Rader's Bride Read online

  Rader's Bride

  Interstellar Matchmaking

  Clarissa Lake

  GTQ LLC

  Orlando, Florida

  Copyright © 2018 by Clarissa Lake

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  GTQ LLC

  PO Box 540375

  Orlando, FL 32854

  www.gtq.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Rader’s Bride/Clarissa Lake -- 2st ed.

  ISBN

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bonus Dream Alein

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Skye Carter reached for her coffee as the traffic light ahead turned red. She was running late, as usual, so she only had time to swing into the drive-through at her favorite coffee shop on her way to open her bookstore. Traffic was crawling, as usual, backed up by people who surged ahead then tried to cut back in where the lanes were supposed to merge.

  Skye didn’t know what the problem was now, but she had sat through three red lights and only got to move ahead one car length. The next light change allowed her to reach the stop line in front of the crosswalk before it turned red again. She waited as a mom with two little girls crossed the street. Skye watched them wistfully. She would love to have a husband and a couple of kids. The problem was the husband part. She didn’t even have any prospects.

  Morning traffic in Washington, D.C. was always hectic. She hated it, but she loved where her bookstore and internet café was located. It was always busy and made a decent profit. She loved being her own boss, and she loved running her store. She just hated the drive from Virginia into D.C. every morning. Just two more blocks and she would be there.

  The mother and little girls finished crossing the street just as the light turned green. As she put her paper coffee cup back into the holder and started to lift her foot off the brake, a blinding wall of light blocked out everything in front of her.

  Skye held fast on the brake and shielded her eyes with her hand. The brightness penetrated her hand and the dark sunglasses she wore to protect her sensitive blue eyes. With that light, she felt a good forty to fifty seconds of heat. When it stopped, it took several seconds of blinking for Skye to focus on what was in front of her.

  First, she screamed. The buildings, the street, the sidewalks---everything that had been in front of her car two minutes before was gone, just gone. All she could see in front of her was a deep black hole that stretched for about a mile ahead of her. It was like cutting a piece of cake out of the middle of the pan. The edge of the chasm was straight and smooth.

  After she screamed, she started to cry. Her store had been within the perimeter of the hole that was at least three hundred feet deep, and her car was just ten feet from the edge. She could only go a few feet forward, and she couldn’t go back, but the left lane was empty. All of the oncoming traffic was obliterated in the big dark hole along with her bookstore.

  Everything she’d work for the past five years was gone, just gone like the buildings in front of her. Unless she could manage to turn around, she was trapped until people behind her moved out of the way.

  Suddenly she wondered if this had anything to do with those aliens from the United Galactic Alliance of Worlds. They had taken over the world communications networks and announced their presence on radio and television as well as the internet. They announced it over and over again just a few weeks ago.

  People had been acting kind of crazy since then. Many were in a panic, certain that the Alliance announcement meant that Earth would be invaded and taken over by aliens. Skye suddenly wondered if it were true.

  She didn’t know how long she had sat there in shock before she figured out there was almost enough room for her to turn around. She turned the steering wheel as far to the left as possible and inched forward, mindful of the drop off in front of her. Then she backed up and started back the way she had come.

  Skye had to stop frequently for others that were turning around as she did. After a while, almost all of the traffic was turning around while others kept going toward the disaster. Skye trembled as she drove, blinking back tears.

  What. The. Hell?

  Skye would say later that she drove home on autopilot. It was normally a forty-minute drive that took over an hour to get back to her little brick row house. She pulled in the driveway still shaking and wondering just what had happened. Her movements were robotic as she got out of her car and walked to her door and unlocked it.

  She went inside the house and dropped her keys, and her purse on the table beside the door then went into the living room and turned on the TV. They were reporting that four UFO’s had cut a swath of destruction in a dozen cities around the world. But they weren’t saying if it was the same people who made the broadcast a few weeks before.

  Skye pulled her smartphone from her purse and went on the internet to look up the United Galactic Alliance of Worlds. They were streaming reports that an alien race called the Drayids had attacked Earth. The Alliance already had battleships in the Solar System to seek and destroy the Drayids who attacked Earth.

  Where the Alliance was offering to bring Earth into their membership, the Drayids were demanding surrender. Earth’s many governments were still squabbling in the United Nations on whether to join the Alliance or not.

  Maybe Earth would be all right and maybe not. Hopefully, they would get rid of the Drayids, but that wouldn’t solve her problem. Her livelihood was gone along with an unknown number of people. Was her coffee bar clerk Janie there when it happened?

  They were starting to show pictures of the devastation from the air. Anyone inside that perimeter didn’t have a chance.

