[Alien Mate 01.0] Alien Mate

by Cara Bristol

  We stumbled to the bed where I pulled Starr into the crook of my body. Our spent passion scented the air. I covered her breast with my hand and nuzzled her neck.

  Starr exhaled a contented sigh. “I give in to you too easily and too fast.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible,” I replied.

  She giggled. “I’m sure you don’t.” Then her mood sobered. She twisted in my arms and stroked my horns, sending a heated sensation clear down to my toes. The love in her soft blue eyes made my throat catch. “I would give you everything I have. You’re my mate.”

  I remembered my anticipation the day she arrived. Though she hadn’t been what I’d expected, we’d been meant for each other. Despite our rocky meeting, we’d bonded at the start. I could not imagine mating with anyone but Starr. “And you’re mine. Forever and always.”

  Epilogue

  Starr

  Two solar rotations later

  “How do I look?” Darq adjusted his kel for the third time.

  Torg shrugged. “The same as always.”

  I shot him a censuring look and reassured Darq. “Very handsome.” Seated on a high-backed divan, I shifted position and stretched out my legs. Getting comfortable was hard these days, but the baby would be born soon.

  “You don’t think I should wear Terran garments?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No. The women are coming to meet an alien man. They’ll expect you to look as Dakonian as possible. Brush your hair back. Show off your horns. They’ll love that.”

  Darq peered into the mirror I’d received in the last shipment of supplies and finger-combed his hair.

  “Perfect.” I flashed a thumbs-up.

  “I shouldn’t take the snow skimmer, then.”

  Dakonians no longer had to trek on foot—not since Andrea and I had renegotiated the exchange program. We had Enoki inform Earth that since they’d seen fit to allow a dangerous criminal to be sent to Dakon, the shipment of illuvian ore would halt unless certain conditions were met. First, they had to stop sending convicts and open the program to all women. Second. A little reconstruction was in order. They had to bring the planet up to the present age. In the past year, fleets of ships had delivered supplies. But no women until today. It had taken time to retool the recruitment procedure.

  This new group of women would arrive on a much different Dakon than the one Andrea, Tessa, and I had landed on. I still missed the woman I’d thought Tessa was. In the lodge when we’d announced Loka had been killed, for the briefest second, I imagined I’d seen a glint of regret in her eyes, but I knew better. There was only cold and darkness. You couldn’t assassinate as many people as she had and retain your humanity. Murder killed both victim and perpetrator. The former lost his life, the latter his soul. Two years had passed since our arrival, and I’d taken to thinking of Tessa as two people because it was easier that way. There’d been our bubbly, cheerful shipmate, and there’d been the cold-eyed killer—who’d gone back to Terra to be convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

  I’d learned from Maridelle, with whom I had frequent vid contact, that in its own inept way, my former government had attempted to protect me. The hit had been ordered long before I left Terra. The murder charges and subsequent trial had been a farce, concocted by my government so they could send me out of reach of the Carmichaels.

  We all knew how that had worked out.

  The one hundred women soon to arrive had been vetted stringently. I’d written the screening procedures myself, and Andrea had hacked into the exchange program’s recruitment protocols and planted them. One of the new arrivals would be Darq’s mate. He’d drawn a chit.

  “She’ll prefer to ride by skimmer,” I advised him. “Your female is coming for a Dakonian man, not a two tripta hike in the snow.”

  “Oh.”

  “Everything will be fine. You’ll do great.”

  “Go already!” Torg yelled.

  “Torg!”

  “No, he’s right.” Darq straightened. “I will see you later. When I return, it will be with my mate.” He hurried from the cave.

  “You were rather rude,” I chided Torg. “He’s nervous about the meeting—as I’m sure you were.”

  “Maybe a little,” he admitted. “But I wanted to be alone with you and Starlet.” He rubbed my swollen belly.

