The Gigolo's Bride (The Necklace Chronicles) (4 page)

Ashleigh felt a pang of regret for a moment,
but knew that she'd been right. For all their fighting, the women
hadn't been able to stop the others from being taken. "Shreva said
that we would be safe."

"You trust her? She could be one of them. Or
brainwashed. We have no guarantee of our safety. They could promise
us the moon and never deliver. I want to go home, damn it!"

"I want to go home, too, Kate. But your
fighting didn't do anything but keep everyone in a state of panic.
You didn't stop the women from being taken. You didn't injure any
of the men that came to take them away. For all you know, you made
things worse for them. Worse for all of us."

Kate blanched slightly, her lightly tanned
skin paling, and then her eyes blazed and she gnashed her teeth. "I
won't go quietly, Ashleigh. You want to stand idly by while these
aliens cut us apart for some science experiment or strap us down
and use us for sex slaves, then go ahead. I won't give up fighting
until the last breath has left my body."

Ashleigh, chilled to the core by Kate’s
words, had opened her mouth to speak when the door opened again.
Kate hugged her tightly and whispered, “Fight, Ashleigh. Fight for
all you’re worth.”

The instrument waved over the tops of their
heads, and one of the guards reached for Kate when it beeped over
her. Kate kicked out with both her legs and rolled to the side,
shimmying away from their grasps and racing for the door, trying
once more to get between the guards. They stopped her easily and
seemed unaffected by her pounding fists and screams for help. Like
the captives before them, blue glowing handcuffs were placed on
Kate’s wrists, and then the door closed and Ashleigh was left to
wonder about not only Kate's fate, but her own.

And then she was alone. She paced, debating
her course of action. It seemed that fighting back hadn’t really
helped any of the women, and maybe it made things worse for them.
She didn’t really know. What if fighting back was the worst thing
she could do? She was frightened and missed her home. She rubbed
the gem on her necklace in thought. She decided to continue to be
calm and learn all she could. Maybe, just maybe, she could figure
out a way to get back to Earth. She didn’t have the most exciting
life, but no one had asked her if she was ready to give it up to go
to some alien planet.

Bride
. Shreva said they were chosen as
brides by men from their planet. Although a part of her knew that
the term bride could really be interpreted in a myriad of ways,
they did seem to be going out of their way to be kind. If they
thought of the women as chattel, to be traded, used and abused,
they wouldn't have treated them so well, would they?

Shivering, Ashleigh cleared her mind and
turned towards the wall where the door would appear when she heard
the now-familiar whoosh.

The two guards who had come in each time to
retrieve the women looked at her warily. She hadn’t exactly
formulated a plan, but her instinct was to do whatever they said
and to be as nice as possible. The two guards, both of them with
blue hair, towered over her five-foot-three frame. They were
wearing black jumpsuits and military-style boots. "It's time to
go," one of them said, and she wondered why he was actually talking
to her instead of just grabbing her as he had the others. Maybe
because she wasn't screaming, fighting, or cowering in fright?

With a quick movement he attached the glowing
cuffs to her wrists, and she lifted her hands to look at them. They
looked like beams of light, but they felt heavy and cool. "This
way, please." He gestured towards the open door, and she dropped
her hands and began to walk. She caught the curious and surprised
looks from the guards at the door but ignored them. They were
probably wondering why she was being so quiet.

He stayed on her right and the other guard
came on her left; the other two guards walked behind them. They
moved down a long, narrow, nickel-colored hallway. "Why didn't you
manhandle me?" She asked.

"What does it mean to ‘manhandle’?" the one
who put the cuffs on her asked.

"You know, drag me out of the room, like you
did the others?"

"They fought us; you did not."

"Well, it might have been helpful if you had
told them what you were taking them for; where they were going,"
she pointed out.

"They didn't ask."

She glanced up at him. He was very serious.
She hummed in thought. "So where are you taking me?"

"To your
sacrosant's
chambers. He will
answer all of your questions and share the truth of your new
life."

