Madok singled out Violet and Dorcas and ushered them into his enormous office. It was oddly decorated, with furniture made from a black wood with red grain, of a type Violet had never seen before. Abstract spiral sculptures twisted in the corner of the room.
“I am so glad you are here. I am one of the owners of this agency. Let me start by telling you, this isn’t exactly your typical dating agency,” he explained as the door to his office shut behind him – oddly enough, all by itself.
Dorcas scowled at him suspiciously and fiddled with her keychain.
“No pepper spray needed,” Madok informed her. “I am not planning on kidnapping your niece and selling her to a brothel in Europe.”
They stared at him.
“How did you…?” Dorcas trailed off suspiciously.
“I’ve got some psychic abilities,” he said. “And that is not the strangest thing you’re going to hear today.”
* * * * *
“Good lord. He wasn’t joking,” Violet said as she followed a group of women down a long hallway, headed towards what looked like a blank wall.
“I know, right? I still couldn’t believe it, even after everything they showed us. I totally thought I was being punked,” said a woman named Samantha.
She was one of twenty other women who’d signed up with Starcrossed to seek out a match…on another planet.
When Madok had first explained what kind of dating agency Starcrossed really was, Violet had thought the exact same thing – that he was filming something for a reality TV show.
Starcrossed was not an international dating agency, Madok had told her. They were aninterstellardating agency. They matched women with various races of humanoids who had evolved from the same common ancestor as humans – but thanks to some genetic tinkering, these humanoids could shift into animal form, like werewolves. Madok came from a race called the Vulfans, who had mixed their genetic material with that of dire wolves – the huge, prehistoric wolf species that was extinct on Earth.
To sign up for the agency, the women had to be willing to leave their old life on Earth behind, and only make occasional visits home, during which they were strictly sworn to secrecy about their new lives.
Violet and Dorcas had been skeptical, of course.
Dorcas had gone so far as to use phrases like “bull-puckey” and “lying horse’s patootie”.
Madok had stood up and shook his head several times…and his ears had turned pointy and furry, like a wolf’s. “When I’m on your world, I have to concentrate hard all the time to suppress that,” he said.
“Special effects,” Violet had said coolly.
Madok had pressed an invisible button on the top of his desk and called in an assistant, a slender young woman who’d walked through the door, shut it behind her, and quickly stripped off her clothes. As Violet spluttered in shock, the woman had shifted into a wolf.
Pale fur had washed over her skin, and between blinks her eyes had faded to an icy wolfish blue. As she fell to her hands and knees, her limbs had twisted and her pretty face had pushed out into an elongated snout, her ears riding up higher on her head and unfurling into velvety points. The snowy white wolf had rolled out her pink tongue in an affable doggy laugh at Violet’s gasp of astonishment.
“Even better special effects,” Violet had muttered again. But she’d reached out and stroked the wolf’s fur, feeling the silkiness slip through her fingers. It felt so real. How were they doing this?
The wolf had then reversed the shift, turning back into a woman. She’d quickly dressed and left, giving the dumbfounded Violet a wave as she trotted off.
Madok had finally convinced Violet he was on the level when he’d pulled a strange machine the size of a computer tablet out of his desk and waved it in front of Dorcas’ face. Dorcas had looked at him indignantly. “Hey, your stupid machine broke my glasses!” she’d complained. She’d pulled her glasses off. Then she’d looked around the room in confusion.
“I can see,” she’d marveled. “I don’t need my glasses anymore!”
They really did have some crazy otherworld technology.
So Violet had agreed to go off-planet and give the whole dating-an-alien thing a whirl. They’d clamped a bracelet on her wrist that would act as a universal translator and tracking device. And they’d even allowed Dorcas to accompany her.
There were certain rules. If she didn’t find an alien husband, she’d be returned to Earth along with Dorcas – with their memories wiped. She’d find that all her student loans were paid off and $100,000 deposited in her bank account, with a false memory implanted telling her she’d won it in a lottery.
It had seemed like a win-win. She’d be safe, Dorcas would be safe…
But now, the wall at the end of the hallway suddenly vanished, and beyond it, they could see a strange new world – with tall spiral buildings in the distance, standing out against lilac-colored skies. Suddenly “safe” seemed like a relative term. It wasn’t just the weird beauty of the outer-space landscape. The soft breeze that reached Violetsmelledalien too. Not bad, just strange. Anxiety prickled over her skin, and she was aware that her heart was beating a little bit too fast, from a combination of excitement and fear.
“I still think this is one of those candid camera shows,” Dorcas said to herself, but with less conviction. They walked through the opening and took in their surroundings. They were standing on an enormous rooftop patio, and a group of very tall men and women wearing black-and-blue tunics and leggings were waiting to greet them. All of them had pointed, fur-tufted ears.
“Aunt Dorcas. Look at the sky,” Violet said. Two enormous moons floated overhead.
