.

  “You’re an alien,” Rae said.

  “No. Ythirian. You are an alien.” He stroked her cheek and she flinched at his red-hot touch, unable to control the shudder that went through her. But it was a shudder born from more than just fear.

  “Are you going to kill me for my research?”

  “Nothing will kill you but time, now that you are mine,” he murmured.

  She prayed the security guards would get here soon.

  He produced from his kurta a strange, purple blossom embedded in a nest of brown fibers. The blossom featured several layers of petals folded over one another. It had a floral scent that was sweet and dark at once, and he offered it to her, as though a gift.

  She glanced from the flower to him. “That isn’t from Earth, is it?”

  “We call it a night blossom.” He moved the flower nearer to her face, and she wondered if this brute was trying to be romantic. Then, however, the petals bloomed abruptly outward, revealing a gorgeous burnt-orange center. From the stigma, it puffed a violet cloud of dust.

  She inhaled on reflex and immediately felt her mind slow. The world shifted around her, the colors dulled, and she slumped back into the chain link. “Did… did you just… rose-hypnol me?” she asked, sinking onto the asphalt.

  “I claim you, taliyar.” His kurta unwound at the sleeves and slithered around her torso, swaddling her in fabric that felt surprisingly silky, but at the same time binding her wrists together at her chest.

  He was wrapping her up, knocking her unconscious—kidnapping her, she realized in sudden horror. “And you are safe now that you belong to me.”

  Chapter Two

  Rae woke cocooned in fabric unlike anything she’d ever touched. Where it grazed bare skin on her hands and throat, it was creamy without being slippery or cloying. It breathed like a cloud.

  The fabric covered her face and bound her legs together, arms folded across her chest with palms to either shoulder. She lay on her side on the hard ground.

  Her other senses filled in some blanks: the susurrus of wind through leaves and earthen scent from the ground told her she was in a forest. Struggling to free herself, she went utterly still at someone’s grip to her shoulder. Her assailant flipped her onto her back.

  Rae tried to scream. A hand clapped over her mouth—she could feel it through the fabric. “No one will hear you but wild animals,” said the voice of that enormous, dark-haired stranger. “Even Vaya is scouting.”

  Garr was his name. Vaya must have been his giantess sidekick.

  “I’m taking the otoya off you now. I can tell from your pulse and the scent of adrenaline that you’re preparing to run. However, you’re on my world. There is nowhere to go. Nod if you understand.”

  Heart thundering in her ears, Rae nodded.

  His fingertips grazed her throat. She instinctively froze like cornered prey. Rather than rip out her throat, his touch merely caused the fabric—the otoya—to dissolve until it was slippery and wet.

  It slid off her body and left behind dry skin. Like tiny rivers of ink, it flowed up Garr’s thick forearm. The initially shirtless alien wore only billowing white pants, but the otoya transformed into a pristine sable jacket with trim that matched the pants. It was long like the kurta he’d worn, but open in front, so that she could see a wide band of his upper torso.

  Garr had been in disguise at the conference center, but now she could see the network of black markings—like tattoos—on his bronzed skin. A starred nova symbol rested over his heart, and tiny circles marked his throat beneath either ear.

  Tribal stripes angled down his neck on either side, tracked his collarbones, and then joined the nova—in turn, other lines spread from the nova either across his chest or down his abdomen, disappearing into his clothes. She tried not to wonder what other markings he had; or to think about why he straddled her.

  He set fingers to her jaw, tilting her head left and right, examining her in return.

  Rae jerked her chin from his hand, glaring at him. “Let me go.” She despised the quaver in her voice.

  “My domé told me you would demand freedom.” Her own fear was reflected back at her through his shiny black eyes. “But you are mine now. I am Prime Garr domé Kaython, and you are claimed. Your last mate surrendered you.”

  “That’s not how it works.” Tears burned from the corners of her eyes.

  “It does here.” He gestured around them.

  And that was when it hit Rae: she was no longer on Earth. She lay at the foot of a bizarre forest where the shapes weren’t quite right. Cliffs flaked in dark green scales the size of shields rose on two sides of her.

  There were patches where the scales were absent, revealing honeycomb pores of uneven size beneath, most ranging between ten to twenty inches wide. Bunches of violet and teal flowers burst from some of the pores, and tree trunks from others.

  The trees were ridged in tiny versions of those scales instead of bark, and only some of them grew straight up. Others formed arches or bridges, and far above, the tallest trunks wove organically together.

  A dense canopy overhead let dappled sunlight through, and in its midst were chattering, gliding lizards and bright-feathered rodents. The whole place gave her the sense of a rainforest mixed with a coral reef.

  “Where are we?” Rae’s voice was high and thin.

  “Ythir.”

  She swallowed. “And you brought me through a portal.” She recalled Vaya’s words at the conference and realization settled in.

