Coriolis: Intergalactic Dating Agency: Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides (Mermaids of Montana Book 2)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Coriolis
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
About the Author
Romancing the Alien
Thank You!
CORIOLIS
MERMAIDS OF MONTANA
BIG SKY ALIEN MAIL ORDER BRIDES
INTERGALACTIC DATING AGENCY
Elsa Jade
WEBSITE | NEW RELEASE ALERT | FACEBOOK
The Intergalactic Dating Agency promised him a bride from this small, blue planet…
With her allergy to water -- water, that keeps everything on Earth alive -- getting worse every day, reclusive billionaire heiress Marisol Wavercrest assumes she is going to die. So when she's offered one chance to survive, she has to take it. Except that chance will take her to another world that's nearly 100% covered by water in the company of an alien merman...who claims she is his fated mate.
As commander of the western fleet on Tritona, Coriolis Kelyre fought long and hard against the cruel land-dwellers who poisoned the seas. When he's given one last task after the war -- to take an alien bride to help save his world -- he'll do what he's told, just as he's always done, even if the bride he's sent to retrieve makes him question everything he's sacrificed.
Their predestined union is supposed to save a fragile planet, but a perfect storm is brewing between the enemies seeking to tear them apart and the tidal wave of their rising desire…
Read all the MERMAIDS OF MONTANA
MAELSTROM
CORIOLIS
FATHOM
New to the Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides? Start with ALPHA STAR for free!
And find all the Intergalactic Dating Agency books at RomancingTheAlien.com
Copyright © 2019 by Elsa Jade
Cover design by Croco Designs
ISBN 978-1-941547-39-7
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as factual. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be scanned, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Chapter 1
As Marisol Wavercrest glanced for likely the last time around the elegant mansion that had been her home, her heart skipped a beat. Either the symptoms of her Wavercrest syndrome were getting worse, or…was it possible she would miss the old house that had become practically her prison for the last year?
After most of an obliviously carefree life skiing the finest powder in the French Alps and swimming off the most beautiful South Pacific beaches, the syndrome had trapped her here with the only source of water that didn’t cause a potentially fatal allergic reaction in her failing body. How humbling to realize that all the money and privilege afforded by the Wavercrest fortune couldn’t save her from this mysterious disorder she’d arrogantly named after herself.
The heritage she now knew was partly extraterrestrial.
Discovering that the estate wellspring was the only source of water that she could drink or even touch that wouldn’t result in lethal hives, she’d raged at the ridiculousness. What was the point of being a billionaire heiress if she was trapped in the middle of nowhere Montana?
Now, resigned to leaving the middle of nowhere for some galaxy far, far away, she suddenly loved the little world she was losing.
A world that wouldn’t even blink when she was gone.
“You’re ready to go, Miss Wavercrest.” The warm, deferential voice made her close her eyes for a moment. Thomas had been the only one to ease her exile. He’d served her grandmother faithfully for decades at the estate, and now they both wondered how much the Wavercrest tycoon had known about her hereditary alien blood.
Pivoting on creaky knees more stiff than her grandmother had been at the time of her death at ninety-three, Marisol smiled at the older man. “Thank you, Thomas. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without you. Not continue the foundation’s work, definitely not pack”—her smile faltered—“probably not even live.”
When he opened his arms, the faint perfume of linen starch and kaolin powder wafted toward her. “If you would allow the familiarity…”
She stepped into his embrace, resting her head on his shoulder although she had to hunch a little to do so. “You’re more than familiar, Thomas,” she murmured. “You been everything for me this last year.”
Putting his hands at her elbows, he nudged her back a reluctant step and peered up at her. “And now the universe opens before you.”
“Really emphasizing just how small and insignificant I am.” Bitterness cracked her voice, aching like her joints. She suspected even the water in her body was becoming poison as the syndrome continued to progress.
“Since your grandmother’s death, I know it’s been hard for you. She left you so much work with ensuring the Wavercrest Saltwater Foundation would be funded into perpetuity so all her projects can continue their important work.”
“Indeed,” Marisol murmured. “Oceanography, biosphere preservation, endangered species protections. If only she’d explained why all that was important to her, to us. Oh, right, because we’re partly aquatic aliens…”
He tsked. “We can’t be sure how much she knew. So much of the foundation’s direction was set by her mother and grandmother.”
“And none of them thought to write any of it down?” She waved one hand at the expansive library behind her.
“It was a long time ago,” he said with a sigh. “Any discussion of extraterrestrials would’ve been…extraordinary. And they did keep a record of the truth.” He gave her a significant look.
“In my genetics.” She huffed out a breath.
