My Chameleon Loves [Galactic Nuptials 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (4 page)

Kernz reclaimed her other hand. “We don’t just think it, little one. We know it to be true.”

“But how do you know?”

Zin rubbed her fingers softly. “At first it was your scent that drew me to you. We are not attracted to any other scents. Now that we’re in a room with you, it’s obvious to us that our souls call out for your soul.” He turned to look at Judge Martin. “May we speak alone with our Laan Asawa?”

“Stop calling me that. My name is Jeni.”

Zin bowed and kissed her hand. “My apologies, flower. I did not mean to upset you. Jeni is a beautiful name, and I would be honored to use it.”

“I’m sorry, but at this point in the negotiations I cannot just leave Ms. Montgomery alone with you.” Judge Martin moved toward the door. “Her attorney will have to remain present.”

Tarooka cleared his throat. “Since you’re using Galactic Nuptials as a front for what you’re trying to do, I insist on our attorney being allowed to stay as well.”

Jeff looked at Jeni. “Is that acceptable to you?” When she nodded, he smiled. “Okay, gentlemen. Let’s clear the room. Mr. Laroche, if you’d be so kind as to join me near the windows we can give these three some privacy to get to know one another.”

Jeni watched as the others filed silently from the room.

“May we sit with you, Jeni, so we can talk?” asked Zin.

“Yes, I think that’s a good idea. The two men took chairs on each side of her and scooted them closer until their thighs were touching her chair. “Okay, so tell me what the deal is. We probably don’t have much time so how about the Cliff Notes version.”

Zin frowned. “What are Cliff Notes? That does not translate.”

She laughed. “It means I want you to tell me what you’re wanting from me and do it in as few words as possible.”

“All right. I am the oldest of my clan, and we want you to come back to Kilara with us to be our mate, or wife.”

“Jeff said you’re from Arridia. How did you end up on Kilara?”

Zin scratched his chin. “It’s a farming planet. Our home planet is overpopulated, and there is a great food shortage. The Federation of Planets finds uninhabited planets capable of food growth, and they allow members from different worlds to settle there. We grow crops that are sent back to Arridia to help our people out.”

“You said the planet’s uninhabited. Does that mean you’re the only ones there?”

Zin shook his head. “No, we have several neighbors. There is one family unit from Roderia, and their mate is from Earth. There is another family unit from Errydenia. It’s also in the Fileta Galaxy. That family consists of one woman and two males.”

Jeni relaxed back into her chair. “So, I would have some female company I could relate to.”

Kernz grinned. “Absolutely! Both women are extremely nice and would enjoy making a new friend.”

“What’s it like there?”

“It’s beautiful,” Kernz said. “The conditions can be harsh, especially if you’re trying to grow food. There are two suns, and the temperature soars near one hundred of your Fahrenheit degrees during the summer months. Each night the temperature hovers near freezing. There are fierce winds and rain daily, with the occasional hail storm. We have abundant lakes and rivers, with a large freshwater ocean not far from our settlement. Obviously there’s ample fishing.”

Jeni closed her eyes for a moment. “Some of the best memories I have are of my fishing trips with my dad.”

“Is he still living?” asked Zin.

“No. Both my parents passed away a few years ago. My mom had cancer, and my dad just kind of withered away and died about a year later.”

Zin kissed her fingers. “I’m sorry, but maybe we could make new memories together. As Kernz said, it’s quite beautiful there. There are over a hundred different plants and flowers including something similar to your grapes and apples.”

Kernz scooted closer. “There aren’t many indigenous animals, but there have been some domesticated breeds brought in from Arridia and Roderia.”

Jeni pulled her hands back, twisting her fingers together. “Why would you want to take a convicted felon for a wife?”

Zin took her chin in his hand and brought her gaze up to his. “We know you did not steal any money from those men. I know you’re not telling everything you know about the crime, but I can tell for a certainty that you’re no criminal.”

Jeni looked away. “You’re wrong. I plead guilty, so that makes me a convicted felon.”

Kernz snorted. “That only means you’re hiding something, not that you’re a bad person.”

“So what’s it going to be, Jenilyn?” asked Zin. “Will you give us a chance to see if we can make you happy?”

Jeni thought for a moment. She could go with them to Kilara and be perfectly safe.
If there’s only three families living there, the guys from Gracely couldn’t sneak anyone onto the planet to get to me. And let’s face it, these guys are gorgeous. It wouldn’t be a hardship to be a wife to them. I’ve already got tingles in unmentionable places just thinking about it. Plenty of marriages start out with lust instead of love. Maybe love would come later? I’ve always fantasized about taking part in a ménage.
“Is there anything special I need to know about you guys before I make a decision?”

Zin frowned and glanced at Kernz before turning his gaze back to Jeni. “What do you mean?”

She felt her cheeks getting hot. “Well, are you normal? I mean, are we compatible, um, you know, sexually? Do you have all the same parts that the men from Earth have?”

Kernz snickered. “Yes, we have the same parts although I’m pretty sure ours are a little bigger.”

“Bigger!”

Zin covered a cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “We are compatible and very similar. We do have some differences that we’ll be happy to explain and show to you but not with an audience.” He glanced toward the two men standing near the window. “We prefer to keep things about our race secret from the rest of the solar system for our own protection. I can promise you that none of our differences can cause you any harm.”

Kernz grinned. “Some of them might even bring you pleasure.”

Zin grasped her hand. “Wouldn’t we be a better choice than to go to one of your prisons? I promise we won’t require you to do anything you don’t want to do. We can have a trial period where we get to know one another without sexual relations if that’s what you want. We want you to be happy with us, Jeni. We want you to desire to stay with us forever.”

