Mail-Order Bride [Taos Wolven Mates] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (2 page)

The sound of the whistle pierced her ears, and the conductor’s second warning of, “All aboard!” made her heart pound even harder.

Another handsome man entered the car. This one was at least as tall as the first, with his dark brown hair tied back. He, too, had broad shoulders and a muscular build, but he seemed more relaxed than the first man. The second man glanced her way, tipped his hat and winked before he joined the other man she’d ogled just a few minutes before. For a moment, Dana wondered where the two were from. Wherever it was, they grew their men very tall and very handsome there. With luck, it would be in the town where she planned to make her new life. After all, she was allowed to dream, wasn’t she?

Dana watched through the window as the conductor removed his hat and waved it toward the front of the train before steam filled the station. Men quickly stepped back as a large white cloud billowed out from the sides of the locomotive, filling the station like a dense fog. The car gave a mighty jerk as the chug of the engine pulled them forward. A small sigh of relief escaped her lips, and she thanked God that the train was finally on its way, taking her farther from this nightmare of a life and closer to her new home.

Lorcan leaned closer to his companion and whispered, “Did you make sure no one would miss her?”

His wolven life-partner, Tarin, grinned. “I paid her uncle’s men a visit.” He leaned back with a satisfied smile. “I don’t think we’ll ever see them again. They didn’t seem to like the eyes of my wolf much. I think I scared the shit out of them.” He glanced behind them and grimaced. “She looks like hell wearing that outfit. What did she do to her beautiful golden hair?”

“Apparently, she didn’t want her uncle’s men to recognize her. I wish we could have told her there was no worry of that.” He shrugged. “But the telling would have given our plans away, and she would have panicked. Remember, she thinks she is going out west to meet a husband.”

A woman sitting a few seats away gave them a suspicious look. Lorcan switched to telepathy.
What she doesn’t know is that she is meeting two prospective husbands instead of the one she expected.
He glanced her way again and shrugged.
She will clean up well enough. The color change is not permanent.

Lorcan fought the urge to look back at their prize and closed his eyes on a silent prayer.
Once we’re certain that their kind is compatible to ours in the mating, we must tell the others how to find this place so they, too, can procure a mate.
In his mind, he and Tarin were certain. Deep down, he knew the woman was their mate and would accept her regardless of her ability to breed.

Tarin nodded his agreement then reached into his pocket to pull out his stunner and check its charge.
How long before we can use this?

As much as I hate to have to wait that long, we should wait until they are all asleep, hit her with the stun beam, and call the ship to pull us out of here.

I wish we didn’t have to stun her.
Tarin looked almost guilty just thinking about it.

We must. If the way she felt about her uncle’s plans are any indication, she’s not going to go with us willingly. In her mind, what we have planned for her will not be any better than the fate she believes she just escaped.
Lorcan fell silent as he stared out through the windows at the passing scenery.

It was difficult to believe that this planet, as large as it was, still hadn’t gone through an industrial revolution that opened the humans’ minds to space travel. It was obvious that others of wolven kind had come here before them, nearly a millennium ago, and these people had barely made progress.

Were they content to sit here on their lonely planet not knowing about the other worlds out there, or did they believe they were alone in the universe? Lorcan took a deep breath and sighed, certain it was most likely the latter. Sometimes, humans were so dense.

Perhaps it was a good thing these humans hadn’t embraced progress. Had they discovered space travel, this world may no longer be here. Humans tended to be an arrogant lot, picking fights they couldn’t possibly win against enemies much stronger and more advanced. Still, as arrogant and self-important as they may be at times, humans were the preferred mating breed when a wolf couldn’t find another of his kind.

Lately, things on Taos had gotten so bad, hardly anyone found mates and when they did they took multiple partners—sometimes three to five men to one woman or up to five women to one man. He glanced at Tarin and smiled. He was glad it was just the two of them to share Dana Worley, the golden woman of Earth.

If they were lucky, she would test positive for breeding as they suspected she would, and they could make their way home to Taos. Now that they had scared off her relative, there was nothing anyone could do to stop them.

Closing his eyes, Lorcan leaned his head back against the seat. There was no reason they couldn’t take a nap. Their trip was long. Studying the human woman had taken time, and waiting for the mail to reach her was intolerable, even though they had sped it along. Yet here they were on the final leg of their journey, about to abduct the woman they would make their mate and the mother of their children.

Get some sleep, Tarin.
Lorcan expelled an exhausted sigh.
There is no guarantee we will get much done very quickly once we get her on board. Something tells me she’s going to be a hellcat.

I think that is an understatement, old friend.
Tarin chuckled and leaned back in his seat.
But I’m certain she’ll be worth every trying moment of it.

* * * *

Tarin woke to darkness and the sound of the wheels clacking on the seams of the tracks. A cool breeze wafted in from the few opened windows. If he tried real hard, he could see a few stars through the clouds in the night sky.

Wake up, Lorcan. I think it’s time. The couples are out, the three ladies on the right are sleeping, including our Dana, and the seven men in the back finally stopped passing their bottle of whiskey around and either passed out or fell asleep.
He paused as Lorcan woke up and assessed the situation.
Shall I stun them all for good measure? We don’t want them to see us disappear into a beam of light. It might be more than their small brains can take.

Yes,
Lorcan said with a yawn. Standing, he stretched and looked around.
We must stun them. You know we can’t transport to the ship in this form.

Lorcan was right. For some reason, the transporters maimed or killed their kind if they attempted to travel in human or wolf form.