"Sacro-what?"

He glanced down at her, and a smile curved
his mouth just slightly. "The one who wanted us to take you."

"Ah, so it wasn't just my random bad luck to
be abducted?" She felt a little edge of hysteria and tried to tamp
it down.
Calm down, Ashleigh.
She reached up to tuck a
strand of hair behind her ear and was reminded that she was a
prisoner when the cuffs flashed in front of her eyes.

"No, you were chosen for a reason, Ashleigh
Turner. All will be revealed soon to you."

She let that information process for a few
minutes as they walked, turning this way and that down various
metallic-colored hallways. "Why do you speak English?" she asked
after some time had passed.

"We don't. When you were being examined by
the medical team, you were given a translator implant that allows
you to speak in our language and hear in your own."

"So I'm speaking in your language?"

"Yes." He nodded. "There are some words that
won't translate, which is why I didn't understand ‘manhandle’, but
for the most part, you are speaking flawless Norlanian, the
language of our home world."

They entered something like a glass elevator,
and it moved swiftly upwards until her stomach felt like it might
be somewhere down by her feet.

“Our people don’t know much about space
travel,” she said.

“The Norlanian people are very advanced.
You’ll learn all you need to know from your
sacrosant.
”

Advanced people, but still abducting women
like some barbarian race.

The doors slid open, and they walked down
another few hallways before stopping. The only thing about the
smooth wall of the hallway that looked out of place was a pad about
shoulder height that was black with a green grid on it. The guard
who had spoken to her pressed his palm to the door and said, "It's
Captain Riya, Eden. I have your bride."

Bride? There was that word again.

She had a mind to just run like mad down the
hallway, screaming in terror, but then the door slid open, and
standing in the open doorway was one of the most beautiful men
she'd ever seen in her life. Her mouth dropped open and all
thoughts of fleeing in terror were swept away.

The man in the doorway held out his wrist,
adorned with a bracelet with the same blue stone hung in between
intricately carved golden links. The guard who had identified
himself as Captain Riya used a small instrument the size of a pen
and touched the bracelet. The man looked at her shyly, running his
free hand through his thick blue hair. Then Captain Riya touched
the gem on her necklace with his pen. Two beeps sounded from the
pen, and Captain Riya slid it into a pocket of his uniform. "All is
in order here. Good luck, and congratulations."

Captain Riya unlocked the cuffs from around
her wrists and pocketed them inside his uniform.

The beautiful man stepped back into the room
and gestured inside. "Won't you come in, please, Ashleigh?"

Ashleigh looked up at Captain Riya, and he
smiled and nodded, so she stepped in. The door whisked shut behind
her, and she stared in confusion at the man in front of her.

His eyes roved over her quickly, happiness
lighting his features and making him even more impossibly beautiful
than before. His eyes found hers again, and he smiled. "I'm Eden
Atarn. I'm so happy to finally meet you, Ashleigh."

Her mouth went dry and fear licked at her.
"What, uh, what are you going to do to me?"

He frowned, his lush mouth drawing down.
"Do?" Understanding dawned on his features, and he actually looked
sick. "Nothing! I just, I want to get to know you. I won't hurt
you, I promise. You're perfectly safe here in my room on the
ship."

"No offense, but I don't want to get to know
you; I want to go home." She ground her teeth together, yelling at
herself to stop talking.
So much for being agreeable and finding
a way to escape
.

He shook his head, his pretty blue hair
moving with the motion. "We're already out of your solar system.
There is absolutely no way for you to return to Earth."

She stared at Eden. He seemed entirely
sincere. Not only about her being safe with him, but about her now
being far away from Earth. She wasn’t sure why she believed him,
but she did.

"I need to sit down," she said weakly,
feeling like she might pass out. He started with alarm and pulled
her swiftly to a long couch. She sank down into the cushions and
put her head in her hands. He disappeared, and after he returned a
few moments later, he had a steaming cup in his hand.

"This is hot tea made from the
beri
plant. It's soothing."

