Bride Games: (Alien's Bride) Read online

  Elentinus led her aboard and then brought her to a round molded door that slid open. He signaled his servant to leave them. Lenora walked into the room before Elentinus could steer her with a touch on her shoulder. The door slid closed behind them.

  The only thing in the small room was a bed. Lenora looked around desperately for something else. Elentinus was moving close to her. She crossed to the bed before he could touch her.

  She turned around to face him with the back of her calves against the bedside. He had armor on his groin but she could probably still whack hard enough to stun him. Then she’d press her thumbs in his eyes and twist her legs in his to knock him down. There didn’t seem to be a button for the door. If it didn’t open automatically she’d ram it.

  “You’ve earned three minutes of the collar,” Elentinus said, with his auburn eyes stoic.

  Her breathing became rapid.

  “What if I gave you a choice? The collar, or allowing a Dak-Hiliah to mate with you.”

  “Allowing you? You think I’m going to let you rape me?”

  He pulled out a small black box, which Lenora knew was the force field collar control unit. The infernal collar was always on her, even if she couldn’t see or feel it.

  “The choice is submitting,” Elentinus said. “I’ll just give you your three minute sentence if you’re determined to resist.”

  Angry tears began to streak down her face. No matter how repulsed she was she had to pick the rape. A collar blast that long might give her brain damage. She was limping for months after the last one of just over a minute.

  “I hate you…so much.”

  “I’m aware.” He put the shock mechanism in a compartment of his shoulder armor. “So you’d choose submission?”

  Lenora let her backside drop onto the bed. The anger had her trembling now. “You disgusting…disgusting pig.” She took off her tunic and threw it onto the floor. A sports bra was beneath it. She intended on taking that off with the same gusto, but her trembling hands grew weak. It’s fine, Lenora, she tried to convince herself, you’ve been through much worse.

  “This is exactly what you expected from me, isn’t it?”

  Lenora eyed him. This wasn’t what she expected because she’d heard he was in a passionate marriage with Maritza the Traitor. But then, it didn’t surprise her either.

  “Could you really go through with it?”

  She swallowed. Fine, play mind games with me. Anything was preferable to getting raped or shocked.

  “Yeah. I could.”

  “Would it be easier if it wasn’t me? A different Dak-Hiliah.”

  “It wouldn’t make much difference, sir. You’re all scum.”

  He smiled briefly. “You can put your shirt back on. I’m not going to touch you. It was a test to see the extent of your mental deficiency. If you chose to be shocked then I would know there was no hope for you. Your irrational hatred would have run too deep. You’ve behaved how I wished.”

  Lenora donned her shirt and spoke through clenched teeth. “Thank you. Sir.”

  “I can place you in a situation where you would never have to fear being shocked by the collar again.”

  She waited.

  Elentinus closed his eyes. “I’d like to have you married to one of our Dak-Hiliah noblemen.”

  “That’s a violation of the surrender agreement!”

  He shushed her. “Calm yourself. The surrender agreement currently prohibits us from taking brides from the slave colony. If a woman volunteers to be a bride, it’s not considered taking her.” He paused and looked away from her. “I would like for you to volunteer.”

  “I refuse.”

  “Don’t be rash.”

  “That’s not saving me from the shock collar. You bastards are constantly shocking your wives. If it’s not you doing it then it’s your psychotic servants. I’m also not interested in getting raped on a daily basis, or being one of the brood queens to help you monsters repopulate.”

  Elentinus remained calm. “That’s how you think it will be?”

  “I know that’s how it will be. You’ve been dumping the divorced brides in the colony, remember? They told me all about marriage to a Dak-Hiliah.”

  He tipped back his head with enlightenment. “Ah, I see. That’s why you kept trying to escape.”

  She turned away from him derisively. “I knew you guys were going to do a collection soon. I’m not going. I won’t be a victim again.”

  His brow rose. “Again?”

  Lenora clamped her lips shut. None of your fucking business.