“And in your newly discovered cousins,” he reminded her. “You, Miss Ridley, and Miss Lana are the living embodiments of that hidden past—and the future.”
But what truth? What future? Learning that she was descended from water-breathing aliens who’d crash landed on Earth while escaping a centuries-long war on their own planet, only to spawn mysterious stories of an Atlantis in the middle of Montana…
Okay, maybe she could see why her grandmother and great-grandmothers before her never said anything.
She’d lost focus for a moment, and when she snapped to, he was saying, “I’ve packed everything you might need for the journey.”
She forced out another smile that felt as dry as the dehydrated foods that were all she could eat anymore. “Oh? And how can you possibly know what I’ll need for interstellar travel to another planet?”
Reaching out, he took her left hand in both of his, wrapping her cold fingers in soothing warmth. “I packed for you when you went to boarding school in Switzerland. I packed for your graduate studies at Cambridge.
I packed when you introduced the climate change panel before the United Nations.” He gave her hand a squeeze, mindful of her swollen knuckles. “You handled those challenges with the grace and thoughtfulness that your grandmother loved—and I as well.” He raised their joined hands and kissed the ring on her middle finger. The heavy signet ring inscribed with a stylized, asymmetrical W had belonged to her grandmother, and his touch on it now made her wonder—as she had more than once before—what their relationship had really been.
When his eyes glistened, tears rose in her own eyes. The salt stung. It had been so long since she cried—hopelessness having dried the last of her tears—that she wasn’t sure if the pain was normal anymore or just another symptom of the syndrome.
“Thomas, if I don’t see you again…” She gulped back an inelegant sob. Maybe just as well he couldn’t see her anger and fear at her failing systems.
He leaned forward to bus her cheek before stepping back again. “Switzerland seemed farther,” he said firmly. “Boarding school with all those entitled little shits made me quite anxious. In comparison, how bad can this war-torn planet of Tritona be?”
She let out a weak laugh. “They really were little shits. And most of them just got bigger.”
“You were given the resources to do great things, important things. If not for this planet, at least some world will benefit. And I’m sure I’ll see you again, Miss Wavercrest. After all, the universe might be infinite, but not if you know where to look.”
He shooed her toward the foyer. “All of your bags are already aboard the Bathyal, and the wellspring has been drained into the ship’s holding tanks. Commander Kelyre assures me the ship can synthesize the exact molecules you need in your water, even before you get to Tritona. But he indulged me with storing our well water along with the species in stasis that Miss Ridley and Mister Maelstrom found on the crashed Tritonyri exodus ship. Even if you don’t need it, maybe it will taste like home.”
Ah yes, Commander Coriolis Kelyre, the Tritonyri warrior who’d apparently led one of his people’s fleets during their terrible war.
As if jaunting a few million lightyears across the universe wasn’t vexing enough, she also had to deal with her surprise alien mail order fiancé. They’d been so focused on first figuring out who had brought them unwittingly together and then fighting off a contingent of his old enemy, that they hadn’t had the chance to discuss their awkward personal situation. Not that it seemed to matter when she was on the verge of death.
And now she was out of time.
Since learning about the existence of the Intergalactic Dating Agency, she’d read as much as she could about the organization that had been used to trick her into exposing her genetic background. It was disheartening—far beyond a few tachycardiac beats—to discover that all across the universe there were beings lonely enough to offer themselves on the intergalactic market for whoever might be willing to take them.
With a grimace, she turned her back on the quiet library where she’d spent most of the last year, contemplating her likely demise. Really, was she any luckier than those lonely souls? No one from the Wavercrest foundation’s significant contact list or even her own large personal network had come to visit her during her isolation. Would launching herself into the vast emptiness of space be so different from living on the outskirts of rural Sunset Falls, Montana?
Maybe not even much different than dying.
Leaning forward, she matched Thomas’s kiss on his cheek. “I’ll try to send you a postcard.”
“I look forward to reading about your adventures, Miss Wavercrest. And if you meet any little shits in space, remember what I told you before you left for boarding school.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Aim for the windpipe?”
He blinked. “Did I say that? Well, undoubtedly good advice. But no, I meant, it’s not money or power or bloodline that matters. It’s what you do with your influence, for good or for ill, that determines your worth to the world.” He smiled. “Or worlds now, I suppose.”
“I’ve given speeches and made donations,” she whispered. “But I’ve never actually had to save a world.”
“I believe in you,” he said calmly.
She gave him another kiss on the cheek, as if that was some sort of answer. But really, she was allergic to water. How much less suitable could she be for the submerged world that was apparently her future?
