Page 2 of Ravenous Alien Mate

She had hoped for freedom, had hoped to leave this prison and try to make a life for herself somewhere. She realized it wouldn’t be easy and she would’ve likely remained homeless for a while until she was able to land a job, but she had never imagined leaving Earth—especially to become a Martian’s bride.Oh God oh God oh God.

Her only interactions with Marttiaxoxalians, which the humans called Martians for short, hadn’t been pleasant. As a child, she’d watched Martian enforcers arrest people in her neighborhood for no good reason at all, then drag them away, never to be seen again. Martian enforcers had also captured her after the fire and robbery.

Furthermore, prisons on Earth were now technically run by the aliens, even though most guards in the prisons were human. Sometimes she would hear heavy footsteps in the night, only to peek outside her cell and see a group of scary-looking Martians had arrived to conduct an inspection.

They were unsmiling, gruff aliens, exceedingly tall and hugely muscled. They also had massive horns that curved over their heads and down their backs, which they used to headbutt their enemies during battle. She couldn’t fathom being mated to one of the alien savages.

But what other choice did she have?

She thought about returning to her concrete cell and shuddered. She couldn’t do it. She had to obtain some measure of freedom. She wanted to feel the sunlight upon her face, to feel a cool breeze ruffling her hair. To sleep in a warm, soft bed. To eat food that wasn’t tasteless and watered down. Most of all, to feel as though she mattered tosomeone, even just a little bit.

After drawing in a deep breath, she met the white-haired man’s gaze.

“I’ll do it,” she said. “I will become a Martian’s mate.”

Chapter 2

Jav stood on the balcony, staring at a Marttiaxoxalian-human couple as they crossed the palace grounds with their two offspring.

An unexpected sense of longing filled him as he watched their interactions, observing their behavior with great interest. The parents kept taking turns swinging the children between them. It was a sort of game they were playing. Simple, but it was bringing the children great joy. Laughter echoed through the courtyard.

He looked down at his hands and frowned at the sight of dried blood underneath his fingernails. Having just returned from a classified mission to dispose of an enemy to the Marttiaxoxalian Empire, he had come to his quarters with the intention of cleaning up, only to find himself drawn to the balcony when he heard cheerful voices and laughter outside.

Another glance at the family showed the offspring were now running in circles around their parents, the younger child trying to catch the older one. As Jav continued watching the family, he tried to imagine himself as the father.

Hope started spreading through him, but a moment later, the coldness of doubt slammed into him, an emotion so fierce that it nearly took his breath away.

Would he know how to be a father?

He had never been part of a family. The first years of his life had been spent in an overcrowded orphanage. That was, until a group of scientists came to recruit him, along with dozens of other male Marttiaxoxalian orphans, to become genetically enhanced warriors of the Vash’arr Order.

No one had ever told him what happened to his parents, but he had his suspicions. His mother, like so many females of his kind, probably died when the Xieandans poisoned the water supplies on Marttiaxoxalia, using a poison that only affected the females of his species. His father had likely been a warrior who’d perished in battle, tragically fighting against the very aliens who’d killed his mate.

Whoever his parents had been, they’d died when he was but an infant, for he had no recollections of them, not even the briefest flash of their faces in his mind. His earliest memories were of the orphanage and feeling completely alone, despite being surrounded by hundreds of other male orphans. As if he didn’t matter, as if he had no purpose.

But when the scientists came and took him away, promising they would make him big and strong and one of the greatest warriors his people had ever seen, he had suddenly been given a purpose. He hadn’t fought them, even when the process of receiving his genetic enhancements made him feel as though he were being ripped apart.

Instead, he had welcomed the pain, because it meant he would soon become someone other than a scared, lonely orphan. He would become a genetically enhanced Marttiaxoxalian warrior of the Vash’arr Order. He would help his people destroy their enemies and remain safe.

His only regret was that by the time the genetic enhancements were finally completed, the Xieandans had escalated their underhanded war tactics, doing something to Marttiaxoxalia’s sun which caused it to dim. Not long after, his people had been forced to leave their planet in search of a new home. He regretted that he hadn’t been ready to fight during the war against the Xieandans. None of the other Vash’arr warriors had been ready at the time either, as all were still receiving their genetic enhancements.

If the timing had been right, could they have made a difference?

He growled under his breath. He was tired of thinking about the past, but he found he often couldn’t stop himself. One doubt, one stray thought, and all at once the regrets wouldn’t stop coming.

He tried to think logically during times like these and tell himself it wasn’t his fault; it wasn’t his fault the scientists and the commanders hadn’t finished preparing the first order of Vash’arr warriors for battle before his people went to war with the Xieandans.

He’d fought in the war against the humans, however, taking the lead in many battles and winning every single fight. Because of the Vash’arr, the war against Earth had ended quickly with the humans’ absolute surrender. Twenty years later, Earth was still under Marttiaxoxalian control, though tensions between humans and his people were starting to lessen.

The sound of laughter in the courtyard quieted, and Jav searched for the family again. The children were now laying on the ground beneath a floweringtrekassatree, staring up at the sky, while their parents were seated nearby.

He eyed the Marttiaxoxalian male who had his arm around his human female and wondered if they were as happy as they looked. Again, he felt that ache inside his chest, that immense longing for what this family possessed.

Tomorrow. His heart thundered in his ears.

Tomorrow, he would be given a human female of his very own.

He had recently signed up to receive a mail order bride from Earth. As an able-bodied Marttiaxoxalian male, it was his duty to claim a human female and procreate with her. After losing most of their females because of the Xieandans, he needed to help his people grow their numbers. One of the biggest reasons the Marttiaxoxalians had picked Mars to terraform and make their new home had been due to its close proximity to Earth, a planet that contained a source of females with which Marttiaxoxalians were sexually compatible. Humans.

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