Darak
Page 11
“Still a Dakonian?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” I shrugged.
“Aton will come,” Darak spoke up. “He’s your mate, and he won’t abandon you. The Fates have chosen him for you.”
My sister and I exchanged a glance. Dakonians believed an energy in the universe guided people to their Fated partners. Of course, Lexi and I put no stock into those superstitions. “Even if that were true—”
“It is true,” he insisted.
“He still wouldn’t have a way to get here. Without a visa, he won’t be allowed to land on the planet. Everyone on the ship has to have the proper authorization, or Transit Authority won’t clear the craft to land. The Fates may provide mates, but they can’t issue visas.”
“He will find a way to get here,” Darak contended.
A nice sentiment, but Aton hadn’t even met me. I was a name on a faraway planet. He might be disappointed at being banned from Earth, but it wasn’t like he would fight through hell or high water to get here.
“We’ll see,” I said noncommittally.
“Any more trouble with Phillip?” my sister asked.
“When isn’t there trouble with Phillip?” Funny—not—how a little public humiliation could transform an emotional cold fish into a vindictive adversary. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
Because we now worked for two different law firms, we sometimes faced off against each other in court. Opposing counsel should be able to duke it out, laugh it off, and then go out for a drink. Not Phillip and I.
My ex turned every case into a personal attack. He went for the jugular—mine. No motion was too frivolous to file, no objection too ridiculous to lob. He bogged down my cases and his, cost his clients and mine money, and wasted the court’s time.
If my former fiancé had exhibited as much passion for me as he did for revenge, we’d be married.
I shuddered at the close call. While the animosity complicated my professional life, it would have been worse to have been married to Phillip. No matter how well you knew a person, he could surprise you. Finding true love was just a crap shoot—even with supportive “scientific data.”
Maverick, me? Ha! If the IDA was wrong about me, then maybe they were wrong about Aton, too. But, why had his visa been denied? What could he have done?
“Do you think I’m rebellious?” I asked my sister.
“Yes.”
“How can you say that?” I gaped.
“Uh…Phillip?”
“One time!” I waved my arms. “One time I acted impulsively and out of character. And it wasn’t that spontaneous, because I’d been shoring up the courage to do it for a long while.”
“So you had rebellion in your heart.”
“Thinking about rebelling isn’t the same as rebelling.”
“Hey, you asked me!”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m just…bummed.”
Darak hugged my sister, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Nobody can keep a Dakonian from his mate. Aton will come for you.”
Chapter Two
Aton
Two weeks later
Mr. Uber pulled his vehicle to the curb. “This is the last one,” he said.
I peered dubiously at the soaring glass building squeezed among other tall structures. “This doesn’t look like the kind of hut in which my female would live.” Honking vehicles sped by. Sirens wailed in the distance. People with heads bent over small devices crowded the walkways, rushing among brown and gray reflective towers that blocked out much of the sky.
We’d been to two dwellings in more habitable areas, but neither of the females living in them were mine. They’d gaped at me like I was crazy when I asked if they had expected me, but even before their resounding “nos,” my heart had whispered they weren’t the right one. I’d never met my mate, didn’t know what she looked like, but I felt certain when I saw her, I would recognize her. The Fates would ensure it.
Mr. Uber squinted at his phone. “This isn’t a house. It’s an office building for Antoinette Sutterman, attorney-at-law. I’d wait for you…but I got another fare…” He tapped on his device.
“No, you go on. There’s nothing more you can do anyway. Thank you for your help.” If my Antoinette Sutterman didn’t live here, I would need to regroup because I didn’t know where else to search.
“Good luck! I hope you find your woman,” he said.
“Thank you.” I slid out of the vehicle onto the curb.
With a wave, he merged into the stream of moving vehicles and disappeared.
I peered up at the tall building and prayed to the Fates. Please let this be the one.
I’d left Dakon with no information other than the name of my mate and her camp—New Los Angeles. To my dismay, her camp turned out to be much larger and more populated than I had expected. I had no idea where to begin my search. I couldn’t go to the Intergalactic Dating Agency for help because I wasn’t supposed to be here.
Fortunately, as I’d wandered the streets, the hand of the Fates had guided me to the Stellar Dust Bin, a tavern frequented by extraterrestrials, one of whom happened to be a Dakonian who’d been on Terra for about a year. Rojak used his phone to locate the huts where all the Antoinette Suttermans lived, and then called Mr. Uber to take me to them.
