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“Here, let me.” Digging my fingernails into the top left crack of the delivery panel, I yanked down and forward at the same time as I activated the release icon. The whine pitched higher as I pulled.Come on, come on.This shit was the last thing I needed today.
The door swung open with a pop, sending me hopping backward to keep my balance.
A rack slid out, holding two garments. The pale-orange jumpsuit would cling to my body, doubling as an emergency spacesuit. The wispy over-tunic of diaphanous white would add a layer of formality and flowing femininity.
I grimaced. Long orange-brown stripes decorated the tunic, meant to match the skin patterns of the Varool. I’d look ridiculous.
Mom hovered, when she probably needed to be in a dozen other places, taking care of any number of countless problems. It turned out having half your population die put quite a strain on running a successful civilization.
I winced, shoving down the rising wave of remorse threatening to swamp me. Today was too important to mess up—I needed to focus.
“Get changed. They’re going to be here soon. And we need everything to be perfect.” Mom’s tablet beeped, and she frowned down at the screen.
“Go on. You have plenty of other things to do.” I shooed her out of the room and fell back against the door.Perfect? This is about as far from freaking perfect as you can get.A nervous bubble of laughter tried to break free. I stuck a knuckle in my mouth and bit down, afraid if I started, I’d never stop.
Once steady, I slipped out of my bright-white jumpsuit, wishing I were in the lab, working on the latest data about the virus’ mutations. Really, I’d rather be anywhere else doing anything else. Even the scut work of my fake job sounded really freaking good about now. There had to be a sewer line that needed unclogging somewhere—there always was.
I slid into the orange jumpsuit and sealed it tight all the way to my neck. Then came the dreaded over-tunic. We didn’t know what the stripes meant to the aliens. Were they random? Did they denote rank or family group? With my luck, the pattern printed here would be a grave insult or something. I didn’t see the point of wearing it. No clothing existed in the universe that would fool anyone into thinking I was a varoolian woman. Even though I was a decent height, they’d been taller, more heavily muscled, and certainly not as curvy as I was.
Now they were dead.
Guilt burned acid in my stomach, but I straightened my shoulders. It didn’t matter how much I hated what was about to happen. I’d do it. I had to. Father and I had made a horrible mistake, and it was up to me to put it right. I owed it to the rest of humanity.
And I even owed it to the Varool.
The fabric slid over my skin, clinging like an embrace I didn’t want. Shivers wracked my body as I tried to imagine what the night would bring. Would the Varool really demand that we consummate the marriage immediately?
Freaking barbarians, the lot of them. It didn’t matter if they had better technology. They were brutes with their big hard bodies and their lack of shirts and… and…
My hands fisted in the delicate fabric.
… and I’m going to marry one of them today.
I couldn’t help fiddling with the gauzy tunic as we waited in the space station’s main receiving room. The stripes startled me each time I caught sight of them. With the way they lay over the lighter jumpsuit, I really did look a little like a Varool.
“Stop fidgeting,” Mom said out of the side of her mouth. She pressed a finger to her ear. “Colonel Roberts says it makes you look suspicious.”
I shot a glare at the surveillance camera. As the colonel in charge of security, Tandy Roberts might have been my age, but she bossed me around as if she were far older. She’d been a thorn in my side ever since the Varool declared I was to be the first bride, certain I’d screw up and let slip that I was a virologist.
The elevator doors slid open, and men boiled out, every single one of them tall and broad. The way the high-tech black fabric of their uniforms clung to their muscular thighs and chests was almost indecent. Each was a walking lesson in Varool anatomy, which turned out to be very similar to human. Like Sagittarian One below us, both of our home planets had been seeded with the same early sparks of life. Separated by parsecs, the three solar systems were relatively close when compared to the breadth of the galaxy.
Every human shifted uneasily as the hulking guards spread across the room, blasters and knives strapped to their hips. One of them grabbed Travis’ upper arm and dragged him forward. The guard barked something harsh in his own tongue, pointing at Travis’ beard.
Four men moved forward from the back, naked from the waist up. These must be the royals. The Varool believed in showing their “true selves” during important negotiations. And their true selves revealed alotof skin—all of it stretched tight over bulging muscles. They also wore long swords belted over their hips like warriors from ancient times come to life.
The largest of them took Travis’ arm and turned to my mother, his deep-green eyes glaring. “You said all of your men were dead. Now you have lied about this, too?” His English was excellent, and his accent had the crisp bite of perfect enunciation.
But the rest of him… God! He was an enormous brute of a man, all muscle and strength. His shoulders were easily twice as wide as mine, and my head barely reached his shoulder. He looked like he could bench press a shuttle. The orange-brown stripes decorating his torso and arms only highlighted his muscles. Short, straight black hair did nothing to soften features made of a series of sharp angles that were too hard for beauty.
He was gorgeous.
And about to out Travis in a horribly public way.
Anger flushed hot through my body, and I darted forward to peel the man’s fingers from Travis’ arm. A jolt shivered through me—his skin was so hot! It was like trying to bend solid steel. I got nowhere. Less than nowhere—I hurt my hand. “Let go of him!”
“Explain!” the large Varool snapped.
I searched Travis’ face, praying my fellow scientist would forgive me. He gave a tiny nod, even as his light-brown face scrunched in a grimace.
