Mated by Twilight (True Match)

Chapter 2

Leah

“Leah Williams?”

“Here! Y-Yes! Hi- Oh, snap!” In her haste to stand, Leah accidentally dropped her purse, spilling the contents all over the linoleum floor. The nice lady with the clipboard that had come to get her blinked, startled, as Leah rushed to gather everything.

Chapstick, extra hair ties, some bandages, tissues, three pens in two different colors, her little notepad, her old, beaten up mp3 player and wired headphones, two power banks, her keys, all the old, chipped key chains attached to it, and a handful of coins that scattered everywhere. Leah’s face burned as she tried to quickly shove it all back in even as the other lady came to help her.

Her nerves were absolutely shot today. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She couldn’t believe she’d agreed to do this! She was going to puke. Her heart was going to fail any second now. Divine power was going to strike her dead for this.

No, not that one. She was fine. This was fine. She’d asked for this. In a sense.

“Here,” the woman handed her the things she’d gathered.

Leah quickly shoved them back in her bag with a stuttered thanks before pulling it back up onto her shoulder. She gripped the strap tightly in both, shaky hands as she tried to work on controlling her breathing.

The brown-haired woman gave her a kind, concerned look. “Are you okay, Ms. Williams? Do you need a moment?”

“No,” she assured her quickly, panting unnecessarily. “I-I’m fine. Sorry. Just a bit nervous, you know? It’s a, er, big day.”

“Right,” the woman, her badge identified her as Trixie, nodded, smiling understandingly. “Well, you’re the only one being picked up. If you need a minute to gather yourself…”

Leah was already shaking her head. Standing around, waiting more, wasn’t going to make her less anxious. If anything, stringing herself along would just make it worse. Better she just get this over with. Like getting a shot or taking nasty medicine. Grit her teeth and get it done.

The woman nodded and turned, leading Leah through the building, towards the private elevator that required a key Trixie carried. There was a security guard standing in the elevator who gave Trixie a cursory nod before facing forward again. He wasn’t the first one Leah had passed. He probably wouldn’t be the last either.

Today, Leah was leaving the planet. She had been mated to an alien and so now had to go through the immigration process.

Which was a completely insane thought!

She was leaving Earth!

How was everyone else so calm about this right now?!

Taking off from the planet was possible since humanity had become a protectorate of the Coalition. However, only two types of people could do it – those that were willingly relinquishing their Earth citizenship permanently, and those that were marrying off planet.

No. Not marrying. Mating. Leah was mating. An alien .

The very thought was enough to make her heart pound and her belly cramp – and not in a good way. It wasn’t excitement that made her so shifty and nervous. It was just that good, old-fashioned shame that her parents had instilled in her since birth.

But that’s exactly why she was here, doing this. She had gone to True Match searching for a husband. Someone she could spend her life with. Someone that, maybe, would restore some sense of normality to her existence. She didn’t really care what he looked like or what he did. As long as he was kind and understanding, she would be happy. She could make herself happy.

Some of the other women at the shelter had mocked her for doing it. Just because the company promised he would be her soulmate didn’t mean that she wasn’t still relying on a man to fix her problems. She should be able to stand strong and do it on her own. To fight for herself. She could worry about finding a husband when she didn’t need a husband.

But Leah wasn’t strong enough to do it on her own. To fight for herself. She ran. That’s what she did. When things got hard, she took off. She needed someone to be her strength, and she wasn’t above turning herself into a little housewife for a man if that meant she was safe and loved.

Just so long as he was kind. She could do anything if he was kind.

And True Match had given her what she asked for.

She just wasn’t mentally prepared for it to be an alien.

Most people that went to True Match were matched with other humans. They said that the rate of being matched to an alien was only something like five to ten percent. Leah never even considered she’d be in that five percent. But, despite that, she still had a printout of the email informing her of her alien match in her purse.

