by Sue Mercury
Alien’s Orphan Bride
(Mail Order Human, Book Four)
by Sue Mercury
Copyright 2016 by Sue Mercury
All rights reserved
No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Sue Mercury. All names, brands, characters, and settings, etc. are purely from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real people, real brands, and real locations is a coincidence. Contact: [email protected]
Published by Sweet Savage Press, LLC
About this book:
All Hailey ever wanted was a place to belong. After growing up in an orphanage and learning firsthand how hopeless survival on Earth has become, she signs up for Mail Order Human. An alien husband on a faraway planet is her best bet at finding the happily ever after she’s dreamed of since she was a little girl. But her heart is broken when her new husband gives her a cold reception and confines her to his property. She tries to uncover the demons haunting the huge Marrlxian so she can better understand his coldness, but he keeps his heart closely guarded and only tightens his leash on her. Will he ever bare his tattered soul to her? Or will he cast her aside after she gives him the heir he so desperately needs?
After his first mate ran away with her lover, Cav doesn’t trust females of any race. But he needs an heir, so he arranges to receive a young human woman from Mail Order Human. He’s heard humans are more easily controlled than the females of his own kind, and he thinks if his new mate fears him, she won’t dare make a fool of him like his first mate did. But Hailey isn’t easily cowed into submission, and he soon learns human females can prove as stubborn and proud as a seasoned Marrlxian warrior. Can he learn to stop living in the past before he drives Hailey away completely?
Excerpt:
He sat her suitcase beside the bed.
“Um, where do you sleep, Cav?” An adorable blush stained her cheeks.
“My room is at the end of the hallway.” He moved to her and toyed with her auburn braid, unable to resist touching her. His cock hardened at the prospect of claiming her tonight. He would take her long and hard, leaving no doubt in her mind to whom she belonged.
He cleared his throat, released her braid, and took a step back. “Though this is your bedroom, there will be many nights when you will be required to sleep in mine.”
Her blush deepened. “Tonight?”
“Yes, tonight.”
He wanted to tear that dress off her and toss her down on the bed, then spread her legs and sink into her feminine sweetness at this very moment. But ficka, he had to suffer through the formality of the mating ceremony first. To take a female before the ceremony wasn’t honorable. Only the lower classes engaged in such sinful pursuits.
Beneath her thin dress, her nipples hardened to stiff peaks, as if to taunt him and the morals he struggled to cling to. She fidgeted in place as she held his gaze, and when he detected the sweet, feminine scent of her arousal, he couldn’t prevent the growl that rumbled from his throat.
Her eyes widened and she moved around the bed, staring at him in alarm.
He supposed human males didn’t growl. Or if they did, it didn’t mean anything good. He didn’t apologize for frightening her though. If she was partly afraid of him, or thought him unpredictable, she wouldn’t dare try to escape him. Not like Lishana.
But don’t you want her to care for you? a traitorous voice whispered in the back of his mind.
He clenched his jaw and growled again, this time prompting a gasp from Hailey. Her hands trembled at her sides and her chest rose and fell rapidly.
“The mating ceremony will take place at sunset. You must get yourself ready.”
“Um, okay. I’ll be sure to change into another dress,” she said, glancing at the nearest armoire.
“I will return for you soon.” He departed the room, but not before he envisioned her slipping off her dress and standing naked while she selected something new to wear. Despite being thinner than he thought a healthy female should be, she had wide hips and an ample butt he couldn’t wait to get his hands on. Perhaps the first time he claimed her, he would bend her over the bed and pound into her from behind.
Chapter One
Hunger gnawed at Hailey’s stomach. She huddled behind a storage shed in the shittiest part of the city as the sunrise broke across the dismal landscape of crumbling buildings. She couldn’t recall how she’d gotten here. A haze of confusion surrounded her. Her hands were shaking from the cold, but in the back of her mind she knew it never got terribly cold in Atlanta. Something wasn’t right.
