Matched to the monster, p.2
Matched To The Monster, page 2
My wedding.
My escape.
The Elder—the Britonian who acts as speaker—smiles at me, tiny wrinkles crinkling in the corner of his eyes. It’s rumored that he’s three hundred years of age. Even the small lines don’t detract from his beauty.
“My sweet child, what is your name?”
For a moment, I’m confused. “I’m called First Daughter.”
My father clears his throat. “She was christened Lilaina.”
I was? I stare at him in shock. I never knew I was named. So many refer to me as First Daughter, I’d assumed I didn’t have a name.
I didn’t need a name.
But…Lilaina. I taste it on my tongue. I decide I like it.
“Lilaina,” the Elder says in his rich, smooth voice. “I am Mikhail. I must ask you, child. Do you accept this matching of your own free will?”
The question makes me blink, startled for a moment, and the entire courtyard is hushed as if no one dares to breathe.
Does he not realize who I am? Of course, it is of my free will. It is my duty—I have no choice but to lead our women into the new way of life. To set the example for the human race.
“I do.” I bow my head, the way I'm taught, for it's important to appear demure. The only thing I can hear is the fluttering wings of the tiny, beautiful birds.
The Elder—Mikhail—looks a bit angry at my response. I falter for a bit. Does he know that the mannerisms are those taught to me and I am really a sinner who constantly reminds herself of purity? He reaches out to take my arm at the elbow and his touch is soft and gentle, a contradiction with his angered gaze, confusing me.
I’m not sure why he glares at Father but then his face quickly smooths.
Another golden god appears, his face inscrutable.
“If you will walk with me,” Mikhail says, “Brashear can speak with your father about other details. I would like to talk to you about what your mate is like.”
I'm surprised when Father goes eagerly with Brashear, leaving me unchaperoned with Mikhail.
As soon as Father's gone, Mikhail begins. “You will be going to the planet Pimeon. There, your future mate is the leader of his clan,” he says. “They do have females, but infertility is a common problem. While some couples procreate, it takes years and they only have one child, while others remain childless. For that reason, they have agreed to enter the match program. I know your mate personally and he will take care of you. He will get to know you first so that you're not uncomfortable in your new position.”
“Uncomfortable?” Is he talking about sex? My voice is a whisper, and my cheeks feel like they’re on fire. But I don’t want him to think I’m gauche and drop me. “I have been well trained in how to please a mate.”
Mikhail’s lip tightens almost as if he is not impressed with the fact that Earth women are excellent candidates for his sponsored match program. “He is a leader. It is his job to take care of others, even when he must be stern.”
I understand males must be stern.
“But is he kind, Mikhail?” And by kind I mean handsome, but of course I can't say this. Not without revealing the vanity sin that always plagues me.
A genuine smile transforms the elder’s face and when he grins at me, I feel a closeness to him despite our age difference. I wish I could have gotten to know this race of people better. I think Mikhail and I could have been friends.
Of course, that is wishful thinking, considering there’s no time in the day for friends. Not for me.
“He is most kind, my dear. Trust me when I say you will do well there. It’ll be a life completely different from this one, but it will be an exciting new adventure for you.”
I knew it. If Mikhail knows my future mate personally, I’m sure they are friends. Possibly even from the same planet? Perhaps half his people came here, and half went to this other place? Excitement burrows into my belly and I tamp down the sudden glee. I can see myself walking down the aisle in my white dress with the tallest, most handsome, golden god waiting for me.
I smooth the bottom down. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever worn. White for weddings, the top leaves my shoulders bare. The bottom is filmy and floaty and frothy and falls to mid-thigh. Not floor-length like traditional wedding dresses used to be, but this is a different time, after all. Material is hard to come by and since the only polished floors are those within the Presidential House, I chose a shorter length. I wouldn’t want to snag a full-length gown, or let it get dirty. We will be in the courtyard where a portal must be opened between the other planet and ours.
