Alien's Bride 1-3 (9 page)

Even if I wanted to.

“Tell me about yourself,” Elentinus said.
 

He used a crescent shaped utensil, like a sharp half-spoon, to dig into his fish and I followed suit.

“Oh, uh, geez.
 
Where do I start?”
 
The fish broke apart into tender flakes.
 
“I was in the Peace Corps for two years.
 
I’d only been out for a few weeks when you…got me.”

“Go earlier than that.
 
Start with your childhood.”

I chewed for a few seconds while trying to come up with a way to change the topic.
 
Commenting on the pretty floor tiles would have made my discomfort too obvious.
 
Unless a spider ran across the table I was probably stuck.

“Okay.”
 
I took a deep breath.
 
“My mom met my dad when she was on a cruise in
Puerto Rico
.
 
Oh, um, a cruise is when people go on big ships to visit islands and stuff.
 
Anyway, she ended up staying in
Puerto Rico
and marrying him.
 
They did a lot of drugs.
 
When my grandmother, my mother’s mother, came to visit she ended up taking me back home with her to her farm in
Nebraska
.
 
I was a baby.
 
It was just me and her on this big forty acre farm.
 
I helped with the chickens and the goats and picked raspberries and even drove around on the tractor.
 
The house was falling apart and she hardly ever had money to buy me school clothes—but, God, I loved it there.”

Elentinus smiled.

“I met my mom for the first time when I was nine.
 
We had only talked on the phone a few times before then.
 
She came down because my grandmother was dying of liver cancer caused by her Hepatitis B.
 
My mom looked older than my grandmother.
 
She was just a total wasted out junkie.
 
She got clean for a year and a half after she moved in with us, though.
 
After my grandmother died she relapsed hard and started bringing drug-dealing creeps over to the house.
 
One of them walked in on me while I was changing and I ran away from home.
 
I was put in a group home for girls.
 
I was…13 maybe?
 
The staff were assholes there, but I got along fine with the other girls, and it was better than living with my mother.”
 
I searched the ceiling to remember what happened next.
 
“I was 16 when my mom froze to death by passing out outside in the dead of winter.
 
The police made me sign paperwork to put her in a pauper’s grave.”

Elentinus made a sympathetic noise.

“I always thought that I could go back to my grandmother’s house after I graduated high school.
 
I was going to fix the place up and get the land working again.
 
Someone from the bank came to the group home with a box of some of my stuff from the house.
 
He let me know that my mom had used the property for collateral on a loan and they were confiscating it.
 
So, poof.
 
There went my dream of moving back home.”

“What a pity,” Elentinus said.

His voice knocked me out of the trance I’d gone into while I bared my soul.
 
I swished my food around my plate.
 

“So…um…”

“Could you have stayed at the group home indefinitely?”

I perked up.
 
“No.
 
They kick you out when you turn 18.
 
That was a major stressor for me, you know?
 
I didn’t have any family or any place to go.
 
I ended up enrolling in college just so I could live in the dorms.
 
Since I was a ward of the state my education would be fully paid for.
 
I figured it was the best solution for me.”

“What did you study?”

“Agricultural Science.
 
That’s farming, pretty much.
 
I still dreamed of living on a little farm the way I had when I was a kid.”

“How charming.”

I felt myself blushing again.
 
“It was probably not the best choice for me.
 
The economy tanked my sophomore year.
 
The odds of me getting a job right out of school were slim.
 
The government wasn’t going to pay for me to go for my masters, so I couldn’t stall.
 
I thought about joining the army but we had so many nasty conflicts going on in the
Middle East
.”

“Ah.”
 
Elentinus leaned back with interest.
 
“So women could serve in the military even in your era?”

I nodded with a touch of pride.

“I thought this ‘Peace’ Corps you were in might have been the military alternative for women.”

I tried not to be insulted.
 
“Um…are Dak-Hiliah women pretty…um…dainty?”

“I should say not.”
 
He smirked.
 
“But Earth women are.”

I raised my brow at him.
 
“Okay, anyway, as you know I ended up joining the Peace Corps.
 
That’s pretty much it.”

