Mated To The Vikens. Grace Goodwin
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God, it had to have been a dream, had been the most amazing thing ever. It was the best dream I’d had since I’d been arrested. In fact, it had been the only dream. Nightmares, on the other hand, haunted me every time I dared close my eyes and try to rest.
“Is the testing over?” I asked. If she needed to do that again, I wouldn’t object.
I rolled my head to the side to watch as she ran her fingers over the small tablet she held. “Yes, the testing is finished.”
“So I’ve been matched?”
She looked up, offered me a quick smile, then glanced at the tablet again. “Yes. To Viken.”
Viken. I’d heard of the small planet that was part of the Interstellar Coalition, but that was all. Earth hadn’t been involved for long and I’d been too busy with legal proceedings and survival to waste time reading about alien civilizations.
She walked to a small desk against the wall on the opposite side of the testing room and sat down. “I need to ask some additional questions to continue your processing. For the record, please state your name.”
“Sophia Antonelli.”
“And the crime for which you were convicted?”
“Fraud. Money Laundering. Forgery. Illegal transport of goods across state lines. Smuggling.” There were a couple more, smaller offenses, but that about covered the laundry list. “Is that sufficient?”
“Yes, that will do.” Warden Egara’s fingers flew across her tablet as she continued. “Are you currently, or have you ever been married?”
“No.” I’d been married to my job, not a man. I'd been an art dealer, nothing exotic. Hell, what could be so harmless about a degree in Art History? Look where that got me. In prison, where the only chance to avoid long, miserable years of confinement meant volunteering to be an alien’s bride.
“Have you produced biological offspring?”
“No.” You had to have sex to get pregnant, and I was living a two-year dry spell.
“For the record, Miss Antonelli, as an eligible, fertile female in your prime, you had two options available to you to serve out your sentence, twenty-five years in the Carswell Penitentiary located in Fort Worth, Texas.”
“No, thank you.” Prison orange was not my color.
Warden Egara smiled patiently and continued on in a monotone voice, as if reading the words. “Or volunteer service in the Interstellar Brides Program. I am pleased to tell you that the system has made a successful match and you will be sent to a member planet. As a bride, you might never return to Earth, as all travel will be determined and controlled by your new planet’s laws and customs. You will surrender your citizenship of Earth and become an official citizen of your new world.”
I hadn’t really thought about that. How could I not be a citizen of Earth? Was that even possible?
My belly clenched as the full impact of my decision settled in my bones. There was a small amount of time each day, seconds really, when I had yet to fully awaken, that I forgot what I’d become. Forgot what the Corellis had done to me and just how far I’d fallen.
“Your convictions carry a twenty-five-year sentence, yet you’ve elected to serve out your sentence under the direction of the Interstellar Brides Program. You have been assigned to a mate per testing protocols and will be transported off-planet, never to return to Earth. Do you understand what this alternative entails?”
“Yes.” I wouldn’t survive a year in prison, let alone two decades. I’d been incarcerated for six months awaiting trial, and that had felt like six years. Any alternative was better than a prison cell. One man. Three. Whatever. The true price was a one-way ticket to outer space. I was going to be just like the brides I’d read about in history books, the mail-order brides sent to the Wild West. I was going on a grand adventure and hoping for the best.
Not that I had a choice. I had no reason to stay on Earth. The Corelli family had ruined my life’s work and my reputation. My business assets had been seized. I had no job, no contacts, no life. And, the bottom line? I had committed the crimes. Yes, the Corellis had threatened me, bullied me, but I’d still had a choice.
As much as I wished I’d never made the bargain with Vincent Corelli for the money to pay for my mother’s expensive cancer treatments, I wouldn’t trade the extra time with her for anything.
I’d do it all again. So what if I’d smuggled his merchandise inside my art shipments in trade? I never hurt anyone. And when my mother finally did die, I’d assumed my work with the mafia was finished.
That had not been the case. Vincent Corelli wasn’t eager to give up a reliable mule. He’d threatened to kill me then, and I hadn’t pushed the issue. That was until I’d been caught with a crate full of blood diamonds and assault rifles and hauled off to jail.
Vincent Corelli didn’t bail me out, and I didn’t talk to the feds. I didn’t tell anyone he’d been blackmailing me. I still had family on the outside. My cousin’s two kids weren’t even five years old. And yeah, I’d grown up in New York. I knew how things worked.
I kept my mouth shut, my extended family went on about their lives, and Corelli let me take the fall.
So I had nothing left. No one. My world was destroyed. So I’d make a new one. On Viken.
Fiddling with the tablet some more, she frowned. “Your match is not as strong as I would like.”
“It’s not strong? What does that mean?” I asked, shifting in the hard seat. I felt like I was at the dentist with my naked backside stuck to the damn chair.
“Our matches are typically over ninety-nine percent. Yours is only eight-five.”
I frowned, too. “Does that mean I can’t go?” Prison? Really? And I’d just psyched myself up for this whole alien bride deal.
She did some more finger swiping, then stilled. “Interesting.”
I began to shake, a thousand butterflies dancing in my stomach. I was not getting back onto the prison bus, shackled and forced into a horrible orange jumpsuit. I couldn’t do it.
She looked at me again, offered a brilliant smile. “It seems that you have been matched to three Viken warriors.”
I swallowed, thought about the dream. Three men. Three sets of hands. Three cocks.
“Three?” Holy crap. Three? What the hell was I supposed to do with three men?
She nodded. “Your match is lower than usual because you have three mates. I think eighty-five percent is quite remarkable for three.” She cocked her head to the side as she studied me. “You do not seem surprised. I assumed you would be shocked.”
“The dream,” I replied. I didn’t say more, for I was not going to recount how I was fucked by one man while I stroked two others off.
“There were three men in your simulation? Interesting. The last Earth woman matched to Viken was matched to three men as well, however they are triplets and genetically identical. Perhaps you experienced their mating ritual.”
“Are you telling me that was real?” Holy shit. I wanted to experience that for real. If I was going to have three men touching me like that, I didn’t mind going to Viken at all. In fact, I was ready.
“Yes. The experience was real, but someone else’s recorded neural experience. A different couple. Or…um, foursome. Out of all the simulations that flitted across your brain as part of the testing, this one was your match.”
My nipples hardened in agreement at the memory. Yes, that was definitely a match.
“There is a note here.” Her brow furrowed as she read. Finished, she lifted her gaze to me. “This makes sense now. It appears Viken has instituted a brand new mating protocol for the Interstellar Brides Program. Since their Queen came