Captured for the Alien Bride Lottery Read online

  Captured for the Alien Bride Lottery

  The Khanavai Warrior Bride Games Book Two

  Margo Bond Collins

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  More Alien Romances from Margo Bond Collins

  Captured for the Alien Bride Lottery

  Copyright © 2020 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 Captured for the Alien Bride Lottery

  I refused to be in the Bride Lottery—so now I’m a runaway bride.

  Somehow, I knew my name was going to be drawn in the Bride Lottery—the hellish agreement that Earth’s leaders had made to sell us to the aliens who protected our planet.

  I’d grown up with the propaganda. It was our civic duty. Men registered for the draft, women registered for the Bride Lottery.

  No way in hell was I going to be handed over to some giant man to be brutalized into bearing his children.

  Instead, I cut out my bio-tracker and walked away from everything.

  I should have realized they’d send one of those hulking, brightly colored aliens to track me down and bring me back.

  Never did I expect that he’d be devastatingly attractive. Or that we’d have to go on the run from the evil Horde trying to destroy both our planets.

  Now that we’re together, can I ever run away again?

  And could he really hand me over to the Bride Games to be taken by another warrior?

  Because I think I might be falling in love…

  Fans of Grace Goodwin, Evangeline Anderson, and Ruby Dixon will love this steamy new 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.

  Prologue

  Zont Lanov

  Four solar days. That’s how long I’d been on Station 21, hoping to find my mate in the Bride Games.

  I’d made my fun where I could, leading my new friend Cav Adredoni on an unauthorized trip down to the arena floor, where he’d certainly found his bride, even if she didn’t realize it yet. But he’d gotten one whiff of her and instantly known she was destined to be his.

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

  Don’t get me wrong—I was having a wonderful time. The entire endeavor was almost as entertaining as a trip to the Clavox Pleasure Mines, where the females all have five breasts and can bend in the most interesting and unusual directions.

  Well, maybe not that entertaining.

  But I was enjoying myself.

  That’s what I kept telling myself, anyway. However, the absence of even one human female who captured my interest—much less my nose or my cock—had begun to weigh on me.

  Maybe I wasn’t destined to find a mate, after all.

  Cav and I sat in the audience, our comscreens focused on the bridal interviews below. Bride after bride stepped up to speak to Vos Klavoii, the Games Administrator. The human women were lovely, in their own way.

  But none was mine.

  I had to fight not to heave an irritated sigh. I was on leave from Special Ops, and I would enjoy my vacation, even if I didn’t find a mate of my own.

  Without warning, all the screens in the stands went blank. I glanced around, instantly on alert for danger. Could this be an attack from the Alveron Horde?

  No, I realized as the screens blinked back on, showing Vos in front of an image of an Earther cityscape. This interruption might not have been planned, but it was definitely executed on purpose.

  “Warriors and women,” Vos said, “Earthers and Khanavai, we have an exciting new development in this year’s Bride Games. Apparently, one of our contestants has run. That’s right—for the first time in all the years we’ve been holding the lottery, a bride has, as the Earthers sometimes say, gone on the lam.”

  The palpable excitement in Vos’s voice echoed out over the stadium and I had to laugh. This was exactly the kind of thrill the devotees of the Bride Games hoped for every year. A gasp went up at the announcement and the brides on the arena floor began chattering among themselves.

  Still…

  “A runner?” I spoke my thought aloud. “How did she manage that?”

  Cav didn’t answer, focused as he was on Vos, who continued talking as the screen behind him changed to show the runaway Bride Lottery winner. “Amelia Rivers is now a wanted fugitive on Earth. She’s originally from Dallas, Texas, but was most recently seen in Las Vegas, Nevada.” His voice dropped. “For those Khanavai watching, that’s in the United States, a country in what the Earthers call the North American continent.”

  I registered the words, but the image of the human female on the screen held my attention. She was…

  Perfect.

  The word popped into my mind, and in that moment, I knew it was true. She was perfect—for me, at least.

  “Las Vegas,” I said slowly. “Isn’t that the pleasure city?”

  Cav shrugged, too anxious to see his own mate’s Bridal Pageant interview to pay much attention to my questions. Fine. I could find out more about Amelia Rivers on my own. I pulled up the program and ran a search for her name.

  She’s stunning.

  And she’s mine.

