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

become something close to True Mates through the binding ceremony and sexual bonding time that came afterward.

Human brides were particularly susceptible to creating a True Mates bond with the Khanavai.

Not that I needed the bonding sex. I already knew who my true mate was. I flipped to her screen, listening to her melodious voice as I replayed the moment that had let the entire universe know that she had no interest in mating with a Khanavai warrior.

Natalie Ferguson.

“You’re completely set on her, aren’t you?” Zont asked from his seat beside me, and I realized I’d said my mate’s name aloud.

I leaned over to take a look at his screen to see which brides he’d been perusing.

“Amelia Rivers?” I asked, one brow raised in surprise. “The runaway bride? Can you even choose her?”

Zont grinned. “She’s still in the program. And she’s the one I want.”

“You’re going to have a quark’s eye of a time of it with that one.” My chosen mate might wish she had run—but at least she hadn’t actually done it. ”How do you know for sure that you’re compatible?”

“I have my ways. I pulled her DNA last night, and we are a perfect match. I’ve put in a request with Command Central to allow me to hunt her as part of this year’s Bride Games.” He grinned, flashing the sharp canines his region was known for.

My eyes widened. “That’s quite an effort to put into simply getting a mate.”

Zont rubbed his hands together. “I do enjoy a challenge.”

“Maybe I’m not right for Special Ops, after all.”

Zont’s roar of laughter interrupted Vos Klavoii’s instructions, and the host glared up at the two of us. Zont waved an apology, but the quelling look Vos gave him didn’t stop the other warrior from leaning over to me to say, “You’ve chosen the only other Earther female who announced that she doesn’t want to be here. You cannot tell me that you don’t like a challenge, too, brother.”

“When do you leave for Earth?”

“When the pageant ends, Vos will interview me. As soon as that’s done, I can take a shuttle down to the planet.” A gleam in his eyes suggested he couldn’t wait to get going.

I didn’t blame him.

The longer we waited for the brides to show up to do their pageant, the more irritable I became. All I wanted to do was get on with seducing my mate. Preferably without the possibility of any other warrior adding her to his list of three.

I had finally stopped looking at the other brides’ profiles. I had known from the moment her scent had led me to her in the brides’ quarters that she was the only one here I could possibly mate with.

It was Natalie Ferguson...or no one.

The thought sent a spike of rage racing through my chest.

No. No other warrior would end up mated to my Natalie.

I blew out a breath, trying to funnel my anger into constructive planning. The schedule for this set of games was particularly evocative. Every year, the Games Commission worked to make the contests more sensual. The more readings they could take from the contestants, the better the final matches would be.

“At last,” Zont muttered beside me, and I glanced up to see the brides gathering near the entrance. I hadn’t even noticed when Vos had stopped explaining the games and left to host the upcoming pageant.

“There are almost four hundred potential mates this year,” I reminded him. “You can’t leave yet.”

“No, but the sooner they get started, the sooner it will be over, and I can go capture my own mate.” Zont’s eager expression brought a smile to my face. I knew exactly how he felt.

The pageant itself was simple. Each bride stepped up onto the stage, stated her name, and added any skills she had that might be interesting to a Khanavai warrior. Then she turned slowly, allowing the grooms to examine her and giving the DNA scanners time to both take her measure and send her scent floating over the grooms. Because no matter how beautiful a female might be, everyone knew that in the end, our scent receptors often recognized our mates before our brains did.

As the old Khanavai saying went, the cock follows where the nose leads.

Which reminded me. “What if,” I asked Zont, “you get to Earth and discover your chosen bride smells all wrong?”

The other warrior shrugged. “Then I’ll bring her back to take her rightful place in the games.” His gaze shifted to his screen, where Amelia Rivers’ image still floated. “But it won’t,” he added quietly. “I am as certain that she is mine as if I had scented her already.”

I couldn’t help but nod. Everything about my Natalie had drawn me to her. The way she smelled like Vardish spun sweets, the lush curve of her hips, the heated touch of her lips against mine.

The way she kicked you when you picked her up to kiss her?

I shushed the voice inside my head. But it continued whispering to me, telling me as each woman moved up to the stage and then departed through the exit on the other side that my task might not be as simple as I hoped.

My internal voice’s quiet undermining of my confidence continued until I finally caught sight of Natalie moving through the door and onto the stage.

My eyes widened, taking in every last detail of her pageant-wear.

“She chose Khanavai blue,” I said aloud, my heart leaping in my chest at the honor she’d done me. Her dress matched my skin tones perfectly.

“And a lot of sparkles,” Zont added drily, holding his hand up in front of his eyes as if warding off the flashes of light arcing off her dress.

“Even her skin is dusted in Khanavai blue. And her hair, too.” I knew I sounded overawed, but I couldn’t help it. Her stylists had pulled her dark curls atop her head in a design like a Khanavai jungle bloom and dusted it in the colors of my people.

“With even more sparkles.”