by Zara Novak
Table of Contents
Title
About
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
More Zara
Bonus: 'Vampire's Fertile Bride' - Sample
Contents
Title
About
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
More Zara
Bonus: 'Vampire's Fertile Bride' - Sample
Copyright © 2017 by Zara Novak
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Alien’s Mate
By
Zara Novak
About
Emma has been a slave all her life, raised by the evil Skrax, condemned to a dim future on the war torn Earth.
That’s when an opportunity presents itself, and she finds a way to escape. She runs from the arms of her evil captors into the arms of slavers. It’s not ideal, but it’s an escape from certain death.
Once on board the slaver ship, Emma realizes she’s been put up for auction, and it turns out her innocence is an extremely valuable asset.
It doesn’t take long until Emma is snapped up, and the slavers deliver her to the cold and hostile planet of Zangia. Little does Emma know, there’s only one other occupant on the prison planet, a brutal and infamous dragon shifter by the name of Vax Enzala.
***
Chapter 1
Emma had been a slave in the Skrax breeding pits all of her life.
Ever since the Skrax had taken over earth, the planet had fallen into ruin and society had descended into chaos. Waking up to the eve of her eighteen birthday, Emma knew that it wouldn’t be long until they came and took her. She didn’t have long left. The Skrax didn’t wait for women to reach that age out of any moral righteousness. Breeding with the Skrax was a life threatening activity, and they had found most women died if bred too young, so they waited.
As she sat on the bed in her cell, she twisted at the brass bracelet on her wrist nervously, counting down the hours in her head. Ever since the Skrax had come for her cell mate Zoe, Emma had been left alone in her cell. Zoe hadn’t cried when the Skrax had come for her, but Emma did. After the doors had closed behind the Skrax guards carrying Zoe, Emma burst into tears. They had been cellmates for the last couple of months and Zoe had become something of a friend. In the pits, one didn’t keep friends, as you got used to losing them fast, but there had been a bond between them, and Emma missed her friend terribly now.
Emma didn’t know how the Skrax worked. Very little was known about them. It seemed that they kept prisoners together by birth date, as Zoe was only a few days older than Emma. That was why they’d taken her first.
Every cell in the breeding pits had an image of it’s occupants on the wall. When it’s time for you to go, your image lights up. Emma had been sitting on the bed talking with Zoe, when Zoe’s picture finally lit up.
They were quiet for a moment, staring at the image in dread. Emma still remembered how calm Zoe had been, as if she’d accepted her fate long ago. That was when Zoe had given her the bracelet, and then, she’d told her the truth.
“I have a way out of here. I managed to communicate with a slaver company. They gave me this.” She had placed the band in Emma’s hand, closing her fingers around it. “Their convey can’t get here until Friday at midnight. It’s too late for me, but - maybe you can make it out of here alive?”
The Skrax guards had come for her moments later, and Emma bawled, knowing that she would never see her friend again.
She sat in her cell alone now, staring at the holo-clock on the cell wall. It was five minutes to midnight. Five minutes until she’d be eighteen. She swallowed, a sick pit rising in her stomach at the thought. She knew that it wouldn’t take long for the Skrax to come for her. It had only taken a few hours for Zoe.
She stared at the bracelet on the bedside table, eying it suspiciously in the dark. Zoe hadn’t had much time to explain how she’d arranged the convoy. Emma was skeptical though. Jumping from the breeding pits into the arms of mysterious slavers? What if they were worse than the Skrax?
She seriously doubted it. Even if she managed to survive her first breeding session with the Skrax, the childbirth alone would probably kill her. Skrax were compatible with human women, it’s why they’d taken over earth in the first place. It wasn’t a positive compatibility however. The Skrax were huge and their bodies were thorny. The gestation period was only four months, and a newborn Skrax was the size of a human toddler. The thought of giving birth to a toddler sized cactus made Emma shiver. Even if she managed to survive that hell, the Skrax would simply drag her back to the breeding pits and carry on mating her until she died. No one understood why they had come to earth in the first place, but it was suspected they were breeding some sort of army, for what - nobody knew.
There was no telling that the slavers would be any better. Emma had heard rumors of women that had used slavers to escape. They dangled impossible promises in front of imprisoned women, knowing that they would fall for them out of desperation. She had heard of slavers selling women to alien races that hunt humans for sport, trekking them through forests only to rape and kill them. Or there were gladiator planets, where slaves were forced to fight until they died. It was a big universe, and there were a lot of unfortunate and horrible ways to die. At least with the Skrax, Emma knew that death would be relatively fast.
She had no idea Zoe had even been in talks with such a group, but she could understand the motivation behind her doing so, and the motivation at keeping it secret. Down in the pits, you could never be sure on who you should trust.
The holo-clock struck midnight and Emma felt as if she was going to be sick. She was eighteen. They would come for her soon. Her time was up.
