Stranded: BBW Alien Lottery Romance (Warriors of Karal Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  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

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty – One

  Chapter Twenty – Two

  Chapter Twenty – Three

  Chapter Twenty – Four

  Chapter Twenty – Five

  Chapter Twenty – Six

  Chapter Twenty – Seven

  Chapter Twenty – Eight

  Chapter Twenty – Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty – One

  Chapter Thirty – Two

  Chapter Thirty – Three

  Chapter Thirty – Four

  Chapter Thirty – Five

  Chapter Thirty – Six

  Chapter Thirty – Seven

  Chapter Thirty – Eight

  Also By Harmony Raines

  Stranded

  Warriors

  of Karal

  (Book One)

  *

  Note from the author: My books are written, produced and edited in the UK where spellings and word usage can vary from U.S. English. The use of quotes in dialogue and other punctuation can also differ.

  ***

  All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written consent of the author or publisher.

  This is a work of fiction and is intended for mature audiences only. All characters within are eighteen years of age or older. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, actual events or places is purely coincidental.

  © 2015 Harmony Raines

  Silver Moon Erotica

  Kindle Edition

  Chapter One

  Bronwyn

  “Hey, Bron, not watching the lottery tonight?” Alexi, the waitress at Café Reál, asked.

  “What’s the point? All the winners so far this week have been pents. I don’t know what’s up with that. Maybe the rich have finally found a way to bribe the Karal.” Bron took a sip of her coffee and checked the time. Having just finished her shift at the factory, she had come into the café on her way to visit her brother. It was payday and she always followed the same ritual when she had her monthly coins.

  Her first stop was the Café Reál. Here she purchased one cup of coffee—the real thing, not the simcoff she drank every other day of the month. Then she went to visit her brother Arthur.

  He was struggling to keep his family fed; two children put a strain on his finances, and Bron gave him whatever coin she had spare. It wasn’t much, but it made a big difference to them. Bron often wondered if he knew exactly how much she sacrificed for him. This cup of coffee was her only luxury; she lived frugally for the rest of the month so she could help him out financially.

  Seeing him struggle had made her decide not to have children of her own, although she loved them desperately, but she could not put them through what little this world had to offer. Her entry into the Karal lottery was her only hope that she might one day be able to indulge her dream of a family. However, since it had switched to a daily draw, the winners seemed to be all pents.

  Had the Karal finally decided to take the human females that were the healthiest? The lottery was supposed to be random, but it didn’t take a genius to realise that the most fit and healthy specimens from Earth were the pents, who had spent their lives high up above the pollution cloud in their penthouses. Some of them were most probably from the Oxydomes too, where filtered air, enriched with oxygen, was pumped in.

  “Must be random,” Alexi said, wiping down a table and setting it ready for the next customer. Not that there were many. The price of anything real was high, putting it out of reach of most residents of this part of the city.

  “Why must it?” Bron asked. She had been coming in here for so long now that the barista knew exactly how she liked her coffee, and Alexi felt able to converse freely with her.

  “How could it be otherwise? What criteria would they use to choose a woman? It must be random. Or is it like a dating site? Do you think the Karal sit and look through pictures of us all and then choose which one they want to mate with?” She ran her hands over her already too sleek hair and smacked her red lips together. “Next time I enter, I am going to make sure I look perfect, and pout. Might even put a revealing dress on. Nothing like a bit of cleavage to make a man horny. And with no females on their planet, there must be a ton of horny alien males just waiting for the right woman.”

  Bron drained her cup. “Well, if I don’t see you next month when I come in for my coffee, I will know where to find you.”

  “I can only dream. Lying in the sun, fresh clean air to breathe, and a big, strapping alien feeding me some exotic fruit from his world.” Alexi had the unfocused look of a girl dreaming her life away.

  Bron couldn’t blame her. There was nothing good left here to hold onto, and a dream was much more appealing than the reality they lived everyday on Earth. The population had grown out of control over the last couple of centuries, and there were no more resources left. To put it bluntly, the human race was in its death throes: the only way the species was going to survive was if the Karal found them a new planet, a task that could take years. It was why so many women entered the lottery, to escape the drudgery and pollution of their home planet.

  Although she couldn’t work out why a pent would enter; they had everything they needed in their little high-rise bubbles of existence. Why they would choose to sell their bodies to the Karal, with the sole purpose to make babies, she couldn’t fathom.

  “Bye,” she called and left the cafe, relishing the bitter taste of coffee on her tongue. When she got to her brother’s house, she would refuse to eat or drink anything, wanting to savour the taste as long as possible.