The information was a bit hard to read. It had her mate’s name, but it looked like there was a mistake because it seemed to be printed twice – forward and backward. There were some other mistakes as well – some words were plural, there were other words she didn’t understand, and she was pretty sure the contact information was wrong. When she messaged the person on the other end, they also used strange words, encouraging her to come and stating he was eager to meet her but in very bad English. She was pretty sure it was a translation error since they weren’t speaking the same language. Their messages were being auto-translated after being sent, and those were never reliable, right?

It wouldn’t be a problem for much longer though. When she was taken off the planet and brought to the spaceship embassy that orbited Earth somewhere beyond the moon, she would be taught the language he was speaking. There were some other things about immigration she’d have to go through, but she didn’t really know much about it, and she was kind of afraid to ask.

So, she just followed Trixie as she was brought up to the roof of the building. This facility was isolated, out in the middle of nowhere, only accessible through a single car lane that was guarded on both ends with another guarded checkpoint in the middle. A huge gate in a tall wall separated the compound from the wild area around it. There was a lot of security here because this was where aliens from the orbiting spaceships would land and live when they came to Earth.

Mating an alien wasn’t an easy process. After Leah got the email, she had been given Trixie’s number – she was the coordinator for human immigrants into space. Trixie had, in turn, given her step by step instructions for what she needed to do, but it was a lot, and Leah had never been the person in charge of these things before.

She had to pack what she wanted to bring, sell everything else, and apply for a passport because the only spaceport off Earth was in Switzerland. Leah had never even thought about leaving the States. Her parents would wonder why anyone would since the world, in their eyes, were a bunch of godless, worldly blasphemers, and the only good people were the ones in their little privately owned suburban paradise. It was just another thing that Leah had internalized without meaning to. She didn’t even realize until she had to go through the process of getting the passport just how afraid she was of the outside world.

When she got to Switzerland, Trixie was able to take over handling her. She spent one night in a hotel here, and then was driven to this compound by a severe faced man in a dark vehicle. She had everything she owned in a few suitcases that were taken when they arrived to be loaded onto the landing shuttle. Waiting for that shuttle was all she had to do.

But it was here now, and Leah was about to throw up. She couldn’t believe she was leaving Earth to meet up with a guy she’d only ever communicated with through messages. She hadn’t sent very many to him, bothered by how bad the translation software was. She would think that aliens would have better technology than that. But maybe she was being unfair. They had only learned English a couple years ago, and it took decades for human technology to get good at translating between human tongues that had the same root language. It wouldn’t be fair for her to expect perfection from aliens. She just had to struggle to read past the errors.

What did come through, strong and clear, was his desire to meet her. To have her come out to space to join him – he couldn’t come here. Aliens could only live on Earth if they worked for the Coalition embassies, or if they gave up their entire life, and all their comfortable technology, to live on a planet that still had prejudicial issues with different species.

It was much easier for Leah to leave. It wasn’t like she had anything left for her on Earth anyway. Her family refused to speak to her, she didn’t have any friends, and her job as a waitress was one that anyone could fill.

‘ Come out to us! We’ll love you. We’ll give you tenderness. We want you. Please. ’

That was the message that finally convinced her to go. It was more terrifying than the day she left her family. She didn’t know what it meant that he wanted to give her tenderness – that had to be a translation error. It was also weird that the translation software kept making him say ‘we’ instead of ‘I’, but she understood the gist. At least, unlike when she ran away, she was choosing this.

She chose this, she repeated to herself like a mantra as Trixie brought her to the open door of the landing shuttle.

It wasn’t a large ship. She’d compare it to the lead car of a bullet train – slick and shiny, but not that big, all things considered. The shiny metal was trimmed in silver and bronze. It was decorative in some places, someone had clearly gone through the trouble of making it look nice.

Leah just stared at it, discomfort roiling in her belly.

The landing pad was on the roof – like it was a helicopter. All around, a sea of green trees swayed gently in the breeze. The world smelled fresh and clean here.

And behind the shuttle was the bright blue sky.

Beckoning her. Daring her to run. To flee from the fear that was eating her up inside.

It was a call that was all too tempting to answer. It wasn’t too late. She could just turn around, leave this place, and forget this crazy idea ever popped into her head as a possibility.

The bright blue sky promised freedom. It promised escape.

