Deceit: BBW Alien Lottery Romance (Chosen by the Karal Book 1) (2 page)

“It was me.” She brought her big blue eyes up to meet Elissa’s.

“What was you?”

“I entered you into the lottery,” she admitted, avoiding Elissa’s stunned look. “I’m sorry.”

“You know how I feel about the Karal. I don’t want any part of them. I certainly don’t want to go and be their brood mare.”

“I did it so that I could go.”

“What?” Elissa wondered if the pain in her hands had affected her ability to process information.

“Yes, we swap. Come on, we look the same, that picture of yours was old, maybe two years ago when you were my age now. So I go instead, if I smile a lot, they’ll think that was why I look a little different. You never knew how to work the camera like I do.”

“Tikki, how could you be so stupid?” Elissa said, not wanting to argue with her sister, but feeling totally let down.

“I want a better life … and I never expected you to be chosen. I mean, what were the chances? The planet’s population has barely slowed down since it crashed through the ten-billion barrier. Over half of them are women, so you can imagine how many names were in the system.”

“But they will know. How did you think you could fool them?”

“How? Look, this is perfect, we swap IDs. You go to the hospital and I’ll go to Karal.”

She made it all sound so easy: just swap IDs and swap lives. But there was no way she could let Tikki take her place, not if the real reason Elissa had been chosen was so that they could torture the information she had on the resistance out of her. There was also one other huge problem which Tikki had overlooked. “They use our DNA, Tikki; the tags, you know.”

Tikki paled, reaching up to her neck to feel the small scar they all carried. “I never thought.”

“Of course you didn’t. That’s because you don’t buy into all these conspiracy theories.”

“The system has been down for the last ten years.”

“It seems the Karal have given the Presidency the funds to kick-start it. No doubt for their own use. But it’s how they plan to check the authenticity of anyone who goes to Karal.” She laughed ironically. “They don’t want to let anyone dangerous in.”

“Oh, Elissa, I had no idea. Maybe you can just tell them. Explain to them what’s happened. They can do the draw again.”

However, as they reached the lobby of their dilapidated building, it was obvious it was too late for that. Cameras flashed, voices called to her, asking her how she felt to be the luckiest woman on the planet. And there, in amongst all of it, was one of
them
, a Karalian.

Marin stood nervously next to his cruiser. He was trying to keep his emotions in check, not easy when there was a baying mob of people only feet away. Now he stood waiting to see the woman who would be his mate in the flesh, the same woman who was responsible for the deaths of two of his species.

He had landed as soon as it was announced who had won the lottery. The fact that he had made it here so fast should attract no attention. The people of Earth knew how fast a Karalian space cruiser could move. So, as far as he was aware, there would be no conspiracy theories. No one would guess that he had known for two weeks who his mate would be.

Elissa Sergeant. Responsible for one of the biggest resistance rallies since they had arrived. A rally which had ended up with ten humans dead when someone set off a bomb close to the Karalian embassy. They didn’t know, but the shockwave from the blast had resulted in two Karalian deaths too. Something his people did not take lightly. But they had kept the news contained. To the Earthlings who policed departure and arrivals, his fellow Karalians had simply gone back to their home planet.

He could understand the resistance to change, but he was tired of having these people try to kill Karalians when they had come here to help. Yes, they needed the females to breed with, but in return, his people were trying to save the human race from its own destruction. Although, sometimes he questioned if they were truly worth it. And that was why he had been chosen to be the first “husband” for an Earth woman.

The Hierarchy, who ruled his people, wanted to know if the two species could come together from opposite viewpoints and find common ground. If it proved impossible, they would do what they had done before, take as many breeding women as they needed for the next generation of Karalians and leave the Earth to die, along with all its inhabitants.

But that was a last resort. It would mean a search for another compatible species would resume, something they were all tiring of. The Universe was a big place, and they had explored a large portion of it without success. The new policy was to save the planet and enough of its inhabitants, to set up a breeding programme, which would make his species sustainable for generations.