But Thomas was holding out her coat, and it wasn’t like she had many other choices besides withering to dust here in the middle of nowhere. She shrugged into the custom tailored Burberry cashmere and faced the front door resolutely. As Thomas reached for the handles, though, the portal was flung wide.
A wash of cold night air flowed around her along with a faint, haunting scent it took her a moment to identify—the wild ocean. Not the gentle, warm waves of the Caribbean or even the powerful swells of the best surfing off the North Shore. This was the fathomless deeps, where no human had ever breathed.
She was tall for a woman, but Commander Coriolis Kelyre topped her by an easy head and was double her weight at least. While she would confess to having used her femininity on more than one occasion to get her way, the vulnerability and frailty suffered this last year made the difference between them scary, not sexy. Not that he’d given her any reason to fear him.
Except for him being an invading alien, of course. Maybe this wasn’t an official alien abduction since she was walking out this door of her own volition, but only because she had no other choice.
His dark gray eyes settled on her with a flicker of cloudy silver—the extra eyelid that was one of the few obvious clues of his otherness. Other than that, he seemed like any other large, hulking, overpowering human male. He even had the stiff, stern military bearing of every general she’d ever encountered. Apparently war, like loneliness, was literally universal.
According to the Intergalactic Dating Agency handbook that had been used to trick them into believing they were matched mates, the upright, bipedal, vertically symmetrical, humanoid form was fairly common in the universe as a template for sentient life. But who would’ve guessed it would be so…manly?
When the protective nictitating membrane flickered across his eyes again, she realized she’d been silent too long. But before she could greet him, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
She peered up at him. “Do you really want me to make you a list?”
His lips quirked, but she didn’t know him well enough to guess whether it was a wry smile or an effort to hold back a sharp retort to her thinly veiled complaint.
Also, there was that little matter of him being an alien…
She notched her chin higher. “Never mind. It’s nothing. I’m ready to leave.”
By way of answer, he stepped back into the Montana night.
Clutching the cashmere tighter, as if she could hold the warmth of Thomas’s embrace and the banked fire in the library—not to mention the last moments of her Earthly existence—she followed him. But as she crossed the large, circular drive, her steps faltered, and at the edge of the center fountain, her bespoke Valentino boots balked.
“Miss Wavercrest—”
“Call me Marisol,” she said curtly. If her name wasn’t said in Thomas’s loving formality, she didn’t want to hear it. “I just need a moment, please.”
Again, he fell silent. But it was a silence that ached in her ears like abyssal pressure. She gritted her teeth until her jaw clicked. This would be her last memory of home, of Earth, and she wouldn’t be rushed.
Carved out of whitest marble, the mermaid figure holding an urn had always struck her as a Continental cliché out of keeping with her grandmother’s simpler elegance. Now she wondered if it was a sly wink from some in-the-know Wavercrest ancestor.
Both the urn in the mermaid’s hands and the pool beneath her were empty. Thomas hadn’t been joking about emptying the well for her journey. The waters would come back when the tides changed, since the wellspring was partly powered by the l
ong-lost Tritonan ship Ridley and Maelstrom had found south of the estate, near Yellowstone. The alien micronutrients filtering from the spaceship into the local waterways was the only reason she’d been able to survive at all this last year.
So the waters would return, but would she?
Reluctantly, she lifted her gaze past the mermaid to the night above. Big Sky Country, they called it, and rightly so. Even the massive spears of old-growth pines stretching upward seemed miniaturized by the vast blackness overhead. And the stars—
Vertigo swept over her, and she tilted sideways. Only a strong hand at her elbow kept her from falling.
The commander, of course.
She wanted to yank out of his grip, hold herself upright under her own power. But the tiny pinpricks of light were still racing around her brain even though his big body was blocking the sky.
“Miss Wave—Marisol?” His other hand closed around her opposite hip, steadying her.
The touch burned through her coat as if the wool was thinnest washi paper, and every nerve ending seemed to ignite.
Despite the heat—or maybe because of it?—she shivered. “The stars…”
“Overwhelming, I know.” He turned her slowly away from the fountain. “The first time I realized I’d be among them, I chummed the homewaters.”
Now her head was definitely spinning. “Chummed the… I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”
“Ah. According to my universal translator, perhaps—barfed?”
She choked on a startled laugh. “I’ve heard that astronauts often vomit on their first trip, but I’d think a spaceman would be immune.”
“I’m not a spaceman,” he said. “I’m a…merman?”
This time she managed to hold back the laugh at the interpretation. She’d been told most galactic citizens chose to have translators implanted in the language centers of their brains, but apparently the devices were not infallible translator. The mermaid in the fountain was a figure of fantasy: soft, lolling, dreamy. The commander was…not that, at all.