Then, she heard a faint humming sound and turned to see the amber band glowing in the darkness. It was a signal from the Slaver ship, indicating that their transport portals were open.
I have to make a choice. Emma thought. She knew that the convoy wouldn’t wait around forever, and once it was gone, that was it.
She rocked back and forth on the bed, staring at the band as it hummed softly. There was no guarantee that a life with the slavers would be any better. Putting that band on meant one thing and one thing only. Uncertainty.
Emma jumped off the bed and grabbed the band from off the table. Taking a chance with the slavers might bring uncertainty, but it was sure as hell better than the certainty of staying on earth and dying in the breeding pits.
She slipped the cold band over her frail wrist and a moment later, she was gone.
*
Bright light blinded Emma from all angles.
She threw her hands over her face to shield her eyes. It took half a minute or so until the flare seemed to recede for her to drop her hands. The light wasn’t all that intense, but compared to the dim chambers of the breeding pits, it was unusually bright for her.
She was standing in a small square room. On the wall in front of her, there was a glass pane, behind which there was a Yark slaver, stamping an endless mountain of paperwork with a small ink stick that looked to be made of bone.
Emma had never actually seen a Yark in person before, but she presumed that’s what the man was. The majority of all slavers were Yarkian. The odd cyclopean eye at the center of his forehead and his greyish blue skin certainly matched the descriptions that Emm
a had heard. He looked up at Emma after a second of flicking through paperwork and spoke.
“Case one four zero, dash, nine ex six. Welcome to the Space Brothel. Zoe I presume?”
“Space Brothel? What?”
“It’s the name of the trading company miss. You are Zoe right? The contact? We arranged for pick up tonight at midnight.”
Emma shook her head, and crossed an arm over herself anxiously. “Emma.” Her voice sounded timid and afraid.
“Swapped out? Not a problem.” The Yark looked her up and down with his solitary eye. “You’re all the same anyway. Just a few questions and I’ll hook you up for processing. Last name?”
“What?”
“Last name girl. Come on, I haven’t got all day. Are you deaf?”
“Sorry.” Emma took a deep breath and shook her head again. This all felt so bizarre.
She had never set foot out of the breeding pits in her life. Even just trading one featureless room for another was more excitement than she’d ever known. Emotions overwhelmed her, her heart thundering in her temples. “I don’t have a last name.”
“What?” The Yark flicked through the paperwork confused, before something caught his eye. “Ah yes, sorry. It says your friend was in the Skrax breeding pits. I presume you were too?”
Emma nodded solemnly.
“And you are a virgin?”
Emma looked up at the Yark, heat flaring across her face. “What business is it of yours that I am a virgin?”
“You’re property of Space Brothel now.”
The Yark sighed as if he’d been dealing with asinine questions like this all day. “I’m assessing your suitability for a mating auction, it’s a standard question. Now… are you a virgin?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?” The Yark raised the thick yellow eyebrow above the eye on his forehead and looked Emma up and down as if he didn’t believe her. “Wait.” He laughed, placing a hand to his forehead. “Who am I kidding. You were in Skrax breedings pits, you must be a virgin, you’d be dead otherwise.” The Yark chuckled to himself before scribbling something down on the paperwork in front of him.
A cold spot formed in Emma’s stomach at his maliciousness, laughing at her life like it was some sort of joke. And what had he meant by auction? She didn’t like this one bit. She had to get out of there.
“I want to leave.” Emma shook her head, stepping back from the glass pane. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
The Yark took a deep breath. “By wearing the bracelet and transferring to the ship at the agreed time, you are now property of Space Brothel. You have no say in the matter, you have no rights. Please be quiet.”
The Yark had drawled the words monotonously, as if he were reading from a cue card behind Emma. She glanced around, looking for an exit. There were no doors in the room, no way out.
“Any disease or ailments?”
“No.” Emma answered tersely. “I’m sorry but what is the point of all this”
“I already told you, it’s a pre-screening for your earning potential. The questions are just a legal formality really, because…”
He pressed a button and a second later a mechanical harness sprung from the ceiling above Emma. The harness descended, it’s thin spidery limbs wrapping themselves around Emma’s body, hoisting her into the air. They gripped Emma between her legs and under her arms, holding her suspended like she was some doll.
“Stop! What is this?!” Emma tried to move, but she was completely immobilized. The harness held her chin up, pointing it at a monitor above the Yark’s window.
“Body scanner.” The Yark chuckled, pressing another button. “Let’s me know if you’re telling the truth.”
A grid of warm blue lasers passed over Emma’s body in quick succession. A rotating image of Emma’s scanned body appeared on the monitor.
“Okay… Emma - Eighteen years old and six minutes.” He looked up at Emma. “Looks like we got you just in the nick of time eh? Your DNA profile looks good and you were telling the truth about being a virgin… no diseases… honestly this looks very good. You seem to have high earning potential! Now, let’s see if we can find you a compatible suitor.”
