Her Mate's Secret Baby:Interstellar Brides, Book 9(2)

My mouth was so dry from screaming.

And then things did go black. Sensation faded, as if I were coming out  of a dream, a dream I really, really fucking wanted to get back to.         

     



 

That was the best sex of my life, and I wanted more.

In my experience, waking up always sucked.

"Miss Montgomery?" A stern, female voice called my name.

I shook my head, not wanting to answer. I wanted more of my mate, his hard cock, that incredible orgasm. Holy shit.

"Natalie!" The voice had increased in volume, and now sounded concerned.  If I'd learned nothing during my long years of boarding school, I  couldn't make myself be rude. Good manners were hard-wired into my  system by strict and sometimes ruthless teachers.

"I'm sorry. Yes?" My voice was raspy and weak, as if I'd not used it for days.

"Open your eyes, dear. I need to know you're back here, on Earth, with me."

Reluctantly, I forced my eyes open, the backs of my eyelids like  sandpaper. It all rushed back to me. The cold, clinical white walls. The  strange chair I was currently strapped into like a demented mental  patient. The strange hospital style gown I wore with the Interstellar  Brides Processing insignia all over it in a dark burgundy pattern like  ugly-ass wallpaper. Even the serious eyes and solemn expression on the  pretty brunette woman who was performing my testing. She didn't look  like she was much older than me, but the darkness behind her gaze told  me she'd lived a hell of a lot more.

Time for me to do some of that thing called life. I was tired of being  kept on the shelf like delicate china. I'd cooperated for twenty-four  years, and look what that had gotten me. An Ivy League education,  parents I never saw more than twice a year, and a fiancé so desperate  for hot sex he'd rather pay for it than sleep with me.

True, he'd never rattled my cage like the dream I'd just had, but he hadn't tried all that hard either.

Getting him to eat me out took an act of Congress. He was much more a  rut-into-me-like-a-pig-and-walk-away kind of guy. And I'd put up with  that for the last eighteen months to try to please my parents.  Seriously? What was wrong with me?

To make it even worse, the best sex I'd ever had had been a dream.  Although, if I was going to get more of that, if I accepted the match,  then I was all for it.

"Miss Montgomery, are you with me?"

"Oh, sorry." I blinked a few times and dismissed thoughts of Curtis  Howard Hornsby III from my mind. Billionaire, silver-spoon, spineless,  limp-dicked, cheating low-life. "Yes. I'm here, Warden. Sorry."

"I understand. Take a moment to recover. I know the processing protocol can be intense."

I flushed. "I didn't scream too loudly, did I?"

She smiled, then looked away. "No, not too loudly," she replied, but I  didn't believe her. The way I'd come apart in the dream, surely everyone  in the processing center had heard me.

"Yeah, about that. Sorry, but it was …  God." I couldn't even explain it.

"Yes, I understand." The warden's name was Egara. I remembered that now.  But was that her first name? Or last? It was a weird name for a woman,  but then, I'd heard rumors from some of the others being processed in  the center the last few days that Warden Egara had been mated to not  one, but two warriors from a planet called Prillon Prime. And they'd  both died. She was a double widow.

Sad. It sounded so sad.

Warden Egara looked down at the tablet in her hand, one it seemed she  always carried, and nodded briskly. "Excellent. You have a ninety-nine  percent match."

"I do?" Yes, that pathetically hopeful voice was mine. My mother would  scowl at the unnecessary display of emotion. But screw her, screw my  billionaire banker father and their decision to have a child simply to  conform to societal expectations. I'd been raised by nannies and  housemothers in boarding school. I'd learned to keep a stiff upper lip  from the age of three, and I wasn't even British.

As of today, my mother's opinion no longer mattered. I needed to  remember that. I was getting off this stupid planet. I was going to have  a real life, with a man, an alien, mate, whatever, that was ninety-nine  percent matched to me. I didn't care what he was called, as long as he  cared. For once in my life, I wanted someone to put me first.

That one simple characteristic wasn't my ex-fiancé's or my parents'  nature. Hell, their consistent lack of interest in their only daughter  probably meant that they wouldn't even realize I was gone until  Christmas, which was four months away.