  “The asteroid was meant to seed our world. And… and when I examined the debris with electromagnetic radiation, I activated those seeds.”

  “Yes.”

  She imagined explaining that to her parents. Mom. Dad. You know how you warned me about spending all my time in books? Well, I started an alien invasion.

  Thinking about her parents only made her stomach knot. “Listen, Garr—whoever you are. I don’t belong here. I’m an Earthling. You’re… Ythirian. I’m a geneticist, so maybe you don’t know this, but our species couldn’t possibly be capable of mating. If that’s what you’re after.”

  “Kaython will provide.” He hoisted her by the shoulder to her feet.

  What the hell is a Kaython? “Is he the one who taught you English?”

  “She taught me. And yes.” He strode five paces away, head tilting back and nostrils flaring, scenting the air with whatever alien senses he possessed.

  His attention moved to the trees and distant forest murk. “But I’m not speaking English.”

  “What?” She processed what she’d just said and realized the word “what” didn’t sound right. It had sounded more like “yurt.” Testing it, she said, “The rain in Spain falls mostly on the plain.” Not a word rhymed, and “Spain” was the only part that sounded right. “How did you do this?”

  He held up a finger. “Silence. I’m listening.”

  “Apparently not to me!” It was easier to be angry if he didn’t look right at her. “Take me back to Earth. Now.”

  He wheeled on her and advanced so quickly that Rae sprang back, flush to one of t
hose scales. It was coarse like sandstone and just slightly warmer than rock.

  Garr pressed forward until there was only an inch of air between them and she came only up to his chest, so close her breath must have tickled that nova marking over his heart. “You are claimed now. Obey your prime.”

  Rae firmed her mouth. It took every ounce of her courage to say just the one tiny syllable: “No.”

  Garr scowled and touched her chin again, tilting her jaw up so that he could bore through her with his gaze. “This is Kaython’s will. You are my mate.”

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  PREVIEW OF ‘THE ALIEN’S PREGNANT MATE’ BY MARLA THERRON

  Description:

  Bright and earnest Erena has trained all her life for this. One of only five people chosen to leave Earth behind and embark on the first ever manned mission beyond Earth’s solar system, she’s the best humanity has to offer.

  But after only a few months out, Erena’s ship is attacked by beings whose purpose she can only guess. She and the other female crew member are dragged away, while the male crewmen are killed before her eyes.

  Confused and afraid, Erena finds herself being sold in an alien black market as a rare novelty. Sold to a strange but captivatingly handsome alien named Shang, Erena struggles to defend herself, find her crew, and get home.

  But soon, she finds she must also resist the attraction she feels to her new owner.

  Though she tells herself it’s only sexual, with every day they get closer and Erena’s determination to get home begins to waver, especially once she discovers cross species impregnation may not be as impossible as she thought…

  Chapter One

  The lights of the stage were blinding, dazzling Erena's already hazy eyes. Whatever drug her captors had forced on her had left her so helpless she could barely move, her skin burning, her body aching, her vision blurry.

  Every sensation was overwhelming, from the clink of the silver chains around her wrists, to the grain of the cage floor beneath her bare skin, to the murmur of voices as creatures too strange to be real moved past her prison, only pausing briefly to stare at her before moving on.

  She tried to hide her nakedness; ashamed of what she had come to, but moving was a desperate struggle against the drug, which made her limbs so heavy. And anyway, nothing mattered anymore. Her entire team was dead except for Alice, and Erena had no way of knowing where the other woman had been taken.

  She could be in one of these cages too, or a thousand lightyears away. And as for Erena herself, she didn't know what was going to happen to her, but she couldn't imagine it was going to be anything pleasant.

  She was naked and drugged and surrounded on all sides by strange, totally alien beings. Some of them looked almost human, but many of them were so far from humanoid she could barely comprehend them.

  And the way they stared at her, openly hungry, eyeing her body like meat in a butcher's shop… Maybe that's what this was, she thought with trembling, hopeless fear. Or some kind of zoo. Whatever it was, she was certain it was the last place she would see. This was the end of her.

  Just as she was giving up totally, the cage opened and something reached in, clipping a leash to the collar around her throat and dragging her out onto the stage.

  "Our next item for bid," the thing holding her leash was shouting as it pulled her on her knees to the front of the stage, "A true rarity! A female from a totally undiscovered species, stolen from the furthest depths of uncharted space! Even if you aren't seduced by her alien beauty, she'd certainly be a fascinating research subject! She's already been outfitted with a full set of vaccinations and a language chip for your convenience! So who wants to start the bidding at ten million?"

  The auctioneer rattled on, praising Erena's attributes as she sat on her knees, naked and trembling and confused. She could barely see the audience past the stage lights, but she could hear them crying out bids.

  Fear bloomed in her despite the numbing effects of the drug. She was being sold, like an object. This wasn't right! She searched the crowd as tears stung her eyes, looking for someone, anyone, who would point out how wrong this was and save her.

