Claimed for the Alien Bride Lottery by Margo Collins (the little red hen read aloud txt) 📗

Claimed for the Alien Bride Lottery

The Khanavai Warrior Bride Games Book Three

Margo Bond Collins

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Epilogue

About the Author

Join Margo Online

Read More of Margo’s Books

Claimed for the Alien Bride Lottery

Copyright © 2021 by Margo Bond Collins

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission of the author except where permitted by law.

Published by Dangerous Words Publishing

Cover by Covers by Combs

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author or authors.

Created with Vellum

About Claimed for the Alien Bride Lottery

I thought I’d escaped being given to an alien warrior. I was wrong.

I was one hour away from washing out of the Alien Bride Games.

None of the Khanavai warriors had chosen me, and I was scheduled on the next shuttle off the filming station.

But then a bright red alien passed me in a hallway—and the next thing I knew, we were all over each other.

Bad enough that my name had been drawn in the Bride Lottery.

Now, even though they’re supposedly over, I’m back in the Games. And not the usual ones, either—a whole new set of challenges, just for me.

Guess it’ll make for good television back home.

I just hope I can resist him long enough to get back to Earth, to the people I love.

And that I can keep him from learning my most desperate secret.

The odds aren’t looking good, though…

Readers adore this hot series featuring gorgeous, bright alien heroes and the sassy human women they choose as mates!

Every book in the Khanavai Warrior Bride Games series is a standalone romance. Join these brides as they find a whole new world of happily ever afters.

Chapter One

Mia Jones

My name—the one I have now—never should have been drawn in the Alien Bride Lottery.

The back-alley surgeon who replaced my ID chip promised me it was clean, loaded with the information that I had already been through the Games.

I guess that’ll teach me to trust the word of someone who made a living as a criminal, illegally replacing the chips our world government required all humans to have implanted.

But the night I was transported up to Station 21, I wasn’t at all worried.

I was, however, hot, sweaty, and irritated.

“If you needed unbuttered toast, you should have noted it in the order,” I snapped at Kitty, the waitress on the other side of the passthrough to the kitchen—the one who was currently glaring at me over the plates under the heating lamps.

“Noted it in the order?” she repeated with a sneer, one hand on her hip. “Who talks like that?”

I rolled my eyes and snatched the toast off the plate under discussion, replacing it with unbuttered toast. “There.”

Turning away without waiting for a response, I moved back to the grill. Kitty took the plate with a huff, and as soon as she was gone, I inhaled deeply and blinked away a tear.

I shouldn’t be here at all. I trained at L'école de Cuisine du Chef, the single most prestigious culinary school in Paris. I should have been in a five-star restaurant in New York or London or Los Angeles, astounding patrons with my delectable, edible creations.

Instead, I was in a crappy diner in Atlanta, slinging hash browns and frying eggs.

But it beat the hell out of the alternative.

Yeah—this is infinitely preferable to what I ran from.

As I finished plating the last meal from the grill, voices rising from the dining room caught my attention. Wiping my hands across my apron, I made my way out to the front room to see what was going on.

“It’s the new Bride Lottery,” Kitty announced excitedly, clasping her hands under her chin as she stared up at the television.

I frowned. “Those poor girls.”

Kitty raised one eyebrow. “What do you mean, those poor girls? They are so lucky. They never have to work again. All they have to do is sit and be beautiful for their alien husbands.” She struck a pose. “Can you imagine how wonderful it would be to do nothing but spend all day being waited on hand and foot?”

“You don’t know what happens once the cameras are turned off,” Wanda, one of our regulars said.

I moved over to pat her soft, wrinkled hand. “That’s right, Wanda. I don’t think we know nearly enough about the Khanavai. I bet they’re not as perfect as they pretend to be on TV.”

“I remember the first time they showed up,” she said—not the first time we had all heard the story, but I paid polite attention, anyway.

“The Prince sure was pretty,” she reminisced. “And for the first couple of years, him and his princess were all over the news. It was like a fairytale. Then they just up and disappeared. Hardly ever heard anything at all about their prince again.”

“So you think we shouldn’t trust them?” Kitty asked the old woman.

“Not even a little bit.”

“But it’s not like all that many women end up with Khanavai husbands,” Joey, our busboy reminded us. “A whole lot of women get chosen every year in the Bride lottery, and then a whole lot get sent back down to Earth.”

“Some of them don’t,” Kitty countered. “Some of them gets swept off their feet and taken away to live happily ever after.”

I managed to contain my snort of derision, but only barely.

Happily ever after doesn’t exist. It’s a trick designed to convince women to give up their entire lives for somebody else.

At least, that was my experience.

“Ooh. Vos Klavoii is about to draw another name!” Kitty called out.

I