Power: BBW Alien Lottery Romance (Chosen by the Karal Book 3) (6 page)

“I apologise. But I have my reasons and I would appreciate you hearing them before you decide.”

“Decide? So I do have a choice?”

“I am hoping to leave you with no choice,” he said, smiling at her. But it looked false, as if he was trying to be something he was not. Lytril was trying to be what he thought she wanted him to be. Whereas she wanted him to be real, to be himself.

“That would depend on what you have to say.” She walked further into the space cruiser, wanting to have a good look inside. The whole space travel and wormhole thing seemed preposterous to her. That this small ship could carry her across the universe and to another planet.

When the aliens had first landed, she had wondered if the whole thing was made up. Maybe it was the Presidency’s way of controlling the population, giving them a distraction from their daily drudge-filled lives. That these space cruisers were not real and that the women who won the lottery were simply taken away and what? Killed?

These were desperate times in the long-drawn-out death throes of the Earth and its inhabitants.

“Will you leave us alone, Okil?” Lytril asked. She thought about telling him she wanted Okil to stay, but she let it go. “Please, come and sit down. I have made refreshments.”

His idea of refreshments was ice-cold water, so pure it was as clear as the glass she drank it from. Then there were fruits, fresh, juicy and sweet. Not a single synthetic product in sight. She knew he was already trying to bribe her to take him as a prize, but she ate all the same. If this was the only time she was going to get to taste fresh fruit, then why not enjoy it?

“These are wonderful. What are they called?” she asked, biting into a vibrant green fruit, a little like a lime but much sweeter, although the aftertaste was so refreshing.

“Petan, they are grown for their refreshing flavour. They are dried, and used as you would eat candy.” He offered her a dish filled with other fruits and some bread. “It is a couple of days old, but still edible.”

Edible
didn’t quite describe it, and she tried not to let him see how much she enjoyed his food. Already the thought of going to Karal was becoming more acceptable. All he had to do was touch her, and he could probably get her to accept. She steeled herself, knowing she had to keep her faculties intact and not be swayed by him.

“This is all delicious. But it’s a bribe for me to keep quiet and go to Karal with you.” She drank some more water and then put her glass down. This was her life they were about to bargain over. Food, no matter how delicious, could wait. “Talk, Lytril, tell me what this is all about. Why me?”

“I could lie and tell you that your DNA was perfect, and that you have been chosen for that reason and you should be willing to come to my planet. It would be a better life than you have now.”

“But it wouldn’t be my life, would it? In return for all of this food and water, and clean air, I would be under your command. I imagine that even once I had given birth to one of your alien children, I would not be allowed to roam free. Just in case I taint or corrupt your planet.”

“No.”

“So sell it to me, Lytril. Pretend you are on the Stream and sell yourself to me, in the same way I feel I will be selling my soul to you.” Her anger bubbled up near the surface; she had not meant to show him so much of her emotions, but she couldn’t help it. She did not intend to give up her freedom, something he had now admitted she would have to, if she went to his planet.

“I am not as eloquent as your StreamStars. So I will put it simply. I am attracted to you.”

She burst out laughing. “Then you have more problems than I thought. Why would you want me, Lytril? There are other more attractive women; hell, most of the women on Earth are more attractive, skinny, pretty, nicer. More amiable.”

“I have seen. The night we met, I saw the woman who was to be the lottery winner.”

“So it is rigged!” She whistled. “I knew it. I mean, apart from the obvious fact I won, and I didn’t enter.”

“We need to breed the next generation. And so we pick women who will prove fertile and have no faulty genes.”

“Go on.”

“It is our way.” He looked at her and she couldn’t read his expression, but he left something unsaid between them. Something had touched him, something that had surprised him. Now she began to understand Okil’s words.
She had touched him.

“But it is no longer your way?”

He got up abruptly. “I do not know, Vanessa. It should be.”

