Page 1 of Stolen By Her Alien Mate

prologue 1

Once upon a time…

There was a princess who lost her crown. She was so young when it happened, barely four turns, that she didn’t know she was a princess. All she knew was that she lived in a palace by a purple sea, with her parents and her nurse, her sisters and her brothers, and more cousins than she could count.

Then one day her father and brothers went away. Not long after that, her mother and sisters left, too. Then she and Nurse went to live in a different palace that was not nearly as nice as the palace by the sea, even though there were lots of other children who lived there. She slept in a big dormitory underground with all the girls and their nurses. Sometimes they played, but sometimes they had to be very quiet and hide.

She rarely saw the boys. Although one day, Nurse dressed her in a scratchy dress and spent hours brushing her hair and twisting it into loops. That day she got to meet each of the boys, one by one, until she met a boy with wavy dark hair and leaf-green eyes who made her laugh and who didn’t think she was too young, even though he was twice her age.

She wished then that she didn’t have to live in the dormitory with all the other girls, because what she wanted most was to see him again. Even more than that, she wanted to go home to the palace by the sea.

But she never did see him again.

Because one night, the palace shook, and the alarm bells rang, and all the nurses gathered up the girls and put them on a shuttle.

Nurse told her that she was going some place far away, where they would be safe, but that she had to forget everything and everyone she’d ever known. As the princess sat on the floor of the shuttle, with one hand clutching her sacred amulet, and the other wrapped tight around her legs, she told herself that she would never forget her parents and siblings and cousins. She would never forget the palace by the sea, or even the underground palace. And she would certainly never forget the boy who made her laugh with the tousled brown hair and the leaf-green eyes.

But many years passed, and children grow up. Eventually she did forget. Even him.

prologue 2

Kael

It’s cold in the dormitory when I wake up, but not nearly as dark as it should be this time of night. The cavernous room deep beneath the Telmarine Palace should be pitch black.

It’s been a full dark moon since Lantimere took me from my family and brought me to live here with all the other boys. This time of night, I should be able to see little more than the outlines of the three dozen other beds crammed into the room with mine.

But instead, on the bed next to mine, a small blue orb of light illuminates the shape of a girl sitting cross legged at the foot of the bed.

She’s a tiny thing with flaxen hair plaited in braids. The sacred amulet she holds in her hand is lit up as if the water within is sparked with life. She is the only one I know who can do this—make water glow. It’s probably sacrilegious, the way she uses her amulet as a torch.

But she gets away with it because she’s Caiside’s be’lahshuk and because exceptions must be made in times like these.

None of the other paired be’lahshuk have been allowed in the boys’ dormitory. I haven’t seen mine since we first met, a bright moon ago. I haven’t seen her, but she’s rarely left my thoughts. A girl around Aislynn’s age, with copper-colored hair and amber eyes.

Jaylerena of Kinsaera.

The first moment I touched her, I knew she was different. Mine. Within hours, the marks seeded the inside of my wrists. A sign we are fated to be mates.

Despite that, I’ve been kept from her. Only Caiside gets to see his be’lahshuk, because he is the oldest. Lantimere has been encouraging them both to use their fledgling powers even though everyone knows they are far too young to complete their bond.

I sit up, dropping my elbows beneath me as I scold her. “Aislynn,” I whisper.

She twitches, surprised, and scowls over at me. “Don’t wake him,” she whispers back.

“You’re not supposed to be here. You should be in the dormitory with the other girls.”

“My tummy hurts and I just wanted to make sure he was okay.”

I sit fully up, studying her. “What do you mean your tummy hurts?”

By now, Caiside is stirring. He wedges an elbow under him and blinks around blearily.

“Aislynn, what are you doing here?”

Even though it’s the middle of the night, he sounds considerably less annoyed than I am. To me, she is just the annoying brat who sneaks away from her nurse in the girls’ dormitory to follow Caiside like a lost skeelos. Those furry little creatures have always been a nuisance. But, to him, she is everything.

He pulls back his blanket and gestures for her to come to him. She closes her hand around the amulet, extinguishing the glow within, then scrambles to his side.