It promised a life always on the run, never getting the rest and safety she desired.

Her hands tightened on her bag as she banished the thought. She was running to her future. She wasn’t running away from her past. That’s what the bright blue sky was beckoning her towards. And that’s where she would go.

“So, you just climb on and take a seat,” Trixie explained calmly, unaware of the internal struggle Leah was facing. “The pilot will take care of everything. When you arrive at the orbital, someone else will take you through the medical and imprinting processes. We have a transport ship coming in tomorrow to pick you up. It will take you to a place called Holotulle – that’s the capital of the Coalition. There will be someone there to oversee you until you’re picked up. You won’t be left alone at any stage of the process. Okay?”

Yeah, that was definitely better than running out of a church, away from her family, with no job, nowhere to go, and only the ridiculous clothes on her back.

Leah nodded. “Okay. Thank you for helping me.”

“Sure,” Trixie smiled and stepped back as the door opened. “Have a great life, Ms. Williams. And remember, if you ever need help, you can go to any domini or ratchi embassy at any time. We’ll conduct our mandatory review after you are picked up by your mates.”

Leah had been climbing the short steps that dropped from the bottom of the open doorway as she spoke. She turned, confused, certain that she heard her say ‘mates’. But she didn’t get a chance to say anything to the smiling Trixie as the door slid shut behind her. She must have just misheard because she’d been reading the mistranslated messages, that’s all.

The pilot was in a closed cabin, but his voice came over the intercom urging her to sit wherever. Every seat was open, though there were only twelve. It made the small space seem incredibly huge as she picked the nearest one and sat back.

She was still searching for a seatbelt when she felt the ship begin to lift.

“Oh, wait, hold on. I don’t have my seatbelt yet! ” She finished with a yelp as they suddenly took off. The jolt wasn’t too dramatic, but it was enough to make her clench the arms of the seats. No seatbelt on a moving vehicle just felt wrong .

She was still searching for it a short time later when the shuttle rocked, and she heard the distinct groan and thuds of huge pieces of metal banging together. But there was no way they were already here, right? It had only been a few minutes; surely, it should be longer than that.

However, the door opened as she was debating what to do and she flinched. She wasn’t met with the unforgiving vacuum of space, however, but instead a large, green reptilian man in a charcoal gray suit with a blue tie, and long, bright yellow quills on his head.

“Miss Williams,” he greeted with a slight hiss to his words. His diction was wonderfully crisp, however, considering it was coming from a huge muzzle. “I am ambassador Tzomei. I’ll be taking you through the immigration procedures. If you’ll just follow me. We have a few things to do before I show you to your room where you can wait for the travel ship.”

“Er, sure,” she muttered, getting to her feet. Amazed they were able to hold her up, considering how numb and weak they suddenly felt.

She was really talking to an alien. Like, a legit alien. It was the first time she’d ever done so, and it felt weird. Not because he was an alien, but because it was strange to finally come face to face with someone her family would have hated so completely.

Her parents were staunch anti-aliens. The one-time Leah suggested that they might not be so bad, they’d gotten angry, and her father had hit her. They told her that the Lord made humans in his image, not aliens. And aliens, therefore, were godless, unholy creatures. Demons, more like, come to tempt them into sin and corrupt their minds. Some of the people from the church had even begun tossing around the idea that the aliens were actually the coming end of times and that fraternizing with them was a quick way to condemn your soul forever.

That was years ago now though. Leah didn’t know she’d have an alien mate, so she had allowed her family to put whatever ideas they wanted in her head. And if agreeing meant that her father didn’t hit her again, then that had to be a good thing, right?

If her parents ever found out what happened to their daughter, she was pretty sure they’d both have massive coronaries. Though she doubted it would matter. They’d completely disowned her at this point. They’d probably say it was only right that she become a demon’s whore after turning her back on them and the church.

And now, a mere five years after she last saw them, Leah found herself walking in step with one of those aliens as he guided her through the, admittedly, very nice spaceship. She wouldn’t compare it to a luxury hotel, but it definitely wasn’t a cold, sterile, dark spaceship either. The colors were bright, and everything was trimmed in more silver and bronze like the landing shuttle. All things considered, it was actually very nice.

