Page 4 of Mated By Twilight

‘Your mate is a human by the name of Leah Williams.’

Chapter 2

Leah

“Leah Williams?”

“Here! Y-Yes! Hi- Oh, snap!” In her haste to stand, Leah accidentally dropped her purse, spilling the contents all over the linoleum floor. The nice lady with the clipboard that had come to get her blinked, startled, as Leah rushed to gather everything.

Chapstick, extra hair ties, some bandages, tissues, three pens in two different colors, her little notepad, her old, beaten up mp3 player and wired headphones, two power banks, her keys, all the old, chipped key chains attached to it, and a handful of coins that scattered everywhere. Leah’s face burned as she tried to quickly shove it all back in even as the other lady came to help her.

Her nerves were absolutely shot today. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She couldn’t believe she’dagreedto do this! She was going to puke. Her heart was going to fail any second now. Divine power was going to strike her dead for this.

No, not that one. She was fine. This was fine. She’d asked for this. In a sense.

“Here,” the woman handed her the things she’d gathered.

Leah quickly shoved them back in her bag with a stuttered thanks before pulling it back up onto her shoulder. She grippedthe strap tightly in both, shaky hands as she tried to work on controlling her breathing.

The brown-haired woman gave her a kind, concerned look. “Are you okay, Ms. Williams? Do you need a moment?”

“No,” she assured her quickly, panting unnecessarily. “I-I’m fine. Sorry. Just a bit nervous, you know? It’s a, er, big day.”

“Right,” the woman, her badge identified her as Trixie, nodded, smiling understandingly. “Well, you’re the only one being picked up. If you need a minute to gather yourself…”

Leah was already shaking her head. Standing around, waiting more, wasn’t going to make her less anxious. If anything, stringing herself along would just make it worse. Better she just get this over with. Like getting a shot or taking nasty medicine. Grit her teeth and get it done.

The woman nodded and turned, leading Leah through the building, towards the private elevator that required a key Trixie carried. There was a security guard standing in the elevator who gave Trixie a cursory nod before facing forward again. He wasn’t the first one Leah had passed. He probably wouldn’t be the last either.

Today, Leah was leaving the planet. She had been mated to an alien and so now had to go through the immigration process.

Which was a completely insane thought!

She wasleaving Earth!

How was everyone else so calm about this right now?!

Taking off from the planet was possible since humanity had become a protectorate of the Coalition. However, only two types of people could do it – those that were willingly relinquishingtheir Earth citizenship permanently, and those that were marrying off planet.

No. Not marrying. Mating. Leah was mating.An alien.

The very thought was enough to make her heart pound and her belly cramp – and not in a good way. It wasn’t excitement that made her so shifty and nervous. It was just that good, old-fashioned shame that her parents had instilled in her since birth.

But that’s exactly why she was here, doing this. She had gone to True Match searching for a husband. Someone she could spend her life with. Someone that, maybe, would restore some sense of normality to her existence. She didn’t really care what he looked like or what he did. As long as he was kind and understanding, she would be happy. She could make herself happy.

Some of the other women at the shelter had mocked her for doing it. Just because the company promised he would be her soulmate didn’t mean that she wasn’t still relying on a man to fix her problems. She should be able to stand strong and do it on her own. To fight for herself. She could worry about finding a husband when she didn’tneeda husband.

But Leah wasn’t strong enough to do it on her own. To fight for herself. She ran. That’s what she did. When things got hard, she took off. She needed someone to be her strength, and she wasn’t above turning herself into a little housewife for a man if that meant she was safe and loved.

Just so long as he was kind. She could do anything if he was kind.

And True Match had given her what she asked for.

She just wasn’t mentally prepared for it to be an alien.

Most people that went to True Match were matched with other humans. They said that the rate of being matched to an alien was only something like five to ten percent. Leah never even considered she’d be in that five percent. But, despite that, she still had a printout of the email informing her of her alien match in her purse.

The information was a bit hard to read. It had her mate’s name, but it looked like there was a mistake because it seemed to be printed twice – forward and backward. There were some other mistakes as well – some words were plural, there were other words she didn’t understand, and she was pretty sure the contact information was wrong. When she messaged the person on the other end, they also used strange words, encouraging her to come and stating he was eager to meet her but in very bad English. She was pretty sure it was a translation error since they weren’t speaking the same language. Their messages were being auto-translated after being sent, and those were never reliable, right?

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