  I, and many of the first arrivals—including Andrea—had proven definitively that Dakonians and Terrans were compatible and could reproduce. Andrea’s baby would be born a month after ours. With as often as Torg and I had sex, I would have been pregnant a lot sooner, except for the contraceptive implant. Something else my former government had failed to plan for. More than three-quarters of the first arrivals were on birth control. After promising compatible, fertile mates, Earth had sent a group of women who couldn’t bear children—at least not for a while. Without the tool to remove the implant, we had to wait for its efficacy to wear off. Andrea and I leveraged that little oversight in our negotiations, too.

  “We can’t call our daughter Starlet.” We’d had many discussions but had not yet arrived at an agreement.

  “Why not? Your name is Starr; she’ll be our little star.”

  “No.” I shook my head.

  “We could call her Icha, then,” he said with a straight face.

  I punched his arm lightly. “Don’t you even—”

  He laughed, and I did, too. My nemesis no longer represented a threat to me or anyone else. I learned that Tessa had told Icha of my conviction so word would spread, Torg’s tribe would expel me, and I’d be forced out into the open. Time had taken care of Icha. She’d lost power as more and more couples gave birth to babies and program opponents decided they preferred a full-time Terran female over a once-in-a-while kel-warmer troublemaker.

  I teased Torg, but he would get his way. The name Starlet had grown on me, and anything that made my mate happy, made me happy. I was pleased to have a healthy baby—and a real medical center nearby for the birth of my first child.

  One whole shipment of insulated pre-fab housing panels had been used to construct a medical center. Another shipment had provided bio scanners, robo operators, osteoknitters, and other medical devices. Earth physicians and medical technicians provided consultation and training for the Dakonian healers.

  I intended to have a home cave birth with Stovak attending, but having the medical center on standby and the skimmer to get there reassured me. It was at the med facility we’d learned the sex of our child. We’d considered waiting to find out in the time-honored manner, but since females were so important to the future, we decided we wanted to know.

  Torg’s expression turned serious. “Do you mind still living in the cave?”

  Many Dakonians had moved into the pre-fab housing units. They were well insulated against draft and dampness and came with all the conveniences and comforts.

  “No, it’s your home. Our home,” I amended. And it had been modified quite a bit. A composite material had been laid over the dirt floor. Space heaters fueled by energy packs warmed the chambers, although we supplemented with wood for atmosphere. I’d gotten used to having a roaring fire. Somewhere on Terra—maybe an antique shop—several woodstoves had been located and shipped to us. We built our fires in those, eliminating the smoke and soot. I owed Andrea for that one. She could find anything. She could locate a single tick in a herd of kel. If kel got ticks; I suspected it was too cold. One day, the Terrans would wake up to discover that half of everything they owned had been mysteriously transported to Dakon.

  “Do you mind the way the cave has changed?” I asked him. It didn’t look Dakonian anymore.

  I’d furnished it as a Terran home with sofas, a huge massaging hover bed, lamps, artwork, and a full kitchen complete with a flash cooker, although I did none of the cooking. Torg and Darq took care of that. But hey, I wanted to make their lives easier.

  “No.” He squeezed my hand. “I’m humbled by what you�
�ve done for us. I did not think I would see this kind of progress in my lifetime. Before you came, we faced extinction. You, Andrea, and the other females gave us more than we could have dreamed of.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “Enoki has decided we should search for others, to see if descendants of asteroid survivors live on the other side of Dakon. Before, the warm season didn’t last long enough for us to go on foot, but now we can travel in the vehicles. A team has volunteered to go.”

  “That’s great news.” I knew Torg and his brethren longed to reunite all their people.

  He hugged me close to his warm body and rubbed my tummy. “We’re going to call our daughter Starlet, right?”

  “We’ll see.” I settled my head on his shoulder, reached up, and caressed his horns. He growled, and I giggled.

  Starlet, I can’t wait for you to meet your Daddy. I cuddled next to my alien mate and sighed with contentment.