“So this is where we strike a bargain.” Why didn’t she just go with him? He wanted her, she could give him a child and he could give her food, and
colour
. What a ridiculous thing to want.

“A bargain?” He turned back to her, his eyes narrowing. “I am offering you a life on Karal, food, water and clean air. I would keep you with me, if we both agree.”

“You are offering me a life I never wanted. I told you, I want to live here on Earth for the rest of my life. I never entered the lottery. And I do not appreciate you taking control of my life like this.” Her voice rose, and he looked a little stunned. She figured no one had stood up to him for a very long time. Well, she had never pissed off a human female before, had he?

He took a deep breath, steadying his nerves, but the colours were skimming across his face and she could see them on his hands too. If he stripped, his clothes from his body, just as he did in her apartment, would those same colours cover his whole body? She longed to know, to put her hands on his skin and feel what he was feeling. There was her resolve, once more, dissolving before her eyes.

“I offer you the chance to experience my world, to be part of the decision I have to make towards the women on Earth. I have a strong resolve; they should be in the breeding houses once they are with child.”

“I will
not
live that life.”

“Yes, I understand that. So here is my conundrum. I take you, who I find attractive in some primal way, and try to understand what it is that attracts me to you. In this way we might understand how best to move forward with the regeneration of my species.”

“How did your species manage before? I mean, this is not the first time you have been through this whole process.”

“Before... It was disturbing, to say the least, for our fathers; the females were not our equals. They lacked the brainpower we have, so we took what we needed.” He left her in no doubt of what he meant. “Humans are the closest we have come to our kind in a long time. We hoped to make things sustainable, but the Earth is too fragile and there is no way to regenerate it.”

She took a piece of fruit, eating it absently while she thought. Was this what Okil meant, that she perhaps held the key to making Lytril and Karal help Earth, or at least stop humans becoming extinct. What should she do? How was she supposed to bargain?

“At the moment, you are talking as though you are experiencing lust. You want a woman, you want me.” She raised her eyebrows and thought,
goodness knows why
. “What happens when this lust wanes?”

“That is what I want you to teach me.”

She laughed, a bitter sound. “Lytril, I am not the right person for this job. I turned my back on love when my father died. I want no part of this. I swore I would never have children and that is one more thing you seem hell-bent on forcing me into.”

“You are filled with passion. I felt it. You are lying to yourself if you think the right thing to do is to shut yourself off from the world around you. You paint life but you are no longer part of life.” His observation stunned her and then he added, “You know my reasons. So I am asking you to open yourself up to me and I will agree to do the same. Let us see if there is a way for our species to coexist. Teach me what I need to know.”

“On one condition … no, two.” She licked her fingers, tasting the last of the fruit’s juice in case it was the last time she ever had the chance. If he didn’t agree to her terms, she was out of there.

“State them and I will decide.” He looked severely put out at having to bargain with her. And she wondered who exactly she was dealing with. He must be someone high up in the government to be able to pull off the whole lottery switch. Good, because he should at least be able to keep his word if he agreed to what she wanted.

“I will come with you to Karal, and try to make this … relationship work. But if it doesn’t, you will allow me the freedom of your planet.”

He didn’t wait to hear any more. “Impossible.”

“Then this is over. I don’t care how you do it, but you disqualify me from the lottery and choose again. Go back to the poor woman who should be jumping for joy right now to be escaping Earth.” She moved towards the ramp. He was quick and grabbed her arm, but almost instantly pulled back as if her touch had shocked him.

“Vanessa, please.” Was she going to reduce him to a dog, begging for scraps? Why wouldn’t she just do as he asked? “I cannot agree to those terms.”

“Then we are done.” She carried on down the ramp, out of his space cruiser and out of his life.

“There is an island. You may have the freedom of that.” He didn’t know where that idea had sprung from, didn’t even know if it was workable, but he had to have her. He had to make her want him. Why? He didn’t know, but the more time he spent with her, the more he knew he couldn’t let her just walk out of his life.

