Taos Wolven Mates
Mail-Order Bride
Sent from their home world in search of viable mates for their people, Lorcan Teb and Tarin Harunis come to nineteenth-century Earth hoping to find that humans are genetically compatible with their kind. They get their wish in one Dana Worely, mail-order bride. Can they convince their mate she’s bound not for one man, but two?
When Dana answers a plea for a mail-order-bride, hoping to escape her uncle’s clutches, she boards a train bound for the Dakota Territory. Accepting the marriage proposal of a man she’s never met seems infinitely better than living the rest of her life in her uncle’s house of ill repute. Kidnapped on her way to meet the man she agreed to marry, Dana finds she must accept two unexpected men into her life. On a strange sky ship, Dana finds that she must rely on her own resourcefulness to survive.
Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Science Fiction, Shape-shifter
Length: 44,447 words
MAIL-ORDER BRIDE
Taos Wolven Mates
Tianna Xander
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
MAIL-ORDER BRIDE
Copyright © 2012 by Tianna Xander
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62241-017-0
First E-book Publication: August 2012
Cover design by Harris Channing
All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
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www.SirenPublishing.com
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DEDICATION
To everyone who has ever wondered where our legends of werewolves, vampires, and everything else that goes bump in the night originated.
MAIL-ORDER BRIDE
Taos Wolven Mates
TIANNA XANDER
Copyright © 2012
Chapter One
Dana looked around at the people filling the station and wondered just how many of them were late for the next train. All of them were in a hurry. Their agendas were just as unknown to her as she hoped hers was to them. The mixed scents of lye soap, perfume, and unwashed bodies assaulted her nose and made her gag. Slowly, she took shallow breaths through her open mouth. She didn’t need to draw attention to herself by being ill right here on the platform.
Dana had never taken a train anywhere before. But, as her father had always said, there was a first time for everything. She stared down at the letter she held gripped tightly in her hand, inviting her to a town a good two weeks and hundreds of miles away. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but anything was better than her options here—even marrying a man she had never met.
The letter, and the train ticket accompanying it, came from a small town in the Dakota Territory. The bold and neat penmanship told her that Matthew Harker was educated at least, even if the man was some lonely miner or ranch owner in Indian country. The thought of Indian raids made her shiver with fear, but it wasn’t enough to dissuade her from her trip west. Again, anywhere was better than here.
People bustled about, carrying parcels, loading and unloading wagons, generally ignoring her. Reaching up, she pulled her black, net-covered hat lower over her face, just in case. It wouldn’t do to have one of her uncle’s men see her. She needed to get away from here, fast.
Her mother had brought her up to be a lady, not a soiled dove. If her father’s stepbrother had anything to say about it, she would be on her back with her legs spread sixteen hours a day for the rest of her life.
Butterflies tumbled around inside her belly as she awaited the conductor’s direction to board. What is taking so long? Dana looked around, wondering if her uncle’s men had found her and that was what caused the delay.
Uncle John didn’t even hide the fact that he wanted to make her a doxie. With her golden-blonde hair and green eyes, she heard him say he would fetch a king’s ransom for her virginity alone. Dana couldn’t have that. She saved her virginity for one man, and one man only. Her future husband, whoever he may be.
She fought the urge to scratch at her disguise. The padded dress made her appear three sizes larger. With the black walnut rinse she’d doused over her head the night before, she looked a sight. She only hoped dressing in this costume worked and she managed to board the train before her uncle or his men wised up to her tricks.
The thick wool itched and made her sweat. She dabbed at her forehead and frowned when her kerchief came away stained with brown. Twisting the small square of lace-trimmed linen, she stuffed it back into her cuff and up her sleeve. She hoped no one noticed her hair color bleeding out in the rivulets of sweat she couldn’t stop from running out from under the bonnet.
The smell from the old dress was horrendous and almost as bad as the unwashed masses around her. Who wore black wool in the middle of summer, and who wore a wool dress padded with quilt batting? No one did but Dana Worley, fugitive from Miss Agatha’s Home for Young Ladies. She’d hoped to look like an old, widowed woman heading west to live with her children. The conductor finally stepped from one of the middle cars and bellowed, “All aboard!”
