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A shuttle that was about to land.
“Yes,” I said. I was proud of the way my voice remained cool and firm. And the thing was, it wasn’t even a lie. I was ready. My mother had spent half her life and all of mine training me to be somebody’s wife.
Only thing was, I was supposed to be a wife to a rich asshole on Terratribe II. Not marry some alien rancher that I’d never met on a distant outpost planet.
He’s got to be better than Massimo…
I hoped. At least if things went sour, I had a thirty-day out. After one month of marriage to Fallon, my intended Zabrian rancher, I could leave. No harm, no foul, and no questions asked.
But then I’d be stuck in the same position as before, only with two grooms I’d run away from now instead of just one. That, plus a family who’d decided to pretend I no longer exist, no money, and no job experience to get me back on my feet.
This has to work out.
My stomach knotted with anxiety. I couldn’t remember a time when there hadn’t been some level of uncomfortable churn in my guts. A never-ending nervous vigilance that felt like someone was constantly dripping acid down the back of my throat.
My heart felt like it was trying to speak but stammering instead. I wiped my sweaty palms on the simple white silk dress I wore. It wasn’t actually a wedding dress, more of a white cocktail dress, but it was a lot more comfortable than whatever gigantic, fluffy concoction of taffeta and satin my mother would have dreamed up for my wedding to Massimo.
Magnolia was wearing a white dress, too. One I’d seen her wear on Elora Station as we’d gone through orientation for this alien bridal program. It was summery and flowy and pretty, with little edges of snowy lace at the decolletage and straps that highlighted the warmth of her medium brown skin tone. Her long, curly black hair had been put into two French braids, then coiled into a bun at the back of her head. She looked beautiful. She looked happy.
She caught my gaze and grinned, lifting her eyebrows and doing an excited little shimmy that was super fucking cute and also made me feel like a massive fraud.
As far as I knew, Magnolia was the only one participating in this program because of romantic ideals, because she actually wanted to find a husband to settle down and build a life with. But then again, Cherry, the third human participant in the program, had vanished from Elora Station and had come out here more than three weeks early because she was apparently so excited to meet her alien husband. So who the hell knew.
Maybe I really was the only cynical, practical one among the group, coming out to Zabria Prinar One not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I certainly wasn’t excited about getting married. I’d never had a romantic bone in my whole tall-ass body. There had never been a point in being sentimental, knowing my destiny would be to marry some wealthy idiot chosen by my mother, the same way my sisters had done.
A frigid fucking bitch. That’s what Massimo had called me.
Hopefully my alien husband wasn’t too romantic or excited about the prospect of marriage, either. I didn’t really have any idea of what to expect from him, but I figured that maybe he just needed someone to cook, clean, and help with chores while he dealt with all his duties on the ranch. And if he wanted sex, well, I could provide that too, I guessed, as long as he went about asking for it in a more respectful fashion than my last fiancé. I could still feel the grabby pinch of Massimo’s hand on my ass.
And I could still hear the ringing of the slap I’d given him in my ears.
“Ah! This is it!” Magnolia practically squealed, wiggling in her seat. “I cannot believe we’re about to get married!” Her eyes shone. She looked ready to launch right out of her seat.
“Me neither,” I said with a mirthless smirk as our human-piloted shuttle descended and then, with a thud that felt like finality, landed.
As predicted, Magnolia was out of her seat the instant she’d gotten her harnesses undone. In her excitement, she didn’t even wait for the pilot to get our luggage out of the shuttle’s storage. As soon as the shuttle’s door slid to one side she was hopping down to the dusty ground.
For my part, I went a little slower, my body feeling oddly heavy and light at the same time. I made it to the open shuttle door, raised my hand to shield my eyes against the bright, alien sun, and looked out at my new homeworld.
3
DARCY
Well, I tried to look out at the world. But it was pretty much impossible, because by the time the shuttle door had opened, a small crowd of people had gathered, taking up my view. At the front of the group was someone I recognized and whom Magnolia was now hugging fiercely.
“Cherry,” I said in greeting, nodding at the human woman as she pulled back from Magnolia’s embrace. Cherry beamed at me, then charged forward, arms outstretched just as I stepped out of the shuttle.
Oh. I guess we’re hugging, now.
I returned Cherry’s enthusiastic squeeze with an awkward pat on the back. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hugged another woman. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hugged anyone. My life being surrounded by petty politics and fake, lipsticked smiles had never exactly been conducive to fostering female friendship. Even among the women in my own family, my mother and my two sisters and me, it hadn’t exactly been hug-city. Maybe especially among my own family.
But I did my best not to come off like a complete fucking bitch, patting Cherry once more as she pulled away. As she did so, I ran a critical eye over her, looking for signs of weight loss since I’d seen her last, or bruising. Any indication that she wasn’t being treated well here.
But, honestly, she looked way better than she had on Elora Station. On the station, she’d been dressed in an old, grubby factory uniform from Terratribe I, and she’d been quite pale.
But now? She was glowing, her smile natural and easy. When she slung one arm around the waist of a massive alien male and cuddled into his side, I realized with a confused smack of awe that this big, golden-skinned lug must be the reason she looked so damn happy.
The idea was completely foreign to me. My mother had always very clearly hated my father, and my sisters hadn’t fared much better in their matches. A husband? Actually making you happy?