  I spent that night mapping out my plan of attack and gathering the team I would take with me. A quick consultation with my commanding officer led him to contact Vos to ensure I had the complete cooperation of the Bride Games Administrator.

  Central Command did prefer officers who were happily mated. Stable and settled.

  I simply had to wait until the Bride Pageant ended, and then I could depart Station 21 for Earth.

  It seemed too long a time to spend pacing my quarters, so I joined Cav to watch the brides, arriving just in time to hear Vos instructing the grooms on the rules of the Bride Games.

  Might as well keep myself entertained until it’s time to leave.

  If not for Cav’s determination to win his own bride, I would have invited him to join the operation. But he was far too besotted with her to risk taking time away from the Games.

  I slipped into the seat next to him and turned on my screen to examine Amelia Rivers once again, even though I had already memorized the brief biography in the program.

  “Natalie,” Cav breathed as he flipped to her image on the screen.

  “You’re completely set on her, aren’t you?” I asked. For the first time, I truly understood that overwhelming
desire to focus on one female.

  Cav leaned over to look at my comscreen. “Amelia Rivers?” he asked, sounding surprised. “The runaway bride? Can you even choose her?”

  I 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.” Cav shook his head. “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.” I couldn’t help but grin.

  Cav’s eyes grew wide. “That’s quite an effort to put into simply getting a mate.”

  I wanted to laugh aloud—there was no effort too great to gain this woman—but I simply rubbed my hands together. “I do enjoy a challenge.”

  “Maybe I’m not right for Special Ops, after all.” Cav’s voice turned dejected.

  My roar of laughter interrupted Vos Klavoii’s instructions, and the Administrator glared up at the two of us. I waved an apology, but still leaned in to whisper to Cav, “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.” I couldn’t wait to get going. I leaned back to contemplate how wonderful it would be to have a mate of my own.

  Once I tamed her, of course.

  Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Vos wrapped up his instructions and the brides began to gather at the entrance to the arena. “At last,” I muttered. This was taking forever.

  “There are almost four hundred potential mates this year,” Cav said. “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.”

  Cav smiled as the Bride Pageant began, each bride stepping onto the stage, repeating her name, and listing the skills that made her a viable bride candidate. Then she turned slowly to allow the DNA scanners to take a scent sample and send it out over the room.

  “What if,” Cav asked me, “you get to Earth and discover your chosen bride smells all wrong?”

  I shrugged. “Then I’ll bring her back to take her rightful place in the Games.” I glanced over at Amelia Rivers’ image, still up on my comscreen. “But it won’t,” I added quietly. “I am as certain that she is mine as if I had scented her already.”

  Yes, the nose might lead the cock. But I was in charge of them both—and we were all going to Earth.

  To make Amelia Rivers mine.

  No matter what it took.

  Chapter One

  Amelia Rivers

  I knew it was coming.

  I’m not sure how, but as soon as the screen on my computer went blank and then spun back up with Vos Klavoii’s face smiling brightly at me, I was absolutely certain my name was going to be drawn in the Bride Lottery—the hellish agreement that Earth’s leaders had made to sell us to the aliens who protected our planet.

  I’d grown up with the propaganda. It was our civic duty. Men registered for the draft, women registered for the Bride Lottery.

  Fuck that.

  No way in hell was I going to be handed over to some giant man to be brutalized into bearing his children.

  So I walked away from everything, instead.

  I stood up, pulled on my boots, grabbed my purse and a jacket, and left the Las Vegas hotel room I’d booked for the conference I’d been attending. There was a drugstore nearby on the Strip, so that’s where I headed.

  All around me, screens showed the alien game show host drawing name after name. As I moved along the sidewalk, dodging the tourists who thronged the city even late at night, I kept my head down, praying I could get what I needed before my name came up.

  Inside the store, fluorescent lights buzzed above me as I tossed the things I needed into a basket. A box-cutter. Nail scissors. Alcohol. Needle and thread. Bandages. Hair dye. And at the last minute, a pile of granola bars and a giant bottle of water.

  I half-expected the cashier to comment on my choices, but the tall woman behind the counter barely even glanced at the items as she scanned them.

  I was practically running by the time I got back to my hotel room, and my hands were shaking as I dumped everything out onto the counter in the bathroom.

  What I was about to do was as illegal as it gets. And I was sure there would be physical and mental repercussions, as well. But at that moment, I didn’t care.

