Found: BBW Alien Lottery Romance (Warriors of Karal Book 2) (5 page)

“They probably thought it would give them courage,” Gaia said, placing her hand on his arm, feeling a slight buzz of electricity through her skin. “Is that your colours I can feel?” she asked fascinated.

“Yes. I am losing control of my emotions. Please excuse me.” He looked upset, and she wanted to know why. Why did a Karalian care so much about this mission?

“Why do you want us to succeed, Okil?” she asked suddenly.

“Because you need a new planet. I have tried to express how important this is.” A tiredness swept over his face. He straightened up, his expression flat, and the colours which had skimmed over his skin so brightly now gone, to leave him looking almost human.

“We want this to work too, Okil,” Gaia said, looking around at the other three humans, whose expression said otherwise.

“I will send food. Eat, and I will return within the hour with a decision on how we will proceed.”

With that, he left, and Gaia had a terrible feeling that the seven women who had just arrived on Karal might somehow have sealed the fate of humans.

“I want nothing to do with any of them!” Rikka said. “The most sensible thing would be to shut them all in the breeding house. I will postpone the mission for long enough to impregnate one of them and then I will go alone, or allow one of the other warriors to do the same and we can go together.”

“Calm down,” Okil said. “Darl is on his way. We will see if this can be salvaged.”

Rikka allowed his colours to vanish from his skin, although strong emotions still coursed through his body. “There is nothing to salvage. We are different to humans, and the behaviour of these females has shown me that.”

“We talk to the doctor first,” Okil ordered. “He is the one who has matched the females to Karalians so far. He knows what he is doing.”

“They took stims,” Rikka said. “What if something like that was smuggled onto my space cruiser? What if it made its way into the food? Food that
I
ate. There are no second chances in space. A moment of misjudgement kills.”

Golds and blues exploded across his skin, and he took a deep breath, moving to the window of the small room Okil had made into his office. He opened it, allowing the cool air to flow in. It cleared his head, but didn’t change his mind. Humans didn’t belong in space. Females didn’t belong in space.

A knock on the door brought him back to the room. “Come in, Darl,” Okil called.

The door opened and a harassed-looking Darl came in. “Afternoon. What can I do for you, Okil? I thought the trial would be well underway now.”

“Two of the females took stims,” Okil said simply.

“Ahh. I suppose we had to expect it at some time.” Darl sat down. “We can search their luggage. Make sure there are no more. It is not something I want introduced to any Karalians.”

“Rikka is having second thoughts about the females,” Okil said.

“Is he? Yes, I can imagine that their behaviour was a little extreme. I have seen the effects of these drugs. I can assure you, though, that it is part of my screening process. I think I can say with certainty that this is not their normal behaviour.”

“But I am not convinced that these are the kind of mothers I want for my child,” Rikka said, his breathing ragged.

“The chances are, that the female I chose for you would not have done such a thing,” Darl said.

“How can you have chosen? We haven’t done any of the trials yet,” Rikka asked.

“The thing is, Rikka, Darl has already matched you with a female. If you were not going into deep space, you would simply have been handed the female he matched to you. But with the missions taking so long, we decided that the selection process needed another layer.”

“Another layer? And how did the trials affect the results of the first mission?” Rikka asked.

“It only confirmed what Darl had predicted. Quin chose the female that had already been matched to him. We concluded that if the same happened to you, then we would abandon the trials. It is a waste of time and effort, when we could simply send you on your mission a few days early instead.”

“Listen, Rikka, I know you don’t like the sound of it. But the Council have ruled a female will go with you. Now, if you choose to back out of the mission, we will have to try to match her to another Karalian warrior. Although I have never tried to reverse-engineer the process.”

“A warrior does not back out of a mission,” Rikka said.

“Then you will accept the female Darl has chosen for you. Or we can resume the trials after they have eaten.” Okil turned to Darl. “If either of the two females who took the stims are Rikka’s woman, then we may have a problem. I agree with him that they are not suitable to go into deep space.”

