ESCAPE
Bride Of The Beast
Celestial Mates Book 5
Marla Therron
Copyright 2016 by Marla Therron
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced
in any way whatsoever, without written permission
from the author, except in case of brief
quotations embodied in critical reviews
and articles.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any
character, person, living or dead, events, place or
organizations is purely coincidental. The author does not
have any control over and does not assume any responsibility
for third party websites or their content.
First edition, 2016
Description:
The Intergalactic Marriage Bureau arranges marriages with fertile human women and wealthy aliens looking for the genetically superior offspring human hybrids provide. Mail order brides for the new millennium.
Lily lives on the frozen remains of Earth, working with the rest of her village to try and restore a planet that has slid so far out of ecological balance that nothing green will grow on the surface.
Lily accepts a contract with the Marriage Bureau when the King of Sahria, most powerful planet in the galaxy, makes an offer she can’t refuse. Enough money to fund the research that will save Earth.
Lily is uncertain at first, but when she sees a photo of the king she decides it’s worth trying. However, the king isn’t who she thinks he is, and her wedding is going to be more complicated than the straight forward contract promised.
Lily is pulled into the kind of danger she could never have anticipated. Will she be able to find love for the man who has paid to marry her? Or will her heart lead her in other directions?
Chapter One
Alien silk in shades of trembling summer sky sapphire rippled across Lily's dusky copper skin like the brush of a lover's fingers as she stepped through a curtain of a thousand white blossoms that glittered like icy stars and chimed like crystal as they touched.
The grove beyond dripped in light and color and liquid sound. Flowering trees with trunks of stark ebony were the pillars of this chapel, the walls woven from living branch and bush and budding vine.
There was no place that was not in bloom, from the hand sized irises the color of a maiden's blush to the jutting violet spears of delphinium and foxglove, to the carpet of plush moss starred with it tiny blue blossoms no bigger than a pinprick.
Lily gave them terran names, though even these flowers’ earliest ancestors had never known terran soil. These were new life to her, vibrant and lush, each with its own audible voice. The flowers sang with every breeze or touch, each voice unique, mingling into a divine chorus. If the flowers on Earth had a voice, Lily thought, we would never have let them die.
The crown of blossoms in her sleek black hair still sung, though softer than their rooted counterparts, soothing reassurance in her ear that she was not making a mistake as she stepped deeper into the grove, the floating candle-bells which illuminated it drifting out of her way, opening the flower strewn aisle to where her future husband stood waiting for her, his hand outstretched, ready to take her into a strange future...
Only a few days before, Lily stood ankle deep in snow, dressed in gray canvas to keep out the deadly wet and cold, her face set in grim resignation. Barren black trees rattled their bare branches at the slate colored sky as a frigid wind whipped through them. Lily watched the sky they framed, waiting for sign of a ship.
The dirt beneath her feet was terran, the familiar soil of Earth, but she had never touched it. It was separated from her by a layer of frozen permafrost, cold and unforgiving and barren of life. Those words were the moniker of all planet Earth now.
"Did you get everything you needed?"
Lily's uncle Bertram, a tall, dour man with the same dark eyes as her, stood behind her, still in the shadow of the little covered porch that sheltered the entrance of their subterranean home. All the houses in Lily's village, and most left on Earth, were built underground for greater warmth and insulation from the bitter cold.
He wore the same gray canvas as her, pulled on quickly over his indoor clothes. He was still wearing his work gloves, dusty and scuffed. Though he worked in the labs, like everyone else he donated a portion of his free time to expanding their subterranean warren, digging deeper, huddling towards the warmth of the core. The gloves weren't insulated and she worried about him ending up with frostbite. The cold out here didn't need long to end up deadly.
"You don't know what it will be like there," Bertram fussed, "Did you bring enough clothes? Food?"
"Yes, Uncle," Lily sighed, impatient but understanding. He set another small bag with her things where they sat on the porch.
"Becky from geology made you some chapulines," he said, "In case you get hungry on the trip. And there are a few things from me in there as well. Just to remind you of home."
Lily smiled, touched, and kissed the older man on the cheek.
"Thank you uncle," she forced a brave smile, ignoring the emotions that were turning her stomach, "I promise I'll find a way to get a message to you. It might be a while with the distance, but I won't leave you in the dark."
Bertram nodded stiffly and seemed about to say something, but the boom of something breaking atmosphere interrupted him. The clouds parted around a descending ship, still just a distant black speck.
"They're here." Lily took a deep breath and began gathering her bags. Bertram caught her hand, making her pause.
"You don't need to do this," he stared into her eyes, earnest and beseeching, "You can stay here and work in the lab. They always need more botanists."
Lily pulled her hand away slowly, knowing he meant well but wishing he wouldn't remind her of what she was giving up.
"The best botanist in the world can't create seeds out of thin air," she said, pulling her bags closer, "Since we lost Svalbard, what we need is money, not more botanists."