"Yes, Natalie. You've been matched to Trion." The warden's eyes warmed  slightly, and I relaxed back into the examination chair. I felt like I  was at the dentist, but I wasn't going to bring that up. And I wasn't  getting a filling, I was getting a man. A mate. A life.         

     



 

"Okay." I didn't know anything about the planet, and I didn't care.  Anywhere had to be better than Earth, because when my parents and Curtis  paid attention, they noticed everything and dictated what I did, what I  wore, who I socialized with.

I'd pulled up my big girl panties and rebelled a few times, but that had  never worked. It was a new boarding school or a first-class ticket home  from wherever I'd run to. Just last year, I'd gone on an Alaskan cruise  and was met in Juneau by a Montgomery lackey to retrieve me. It had  been a fucking cruise, but that wasn't allowed.

The only way to break free was to leave the planet, to go in a way that  they couldn't get me back. I glanced down at my left hand, at the  oversized diamond engagement ring still on my finger. When I looked up,  it was to see that Warden Egara had been watching me. "Can you take it  off?"

With my wrists restrained, it wasn't like I was going to do it. But I  wasn't going into space matched to an alien from Trion wearing Curtis'  ring. It was big and gorgeous and I didn't want it. I wanted my matched  spaceman. "Will you help? I can't reach it."

She nodded and walked to my side. She set the tablet next to my knee and  carefully worked the ring from my finger. The moment it was off, I felt  a bubbling, giddy sense of freedom. Was I really going to do this,  leave everyone and everything?

Yes. Yes, I was. I wiggled my fingers and sighed. "Thank you."

She held the ring and raised a brow. "What do you wish me to do with it?"

"I don't care. Sell it. Keep the money. Give it away. Throw it in the trash. Whatever you want."

"All right." She slid the ring into her pocket and I worried she might actually throw it away.

"It's worth well over thirty-thousand dollars. Don't take a penny less."

Nodding, she reached for the tablet again. She didn't seem impressed by  the ring and I liked her all the more for it. It seemed she wanted love  over objects, just like me. The ring meant nothing because I meant  nothing to Curtis. I settled back against the chair.

"For the record, Miss Montgomery, are you now, or have you ever been married?"

"No." These were the same questions I'd been asked before, but I knew  this was the last time. Now I had a mate. A match. A man who was  supposed to be paired to my psychological profile perfectly. Knowing  that my mate waited for me only made the questions seem much more real.

"Have you produced any biological offspring?"

"Hell, no." And before today, I'd never wanted to. Curtis had never  inspired me to want a child, and my own upbringing had left me cold. If I  ever had a baby, I'd need to take mothering classes or something. I'd  have to do all the things my mother never did, like learn all the little  songs and games little ones played. The ABCs. I knew the ABCs.

Did they even have an alphabet on Trion? Suddenly, I couldn't wait to  find out. I bet it had its own special children's song. I'd learn it  right away, and sing it to my baby. Maybe even before it was born. They  could hear in there, right? Maybe I'd sing both songs, English and  Trion.

Wow. I wanted a baby. That was a new one. Had they given me something during testing to wake up my ovaries?

"Natalie?"

I blinked up at Warden Egara. "Yes."

"I know it's difficult, but try to stay with me. We're almost done. Do you accept the results of the matching protocol?"

"Yes." Oh, hell yes, gara accepted. I laughed. I couldn't help it.  Elation washed through me, hot and heady. I felt …  happy. For once, I had  something to be excited about, and I'd done it by myself, for myself.  "Sorry, I'm kind of excited."

The warden patted me on the shoulder and walked to the opposite side of  the room, her form-fitting gray uniform reminded me of that sexy, alien  character, Seven of Nine on Star Trek. Curtis had always pointed out how  sexy that stupid, blonde actress looked in her sparkly, super-tight,  silver spacesuit. She was a cyborg on the television show. How was a  machine woman sexy? I didn't get it, but Curtis drooled every time she  came on the television screen, even if I was sitting right next to him  on the couch.