Alien Romance: ESCAPE: Bride Of The Beast: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 5)

by Marla Therron

  "You don't have anyone you care about that much?" Lily asked, wounded, "Someone you'd give up your whole life to take care of? The money is just a way for me to take care of them. That's all that matters."

  He didn't turn back, but she saw his expression soften with consideration.

  "I do have someone like that," he said, quiet and thoughtful, "Perhaps I can imagine it. But just because you would give your life for someone doesn't mean they would do it for you. The people you're doing this for, do they deserve your loyalty?"

  He fixed her with a strange cool stare, but Lily met it easily, nodding.

  "Absolutely," she confirmed, "They would do anything to help me. They begged me not to do this. I made the choice on my own, to help all of them."

  A strange kind of sadness passed over his face and he looked away again.

  "You are lucky person," he said, "I hope your village gets everything it needs."

  He said little else the rest of the trip, though Lily tried a few times to start a conversation. Their strange spidery carriage skittered on through the streets, stepping over or around pedestrians and their auto carts, which trundled after them on clumsier, stiffer legs.

  There were only a few other carriages, all of which moved aside to make room for Lily's. They moved towards the heart of the dense, looming city, which only grew more tangled around them.

  The Sahrian architectural sense was something almost like art nouveau, but colder, the curling frescos tangled winter briars that knit the tall, narrow buildings together in otherwise impossible impenetrability. It was like moving through a dead thicket.

  No life, only closed off dead branches, clinging to each other in a skeletal death grip, strangled and senseless. It made Lily uncomfortable, and she hoped the palace would be nicer.

  The palace crouched like a toad in the chest cavity of the city's carcass, a sprawling and ungainly thing of rounded green cupolas. It seemed to Lily to resemble a nest of fungus, spiky and strange. At least it was more colorful, more alive than the city it sat in, draining the life from it like a parasitic spore.

  The carriage came to a stop in front of the great copper-green gates and Lily's escort stepped out first, reaching up to help her down. She supposed it hadn't really sunk in until this moment how like a fairy tale this was.

  She took his hand and stepped down out of the gilded carriage, looking up at the magnificent palace that would become her home (and it was magnificent, even if it was strange) and she thought how lucky she was, a human girl from the backwater of Earth marrying a king of one of the most powerful planets in the galaxy. She squeezed Turlabon's hand in excitement and he gave a look that was almost pitying.

  He led her inside where she could hear music playing somewhere, but he didn't take her towards it. Instead he led her to a pair of high double doors embellished with golden vines. He unlocked it with a small electronic key from around his neck.

  "This is the Garden of a Thousand Flowers," he explained, "Here is where you will live, with all the king's wives and concubines."

  Before Lily had time to express her shock at that, the doors swung open and she was faced with a vast room. It must have been the very center of the palace. Its domed roof glittered with thick-bubbled glass panes, giving the entire place the feeling of a greenhouse.

  It was full of the first greenery Lily had seen anywhere in the city or palace, flowerbeds overflowing with huge blossoms in every color imaginable. And among the flowers were dozens of women. Most of them were floraform, but a few were mammalian or cetacean species. Lily was the only human. The women stood as Lily entered, moving towards her. Lily heard the doors closing and turned to see her escort shutting them.

  "They will prepare you for the ceremony," he said, "I will see you there, my queen."

  Lily, too frozen by uncertainty to move, watched the door close between them.

  "Your name."

  Lily turned quickly to see several of the floraform women had moved quite close. A woman whose dainty face perched among the bunched scarlet petals of a rose in full bloom stood the closest.

  "Your name, little one," the woman repeated, "I don't believe humans have fallen so far that they don't speak anymore, have they? Or did I learn your language for nothing?"

  Her Tlingit was flawless, if a bit formal, and Lily was momentarily stunned to hear her native tongue.

  "Lily," she replied, "My name is Lily. I wasn't told the king had other wives."