  Glancing at the sky, she shivered as she walked. She would have to check the StreamScreen to see if any acid rain showers were predicted. They were getting more and more common, and the devastation caused by them were adding to Earth’s misery. With the showers becoming so frequent, there were designated acid rain shelters popping up all over the city where people could dive in for shelter.

  When she walked through the dirty, grim city on days like this, it was hard to believe the Karal were even real, let alone dare to hope that one day she might actually have the chance to go and live there. However, with the pents being chosen for the lottery, it seemed the best thing to do was to give up on that dream and concentrate on helping her brother. It was time to bury her own need for children and help her nieces more. That brought on a bout of profound sadness. But she saw little point inflicting the dying Earth on a child.

  Shaking off her melancholy, she headed across the street, taking a quick glance at the StreamScreen; the lottery was just finishing, the host saying goodbye. By now another lucky pent was preparing to go to Karal. As she looked away, an advert flashed up replacing the lottery show. It was for a compound to allow men to have muscles to match the Karal’s. More
false advertisements on the Stream.

  These massive screens projected adverts and images, news and information 24/7, bright and gaudy; they were such a stark contrast to the grey world below. A distraction from the mundane, leaving many people dreaming of becoming one of the lucky StreamStars and living like a pent. Or at least that had been the dream. Now, for women, that dream came as a second choice to leaving Earth altogether for Karal. No wonder they were trying to market something to the poor males on Earth who were no longer attractive in the light of the big, toned aliens.

  Thrusting her hands into the pockets of her shabby work clothes, she picked up the pace, enjoying the buzz from her caffeine fix. If she let her mind wander, she was able to imagine she was somewhere else, somewhere lush and green with clean air and fresh water. Her imagination had always helped her through the toughest times. That, and books. With nothing but work to occupy her, she made a pilgrimage to the library on the other side of the city around four times a week.

  It was her form of entertainment and although the books were old, she read everything, from romance novels through to mysteries, and then to non-fiction. She learned about the planets. Physics, some chemistry, anything she could get her hands on. Most of it was last century, but hey, the planets and the stars still looked the same, didn’t they?

  Who knew? You couldn’t see them above the smog which clung to the city.

  Jogging across another street, she turned down the path that led to her brother’s tiny house. A knock on the door and she was transported to another world, one of love and hugs.

  “Aunty Bron!” Caroline, her eldest niece, threw herself into Bron’s arms.

  “How are my favourite girls?” Bron said as Tulla came and joined the hug too. At five and seven years, they reminded Bron so much of herself at that age. There was still hope in their eyes, and she wanted it to stay there for as long as possible.

  “Great. Mom is in the kitchen doing the dishes. Dad isn’t home from work yet,” Caroline said, taking Bron’s hand.

  “So that gives us time to play before he gets back.” The girls always liked to play with their dolls when Bron came to visit. Dolls might be too kind a word to describe the tatty things a co-worker had given to Bron as hand-me-downs. The dolls were so old, Bron wondered how many times they had been handed down, but it didn’t stop Caroline and Tulla from loving them dearly.

  “Yes. Come on. They are having a tea party. With cake.”

  Bron was propelled forward into a tiny living room. The girls had set out some old chipped cups and saucers, and on them were pieces of dirt they had managed to dig up from the garden and mixed with water, just enough for it to stick together. It was the closest these girls would ever get to real cake. Proper food and toys were a luxury, but Tulla and Caroline didn’t let that stop them having fun.

  “I ought to say hello to your mom first,” Bron said, heading for the kitchen.

  Tulla ducked her head, and Caroline looked worried. It was the older child who spoke.

  “Mommy is crying,” Caroline said matter-of-factly.

  “What about?” Bron asked, worried something awful had happened. Her sister-in-law normally put a brave smile on her face, despite the hardship the family experienced.

  “We don’t know. But it was about you,” Caroline said quietly, her hands clutching one of the dolls tightly.

  Tulla’s big eyes filled with tears. “You aren’t going to die, are you?”

  “No,” Bron said, frowning. “Look, let me go and speak to her.” She left the girls and went to the kitchen door, calling, “Stace! You in there?”

  There was the sound of nose-blowing, confirming what Caroline had said. After a couple of seconds the door opened, and a young woman emerged, pretty, but so tired looking it robbed her of her beauty. “Bron. I was worried we would miss you. You can stay until Arthur gets back, can’t you?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” This was feeling weird, what had happened? “Is Arthur all right?”

  “Yes. But you know he’ll be upset. I mean, we all knew you were entering the lottery, but you never expect anyone you know to win.”

  Bron paled. “Win?” she whispered.

  “Yes.” When Stacy noted Bron’s shock, she added, “I thought you must have seen it on the Stream.”

