Entered in the Alien Bride Lottery

by Margo Bond Collins

  Drindl wrapped one arm around my shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” she said, her high voice consoling. “You’ll be able to overcome any negative impression you made during your interview.”

  I scowled but didn’t bother answering. If I’d made a bad impression, I was glad of it.

  Not that anything in the blue alien’s expression suggested he was put off by my words.

  I shoved the thought down and kept walking.

  It’s not like I care what he thinks, anyway.

  The makeover room, like the small bedroom I’d been given earlier, was decorated in varying shades of white, with lots of lace and other bridalesque touches. The only color in the room came from a series of posters featuring Khanavai warriors posing behind ovals featuring the Bride Lottery logo.

  I rubbed my temples with the fingers of both hands, hoping to scrub away the incipient headache threatening to form. I flopped down in the makeup chair Drindl indicated. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

  In the mirror in front of me, I saw Drindl and Plofnid cast each other hopeless glances. I almost hoped they saw me as unredeemable. If they couldn’t do anything with me, then maybe the Khanavai warriors would feel the same way and I could go the fuck home sooner rather than later.

  I brushed my hand over my eyes, willing away the angry thoughts as I sat down in front of the mirror at the Earth-style hair and makeup station.

  Of course, it wasn’t really a mirror. I’d seen enough Bride Games to know that it was recording everything that happened. The grooms would be interviewed, and everything would be cut and mixed in post-production to highlight the drama of a new group of brides being chosen as mates for the Khanavai warriors.

  If I thought it would do any good, I’d pick a fight with one of the other brides.

  But I knew better.

  Hell, after my interview, I was probably short-listed as a final candidate. I knew better than to draw attention to myself. The best way to disappear from the games was to be boring. Bland. A giant nothing.

  Apparently, the Khanavai warriors liked their women feisty.

  Yuck.

  Behind me, Drindl and Plofnid conferred quietly—probably trying to figure out how to make that horrific dress of mine look good despite my best efforts.

  “We are ready,” Drindl finally trilled out in her Tinkerbell voice. Standing behind me, she pulled my hair back out of my face, showcasing my face. I looked pale, a slight greenish tinge to my skin. Nothing like a Khanavai’s bright turquoise color, of course. Just enough to make me look unhealthy.

  She tapped a few buttons on the control panel attached to the cart beside her, and an image of the sparkly turquoise blue dress revolved in the top right corner of the mirror-screen as Vos’s voice narrated.

  “Natalie Ferguson has chosen this mermaid-cut dress in Khanavai blue by our very own designer Krelix,” he said. I noticed he left out the usual accolades about how gorgeous I would look in it, and I had to push down a snicker. “Drindl,” Vos continued, “What will you and Plofnid be doing in your makeover?”

  Plofnid pulled up a short step stool to be able to reach the top of my head. “We’ll be adding a wash to her hair, both to bring out the shine and to tame these wild curls of her,” the small alien said.

  “And I don’t want to give away too much,” Drindl said, “but we’ll be giving her a dramatic evening look.”

  “Well,” Vos said in his deep, smarmy tones, “I can’t wait to see what you do with the woman who wishes she’d run.”

  I rolled my eyes. I was never going to get past that, was I?

  With a flourish, Drindl spun me around so I couldn’t stare miserably into the mirror-cam any longer. “Let’s get going!” she said, and I realized she was as much of a showperson as Vos.

  “Sounds great,” I muttered, and Plofnid threw an irritated glance in my direction.

  So what? Could I help it if I wasn’t thrilled about being stolen away from my home planet and dropped into my idea of hell?

  Still, it wasn’t the stylists’ fault. I should probably manage to be nicer to them.

  Maybe.

  I blew out a breath as they rolled me over to a hair-washing station, dropped the back of my chair down, and settled me over a basin.

  This could be worse, I tried to console myself. I could be here hoping to win.

  Chapter Eight

  Cav

  My mate wishes she had run.

