Cohn: The Teague Bride Experiment: Intergalactic Dating Agency Read online

  Her gaze drifted around the room again. The A.I.’s stood in a single file by the door like sentries whose purpose no longer existed. Now that they’d reached the end of their journey she realized that she would miss them. A little.

  “Please stand back from the door as we prepare to disembark.”

  The mood in the room grew, chatter increased and smiles became brighter if possible. Daliya couldn’t help but ride the wave of excitement filling the room. She bent and clutched her suitcase in one hand, then slung her backpack across her shoulder.

  Even though she was allowed two suitcases, she’d only needed one for the few items she’d brought along like jeans, shirts and of course the winter boots and coat she currently wore.

  Everything else the participants from Earth needed had been provided on the ship and anything that she would need on planet would be provided as well.

  She’d used her limited space wisely and stuffed her suitcase with irreplaceable items. Photos of her family, little mementos of her travels from years past, letters and notes from friends and loved ones. That was more than enough, considering she usually traveled with a simple backpack. Anything that couldn’t fit in it, probably wasn’t useful for her journey.

  “This is actually happening,” Jasmine whispered. Standing next to her, with her two suitcases in front of her, Jasmine reached out and held Daliya’s hand.

  “I know. Are you ready?”

  Jasmine nodded. “Are you?”

  “Amber Thompson, please come to the door. Your mate has arrived to retrieve you.”

  Everyone in the room glanced up at once toward the overhead speakers when the announcement blared. As if in unison, their gazes then shifted toward the door. A large paneling at the doorway retracted into the ceiling. People angled to get a better look. A ramp and another set of open doors led to the unknown.

  “So just like that?” someone grumbled. “They call us and we go running out there?”

  The grumblings were lost in the rise of anxious whispers as a leggy blonde broke away from the crowd and made her way toward the ramp. Amber waved at a few women who’d accompanied her to the exit and after a few hugs, she was gone.

  “Yes. I’m ready,” Daliya finally replied to Jasmine.

  “Daliya Prince, please come to the door. Your mate has arrived to retrieve you.”

  Jasmine squealed and Daliya’s breath caught in her throat.

  This is an adventure, she repeated to herself.

  Jasmine pulled Daliya into a bear hug. “See you on the other side?”

  Tears wetted Daliya’s eyes. The culmination of these past months had finally caught up to her. No turning back. This is what she’d signed up for, the ultimate adventure.

  “See you on the other side.” Daliya pulled back from Jasmine. Then set off to meet her new mate and start her new life.

  * * *

  Cohn sat in the driver’s seat of his two-seater hovercar and scowled at the crumpled rear of the hovercar in front of him. The accident wasn’t his fault. Clearly. He’d set his hovercar to automatic pilot while he reviewed some work files. Traffic in the capital city had been total chaos for the past month.

  The excitement and whirl of activity for the arriving human brides created complete mayhem everywhere. Yatur men were undoubtedly out and about getting supplies and gifts for their mates.

  These select Yatur males had been matched with their mates as soon as their families signed them up for the Bride Program thirty years ago. Years in which they had time to prepare and be ready. Many knew of their proposed mates from the time they were old enough to talk.

  Yet, here he was. In an accident because of the crowded roadway.

  His lips curled in frustration. He’d taken to traveling to and from the Teague Security Agency headquarters where he worked early in the morning and late at night to avoid this very thing happening.

  The newly awakened females from Earth had completed a two-hundred-year stasis and journey to get to Teague. They’d left their planet when their Yatur mates hadn’t been a thought in their parents’, grandparents’ or great grandparents’ minds but their descendants had taken the necessary steps to welcome and embrace these aliens wholeheartedly, unmindful of the havoc they created which would likely lead to more work for him and his team.

  Steam wafted from his engine compartment. He muttered an expletive and leaned over to pick up the tablet he’d dropped on the floor upon impact. A zigzag line twisted across the screen.

