Alien with benefits, p.1
Alien With Benefits, page 1
ALIEN WITH BENEFITS
Forbidden Bonds 1
Cara Bristol
Alien With Benefits (Forbidden Bonds 1)
Copyright © May 2023 by Cara Bristol
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
eISBN: 978-1-947203-56-3
Editor: Kate Richards
Copy Editor: Nanette Sipe
Proofreader: Celeste Jones
Cover Artist: Sweet ‘N Spicy Designs
Formatting by Wizards in Publishing
Published in the United States of America
Cara Bristol Website: https://carabristol.com
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Other Titles by Cara Bristol
About Cara Bristol
A space cruise with her bestie seems like the vacation of a lifetime until Holly Winter gets abducted by aliens and finds herself on a slave ship. When the ship’s AI goes haywire and accidentally releases the prisoners from their cells, she makes a break for it—only to be kidnapped again by a huge horned and furry alien. Aeon claims to be a prince, but he acts like a royal jerk and refuses to let Holly go. However, she’s determined to locate her friend and somehow get home to New Terra.
Prince Aeon of Araset is enjoying his last breath of freedom from royal duties when he’s accidentally ensnared by slavers trafficking in alien species, including the protected but despised humans. At the first opportunity, he escapes in a tiny evac pod and lands on the nearest inhabited planet. In an impulsive act of sympathy, he takes a human female with him to save her from a fate worse than death. Now he’s stuck with the talkative, conspicuous nuisance. For her own safety, he can’t release her.
At odds, at first, Holly and Aeon quickly discover that on a hostile, dangerous planet, being friends and working together offers more benefits than fighting. But when friendship turns passionate, emotions remain guarded because both know they are loving on borrowed time. Upon their rescue, Holly must return to New Terra. A human would never be accepted on Araset, and Aeon must bond with a royal of his species to inherit the throne.
Can two lovers from different worlds defeat the forces against them and find happiness together?
Prologue
Aeon
“It is time to set a bonding date,” the king said.
“I’m not ready.”
“I do not understand your reluctance.” His patience worn thin, my father raked an annoyed gaze over me.
In truth, I didn’t understand my hesitance to set a date for the bonding that would unite our kingdom of Araset with that of Copa in the north. What was I holding out for? Fate could not be avoided. But, every time I considered taking a bond-mate, panic swept over me.
“Imana is a fine female. We will not find another more suitable,” he said.
I’d met the Copan princess on a couple of occasions and found little to fault. Although ochre, her horns and tusks gleamed with good health, while her amber gaze peeked demurely out from beneath a heavy brow. Her reserved nature presented a surprising and refreshing contrast to the bellicosity characterizing her people. Imana had seemed to be a fine female—until I’d learned she’d been chosen by my father to be my bond-mate. “She is not ideal,” I said.
“She is ideal. Bonding with Imana will help to secure peace between our kingdoms. Both our peoples will benefit.”
I rubbed the base of my horns. Beneath them, my head had begun to ache. I could see the future rolling toward me, and I feared I wouldn’t be able to dodge it this time. “A truce agreement has been signed.”
“But how long will it last? Many peace treaties have been signed. They never endure. We have been at war for centuries. We must try something else.”
I couldn’t refute the facts. Just in my thirty-five solar cycles of living, there had been two previous truces: one lasting mere months, the longer one falling short of a full solar cycle.
“Your bonding to Imana is our best hope for peace, and it will ensure you produce an heir and can inherit the throne when I pass,” he said.
“What assurance do we have that my sacrifice will bring lasting peace?”
The king’s eyes reddened. “Duty is not a sacrifice!”
“No, Your Majesty.” I bowed my head before my father exploded. I’d slipped and let my true feelings emerge.
“In any case, the time has come for you to accept responsibility.” He settled his girth on the throne and drummed his claws on the arm. “This union will allow us to achieve two goals. It will be a good move.”
I eyed his restless fingers. He wasn’t as confident as he appeared. “You trust the Copans?” I asked.
“Not fully,” he admitted. “They must prove themselves. But this is a start.”
“So, keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”
“That isn’t what I meant, but it’s not a bad strategy.”
Appearances could be deceiving. If the demure-acting Imana was anything like the rest of her people, she might kill me in my bed.
“Someday you will be king, and she will be queen of Copa. The king and queen will hardly go to war against each other,” he reasoned.
“What if she desires to rule over Araset as well as Copa?”
“You will not allow it.”
“And that will work because females always listen to their bond-mates?”
“Your mother does. She defers to my wishes.”
I almost laughed. He believed he was in control because my mother allowed him to believe that. My mother tended to her five children. She did not concern herself with the ruling of the kingdom. She left that to my father. But, were they to disagree, her word would override his. Everyone in the family knew it, except my father.