The best thing for the two species would be if they found a way to form a symbiotic relationship. But as he watched the woman he was destined to mate with come out of the rundown building she lived in, he was never more uncertain. Just as in every picture he had ever seen of her, she was scowling. The look in her eyes, when they met his, told him her thoughts exactly. She wanted him and every other Karalian dead.

So why had she entered the damn lottery? That was his first mission. To find out what exactly the female hellion was planning, and stop it before any more lives were lost.

Elissa swallowed, suddenly nervous. What if he didn’t like her?
It doesn’t matter
, her inner voice said. Yet when she looked at him, her heart beat a little more rapidly and her breath quickened. She blamed it on the terrible air quality down here, but she knew he affected her in ways no Earth man could. From what she had read, these Karalians were more like the Earthmen of old, when they had the strength and ability to defend themselves. Now the men of Earth were shadows of their former selves, with many of them born infertile. Unfortunately, that had done nothing to slow the population growth. It seemed once it had hit critical mass over a century ago, there was no slowing it.

“Oh my goodness, that’s him,” Reja said, almost overcome with desire for the tall, dark-haired Karalian approaching them. The glare from flashing cameras hardly seemed to faze him. At least from the look on his face, but a spark of colour crossed his skin, making Reja gasp in near euphoria. “Oh my goodness,” she breathed again.

Elissa searched through the crowd of faces for the paramedics, her hands really beginning to throb now. But there was nothing, no sign of blue lights, only the flashes from the paps as they all vied to get the first contact between the lottery winner and her prize.

“Come on, sweetheart, give him a kiss,” someone shouted from the crowd.

“You’ll be doing a bit more than that soon, love. If I give you my card, will you give me an exclusive on what it’s like to be fucked by a creature from another planet?”

Elissa looked at the alien in front of her, who, despite his hard-toned physique, looked like a hunted animal. For the first time she saw the human race through his eyes. They must seem like a baying mob, all after a piece of the action, selfish and uncaring.

He took a step towards her, and then he saw her hands, still wrapped in the ragged towels from her apartment. “You are hurt. You need attention.”

“We called the paramedics,” Reja said, sidling up next to him, for now forgetting that Elissa was hurt and in need of help. Her eyes had widened and she couldn’t help but reach out and touch him. Colour skimmed his face, reds and blues, as if waves were washing under his skin. His face hardened, and he returned to the neutral flesh colour they normally assumed.

Despite her sore hands, and her distrust of the Karalians, she had to admit a faint fascination awakening inside her. She was an educated scientist, yes; she concentrated on the regeneration of the planet, examining how they were supposed to feed a population of ten billion and more, but he was still something she would love to study. To find out all the ways they were the same, and all the ways they were different.

“Elissa.” He said her name; it made her feel beautiful. Damn, she would have to watch herself, their innate ability to charm anyone they talked to seemed to be taking ahold of her already. She had to find a way to keep her mind her own. She would need to stock up on SimCoff before she left. It was rumoured to stimulate the brain just enough to ward them off; it was why she had become addicted to the stuff.

“I need a doctor,” she said bluntly, not really feeling up to a whole photo shoot at this moment.

“Here, we can go in my space cruiser.” His cruiser was multi-purpose, it could drive like a car, hover over water and fly into space. She had seen it on one of those documentaries about the Karalians, which were always on the Stream. Most of it computer generated, filled with unsubstantiated theories; the Karal kept their planet’s coordinates secret and their technology closely guarded.

Right now, this alien looked as if he longed to get into his cruiser, take off into space, and run home to his own planet. However, he had to play out his part in this infernal sham of a lottery, they both did. So instead, he moved towards his cruiser, walking backwards to check they were following. Although there was no stopping Reja and Tikki, they practically ran after him, leaving her forgotten. Yes, she would have to be careful of the charm he would lay on humans so thickly, or she would be his to manipulate and question until she spilled all of her secrets.