  I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. Even when Vos Klavoii called all the grooms together to go over the Bride Games schedule, I found myself worrying about my chosen mate’s words.

  Vos had gathered us in the arena stands, where we would stay during the brides’ first official act of the Bride Games—The Bridal Pageant. In previous years, I’d heard that it was based on some old Earther tradition, a beauty pageant. It seemed unnecessary to me, but there were other grooms who had not yet seen a bride they hoped to mate with.

  After the pageant, the brides would retire for the evening, during which time their tracking software would be upgraded to read their every emotion and physical reaction. While that was going on, each groom would mark his top three bride choices, and if their DNA was a match, the grooms would be allowed to participate in the games in order to win the right to mate with the bride.

  Really, it was as much a competition for us as it was for them, though apparently the brides didn’t see it that way.

  Bored with Vos’s droning on about the rules of the Bride Games—something that every Khanavai warrior knew by heart—I turned on my seat screen and began flipping through the brides in the database.

  Three. That was the magic number. Only rarely did a groom fail to make a genetic match with at least one of his chosen brides.

  Of course, the best matches were those between True Mates. Not everyone experienced that, however—some simply made a life the best way they could. Even that wasn’t so bad once they engaged in mating sex. It was entirely possible to become something close to True Mates through the binding ceremony and sexual bonding time that came afterward.

  Human brides were particularly susceptible to creating a True Mates bond with the Khanavai.

  Not that I needed the bonding sex. I already knew who my true mate was. I flipped to her screen, listening to her melodious voice as I replayed the moment that had let the entire universe know that she had no interest in mating with a Khanavai warrior.

  Natalie Ferguson.

  “You’re completely set on her, aren’t you?” Zont asked from his seat beside me, and I realized I’d said my mate’s name aloud.

  I leaned over to take a look at his screen to see which brides he’d been perusing.

  “Amelia Rivers?” I asked, one brow raised in surprise. “The runaway bride? Can you even choose her?”

  Zont grinned. “She’s still in the program. And she’s the one I want.”

  “You’re going to have a quark’s eye of a time of it with that one.” My chosen mate might wish she had run—but at least she hadn’t actually done it. ”How do you know for sure that you’re compatible?”

  “I have my ways. I pulled her DNA last night, and we are a perfect match. I’ve put in a request with Command Central to allow me to hunt her as part of this year’s Bride Games.” He grinned, flashing the sharp canines his region was known for.

  My eyes widened. “That’s quite an effort to put into simply getting a mate.”

  Zont rubbed his hands together. “I do enjoy a challenge.”

  “Maybe I’m not right for Special Ops, after all.”

  Zont’s roar of laughter interrupted Vos Klavoii’s instructions, and the host glared up at the two of us. Zont waved an apology, but the quelling look Vos gave him didn’t stop the other warrior from leaning over to me to say, “You’ve chosen the only other Earther female who announced that she doesn’t want to be here. You cannot tell me that you don’t like a challenge, too, brother.”

  “When do you leave for Earth?”

  “When the p
ageant ends, Vos will interview me. As soon as that’s done, I can take a shuttle down to the planet.” A gleam in his eyes suggested he couldn’t wait to get going.

  I didn’t blame him.

  The longer we waited for the brides to show up to do their pageant, the more irritable I became. All I wanted to do was get on with seducing my mate. Preferably without the possibility of any other warrior adding her to his list of three.

  I had finally stopped looking at the other brides’ profiles. I had known from the moment her scent had led me to her in the brides’ quarters that she was the only one here I could possibly mate with.

  It was Natalie Ferguson...or no one.

  The thought sent a spike of rage racing through my chest.

  No. No other warrior would end up mated to my Natalie.

  I blew out a breath, trying to funnel my anger into constructive planning. The schedule for this set of games was particularly evocative. Every year, the Games Commission worked to make the contests more sensual. The more readings they could take from the contestants, the better the final matches would be.