  Skye tried texting her friend and employee then waited. She went back to perusing the internet while waiting for Janie to text back. An unusual ad caught her eye, one that she hadn’t heard about since the Alliance had announced their presence.

  It was straight out of science fiction. Narovian Interstellar Matchmaking Service guarantees genetic soulmate matches. Apply online and receive a DNA sample collection kit.

  Skye started reading the fine print when her phone beeped. It was from Janie!

  “Sorry, I’m running late, stuck in traffic. Don’t know what’s going on.” Janie’s message popped up on Skye’s phone.

  “Turn around and go home first chance you get. The store is gone. Call me later.” Skye messaged back.

  Only Janie didn’t wait to call back. Skye’s cell phone immediately began to ring. She answered it.

  “Skye, what do you mean the store is gone?”

  “You’re not going to believe this. Aliens cut a big hole out of the middle of D.C.”

  “Yeah, right!”

  “No, Janie, I’m not kidding. It happened righ
t in front of me. One minute I’m waiting for the light to change and the next this blinding light is like a wall in front of me. Then when it stops the road in front of me is gone, and there’s a big black hole in front of me at least a mile wide. I was two blocks from the store, and it’s gone, just gone. All that’s left is that big black hole. Five years work and everything is gone.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I doubt insurance is going to cover an alien attack. I guess I may have to get a job. I’ve still got a mortgage and bills for the store. My savings are not going to get me far.” Skye told her.

  “At least I can file for unemployment.”

  “Yes, I paid that bill. I’m so glad you’re okay, Janie. We’ll talk soon. Bye, hon.”

  Skye let out a long sigh. Aliens, UFO’s, big black holes in the middle of cities, what in the universe was next? After a couple of calming breaths, Skye went back to her phone and took a second look at the matchmaking website.

  The Narovian Interstellar Matchmaking Service is pleased to announce that our matchmaking service has been extended to the citizens of Earth, the newest world formally invited into the United Galactic Alliance of Worlds. We provide the best matchmaking services in the Alliance to most humanoid species. We will run your DNA with millions of other applicants to find your best biological match. In many cases, such genetically matched humanoids will also be soul mates.

  Your mate could be on any of a thousand planets or right in your own city. If you are interested, contact us at the internet site below for our submission package. Return your DNA sample with the required fee. All sales are final.

  Warning: If your mate is a Narovian feline, physical contact of any kind can bind you for life. Certain other species also have similar effects. We recommend that you contact your match electronically before meeting them in person if you do not wish to be bound to mate for life.

  Chapter Two

  Skye sat on her living room couch reading and rereading the information on the Narovian Matchmaking site. She thought about the mother and the two little girls and the father they might have. What did Skye have?

  She had a house with twenty-five years left to pay on a thirty-year mortgage. With the bookstore gone, bills for the inventory would soon be due, and she had no more inventory.

  Skye had put her heart and soul into making her bookstore and internet café a success, then it was gone. She had enough savings to cover expenses for a couple months. Then maybe a couple more months until foreclosure and eviction. All she needed was to find a job.

  She was sure she could find a job with her experience. At the moment, what she wanted was a strong man with a hard body to wrap her in his arms and make her feel like it would all be all right. It wasn’t that she couldn’t take care of herself. She’d been doing it for the last ten years since she got out of high school.

  Skye knew she could keep doing it, but what if this matchmaking service could really find her soulmate? Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to love who could love her back? …A lover who could drive her mad with desire for him… who would father her children and raise them with her?

  How was that ever going to happen if she didn’t do something to make it happen? It had been a couple years since her last date, a blind date disaster. She hardly ever had time to go out and meet people. Most of the people she met came to her store but not that many datable men.

  Skye spent a lot of time behind the scenes buying supplies keeping the books and paying bills. Janie was more likely to meet someone to date than Skye was. The expense of the application was not going to make that much difference in the big picture of her current losses. Why not take a chance? The odds were better than buying a lottery ticket.

  She scrolled through the application on her phone. It was pretty detailed, so she decided to fill it out on her laptop which she had left on the coffee table. Some of the questions were very detailed. Others were general. Would she consider males of other humanoid species then gave pictures of males and females of those species? It also asked if she would consider enhanced humanoids such as cyborgs.

  All of the species that were shown were human-like with slight variations and guaranteed to be genetically compatible. Skye looked at the descriptions of the cyborgs who were of the various humanoid species listed, and they looked human, so she checked yes for them as well.

  The big question was would she be willing to travel to another world to live with a mate they chose for her. Skye sat and thought about it for several minutes. Could she actually do that? What if she went and she hated it? How would she get back to Earth?

