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

Cav continued whispering soothing noises to me, nonsense phrases that still seemed comforting in the safety of his arms, and kept moving.

“Please don’t take me back to any cameras,” I finally sniffled. “I don’t think I could stand it.”

“I’m not.” His deep voice rumbled in his chest underneath my cheek. “I’m taking you to part of the backstage area that never gets filmed.” He paused at a doorway. “But we’re about to go through the public area, just for a little while.”

I nodded and let my hair fall to cover my face, pressing my forehead against his chest to hide my face.

Part of me knew it was stupid to trust any of the Khanavai. At this point, I was convinced they were all brutish beasts. What kind of culture believed it was foreplay to beat their partners?

And yet I felt safe with Cav.

He carried me effortlessly through the space station, the noises around us getting quieter and quieter the farther we got away from the main thoroughfares and the filming areas.

By the time he took me into a quiet, dark stairwell, my sobbing had subsided to the occasional hiccup. When we got to the top step, he simply sat down, holding me in his lap.

A long moment of silence stretched between us until I finally wiggled a little to let him know I was ready to crawl off his lap.

This wasn’t an appropriate way for us to be sitting together, anyway. It was far too intimate for me.

I sat gingerly, my ass still sore from the beating Banana-Man had given me.

“I’m very sorry Tiziani hurt you,” Cav said. “That was dishonorable. He should never have been allowed to touch you without your permission.”

“They locked me in.” Even though I knew Cav hadn’t done it, I still sounded accusatory.

The giant blue warrior next to me nodded. “That was a very poorly done of them.”

“What the hell is wrong with your planet?” I demanded. “You beat your women for pleasure?”

Cav shook his head sadly. “When the spanking ceremony is done correctly, it can be very erotic—for both participants.”

“I don’t believe you. Anything that hurts is not sexy.”

One corner of his mouth tilted up, and that slightly wicked gleam reappeared in his eyes as he gave me a sidelong look. “If it hurts, it’s not being done right,” he suggested, his voice dropping even lower. “And I would never hurt you. Not under any circumstances.”

“I can’t go back into that room. I won’t.” My voice started to rise, beginning to turn shrill.

Cav reached over and gently grasped one of my hands in both of his, holding on loosely enough that I knew I could pull away at any moment. “I agree. That would be far too traumatic. I think we should find Vos and his people and let them know that we are requesting a different game.”

“Can they do that? Will they?”

He shrugged. “They can do anything they want to. It’s just a question of whether or not they will.”

“Whose idiotic idea was it to have all you giant alien men striking human women?”

“Certainly not mine.” He traced the outline of my hand with one of his enormous fingers, and his touch was gentler than I would have imagined possible.

We sat there for a long time in silence as I tried to regain my composure.

“Okay,” I finally said shakily. “Let’s go make the request.”

“Are you sure you’re recovered enough to deal with talking to the Games Administrator?”

“Oh, yes. I have a lot of things I want to say to him.”

A soft chuckle emanated from Cav. This was a completely different man from the one who had ripped me out of Banana-Man’s arms and tossed the other alien into a wall. That one had been enraged. Violent.

Protective.

This version of Cav was also protective—just not furious.

So maybe the two versions were not completely different.

He stood and held out his hand to help me to my feet. My legs shook, my eyes were puffy, and my ass still stung, but I would survive. I suspected I would feel a lot better after I had the chance to give the Bride Games designers a piece of my mind.

“I think maybe they were trying to inject some more excitement into the games,” Cav speculated as we made our way out of the stairwell.

“More exciting? Why would they want to do that?”

“The Bride Games have been getting more competitive every year. Initially, these games were simply a way to make sure the brides were matched with the best possible mates. They were not originally intended to be entertainment.”

“But once they became entertainment,” I continued, figuring out where he was going with the idea, “they had to keep viewers coming back year after year. So the edgier the games, the more viewers?”

“Exactly.” Cav led me down a series of long corridors decorated in the bright shades the Khanavai preferred. It took us quite a bit longer to retrace our steps than it had taken us to get there in the first place. I glanced down at Cav’s muscled thighs flashing out from beneath his kilt-like uniform. I had to take three steps for each one of his. And given how angry he’d been, there was no telling how quickly he’d been moving when he rescued me.

I also hadn’t realized that Cav had taken me through some of the most public areas of the station.

When we stepped out into a kind of food court, a wall of food scents hit me, and my mouth started watering. I hadn’t eaten much of my lunch, and I was beginning to come down from the adrenaline-spike of trying to fight off Banana-Man.

Cav glanced down at me. “You hungry, little one?”

“Actually, yes, I am,” I realized. “Thirsty, too.”

“Wait for me here. I’ll get something.” He ushered me to what was probably a cozy two-person table for the Khanavai but could have been a dinner table for four back on Earth. I dropped down into the oversized chair as Cav walked toward one