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She embraces her Scottishness with fantastical Scottish settings and a dash of mythology, no matter if she's writing about Celtic gods, aliens, cat shifters, or the streets of Edinburgh.
When she's not typing away at her favourite cafe, Skye loves dried mango, as much exotic tea as she can squeeze into her cupboards, and being covered in pet hair by her hyperactive kitten.
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Her Alien Baker
A tale in the Colony series
Demelza Carlton
Alien Science Fiction Romance
Alien shark shifter Cetus can bake a cake that will make you see stars…if only he can keep the doors of his cake shop open. When he lands a lucrative contract in the gladiator arena, he thinks all his problems are solved…until he realises someone’s made a mistake. Instead of cooking for them, he’s signed up to fight for them in a winner takes all battle to the death.
Can he survive long enough to save his business…and make it out of the Arena alive?
Chapter One
All his life, Cetus had dreamed of owning his own cake shop. What he couldn’t work out was how it had turned into a nightmare.
“That can’t be right,” he muttered as he stared at the numbers on his tablet. He knew he’d tallied his revenue and expenses as precisely as he measured ingredients, but while his baking always resulted in the best chocolate cakes in the known galaxy, his monthly accounts resembled a black hole he didn’t want to touch.
Surely he must have missed some orders. Some sort of income that would put his shop in profit instead of endless loss. If this continued, he’d have to close up the shop and take a job as…as…a pool cleaner in the Mer habitat. Or a monster fighting gladiators in the Arena. He wasn’t sure which was worse. He wasn’t a fighter, but everyone knew being a mermaid’s pool boy was little more than being a poorly paid prostitute. More of a sex slave, really, what with how effective Mer mind control was over shark shifters.
No. He’d left that life behind on Tito. Here in the Colony, he made cakes so good, they gave people orgasms without him having to touch them. He only had to have sex on his terms, with someone he wanted.
Not that anyone would want a broke baker, which was what he’d be once his First Settler Bonus ran out and he had to live off his shop’s non-existent profit.
Oh, wait! There’d been that last minute order for the Watch House. He’d taken down the details, but hadn’t invoiced them for it yet. If he added that to the week’s total…nope. Still negative.
Cetus tossed the tablet on the counter in disgust.
The shop door swung open. “Booze order!” Orel announced with a wink and a smile. He took in Cetus’s expression. “Have you been waiting for me? You look as in need of a drink as I am. The good news is I still have enough samples of Nihal’s new coconut rum to get us both pleasantly sloshed, but only if you bribe me with some suitable cake to accompany it. What’ve you got?”
Orel had gone from venom dealer to graduate student to Eden’s delivery boy, before going into business with his girlfriend, brewing the Colony’s best alcohol. If anyone could relate to Cetus’s current problems, it was Orel.
“I’ve got a triple chocolate cake that must be eaten today, and a ledger so red it’d put our own red dwarf sun to shame.”
Orel’s smile turned sympathetic. “Most businesses don’t see profit in the first five years. You’ve been open for less than twelve months. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“There are two patisseries in the Colony. Sweet Teeth, and the Bear Claw Bakery. While I get a handful of customers a week, the Bear Claw Bakery sells out every single day. Worse, his cakes and tarts are so badly made I wouldn’t feed them to my dog if I had one, but people buy them anyway. Why? It makes no sense!”
“It could be the coffee,” Orel said.
“He sells coffee, too? What kind of bakery sells coffee? You’d need someone constantly at the counter just handling the coffee machine. If it’s even real coffee, which I seriously doubt. I couldn’t get real coffee to make a mocha cake, even for the Watch Commander’s birthday.”
Orel shrugged. “He has a girl who works there now. A master baker and pastrychef, or so I’ve heard. I’ve never tried any of their cakes, but the croissants are the best breakfast in the Colony. Well, short of fresh eggs from one of my chicken salads, of course.”
Cetus just shook his head. “You and your green chickens. Right, let me put the liqueur away, so we don’t drink it, and let’s get into that rum and cake.”
Chapter Two
Cetus picked up the nearest rum bottle, then swore when he realised it was empty. All of them were. At least they still had cake. He cut another slice for himself, then carved one for Orel, too.
