Deceit: BBW Alien Lottery Romance (Chosen by the Karal Book 1) (3 page)

“Put me down,” she said as he began to move towards the ship.

“No.”

“I can walk.”

“With the condition you are in, you will not even be able to crawl into my ship.” His voice was level, but held a hint of accusation.

He had never had any feelings for humans. They were destructive and selfish. A view held by the majority of his species. The one thing they were any good for was breeding. It was the only reason he had gone along with the need to find a way to rejuvenate their world, although that was looking more and more impossible.

When they chose him to be the first Karalian to take a mate from this overpopulated world, he had been horrified. What did he want with one of these women? Only the consolation that once he had put his child in her belly she would be taken to the breeding centre consoled him. Then, when the child was born, it would be raised by his species while she was given to another Karalian so that their DNA would gain diversity.

This last part was never disclosed to the people of Earth. By the time the nine months incubation was complete and his child was born, they would either have found a way to help the Earth, and be seen as saviours, who were more than entitled to a hundred thousand breeding females as payment, or they would have sent their warriors down and taken the prime breeding females for themselves. The wormhole would be closed and the sorry planet would be left to become barren.

All this was before he had held this woman in his arms. She had brought a change in him; the touch of her skin on his had awakened the primal need to procreate. And he hated her for it. Hated the way he felt as if he needed to nurture her, protect her, and provide for her. Those were feelings he only wanted for the child they would produce.

Worse, he could feel his emotions covering his skin, flashes of colours he could not control as his feelings toward her did battle. He felt useless and out of control. A thing the Karalians had never had to cope with before. They lived long, and the mating cycle was something they only had to deal with every century or so as the current wave of their species reached their prime. They would breed, raise the next generation, and then die in sixty years or so.

It was the way their life cycle worked. This meant there was never any overcrowding on their beloved planet. They lived and bred within their means. Unlike these humans.

She must carry some kind of hormone that made him feel like this. He was beginning to understand why they bred so indiscriminately. The scent of their women produced the need to mate. A need for sexual satisfaction, whilst the Karalians were raised to only mate when the need for the new generation arose. He could see why females were always isolated on his planet and only allowed to be within the population when they were needed to breed.

In short, this woman was a drug, and he was about to become addicted.

“You can put me down now,” she said, her words breaking through his reverie.

He did, almost dropping her, a hot rock that would burn him if he held it too long. Already he felt as though she had branded him with her touch. Yet, when she stumbled forward at the abruptness of his actions, he found himself reaching out to save her once more.

She shrugged him off, instead placing her hand on the smooth wall of the cruiser to regain her balance.

“So are you going to shut the door and take off?” one of the other females asked excitedly.

“Of course.” He watched his female, the one called Elissa, as she let the pain show on her face once she thought he was no longer watching her. She had no idea he didn’t need to watch her face to see her emotions; they spread out like waves from her body.

He picked up these waves on his skin, the hairs on his arms working like small receptors to translate these messages to his brain. At this moment, Elissa, the woman responsible for the death of two Karalians, was terrified. Yet in amongst this terror, a strong thread of deceit ran. She was hiding something, and as he sat at his controls, readying his ship to fly, he realised the Hierarchy were wise to pluck her from the Earth.

She would need to be dealt with appropriately so that she never became a threat to their species again. Maybe it was an ironic fate that she would be used to breed more of the very species she wanted to destroy. He only hoped that when the time came, he would have the strength to give her up.

How had this happened?
That was the only thought going through her head as she sat, tightly strapped into a seat. She felt the downward pull as the ship prepared to hurtle them straight into the air, and closed her eyes tight. She had never even experienced air travel before, so why would she ever want to go in one of these death traps? Travelling at anything above twenty miles an hour was just wrong to her.

Elissa liked the way the average speed on Earth had dropped due to fuel shortages and congestion. Compound that with the belief that if they were meant to leave the ground, they would have evolved with wings like those, now-extinct, birds used to have, she felt wrong. But then she was in an alien craft, with an alien—of course it was wrong.

She groaned inwardly. The ship shot straight up into the air, leaving more than her stomach on the ground, and all around her Tikki and Reja whooped for all they were worth. Maybe she should try swapping places with Tikki. This Karalian hadn’t asked her what her name was; maybe Tikki could fool him. Or maybe he would prefer the fun-loving Tikki as his mate and go along with the deception. But then Tikki would be in danger. Elissa knew she would have to find the courage to endure space travel, and to pay the price for her crimes.

In seconds, they were going back down to Earth, and if her hands weren’t hurting so much, she would have been gripping the arms of her seat. Instead, she held them close to her chest, cradling herself for comfort. Damn, she was a wimp; the aliens would bend her to their will in no time.

The ship landed safely, and Tikki and Reja were out of their seats, heading for the control deck to flirt with the Karalian. Elissa wondered, when he opened the door of the ship, whether she would be better to just run for it. She could escape into the pits and live out her days underground. The tunnels went on for miles; they would never find her.

Yet, as the exit deck opened, she finally understood there would be no escape. Because here, in more numbers than outside her apartment building, were the StreamTeams. She recognised some of the more famous Streamers, their cameras and microphones ready. Elissa wanted to run to the Karalian and tell him to take her straight to his planet now; she didn’t even need to pack.

A fresh wave of panic came over her, and in an instant, the Karalian was at her side. “Are you going to faint?”

“No. I just need a minute.” She lowered her head between her knees, and took deep breaths, trying to let the blood flow back into her brain.

“She gets like this. No good at travelling,” said Tikki. The two women had come back from the control deck, looking a little upset that the Karalian had deserted them.