“Which two were they?” Darl asked, turning to face a computer screen and inputting data. The faces of the seven females appeared on screen.

“These two,” Okil said, pointing to Sonia and Yolla. “And this female,” he pointed to Berni, “is too timid.”

“They are not the one I matched to Rikka. They are to be given to the miners.” Darl said, and then asked Rikka, “Do you wish me to tell you who your female is. Or do you want them to take part in the trials?”

“No. I am not in the mood for games. I have little faith in your choice, Darl. But I will go along with it, simply because I would be rid of the others.”

“Very well. I will make arrangements for the six females to be shipped to the miners immediately. There is little point in them settling here for a night and then moving on. Darl, will you accompany them? The miners may not be very receptive.”

“They’ll come round,” Darl said, shutting the screen down. “I will go now and load them onto my cruiser.”

Darl went to the door. “Do you want to know the name of your female?” he asked Rikka.

“No. I have no use for her name, only her body.” Rikka looked mutinous. “I repeat, I would prefer to mate with her on Karal and then leave her here in the breeding house.”

“Not happening, my friend.” Okil got up and stood before Rikka. “She will be good company, or good entertainment, on the voyage. You have been educated by the sim?”

“Yes. I learned what a woman likes. The simulator is a good teacher.”

“I can tell you that the sim is a pale comparison to the real thing. I think that on the long lonely voyage, you will most definitely learn how much better it is to be with a nice, warm female rather than a cold Karalian. Even if the conversation revolves around the colour of drapes,” Darl joked.

Rikka leaned back and banged his head against the wall. “I hope you are jesting with me, Darl.”

Okil laughed, and said, “You will have to find out. Come on. I think it would be wise for you to spend the rest of the day meeting and getting to know your woman. Maybe in a few hours, you may already change your mind about her company.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Tough.”

“What do you think they’ll do with us?” Issy asked.

They were seated outside; food had been brought for them, along with some kind of fruit juice. Berni had left Sonia and Yolla alone with two platefuls of food and had come to sit in the fresh air with the others. If the situation hadn’t been so confusing and their fate so unsure, Gaia thought that this would be one of the best moments of her whole life.

“I don’t know. But look at this place. Even if we have to all live here, it has to be better than being on Earth,” Gaia said.

“For you,” Issy said. “It’s not exactly what I had in mind.”

“You could build your shoe store here, Issy. There wouldn’t be anywhere else for us to shop,” Gaia said lightly, trying to get them all to lighten up.

“I wanted to see the planet. These four walls are not exactly pretty. And then there is the thought of being impregnated by any Karalian they choose.”

Berni sniffed loudly. “I don’t think I could do that.”

“It might not come to that,” Gaia said.

“It would be easier for them, wouldn’t it. I expect they’ve just been waiting for someone like Sonia and Yolla to come along and mess it up. Perfect excuse not to allow us to roam about their planet.” This was from one of the other females whom Gaia hadn’t met.

“Why would you say that?” Gaia asked.

“Look at this place. It’s a purpose-built prison. There must be some reason they haven’t been using it, but now … well, all we need is a number on our backs and a uniform and we will be inmates of an institution.”

Gaia got up. “I can’t accept that. Why would they do that to us?”

“It would give them a reason to cancel this deep space mission. They can’t possibly
want
to help us, can they? We might just have given them an excuse not to.”

“What happened wasn’t that bad,” Gaia said. She couldn’t listen to this.

“They took stims,” Berni said.

“You must have lived a very sheltered life if you think that’s so terrible,” Gaia said.

“Nothing like that would ever be allowed in the oxydomes,” Issy said.

“This isn’t Earth, this isn’t the oxydomes. I’m sure Karalians aren’t so perfect that no one slips up and makes a mistake. They must understand the stress we are under, coming here, leaving our planet behind.”

The others grew quiet, and Gaia saw the Karalians returning, She was surprised to see three of them coming over. Was this their ruler? Was he coming to pass judgement?

