Page 8 of His Human Rebel

I continue to explain. “I’m the oldest Flagstone brother of this generation and yet the middle brother is now mated to a human and has an offspring, and Burl, one of my closest friends since childhood, has a human bride too.”

“Oh, both of the human women in this community are married, one to your brother and the other to your friend. So, you saw it happen up close. That’s why you wanted a human too?”

“It’s why I decided to consider a human as well as a Hyrrokin, instead of looking for a mate only amongst my own species. I could see from their couplings that our two species pair well together. When I was on the mail-order bride site I saw many different species but I filtered the choices to Hyrrokin and human. I was surprised to see a few Hyrrokin females and there and there were also many human females. But I saw your picture and chose you.”

She gasps. “They put my picture up? Oh my gosh, I bet it was my mug shot. How embarrassing.”

“I liked that picture. It’s why I chose you and no one else.”

“Oh, well then… thank you?”

We are both quiet for a moment and I continue to drive. Then she asks, “So tell me, how did two humans end up living in the wildlands on Tarvos?”

“My brother’s situation was the oddest because he ran into his bound randomly in the jungle on his property. She was running from the Hyrrokin mafia who had kidnapped her.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No. Thorn found her and protected her. And they realized in the process that they were mates and so she never left. The danger has now long passed and we kept her safe. Thorn and Mica had a vow ceremony and went to the courthouse together and now they have a half-human, half-Hyrrokin offspring. There are several other humans on our planet too who have done the same and so this is not completely foreign.”

“There are other humans living on the planet besides the two that live here locally?”

“Yes, I believe most of them are in our main city, but it is still a small group. No more than fifteen humans on the entire planet. But through Mica and Lucy I’ve learned they are a tight-knit group that keep in touch.”

“Oh, the names of the two local humans are Mica and Lucy? That’s nice.”

“I will introduce you to them soon after you get settled.”

“Hmm.”

“Because my brother had a human bride, I became used to humans. Burl, who is our friend, but also Thorn’s ranch manager, went on one of those dating sites and found his human bride. He’s the one who gave me the idea that I could do this too. I’m at a time of life where I am ready to settle down, but again, where I live is very remote. Not many females want to live in such a remote area. I decided to directly ask for a mail-order bride.”

She waves a delicate hand in the air. “I still don’t understand why you couldn’t find someone from your own planet without needing to purchase a mate. Did you say that you own your own house and land? Isn’t that something that would make you desirable to other females? And…and you seem handsome and nice. I don’t understand.”

A glow of pride enters my chest. “As I said earlier, I’ve already pleasure mated with, or at least befriended and spent time with, all the available females in the county. None of them are my future bound. This means that I would have to find a female from one of the cities to come and live in the wilderness with me. This is easier said than done.”

“It’s really that hard? How is that possible? It’s gorgeous out here. I’ve only seen a little of this land and it looks like a permanent vacation spot.”

“It’s extremely remote. It will take an hour just for us to drive from town to my ranch. We can’t drive directly to the next biggest town; we have to drive four hours to a port and then take a ferry overnight to the nearest city. We only recently installed that transporter disk and we all have to pay the normal price to use it, even I paid to transport you here.”

“Well, that does explain things better. It would be difficult for a lot of beings to live in such a remote location. You’d need to find someone who would want that type of life too.”

“Yes, I wanted a mate who would want to live with me out here and to start a family. This was my number one criteria. I explained all of this when I purchased you. I thought this was something you already knew and had agreed to.”

“Sorry, I didn’t. The town council are the ones who posted that profile for me and most likely the mayor was the one who responded and took your currency.”

We both remain quiet for a moment.

“I find myself troubled and disappointed by the idea that you were tricked into this arrangement. I thought this was something that both I and the female I purchased were freely eager to pursue.”

“Thank you for saying that. And even though this isn’t something I specifically agreed to, when I got into your vehicle I was letting you know that I’m on board with trying this out.”

I let out a grunt of approval.

“I have to admit that I don’t know very much about your species and I apologize for that,” she says. “I would have done all my homework if I’d known I was coming to Tarvos. When I arrived the staff were very kind about my initial freak out reaction in the transporter station.”

“Yes,” I chuckle. “We know that not only humans but many other species in the four sectors consider our appearance very off-putting.”

“Scary,” she says. “In fact, terrifying.”

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