“So why did you enter the lottery?” he asked, and it was such a reasonable question, but she couldn’t tell the truth. She was sure in the terms and conditions of the lottery, there would be a big paragraph detailing the punishments for fraud. She couldn’t do that to her sister.

“I guess I never expected to win,” she said—well, that was the truth—but then she added, “And everyone else was doing it, so I thought why not?”

Did she sound like the dumbest female ever? She would probably be rejected at customs when they landed on the planet Karal for being too dumb to be the mother of a Karalian child. She swallowed, suddenly feeling a wave of nausea about to hit her. There was no way she wanted to puke on camera, not in front of the whole world. Damn, she wished she could restart this day.

But he was there once more, offering her some kind of stimulant. But she didn’t want it. Not from him. “I’m fine.”

“It will stop the sickness. I think it would be best if we walked off the ship together. And alone.” He looked pointedly at Tikki and Reja, and then said, “This is supposed to bring our people together.”

“So you can look like the big hero?” Elissa asked acidly. She must be feeling better.

“No. I think the fact that you tried to slit your wrists to prevent you being my mate might dampen my hero status.”

Elissa opened her mouth but found no words. It was Tikki who stepped in and spoke. “She spilt hot SimCoff on her hands. The shock of winning, you know.”

He looked at Tikki, staring at her for a few minutes, the colour flashing across his skin now blue. “Very well, I believe you. It was just not as I expected.”

“That makes two of us,” Elissa said.

Again, that pause while he seemed to process her words. “Very well.”

She stood up and walked towards the waiting Streamers. “Wait, how did they know we were coming here?”

“They track my ship. I have to submit a destination before I can take off. Although, still, it was quick.”

“I bet the transponder picked up your name when I Tabbed in the emergency too. I guess that was why the paramedics were delayed; someone wanted to make sure there was enough time for the paps to be here before you arrived.”

“Damn it, I can’t believe I have to take part in this media circus.” When she looked up at the Karalian, she saw his face read the same expression and the colour of his skin had changed to grey. If he was a man, his looks and body would have made him sought-after on Earth; he would have earned millions and been in one of those pents that Tikki liked to drool over. It would have made him corrupt and so self-assured he would never have even lowered himself to speak to three ‘skims’. Instead, he fitted right in with them; he was anxious and nervous of their trial by camera.

Elissa found herself warming to him and in some ways feeling sorry for him; maybe the idea of all this was almost as abhorrent to him as it was to her. Why had he been chosen, or was he a volunteer? All this time she thought they did not experience feelings and emotions, but in the few short minutes she had been in his company she realised that this was not true. They were simply good at concealing them. Perhaps she would fit in better with the Karalians than she ever did with the people on Earth. Elissa was the queen of covering up her true emotions; it was the reason no one thought she knew how to smile.

“It is a short walk to the hospital building. Let us go and get it over with. Your hands need treatment. Can you walk?” he asked, his voice returning to emotionless.

“Yes, I think so.” She stood up, feeling the throbbing in her hands and knowing she looked ridiculous with them wrapped up as they were. Parting the towel, she looked at the skin to see if it would be better to uncover them. Immediately she wished she hadn’t; the morphalite had done its job to stem the pain. The reason that they were throbbing so badly was that they were burnt more than she had realised. “Oh, shit.”

The Karalian took her arm, giving her support, and then propelled her out of his cruiser without asking her permission. He walked down the gangway and then headed directly to the hospital main doors while cameras flashed all around them. Only briefly did he stop and give a wave to the cameras, saying “smile” to her. Which she obediently did. Then he moved them forward, the crowds parting to allow them access to the hospital. Once inside, she staggered under the bright lights, finding her head thumping and the world going dim.

***

When she woke again, the pain in her hands had gone, so had most of her senses. She was in a drug-induced state of euphoria. Only when the events of earlier came back, did her perfect mood escape her, despite her trying to clutch hold of it and hang onto it with all her strength. Just a few more minutes of senseless happiness would have been perfect.

She closed her eyes, trying to regain the numbness, but the moment had passed and she stopped fighting the urge to open her eyes and assess the situation. The very situation she needed to assess was sat watching her from the corner of the room.

“How long have I been here?” she asked, her mouth not quite her own.

“A day. They kept you drugged. They treated your hands, but the skin is badly damaged. It will scar.”

“Good thing I don't have to rely on my looks to get a man anymore then, isn't it?” she joked, but a tear rolled down her cheek. She tried to lift her hand to wipe it away, but of course she couldn’t. It trickled down her cheek to sit in a pool in the hollow of her collarbone. Another one welled up in her eye and followed the same track to join it. She felt utterly lost.

Her friends had left, thank goodness, and now he was alone with her. The Hierarchy had told him to stay put, not to let her out of his sight. They hadn't said why, however, he had an idea. There were, no doubt, death threats against her; the people of Earth always liked those. What the Hierarchy didn’t know was whether they were real, or if they were simply to lay a trail that would divert them away from what this woman was intending to do.

In the dark hours he had watched her through the night, he had thought things through. Now he wondered if they had read too much into her—after all, how could the resistance know she would be chosen? Maybe it was a huge gamble, yet the feelings he received from her told him she saw it as a big mistake. Still the undercurrent of deceit flowed, even when she dreamed.

He got up from his chair and walked to her bedside. “Did you do this on purpose,” he asked, touching the bandages covering her hands very lightly.

“No,” she said through choked tears.

He knew the drugs would make her drowsy, he also knew that this was the most information he was ever likely to get out of her. Once the drugs were out of her system, then she would put up her defences and he would be faced with a wall. A wall with chinks, yes; she wasn’t that skilled in keeping her emotions in check. But he knew she had some training in that area, and this was the easiest way for him to extract information. Without torture, but they had decided not to go down that route unless absolutely necessary.