  Fresh horror started building in her stomach. Is that why he brought her onto the ship? To bring her to some evil Dak-Hiliah man?

  “The information you got from those women is out of date. There were different circumstances and conduct rules when they were first married. Things have changed. You won’t be mistreated.”

  She kept her voice low. “Bullshit.”

  “That’s fine. You don’t have to believe me. You can learn for yourself.”

  Lenora darted her eyes back at him. She hated how emotional he made her. “I said I’m not going to do it! There are plenty of girls in the colony dumb enough to want Dak-Hiliah husbands. Get Tara Schnider or Julie Xian—“

  “Those women aren’t causing problems in the colony. You are.”

  She felt herself begin to hyperventilate.

  “It’s in your best interest to be married. You’re incapable of seeing to your own self-preservation. This is partly due to the extreme thinking you garnered from your military programming and partly due to the misinformation these ex-wives are giving you. The greatest problem you pose is that you’re enticing others to run with you.”

  “I…I never enticed Vivian. I did everything I could to convince her to stay.”

  “Punishment has no effect on you. As soon as you recover you escape again. You should fear dying in the cold woods or being shocked to death. Instead you’re scared of masters who have very little reason to be cruel.” He fumed. “Most of the other slaves are thriving and happy. Your distorted mind has left you incapable of contentment. A cancer like you must be excised for the health of the colony. And yet, you’re too valuable to be frivolously destroyed.”

  Lenora felt as though the tumult in her breast was about to boil over. “Getting married to one of you…that was exactly what I was trying to escape.”

  Elentinus examined her several moments. “My wife is human. We’re deeply in love and I’ve never been cruel to her. She’s found happiness as a member of our empire. You would be lucky to know this same fate.”

  Lenora swallowed. “Your wife…is Earth’s greatest traitor.” It made her stomach twist to say it. She just couldn’t hold back. The monster’s wife exposed an escape route dozens of human women had used. She was a hero to the Dak-Hiliah, so of course she had a good life with them.

  Elentinus turned away from her. Lenora had a fresh shiver of fear, but there were more words fighting to get out of her.

  “You…you people swear up and down that you never violate your surrender agreements. You tell every planet in the universe that you’re noble conquerors. That they can surrender without any fear because you’ll always abide by your covenants.” She sniffled. “So, what? All that’s a lie?”

  He was unmoved. “You can’t stay in the colony. Marriage is your only option.”

  “No it’s not. You can let me free.”

  “Freedom for you means death in the woods.”

  “Marriage…to one of you…is a fate worse than death.”

  Elentinus leaned back and drew a long breath. “Very well. You’ve steered me toward the third option. I wished to do this simply, but you’re too self-destructive to accept what’s best for you. There are several in the High Council who enjoy forcing defiant slaves to willingly submit. This is not my preference.” He looked downward. “You’re going to planet Dornovonia to participate in the Bride Games.”

  “The…the what?”

  “You’ll
be presented with several challenges. If you succeed in them you’ll be granted your freedom. If you fail you’ll agree to become a consenting bride of a Dak-Hiliah nobleman.”

  The sudden scenario struck Lenora with how reasonable it sounded. But then, Dak-Hiliah never played fair. Several Dak-Hiliah ex-wives at the colony told her about a game where their husbands made them pick between five drinks. If the drink was sweet they won the game and weren’t required to have sex that night. If the drink was sour they had to pick again. If there was no taste they lost, because they would have consumed a drug that made them so high they’d submit to sex without a problem. Of course, each of them had only played the game once. Every drink had the drug in it.

  They only way to win a Dak-Hiliah game was not to play.

  “What if I don’t—“

  “I’m not giving you a choice. Let me make this clear. You’re too dangerous to return to the colony and too valuable to waste. If you refuse to participate I’m putting you and Vivian Thurski in a permanent coma. Your ovulation will be sped up and your eggs will be harvested until you’re infertile. Then you’ll be destroyed.”

  Lenora’s lips parted. “Why…why are you dragging Vivian into this?”

