Page 3 of Ravenous Alien Mate

Originally, he’d been scheduled to receive the bride several moon cycles ago, but a series of emergency missions had taken him off planet, forcing him to delay claiming his mate from among the shipments of human females that were regularly sent to Mars.

After noticing the continued delays, King Vaath, the leader of their people, had ordered Jav to take a short leave of absence from his work with the Vash’arr, just long enough to allow him to claim his bride and spend some time getting to know her, before he must leave Mars on another mission. Jav was secretly grateful for the king’s interference.

Finally, after years of dreaming about being part of a family, Jav would secure a mate of his very own.Leah. That was her name. He knew nothing else about her, not even what she looked like, but a clerk from a Martian Affairs office on Earth had sent a message informing him of his future mate’s name. He glanced down at his wrist comm again, just to look at her name once more.

He wondered what part of Earth his bride called home, as well as what had driven her to sign up to become a mail order bride. Most human females who signed up to become a Marttiaxoxalian’s bride did so under desperate circumstances.

He’d heard such stories from the palace guards who’d already claimed human females of their own. Many women came to Mars because their families were struggling with debt. Females who signed up were given a one-time payment of ten thousand galactic credits, an amount of money that could go far on Earth, should they decide to give it to a loved one, and all of their family’s debt would be automatically forgiven. It was incentive enough to attract regular shipments of brides to Mars.

Was Leah fleeing bad circumstances? And in doing so, was she leaving behind a family she loved? He despaired over the prospect of her leaving people she cared about, but he reminded himself that she could remain in contact with her loved ones. It wasn’t as though she was saying goodbye forever.

He glanced at her name again, his eagerness to meet her growing with each breath. How many offspring would they have together? He hoped for a large family, a family that spent time together and took leisurely walks through the courtyard while the children giggled and explored the gardens.

Tomorrow. He looked at the sinking sun. The day was finally drawing to a close.

He would meet his new human female very soon.

Chapter 3

“Your mate won’t know a thing about you, except for your name,” the elderly male guard said as he escorted Leah toward the waiting spaceship.

“Really?” She looked up at him in surprise.

“Oh yeah.” He gave her a wide smile, revealing several missing teeth.

She peered curiously at the kindly human guard. She wasn’t certain how old he was, but he was a newer guard at the women’s prison, and he was a thousand times nicer than most of the other guards. She wished he’d been hired years ago.

During the ten-minute walk from the prison to the spaceship, he’d been nothing but kind to her. He’d even given her a drink of water and a sugar cookie. Though the cookie was stale, it was still the most delicious thing she’d eaten in years. Better than the cookie, was the consideration he was showing her. Instead of treating her like the dirt upon his shoes, as most guards did, he was treating her like an actual person. A lump formed in her throat.

She glanced down at herself, still in awe of the clothing she was wearing. A couple of minutes before she’d been escorted out of the prison, he’d tossed her a plain gray sweat suit and turned around to allow her privacy while she changed. She was so grateful she wasn’t wearing her normal bright orange prisoner’s uniform.

“All the other women should be on board the ship by now,” the guard said with a glance at his watch. “Martian Affairs promised to have them loaded by the time I got you here.”

“Thank you for taking my shackles and wrist restraints off before we came in sight of the spaceship,” Leah said with a glance around. She saw nothing but the outline of darkened buildings, the empty street, and the two Martian enforcers standing near the ship. Even if he’d been an asshole and forced her to walk here while still wearing the leg shackles and wrist restraints, no one but the enforcers would have witnessed her shame, but she still appreciated the elderly guard’s compassion.

“I don’t know what you were in prison for, young lady,” the man said, “but I tell you what, this can be a fresh start for you. Go to Mars, get married, start a family, and never look back.”

Never look back.

If only it were that easy.

To her surprise, he patted her back and stared at her with tenderness in his eyes.

“I had a daughter once.” A faraway look entered his gaze. “She passed away when she was young, poor thing, but if she’d grown up to reach your age, I would’ve encouraged her to go to Mars.”

“But the Martians are our enemies,” Leah said, taken aback. “They conquered Earth and now they rule over us with an iron fist. They’re brutes. I’ve heard terrible things about them.”

All at once, she started doubting her decision to leave Earth and become an alien’s bride. What were fifteen more years of prison compared to the rest of her life spent with a Martian male who treated her with cruelty? What if she was only trading one prison for another?

The guard nodded. “True. They kicked our asses. I was lucky to survive the war. My leg was broken at the time, so I wasn’t sent off to fight. Can you believe my luck? Fell off a goddamn tractor. Anyway, yes, I would send any daughter of mine off to live on Mars. It’s safer there. They’ve terraformed the whole planet and it’s clean and beautiful. I’ve seen pictures. It’s got to be a better life than on Earth.” He gave her an encouraging look and patted her back again.

His casual touch brought her comfort. She was so used to being manhandled by the guards and pushed around by the other inmates, or worse, that she couldn’t recall the last time someone had touched her without meaning her harm.

“This is all so wild,” Leah said. “I-I can’t believe, because of something incredibly stupid I did when I was eighteen, that I’m to become a Martian’s bride. It was either this or remain incarcerated. I had fifteen years left on my sentence. I’ve already been in jail for ten years and it’s felt like an eternity. I couldn’t imagine serving fifteen more. I only hope… I only hope my mate isn’t a monster. I don’t need him to be especially nice, justnice enough. I don’t want him to hurt me.” She couldn’t believe how much she was opening up to this guard, this stranger, but it felt good to finally talk to someone about her troubles. She hadn’t had a single friend inside that prison.

“We all make mistakes, child,” he said, “but you’re getting a second chance. Take it and never look back.”

Never look back. He’d said it again, but she still had doubts. It was so fucking hard not to look back when she’d spent the last ten years of her life constantly regretting her mistakes.

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