He sat across from her on a small ottoman,
the same shade of beige as the couch she was sitting on. She took a
tentative sip of the brew and found it tasted like sweetened
chamomile. His hair, like several of the guards including Captain
Riya, was multiple shades of blue, cut short and spiked carelessly.
His eyes were soft brown and luminous, reminding her of a wounded
puppy. A straight nose and high cheek bones gave him a regal look,
and the perfect line of his jaw and the lushness of his full, plump
lips made her body tighten with lust, even as her brain reminded
her she wanted to go home.

He fidgeted, seeming unwilling to bear her
watchful gaze, which she found odd. He was beautiful. Surely he was
used to people looking at him.

“So tell me why the hell I'm here," she said
finally, putting the cup down on a small end table with a top that
looked like mother-of-pearl.

He darted his dark brown eyes up to hers and
ran his hands through his hair, then dropped his eyes down and
began to speak.

On their home world of Norlan, their mated
couples had stopped giving birth to baby girls several decades
earlier. Those that were born were found to be sterile when they
were old enough to marry and start a family. Sometimes, very
infrequently, a female would be able to bear children, but never
female children, only males. Their scientific community worked hard
to find the reason for this sudden mutation that threatened to be
the eventual end of their kind, but found no underlying cause for
it or way to reverse it. In the meantime, only boys were born, and
those boys needed wives. Females capable of producing children were
becoming in short supply and fights broke out constantly over those
few. Their government sent out ships to find planets that contained
biologically compatible females. They found several planets in
different solar systems, and they began to bring those women home
as brides.

A lot of things went through Ashleigh’s mind
as he spoke about the loss on their planet. She did feel sorry for
them, but she had her own life back on Earth and she wanted to get
back to it. Although she would admit that she was attracted to him,
and curious about life on other planets, she was human and she
wanted to be back on Earth, period.

“I'm not a whore," she said finally.

"What is a whore?" His brow furrowed in
confusion.

"A whore, a woman who gives her body to
anyone."

She wasn't sure, but for just a moment, it
looked as if he was ashamed. But the emotion passed over his face
so fast she wasn't sure she'd actually seen it. "Of course you're
not, I know that." His voice was soft and soothing, and she had a
sudden urge to crawl into his arms and let him hold her.

Steeling herself against those dangerous
thoughts, she growled, "I'm not going to have sex with you, so you
might as well have them send me back."

"There's no way that you can return to Earth.
I'm sorry that you're upset. I would never take you against your
will, Ashleigh; I want you to come to me willingly."

She snorted and folded her arms. "That will
never happen."

While she might have expected anger at her
flippant remarks, the sadness that eased over his features made
guilt prick at her.

He stood up slowly and smoothed his hands
down the front of his green embroidered tunic. He was wearing
matching pants and dark shoes. "Let me show you the rest of the
chamber, and then I'll make us something to eat."

She stared at his offered hand. "Just so long
as we're clear."

"We are," he said evenly. She took his hand
and he pulled her up from the couch. For a brief moment, their
bodies touched, and she was very aware of the lean, muscular body
underneath the clothing, the heat that radiated from him. He
smelled incredible, like dark spices.

Coming back to herself suddenly, she let go
of his hand and followed him through the front room. "This is the
cooking area." It was just off the front room and contained a
refrigerator, a pantry, a cook-top that looked far too difficult
for her to operate, and a metallic sink. A door opened to the right
of the kitchen, and he said, "All the doors, except for the one
leading into the hallway, will open for you at any time; they're
programmed to recognize you. If you want the lights on or off, you
simply say the command."

She nodded and followed him through the open
door. Inside was a bedroom. A huge bed sat in the corner, covered
with dark green blankets and a pile of pillows in various shades of
green. Pretty sashes hung from hooks in the ceiling and created a
gauzy, dreamy effect around the bed. He opened the doors of a dark
cabinet. "Here are clothes for you. Our women dress in tunics and
slacks or dresses. There are shoes, too."