  “At last,” Zont muttered beside me, and I glanced up to see the brides gathering near the entrance. I hadn’t even noticed when Vos had stopped explaining the games and left to host the upcoming pageant.

  “There are almost four hundred potential mates this year,” I reminded him. “You can’t leave yet.”

  “No, but the sooner they get started, the sooner it will be over, and I can go capture my own mate.” Zont’s eager expression brought a smile to my face. I knew exactly how he felt.

  The pageant itself was simple. Each bride stepped up onto the stage, stated her name, and added any skills she had that might be interesting to a Khanavai warrior. Then she turned slowly, allowing the grooms to examine her and giving the DNA scanners time to both take her measure and send her scent floating over the grooms. Because no matter how beautiful a female might be, everyone knew that in the end, our scent receptors often recognized our mates before our brains did.

  As the old Khanavai saying went, the cock follows where the nose leads.

  Which reminded me. “What if,” I asked Zont, “you get to Earth and discover your chosen bride smells all wrong?”

  The other warrior shrugged. “Then I’ll bring her back to take her rightful place in the games.” His gaze shifted to his screen, where Amelia Rivers’ image still floated. “But it won’t,” he added quietly. “I am as certain that she is mine as if I had scented her already.”

  I couldn’t help but nod. Everything about my Natalie had drawn me to her. The way she smelled like Vardish spun sweets, the lush curve of her hips, the heated touch of her lips against mine.

  The way she kicked you when you picked her up to kiss her?

  I shushed the voice inside my head. But it continued whispering to me, telling me as each woman moved up to the stage and then departed through the exit on the other side that my task might not be as simple as I hoped.

  My internal voice’s quiet undermining of my confidence continued until I finally caught sight of Natalie moving through the door and onto the stage.

  My eyes widened, taking in every last detail of her pageant-wear.

  “She chose Khanavai blue,” I said aloud, my heart leaping in my chest at the honor she’d done me. Her dress matched my skin tones perfectly.

  “And a lot of sparkles,” Zont added drily, holding his hand up in front of his eyes as if warding off the flashes of light arcing off her dress.

  “Even her skin is dusted in Khanavai blue. And her hair, too.” I knew I sounded overawed, but I couldn’t help it. Her stylists had pulled her dark curls atop her head in a design like a Khanavai jungle bloom and dusted it in the colors of my people.

  “With even more sparkles.” Zont met my glare with a grin.

  “She’s perfect.” I longed to fist the flower of her hair in my hand, then pull it from its careful updo, leaving it tousled.

  As she stepped up to the microphone and leaned in, I waited to hear her beautiful voice again.

  “Natalie Ferguson,” she said in a clipped tone, then stepped back again.

  “Anything you’d like to add to that?” Vos asked jovially. She simply shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said she looked angry.

  Okay. So she didn’t sound as breathless as she had either of the times I’d spoken to her.

  Did she really wish she had run?

  No, I reassured myself. That couldn’t possibly be true. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have chosen to honor me—and by extension, all Khanavai—by wearing a dress in my color. Moreover, if the information on my screen was correct, it was a dress that had been designed by a stylist from my own planet.

  As she slowly turned around on the stage, our screens sent out what was supposed to be her scent, sending it wafting across our seats. It was certainly close. But not close enough. I would have known the difference anywhere.

  Soon, I promised silently, willing her to meet my eyes as she moved off the stage.

  Soon, we will be together.

  Chapter Nine

  Natalie

  “The Khanavai Spanking Ceremony?” I gesticulated wildly at the schedule I was reading, waving my hand through the words floating in front of me, practically screeching as I did so. “What the ever-loving hell is that?”

  Drindl and Plofnid glanced at one another, the Poltien’s nostril-braid quivering as it blew out a resigned breath. “I knew you weren’t going to like that,” Plofnid muttered.