Stun them all, and then we’ll shift before grabbing the woman and transporting out of here.
He glanced at the other two women on the train.
They appear to have no family. Perhaps we should take them as well.

Tarin shrugged.
It doesn’t matter to me. The more women we have with us, the less likely the others will try to steal Dana away.

Don’t fool yourself. They’ll attempt to steal her away regardless. We must mate her quickly.

But she must be acquiescent. You know the ritual doesn’t work on the unwilling.

Damn shame that. Sometimes, it would be so much easier if they could force compliance from the mates-to-be. Once mated, they were always happy to be what they were. It was what led up to the ritual that frightened them. While some liked the concept, most human women weren’t used to the idea of multiple mates. For some reason, they thought people would think less of them for it.

Not on Taos. On Taos, they were all expected to take multiple partners, regardless of sex. Even he and Lorcan would have taken another male into their circle if the male were compatible. They found no such male and found happiness in the knowledge that they would share a female mate between them. Females meant offspring, and he and Lorcan had both hoped for children.

First, they changed into one of their other forms. The form acceptable for transport was their mid-form. Half man, half beast, they stood on two legs, their elongated snouts sporting large canine teeth. The mythology here on Earth named them werewolves. The ancient legends only served to prove that their kind had been here before, possibly mating with their women.

Usually, they were vulnerable in this form. Their short back legs struggled to support bodies too large and tall for them. Top heavy, they wobbled a bit as they walked and did not fight well. That was why they needed stunners. Though they were stronger as wolves, they couldn’t survive the transport in that form. No one knew why their weakest fighting form was their strongest form for their fastest means of transport. Apparently, everything was good for something.

Tarin paused to look at his stubby, clawed fingers then pulled the stunner from his inner jacket pocket and leveled it at the men in the back. They had agreed to stun them first, assuring they couldn’t put up a fight. It was only after he stunned the couples then leveled the weapon at the two women in the front of the car and fired that he heard a bloodcurdling scream. Both Tarin and Lorcan spun around. Dana stood at the back of the car, her eyes wide. Her mouth open, she held her satchel pressed close to her chest as though the carpeted bag would somehow protect her.

Damn!
Frightening her like this was the last thing he wanted. Lorcan glanced at him with a shrug, raised his stunner and shot their future mate before she made herself ill. “Son of a bitch! Now she will fear us. Why did she have to wake up?” He growled the words more than anything else. Talking was difficult in mid-form.

Lorcan paced the length of the train car between Tarin and the men in the back. “Take them all,” he said with a growl, gesturing to all three of the women. “Who knows when one of our kind will get such an opportunity again?”

This was an unbelievable opportunity. Most human women were difficult to capture. For some reason, their men were never far away and almost always itching for a fight if one even looked at the women the wrong way. That they found three unprotected women on this backward planet was a find beyond belief.

“We must add this planet to our star charts. The women here are not difficult to abduct like those we found on the other few human-inhabited planets we discovered. Their lack of technology leaves them vulnerable.”

Lorcan did little more than look at him, raise an inky brow, and agree. “Indeed.”

Dana awoke to the sound of complete silence. If she listened hard enough, she could hear a slight hum, but nothing more. There was no sound of the train moving over the tracks. There was no rumbling or the slight rocking sensation as the wheels bounced over the seams in the rails.

A terrible memory rose to the surface. Dana brought her hand to her mouth to stifle a scream. What were those…those
things
she saw on the train car? She sat up and looked around. Where was she? The room she occupied was no jail. There were no bars or restraints and, most telling, was there was no door. She looked down at the floor, then up out of desperation. Where was the door?

The large room sported sea-blue walls and a large bed. The bed was big enough for an entire family, with tall posts on each corner. Drapes hung down from the frame around the top of the bed, their shining, sky-blue, silken material unlike anything she had ever seen before. There were no windows, yet light spilled from the ceiling, allowing her to see into every corner of the room. She was alone. Her stomach grumbled. It seemed she was hungry as well.

“How long was I asleep?”

“About twelve hours.”

Spinning around, Dana came face to face with the owner of the voice. She hadn’t expected an answer. “You! Where did you come from?” He wasn’t there just a moment ago. She would swear it. She pressed her hand to her throat, her stomach doing somersaults at the sight of one of the men she had admired on the train.
Goodness, he’s handsome.

Closing her eyes, Dana willed her attraction to go away and was disappointed to find the attraction still there when she opened them again. What was it about his dark good looks that drew her so? Her face grew warm when she realized he watched her as she admired him. “Where are we?” She spun around in a circle. “Where is the train, the other passengers?”

Dana leaned sideways a bit to look around him. There, just behind him was a door. She frowned. How had she missed seeing that before? She turned her attention back to the man and felt her face grow even warmer before she turned away so she could think.

She must do something to keep the man from realizing that she found him so attractive. But what? Turning to face him, she scowled. No one should be that handsome. He was either an angel or a devil. Knowing her family and those her uncle would likely associate with, the man must be the devil himself with that midnight-black hair and eyes as dark as sin. She felt her shoulders droop, certain she was caught. For one thing was certain, they must be agents of her uncle’s sent to drag her home.

This man was the devil incarnate. He must be. He made her feel things deep inside that no decent woman should ever feel. Her stomach clenched down low, and moisture seeped from inside her and wet her under things.

The parts of her that were unmentionable and untouched by any man grew slick with a strange moisture she had never experienced before. That tiny nub between her legs that she washed regularly, but never once suspected had any function at all, throbbed just looking at the devil.