“Why did you move to a city when you returned?”

“Oh, some girl I served with got me all goo-goo eyed about
Manhattan
.
 
I’d gotten all this administrative experience in
Botswana
, so my job options were a little broader.
 
I guess I just latched on to the first idea that sounded good.
 
There wasn’t any reason for me to go back to
Nebraska
.”
 

“Maritza.”
 

Elentinus put his hand on mine.
 
My heart rate leapt up again.

“Who do you grieve for from your home?”

My brow furrowed.

“Who did you leave behind?
 
Who missed you when you were gone?”

I got the point, and didn’t like it.
 
“I might not have had many strong connections, but my life still had meaning.”

“You misunderstand me.”
 
He cupped his other hand under mine.
 
“You were in the perfect position to begin a new life somewhere else.
 
What have you really lost by coming here?”

“Huh.”
 
I accepted his logic.

“Of course your life had meaning, my dear.
 
Although you’d have found you couldn’t have children due to a problem we corrected—“

That explains my monster periods.
 
  

“You were an intelligent, resourceful, and vital woman.
 
You would have contributed a great deal to your society.”

This gave me a pang in my middle.

“But by no means could you have ever been as indispensable as you are here.
 
We need you far more desperately than where you came from.”

A Domestic came to take our plates away.
 
Another followed behind him to reveal two new ones.
 
They looked like my fish donut but smelled different.
 
I had to pause for another euphoric whiff.

Elentinus caressed my hand before moving his own away.
 
“I have many more treats for you to savor.”

I dug into the pastry with my crescent spoon thing.
 
“I get that.
 
And I understand why you guys need me so badly, too.”

Elentinus eyed me.
 
I paused to choose my words carefully.

“But, I’m, what did you call me? ‘An intelligent, resourceful, vital woman.’
 
I need some purpose in my life, and not just having 24 babies a year.”

“This is one of those circumstances I mentioned to you before.”
 
His voice had gotten sterner.
 
“You have to breed for us, even if you don’t wish it.
 
You have no choice.”

I looked at him with plaintive eyes.
 
Did he really think I was being defiant?
 
“I understand that, Lord Elentinus.
 
It…it’s fine.
 
I mean it’s…well, from what Hor-Denay described…I think it should be fine.
 
I’m not trying to get out of breeding.”

Elentinus looked at me.
 
“Aren’t you?”

“Of course not.”

He closed his eyes.
 
I saw an intense look of relief wash over him.
 
He put his face in his hand and sighed.

“Then you’ll be happy here.”

I blinked a few times.
 
“Wait, was that it?
 
That was the thing you were talking about me compromising on yesterday?”

“That’s your only mandatory obligation, Maritza.
 
If you’ve made your peace with that then I doubt any other aspect of your confinement should distress you that terribly.”

My shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath.
 
“Well that’s a relief.”

Elentinus cut into his pastry.
 
“You realize, of course, that breeding requires sexual intercourse.”

I set my utensil down.
 
“Yeah, I…I know how babies are made.”

“And you’ve made your peace with that, also?”

No.
 
Not really.
“Just…just with you, right?”

Elentinus made a wry laugh.
 
“If anyone else touches you, I’ll kill them.”

I kind of knew he meant that literally.
 
I also wondered if it was a good time to mention Whore had done my hair.
 
“Um…what I was trying to say before was that I need more to my life than just making babies for you.
 
I need…I need some occupation, you know?”

Elentinus tilted back his head in realization.
 
“Ah.
 
I see what you meant to say.
 
Of course, my dear.
 
We’ll put your skills to use.”

This made me smile.
 
“Really?”

“I’m certain Hor would value your assistance with his summaries.”

My chest deflated.
 
“Oh.”
 

Elentinus laughed.
 
He gave my shoulder a little squeeze.
 
“Don’t judge him too harshly.
 
He’s very protective of me.”

His hand moved to my hair.
 
I stayed frozen but felt little tingles up and down my spine.
 
He pulled out one of the combs.
 
A small pile of my hair tumbled free.

“Hor put it up for you, didn’t he?”

I nodded.
 
“He had me put on the make-up, too.”