  She checked, and it said she could buy passage or in some cases the mate would guarantee return passage. However, the matchmaking service guaranteed ninety-nine percent compatibility. There were also questions on whether she preferred to live in a city or small town and if she would consider a colonial settlement with at least the same technological level as her homeworld.

  Currently, most of the other humanoid species on the list did not reside on Earth.

  Skye thought about the hundreds of times she used to lay on the lawn by her house in the country and look up at the stars and wonder. Now she was certain there were many more civilizations out there. It could be the adventure of a lifetime or a nightmare.

  Today was a nightmare. She had been barely ten feet from obliteration. Wasn’t it worth a chance to see what was out there?

  Okay, yes, she would consider a mate on another world. After years of urban living, she would even be willing to go back to her roots in the hills of West Virginia to rural living on a colonial world. Or maybe they would actually find her someone on Earth. Would it really matter where or who, if he was the right man? It wouldn’t matter when she really thought about it.

  The only positive then she’d gotten from the whole day was that she realized what she really wanted in life. She wanted something she had never had---a real family. To have that, she needed a mate because she wanted her children to have a mother and a father who loved them and each other.

  Skye finished answering all the questions including the psych evaluations and made her greeting video after combing her short brown hair and refreshing her eye make up to erase all evidence of her tears from before.

  It took a good two hours to finish the questionnaire and her video.

  “Today, aliens attacked Earth and destroyed a big chunk of my city as I was on my way to work. Had I been closer, I would have been killed. It made me realize that I want more out of my life than just a successful career. I want to marry and have a family and make them my priority. I want a mate who I can love who will love me back. Thanks for listening.”

  She reviewed it once, not knowing what else to say, then pressed send. Her DNA kit came by express delivery the next day. It surprised her after the chaos in the wake of the alien attack.

  The Alliance website reported that the Drayid ships were destroyed and Enforcers would remain in the Solar System to protect Earth from further attacks. Television news was sketchy about the attack, reporting that the cause of the big square craters cut from cities around the world was unknown. Hundreds of thousands of people were missing in and around every city.

  Three days later, they announced the Earth would enter into a treaty agreement with the United Galactic Alliance of Worlds. As far as Skye could see, Earth had no choice. Earth didn’t have the technology to defend against aliens like the Drayids. They needed allies that did, and the Alliance was the only confederation offering.

  Skye tried to look for a job during those days after the attack. She applied mostly online and sent out resumes online. She called employment services, but some didn’t answer, and some told her to give it a couple weeks. Even job listings in the newspapers were sparse.

  After that, Skye didn’t quite know what to do with herself. She was used to having all the work of owning and managing her store. She often worked there seven days a week because it was opened seven days a week. She could do
all the jobs from making the coffee to fixing glitches with the Wi-Fi, and ordering stock.

  She barely had time to read the books that she sold. She had quit bringing them home and even took some back in favor of a reading tablet. There were dozens of books on the tablet, and they only took up a small space.

  With eminent financial disaster hanging over her head, she found it hard to relax. She had a nagging feeling that she should be doing something more as days went by. She made phone calls and checked her emails every day in hopes someone would offer a job.

  After the calls and searches, she cleaned her house and then went to the park and walked for a couple hours to de-stress and burn off her nervous energy.

  Finally, she decided she’d put her house up for sale. It was in a good neighborhood and worth more than she paid for it. Hopefully, it was far enough from the alien pit that someone would buy it.

  Her new routine went on for four weeks. She only got calls on jobs that paid less than half of what she was making from her store. Then three things happened at once.

  Skye got an offer for a job, an offer for her house, and a match notification from the matchmaking service. The job was in Pittsburgh, and the house offer would pay off the mortgage and return most of her equity. She took the offer for her house because it would preserve her savings and pay her losses from the loss of her store.

  Skye decided to look at the match from the matchmaking service before she decided about the job. His name was Rader Knight, and he was a cyborg law officer on a world called Glasica (Glă see’ kă) a young Alliance colony.

  Skye could only stare at his still picture. He was superbly attractive though a bit intimidating. Were he to smile, he would be downright gorgeous with his dark hair and intense blue eyes. He looked like a man she would like to know better.

  Chapter Three

  Rader Knight walked into the single eatery in the village of Sasga and took his usual seat at the counter for breakfast before he started his morning patrol. The lone waitress set a plate of food and a steamy cup of tea in front of him. Rader nodded his thanks and picked up the eating utensil that looked like a spoon with three short, pointed prongs on the end of it and started eating the mixture of meat and vegetables.