  Her eyes locked with a man across the room. At least, she thought it was a man, through the blinding stage lights everything looked strange. But she saw his eyes, piercing even from this far away. They locked with hers, clear even through the haze of the drug, and she trembled at the sharpness of that gaze.

  Help me, she thought, wishing she had the strength to form the words, Please, save me!

  Erena had dreamed of this moment all her life. She'd always longed to be a scientist. She'd grown up completely fascinated by all of it. Chemistry, biology, physics, nothing was beyond her. It felt like magic to her, learning all the building blocks of the universe, the secret undercurrents and reactions that caused every single thing on earth.

  Eventually, she took a specialty in astro physics. Not because it was her favorite or because she wanted to stop studying everything else. She went on studying all the other subjects in her free time. But astro physics was what would allow her to go into space, and in this day and age all the most exciting discoveries were happening in space.

  It had been many years since mankind had moved beyond earth and begun colonizing other planets in their star system. Only now were manned missions moving beyond the Sol system and out into deep space in search of new fantastic discoveries. Erena, thanks to her tireless hard work, was going to be part of the first manned exploratory mission into deep space.

  She'd never been so proud. She was already going to be in the history books just for going, but Erena's excitement was entirely in thinking about the incredible things she would discover out there.

  She was the ship's chief science officer. The captain was a tiny, red headed woman named Alice Harper, calm and clear headed with natural leadership instincts and a talent for getting along with anyone.

  There was also Sergei, a swarthy Russian man and the security officer, and Paolo, the handsome bronze skinned Brazilian chief engineer, and Fin, a chipper and yet surprisingly serious dark haired French man, in Medical.

  They were a small team, meant to work closely together, with everyone helping out with everything, deferring to each other's expertise in case of decisions.

  Erena had been training with the four of them for years preparing for this and they knew each other better than anyone. Erena practically considered them her siblings. She'd even dated Paolo for a while, though it hadn't worked out and they'd broken it off amicably.

  The day of departure, they waved to the cheering crowds seeing them off. Erena leaned over the high platform that connected to the side of the ship, smiling with delight. The sun caught her golden hair, pulled back in a business like pony tail, and highlighted her curves, held in by the skin tight silver flight suit she was wearing.

  The team had been carefully chosen and groomed to be as attractive as they were qualified, as this mission was as much about inspiring people as it was about progress. But Erena, with her long, thick blond hair and her bright amber eyes, was a media favorite.

  She and the team posed for a few photos, then strapped into their sleek space craft, the Spirit of Exploration. Erena had run through the simulated take off so many times it almost seemed unreal to be finally doing it, feeling the ship shake and roar as the powerful rockets below it fired, shooting it up into the atmosphere on a cloud of fire.

  The rockets detached and the boosters kicked in, pushing them out of the atmosphere entirely and into orbit around Earth. From here there was a brief wait as they drifted, waiting for the ship's orientation to line up perfectly with their destination.

  Then Captain Harper fired the ship’s impulse thrusters, pushing them off out of orbit, heading towards the edge of the solar system. The hard part was done. Fin cheered first, always loud and excitable, and Erena soon joined him, climbing out of her harness and going to hug her team mates. They celebrated their success, breaking out a bottle of champag
ne and staring out the windows at the earth as it dwindled.

  "Alright everyone!" Captain Harper said eventually, "That's enough fun. It's time to settle in for the long haul. Let's get you kids to bed!"

  Though Paolo grumbled and they tried to argue for a few more minutes of enjoyment, they had a schedule to keep. Alice programmed the auto pilot as the rest of the crew settled into their stasis pods. They would remain in semi-cryogenic stasis for several years as the ship traveled out of the solar system at near light speeds.

  It was unhealthy for the human body to be awake and active during near light speed travel, so until they reached their first destination they would be remaining unconscious, their bodily functions slowed to a near death like state, not even ageing.

  It was the scariest part of the mission in Erena's opinion. This trip would take them nearly a decade, and due to relative time, far more time would pass on earth.

  They'd had to leave their families and friends behind, knowing they would never see them again. Leaving her parents had been painful, but Erena had been preparing for this all her life. It also frightened her, thinking about how many advances and changes might happen before she returned.

  The place she returned to would almost certainly be nothing like the place she left behind. But it was all worth it for the incredible things they would learn. Erena felt no regret, only eager optimism for the amazing future ahead of her. She sank into cryo sleep with a smile on her face, dreaming of the whole new worlds that would await her when she woke up.

  She felt as though she'd barely closed her eyes before she was waking again, blinking frost from her lashes as she sat up. The rest of her team was shifting around her, stretching and groaning as they climbed out of their pods, ice clinging to the tight curves of their suits.

  "Good morning," she said with a yawn.

  Paolo, looking deliciously sleep mussed, his dark hair tousled and his eyes half lidded, draped himself across the end of her pod.