“If you have any questions, feel free to ask,” the alien male, the ambassador himself, said, giving her a kind look. At least, she thought it was kind, it was hard to tell since his face didn’t change that much, but he sounded nice anyway.

Leah gave him what she hoped was a confident smile in return. “I’m kind of surprised the ambassador himself is handling basic immigration procedures.”

He chuckled. “There aren’t that many humans leaving Earth, believe it or not. There have only been a few who have mated through True Match, and even fewer who successfully immigrated without a match. Humans need a sponsor to care for them when they leave the planet, and those who don’t have mates have a hard time finding one. Maybe I’ll need to hire someone to do immigration procedures one day, but there aren’t enough of you to justify it as of yet. Besides, I enjoy meeting the humans who come through here. You’re very interesting.”

Leah laughed nervously, pushing back her hair behind her ear. “I don’t know about that. I’m pretty ordinary. Erm, so what are we doing?”

“You have to have your language imprint. Your mates have requested you have Standard imprinted over their native tongue. They travel throughout Coalition space, and so speak Standard most often. If it becomes a problem later, they’ll have you imprinted with their native tongue then. We’re also going to do a medical scan, fix any problems we might find if you like, and, if you want one, we can do the birth control procedure.”

“Er, procedure?” Her heart skipped a beat.

“It’s nothing invasive. We’ll just turn off your ovulation.”

Leah frowned, not entirely sure she liked the sound of that. Was it healthy to be messing with her body that way? What if they turned it off and couldn’t turn it back on? Oh, wait. What if this was also her mate’s request? What if he didn’t want kids? She couldn’t let that happen! She had to have his kids. It was the only way she could be sure that he wouldn’t get rid of her!

“You don’t have to do it, of course,” Tzomei said, reading her expression easily.

Leah nodded quickly. “I-If that’s okay? I mean, I don’t want to make more work for you. And I guess if my mate said I should, I better. But, er, no, actually, it’s okay. I mean, it’s fine, I don’t…”

“Nothing will be done without your permission, I assure you,” Tzomei cut her off, giving her an understanding look. “If you don’t want it done. It won’t be done.”

Leah nodded, biting her lips. Unable to bring herself to just say she didn’t want this strange, alien procedure done on her. That she wanted babies as quickly as possible. That it would be best for her because it would solidify her presence. She just couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“Right in here,” Tzomei gestured when she fell silent.

The room he led her into had a big bed in the middle. It wasn’t at all like the pod she’d gone in to get her initial scan. She’d compare this more to an old-fashioned stretcher – thin and metallic around the edge. Tzomei had to give her a stool to climb onto it. She sat down, surprised by how comfortable the thin material was. She fully expected to feel the metal through the padding, but she didn’t. Wait, was there even metal under this thing? What…?

While she was trying to figure it out, another person came into the room. They were a different species to him, one that she recognized because she’d seen them on Earth before. Tzomei was a ratchi; this new alien was from the other human sponsor species, a domini. They were a species with three eyes and the ability to camouflage into their surroundings. Leah couldn’t tell if this person was male or female, but they were wearing a white coat, while their skin was the same gray as the shirt they wore underneath it. They nodded at her as they moved to the controls for the bed.

“Just lie back,” Tzomei told her calmly, giving her a smile. “It won’t hurt at all. It’s not like the True Match scan.”

Leah didn’t argue as she laid back. The scan had been acutely uncomfortable. It felt like she’d been struck in a chest with a giant, cartoon mallet. It drove the breath from her body and left her reeling. She’d even thrown up afterwards.

With that memory now back in the front of her mind, Leah tried to remain calm as three rings came down from the head of the bed, circling her body, and pulsing with a creamy white light. She tried watching all three of them at once as Tzomei talked her through what was happening and what was going to happen next – both in the exam and in general.