She tried to stand up, but she was too fatigued and weak from hunger that she slipped back to the dirty ground. When she landed, her elbow struck her suitcase. Wincing, she rubbed her arm and looked out at the street beyond. People moved by, some of them carrying cups of steaming soup. A nearby church must be giving out food. Her stomach rumbled for the umpteenth time, but before she could attempt to stand again, a huge figure approached her, blocking out the light of the rising sun.
“What’s in your suitcase, boy? Got anything good?” The man came closer.
Hailey didn’t dare tell him she was really a girl. She lowered her head and hoped her hair didn’t spill out from under her hat. The haze of confusion thickened. She clutched her suitcase, because it contained everything she owned, though in this moment she couldn’t recall the specific contents within.
Light glinted off the knife he pulled. “Give me your suitcase, boy, and there won’t be any trouble.”
Slowly, she slid her hand down her leg and into the side of her boot, where she hid her own blade. “Sure, come and get it,” she said in a forced tone of defeat.
The instant the man grabbed for her suitcase, she slashed him across the cheek, then kicked the knife out of his hand. Blood trickled down his face.
Rage flamed in his eyes.
He lunged at her with a roar.
“Wake up, wake up! We’re here!”
Hailey awoke with a jolt and sat up in bed, her hand immediately seeking out the blade hidden in her boot. Except it wasn’t there. She wasn’t wearing boots and she wasn’t fighting for her life on the streets of Atlanta. She blinked as her surroundings came into focus. Thank God. It had only been a dream. Well, a dream about something that had once happened. But that part of her life had ended. She was safe now.
All around her, young women hurried to pack their belongings and primp in front of the mirrors. Her heart lurched. They must have arrived on Marrlxia earlier than expected. The captain of the Matchmaker 2 had mentioned possibly taking a shortcut through a newly discovered wormhole, and considering they’d apparently landed on Marrlxia a full two weeks before scheduled, they must have successfully traveled through this new interstellar passage.
“Hailey, sweetie, get dressed!” Angie, looking freshly showered, rushed over to the bunk they shared as she zipped up her makeup bag. “The captain says we’ll be landing on Marrlxia in the next hour.”
Once again, Hailey cursed the design of the Matchmaker 2 for not having windows in the women’s sleeping quarters. She longed to glimpse the planet from space. Her pulse quickened as she crawled out of bed.
Would she find what she was looking for on Marrlxia? Would her mate be kind and loving? She knew nothing about the alien she’d been matched with, save that his name was Cav.
At least she knew a bit about the planet of Marrlxia. One of the guards on the Matchmaker 2 had regale
d the women one evening with stories of the newly discovered planet, having spent a week in one of their cities while repairs were made to the Matchmaker 2 after a drop off.
Apparently the Marrlxians had battled a race of aliens called the Searxins for many years. After finally defeating their enemy, they returned victorious to their home planet, only to discover a great flood had left their two largest cities in ruins. The loss of life—mostly women and children, since all the capable men had been fighting the Searxins—had been astronomical. Hailey’s heart broke just thinking about it.
The planet had finally recovered from the flood, with the cities repaired and two newly built dams in place to prevent any similar disasters from striking the great cities. But all the men who’d returned from war needed females. According to the guard, Marrlxian males of both the noble and working classes need heirs by their fiftieth birthday. Males without heirs must give away all of their property and wealth and go live in seclusion in the mountains. The guard claimed it was a law passed down by Marrlxian gods, though he’d laughed as he said it, clearly not believing in such divine beings.
Once it was learned that human females were compatible with their species, the Marrlxians had booked the next twenty shipments of Earth women. A shiver went through Hailey at the thought of what this meant. She would be required to provide her Marrlxian mate an heir.
She hurried to shower and get dressed, taking care to style her long auburn hair into a braid that rested on her left shoulder—a hairstyle the guard claimed was considered fashionable for Marrlxian females. Then she tossed her meager belongings into her suitcase and sat on the bottom bunk next to Angie. They exchanged a nervous look.