  Elentinus eyes turned their cruelest. “Because you care about her.”

  Lenora placed her hand on her throat. She couldn’t get her breathing to steady.

  “Do you volunteer for the games and accept the stakes?”

  She forced herself to nod.

  “Excellent.” He went to the door. “I’m so pleased you’ve decided to cooperate.” The white door slid closed behind him.

  ***

  Lenora Winquist. Lysanter clicked on the tablet with her image once again. He chided himself inwardly for being so enraptured. He’d scarcely gotten any work done, and there was plenty to do with the three-day interruption looming.

  Right now the girl was just a picture and a scant history. His mind was eagerly filling in the blanks. He daydreamed of idyllic scenarios where she would accept him, and he could hold her and protect her and show her that the Dak-Hiliah were not the terrible beings she imagined.

  He groaned and looked away. His heart was getting too invested when he didn’t even know the girl. He was setting himself up for a sickening disappointment. Wasn’t that why he’d avoided taking a wife in the first place? The humans were fragile. They incited every protective instinct within him, but in truth his own race was what they needed protection from. The misogynistic druid who was in the highest seat when they first conquered Earth demanded that women should be repressed and violently forced to breed. How many of those marriages had ended in ruin? How many of them were currently strained with two miserable partners?

  Thankfully the child Pakpo was now in the highest seat and the god who possessed him was, in fact, a goddess. The rules had changed. He could treat this girl as something closer to an equal, which seemed to be what many of the human females were accustomed to. There would never be true equality, however. She had to breed. If he allowed her to think she had control over every aspect of her life then he’d be misleading her. This was a pity. Their decimated population tied his hands.

  He still wanted to think this could work. He’d allowed the idea of a mate into his heart and his mind became entranced with the idea. How could he win her? How could he break through her fear and hatred?

  “Master.”

  Lysanter started. Hester had come in through the servant door behind his desk. He set down a tray of tea infused with a gentle stimulant.

  “Why don’t you look up her history? If she’s ex-military they must have a great deal of documentation.”

  Lysanter’s brow rose. “Of course. Thank you, Hester.” He tapped on the tablet to access the wider universal net. Hester lingered behind him.

  “I’m surprised you’re not scolding me for ignoring my work.”

  “Some things are more important than work, master.”

  Lysanter eyed him. The Dornovonian’s black eyes took up most of his face somewhat like an insect’s. Though immobile, Lysanter had found them capable of glistening to express emotion. His slave’s eyes gave gentle hues of red that indicated the adoration he felt toward his master.

  “I want this girl to make you happy. To show you there is more to life than your work and station.”

  Lysanter screwed his lips. “I mustn’t get my hopes up.”

  Lenora Winquist. Age 28. Born in the south of Earth’s United States, where the Alliance delegates were based. Aged two when the war started. Father and brother drafted by Earth’s military. Both killed in action. Lenora volunteered for Earth’s military at age 17.

  “Hmph.” So the girl had never known peace. Her world was always a place of desperate chaos.

  He scanned the detailed records of Lenora’s military career. She was a weapons engineer, twice decorated. Her only battle was during a surprise attack on an island base where the women could not be evacuated. Seventy men were killed. Eight women were kidnapped. Lenora avoided kidnapping by hiding inside a canon.

  Clever girl.

  He thumbed past several work reports. A document with red text caught his eye. Lenora accused her commanding officer, Sergeant Everett Hastings, of sexual harassment.

  “He raped her?” Lysanter thought aloud.

  “Look at the word key, master. Harassment doesn’t sound like rape to me.”

  Indeed, if it was rape it would have said ‘assault.’ Still, the definition of harassment didn’t give him much indication of what had happened.

  Hastings was dropped a full rank as punishment and Lenora was transferred to a different unit away from him.