“You do not have to be afraid about being all alone on a strange planet,” Mikhail continues. “I trust your mate to take the utmost care with you. And remember in six months you will be brought here separately so that you may make your decision without influence about whether to return home or to stay.”
From across the yard, I can see something Brashear has told Father has made him rub his hands together with glee. Whatever it is that has Father so happy just cements the feeling that this match will be perfect. Father has orchestrated the details of the program, such as me returning home separately to make my decision without influence.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I assure Mikhail. “I trust in the system.”
It is the right thing to say. Mikhail smiles back at me. “Always remember that statement, my dear. Also remember that your new mate will always be able to take care of you. No more wondering where your next meal may be, or when.”
I’m about to argue because it’s important that we feed men first. There are so few of them. But he continues.
“Though he doesn’t think of wealth the same way, his planet is filthy rich, beyond what you can even imagine. Now, look toward that hedge. The portal to his planet will open there; you’ll see the light through the foliage.”
The hedge is set up in a corner of the courtyard and runs the length of it, like a small passageway. The foliage is thick, creating a shaded darkened spot in the courtyard.
Father makes his way toward us but doesn’t stand as close as he was before. Brashear blocks his approach. It's a subtle maneuver, but I catch it. Perhaps they fear I won’t go through with the ceremony if I have my father’s support.
They don’t realize that I have no choice.
A bright flash illuminates the courtyard like a bolt of lightning.
“My dear,” Mikhail breathes. “This will be Juris.”
My heart is pounding with excitement and I’m breathless for the first glimpse of my new mate. My palms are sweaty, and I’m tempted to wipe them on my skirt, yet fight the urge because I don’t want to ruin the wispy fabric. But the excitement wanes as I wait for him to turn the corner. It’s taking too long and I have a bad feeling; something doesn’t sound right. It’s in his gait, the uneven rhythm of his walk. It almost sounds like a shuffling or a…slithering. Perhaps some other portal opened up? I glance Mikhail’s way, but he doesn’t seem worried. He steadily watches the doorway of vines, so I look back that way, too.
When my new mate appears, I involuntarily flinch. A gasp of revulsion escapes my lips. Despite the horror I’m seeing, I can’t look away.
It’s a monster.
The sun doesn’t brighten the shadows he stands in, but I can still make him out in the clarity of day. The skin is a strange color—not quite gray, not quite purple, but somewhere hideously in-between. Dark and unhappy amidst all the handsome gold people, like a lone, unhealthy hybrid version of a human eggplant that’s not quite…human. Despite being out of place and alone, he’s powerful…and dangerous, I realize as he hisses upon seeing me, freezing halfway through the doorway. He doesn’t seem any happier to see me than I am him. But that hardly fazes me as I continue to stare at him in horrific silence.
His hands, hanging loosely at his sides seem larger than usual. Four fingers and a thumb, with comparable proportions to each other like what I’m used to. His fingers end in black tipped claws, and if they’re retractable at all, right now they’re fully extended. Powerful tendons stand out along the back of his hands as if he fights the urge to swipe out.
I move my gaze up the muscled forearms, over the enormous shoulders and across a powerful, broad chest. Its musculature is similar to humans despite the strangeness of its coloring, but the monster is larger than any man I’ve ever seen.
His face has a broad, strong jaw and full lips, but instead of a nose, there are two slits where it should be. They flare with his breath, in and out, faster than is necessary. The top of his head is smooth, hairless, and a darker purplish gray. But the scariest thing is his eyes. The eyes are the window to the soul and right now I’m looking into hell.
Set beneath a heavy, hairless brow, the sclera of his eyes is an odd shade of mustard instead of white. The long, horizontal pupils are enormous, the black nearly taking over the entire purple iris. I’ve never seen anything like them. Then my gaze travels lower. If he were human, his torso would give the Britonians a run for their money. But beyond his rippling abs is a band of darker black striations, and beyond that is a mass of thick tentacles, glistening in the bright sun.
Not legs.