They were starting with the medical exam – a standard procedure. They had to make sure that she wasn’t sick, wasn’t bringing any sicknesses out into the universe, and also that she was ready for going out there herself. Without asking, Tzomei told her that she would be immunized, but not in the traditional way that humans were used to. Her immune system itself was going to be tinkered with by the machine to prepare her for potential, common diseases.

No needles was pretty nice, but she was again uncomfortable with the idea of alien technology messing with her internal organs. She didn’t think they were going to do something bad deliberately, but she couldn’t get her dad’s voice out of her head. She could practically hear him shouting that they were going to brainwash her, implant something weird in her, harvest something from her. What he believed the aliens were going to do to any humans leaving Earth changed from topic to topic, but it was always bad.

But Leah wanted to believe in them. She had lost her family, all her friends, everything, and had bet it all on this match. She kind of needed them to be good.

And certainly, it didn’t seem like anything untoward was happening so far. The scan didn’t hurt, and when it finished, the domini gave her a quick rundown of all their findings. She had a large scar on the back of her head from where her father had thrown a cup at her when she was little. They offered to heal it back to normal and restore her ability to grow hair in that small spot. She also had fibroids in her uterus they offered to remove. She declined the former but accepted the latter – if only to see if it made her periods less painful. But she didn’t want to mess around with unknown technology any more than necessary.

That was also why she declined them turning off her ovulation. They warned her that she would still have her period if she didn’t, and that other aliens wouldn’t really understand periods so tending to herself during that time might be difficult, but she assured them that it was fine.

Maybe someday, when she got more comfortable with all this, she’d be willing to let them tinker about with her internally. As it was, she was already changing everything else. She wanted to keep herself mostly intact.

The fibroid removal process only took about an hour, and she didn’t feel anything. The domini person told her that he was simply forcing the cells to kill themselves and encouraging her body to get rid of the remains – all using her body’s own systems, just with his direction. She liked that better than surgery, but it was still weird. Especially since she didn’t feel any different.

After that, it was time for her language imprint.

They explained it to her in simple terms. Basically, they were just downloading the Standard language into her head. It would be quick, painless, and safe. She would have some homework to do to solidify the imprinted information, but if she did it right, she’d be fluent in both reading and speaking this new language.

Leah was hesitant about that too. She definitely needed to speak the language, so she eventually gave permission. Trusting them when they said it was safe.

That was why, when she woke up after blacking out, she immediately started panicking.

What had happened? What went wrong? Had they lied to her? Had they done something to her? What language was she even thinking in right now ?!

It took a while for them to calm her down enough to explain that passing out was a rather common thing and it was just a result of the rush of information being imprinted. Nothing had gone wrong. She’d barely been out for a few seconds.

If there was any chance of her letting them mess around with her uterus, it was gone now. It was smart that they saved it for the end because she was absolutely done at that point.

“C-Can I come down now please?” She asked, death gripping the side of the stretcher. She didn’t want to move without permission, but she dearly would like to be let down please.

“Of course,” Tzomei said, offering her a gentlemanly hand to help her sit up. “You’re alright, I assure you. It was just a temporary loss of consciousness.”

Leah nodded but didn’t really agree. She didn’t like this at all.

Probably sensing that she’d reached her limit for the moment, Tzomei helped her down and brought her to a small room on the ship. It wasn’t anything special – just a bed and her suitcases in the corner. But it did have a window with an incredible view of Earth.

Leah gasped as she walked forward, staring at her blue planet in awe. The window wasn’t a small porthole either. It was wide, giving her an incredible view as Tzomei stood in the doorway, ever the gentleman. Gentlealien? Gentleratchi?

“Your meals will be delivered here directly,” he said. “You’re free to roam around this area of the ship if you like. You don’t have to worry about getting into anything you shouldn’t, as no doors will open for you if it’s not safe for you to be inside.”

“Thanks,” she said, turning away from the window to face him. “And thanks for taking me around personally, ambassador.”

“I assure you, I’m not that busy,” he chuckled. “There are two ambassadors, and between us, the workload isn’t overwhelming. I do also need to let you know about our new policies. After any human is left with their mate, there is a mandatory period of ten tendays wherein we will contact you every tenday to check in on you and make sure you’re still alright. If you do not respond to the message within a single day, we will send an agent to check on you in person.”