“We’re both going to men in the same city,” Angie said in a hopeful voice. “We’ll be able to see each other, I’m sure.”
Hailey smiled and squeezed her new friend’s hand. “It’ll be nice to have a familiar face nearby.” She blew out a breath. “I must confess to being very nervous. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful I was chosen to leave Earth—there was nothing for me there—but if this planet turns out to be worse than Earth, I’ll be trapped here forever. Matchmaker 2 doesn’t take women back.”
“Yes, it’s scary that all sales are final,” Angie agreed with a smirk. “But the guard says these aliens are very humanlike. Just sort of, um…old-fashioned, I guess. They expect women to be obedient and keep house and have babies. All that stuff. But I’ll gladly cook and clean and have cute little babies if it means I don’t have to breath in dangerously polluted air and worry about being kidnapped or raped by a gang.”
A shudder ran through Hailey. She’d thought she had it bad being homeless on the streets of Atlanta, after she came of age and was kicked out of the orphanage she’d grown up in. But Angie had lived in a violent settlement just outside of where Baltimore used to stand, a place that was now ruled by the most vicious gangs imaginable. Most places on Earth had turned into violent and polluted cesspools, but outside of Baltimore was supposedly one of the most dangerous places to live. And leaving your settlement wasn’t easy. Travel between old towns, crumbling cities, and new settlements was wrought with plenty of danger in the face of reigning lawlessness.
The ship rattled faintly and silence suddenly blanketed the women’s sleeping quarters. Everyone shared anxious glances. The Matchmaker 2 had landed.
“How does my Marrlxian sound?” Hailey said, speaking the alien tongue, thanks to the language chip that had recently been implanted in her brain. All the women had received the chips, which had been provided ahead of time by the Marrlxians. It was odd to be able to switch easily from English to the alien language, without any effort.
“Perfect,” Angie said with a laugh. She scratched the left side of her temple where the tiny chips had been inserted. A small red scab was the only reminder of the quick and almost painless procedure. “Guess we should be lucky we can speak their language, huh? I’ve heard of some planets human women are taken to on Matchmaker 2 that don’t have this technology. Could you fathom being mated to an alien you can’t even talk to?”
Tall guards dressed in black entered the women’s sleeping quarters in the next moment, cutting their conversation short. Hailey’s pulse quickened. Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she could barely hear the lead guard announcing that it was time to depart the ship and meet their mates.
Please let Cav be kind. She clutched her suitcase and followed Angie to the slow moving line that was forming. Each woman looked nervous, some more than others, and no wonder. If one of them were matched with an unkind mate, they wouldn’t be able to leave and return to Earth. The aliens on Marrlxia had paid the Mail Order Human company handsomely for this shipment of women. The interstellar business might bill itself as a mail order bride company, but in reality the women had all volunteered to be sold to their new mates. It was either that or face certain hardship, perhaps illness or even death, on Earth.
All the air rushed from Hailey’s chest at the first glance of the alien landscape. Green as far as the eye could see. Lush forests in the distance rose into green mountains, some of them snow-capped. White, billowing clouds roamed across a light blue sky. Flowers and crops surrounded a long, wide road that led to a city that could’ve been a city on Earth. Well, Earth before the wars that devastated her home planet, anyway. The Earth she’d only seen pictures of in old books.
Dozens of huge blue-skinned alien males crowded around the platform the Matchmaker 2 had landed on. Hailey’s stomach flipped at the size of them, and she stopped abruptly on the ramp. The girl behind her cleared her throat impatiently, and Hailey finally started walking again, following Angie and the rest of the women down the ramp where several guards motioned for them to gather in front of the alien men.
Angie glanced over her shoulder with wide eyes. “Oh my God, Hailey, they are insanely sexy!”