On my planet, everyone had a unique name. I never considered there could be more than one female named Antoinette Sutterman. Then again, I never imagined a village as large as New Los Angeles. I guessed when a planet had a lot of people, they ran out of names and had to triple up.
I entered the building, stepping into a large cavern with a black-veined white stone floor so smooth my kel boots wanted to slide over the surface. A dozen people milled around conversing in small groups. Standing before a metal door, studying a moving light were three females. Could one of those be mine? I scrutinized them, but my horns didn’t even twitch.
“Antoinette Sutterman?” I called out anyway.
A man frowned. “The office listing is right in front of you.” He gestured to a board with white scribblings.
I could understand and speak Terran because I’d been implanted with a translator before they’d dragged me off the ship, but I couldn’t read it.
The metal doors where the women waited dinged and then opened. One of the females glanced back at me. “Her office is on the eighth floor.”
“Thank you,” I said. Eight floors? I saw only the floor I stood on.
“What are you waiting for? I’m holding the elevator for you.” She motioned.
“Will it take me to Antoinette Sutterman?”
“Yes! Come on.”
I ran to join her. The doors closed without anyone doing anything, and I found myself enclosed in a metal box.
The female pushed a button and then the one next to it. The metal box began to rise. I grabbed the railing and braced myself. Unconcerned, the females stared at a moving light. Seconds later, the metal box jolted to a stop, and the doors opened.
What now?
“This is your floor,” the helpful female said. “Her office is at the end of the corridor.”
She was a very nice female who would make some male very happy. “Thank you.” I bounded off, relieved to be out of the metal box and eager to find my mate.
As I approached the door at the end of the hall, my horns began to throb. Obah! Excitement surged. This was the right place. I had located my female! She lived here. The Fates had guided me, and they were never wrong. Calm confidence filled me.
I opened the door, and the sense of rightness grew stronger. A woman, her dark hair threaded with gray, sat at a glossy large table peering at one of the ubiquitous lighted screens. Earth people seemed to spend a lot of time watching screens. “Can I help you?” she said.
I ducked as I entered to avoid acquiring another painful knot on my head. Terrans were short, and few of their doorways were tall enough to accommodate my average height. My body
signaled my mate was nearby, but I didn’t think this female was she. I got no sense of recognition. “You’re not Antoinette Sutterman.”
“I’m Megan Nichols, Ms. Sutterman’s assistant. Can I help you?”
Relief she wasn’t the one washed over me. “I’m Aton. I’m here to see Antoinette Sutterman.”
“Do you have an appointment?” She swiveled to her screen.
“No.”
She glanced at me. “Is she expecting you?”
“Yes, I’m her mate. The Fates have selected her for me, and I’m here to claim her.”
Megan Nichols sprang out of her seat. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Not until I see her!”
She pressed a button on a device on her table.
“Yes?” came a disembodied male voice.
She kept her gaze on me. “Code fourteen. Suite 804.”
“We’re on the way.”
“Uh, he’s very big and…uh, not human.” She eyed my horns.
“Got it.”
Behind her were two doors, both closed. The one on the left didn’t give off any vibration, but as I leaned to the right, my horns tingled. There! She was behind that door. I stepped toward it.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Megan Nichols leaped out and barred my path.
If she’d been a male, I would have shoved her out of the way, but she was female, Terran, and much smaller than me. I could hurt her without intending to.
“I came to retrieve my female. Antoinette Sutterman!” I shouted. Maybe she would hear and come to me.
“You need to leave,” she said. “Security is coming.”
When I tried to step around her, she moved, too then the outer door burst open, and three males barreled in.
“Thank god you’re here. He’s ranting and raving, talking crazy, and demanding to see Ms. Sutterman,” Megan Nichols said.
“You need to leave the premises right now.” One of the males aimed a handheld device at me. He motioned to Megan Nichols. “You should move out of the way, ma’am.”
She scooted behind her table, and I took advantage of the opportunity to rush at the door on the right. “I’m meeting my mate—”
“Taser! Taser! Taser!” Two darts shot out of the man’s weapon. One bounced off my kel tunic, but the other barb lodged in my neck. Lightning splintered through my body, locking up every muscle in agony. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t speak. I fell face forward onto the hard floor.
Want to read the rest? Get Aton: Dakonian Alien Mail Order Bride #2 from your favorite online bookseller.
