I was really, really broken. Maybe their system didn’t work on girls like me, stupid, scared virgins who had no idea what to do with a man, let alone an alien.
Oddly, that thought dried the tears immediately. Pain and loneliness I could deal with. Hope hurt a hell of a lot more.
“It didn’t work, did it? You couldn’t find me a match.” I sighed, tried not to let the disappointment make my voice quiver. “I knew it.”
“Knew what?” she wondered.
“That I’m broken, that there’s something definitely wrong with me when it comes to men.”
The warden offered me a sad little smile. Yeah, I was that pitiful. “Oh, no Alexis. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were worried. I should have spoken sooner. You have been matched.”
My heart skipped a beat and my eyes widened. “I have? Really?”
There was someone out there for me? Who was waiting for me right now?
“Really,” she repeated, now smiling fully.
“Who?” I knew I sounded breathy and excited, but I couldn’t help it. Today, the dream, was the first time I was hot for a guy. Ever. And I had no idea who he was, or where he was.
With a swipe of her finger over her controls tablet, the restraints retracted. I sat up, rubbed my wrists, although the hold hadn’t been too snug.
“All brides are matched to a planet first, then a mate. For you, and this is quite interesting, your genetic profile matched you to Everis.” Her shrewd gaze raked over me. “It seems you have met the special requirements that are very specific to that planet.”
“Oh? What kind of requirements?”
She tilted her head to study me. “Let me see your palm.”
I didn’t know which one, so I rolled my hands over, palms up so she could see both.
She frowned. “Strange.”
2
Lexi
I looked down at my hands. “What’s strange?”
“All Everians are born with a mark on their palm.”
She didn’t say more than that, just eyed me. “In order to be matched to Everis, you must have a mark somewhere. Do you have an unusual birthmark anywhere on your body? A large birthmark that runs in your family?”
Holy shit. “Yes.” Instinctively, I lifted my arms and wrapped them over my breast to hide the mark there. “Why?”
Her dark gaze followed the movement of my arms, but she smiled. “Long ago, Everian explorers colonized many worlds. Some of their ancestors made it all the way here, to Earth.”
“And? What does that have to do with me?”
The warden’s face was kind, but her words made my head spin. “Their descendants carry the birthmark you are trying to hide. Your ancestors make you a potential marked mate of an Everian Hunter. Your genetic profile alone would have sent you to Everis. The processing protocols confirmed your psychological compatibility.”
“What?” What? Was she saying that I was an alien? “I’m from Denver. My family is from Vera Cruz. My abuela still lives in Mexico. I’m not an alien. I went to East High School. I was born in Denver.”
“Of course you’re not an alien, my dear.” She whirled and waved her hand in the air to indicate the chair I still sat in and the bank of computers and screens built into the wall. “You’re just the descendant of one.” She glanced down at her tablet. “According to your genetic profile, you are seventeen percent Everian and eighty-three percent human.” She smiled proudly, like a mother bragging about her child’s accomplishments in school. “Even after thousands of years, the Everian DNA is very resilient.”
“What? If you already knew I was some kind of alien, why did I even go through the test?”
“Your DNA profile placed Everis at the top of your probability matrix. However, the testing you just completed uses many variables to define your wants and needs in a mate based on conscious and subconscious thought. Planets are removed from your options one by one based on these until only one planet remains. At the end of the testing, sexual compatibility is analyzed and ultimately, a recorded mating ceremony is fed to your core brain processing for verification.”
I tried to translate her complex wording. “You mean I watched a sex tape from Everis in my mind? Dreamed it?”
She nodded as she sat at the table across from me and crossed her legs like we were at a tea party or something. “Technically, your body experienced sensual data recorded by the neural processing unit implanted in another bride. But, if you’d like to think of it as a dream, then yes.”
“But I didn’t dream about sex,” I countered, blushing. I could only imagine what a dream with actual sex in it would have been like. A mental porno. “How do you know I’m compatible if I didn’t dream about sex?”
“Perhaps you did not dream of intercourse.” She lifted a brow and now I felt like she was looking into my soul. “But you did feel desire, did you not? Lust? Hunger? A yearning so fierce your entire body shook with wanting his touch?”
I flushed hotly. All over. I couldn’t look her in the eye. God, how did she know?
“You must be a virgin. Correct?” she asked.
I bit my lip and nodded, ashamed to tell her what I was thinking, that I wasn’t a virgin by choice, but because I was broken. Then I remembered I was sitting in a gown and that I was naked beneath the soft cotton. I also remembered that she’d probed my deep, inner thoughts.
“Do not be ashamed. On Everis, virginity in a mate is highly honored. Your mate will be pleased, and eager to claim you.”
I plucked at the hem of the gown. “But doesn’t my mate need to know that I’m…frigid?”
Warden Egara’s mouth fell open, snapped shut and opened again. “Clearly the men you’ve dated were all assholes if you were told that.”
I snorted at her word choice. She looked so prim and proper in her uniform and she was talking about asshole guys like we were besties doing tequila shots at my favorite bar. I felt much better.
“I am not a doctor, Miss Lopez.”
“Lexi, please.”
“Lexi, did it ever occur to you that perhaps you were frigid for other men because they weren’t your one true match? Because he wasn’t Everian?”
I thought. And thought. Was that true? Could that be true? Had my body been waiting for an alien? Did that seventeen percent of my DNA make me not feel attracted to human men?
Pain knifed through my chest. Ah, there it