  A few months later, just before the end of the war, a document showed that Hastings had had Lenora placed back into his unit. Then there was the invasion of the Instajants, an invulnerable parasitic alien that the Dak-Hiliah had unleashed on Earth. More than ninety percent of the planet’s population was essentially killed when they were turned into Instajant hosts and marched to ships that would take them to the Instajant home worlds. Earth finally surrendered to the Dak-Hiliah in exchange for the Instajant vaccine.

  Lysanter was struck once again by how stubborn Earth’s leaders had been. If his people hadn’t needed the Earth females so desperately they could have ended the war sooner with greater violence. Their robots battled for two decades with the imperative not to kill any women. It was clear this tactic wasn’t leading Earth toward surrender. The Dak-Hiliah then warned that the Instajants were headed for Earth and they were the only ones with a vaccine. Earth chose to call their bluff, leading them to a hideous tragedy that had harmed both their societies.

  According to the documents Lenora had hidden in the sewers for close to a year during the Instajant invasion. She was discovered by Dak-Hiliah robots with none other than Sergeant Everett Hastings. The two managed to avoid capture for several months. Hastings’ remains were later found in a drainage pipe. Lenora was caught soon after and brought to the mostly useless military deprogramming prison before being placed in the slave colony.

  “Hm. This Hastings man obviously wanted Lenora. When the planet devolved into further chaos he must have positioned himself to run with her. I wonder if they’d mended their relationship by then?”

  Hester pointed to the tab documenting Lenora’s transfer with one of his three digits. The document showed Lenora had vehemently protested past transfer attempts that would have put her back in Hastings’ unit.

  Lysanter’s brow furrowed. Hastings’ photo showed a stocky man close to twice Lenora’s age with a deep-set forehead.

  “Lenora’s beautiful and this man outranked her. I’ll bet he thought he was entitled to her.”

  “It must have been an uncomfortable situation for her, surviving with him,” Hester said.

  “I imagine it was worse than uncomfortable.”

  The scenarios that played out in Lysanter’s head were far less pleasing than before. How could he get through to a woman who’d endured such
trauma?

  ***

  Before landing the boxy robots herded Lenora and four other women into a secure seating area on the ship. That’s when she saw Vivian and felt as if the floor had opened up beneath her. For a moment all she could do was stare in white-faced horror. Then the woman behind her said something belligerent in Russian and Lenora took her seat. They were strapped into a long bench. She looked at the younger girl with an aching pang of regret. Of course she’d be competing also. Lenora should have guessed this. Vivian sent her a gigantic smile. The women sitting between them were strangers. Vivian looked glad to see Lenora’s familiar face.

  They disembarked in a noisy spaceport where six-limbed alien creatures in bright orange uniforms were directing traffic. Lenora wanted to get a good look at one of them, but the robots brusquely corralled her and the other women into a shuttle. This time they weren’t strapped in and there were windows. Lenora went to Vivian’s side.

  “Hey!” Vivian took both Lenora’s hands in hers. “You’re going to play these games, too? Holy shit, this is awesome.”

  Lenora couldn’t fathom her friend’s easy-going happiness. Vivian was a lanky seventeen-year-old with a mix of Asian and Spanish heritage. She wore her bushy black hair short.

  “Did you agree to this?” Lenora said. “Willingly?”

  Vivian wet her lips. “Yeah. Well, they said you were going, and I was like, bullshit. But then I was like, hey, maybe? But anyway, if we win we can go back to the woods and summer’s coming. I mean, the only thing that sucked about camping with you last time was the cold. I bet we’d kick ass if we tried roughing it in summer.”

  Lenora’s stomach felt like it clenched. You little fool. But then…wasn’t she thinking the same thing?

  “Vivian, what if we lose?”

  “Then we got to marry one of those blue assholes, right?” She glanced out the window. A futuristic city of pale glistening domes intersected by iridescent highways spread out as far as they could see. “Elentinus is pretty hot, I guess. I mean, if he wasn’t a fucking dickhead. And they may be blue with horns and shit, but they still look like people. I don’t know, whatever. I’m not going to worry about all the other shit we heard about them. I mean, what the fuck can you do?”