Page 1 of Lorran
Chapter 1
Wyn
She’d do it today. She’d volunteer.
Better to just get it over with andknowthan sit and worry for weeks. Volunteers had control. If they were matched to an alien mate, they had time to prepare, pack, and say goodbye.
Plus, there was the money to consider. Wyn had to admit the money would be nice. It would cover her portion of the rent for the next year—hell, the next three years. Her roommate and bestie, Sonia, could bitch and moan about the oppression of the patriarchy and the systematic injustice that offered up half the Earth’s population as human chattel to pay for the protection of alien warlords, but she’d take Wyn’s money. Sonia had principles, but she was also realistic.
Principles were nice, but they didn’t pay the bills.
But would Sonia speak to her if she knew Wyn was considering volunteering to be matched to a Mahdfel warrior?
Her friend’s opinion did not matter. If Wyn did it now, she took control of her fate and would have agency. Sonia could choke on those words if she didn’t like it. Sonia might be her bestie, but Wyn needed to do what was right for her.
She could do it.
Shewoulddo it.
“Is that all for you today?”
The cashier’s voice yanked Wyn from her pep talk and back to the reality of tightly clutching a bouquet to the point of damaging the flowers. She set the bouquet of pink daisies, creamy peonies, and pink tea bud roses on the counter. “That’s all.”
“Is this for someone or just because? Do you need a card?”
“Just because. Mondays are hard enough. It’s nice to have fresh flowers,” Wyn said. Her job at an insurance company call center was gray and miserable; flowers helped.
For the last eight months, when she realized that she’d have to take the test to be matched to an alien, Wyn had been purchasing flowers every Sunday at the florist next door to the volunteer center. She liked flowers well enough, but she had been trying to work up the courage to volunteer for the test and be the master of her own destiny. The flowers were innocent bystanders in her scheme.
So far, the only thing to come of it was fresh flowers for her desk at work. Not that the call center was her work—it was her day job. Wyn was an artist—mostly painting but also mixed media, thanks for asking—but freelancing as an artist didn’t come with health insurance.
“The owner wants to know if you can make another dozen of those cute little Mahdfel figurines. Maybe with candy canes for the holiday?”
Wyn nodded. She got a better price for the polymer clay figurines online, but the florist paid cash and she had the electric bill due soon. “I can bring them by next Sunday. Any particular color?”
“The purple ones with the horns are always popular,” the cashier said.
Good. She had a decent stash of purple clay ready to go. She’d toss in a few red and blue guys for variety. The green guys, unfortunately, blended too well with the bouquets. They weren’t as popular.
Having paid, Wyn hesitated outside on the sidewalk. She could hop into her car and try again next week, but she was running out of “next weeks.” She’d turn thirty in three weeks, and then she’d have to take the test whether she liked it or not.
She did a lot of research on the likelihood of being matched to an alien warrior, which was a normal reaction to a person in her situation. It wasn’t weird or obsessive, no matter what Sonia said.
Do it. Don’t be a wuss.
Statistically, women over thirty were not matched. She’d take the test, get rejected, and then she’d know. Worry over. No more searching the network for articles about statistics and half-assed claims about tricking the test.
10 Simple Tricks to Fool the Test: What the Mahdfel Don’t Want You to Know!
None of the clickbait titles ever had any real substance, and Wyn didn’t want to trick the test. She just wanted to know.
The worst that could happen is that she’d be matched, which would have happened eventually. If she did it now, she’d have the time to get ready for her new life with an alien. Plus, the bonus money for volunteering. And she’d have a smoking hot alien warrior mate, so double plus.
She didn’t believe the online conspiracies about mandatory testing for the Mahdfel bride program, and she did not agree with Sonia about being under the boot of the patriarchy. Several articles on the network claimed that love matches, and volunteer matches were more common than a genetic match, and therefore mandatory genetic testing should be phased out. The invasion had been nearly two decades ago, Earth had fulfilled its side of the treaty with the Mahdfel, and so on. The arguments ran from reasonable to banana pants-ridiculous.
The Mahdfel were a fact of life. Wyn had been a little kid during the invasion, but she hadn’t forgotten the sharp delineation between Before Aliens and After Aliens. Her family made it through, despite having to relocate to a refugee camp. They survived the raid and gas attack. Everyone survived. So what if Wyn had to drag around an oxygen tank until she was eighteen and then used oxygen at night for a few more years? She would have died if a Mahdfel warrior hadn’t slapped a mask over her face and tossed her in the back of a vehicle.
She might have developed an awkward preteen crush on the heroic aliens. Who could blame her? They were brave, built like they got a double helping of the jacked gene, and handsome. All of them. If a person could look past the alien features of horns and fangs and tails and sometimes scales. Nothing on that list sounded bad to a young Wyn.