  "I'm sure you weren't told many things," the rose woman replied, "I would tell you my name, but you would only butcher it. You lack the pheromone glands to produce the proper chemical accents. But I took the liberty of researching botanical life on your planet and chose names for us that will be easier for you to comprehend. I'm told floral names are in fashion right now anyway. I am Cabbage Rose."

  She gave an odd little dip of a curtsey that pushed her petals towards Lily, sending a waft of floral sent in her direction.

  "I was Turlabon's first wife," Cabbage Rose explained, "Before he began collecting. This is Dogwood, his second, and Aster, his third. You will get to know all of us, I'm sure. You will be his twenty fifth."

  "Twenty five..." Lily's head swam and her knees threatened to give out. Dogwood caught her in strong, pale branches and guided her to a bench to sit.

  "Turlabon has reigned more than one hundred years," Rose shook her head as she and Dogwood sat to other side of Lily, patting her hands, "Did you really think you would be his first acquisition? Even aside from his twenty-four wives, he has double that in concubines.

  He gathers women of the highest caliber and breeding to take his name, but any that catch his fancy may be added to his collection. Among Turlabon's wives are represented all the oldest and most powerful families of Sahria and beyond. You may be slightly out of place here at first, but rest assured, we will refine you in a woman worthy of bearing the king's heir."

  "Why..." Lily was still dazed, trying to absorb all of this, "If he has so many, why not with one of you...?"

  Rose scoffed, her petals bristling.

  "Among floraform, reproduction can only commence among the enthusiastically consenting," Rose explained, "It's true of many plant species on your own planet as well. Reproducing is incredibly costly to the fruiting body. If the plant is in ideal circumstances where it sees no need to reproduce, it won't, and will live longer as a result. I have lived nearly all of Turlabon's hundred-year reign because I, like all the wives, refuse to give him children.

  Even the concubines, who would give him children if they could just to escape his wrath, cannot force their bodies to ignore the fear in their hearts. Among floraform, you cannot impregnate the unwilling. He would have made us slaves for our refusal if not for the influence of our families and his own pride. He wants an heir of only the highest quality and unimpeachable legitimacy. He will accept nothing less."

  "So then," Lily's head felt in a fog, still struggling with the shock of realizing she was not Turlabon's only wife, "The reason he wanted me..."

  "Human hybrids are considered the peak of genetic perfection right now," Rose shrugged, "Which soothes his vanity enough to overlook the fact that you aren't high born. More importantly, a human can still be impregnated, whether they want to be or not."

  Lily felt a cold chill at that which she tried to ignore.

  "But why have you refused him?" she asked, still trying to figure this out, "What's wrong with him?"

  Rose frowned and Dogwood stared at Lily like she'd grown a second head. Aster looked away as though embarrassed.

  "Haven't you seen him?" Dogwood blurted out, "And he's cruel! A greedy, violent monster. He doesn't care about anyone or anything but-"

  "Hush, Dogwood," Rose said, thorns glinting under her leaves, "I will not tolerate our king being spoken of in this way. Our unwillingness is shame enough. We should not sully our tongues with disloyal speech. Besides, we have a wedding to prepare for, now that the girl understands the situation."

  "Does
she?" Dogwood asked, looking at Lily, who was staring at the ground in stunned confusion.

  "She will," Rose said primly, and pulled Lily to her feet, "We have much to do."

  Chapter Four

  The next few hours were a whirl of activity that Lily mostly absorbed without thinking about. The flowers of Turlabon's garden passed Lily from hand to petaled hand, fussing over her dress, her hair, her makeup, all of which changed at least a dozen times she felt.

  But the primary focus was on teaching her the script and rituals of the ceremony itself, running her through it like a trained dog through a series of tricks. Stand here, kneel at this moment, recite this paragraph, turn, sing, cry. Her reward for getting it right was to have her dress changed and then go through it again. Lily didn't complain.

  Most of the brides couldn't speak her language anyway. They communicated with each other in a complicated mix of verbal language and precise scent accents. The same words spoken verbally could mean a hundred different things depending on what scents were used with them.

