Free Alien's Orphan Bride: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Mail Order Human Book 4) by Sue Lyndon, Sue Mercury Page B

chosen to leave Earth—there was nothing for me there—but if this planet turns out to be worse than Earth, I’ll be trapped here forever. Matchmaker 2 doesn’t take women back.”
    “Yes, it’s scary that all sales are final,” Angie agreed with a smirk. “But the guard says these aliens are very humanlike. Just sort of, um…old-fashioned, I guess. They expect women to be obedient and keep house and have babies. All that stuff. But I’ll gladly cook and clean and have cute little babies if it means I don’t have to breath in dangerously polluted air and worry about being kidnapped or raped by a gang.”
    A shudder ran through Hailey. She’d thought she had it bad being homeless on the streets of Atlanta, after she came of age and was kicked out of the orphanage she’d grown up in. But Angie had lived in a violent settlement just outside of where Baltimore used to stand, a place that was now ruled by the most vicious gangs imaginable. Most places on Earth had turned into violent and polluted cesspools, but outside of Baltimore was supposedly one of the most dangerous places to live. And leaving your settlement wasn’t easy. Travel between old towns, crumbling cities, and new settlements was wrought with plenty of danger in the face of reigning lawlessness.
    The ship rattled faintly and silence suddenly blanketed the women’s sleeping quarters. Everyone shared anxious glances. The Matchmaker 2 had landed.
    “How does my Marrlxian sound?” Hailey said, speaking the alien tongue, thanks to the language chip that had recently been implanted in her brain. All the women had received the chips, which had been provided ahead of time by the Marrlxians. It was odd to be able to switch easily from English to the alien language, without any effort.
    “Perfect,” Angie said with a laugh. She scratched the left side of her temple where the tiny chips had been inserted. A small red scab was the only reminder of the quick and almost painless procedure. “Guess we should be lucky we can speak their language, huh? I’ve heard of some planets human women are taken to on Matchmaker 2 that don’t have this technology. Could you fathom being mated to an alien you can’t even talk to?”
    Tall guards dressed in black entered the women’s sleeping quarters in the next moment, cutting their conversation short. Hailey’s pulse quickened. Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she could barely hear the lead guard announcing that it was time to depart the ship and meet their mates.
    Please let Cav be kind . She clutched her suitcase and followed Angie to the slow moving line that was forming. Each woman looked nervous, some more than others, and no wonder. If one of them were matched with an unkind mate, they wouldn’t be able to leave and return to Earth. The aliens on Marrlxia had paid the Mail Order Human company handsomely for this shipment of women. The interstellar business might bill itself as a mail order bride company, but in reality the women had all volunteered to be sold to their new mates. It was either that or face certain hardship, perhaps illness or even death, on Earth.
    All the air rushed from Hailey’s chest at the first glance of the alien landscape. Green as far as the eye could see. Lush forests in the distance rose into green mountains, some of them snow-capped. White, billowing clouds roamed across a light blue sky. Flowers and crops surrounded a long, wide road that led to a city that could’ve been a city on Earth. Well, Earth before the wars that devastated her home planet, anyway. The Earth she’d only seen pictures of in old books.
    Dozens of huge blue-skinned alien males crowded around the platform the Matchmaker 2 had landed on. Hailey’s stomach flipped at the size of them, and she stopped abruptly on the ramp. The girl behind her cleared her throat impatiently, and Hailey finally started walking again, following Angie and the rest of the women down the ramp where several guards motioned