Page 1 of Jessica's Mates
Chapter One
Jessica
You know when something was too good to be true, but you still fall for it hoping it wasn’t? But instead of signing up to something and having an inbox full of spam emails, or losing fifty dollars because you thought you were helping out a prince in Nigeria… your life has been scammed away.
Okay, I might sound dramatic, but I was not given much of a choice. I applied to this amazing job ad, it sounded great to me. Travel: that was something I couldn’t afford with my current job. I only made enough to barely cover rent, bills, and food. What I wasn’t expecting was travel outside of Earth. Oh, and that I was to marry some alien guy so the people back home could have spaceships powered by a rock they mine on this planet.
That’s right, I was just a pawn in their scam. Swapping human females for rocks.
When I walked up to the agent and said I wanted out of this crazy ride, well… Agent Booker said, “Let me show you how to leave. And I will only ask you once if you’ve changed your mind.”
Yeah, like I would change my mind. None of the other girls who were in the same group interview came back. My only thought was,why didn’t I leave earlier? I guess I was curious about aliens and if this was for real. Aliens were real, and he wanted to ship me off to be married to one. Change my mind? I don’t think so. He took me to a room with other women. I looked around the room, there were eleven women… wait. This was where the other girls ended up? They hadn’t gone home already.
“Jessica, you have a choice: go to marry these aliens, or…” he pulled his gun out of the holster, my eyes following it as he held it up. I watched his face change expression for the first time, to an evil grin.Sadistic asshole.
“I signed the NDA, I won’t talk.” Was he being for real right now? He waved the gun around the room and I watched as the women ducked and sobbed. These other girls were crying… this wasn’t happening. They had wanted out; days ago they left the interviews. They were still here, and I was starting to see what the choice was.
I closed my eyes and pinched myself. This had to be a dream, but when I opened them, he was still here, his head cocked to the side waiting for my answer. I looked over to the women now huddled tightly.
“Go,” some of them mouthed to me. Wait… my heart started to race. Was he for real? Would he kill me? He couldn’t do that. People would know. Wouldn’t they? No… no, they wouldn’t. It was one of the reasons I got through this far in the interviews. It was part of the whole process.Do you have living relatives? Someone who would miss you?
No.
I had no one; I was alone in this world. I grew up with my grandmother before she passed away. My mom died at the end of a needle, and I didn’t know who my father was. No one would know I was gone. Maybe someone I used to work with or an old school friend, but not someone who would look for me. Fuck. I was alone more than I ever felt.
“I’ll go back.” I exhaled a deep breath, my hands shaking. I didn’t want to die, I wanted to live. I watched as his smile twisted and he nodded. He led me back out of the room, grabbing my upper arm with such a force it would leave bruises.
“Don’t you tell those other girls what you saw. They are happy to be going and saving the world. You are weak. You don’t have what it takes, but they need six willing girls. With you we have five; we just need one more. And I don’t care if you’re happy or not. If all goes well, there will be more after you. So suck it up, princess, and smile. You’re about to get some alien cock. And you will pretend to love it.”
That fucking asshole. I wanted him to get some alien cock. I hope it fucking killed him. I walked back into the room and four pairs of eyes watched me.
“She just needed to see medical, she is all cleared now,” Booker lied. I guess it was so I didn’t have questions about where I went and why I was back so soon. I was angry at the agents, at myself, the whole situation. I took it out on those around me and I couldn’t stop. How could they be happy? How could they not see I was miserable and not here by choice?
When we were on the spaceship, things weren’t so bad. The M’Mori were not the nicest, but one soldier was; he was our guard in our section of the ship. We had a couple of guards but K’Tem was my favorite. He would talk to me and I felt safe with him; I didn’t know why, I just did. He would tell me about planets he had been to. He was only a young soldier, and had only been with the M’Mori army for a year, but told me how big they were in the universe. That M’Mori were everywhere, mining many planets, but Aarzyn had the best supply of aket so far.
He also told me that M’Mori were listening all the time. To everyone. That his quarters’ tech had been modified by his older brother—he wasn’t a soldier but in tech. He overrode the system so the high up M’Mori couldn’t see or hear us when we were in or around his quarters. I promised to never tell the others—well, not until I was off this ship. Then, I would tell them everything about the girls and the many secrets K’Tem shouldn’t have told me.
Like how he had come to find that his people used slaves and prisoners to mine the rock, aket,on the planet I was going to. He couldn’t believe his people were like that. There were rules and laws in space and the M’Mori were breaking many of them. The swapping of human brides as payment to mine on Aarzyn was something a space government had arranged between the Aashi and M’Mori, but it wasn’t a fair payment for what they were doing to their planet.
Aarzyn was a planet that was not to be occupied or changed, the people lived as they always had. They were not advanced, and the space laws made by the Universal Federation—which was the governing power in the universe here—made sure that didn’t happen. The Aashi were a dying race, and they needed to save their species, so the arrangement had been made. Humans, we were a match with them. We could bear their children and continue their species. Even if it would be a half-human, half-Aashi race. I hoped they looked human. Not like the M’Mori… Not that K’Tem was ugly.
He had iridescent scales all over his body, a flat nose, and sharp teeth like a piranha. Oh, and he was bald…everywhere. They didn’t grow hair. He did have smaller ears than a human. His lips were blue and soft… so soft. His tongue was reptile-like, forked and blue.
It didn’t take long before our friendship turned into more. You would think kissing a guy with all those teeth would scare me, but it didn’t. There was something about him. I was drawn to him in a way I didn’t understand myself… He was honest and cared for me.
We spent a lot of time together. The girls started to notice but I tried to shut them down at any talk or teasing. I didn’t think it mattered much for me, I was on this ship for one reason only, but K’Tem would have gotten into trouble, and I think the girls got the hint and stopped.
He was such a nice guy, and I didn’t want anything to happen to him, but I was drawn to him. I wanted him around me all the time. I loved to hold his hand… His palm was smooth and warm. And he was mine; he told me so. He told me he would come for me. Only, he wasn’t mine… I belonged to someone else.
K’Tem was just the delivery boy.
Chapter Two
Jessica
Aarzyn was a humid, purple planet, and the guys here… well, they were huge. And purple too. They wanted to be mine. They said that they were my Chosen mates, like, as in more than one. Yeah, there were five of them. M’Mori and the agents didn’t mention that little surprise, but then they were full of surprises. And none of them good.
But these Aashi guys, they weren’t mine. I had already chosen a mate, one who I wanted, who I fell in love with, but I said my tearful goodbyes to him two months ago. He said he loved me, and he would come for me. He took my heart with him when he left and now I was waiting for him. I didn’t know how he would find me when he didn’t know where I was. There was no way for him to track me, and I was sure the Aashi would kill him if he got close.