  No amount of translation software would ever allow her to speak it fluently and she mourned the lost opportunity. Though it made her all the more grateful that Rose had chosen to learn one of the human languages, and taught it to a few of the other girls.

  While the wives, all of them highbred flowers with the exception of a few off world exotic species Turlabon had collected as trophies, gossiped and fluttered about in excitement as they worked on preparing Lily, the concubines were more sedate.

  They followed the orders of the wives, seeming more like servants than anything else. Most of them seemed almost solemn, perhaps thinking on how long Rose had lived as part of Turlabon's garden and wondering if, kept from the life shortening action of reproduction, they might also live another hundred years in the king's possession.

  Lily was suddenly very glad for her precise contract. She wouldn't be trapped her forever like these girls.

  "Oh this is exhausting," Rose sighed dramatically, looking at Lily in yet another dress, "She doesn't have any petals! How am I supposed to make this bald creature look acceptable for a royal wedding? I need tea. Delphinium! Tea! Orchid, go get that lavender gown with the frills. What do you mean which on?"

  Rose stormed off after Orchid to find another dress while the others were distracted by Delphinium rolling in a complicated tea service, most of which Lily didn't dare try for fear of unknown allergens.

  Instead, longing for a moment to herself to deal with all she'd learned in private, she pushed through the ferns while the other women's backs were turned and hurried away. If she could just get a few minutes to herself, that would be enough.

  Once she had a little space between her and the others she slowed down, beginning to relax. She felt like her heart hadn't stopped racing since she arrived. It wasn't so bad, she told herself. She had known it was a mistake to indulge in thinking this was some fairy tale fantasy.

  The beautiful room and being treated like a princess were just honey in a very common trap which she'd walked into knowingly. It was her own foolishness to get her hopes up like that. And this was a business deal! She could handle being one wife among many for the sake of the money her village needed. She was more worried about the other wives insisting he was cruel and greedy. Collecting this many partners, not out of love but out of desire for status, certainly didn't seem like the actions of a modest man.

  But then, the wives also thought he was ugly, and she'd seen him and knew he was handsome to her eyes. They thought she was weird looking too after all. Their ideas of beauty were different than the human ideal. Maybe they were wrong about him being cruel too.

  She hadn't seen any cruelty in those green eyes. Regardless of anything else, she needed to find a way to make this work. She could do this. She had to! But she could feel her resolve wavering anyway...

  She pushed through another barrier of ferns and stopped, caught by surprise, as she stumbled into a strange, shaded courtyard. The flowering trees in their elaborate planters had grown tall her, their branches blocking the sun from the glass ceiling, and beneath their shade was a circle picked out in elaborate mosaic, now weathered and grown over with soft green moss, starred with tiny white blossoms. And filling the wide circle were cages.

  Elaborate filigreed domes like birdcages, each beautiful once but aged now. And inside every cage was a woman. Most of them dozed, and looked as though they had been doing so for a long time.

  Dew spangled cobwebs clung to their petals and leaves like silver streamers tying them to their gilded prisons. Only a few of them were flowers, Lily realized. Perhaps two out of the dozen or so. The rest were lower but still respectable species.

  Slender, graceful trees and curvaceous succulents, even a few herbs, small and hardy. The few that were flowers, Lily had a suspicion were weeds. Only one of the women looked up as Lily stumbled into their strange enclave, raising her head slowly.

  She was beautiful, her face pointed and proud among the clusters of her symmetrical petals, which were dense and ruffled as skirts, a deep purple that was nearly black. A dahlia, Lily thought.

  "Who are you?" the woman asked, narrowing her dark eyes, "Are you that new exotic bride they've all been twittering about?"

  "You speak my language." Lily said in surprise, moving closer.

  "Yes, well, Rose was passing around data pads full of the stuff," the woman said, gesturing dismissively with a slim, old fashioned data pad, "And I don't exactly have a lot to do in here."

  "Do you have a name?" Lily asked.