Leah frowned. “I thought that this mating thing wasn’t dangerous.”

“It’s not. Typically. It’s a precaution instituted after some unpleasantness. No one was harmed, but there was some concern, so we made the new rule. We won’t check on you forever. Just until we’re sure you’re settled and safe.”

“Oh, okay,” she mumbled a bit uncertainly.

“You’ll be fine, I assure you.”

She nodded, her fingers twisting together uncertainly.

“Do you have any further questions for me? Anything about life in space, in the Coalition. Anything at all.”

“Erm, actually,” she hesitated just a second before unloading on him.

She shouldn’t. He was an important male, someone with more responsibilities than looking after a lost little human. But there was so little information on immigrating off Earth. She hadn’t been able to scour the web for answers to her litany of questions, and Tzomei just happened to be the first one unfortunate enough to grant her permission to ask him anything.

She had dozens of questions. All of them small. How long would this take? Where were they going? Did she need anything special like her passport – since the one for Earth wasn’t any good out here in Coalition space. Which she was officially in since they were floating out beyond the moon because human territory extended only where humans stepped foot under their own power. Would her phone work while she was out in space? Where was Holotulle anyway? Who was going to be escorting her after him? What were they eating? Was it safe? Where was the bathroom? How did it work? How did the doors work?

She had to be wasting his time, but it was all information she would feel better knowing. She was willing to stop the moment he seemed bothered – and would have no doubt done so with no small amount of guilt rushing in for wasting his time. However, Tzomei was nothing but polite and patient as he answered every question she had to the best of his ability.

There was more, of course. She had so many questions about the male she was supposed to be mating. What he was like, what he did, where he lived. But she didn’t expect that the ambassador had bothered to read her file to that depth. There was no reason for him to do so, and it really would just be wasting more of his time.

Besides, she’d be meeting the guy soon enough. She’d be able to ask him all about himself then – and not through the clearly busted translator.

For now, Tzomei calmly and patiently indulged her curiosity and anxiety until she finally ran out of questions he would likely know the answer to.

“Anything else?” He asked, his expression unphased, almost happy. Insomuch as his scales could embody that, anyway.

She shook her head. “Not that I can think of. Thanks for… indulging me.”

“It’s my job.”

“I’m sure the ambassador has much more important jobs.”

“Protecting and guiding the humans under my care is my most important task. You’re not the first to ask me so many questions. Your kind is naturally curious. It’s not a bad thing. Fortunately, my kind is rather patient. Which, now that I think about it, is probably why the other ambassador leaves this duty to me most often.”

Leah smiled. He seemed nice. And that was relieving. Like a confirmation that she had made the right choice in coming here.

“Thank you, ambassador.”

“No need to be so formal,” he assured her, smiling. “You can just call me Tzomei. I’ll be sure to give you my comm patch before you leave so you can contact me at any time if you feel you need help. It’s my job and honor to help.”

She smiled, thanking him again. Feeling a bit better as he left her alone to get comfortable on her bed, staring out the window at the distant blue dot that was Earth.

She was still scared, of course. Anyone who had upended their entire life on the promise of something nebulous like this would surely feel the same way. It wasn’t so easy to leave behind everything you knew.

But she’d already done it once. At least, this time, she wasn’t doing it under duress.

Letting out a slow breath, she leaned against the cool glass and stared out at the mesmerizing view of space as she waited. She’d get her husband, her mate, soon enough, and she could finally begin living the life she wanted. A simple life. Her and the man she was destined to love. She’d work if she had to, of course, but if she was lucky, he’d be okay with her being the stay at home wife. She’d care for the home, the children, and her husband.

The life she’d always been promised, but this time, chosen by her own hand. And it was going to be an alien as well. The irony of it, knowing her parents were getting exactly what they wanted in exactly the worst way, made her smile just a bit.

Soon. She’d be safe and secure, living a simple life with the one meant for her, soon enough. And things would finally be peaceful and safe.

In the distance, the fiery edge of sunrise on Earth seemed almost like a reassurance.