  Another curse slipped free. It would need to be repaired before he could use it again. Cohn pushed the button to store it away safely, but only a humming noise came from the tablet and it didn’t fold down.

  “That’s what I get for trying to run errands during the traffic rush,” he grumbled under his breath, realizing it had been completely broken.

  The door from the hovercar in front of him opened and a tall, well-dressed male stepped out. Younger than Cohn by what he guessed was five years or so and wearing clothing that cost more than what he made in a week.

  Something in the back of Cohn’s mind pinged. He knew this male but couldn’t figure out how. As an enforcer, it was his job to know who was who on Teague. He spent a lot of time in rooms with very powerful people and needed to be aware at all times to ensure their safety.

  Cohn set his broken tablet on the empty seat next to him and opened his door to get out of his hovercar. The company issued vehicle was smaller than what he would have bought for himself but he had to make do.

  The male pointed at him then his hovercar. “Why did you hit me?”

  Cohn raised his eyebrows. “Because you stopped. Abruptly.”

  The male raked his fingers through his overly long hair and tipped his head to the area behind them. “My mate wanted to know what that building was.”

  Cohn glanced in the direction the male indicated and frowned in confusion. “She wanted to see the trash recycling building?”

  The male jammed his hands in his pants pockets and shifted from one foot to the other. “She’s new here.”

  Ah, this was a male who’d been selected as a mate for a human female. While Cohn couldn’t rightly place where he knew this male from, he knew that he was rich and/or powerful. Only those whose families could afford to bring a human to Teague from Earth was selected to participate in the Bride Program.

  The passenger door to the male’s hovercar opened and a figure emerged using the children’s steps. She was short, brown and looked absolutely ridiculous in an oversized coat, drowning her tiny figure. She reached the ground and her feet immediately sunk into the deep piles of snow, created from their hovercars colliding.

  “Oh.” She lifted her foot, lost her balance and promptly fell backward on her butt.

  The male ran over to her, making cooing noises as he lifted her upright. He knocked clumps of snow off her coat and she stood there looking quite ridiculous. Like a newborn babe in need of care.

  When he was younger, he’d asked his parents about one. His friends, Ram and Zephon had a human mate they recorded holovid messages for and he’d wanted one too. His parents had admitted that they’d thought about securing him a human mate but the cost was too high and they couldn’t afford it.

  As the news of the Earth females’ arrival reached fever pitch on the news outlets, Cohn was relieved they hadn’t. He’d seen firsthand how restrictive life had been for those who’d enrolled in the program. Ram had spent most of his youth rebelling against his future, wanting to build a life for himself without the heavy attachment and burden. When he’d grown to adulthood, Ram had left the planet and his home, to get away from the pressure and his responsibilities.

  Now, standing, watching this ridiculous scene unfold in front of him, Cohn could only shake his head.

  The male turned to him after getting his mate situated. “I’ll expect to be compensated for damages.”

  Again, Cohn raised his eyebrows. “Compensated? This is obviously your fault. I was on autopilot. Were you?”
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  The male’s eyes flickered and he grimaced. His identity suddenly came to Cohn. This was Ahmil Tempeshi. His parents owned a tech company that made the Communication Links or comlinks that almost everyone on Teague wore as well as the Communication Boards that could be found in many homes. They were tech giants. Of course, they could afford to secure a human female for their son.

  “I thought as much. I’ll expect you to send your compensation to the Security Agency by the morning.” Cohn turned to get back into his hovercar and hopefully forget about this day.

  “Wait, just a minute,” a high-pitched voice snapped.

  Cohn turned toward the speaker. The human waddled through the snow toward him. “Ahmil didn’t do anything wrong. You were following too close. Don’t they have traffic laws here? The guy in the back is in the wrong. You rear ended us.”

  Ahmil straightened his spine and lifted his chin. “We do have traffic laws.”

  Cohn frowned. “But nothing that says I’m in the wrong here. You stopped abruptly. If you would’ve been on autopilot instead of manual, your hovercar would have alerted mine that you were slowing down. The fault is clearly yours.”