Remember your self-control, Dana, she said to herself as
she barely managed to stop from running to the train when the conductor made his announcement.
Slowly, looking as though she were in no hurry at all, Dana gripped her small satchel and reticule in one hand and hiked her skirts just high enough to climb up onto the stool to the first step of the boarding ladder with the other. The conductor leaned down to take her elbow, but she shied away.
“No thank you, sir. I can manage.” The last thing Dana wanted or needed was for the man to realize she wasn’t as large as she looked.
Turning back, she surreptitiously cast her gaze around the bustling station one last time as though saying good-bye. Any one of these men could be in her uncle’s employ. If they discovered her, they would stop all pretences of decency and drag her to her uncle’s house of ill repute where she would remain servicing filthy-minded men for the rest of her life.
It didn’t matter that she was an innocent. According to the law here, having never been married, her uncle was her next of kin and legal guardian even though she was over the age of twenty. Perhaps things will be different in the West.
Dana sighed with relief when she didn’t see anyone paying her undue attention and made her way into the train car where she found a seat near the window on the opposite side from the mud-caked, wooden sidewalk.
It was strange how the promise of hardship as a farmer or rancher’s wife in the wilds of the West didn’t scare her at all when the thought of going back to her uncle’s, the home of a man who should have cared for her, or at least found her a decent husband, terrified her to no end.
With her heart pounding and sweat running down her scalp into the neck of the dress she wore beneath the black, woolen opera jacket piped in gold, Dana sat perfectly still. She sat with her back straight, her reticule in her lap, and her gloved fingers twisting together painfully. She couldn’t wait to get out of Philadelphia. In fact, if the train had left an hour ago with her on it, it wouldn’t have been soon enough.
Two couples boarded the train. They were followed by a few men who appeared as though they’d be more comfortable on the back of a horse. It took a few minutes, but eventually, they all made their way to their seats. Dana drew a sharp breath when a very tall and handsome man entered the coach. He tipped his hat toward her then sat down a few seats forward and to her left on the other side of the car.
Dana couldn’t help but stare at the back of his broad shoulders as he filled the seat. His straight, dark hair still held the line from his hat, though it gleamed blue-black in the mid-afternoon light. While she was in no hurry to fill a bed at her uncle’s place of business, Dana wasn’t blind. She knew a handsome man when she saw one.
Leaning to her right, she pushed the window open for some fresh air. She needed to feel the cool breeze on her burning cheeks. Dana stole another glance at the dark-haired man. What was it about him that made her feel so strange inside? It was as though her stomach churned yet had butterflies flitting about. Frowning, she flattened her hand over her protesting belly. Maybe her instincts were telling her he was one of her uncle’s men.
Closing her eyes, Dana prayed her uncle wouldn’t have noticed her missing this early. With just a little more luck, she would finally be away, free to go to the Dakotas and marry the man who had paid for the train ticket for her.
The sound of the whistle pierced her ears, and the conductor’s second warning of, “All aboard!” made her heart pound even harder.
Another handsome man entered the car. This one was at least as tall as the first, with his dark brown hair tied back. He, too, had broad shoulders and a muscular build, but he seemed more relaxed than the first man. The second man glanced her way, tipped his hat and winked before he joined the other man she’d ogled just a few minutes before. For a moment, Dana wondered where the two were from. Wherever it was, they grew their men very tall and very handsome there. With luck, it would be in the town where she planned to make her new life. After all, she was allowed to dream, wasn’t she?
Dana watched through the window as the conductor removed his hat and waved it toward the front of the train before steam filled the station. Men quickly stepped back as a large white cloud billowed out from the sides of the locomotive, filling the station like a dense fog. The car gave a mighty jerk as the chug of the engine pulled them forward. A small sigh of relief escaped her lips, and she thanked God that the train was finally on its way, taking her farther from this nightmare of a life and closer to her new home.
Chapter Two
Lorcan leaned closer to his companion and whispered, “Did you make sure no one would miss her?”
