Page 5 of Joven's Bride
Chapter Two
After playing back the video a second and a third time, Carly sat back on her sofa remembering the events that brought her to this point.
The whole world went a little crazy even before the alien attack. The world was still getting used to the fact that they were not alone in the Universe. Earth was not the only planet in the galaxy inhabited by homo sapiens. But after the Drayids attacked, Carly sought counseling to deal with her grief and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Sara Thomas had been her best friend since grade school. They grew up in the same southern Ohio small town, went to the same college to become teachers just as they always said they would.
After Captain Dargan Merrek broadcasted his announcement about their presence in the solar system every hour for twenty-four hours, Carly and Sara became fascinated with everything alien. When Carly discovered the Narovian Interstellar Matchmaking site on the internet, Sara was genuinely excited as she.
Several humanoid races were compatible with Earth humans, and thousands of feline humanoids looking for mates. The Narovian Interstellar Matchmaking Service was not like the Earth dating sites that Carly and Sara had tried a few times. The Narovian service matched applicants genetically.
The men were exotically attractive, even sexy, and she could easily imagine a feline humanoid lover. She loved cats, but unfortunately, she lived in an apartment that didn’t allow pets. The fee was the same as what they would pay for an ancestor DNA search, so they had worked through the detailed application form together.
A few weeks later, Sara was gone.
Even though the trip had marked the end of the school year, summer vacation was not nearly long enough for Carly to recover. She still had nightmares about the day the Drayids attacked. She couldn’t have been closer to Sara if they were sisters. Losing her left a big hole in Carly’s life.
Without Sara, she couldn’t find much enthusiasm for any of the things they did together. Every summer they took a road trip around the country for a week at least. They were both so excited about finding alien mates together, hoping at least to find them on the same planet.
Now it didn’t matter anymore. The summer after she lost Sara, Carly spent a lot of time on her computer looking at all the Alliance websites that had popped up on the internet between First Contact and the Drayid attack.
The more she learned about the Narovian Feline humanoids, the more confident she felt in her desire to find a feline mate. Carly studied their species in depth, but she had only skimmed the surface of information on cyborgs.
She did learn that the pheromonal meomee bond would temper the ruthless warrior in him. She had pretty much made her decision by the time she received a second vid-mail from Joven:
“My dearest Carly,
You honor me with your reply. Even without the scent of you, the sound of your voice tells me that you are meomee. You are as beautiful as I could imagine in my wildest dreams.
I am truly sorry that you lost your friend in the Drayid attack. I fought for many years in the war against them. We made peace with them, but your world took so long to accept our offer to join the Alliance, the Drayids thought they could annex your world even though it is within Alliance territory. We have a blockade in effect patrolling our border, but it is too late to prevent their attack on Earth.
The territory bordering Sector Six that includes the Glasica system has coexisted with the Alliance for millennia. Life on what is now my world is much like that of small community life on Earth. My kind have been coming to Earth for centuries, so we know a great deal about your culture.
I am pleased that you agreed to accept a cyborg mate, but there is one thing that was not in my profile. Enhancements to my DNA and alterations to my body as I was grown in the artificial womb gave me the ability to shift my body into animal form…”
Joven backed away from the camera and changed into a large black panther-like creature. As he came closer to the camera, she could see leopard spots beneath the black, somewhat like domestic black cats with tiger stripes showing in the black.
Carly gasped and stared in stunned silence for almost a minute. Joven paced closer to the screen so she could see his blue feline eyes, those same eyes with the loving expression she had seen before. Then she realized that he was just as magnificent in his big cat form. She also knew it didn’t frighten her.
“I knew from the beginning that I must be completely honest about myself with you, meomee. Even with these enhancements to my body, I can breed with you in humanoid form and make offspring with you. Even the scientists who created me can’t be sure whether the shifting trait would be transferred to my children.
I will be deeply saddened if you can’t accept me as your mate because of this, but I will abide with your decision, meomee.”
“Oh, no,” Carly murmured to the man on her computer screen, as she saw the pain in his eyes at the prospect. He seemed to be in love with her already; or maybe in love with the idea of his soulmate. But when she saw that look on his face, Carly just wanted to put her arms around him and hold him close.
Come to me, meomee. We will have a good life here on Glasica. Two females from your world are mated to friends. I told them about you, and they hoped you would accept my proposal and come to Glasica to be my wife. Please consider it, meomee…”
Your meomee,
Joven
End recording.”
Carly watched the video a few times while she contemplated her reply. She knew what Sara would say. She wasn’t likely to find another soulmate match. Her gut feeling told her Joven was theone. The only obstacle that made her hesitate was leaving Earth, probably for good.
But what an opportunity! Before the Alliance came, Earth technology might not even establish an extraterrestrial colony in her lifetime, let alone travel interstellar. That in itself was exciting and terrifying at the same time. Maybe Joven made her feel a little bit of that, too. He was a hulk of a man, a fierce cyborg warrior, who could turn himself into a fearsome big cat.
Yet when he looked at her from her screen with such affection, Carly was sure she had nothing to fear from him. That was when she knew she had decided to become his wife.