“At your age, your mother and I had already produced two children,” my father said.
I was the firstborn of five children. While I rued the curse of primogeniture, I wouldn’t trust my younger brothers to make the right decisions. “You would wish your heir to be half-Copan?” I foundered for a way out.
“I would wish to have an heir,” he replied.
“What if the heir were half-human?” I quipped.
My father shuddered. “Don’t even speak it.” Like most others, he found the New Terrans and their culture repugnant. It seemed incredible that genetically our species were more alike than not. But what a difference a few genes made. There was little appealing about humans.
Unable to get along with each other, they’d clashed for thousands of solar cycles until they destroyed Earth in a nuclear world war, annihilating every single creature on the planet. If not for the colony they’d established on New Terra, their own species would have been completely wiped out. As it was, the human population still hadn’t regained its former strength.
Araset and Copa, the two kingdoms of Nomoru, had been fighting for almost as long as the Earthlings. But we weren’t stupid. We would not destroy ourselves. Before approaching mutual annihilation, one of us would surrender. However, the human experience did serve as a cautionary tale.
We had to find peace. If it meant great sacrifice on my part, our people had to stop fighting each other. To allow personal feelings to influence my actions would be selfish. Bonding with Imana was the right thing to do.
So, why couldn’t I embrace my fate? Why did the idea of bonding with a “fine female” fill me with dread? I’d liked her at first.
“I am going on a wakatu,” I announced. “When I return, I will—” I tried to say bond with Imana, but the words stuck in my throat. “When I return, I will give you my decision.”
“I will permit your wakatu. Perhaps your journey of self-exploration will bring you the closure you seek. But be there no uncertainty or question. When you return, I will set the date, and you will bond with the princess.”
Chapter One
Holly
Two months later
I scooted to the rear of the cell as the horned beast appeared outside. The alien was even uglier than the two held captive with us. Chipped yellowed horns curled from his ridged skull, the ochre color matching the short tusks jutting from his drooling mouth. In one hand he held a stun stick, in the other, a bowl of gruel.
He uttered some gibberish, lowered the invisible force field, knelt, and shoved the bowl across the floor. Brownish, lumpy liquid sloshed over the sides. He laughed and then stomped away.
I didn’t bother to check if the force field had been reactivated. Once electrocuted, twice shy. It had been a week since I’d ignorantly tried to flee the cell. My hands were still red and sore.
One of the two aliens in our cell snatched the bowl meant to feed all of us. He scooped out a handful of the disgusting gruel and shoved it in his mouth.
“Guess he’s not going to share,” Millie said.
“Might have made us sick anyway.” The first day of captivity, the foul-tasting slop had given us all diarrhea. I’d held off eating since then until forced by hunger pangs and light-headedness. And then I ate only the bare minimum.
With an eyeliner stick, I marked a seventh tick on the wall. They fed us once a day, so we counted the passage of time by the meals. We’d been abducted a week ago. Yesterday, the two aliens had been tossed into our cell.
I knelt beside an unconscious Giselle and pressed my hand to her damp forehead.
“She’s not getting better, is she?” Millie scrunched her forehead in concern.
“She’s sweating. Maybe that means her fever has broken?” I suggested with vain hope. Giselle needed a doctor.
Unfortunately, Giselle was the doctor. She’d been the physician aboard our ill-fated space cruise. Millie, Kat, Jessie, and I had been passengers. How I wished I’d never entered that damn drawing!
Enter to win an exciting space cruise through the galaxy! You and a friend will spend 10 days and 9 nights aboard the luxurious Star Cross while you travel to faraway moons and planets. See nebulae up close. Visit an asteroid belt. Go through an actual wormhole. Dock at an alien space station and shop till you drop. Travel back in time and arrive home on New Terra before you even leave!
Who could resist a sales pitch like that? I’d never been off New Terra. Nobody vacationed off planet. I signed up for the drawing right away. What an opportunity! As a bonus, if I got home before I’d left, I wouldn’t have to use any of my limited vacation days.
I never expected to win. Notoriously unlucky, I’d never won anything.
Except, this time, I had. And I got abducted by aliens. How’s that for luck? Millie was the unfortunate bestie I’d invited to accompany me.
“What will they do to us?” Kat, another unlucky prize winner, sank to the floor, hugged her knees, and shot a nervous glance at our extraterrestrial cellmates. She’d kept a close watch on them since they arrived, as if she expected them to attack us at any moment. I’d worried about it also until hours passed, and they continued to ignore us.
“Force us to work as sex slaves,” Jessie said.
Kat let out a wail.
“Don’t say that!” I chided her. It upset Kat and didn’t fill me with serenity, either.
“Maybe they abducted us for ransom. They’ll make a trade with the New Terra government,” Millie suggested.