Tentacles. That was what the slithering, writhing sound was. He walks on a mass of gruesome tentacles.
“Welcome,” Mikhail says. “Juris of the Adroki clan, meet Lilaina, First Daughter of Planet Earth. Your matched mate.”
That wakes me from my stunned stupor.
“You have got to be kidding,” I blurt out.
“Daughter!” My father snaps.
Dread and shame wash over me as I realize he’s right. I agreed to this, stupidly assuming I’d be matched to a…a Britonian. Or a friend of the Britonian’s. A handsome…humanoid. A god, though the gold skin tone was optional. But Father is not surprised. Did he know? Of course not. He is just a better person than me and not tempted by the sin of vanity.
The creature’s voice emanates from within his chest, deep, growly and rumbling and sending a quiver through me. “She is not agreeable.”
Though he speaks English, he has a heavy accent.
His eyes roam over me again, pupils flattening further as he moves fully into the light of day. His muscles ripple beneath his skin, and his torso angles forward as he approaches. I’m stunned into silence as I stand with Mikhail. Despite the strangeness of his gait, there’s an odd grace to his walk as he moves closer.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper when he arrives and pauses in front of me. “I’m sure I’m not what you were expecting any more than you were what I expected.”
His odd eyes narrow at me. He stands tall with all those tentacles and towers over me and Mikhail, radiating power and menace. My heart hammers against my ribs. Cold fear sweeps down my spine at his glare.
But strangely enough, the fear seems to settle in an unfamiliar area. It feels strange as it heats inside my core.
Something thick and snakelike coils around my waist. Gasping, I reach down to clutch at the smooth, thick skin. It feels velvety smooth, not unpleasant. I’d expected it to feel slimy but the tentacle is soft over hard, unyielding muscle.
The tip of another tentacle brushes over my bare shoulder. It feels weird and fleeting with the underside of the tiny suckers lining the tip. And then his tentacles slip away, leaving me feeling oddly bereft. I fight a shudder, confused as to why I miss the strange, monstrous touch. Perhaps I didn’t expect it to be so fleeting and gentle? Usually when arms touch me, they are commanding and rigid, pointing me in a direction to walk, or instructing me on mistakes, sometimes even demanding.
“Do you accept this maiden as your mate?” The words Mikhail speaks are oddly formal and I realize he’s looking at the newcomer.
“I do,” Juris hisses, the flash of his sharp yellow teeth showing. I stifle a small gasp and it turns into the slightest intake of air.
He looks angry again, as if he’s about to explode with fury if I don’t accept when it’s my turn.
“Lilaina. Do you accept Juris as your mate?” Mikhail asks.
This is it. This is our mating ceremony? Our marriage? Just a few words spoken in a courtyard? I wore a white lace dress for this?
I can almost feel everyone hold their breath. And I wait longer than is acceptable to respond, obviously, because the President shifts from foot to foot.
“Daughter.” His voice is curt, reminding me of my leadership role for the others.
Juris is studying me, his expression inscrutable now. For the first time ever, I ignore Father, my eyes glued to Juris’s strange face. I don’t break our joined gaze.
“I do.” Though soft, my voice has a tone of finality, like I just sealed my fate.
The only person in the courtyard that looks happy is Mikhail. He claps his hands. “Oh, wonderful. It’s done. To remind you both of your duties, the marriage must be consummated within the six-month trial period, at the end of which we’ll all meet here for Lilaina’s final decision of whether to return or stay.”
And suddenly Father looks happy. He’d like to see me return.
I’ll be fine.
Chapter Two
Juris:
IF MY PEOPLE were not desperate for breeding stock, I’d sever the relationship with the Britonians at once. Mikhail assured me the match between my species and hers would be perfect and I trusted him, as the Brit has uncanny visionary abilities. He has determined this is best for our peoples, our dwindling lineage.
But the female hates me.
No one missed the gasp of horror she emitted upon first glance, as if her own strange face was pleasing to look at. She looks like a much smaller version of the Brits, without the glorious coloring of the sands of our planet. A sharp, pointy nose. Such an odd, worthless appendage. Likewise, dangling round pieces on the sides of her head to help her hear better.
