Resisting the Alien Rider (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides, #3)

by Ursa Dax

“It’s because we don’t deserve her,” he mumbled. “We aren’t good enough.” His mouth twisted, and he ducked his head so that his hair hid his face. “I’m not good enough. Maybe if I was, then she would want to make a family with us instead of Oaken.”

And just like that, my mind was racing, trying to figure out how I could possibly make this better for him. Easier. Less painful when I’d never be able to make it less painful for myself.

“Sometimes you don’t get the life you want,” I said woodenly. I did not know if I was speaking to Killian or to myself. “Magnolia just… She just wasn’t meant for us.”

“You’re so stupid,” he hissed. “Why didn’t you ask for a bride like the others? If you had, Magnolia might have been married to you in the first place! She could have stayed with us!” “Killian…” “I hate you. I wish they’d given me to Oaken, too.”

“You think that I am happy?” I snarled. “You think that I want to give her up? When I said no to the bride program, I had no idea it could be her. If she were any other woman – any other woman, Killian! – I would not feel like my heart is being ripped up and out of my throat every time I so much as look at her!”

“I did not know someone like Magnolia could even exist out there! Had I been tasked with bringing Darcy to Oaken, or Cherry, I would not be falling apart right now. I’d be able to deliver her safely and move on with my life. But now, I just look around and think, what life? What’s left after she goes? I can’t even ask to be granted my own bride now, because it won’t be her and no one else will ever be enough. You think that I don’t feel regret? Some days, it’s all I feel. Some days, it’s like I’m drowning in it.”

“He is my cousin. Did I ever tell you that? My father’s brother’s son. He was there that day I killed my father. He was in the very room when it happened! He refused to testify against me and we were both convicted.” I sighed,

“I failed him. I tried to protect him and I couldn’t. I’ve already taken his future from him. I cannot now take his bride.” I swallowed hard,

“When you are older,” I said hollowly, feeling entirely emptied out, “when it is time to leave my ranch and establish your own property, you can petition the warden to occupy land near Oaken’s. You’ll get to see Magnolia often that way, and I’m sure she’d be more than happy to have you as a neighbour.”

His burning eyes met mine. “What about you?” “I’ll survive.” I’d survived so much already. But the words felt like a lie anyway.

I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t marry Oaken.

Because mine, it turned out, belonged to a quiet, white-eyed child and the hard-jawed, scar-backed rider who took care of him. When I closed my eyes to picture my future, to picture my own happy ending, it wasn’t the wedding I’d once spent so many hours imagining in painstaking detail.

Delicious triumph sang in my blood when I felt the unmistakable stab of his stiff cock at my belly. A moan escaped me, and that cock gave a delirious spasm, growing so hard I wondered if it hurt. I didn’t want him to hurt.

Garrek raised his hand towards my face. My eyes fluttered shut, and I leaned forwards, seeking his touch. It never came. When I opened my eyes he was gone.

The hurt in her voice was like a knife to me. “I had to.” “Why?” Why? How could she even ask me such a thing? “Because if I had remained one moment longer in that tent with you, Magnolia, I would have mated you,” I snapped. Her breath caught. Her eyes went wide.

“Before I met you and Killian, Oaken was the only one I’d ever cared about. The only one I ever wanted to protect. And I couldn’t. Now, I am betraying him in a more terrible way than I ever could have thought possible. And the worst part? I want you so much that I can’t even be decent enough to be sorry, as you are.”

“Do you know what I felt when you said you did not wish to marry him? Did I feel pain for my poor cousin? Did I feel grief for what it would cost him? For what he would lose?”

“I did feel those things,” I conceded, “but not before I felt pure, cursed exaltation. Exaltation that you would not marry him. The only blood-family I have left, and I wanted to shout for joy at your rejection of him. And still, I can...

“I’m not a good man, Magnolia.” Misery clawed at me. Arousal burned in me. Even now, I wanted her more than anything I’d ever known. “Oaken is go...

“I’m sure that Oaken is a good man. And maybe, if I’d met him first, things would be different.” Her eyes were so serene. “But you’re a good man too, Garrek. And you’re the one I fell in love with. You and Killian both. I look at you two, and I see my family. I see my future.”

“Magnolia,” I moaned against her mouth, one hand still clamped around her plait, the other palming the pulse of her throat. “I love you. I love you so much. You don’t know how I’ve-” Magnolia spasmed in my arms. She wrenched her head back with a cry of pain.

Magnolia had chased me out here in nothing but her sleep clothes. She had no jacket. She had no boots. Her left foot was bleeding. Two little puncture wounds. Behind her, a water ardu slipped away through the rocks and disappeared. “No.” The word sputtered out of me.

completely unaware. I was not unaware. I knew that she was dead even as she blinked her beautiful eyes up at me in innocent confusion.

She sank down to the rocks, and I sank with her, wrapping my body around hers. “Stay with me, Magnolia. Please.” I begged her. Even though I knew it would not change a thing.