Thank you, Millie. Being kidnapped for ransom wasn’t ideal, but it beat being probed by an alien with a huge blue shlong. Color wasn’t the issue. Size concerned me. I snuck a glance at our alien co-prisoners. Formfitting leggings showed they were packing.
“New Terra doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. Paying ransom encourages more kidnapping,” Jessie said.
“You don’t know that,” I argued.
“I do know that. Paying ransom incentivizes kidnapping,” she insisted.
“I meant the part about not negotiating,” I clarified. “What makes you think New Terra won’t negotiate?”
“It’s against policy. I work for the New Terra State Department. If we negotiated with kidnappers, I’d know about it.”
Well, shit.
Until we’d been thrown into a cell together, I hadn’t met Jessie or Kat, although I’d seen Kat in the buffet line. As the ship’s doctor, Giselle Cartier had been a visible presence on the cruise.
“I think the contest was a setup,” Jessie said. “That was how they lured us off New Terra.”
It sounded plausible. Every man and woman I’d spoken to on the Star Cross had been a prize winner. That didn’t necessarily prove the contest had been a ruse. I hadn’t spoken to all 300-plus passengers. Several dozen, maybe. And, until the abduction, everything had pretty much lived up to my expectation of what a space cruise should be and what the contest had promised.
We’d traveled through a wormhole, had orbited a cool ringed planet with twin moons, cruised through an asteroid belt, and even suited up and gone on a spacewalk excursion. It was only after we docked at the space station to go to the interplanetary marketplace that the cruise took a bad turn.
Millie and I had prepared to disembark and then...
We woke up in a cell on an alien ship, along with Kat, Jessie, and a delirious Giselle. Not realizing an electrified force field prevented us from leaving, I burned my palms trying to escape.
“Do you think the entire cruise was a ruse, or were we in the wrong place at the wrong time?” I asked.
“Does it make a difference? It doesn’t change the fact we’ve been abducted by aliens.” Kat scowled at our nonhuman cellmates.
They were oblivious. One was too busy scarfing up our food, while the other glared at him. He wasn’t too thrilled about going hungry, either.
“It might make a difference in how long it takes for somebody to realize we’ve disappeared,” Jessie said. “If the cruise was legit, then the cruise line will report the abductions to the authorities right away. But if the cruise was a lure, then—”
“Nothing gets reported,” Millie finished her sentence.
I looked at my bestie. “They’ll assume you and I didn’t bother to show up for work.”
Millie twisted her mouth. “We’ll be fired before anyone thinks to look for us. If they look for us.”
She was right—probably no one would. Millie would have been the one to report my disappearance. I didn’t have family. My mother and father had died in a shuttle accident, and I had no siblings. Millie had been estranged from her parents for years.
“What do you guys do?” Jessie asked.
“We both work for Art Smart, the artificial intelligence company,” I said.
Jessie nodded. “Art Smart programmed my apartment!”
“That’s the area I work in,” Millie said. “I’m in tech support. When houses go haywire, I’m the one you talk to, to figure out how you got locked out or locked in or why your lights keep flashing.”
“What about you, Holly?” Jessie asked.
“I work in the house bot division. I repair and service the androids.”
“How can you stand here chitchatting like we’re at a cocktail party or something? We’ve been kidnapped!” Kat cried.
“What should we be doing?” Millie asked.
“Finding a way out of here!”
“What do you suggest?”
“I don’t know.” Kat covered her head with her forearms. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m losing it.” She twisted her mouth. “I work in payroll at the Consumables Distribution Center. I could never afford a vacation like a space cruise! Now I’d give anything to go home to my dead-end job.”
I patted Kat’s shoulder. “We have to stay strong. Stay positive.”
“If I had to guess, I’d say the cruise line itself was legit,” Jessie said.
Working for the government, Jessie would be the most in-the-know. “Why do you think that?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t burst my bubble of hope.
“One reason—because of her.” She pointed to Giselle. “While the passengers could have been lured aboard with a ruse, it’s unlikely the crew was, too.”
“Unless they were. Have you guys ever heard of the cruise line? We hadn’t.” Millie looked at me. I shook my head. “Maybe they recruited a crew with a huge salary. Or maybe the crew is in on it.” She flicked a glance at Giselle. “Or at least some of them.”
Jessie shook her head. “I’m pretty sure the crew is legit. It would take a lot of resources and organization to establish a fake cruise line. I’m guessing again, but I suspect they planned the abduction around the ship’s itinerary.”
When Giselle woke up, I’d ask her how she came to be working for the Star Cross. If she woke up. She wasn’t getting better. When we were first captured, she’d had moments of alertness and lucidity in between unconsciousness and delirium. But she’d been unresponsive for two days now.