I will have a difficult time getting my people to accept this worthless…breeder. She looks like a breeze will blow her away. She has flat teeth in a strange white color, no scales, no muscles…nothing for protection but softness. Her tentacles are piled atop her head, of all places, and look dead, held in place like a glued crown. I cannot imagine breeding this creature, but Mikhail assures me her body will welcome my seed and produce heirs. It does not escape my notice that their leader wishes to have payment as a token of good faith. A handful of gold is wrapped in my hand, and I will deposit it into the Earth leader’s after the ritual.
I grit my teeth as Mikhail performs the mating ceremony, asking me if I will accept this female. This…Lilaina.
When it is her turn, she does not answer right away. I fight a wave of anger for the trickery on this strange, ugly planet, with its strange, pointy people. Despite my anger with the female, I snarl when the human male—the leader of the planet—barks at her. How dare he speak to my mate in that tone of voice? The coward pales and we both startle when she answers.
“I do.”
Unexpected warmth floods through me before I scowl and slap down the feeling. I am sure the warmth fills me because I tasted her when I touched her with the sensitive suckers of my tentacles. Despite her…ugliness…she is delicious. Sweet and pure and unlike anything I’ve experienced with our own females. I’d touched her to see how she scented—the emotions she was feeling—and I wasn’t surprised to find she was terrified. But as I continued to taste her, she subtly changed.
Arousal. The barest hint, but it was there.
Mikhail reminds us that the union must be consummated and that we are on a trial period of half a turn. It appears I will have that long to impregnate my mate and trap her to me.
“And with that said, we will open the portal to the planet Pimeon and the two of you can travel through.”
I turn to the human leader and shake his hand, depositing the gold into his palm. It runs through his fingers. His eyes widen.
The female moves to pick up a suitcase near her feet, which is closer to the male she came with. He doesn’t bother to help her. I can’t imagine any male, especially a leader of a planet, not helping his own female. Instead, he is enthralled with the gold dust in his hand.
I growl and use a tentacle to wrap around her forearm. Surprised, her hand opens wide, letting go of the handle of the suitcase, which I sweep up with another appendage. Then, using yet another tentacle at the small of her back, I push her toward the shrubbery created to section off the area which houses the portal. As we enter the small corridor of greenery, we walk until we reach the shrouded end, where she pauses in confusion because there is nowhere else to go.
“It is all right,” I say. “The portal will open—”
Before I can tell her I will not let her go, the flash of light hits and a dizzying sensation makes me feel like I’m falling for the second time today. My tentacle around her waist tightens, but I’m careful not to crush her. The air thickens, making it impossible to breathe and I wonder if something has gone wrong and if this creature has gills just in case we land in the many oceans of my planet. But the world blackens as we’re flung through the portal.
The world is right when I awaken. Familiarity washes over me. The salt in the air. The sounds of splashing surf. The sky is a bright yellow, normal after the hideous blue of her planet, and the golden sand is fine as it squishes beneath me. My mate lies in a nest of my tentacles. She sleeps still, her face softened, and I’m able to study her.
Her skin is the oddest color I’ve ever seen. It is thin and smooth, and the small, twisted tentacles wrapped around her head seem rather stiff. I touch one with the tip of my feelers and it feels hardened and dry, so I reach out with my hand to touch it. I realize it is not tentacles at all, it is more like the strange fur the males of her species grow on their heads. Is it possible the females grow fur? Slowly I unravel one and it winds into three waves around my finger. I sweep it away from her forehead and run my touch down her cheek. She is so soft.
I find I want to see what she looks like without the tentacles wrapped around her head. To see what her—hair—looks like. Very slowly as to not wake her, I unravel another strand and then another and yet another as she continues to sleep. Soon all of it falls in thick waves framing her face. Most of the stiffness has fallen away as I worked them with my fingers.