  Ahmil shifted his once confident gaze to his mate. “He’s right.”

  She tipped her head back on her slim neck to glance up at him. “Why is he right? He shouldn’t have been tailgating us.”

  Ahmil smoothed a hand over her hooded head. “We’ll get the hovercar fixed. It won’t delay our trip at all.”

  Snorting in disbelief, Cohn settled in his seat. He really didn’t have time for any of this. “I’ll send you the bill.”

  Fortunately, accidents were rare and if there were any, the hovercars automatically catalogued the accident and damages along with all pertinent information of the owners.

  “He’s being so rude,” the human complained to Ahmil.

  “I know, but there’s nothing we can do about him.”

  Cohn rolled his eyes. Was this what he had to look forward to for the rest of his days? Human females and once proud Yatur males cowing to them? He leaned back in his vehicle and drove away; happy he didn’t have to cater to a human in this lifetime.

  * * *

  “Ahmil! I can’t believe there’s a bookstore here!” Daliya squealed and jumped up and down.

  Her mate had brought her to a small town not too far from where they lived to show her around. They walked past shops and stores selling things Daliya didn’t recognize. But books. Books she knew.

  Ahmil had shown her the books available via holofile on her comlink, but holding a real book was different. She hadn’t known if she would ever get to hold one again. Her finger caressed the cover. The material was different and the pages were printed on some type of rough canvas. Not quite as hard, but smooth and textured.

  Daliya thumbed through one as she held it. The words weren’t in English of course, but she could understand and read the funny characters. This one was about the history of some ancient species or another. The content didn’t matter at all. She was just happy to be holding it.

  Ahmil gave her a smile. Soft and endearing, it was growing on her. “Which books do you want to take home with us?”

  She widened her eyes as pleasure coursed down her spine and she glanced around, trying to decide where to start. She caught sight of a sign. Fiction. It didn’t really say fiction, but her brain read it as such. “I really want to find out what’s in that section.”

  She headed in that direction. An alien fiction section? Would there be fairies, werewolves or shifters? She giggled to herself in anticipation.

  Giddy with excitement, she turned the corner and bumped into a male. The books she’d been carrying fell to the floor. “Oof.”

  A Yatur male stood, blocking the way. Daliya’s gaze went to the messy pile between them. There was a mixture of her books and a few she hadn’t picked out. They must be his.

  “I guess my life is reduced to being run into by you two.”

  Daliya glanced back up at the male. Those dark eyes, a hard face that could be handsome but maintained a perpetual scowl. His big body loomed over her and Ahmil. Muscles. So many muscles stuffed into a blue uniform that hugged all the right places. “I remember you!”

  The fierce frown he wore deepened. “You should. You made me run into you the other day.”

  “Made you run into us?” she repeated with scorn.

  Ahmil came up behind her, placing a hand on Daliya’s shoulder. “Are you upsetting my mate?”

  “Upsetting your mate?” The male smirked, flashing a pair of deadly dimples and Daliya quelled a shiver. “She ran into me. Like you did the other day.”

  Ahmil hugged Daliya close, like she was in danger from this male.

  “I-it was me,” she told Ahmil. “He’s right. I did run into him.”

  “Forget about it.” The male sighed and crouched to pick up the books.

  Ahmil was on the ground too, just as fast. “She’s my mate. I can get her books!”

  The male finished gathering his books and glared at Ahmil. “I had no desire to pick up her books. Nothing is wrong with her hands.”

  My bidding? Daliya’s mood instantly soured. “I guess chivalry is dead on Teague?”

  The male stood, leaving Ahmil on bended knee, picking up her books. His shifted a dark look in her direction. “I don’t know what chivalry means.”

  She snorted. “Of course, you don’t. It means to treat a female nicely.”

  “I’m not here to be nice to you or act nice to you. You have a mate who’s currently on his knees, doing your bidding.” The male arched a mocking brow. “Unless you want all of us males on Teague to fall at your feet? Is that what you humans expect?”

