1
Warlord Wulf, Interstellar Brides Program Processing Center, Miami, Florida, Earth
“This idea was stupid from the start, and now it’s ridiculous,” I snarled.
A woman fluttered behind me with a small brush in her hand and brought it up to my neck. It not only tickled, but it was covered in a pale powder she was applying to my skin.
I swatted her away… carefully—she was small and female, and I didn’t want to hurt her—then looked back at the comms.
“What is the human doing to your neck?” Maxim asked, cocking his head to the side as if that could help him see better. “Why are your cheeks that color? Are you ill?”
My beast practically snarled, ready to rip the comm screen off the wall. The frustration had been building ever since I’d arrived on this far-off, backward planet.
“It’s what they call makeup,” I said through gritted teeth. “The small female assures me that if I do not have this red powder on my cheeks, that I will appear to be unwell and weak on the display screens all over this planet.”
Rachel, who stood behind Maxim, nodded her head. “That’s true. Humans call it stage makeup.”
I huffed in disgust and waved the female forward. In moments she was back at it with her little brushes. I looked down at her, tried to calm myself enough not to scare the shit out of her. The look in my eye must have indicated imminent death if she didn’t leave me alone. She swallowed hard, then climbed down from the stepladder she had to use to reach my face. I was so much taller than anyone on Earth, and she was a small version of a human. She cleared her throat. “I think that’s good enough. Good luck tonight.”
“Thank you,” I replied, trying to practically whisper so she didn’t burst into tears.
She and her ladder scurried away as if she’d used the reserves of her courage to speak to me.
“You look odd,” Maxim said. I was glad he refrained from using a more insulting word.
“While makeup is usually a thing Earth women put on their faces, for television, people of both genders need it or they’re washed out by the set lights.” Rachel explained to Maxim the same thing I’d been told the first day on set.
“I have no idea what any of that means,” Maxim said, turning to look up at his mate. He sat in his familiar chair—even though it was light-years away from where I was—and Rachel stood at his side, her arm around his shoulder. It was a very casual pose for an official comms call between planets.
But nothing about why I was on Earth was official or formal. It was a hot mess, as I’d heard someone here say. It was a disaster. The worst solar plasma storm on record had nothing on my life. I was the unlucky fucker chosen for this ridiculous mission because I’d learned the human language of English several years ago. I’d learned it to try to please my Interstellar Bride. My perfect matched mate.
Look how that had turned out. Back then I’d been a fierce warlord. Whole. Battle tested. In my fucking prime. Still, she’d taken her thirty days and chosen to return to Earth. She’d chosen another. Not an Atlan, but a human male. A man she’d loved more than she could learn to love me. I’d felt nothing but pain every time I’d been forced to recall this primitive language to speak to the females the Earth program paraded before me like gifts. To speak to the annoying man with large white teeth and stiff hair who took every opportunity to shove a voice amplifier in my face.
I held no hope this mission would save my life. If a perfect matched mate had not ended my mating fever, I had little hope that a stranger would now, even if she were willing. I’d rather return to Atlan and be processed for execution than condemn a female to life with me but without the devotion of my beast.
So far, that dark, primitive side of me, my beast, was simply not interested.
“This isn’t going to work, Maxim,” I repeated. I’d been saying the same thing since the first day I’d arrived. Three weeks I’d been on Earth. Three interminable weeks. No wonder females volunteered for the Brides Program to get the hell off this crazy planet.
Their vehicles were primitive and smelled of burned fuel, as did the black tar they spread on their roads. The air was brown with pollution and smelled of chemicals. The people were cruel and unkind to one another, with filthy, unwashed humans left to sicken and die on the sides of streets, sleeping in paper boxes while others lived in palaces of stone and crystal. Earth humans were, as the Coalition had been prior to Prime Nial’s decree, unkind to their soldiers who returned from battle damaged. They were ignored or forgotten, denied the honor due them for their service. They were not adored; they were feared. Different.
Like me and every other male and female banished to The Colony. We were damaged goods. Contaminated and shunned out of fear.
Which was one of the reasons I’d agreed to this debacle. Not for me. For them. The others. We needed more brides. Earth females had, for whatever reason, adapted to life on The Colony and accepted our fallen warriors as their own. Claimed them. Loved them. Mated and had children with them. Earth had given us hope, and two of the human mates on The Colony, Lindsey and Rachel, had come up with this insane idea.
Why they believed I would entice human females to apply to be matched specifically to The Colony, I had no idea. I was not the best of us. There were many, many honorable males who would have been happy to be chosen.
But I spoke English, if not very well. I could communicate. Rachel knew I would deny her nothing. She was one of our chosen females, matched to our elected governor, Maxim of Prillon Prime. She was to be honored and protected, in mind and body. When she’d pleaded with me, I could not refuse.
“Can’t you try? I know it doesn’t work that way, but still. Maybe kiss one of them or something? Maybe that would light the spark.”
My beast recoiled at the idea of touching either woman, of kissing them. But Rachel, with her curly brown hair and perky attitude, looked like the hopeful, optimistic Earth female she was. Now, being here and surrounded by females, I understood why she was so small. They were all small. Despite everything I could see wrong with this planet, the humans persisted in their hope. Their optimism. They refused to yield or admit defeat.
“No.” One word was all I could give her as I fought back the rage of my beast. He wasn’t just uninterested; he was furious at the idea that I might try to force him to kiss a female he did not want for his own. Not now. Not when the fever was riding us like fire in our blood and unrelenting rage was flowing in every fiber of our being every moment of every day. As the humans would say, I was holding on by my fingernails.
“Why not? What do you have to lose? You might be surprised, you know?” Rachel tried to encourage me, and I admired her independent spirit. That spirit was tempered by her two Prillon mates, as theirs were by her. She arched a brow at my statement. “I’ve heard the ratings are through the roof and everyone’s dying to find out what’s going to happen next. This is going to be great for recruiting brides.”
I set my hands on my hips and took a deep breath, trying not to burst into beast mode. It wasn’t because the fever raged within me, but because I was so frustrated and out of control. Here, on Earth, I had no control. I ate when they told me to eat. I slept when they told me to sleep. I wore what they told me to wear. I spent time with females they insisted I attempt to woo. I answered to a small, gray-haired human male with a clipboard and dark-rimmed glasses. He was not my commander, not an Atlan. Not a soldier.