  “Come eat your breakfast, and we’ll tell you all about it.” Drindl waved one elegant, long-fingered hand toward the rolling table they’d pushed into my room.

  “That’s nothing I’ve ever seen on the Bride Games before.” I scowled at the all-white place settings in front of me as I took a seat.

  “It’s one of several new additions to this year’s games.” Plofnid moved around the table, removing covers and revealing enough food for four women.

  Or maybe one Khanavai warrior.

  An image of the gorgeous blue warrior—Cav Adredoni, I reminded myself—flashed in front of me, and for a hot second, I imagined what it would be like to share a meal like this with him.

  Quit it, Natalie. Remember, you’re playing to lose.

  Well. That should be easy enough now. Any man who thought he could spank me was going to find out immediately that he’d picked the wrong Earth girl to lay hands on.

  “Did you just growl?” Drindl asked, her eyes widening as she watched me pick up a croissant.

  “Did the matches come through this morning?” I had seen enough of the Bride Games to know the basic pattern. Arrival interview, pageant, matching, several games...and then the final round.

  I pushed aside what I knew about the final round. I was not going to have mating sex with any of these brutes.

  Not even the big blue one?

  Again, I shushed my inner voice.

  “That was definitely a growl,” Plofnid added. “Perhaps some coffee? It’s direct from Earth.”

  A ping sounded at the viewscreen pretending to be a window out onto an Earth ocean this morning—a view chosen, I suspected, to help keep me calm.

  “There are the matches now,” Drindl sang out, her incipient frown smoothing away as she pushed a few buttons. “Oh, look!” Clapping her hands in delight, she gestured at the screen. “Not one, but three Khanavai warriors have chosen you as a potential mate.”

  My stomach dropped at her words, the pastry in my mouth turning to a lump I couldn’t swallow as I stared up at the screen. Taking a quick swallow of orange juice to wash it down, I stood and moved to stand next to the stylist.

  Given the way he’d picked me up and kissed me—without my consent, dammit!—I had expected Cav Adredoni to try to match with me. But I had hoped for a genetic mismatch.

  Yeah, right, the annoying voice in my head snickered. Don’t forget, you kissed him back.

  I glanced long
ingly at the butter knife next to my coffee, wondering if lobotomizing myself would shut up the voice.

  Not sharp enough.

  No. With my luck, I’d end up with nothing but that voice in my mind.

  With a sigh, I pulled up the profile of one of the other two Khanavai warriors who had successfully matched with me.

  The Khanavai coloring had something to do with the regions they’d originated from on their homeworld, but I had no idea which ones were which—only that they came in a rainbow of shades, all so bright they almost glowed.

  The first one was Eldron Gendovi, and he was bright red with dark black hair. His skin tones reminded me of a Mustang convertible a high school boyfriend had rented to take me to the prom my junior year. Like all the Khanavai warriors I’d ever seen, Eldron was absolutely ripped. He wore—or rather, barely wore—one of their skimpy kilt-like uniforms, the sash across his chest covered in some kind of writing. He stood with his muscular arms crossed over his cherry-colored chest, gazing into the distance as if staring down an enemy.

  His profile included his picture, some statistics that I didn’t understand, and a long list of battles won.

  Covering my mouth with one hand, I flipped to the next image. Tiziani Mencono. This guy was banana yellow and completely bald. Thinner than either Eldron or Cav, he was still so big and muscular that he’d outclass any human male anywhere on Earth. For a brief second, an image of what he must look like naked flashed through my mind.

  “Banana,” I said from behind the hand still covering my mouth.

  “Pardon?” Plofnid asked, raising one eyebrow.

  “Banana,” I said again, imagining what a bright yellow man with an erection might look like. Laughter bubbled up in my chest and spilled out, pushing past my hand and hanging in the air around us as my stylists stared at me blankly.

  Their expressions only made me laugh harder, until I was doubled over clutching my stomach, tears of laughter streaming from my eyes.