  Daliya opened and closed her mouth, too shocked to think of an appropriate come back. Was he suggesting that she was some kind of spoiled prima donna?

  “I-I…” was all she got out before the male turned and walked away.

  Chapter Three

  I’m all alone. Again.

  Huddled to one side, Daliya watched as her husband’s body was carefully placed into the incinerator. His mother had dressed him in a traditional blue Yatur burial gown. He looked nice. At rest and at peace. The blue and orange flames burned higher, engulfing his lean form. There wasn’t a smell, thank God.

  Crackling from his clothes, hair and skin burning made her flinch. She didn’t turn away though. She was meant to watch this. Ahmil’s mother and father stood together on the other side. Tears flowed down their faces as they focused on their only child being put to rest.

  Daliya wanted to tell them she was sorry, yet again, but didn’t dare try to approach them. They’d made their feelings very clear and didn’t want anything to do with her. It wasn’t a guess on her part, it was a fact.

  She was the reason he’d died and they wanted to make sure she knew.

  And she did.

  Ahmil had been a gentle spirit. He’d been matched with a mate who was adventurous and while that wasn’t his nature, he’d tried to be more like her because he thought it would make her happy. Daliya had seen and ignored the worried glances his parents exchanged whenever Daliya or Ahmil excitedly explained the next adventure they planned.

  Daliya had also ignored that Ahmil often fell behind while hiking or breathed too hard when they participated in strenuous activities. She’d thought he would eventually build up his stamina.

  He had not. And now she watched his lifeless body burn.

  Heat from the fire radiated toward her, making her brow prickle with sweat. She dared not wipe it away. His parents wanted to see her suffer for the suffering she’d caused them. She understood that. She had no plans to rob them of this if it relieved their pain in some way.

  If she hadn’t pushed Ahmil to keep up with her this wouldn’t have happened. He wouldn’t have slipped and lost his footing while they were mountain climbing and he wouldn’t have plunged to his death off the side of a cliff.

  As the memory of that eventful day flashed in
her mind, Daliya’s breath hitched. Her screams still rocked her ears and haunted her in the middle of the night. It had taken hours to climb back down the mountain to find him. Alone as fear and worry ate at her heart. When she’d reached the bottom…

  Daliya squeezed her eyes shut and she still couldn’t erase the vision of Ahmil laying broken and unmoving against the rocks. Tears pushed past her closed eyelids to run down her cheeks.

  “Look at him! Don’t you dare close your eyes!” cried his mother in a shrill voice. “Now our legacy dies with him!”

  Daliya cringed but opened her eyes. Ahmil’s father grabbed his wife into a hug where she fell against his chest and howled her grief. His father glared at Daliya, putting all the rage and animosity he had for her into that stare.

  They hate me.

  The thought ricocheted through her. Despite their initial happiness about having her as a daughter-in-law, their feelings toward her had quickly changed. They’d thought she would assimilate easily into their family and would sit around with them. She hadn’t. She wasn’t the sitting around type. His mother and father had told her more than once that she was stealing their son away from them.

  They had grown to hate her and now their hatred for her was set in stone.

  What would happen to her now?

  The last of the flames licked across Ahmil’s bones.

  “This is all because of you!” his mother cried out, lifting her tear-stained face. “I wish you had never come here!”

  “I wish I hadn’t come here either,” Daliya whispered to herself.

  * * *

  All Daliya wanted was time to properly mourn a husband she’d just met but his parents hadn’t even allowed her to do that. The day after Ahmil’s funeral, they had movers come to her house and pack her things. They’d intended to put her in another place, something resembling a studio apartment, but the officials who governed the Bride Program had intervened.

  The officials had stopped the move, but by then, her belongings were in the apartment and the damage of feeling unwanted and discarded was already done. Not only had his parents kicked her out, but they’d also forbidden her from taking anything Ahmil had given her, leaving her with only the things she’d brought from Earth. Their reasoning was that her new mate could provide for her.