  * * *

  Thank you for reading Alien Mate. Darq, Torg’s brother, meets his mate, Sunny, in Alien Attraction (Alien Mate 2). Read on for an excerpt from his story.

  Alien Attraction (Alien Mate 2)

  Chapter One

  Sunny

  “Absolutely not! Have you lost your mind?” I glared across the desk, incredulous at what had popped out of my agent’s mouth. The woman couldn’t be serious. I’d been forced to perform some crazy stunts in my reality-show career, but this would take the cake.

  “The ratings will go supernova,” Chantelle Aubergine said with a straight face.

  “I don’t care about the ratings! This is my life we’re talking about.”

  “You should care about the ratings—they keep you employed. Without good ratings, there would be no Sunny Weathers’ Excellent Adventures.”

  Excellent adventures? What a crock. The reality show should be called Stick It to Sunny or Test How Much We Can Throw at Sunny Before She Loses It. The venture had started out as campy fun, but the stunts and segments had grown wilder and crazier. Now, I dreaded each new season.

  “Sky diving, military boot camp, living in the jungle during monsoon season, working on a fishing boat, spending a month in the desert with the scorpions and snakes, I did it.”

  Chantelle chuckled. “Military boot camp. Hilarious! You and Stormy were great.”

  In the early years, my sister and I had teamed up to do the show, which had been called Sunny and Stormy’s Excellent Adventures. Then Devon had come along and put a halt to her career. To keep viewers engaged, Apogee Productions had upped the ante, demanding longer, weirder adventures.

  “I draw the line at marrying a purple, scaly horned alien.”

  “They’re not purple or scaly—although they do have horns. Women think they’re sexy.”

  “The horns or the aliens?”

  “I was referring to their horns, but both, actually.”

  “Well, not me.” I shuddered. Dating out of my species did not interest me.

  “You don’t understand what a great opportunity this is. The producers managed to get a slot for you. Do you have any idea how hard that is?” Chantelle said. “Since they’ve opened up the Terra-Dakon Exchange Program to all women instead of just convicted felons, women have rushed to enroll. There’s a waiting list a parsec long.”

  “Then give someone else my slot. Slim as chances are for finding a husband, I’ll hold out for a human.” With more females than males on Terra, men had gotten picky, and few committed to monogamous long-term relationships anymore.

  “I did some negotiating with Apogee on your behalf. I got them to sweeten the deal. You’ll get a bonus.” She grinned, a cat with a mouthful of bird feathers.

  She could spin this as doing me a favor, but the truth was Chantelle had put the screws to Apogee because she received 10 percent of everything I earned. Besides, it was an agent’s job to negotiate for her client. But it was all moot. “No amount of money is worth marrying an alien,” I said.

  “Technically, it’s not a marriage; it’s not a legal union on Terra.” She paused dramatically. “Apogee will pay you a two-million-dollar bonus on top of your regular salary.”

  “Two million?” My jaw dropped. I received fifty K per episode, eight episodes per season. Sure, I earned more than the barista at the corner coffee shop, but a single “episode” took four to six weeks to shoot, and then you had to subtract Chantelle’s percentage and taxes. Plus, I wasn’t just supporting myself. With Devon so ill, Stormy couldn’t work, so I picked up the tab for their expenses and his medical bills. We were getting by, but two million could cushion our lives. I might even get a full night’s sleep without worrying what new disaster the morning would bring.

  “One half up front, and the remainder after you return to Earth.”

  “Oh, so I get to come back?” I said drily.

  Chantelle missed the sarcasm. “Of course. No one expects you to hook up with an alien for life. After a year—”

  “A year?”

  “The time will go fast.”

  “For you,” I snapped.

  “After a year, you’ll come home, and I’ll renegotiate your contract with Apogee Productions. The ratings will have gone supernova, you’ll be a big star, and I’ll get you a more lucrative contract.” My agent’s eyes lit up with dollar signs.