Hailey was too shocked by their size to respond. Many of them were easily over seven feet tall. She’d certainly never seen a human man as tall and muscular as these Marrlxian males.
“Your mates were provided images of you ahead of time, so they know what you look like,” the lead guard announced once all the women had disembarked the ship. He turned and stared at the waiting aliens. “Your new mates will claim you now.”
Panic slammed into Hailey. She watched as blue alien after blue alien stepped forward to claim his woman. Each alien took the woman’s luggage and then led her away by the hand.
Breathing became more difficult with each passing second. Oh God, this was really happening. Dreaming about finding a happily ever after on a faraway planet with an alien was one thing…actually waiting for her mate to step forward and collect her while standing on alien soil was another. She glanced around, trying to guess which alien would be her mate, the male she would spend the rest of her life with.
She spied an alien at the back of the gathering that towered over all the other males of his kind. He had straight, long black hair and a gaze so cold it caused Hailey to shiver. She prayed fervently that the angry looking and freakishly tall alien wasn’t her mate. Or Angie’s mate, for that matter. Luckily, another male soon claimed Angie.
“We’ll find each other soon, I promise. Good luck,” Hailey whispered to her friend. Angie winked at her and then focused her attention on her new mate. The tall alien murmured something in her ear that made her giggle.
When all the other women had been claimed, only the angry alien remained. Hailey gulped and blinked back tears that burned hot in her eyes. The other aliens hadn’t appeared upset. A few of them had even smiled at their women as they led them toward the city. Her heart sank. Did he find her unpleasing in some way?
She stood still as the huge alien approached, his blue arms gleaming in the sun.
“Welcome to Marrlxia, Hailey. I am Cav, your mate.”
“Hello, Cav,” she forced out. God, she was nervous. And she now had a very bad feeling about signing up for Mail Order Human. Maybe she should have taken her chances o
n Earth.
Except it was too late. This was the only second chance she would ever get in life. Perhaps she should give Cav the benefit of the doubt. He could be the nicest alien on Marrlxia for all she knew. First impressions didn’t always pan out.
He took her suitcase and grabbed her hand, squeezing it briefly before guiding her down the wide road. As the tall buildings drew nearer, she tried to think of something to say. Worries multiplied in her head as the silence stretched uncomfortably between them.
“This is a beautiful planet,” she finally said.
He gave her a curious glance. A gust of wind momentarily blew his hair into his face. Her neck hurt from staring up at him, but she didn’t lower her gaze. His dark eyes, still with sparks of what resembled anger, studied her with an intensity that made her stomach flip. She felt vulnerable every time he stared at her. She gulped hard and wondered how long he would wait until he claimed her body.
As if reading her mind, he said, “There will be a quick mating ceremony tonight for all the new couples in the center of our city. After that we will join our bodies together and you will be mine forever. You will give me many sons and daughters, tiny human.”
Well, that answered that question. She tore her gaze from his, but couldn’t resist stealing sidelong peeks at him as they entered the bustling city. He wore black pants and black boots. His tight and sleeveless gray shirt revealed a muscular, broad chest. And his bare arms—holy fuck were they huge. His biceps went on for days. His facial features were very humanlike, at least. If she’d been shown a photograph of his face, she would have thought him a human man. Well, if he weren’t blue.
Appearances weren’t everything though. What kind of heart did he possess? He’d mentioned having children with her already. Would he be a good father? Did he view her as anything but a vessel to bear his children?
Hailey chided herself for her romantic notions. She needed to stop hoping for a fairytale and be happy that she was no longer starving on the streets. Nor was she resting on the cold dirty floor of an orphanage as she tried to fall asleep without a blanket, because one of the larger children had taken hers. Even if Cav only wanted her for her ability to bear him children, she supposed she ought to be grateful for her circumstances. The other human women would live in the city too. At least she would get to see Angie and the others she had become acquainted with on the Matchmaker 2.
