Entered in the Alien Bride Lottery by Margo Collins (best large ebook reader TXT) 📗

I scowled but didn’t bother answering. If I’d made a bad impression, I was glad of it.

Not that anything in the blue alien’s expression suggested he was put off by my words.

I shoved the thought down and kept walking.

It’s not like I care what he thinks, anyway.

The makeover room, like the small bedroom I’d been given earlier, was decorated in varying shades of white, with lots of lace and other bridalesque touches. The only color in the room came from a series of posters featuring Khanavai warriors posing behind ovals featuring the Bride Lottery logo.

I rubbed my temples with the fingers of both hands, hoping to scrub away the incipient headache threatening to form. I flopped down in the makeup chair Drindl indicated. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

In the mirror in front of me, I saw Drindl and Plofnid cast each other hopeless glances. I almost hoped they saw me as unredeemable. If they couldn’t do anything with me, then maybe the Khanavai warriors would feel the same way and I could go the fuck home sooner rather than later.

I brushed my hand over my eyes, willing away the angry thoughts as I sat down in front of the mirror at the Earth-style hair and makeup station.

Of course, it wasn’t really a mirror. I’d seen enough Bride Games to know that it was recording everything that happened. The grooms would be interviewed, and everything would be cut and mixed in post-production to highlight the drama of a new group of brides being chosen as mates for the Khanavai warriors.

If I thought it would do any good, I’d pick a fight with one of the other brides.

But I knew better.

Hell, after my interview, I was probably short-listed as a final candidate. I knew better than to draw attention to myself. The best way to disappear from the games was to be boring. Bland. A giant nothing.

Apparently, the Khanavai warriors liked their women feisty.

Yuck.

Behind me, Drindl and Plofnid conferred quietly—probably trying to figure out how to make that horrific dress of mine look good despite my best efforts.

“We are ready,” Drindl finally trilled out in her Tinkerbell voice. Standing behind me, she pulled my hair back out of my face, showcasing my face. I looked pale, a slight greenish tinge to my skin. Nothing like a Khanavai’s bright turquoise color, of course. Just enough to make me look unhealthy.

She tapped a few buttons on the control panel attached to the cart beside her, and an image of the sparkly turquoise blue dress revolved in the top right corner of the mirror-screen as Vos’s voice narrated.

“Natalie Ferguson has chosen this mermaid-cut dress in Khanavai blue by our very own designer Krelix,” he said. I noticed he left out the usual accolades about how gorgeous I would look in it, and I had to push down a snicker. “Drindl,” Vos continued, “What will you and Plofnid be doing in your makeover?”

Plofnid pulled up a short step stool to be able to reach the top of my head. “We’ll be adding a wash to her hair, both to bring out the shine and to tame these wild curls of her,” the small alien said.

“And I don’t want to give away too much,” Drindl said, “but we’ll be giving her a dramatic evening look.”

“Well,” Vos said in his deep, smarmy tones, “I can’t wait to see what you do with the woman who wishes she’d run.”

I rolled my eyes. I was never going to get past that, was I?

With a flourish, Drindl spun me around so I couldn’t stare miserably into the mirror-cam any longer. “Let’s get going!” she said, and I realized she was as much of a showperson as Vos.

“Sounds great,” I muttered, and Plofnid threw an irritated glance in my direction.

So what? Could I help it if I wasn’t thrilled about being stolen away from my home planet and dropped into my idea of hell?

Still, it wasn’t the stylists’ fault. I should probably manage to be nicer to them.

Maybe.

I blew out a breath as they rolled me over to a hair-washing station, dropped the back of my chair down, and settled me over a basin.

This could be worse, I tried to console myself. I could be here hoping to win.

Chapter Eight

Cav

My mate wishes she had run.

I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. Even when Vos Klavoii called all the grooms together to go over the Bride Games schedule, I found myself worrying about my chosen mate’s words.

Vos had gathered us in the arena stands, where we would stay during the brides’ first official act of the Bride Games—The Bridal Pageant. In previous years, I’d heard that it was based on some old Earther tradition, a beauty pageant. It seemed unnecessary to me, but there were other grooms who had not yet seen a bride they hoped to mate with.

After the pageant, the brides would retire for the evening, during which time their tracking software would be upgraded to read their every emotion and physical reaction. While that was going on, each groom would mark his top three bride choices, and if their DNA was a match, the grooms would be allowed to participate in the games in order to win the right to mate with the bride.

Really, it was as much a competition for us as it was for them, though apparently the brides didn’t see it that way.

Bored with Vos’s droning on about the rules of the Bride Games—something that every Khanavai warrior knew by heart—I turned on my seat screen and began flipping through the brides in the database.

Three. That was the magic number. Only rarely did a groom fail to make a genetic match with at least one of his chosen brides.

Of course, the best matches were those between True Mates. Not everyone experienced that, however—some simply made a life the best way they could. Even that wasn’t so bad once they engaged in mating sex. It was entirely possible to