  I’m a doctor. I can do this, even to myself.

  Taking a deep breath, I counted to ten as I exhaled. I was a surgeon, and I’d done plenty of minor excisions. My hands stopped trembling, and I reached up to make the first incision about an inch behind my ear, hissing sharply as the pain hit. But I breathed past it and kept going. I’d have to stay steady to cut the wires that led into my brain.

  Less than ten minutes later, I dropped my biochip into the toilet and flushed it away. With any luck, authorities would try to chase it down as it washed through the Las Vegas sewers, giving me time to get away.

  I stitched up the wound I’d created with the needle and thread. I’d rinsed it all in isopropyl alcohol first, but I’d still need to keep an eye on it for any infection. Luckily, the conference had been rife with pharmaceutical reps handing out sample meds like they were candy. There were bound to be a few antibiotics in there if I needed them.

  After I’d taped a bandage over the whole grisly mess, I glanced around the bathroom. It looked like a crime scene with blood smeared across the counter. With a shrug, I moved into the bedroom, trying to decide what to take.

  My computer? Phone? God, they’d be able to trace me with those.

  Better get a burner phone.

  I grabbed the biggest shoulder bag in the room—one with a pharmaceutical company’s logo on it, a conference-attendee gift—and threw two changes of clothes into it, along with all the sample packages of meds, including more than one antibiotic, and my drugstore purchases.

  The television was still playing in the background, and Vos had just drawn another name. “Amelia Rivers,” he announced.

  I turned around as if in a trance. There it was. My face on the screen behind him.

  Shit. Time to go.

  No time to dye my hair, either. Maybe I could duck into a casino bathroom for that. Or better yet, find a way to do it at the airport—assuming I got that far.

  But before I left the room, there was one last thing I needed to do. Moving in front of the bathroom mirror, I lifted my long, blonde ponytail. Then I used the nail scissors to snip it off. I shook my remaining hair out. It was a shaggy mess, but at least I looked a little less like myself than usual.

  I carried the ponytail out of the room and dropped it in a trashcan as I bypassed the elevators and opened the stairwell door.

  “Here goes nothing,” I whispered to myself as I headed down.

  The heavy door closed behind me with a final-sounding click as I walked away from everything I’d ever known.

  I marched down the Strip, moving as quickly as possible. The farther away from my own hotel I got, the better it would be for me. I swung into a casino hotel, one of the smaller ones, and hid in a bathroom stall, dying my hair a dark burgundy red.

  Yet another blood-red scene I’m leaving behind.

  No one came in while I rinsed out the excess dye in a sink, and at the last minute, I stripped off my white button-down shirt, balled it up, and ran it through the dyed water, just in case anyone at the conference remembered what I’d been wearing that day.

  When I squeezed the excess water out, the shirt was a weird shade of pink with darker burgundy streaks running through it. I pulled a t-shirt out of my bag to wear and held the now-pink shirt under the hand dryer.

  I blotted my hair and dried i
t, at least a little, under the air-blower for hands. I surveyed the results in the mirror.

  I definitely didn’t look like myself any longer. I looked exactly like the rebel I had never been, not once in my entire life.

  Now I have to get out of Las Vegas.

  I had already abandoned my plan to head to the airport. I couldn’t fly—they were too careful about checking IDs. Same with renting a car.

  Buses, I decided. Maybe Greyhound would be less stringent with their ID requirements.

  When I walked through the hotel lobby and stopped to ask the concierge for directions to the bus station, he barely glanced at me before offering me a map and the information I’d requested. He might remember me later, but it was a random stop, so it might be months before anybody figured out they needed to talk to him in particular.

  Luckily, the bus station was within easy walking distance. I hated to blow any of my limited cash on a taxi. I slipped my still-damp shirt over my t-shirt and walked with my head down, avoiding eye contact with anyone else.

  The bus station in Vegas was cleaner than I anticipated. Not that I’d ever ridden on a public bus before. I ground the heels of my hands into my eyes, suddenly feeling tired.

  Maybe it would be easier to give myself up, go through the Bride Games.

  The thought made my stomach clench.

  I’m just tired, I told myself. It was well after midnight by this point. I’d feel better once I got out of Vegas.

  At least the desert air had mostly dried the shirt I’d dyed.