She knew she had to object to going with him in his cruiser. Elissa needed time to get her thoughts together and formulate a plan.
To do what?
She had sworn never to get involved in the resistance again. She would have to go along with her new life. However, she would do it on her own timetable.

“No. I want to wait for the paramedics.” This outburst signalled another round of camera flashes. Elissa could just imagine the front pages of the news streams tomorrow. This picture would flash up on the illuminated billboards with the headline “Lottery winner loses out in love” or something equally ridiculous. “It’s just, the paramedics are already on their way.”

“They aren’t here, though, Elissa. And his cruiser is,” Tikki said, pointing at the Karalian. Coming back to Elissa, she pretended to help her. Then she whispered in her ear. “Look, I have lost out on being the one to go to the planet. Will you at least let me have a ride in his god-damn spaceship? At least this way I might get to sell my story and get out of this hovel we live in.”

“Tikki, I’m sorry.” Elissa knew how much this meant to her sister.

“It’s OK. It’s not exactly your fault, is it? But count this as a consolation prize, or a going-away gift. Maybe I might meet one of them myself and he might fall for me.”

“That would only happen if they had emotions.”

“They do, didn’t you see the way the colour swept over his skin?” Tikki was awestruck; he might have been a StreamStar, rather than an alien, by the way she acted.

“They have reactions, not emotions, never forget that,” Elissa warned.

“You sound like Harri. He corrupted you, you know that?” Although Tikki had only met Harri, Elissa’s ex-boyfriend once, he had left an overwhelming impression on her. Not hard when his views on the aliens were filled with hard-line rhetoric against the Karal, while Tikki wanted to fall in love with everything about them. Tikki had taken an instant dislike to Harri for this very reason, and so the sisters had kept apart for months.

Tikki however, had made a good judgement call. Harri had proved dangerous and Elissa had spent the last few months trying to forget everything about him and his views. Right now, the mention of Harri’s name was enough to make her move forward towards the cruiser. Anything to stop Tikki discussing Elissa’s ex-boyfriend here in front of hundreds of reporters, no doubt armed with the latest listening equipment.

As she went the short distance to the cruiser, she convinced herself there wasn’t much about Earth she would miss. Except for the sunsets over the sea. But the people... Not so much. She had only a few close friends, and Tikki of course, but the rest of the population, she sometimes wondered why she worked to save them at all.

It was a crowded place, and they mined and farmed the world to death. In some ways the planet reminded her of herself since that fateful day when she became a mass murderer. Empty and shallow, no longer of any use.

“Elissa,” Tikki said, bringing her back to the present. “Are you OK?”

Elissa looked down at her hands, the pain was getting worse and the constant flashing of cameras made her disoriented. Trying to pull herself together, she stepped forward falteringly. The morphalite had entered her blood stream, affecting her heart rate and leaving her with palpitations. She had the intense need to sit down, right here in the middle of the lottery circus.

Somewhere, there was a space ship she was supposed to get on
. She started to giggle, that was the most ridiculous thing in the world. That she, one of the people who had been behind the resistance for so many months, was now going to get on one of their cruisers so that he could take her to the hospital. What was the point, they were only going to kill her anyway. So why not do it now?

Behind her, there were calls of,
“What’s wrong, Elissa? Changed your mind?”

She knew she should turn around and tell them that she had never entered the lottery and that the whole thing had been a setup. It was the only way to save her own skin. Yet just as she was about to do that, the dark shadow of the cruiser lit up, and she could just make out the silhouettes of Tikki and Reja going up the shallow ramp and disappearing into the belly of the small craft.

She needed to go, to make sure they were safe and they weren’t about to be held responsible for her crimes. But her legs had pins and needles and they were refusing to work. Damn, she was falling apart, and falling down. Yes, the ground was definitely getting closer.

Then something wrapped itself around her, lifted her off the ground and carried her forward. Elissa couldn’t focus properly, but she could see enough to know who had rescued her from hitting the ground. The Karalian was cradling her against him, her curvy body resting against his hard-toned chest.