“How big?” She turned back to him; he knew he had control once more.

“A thousand of your square miles.”

“And the rest of the women. They will live there too, if they don’t wish to stay with their … prizes.” She made it sound so sordid, what they were doing to breed their next generation, but he swept it aside.

“Very well.” He braced himself for the next thing she asked.

“You stop the lottery.”

“Impossible. We need females to breed from.”

“These females are entering thinking they have a chance of winning. But they don’t, you are choosing them for the wrong reasons. Matching DNA or their ability to breed quickly is wrong. You make it fairer, more open and you take more women. It will alleviate the situation on Earth.”

He glared at her, at the way she demanded things of him. But did it really matter, as long as he set his own criteria? “Very well. But I have a condition of my own. The only females eligible will be those with compatible DNA and who are fertile.”

She took in what he said, and he thought she might argue with him, but she didn’t. “Agreed. On one further condition. You provide food as a gift for the families of those chosen. Clothes, something to make people’s lives easier.”

He roared with frustration. “Why should we help those left behind? Your species has got itself into this mess. I will not have Karal used in this way.”

“Karal must be able to support many more lives. I saw the documentary about how you live while your children grow and then you die. So at some point Karal must be capable of feeding twice the number it does now.”

“Yes,” he conceded. “But you have to remember that our population is small. Compared to that of Earth.”

She went back towards him and touched his chin with her fingertip, standing on tiptoes to kiss his lips. A shudder passed through him and he wanted to pull her into his arms and take her right here, right now. His cock grew hard in his pants; she killed him with her scent, with her emotions. Why did he not run from her, cast her off his ship? Instead, he agreed to her terms.

The power was once more hers, but once on Karal he would wrestle it back from her and teach her who was in control.

Maybe she wished he had said no. Because at least if he had, she would not be sitting next to him on his space cruiser waiting to leave for Karal. Thankfully, he had refused any interviews, although when Okil had driven her past the StreamScreens, it had not gone down too well with the population. They wanted their alien news fix.

Shutting up her warehouse had been tough. Although Lytril had said he would provide transport for the paintings she wanted to take to Karal. She wanted them all, as reminders of what she had left behind, of what she was doing this for.

Only her art could answer the reason
why
. Why go with him?

Because of what Okil had said. She could change the way humans were treated by Karal. When Okil had said those words to her, it made her understand what her father had tried to do. He had lived and died as a conservationist. Now it was Vanessa’s turn. Only the species she was trying to save wasn’t an animal or a tree. It was the whole of the human race.

From the moment Lytril had entered her life on that rainy evening, she had been given a chance to pick up where her father left off. It wasn’t her job to hide away from love and life. She had to once more embrace it and show Lytril a way to make things right, to make things better. Vanessa only wished she knew how.

“The journey shouldn’t take long. I have some business to catch up once we get to Karal. But Okil has agreed to show you to your rooms.”

“Rooms? We aren’t going to live in a house?” she asked, her voice wavering as the engines started. But Lytril remained calm, and she let this sweep over her. Everything was all right. They would be fine. There was no way the space cruiser was going to blow up on take-off, no way at all.

“Try to remain calm. Your breathing is too elevated and your heart rate is increasing by the second,” Lytril said, cutting into her panic. “You will pass out if you do not calm yourself down.”

“Maybe that is for the best. I don’t think I’m going to like this one bit.”

He placed his hand on hers and let a soothing calm sweep from him into her. Immediately she began to breathe deeper, her heart rate dropping, but she hated being used like this. She snatched her hand away. “Don’t do that.”

“I only wanted to help.” He moved his hand away from hers.

“You can’t just manipulate me like that with your gift. It feels wrong.”

“As I said, I only wanted to help. This journey is one you will want to experience. The colours as we enter the wormhole will be like nothing you have ever experienced.”