* * * *
Aton: Dakonian Alien Mail Order Brides #2 story description
For an alien and a human girl, all’s fair in love and courtship…
Attorney Toni Sutterman is on the fast-track, her success all but an open-and-shut case when she realizes she lacks what’s really important: true love. With marriage-minded men in short supply on planet Earth, she joins the Intergalactic Dating Agency hoping to find a good match with an extraterrestrial. When her alien mate finally arrives, he proves beyond all doubt to be the man of her dreams: tall, sexy, romantic, and totally devoted to her. So what if there’s a bit of gray area about how he actually got here?
Aton of planet Dakon doesn’t mean to pull a fast one. He has every intent to play by the rules until false accusations get him escorted from the spaceship just before it blasts off. Neither spurious allegations nor the vastness of space will keep him from his mate, so he makes his own way to Earth to claim the female he was promised. As soon as he sees Toni, he recognizes her as his Fated mate. Confident he’s acted in good faith, he focuses on courting her and beginning their life together.
But when a rival discovers the truth and administers some rough justice, will Toni be willing to break the rules and become Aton’s partner in crime to save their future…or will she play by the book?
Aton: Dakonian Alien Mail Order Brides #2 is available everywhere. Get it from your favorite online bookseller: https://books2read.com/u/47ZRV7
The Dakonian Alien Mail Order Bride series is a spinoff of the Alien Mate series. In the Dakonian series, the aliens come to Earth through the Intergalactic Dating Agency to find their mates. In the Alien Mate series, the Earth women travel to planet Dakon through the Terra Dakon Goodwill Exchange Program to meet their alien hunks. Same alien hotties, different locales and romantic adventures. For more alien mail order brides romances, check out the Alien Mate series: Alien Mate (Book 1), Alien Attraction (Book 2), Alien Intention (Book 3).
Intergalactic Dating Agency
Looking for love that’s out of this world? Strong, smart, sexy aliens are seeking mates from the Milky Way. Just hop on board with your local Intergalactic Dating Agency and become an alien mail order bride! Join thirteen authors as we explore the friendly skies and beyond with trilogies of astral adventure and otherworldly lovers. Warning: abductions may or may not be involved.
Meet your alien hunk here: Romancing the Alien.
Titles by Cara Bristol
Alien Mate series
Alien Mate (Book 1)
Alien Attraction (Book 2)
Alien Intention (Book 3)
Dakonian Alien Mail-Order Brides
Intergalactic Dating Agency
Darak
Aton
Caid
Cy-Ops Sci-fi Romance series
Stranded with the Cyborg (Book 1)
Married to the Cyborg (Book 1.5)
Mated with the Cyborg (Book 2)
Captured by the Cyborg (Book 3)
Trapped with the Cyborg (Book 4)
Claimed by the Cyborg (Book 5)
Rescued by the Cyborg (Book 5.5)
Hunted by the Cyborg (Cy-Ops Sci-fi Romance 6)
Breeder sci-fi romance series
Breeder (Book 1)
Terran (Book 2)
Warrior (Book 3)
Other titles
Destiny’s Chance
Goddess’s Curse
Longing
Naughty Words for Nice Writers (A Romance Novel Thesaurus)
Anthologies
Portals
Body Talk
Audiobooks
Stranded with the Cyborg
Mated with the Cyborg
Books in Print
Alien Mate
Captured by the Cyborg
Claimed by the Cyborg
Goddess’s Curse
Naughty Words for Nice Writers
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Sign up here: http://carabristol.com/get-your-free-book/
About the Author
Cara Bristol writes character driven science fiction romance with humor, heart, and heat. She loves introducing new readers to science fiction romance and likes to say she writes sci-fi for readers who don’t like sci-fi. She’s been a number one best seller in multiple book categories and has hit the USA Today bestseller list twice! She has three science fiction romance series: the action-packed Cy-Ops Sci-fi Romance cyborg series; the dark, intense Breeder series; and the new light and funny Alien Mate series. When she’s not writing (ha ha ha – she’s almost always writing) she enjoys traveling to exotic destinations and chillaxin’ with her favorite reality TV shows. Cara lives in Missouri with her own alpha hero, her husband.
Cara’s Website: http://carabristol.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cara.bristol.3
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Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank author Tasha Black for her persistence inviting me to write for the Intergalactic Dating Agenc
y. It is such a fun project and it dovetails so well into my Alien Mate series. I’d also like to thank Violet Vaughn, who spearheads the project, and my fellow IDA authors, whose books are awesome. To Lisa Medley, my faithful beta reader…you never let me down. Thank you so much. And editors Kate Richards, Nan Sipe, and Celeste Jones…you ladies are the best! Finally, thank you to Croco Designs for the striking cover.