"We can find a way to keep the research going," Bertram insisted, "Even without the seed vault. And we need minds like yours to do it. You were top of your class, Lily!"
"A class of less than a thousand, hemisphere wide," Lily pointed out, the thought dragging her handsome mouth down into a tired grimace, "There's just not enough of us left, Bertram. We can't afford the set back of starting from scratch."
Bertram, rather than giving up, took both her hands in his.
"Lily, we have been watching the planet die for generations," he said, solemn and desperate, "My grandfather saw the ships leaving, taking the rich to the stars and leaving the rest of us behind the day they declared this planet beyond saving. The First Nations could have found a way off the planet as well, but we chose to stay, to search for a way to save the world we were born on. And I know, looking back at that history, how proud we were then, and how we live now, it's easy to think that the mission is all that matters. But Lily,"
He squeezed her hands tightly.
"The Earth is gone," he said, voice breaking, "We are only prolonging the inevitable. Please don't give up your future in the name of an unreachable goal. Stay here, with the people that love you. Your parents wouldn't want this for you."
The ship was slowly landing near a circle of small, snow covered hills, the radio tower that rose from one th
e only surface level evidence of Lily's village. Lily looked down towards it, and then drew Bertram into a tight hug.
"My parents gave their lives to this mission," she said, her voice determined, "I could never give any less."
"Lily..."
"Thank Becky for me," Lily stepped away, picking up her bags and heading towards the ship, "And say goodbye to everyone else. I'll get a message to you as soon as I can."
"I will."
Bertram let her go, his expression desolate as the last living member of his family headed for the ship that would take her away from him forever.
"Good luck!" he called after Lily before the snow swallowed his voice, "Good luck!"
Chapter Two
"Lily Hunt?"
The alien standing in the open bay of the shuttle spoke with the modulated accent of an auto translator. He was dressed in a black exo suit, helmet down. Earth's atmosphere presumably didn't agree with him. When Lily nodded he checked a data pad for her name.
"Another one for the Intergalactic Marriage Bureau," if there was judgement in his voice, Lily couldn't read it through the warp of the translator, which rendered everything toneless and flat, "A lot of you lately. Go sit by the others."
There were three other women, plucked from other places across the planet, sitting in the cargo bay of the little shuttle. All of them willing sacrifices on the altar of the IMB. She took a seat beside a frail looking red headed girl. The alien closed the bay, shutting out the bitter cold, and the shuttle began to warm at once.
"That's the last of them," he called, looking down at his data pad, securing the doors with his secondary set of arms. A pilot called back to him from the cabin. He wasn't wearing a translator and his language was a sub vocal roar to Lily.
"Strap in," the first alien said as he passed them to join his companion in the cab, "We're heading out of atmo in two."
Lily scrambled for her harness. The other girls were already buckled in from the previous low atmosphere jump that had brought the shuttle here.
"Where are you headed?" one of them asked. She was broad-shouldered and strong jawed, a fierce looking creature with short blond hair. She eyed Lily appraisingly.
"Sahria," Lily replied, trying to be friendly, "You?"
"Nowhere as big as Sahria," the woman laughed, "That's one of the most powerful planets in this cluster. Lucky. I'm Opal. Foxglove and I are heading to Ulalat."
Opal gestured to the nervous redhead.
"We've got an arrangement as incubators with a powerful family there," Opal continued, sounding proud, "They're paying for our fertility treatments and all. The marriage contract is only for two years, and the compensation is fantastic. It'll be enough for me and Foxglove both to get a place on one of the new human colonies. How long is your contract?"
"Three years," Lily replied, thinking uncomfortably of how long it would be, "With an option to renew annually. They want a permanent arrangement."
"Those never work out," the third woman, dark skinned and picking at a nicotine patch on her arm, her cold suit folded down around her waist, "You should have waited for something more practical. Clients that start out wanting a permanent arrangement before they ever meet you just have their expectations up too high. They'll end up disappointed and send you back. Happened to my sister. And they wanted a refund, which if why I'm going out now. A bad deal out here can screw you up in more ways than one."
"Oh be quite Chal," Opal rolled her eyes, "Chalcedony is just bitter. She's heading to some backwater."
"Hey, at least my client owns that backwater," Chalcedony bristled, offended, "My kids are going to be ruling that planet."
"Yeah yeah, and mine will just be petty aristocrats," Opal snorted, "Better a lord on a planet that means something than king of a barren rock."
They bickered a moment longer and Lily's thoughts turned uncomfortably to the subject of breeding. Her client hadn't specified that he wanted children, but it was all anyone wanted human women for, really. It's why places like the Intergalactic Marriage Bureau existed. Humans, as it turned out, had absurdly adaptable DNA.
With a fairly minor amount of medical tinkering, a human woman could bear children with nearly any alien species, assuming they had even remotely compatible reproductive systems. The hybrids tended to retain the best traits of both parents, with a little in utero genetic tinkering.
Their alien parent's unique skills and abilities, plus a human's physical hardiness and stamina. Human hybrid had become all the rage among the wealthy aliens of the local galactic cluster.