“Afternoon, ladies, I’m Darl. I have come to take a look at your friends,” Darl said.

“No friends of ours if they are in trouble,” one of the other women said. As if to prove her point she got up off the ground and backed far away from the doorway leading into the house where Sonia and Yolla were.

“I’ll be back in a minute. Can you all collect your luggage, please, and wait at the transporter. Okil will give you directions.” Then Darl went inside and shut the door, making Gaia feel very nervous.

“What’s happening?” Gaia asked Okil. “What is he doing in there?”

“We are forgoing the trials,” Okil said. “Darl is administering a purge, so the stims will be taken from their systems.”

“A purge?” Was it as bad as it sounded?

“Yes. Now, if you could all gather your belongings,” Okil said, while Rikka stood by, his arms folded across his chest, his mouth pressed into a thin line. At the cuffs of his shirt, she could see faint wisps of colour trying to escape and race along his skin. But somehow he kept himself calm and his emotions in check. However, his manner concerned her. What had they got planned for the humans?

“We can do the trials,” she insisted. Maybe if she got him to resume the trials, this whole thing could be forgotten.

“No. We have come to an agreement, and the trials would be a waste of time. Rikka is willing to go along with Darl’s choice,” Okil said.

“What choice?” she asked. Was the doctor into experimentation in some way? Or was he planning on drugging them all to make them more pliable when he imprisoned them, ready for them to become sex slaves?

Okil looked at Gaia, and she couldn’t believe that a man with such kind eyes could want to hurt them. It gave her hope, and when he spoke, he confirmed that hope. “Darl has so far predicted, with one hundred percent accuracy, who each female from Earth should be matched with. The last group of females went through the trials and the female that the warrior, Quin, took with him was the one Darl had matched him with.”

“And so this time you are going to simply go with Darl’s choices?” Gaia asked, relieved they hadn’t ruined everything.

“Yes. Under these circumstances, it seems best. Rikka could not go into space with either Sonia or Yolla. That already narrowed it down.”

“And Berni…” Gaia said, looking to the nervous young woman, who had dropped her suitcase again and was now busy repacking it.

“Exactly. So you will accompany Rikka into space, and the rest of them will go to live in the mining village along the coast.”

“What? You mean
I
am to be matched with Rikka?” She looked past Okil to where Rikka stood, his stance still immovable and his expression less than happy. “I would say I am the last thing he wants.”

“But he hasn’t had the pleasure of getting to know you.” Okil smiled benevolently. “I chose my female, Tikki, and we are happy, happier than I could ever have dared to dream of. I know that when you two get to know each other, you will find that same deep happiness.”

“Really? Because if you ask me, he doesn’t want any of us,” Gaia said.

“Rikka,” Okil called over the sullen Karalian and then to Gaia’s embarrassment, effectively gave her to him. “This is Gaia. Darl matched her to you. I think it would be wise for you to go and get to know each other while we deal with the rest of the females.”

“They aren’t livestock,” Gaia said.

“At this moment that is exactly what they are,” Okil said. “They are to be herded onto the cruiser and taken to their new home. I know it seems wrong to you, Gaia, but there is a lot of work to do, processing them, before we are due back on earth to collect the next batch.”

“Meanwhile, I am to go with Rikka and obey his every command?” she asked bitterly.

“No,” Okil said, but then the door opened and Darl emerged with Sonia and Yolla. “But you must go with him.”

Feeling numb, she watched for a moment as the others were put onto the cruiser, despite their protests. Issy and Berni gave a fleeting wave and then they were gone, leaving Gaia all alone with a man she did not know and who did not want her.

So this was the female he was matched with. It was the one he had spoken to on the space station; she had not left a good impression. She had not left an impression on him at all.

“We will wait for the others to leave and then we can return to my cruiser. I would like to get out of here, get some fresh air, and feel the wind on my face. It has been a long day,” Rikka said. In truth, he didn’t feel comfortable being in an enclosed space with her. Thoughts of what they were supposed to do, of how they were supposed to
join
together
, were unnerving him.