“I’d want to spend a couple of days getting things done here before I could go with you. Is that okay?”

Zin smiled. “That’s fine. We can take all the time you want. We have our own shuttle so you aren’t confined to the public shuttle’s schedule.”

Jeni looked toward the window. “Guys, I think I’ve made a decision.”

Jeff walked over to the table followed closely by Minov Laroche. “What’s it going to be, Jeni?”

“I’m going home with Zin and Kernz and see what happens.”

Minov smiled. “That’s excellent. You will be required to undergo a physical by Dr. Jtsar before you’re transported to Kilara.”

“Why do I need a physical?”

“To make sure you aren’t transmitting any type of disease to the farm planet. Several planets depend on the food raised there, so we have to be extra cautious about introducing anything new to them. It will also determine if you’re compatible with them to procreate.”

Jeni looked at her future husbands through lowered lashes. She hadn’t thought about having children with them.

Zin stood and pulled her to her feet. “All that can be determined later. Whether she is capable of carrying our children or not, she is our Laan Asawa, and nothing can change that.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “You’ll be coming home with us soon, flower, very soon.”

* * * *

Carl Dempsey twisted his portly frame and leaned back in his chair, studying his partner of twenty years. He envied Robert Ellison’s slender frame, but not the thinning brown hair mixed with gray on top of his head.

“What the hell are we gonna do now?” asked Robert.

Carl barked out a brittle laugh and rubbed his arthritic knee. “Unbelievable! Who would have ever thought some judge would give her a choice of prison or being some sex toy on another planet? It’s like something out of a fucking science fiction novel.”

“Focus, Carl. We’ve got to figure out a way out of this mess. Have you talked to David Kendrick yet? He’s supposed to be some kind of pioneer in the field of computer hacking. If anybody can trace what she did with the money, it’ll be him.”

Carl snorted. “He may be a pioneer, but he’s met his match in our Ms. Montgomery. He says she transferred the money through multiple banks outside the US. He trailed it through France, Germany, and Greece of all places, and then lost it. He’s still working on it, but he told me we shouldn’t get our hopes up.”

“Shit! I wish I’d killed that bitch when we had the chance. If you’d been thinking with your big head instead of the little one, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Robert walked over to the bar and poured himself two fingers of scotch. “If you’d done a thorough background check before hiring her you’d have discovered her connection to Linda Phelps.” He swallowed down the drink and closed his eyes for a moment. “But no. All you could see was another piece of ass you wanted to nail.”

“All right. I get the point, Robert. But it’s your damn fault we’re having to deal with the cops. If you’d had better control over that asshole accountant of yours he wouldn’t have jumped the gun and had her arrested while we were out of the country.

“He thought he was doing us a favor. The damn fool thought we’d be giving him a promotion for catching a thief while we were gone.”

“Instead of laying blame, we should be figuring a way out of this mess. If we don’t get that money back, we’re finished.”

Robert poured himself another drink and sank into the chair in front of Carl’s desk. “What do you think we can do now? She’ll very shortly be out of our reach. We can’t very well force her to tell us where the money is if we can’t get our hands on her.”

Carl snickered. “Who says she’ll be out of reach?”

“Well, excuse me. I sort of figured her being in another galaxy was out of our reach.”

Carl lumbered to his feet and moved to stare out the window. “Not necessarily. I did some checking, and they have recently opened a space port on Kilara. It’s the last stop in the Fileta side of the wormhole. They’re practically begging for people from Earth to open small businesses in the terminal. They’ve got rigid guidelines about offering supplies or services the farmers usually have to ship in.”

“How the hell does that help us?”

“Hell, don’t you have any imagination at all? We can send Angelo and Mario on a business trip. They can say they’re there checking out the place in hopes of opening a business. There are only four farms on the planet. It should be a piece of cake for them to sneak away long enough to find our little Ms. Montgomery.”

“How will they get her back here?”

“Technically, they don’t have to. You know as well as I do that Mario is very skilled at getting information out of people. We just leave it up to them to find out what we need and then dispose of the bitch. We’ll even hedge our bets and make sure they send some police guards along with her to make sure she’s playing nice with the aliens. Her guards will just have to be someone we know.”

“You trust Mario and Angelo to just bring back the information where all our millions are hiding?”

“Of course not. That’s why I plan on being at the station when they get in. They won’t have a chance to use the information for themselves. There’s only one shuttle that goes back and forth between here and Kilara. If they want the money, they have to come back to Earth.”

Robert stroked his chin slowly and smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”

* * * *

Zin paced back and forth in front of the spaceport letting his gaze wander over the various travelers with their brightly colored garments. The robotic loaders were busy stacking cargo while the sounds of metal scraping against metal made him want to scream. He stretched, rolling his shoulders as the noon suns heated his skin. A soft vibration filtered up through his boots as another small craft landed. He glanced at Kernz and growled softly. “This is ridiculous. We should have been allowed to bring her back with us.”

Kernz shook his head and fanned himself with a small book. “There’s no point in discussing this again since there’s nothing we can do about it.”

At the last minute, the officials on Earth had demanded Jeni be transported with official guards on a public shuttle. She was a convicted prisoner being transferred to serve her sentence and should be treated as such. Zin and Kernz had complained to the highest level but had been unable to change their decision.

“What the hell?” Kernz’s eyes widened. “What’s Rmantk doing here?”

Zin turned to stare toward the station. Rmantk served as the head of security for the royal family of Arridia. “This can’t be good. He’s got Tenik and Quenk with him.” He walked toward the three men. “Rmantk, what brings you to Kilara? Is our father well?”