"What's your client, newbie?"
"Lily," Lily replied, smiling, "I have a photo. His name is Turlabon."
She unfolded a datapad from the sleeve of her cold suit. The paper-thin device snapped rigid as she spread it flat. She pulled up the photo, offering it to Opal. A colorful ensemble of aliens were collected there, most of them floraform in nature.
A looming fungaloid behemoth flashed its needle teeth from beneath drooping jowls like bracket fungi while beside it a thing like a cross between a praying mantis and a Venus flytrap preened. But in the center of the photo, next to the fungus, stood Lily's husband to be.
He was tall, more humanoid in shape than most of the others, with broad shoulders and long legs. His skin was the color of rich earth or bark, his hair long and mossy green, starred with white flowers. Protrusions like petals curved from his cheekbones up to his serene green eyes.
Further petals fanned from his clavicle, up his forearms, over his ribs and calves. He was the most beautiful alien Lily had ever seen. They tended to be too far from human aesthetic to be appealing to her. But this one... She might not have accepted the proposal at all if not for him.
Opal's eyes widened as she looked down at the photo, impressed.
"This is King Turlabon!" she said, astounded, "Don't you know he rules Sahria? You're going to be queen of one of the most powerful planets in known space!"
"Is Sahria really that significant?" Lily asked, unsettled by the surprised way the other three women were looking at her; "We don't get a lot of off planet news in my village. I don't really know anything about him except what he sent. And all the proposals tend to brag about how rich and powerful their planet is..."
"This one wasn't bragging," Chalcedony leaned closer to look at the photo and shook her head; "Turlabon rules every planet in his solar system and then some. Sahria's military force rivals that of the planetary alliance.
On top of that, the botanicals that grow on Sahria are used in some of the most expensive and necessary pharmaceutical drugs on the market. Turlabon keeps an iron grip on the growth and manufacturing rights to those plants and hoards the product to drive prices up. As a result, half the local cluster is in his pocket, and the rest still buy from him even if they don't like it."
"The scariest part is his Sword," Foxglove piped up, shivering, "The Sword of Turlabon is his right hand man. A mutant Turlabon raised into the perfect weapon."
"I heard he was genetically engineered," Opal put in, "Cloned to be the ultimate assassin."
"If you threaten him or don't pay him what you owe him," Chalcedony leaned closer, smiling at the thrill of sharing a spooky story, "He'll send his Sword after you. The Sword can burn whole cities down in a night, or slit a single throat in the middle of a party, so quick and so quiet no one even notices till the party is over."
"Sounds like an urban legend," Lily said doubtfully, taking the datapad back and folding it away, "That's probably just all stories to keep people cooperating with him."
"Maybe," Opal shrugged, "But if I were you, I would work really hard to please this guy and then book it as soon as your contract is up. It's not worth it."
"Anything is worth it," Lily sighed as she tucked the datapad into her sleeve, "My village needs the money."
"You're from one of the First Nations research stations, right?" Foxglove asked, curious, "The ones trying to bring the world back?"
"Trying," Lily confirmed, "But we
need samples to work with. Not to mention specimens to reseed the environment with once things are stable. Our biggest store of specimens, seeds, plant cuttings, even a library of animal and insect DNA for cloning, was in the Svalbard global seed vault."
"They mentioned that place in school," Opal snapped her fingers as she tried to remember, "When they were talking about the restoration efforts. Isn't it in like... Norway?"
"Halfway between Norway and the North Pole." Lily corrected, grim with regret.
"Why the hell did you put it up there?" Chalcedony asked, wrinkling her nose, "It's so cold up there, even in a suit you'd die in seconds!"
"We didn't put it there." Lily shook her head, "It's from hundreds of years ago, back in Early Decline. They never thought it would get this bad, back then. So they picked a place with low tectonic activity that would stay above sea level even after the ice caps melted. But because of how remote it is, we can only visit it once every few years.
Last year we went to get new samples and found it buried. A glacier had advanced, decades ahead of what we predicted. It swallowed the seed bank whole. Now in order to continue our research, we have to buy seeds from the human colonies off planet."
"If seeds are as expensive to import from the colonies as everything else is," Opal laughed, "I can understand why you're doing this."
"They are." Lily confirmed, looking tired, "But hopefully this will keep us going until the glacier recedes."
The ship bucked then, rattling them all like pennies in a tin can as it left the atmosphere. A minute later, it docked with the courier's main ship. They were picking up and dropping off living cargo from all over the system, many of them in programs like the Marriage Bureau.
There were a good many people heading to Sahria, big as that planet was, and Lily said goodbye to Opal, Foxglove, and Chalcedony, expecting to be housed with the other Sahrian bound visitors for the duration of the trip. Instead, one of the four-armed aliens called her away.
"Your client has requested special accommodations for you," it said in its flat, auto-translated drone, "Please follow me."
Alien Romance: ESCAPE: Bride Of The Beast: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 5) Page 1