“Suitor?”
“Yes.” The Yark pressed another button. The image of her body disappeared from the screen and was replaced with thousand of alien profiles, flicking across the screen every second as the system tried to find her a match. “All of our clients have their DNA profiles on our system. We analyze and cross reference them with all of our slaves to make the best match possible, then we auction you off. We’re looking to see if your compatible first.”
Emma stared wide eyed as thousands of profiles blinked across her vision.
“But what if I’m not compatible?”
“Very rarely happens.” The Yark tapped his fingers on the counter, waiting on the computer. “But I’ve seen it before. Basically you’re declared universally barren. We’ll sell you for scrap price to pirates and you can spend the rest of your life dancing for micro credits in some slum at the end of the universe.”
Emma gulped.
“That rarely happens though. Even the least compatible women usually get two or even three percent.”
“What? What does that mean?”
“Means your fertile but you’ll probably die during mating.” The Yark shrugged his shoulders as if it was just a fact of life.
Emma felt the sickness rising in her stomach again. She’d been right all along. She hadn’t been any better off by going with the slavers. She’d just traded one day for another. Death was still inevitable.
The computer dinged and the monitor stopped on a profile. Emma looked at it, intensely curious. On all the other profiles, there had been an image of the alien suitor, but on this one there was just a red ‘X’, with ‘Image Redacted - Galactic Police’ written underneath.
There was a name however. Vax Enzala.
The feed clicked off. Emma looked down at the Yark. He swallowed at something in his throat and laughed nervously.
“No image for that one. I wouldn’t worry about it. The good news is, is that we seem to have found you a few suitors. And…”
His eye bulged as he read something on a monitor beside him.
Emma craned her neck to try and see what he was looking at, but it was no good, the harness had a firm hold on her.
“What? What is it?!”
“Nothing, it’s just… Well - this can’t be right. The system is saying that you have 100% compatibility.” He stared at Emma as if she were some rare spectacle.
“What? Is that good? Tell me what’s going on?!” Emma felt as if she were going to throw up. The Yark slammed his palm on the counter. The harness dropped Emma to the floor, before disappearing back into the ceiling. Emma stood up, rubbing her aching body.
“It’s the best I’ve ever seen.” The Yark spoke slowly, as if he couldn’t believe it. “Still. Time to auction you off.” He hit another button and Emma heard him mutter something under his breath. “Shouldn’t take long.”
The computer ding’d almost immediately.
“Fuck… that has to be a record.” The Yark laughed to himself while shaking his head. “Negzil, come look at this.”
Another Yark came from somewhere behind the pane and looked at something on the monitor. They both bore a similar reaction of disbelief. They muttered something between themselves. Emma craned her neck and tried to eavesdrop.
“…that much? From a prison planet?”
Had he just said something about a prison planet?
Emma took a step closer to hear better, causing the Yark to look up at her suspiciously. She smiled and took a step back. The Yark stepped away from the counter, whispering to each other while looking at Emma. After a brief collusion the original Yark nodded and came back to the window.
“Congratulations! Your auction has been successful. You are now the property of Vax Enzala!” A shiver seemed to pass over the Yark as he said the name. “W
e will now place you in temporary quarters on the Space Brothel ship and you will be dropped off on route as we make our way through the galaxy. You are stop four hundred and nine. It will take a few weeks. Goodbye!”
“No! Wait!” Emma had a thousand questions that she wanted answering, but before she could ask any, the Yark had slapped his palm down on his controller once more, transporting Emma into holding.
*
Emma stared mouth agape as the crimson jets of the Space Brothel burned into the atmosphere, leaving her alone on the frozen planet.
“Oh fine! Just leave me here to die!”
She flapped her arms in exasperation, looking around the frozen wasteland.
There had been two weeks of relative nothingness on board the Space Brothel, and in some ways her tenure there had reminded her of her days in the breeding pits. Long, dark days, confined to a room, trying to stave off madness and boredom. She hadn’t so much as seen a soul until a Yark trader came to her room, twenty minutes before they kindly ‘escorted’ her off the ship.
She had hundreds of questions, that she fired at the guards as they escorted her to the docking bay, none of which were answered. Where was she going? What was going to happen? Who is my suitor?
The Yark men hoisted her through the air between them down the long metal corridors, talking in their own language all the while.
They could have at least taken her to the front door of the alien bastard that had bought her, surely?
She was stood between a snow capped forest and an endless tundra, both of which seemed to stretch on as far as her eye could see. The guards hadn’t so much as said bye. They hadn’t given her any information. Emma knew nothing, well - she knew one thing. If she stayed out in the cold much longer she’d freeze to death. She had to find shelter or build it fast. She decided she stood a better chance of surviving in the forest, so she started walking.