His wolven life-partner, Tarin, grinned. “I paid her uncle’s men a visit.” He leaned back with a satisfied smile. “I don’t think we’ll ever see them again. They didn’t seem to like the eyes of my wolf much. I think I scared the shit out of them.” He glanced behind them and grimaced. “She looks like hell wearing that outfit. What did she do to her beautiful golden hair?”
“Apparently, she didn’t want her uncle’s men to recognize her. I wish we could have told her there was no worry of that.” He shrugged. “But the telling would have given our plans away, and she would have panicked. Remember, she thinks she is going out west to meet a husband.”
A woman sitting a few seats away gave them a suspicious look. Lorcan switched to telepathy. What she doesn’t know is that she is meeting two prospective husbands instead of the one she expected. He glanced her way again and shrugged. She will clean up well enough. The color change is not permanent.
Lorcan fought the urge to look back at their prize and closed his eyes on a silent prayer. Once we’re certain that their kind is compatible to ours in the mating, we must tell the others how to find this place so they, too, can procure a mate. In his mind, he and Tarin were certain. Deep down, he knew the woman was their mate and would accept her regardless of her ability to breed.
Tarin nodded his agreement then reached into his pocket to pull out his stunner and check its charge. How long before we can use this?
As much as I hate to have to wait that long, we should wait until they are all asleep, hit her with the stun beam, and call the ship to pull us out of here.
I wish we didn’t have to stun her. Tarin looked almost guilty just thinking about it.
We must. If the way she felt about her uncle’s plans are any indication, she’s not going to go with us willingly. In her mind, what we have planned for her will not be any better than the fate she believes she just escaped. Lorcan fell silent as he stared out through the windows at the passing scenery.
It was difficult to believe that this planet, as large as it was, still hadn’t gone through an industrial revolution that opened the humans’ minds to space travel. It was obvious that others of wolven kind had come here before them, nearly a millennium ago, and these people had barely made progress.
Were they content to sit here on their lonely planet not knowing about the other worlds out there, or did they believe they were alone in the universe? Lorcan took a deep breath and sighed, certain it was most likely the latter. Sometimes, humans were so dense.
Perhaps it was a good thing these humans hadn’t embraced progress. Had they discovered space travel, this world may no longer be here. Humans tended to be an arrogant lot, picking fights they couldn’t possibly win against enemies much stronger and more advanced. Still, as arrogant and self-important as they may be at times, humans were the preferred mating breed when a wolf couldn’t find another of his kind.
Lately, things on Taos had gotten so bad, hardly anyone found mates and when they did they took multiple partners—sometimes three to five men to one woman or up to five women to one man. He glanced at Tarin and smiled. He was glad it was just the two of them to share Dana Worley, the golden woman of Earth.
If they were lucky, she would test positive for breeding as they suspected she would, and they could make their way home to Taos. Now that they had scared off her relative, there was nothing anyone could do to stop them.
Cl
osing his eyes, Lorcan leaned his head back against the seat. There was no reason they couldn’t take a nap. Their trip was long. Studying the human woman had taken time, and waiting for the mail to reach her was intolerable, even though they had sped it along. Yet here they were on the final leg of their journey, about to abduct the woman they would make their mate and the mother of their children.
Get some sleep, Tarin. Lorcan expelled an exhausted sigh. There is no guarantee we will get much done very quickly once we get her on board. Something tells me she’s going to be a hellcat.
I think that is an understatement, old friend. Tarin chuckled and leaned back in his seat. But I’m certain she’ll be worth every trying moment of it.
* * * *
Tarin woke to darkness and the sound of the wheels clacking on the seams of the tracks. A cool breeze wafted in from the few opened windows. If he tried real hard, he could see a few stars through the clouds in the night sky.
Wake up, Lorcan. I think it’s time. The couples are out, the three ladies on the right are sleeping, including our Dana, and the seven men in the back finally stopped passing their bottle of whiskey around and either passed out or fell asleep. He paused as Lorcan woke up and assessed the situation. Shall I stun them all for good measure? We don’t want them to see us disappear into a beam of light. It might be more than their small brains can take.
Mail-Order Bride [Taos Wolven Mates] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 1