I did not speak. For a moment, I wasn’t sure I could. I’d had no indication he would be here. No warning at all. I’d missed him. I hadn’t realized how much until that moment, when the sight of him felt a bit like a punch to the head.

Because my cousin held this human woman like he never wished to let her go. Like she was as necessary to him as his own hands, his own heart. There was no doubt in my mind that she was his wife.

“I am content, Garrek. And now that I know that I will meet my bride soon, I do not think any life could make me happier than this one.” Blast. Blast it all. He did not know.

“And if I can repay you now by saving your bride’s life, then-” “She’s not my bride,” I cut him off. Even as I said the words, I pulled her possessively against my chest, as if he might try to drag her from me. “She’s yours.”

“But…” His face showed no evidence of anger or betrayal. Only bewilderment. “But you love her.” This was not a question. It was a statement. It struck me like a whip. Like my father’s belt on my back.

“How could you possibly know that?” “Because I came upon you at the lake and you did not even stir for staring at her!” he exclaimed. “Because you held her – just as you hold her now – as if she means more to you than your own life! Because when you told me about the ardu bite, you did not look and sound like you were giving me bad news about my own bride. You sounded like you were telling me your entire world had ended!”

“He does love her!” Killian sprang up from his crouch in the corner, clawing spit-dampened hair away from his mouth. “He was an idiot and said no to the bride program. But then he met her and he loves her now. And she loves us, too! At least, she loves me,” he said stubbornly. “She told me th...

“If you try to take her from us,” Killian said, his eyes massive and murderous white, “I will kill you. And no one but Garrek will ever know because they’ll never find your body.”

“It’s a little scary how much I actually believe that,” Oaken said, regarding Killian warily. Then he looked over Killian’s head to me once more. “Let’s get her somewhere comfortable,” he said. “It sounds like we have a lot to talk about.”

“Really? You did not hope I was dead so that you would not have to give her up?” “I never wished for your death.” Then, a pause. “That was Killian.”

She did not open her eyes. But she did say something. Something so quiet that no one but a Zabrian with excellent hearing would catch it. It was my name.

“I…” My throat tightened. I brushed a stray curl away from Magnolia’s brow. “I truly did not want to take her from you.” “You cannot take something that is freely given. She’s given her love to you. She’s made her choice.”

“I believe that I deserve a wife who could actually grow to love me. Only me. Maybe I’m naïve, or maybe I’m a jealous fool. But that is what I want.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “Do you know what I thought when I first saw her?” “No.”

But I noticed it in such a distant sort of way. Because the only thing I could really think when I saw her was, ‘This is someone beloved by Garrek. This is someone precious to the only family I have left. This is the wife of the person who saved me.’ And I loved her then, instantly, as I would love your wife and nothing else. I do not think I am even capable of wanting her as my own wife, now. Because from the first moment that I saw her, I thought of her as yours.”

“So relieve yourself of this morose guilt, Garrek. I find that I have very little patience for it. I do not want her if she does not want me. You’re free. Love her and marry her and don’t you dare waste a moment of that happiness.”

“Now that he knows you don’t plan to steal Magnolia away from him, he’ll love you,” I told him. “And he’s ferociously loyal to those he loves.”

“I think Magnolia has done a hug to me before,” he said at length. “It was nice when she did it.” Then he wrinkled his nose at me, a look that clearly meant it would not be so nice if I were to do it. “It was only a thought,” I said gruffly, lowering my arms.

“Wait!” Killian sounded absolutely affronted. “You can’t take my hug back now!” “You never even let me give it to you,” I pointed out archly. He stormed over to me, eyes crackling. First, he grasped my right hand, then my left, lifting them back up into the air the way I’d been holding them before. Then he threw his arms around my waist and squeezed.

When he finally did pull away, the room seemed darker than it should have been. Astounded, I suddenly realized why. Killian’s eyes were not bright white. For the very first time, I got to see their true colour, something inside him finally soothed enough to let it show.

“What are you staring at?” Killian said, narrowing his gold and brown eyes. My instinct was to go rigid and say, “Nothing.” But I did not want to lie to him today. “You,” I told him simply.

“Magnolia,” he said gravely, “I would like to formally end our engagement.” My mouth dropped open.

“I figured I’d save you the trouble of having to say it yourself,” Oaken went on. “So I am ending our engagement. I do not expect you to fulfill your obligation and marry me.” “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

I was. I’d only just met him, and Oaken was already giving off major good boy vibes. I thought I remembered Garrek telling me that. That Oaken was a good man. I didn’t want to hurt him.

“I hope that once it is healed, I may try again for another bride.” My heart squeezed.

“But next time,” he said with mock sternness, “I will make sure I am well enough to go and get her myself. So that some strapping, growling, blue-tailed rider does not woo her away from me before I even get the chance to meet her.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He patted the mattress. He was just a little too polite, I guessed, to pat my leg or my hand when we’d only just met and I clearly wasn’t feeling my best. That tiny courtesy touched me deeply.