  My career might pan out the way Chantelle envisioned, but I wasn’t interested. The last time I’d gotten a free lunch, I was in the second grade, and some kid gave me the bologna sandwich he didn’t want. I would pay for any salary increase by having to perform more outlandish stunts, and I shuddered to contemplate what could be worse than hooking up with an extraterrestrial. When my contract expired, this trained monkey planned to run away from the circus. I’d had enough “excellent adventures” to last me a lifetime. I was outta here. Sayonara. Adios amigos.

  But two million dollars...

  “So, I get a big bonus and potentially a lot more money in the long run. What’s in it for the alien?” Why would he seek a creature from another planet? It had to be just as weird for him.

  “A future. Dakon is critically short of women. After an asteroid strike threw the planet into an ice age—”

  “The planet is in ice age?” Laughter, and not the funny kind, bubbled up and exited in a snort. Could the situation get any more ridiculous?

  “Dakon is starting to recover. They get a good couple of months of sun, now. Anyway, a virus on the asteroid infected and killed most of the women and altered their DNA. Very few females are born anymore.”

  “So the alien would expect me to bear his children?” I could not believe this conversation.

  “He might, but you’re not responsible for his expectations.”

  “Oh, good.” I rolled my eyes. “Because I’d hate to think you had offered me two million dollars to have sex with an alien.”

  “You wouldn’t be required to engage in sexual relations because while prostitution is no longer illegal, it is against the law to force someone into it. Apogee abides by the law, and Sunny Weathers’ Excellent Adventures isn’t a sex show.”

  Not yet, anyway. I gotta get out of this contract. “Why would he agree to this? He won’t be getting the mate he wants.”

  “He won’t realize it until after the show.” She shrugged. “He can try again if he wants to.”

  The proposition sounded like a scam. We’d be deceiving, cheating the alien. And that’s if it worked. He might not be human, but that didn’t mean he was stupid. “He’s going to notice the camera crew.”

  “There won’t be one. They’ll send a robotic microcam prototype; the Dakonians won’t notice it’s there. This will be the beta test. If the cambot performs to spec, they’ll produce more for other shows.”

  “How little are they?”

  Chantelle formed a circle with her thumb and index finger.

  “That’s still pretty big. They’ll be noticed.”

  “You think so?” She jerked her head to a corner of her office.

  Son
of a production company executive! A winged orb slightly smaller than a Ping-Pong ball hovered close to the ceiling. Its body was a matte, mottled gray. Even searching for it, I’d had a hard time spotting it. I glowered at Chantelle. “I’m being videoed?”

  “Prelim for the season.” She nodded. “Your reluctance will be a great episode.”

  Sometimes I wondered whose interests she represented, mine or Apogee’s. Actually, the answer was neither. Chantelle served Chantelle. Well, Sunny was going to look out for Sunny. I crossed my arms. “I’ll tell the alien he’s being videoed and is on a show.”

  “You’ll void the contract, you won’t receive the bonus, and you’ll be stuck on Dakon until the scheduled ship picks you up.”

  I spoke directly to the cambot. “I won’t do it. I won’t sacrifice a year of my life—and it’s not fair to the alien.”

  “I understand your reluctance—”

  “Do you?” I doubted it.

  My agent’s attitude indicated she considered this a good opportunity, but she wasn’t leaving her sister and nephew, freezing her ass off on an alien wasteland, and dating a horned extraterrestrial. “My answer is no.”

  Chantelle peered down her surgically perfected nose. For as much plastic surgery as she’d had, you’d have thought she worked in front of the camera. “If you refuse, Apogee will sue for breach of contract.”

  “Let them. I don’t have any money.” I acted tough; I hoped Apogee bought my bluff. They might make an example out of me, bankrupt me to deter other cast members who might be considering weaseling out of their contracts. What would happen to Devon? How would we pay for his medical care? If we were flat broke, we might be able to get him on public assistance, but that wouldn’t provide the specialized level of care he needed.