  Bron shook her head. “I didn’t watch. I was convinced it would be another pent. That’s who they’ve been choosing all week. So I never watched.”

  “Well, it looks as if they picked the best skim in town.” Her brother had come in through the front door, his face flushed as if he had been running. “I am so pleased for you, Bron. But hell, we are going to miss you.”

  With that, the small family gathered around her. For the first time since he was five years old, her brother was crying as he told her how he hoped she would find her dreams on Karal. Bron said nothing, the shock too much.

  She had been chosen to go to another planet; her dream of having children was about to come true. But the price seemed so high when the reality of not seeing this part of her family again hit her.

  “We love you, Bron,” were the last words she heard before she broke down and sobbed along with them.

  Chapter Two

  Quin

  “I have never had to pilot the deep space cruiser on such a short mission,” Quin grumbled.

  “I thought you would enjoy the trip. We land on Earth, collect the winners, and return to Karal in the space of a few hours. If all goes well.” Okil smiled at the huge Karalian who was piloting the space cruiser. “I thought you would be excited to meet the woman who is going to be your companion on the deep space mission.”

  “I cannot see why I have to take one of their kind with me. I am more than capable of finding a suitable planet alone. I do not need a chaperone.” Quin guided the ship through the beacons; the wormhole opened before them and then swallowed them whole. This journey was so simple, why they needed someone with his expertise to make it, he could not understand.

  He had his suspicions. Okil had a romantic fantasy that Quin would make this journey, spend time with the chosen human females, and fall in love with one of them. Ha! As if he would ever make a choice based on his feelings. No, if he had to take a female with him, he would take the female who gained the highest marks in the trials they would compete in when they arrival on Karal.

  “We have been through this several times, Quin. We do not know how long you will be gone. I know it should be a short mission: three months maximum, compared to the six months you have been in space before. But if something goes wrong, and you miss your prime, you will not breed. And it is your duty to Karal to make a child with your human female. That is your priority.” Okil’s words were firm.

  “I thought finding a new planet for the humans was my priority.”

  “It is. But your first priority, in all things, is to protect Karal and our species. You need to breed.” Okil looked at the stars rushing past them and then back to Quin, saying lightly, “Anyway, she will be a good distraction during the long journey.”

  “I have never needed a distraction.” Quin checked the instruments on the control deck and then placed his hands on the control stick, ready for when they exited the wormhole.

  “It is quite safe on the other side,” Okil said reassuringly.

  “It is a habit. When you are exiting a wormhole in deep space, you never know what will be waiting for you.” His smiled wryly. “Anyway, the thing waiting for me on the side of this wormhole maybe more dangerous than anything I have ever encountered.”

  Okil burst out laughing. “You may be right. Once a female gets her claws into your heart, you will never feel the same again.”

  “The difference is,” Quin said, “that I do not use my feelings to make my decisions. The chances of me choosing a female I like to go into space with me is very slim. I will choose based on which human will ensure a favourable outcome for this mission and the strongest mother of my child.”

  Okil laughed again. “Th
en I would take some other form of entertainment, and some ear plugs, because if that is how you choose, you may have a very long journey in front of you.”

  The wormhole spat them out, and Quin took his first look at the moon and then the Earth below. It was like a blue jewel; he had never seen a planet quite like it in all of his travels. He checked the instruments, familiarising himself with its chemical make-up and the size and speed of rotation. Not that he and the other warriors hadn’t been briefed on what they were looking for on their missions, but to see the readings on his own control panel made it more real to him.

  “I will start the descent. Let’s get this over with, Okil. I have more important things to do than chauffeur human females around the universe.” He checked the controls once more and the cruiser began to descend, entering the Earth’s atmosphere and then breaking through the other side. Quin was surprised at how beautiful the planet looked on closer inspection, but he knew that hidden beneath the façade was a planet on its knees.

  That was the only reason the females volunteered to leave. To save their own hides. It made him despise them in so many ways. But Okil was right: he needed to produce a child, a son. The females of his species had died out many generations ago, and the Karal only produced males. It was why they needed the females from Earth to breed with.

  Each new generation of the Karal had to go into space to find a viable species to breed with, before their prime passed. The Karal hit their prime when they were a hundred years old. It lasted five to ten years, at which time their bodies matured enough to breed. Once it passed, they were no longer able to reproduce. Quin’s generation had been forced to search farther and farther into space to find viable breeding females. Their prime was already well upon them by the time Earth was found.

  It was why the Hier Council insisted he take a female with him on his mission. His prime might soon pass, and with it, his genes would be lost forever. The Karal lived long lives, but once the prime had passed they would age, their remaining lifespan matching that of a human.