  "Not one you can pronounce," the woman scoffed, "You can choose one of those silly human ones Rose was assigning if you really like."

  "May I call you Dahlia?" Lily asked, sitting down in front of the cage. Dahlia's petals and leaves had grown past the bars, overflowing like voluminous skirts. She shrugged.

  "It's as good a name as any," the woman agreed, shrugging, "And you are?"

  "Lily." Lily replied, "Another flower name, I know. They were popular when I was born. Flowers and gemstones. We thought we were getting close to reversing the damage we had done to our planet. Might generation was supposed to be the first to see the plants we were named for again."

  "I'm guessing it didn't work out that way," Dahlia raised a pistil like an eyebrow, "considering that you're here."

  Lily shook her head.

  "Why are you in a cage?" she asked, changing the subject, looking around at the other women, "Did Turlabon put you in there?"

  "Who else?" Dahlia scoffed, opening her data pad and stroking it to turn the page of whatever she was reading, "This is where he keeps his less cooperative concubines. Rose does a decent job of keeping the others under her thumb, but for those that try to fight or run away..."

  She looked up to gesture broadly at the cages.

  "This is where we end up."

  "You tried to escape?" Lily asked, frowning. Would she end up in one of these cages if she refused to renew her contract after three years?

  Dahlia laughed, bitter and brief.

  "No," she said, "I tried to fight. And I've been planted in this cage longer than Rose has been wed to our dear king."

  Lily's eyes widened in horror. So this was not some temporary punishment but a permanent imprisonment? He really was cruel...

  "The others arrived one at a time over the decades," Dahlia went on, looking wistfully at the women around her, "Some held on longer than others. But in the end they all put down roots and surrender to dormancy. It's easier to sleep than to go on fighting a battle that's been long since lost."

  Lily looked at the other women, the pale or woody threads that ran out from under their skirts and webbed the bottoms of their cages.

  "Why haven't you gone dormant?" Lily asked, "If you've been here longer than any of them?"

  "I refuse," Dahlia said, her voice icy and determined, "The roots appear and I rip them out. I won't give him the satisfaction of seeing me give up. I will fight that monster Turlabon until the day I
wither."

  Lily felt dizzy again and put her head in her hands, trembling and overwhelmed. After a moment, she felt a gentle touch stroking her hair. Looking up, she saw Dahlia had leaned closer, slipping a delicate limb through the bars of the cage to reassure her.

  "I'm certain you wouldn't be here if you didn't have a choice," Dahlia said, her voice as soft as her petals, "But if you have the chance, any chance, run. No price is worth what he will take from you."

  "Here you are!"

  Lily straightened up as Rose appeared through the branches, hiking her petals up as she glided towards them with the grace and ferocity of an approaching battleship. A fleet of other wives rode her wake, all of them looking harried and distraught.

  "Filling her head with seditious nonsense, were you?" Rose's thorns bristled as she looked at Dahlia in the cage, who stared back with haughty poise.

  "Good morning Rose," Dahlia said, her voice full of chilly politeness, "Have you brought me any new books? I've finished these."

  She waved the datapad and Rose sniffed derisively.

  "Come along, Lily," Rose said sharp as her thorns, "You'll hear nothing of value from this weed. And it's almost time for the ceremony. We have just enough time for another rehearsal."

  Lily stood, trying not to sigh.

  "Stay awake, little Lily," Dahlia called after her as Rose led her away, "Don't let yourself go dormant. That's what he wants. Stay awake!"

  Chapter Five

  Rose changed Lily's dress yet again, to an off the shoulder gown of iridescent cerulean, fading into lilac and warm pink that felt like a spring dawn. It was beautiful, but they'd all been beautiful. And Rose couldn't seem to stop piling accessories on to Lily, trying to hide her embarrassing lack of petals.

  The dramatic flowered veil, the elaborate and heavy golden headpiece, the neck ruff of gold and opal and voluminous silk petals, it all piled up until Lily felt like she was lost entirely under it. Which she supposed was the point.