Wanted by the Alien Warden (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides, #4)

by Ursa Dax

“Hello, Fallon.” I glanced quickly at my notes. “You’re Darcy’s husband?” “Yes!” A massive smile split his face, and it was so big and so pure that I almost didn’t even notice the sharp glint of fangs there. “I am eternally grateful to be able to say that I am, indeed, Darcy’s husband!” A groan – Darcy’s, I was fairly certain – emanated from somewhere behind Fallon’s happily grinning face.

“Yes,” Fallon breathed, his eyes now very, very bright white. “Without you and your most illuminating guide, I would not know about the wonders of the clitorosaurus.” “Oh, God,” whispered Cherry. “Fallon,” moaned Darcy. “We have talked about this!” Fallon’s face fell, and he looked so painfully disappointed in himself that I had the sudden urge to reach through the screen and pat him on his sadly drooping shoulder.

“Was… Was that a child?” I stammered. “And did that child just threaten to murder me?” “He wouldn’t have done it,” Oaken said quickly, sliding half his emerald-tinted face apologetically into the camera’s view. “Probably…”

LMAO

“Excuse me,” I said after a long moment. “I’m beginning to believe that I never actually woke up this morning, and this entire conversation has been some kind of stressful fever dream. When I wake up, we’ll have the real call. Have a great day.”

“We love our husbands. You don’t need to melt down over this. It doesn’t change anything for us.” Fallon’s face got all slack and dopey when Darcy mentioned that she loved him. Seriously, she wanted me to believe that that sweet, grinning, alien idiot killed someone?

“I would just like to interject,” said a slightly frantic-sounding Oaken, “that I have never actually murdered anyone! And I would very much still like a bride if there is one yet willing and available!”

“Well, I was convicted of murder,” Oaken hedged, before hurriedly adding, “but that is not at all the same thing!”

LMAO obsessed with how casual everyone is about murder

“I look forward to your arrival.” His orange eyes met mine. They seared briefly white.

I did not know that human females ate meals shaped into squares. This was good, if odd, information.

Cherry and the others had proven themselves to be clever, resourceful, and unafraid of the hard work this world (and their colossally clueless husbands) required. Before I got to know them, I had expected that at least one woman would balk and end her marriage after the thirty-day trial period. None had.

“But… I hardly have any stuff,” I pointed out. “I don’t even have clothes!” The warden’s nostrils flared.

“I’ll do it.” Cherry and I both turned to stare at the warden in startled surprise. Even Silar gave him a puzzled sort of look. “What?” Warden Tenn said gruffly. “You think I can’t sew?” “We didn’t say that,” Cherry replied dubiously. “Well,” Warden Tenn grunted, sounding just a tad offended. “I can.”

“I am busy,” he bit out testily. “But I…” “But you what?” White streaked through his eyes, then disappeared. He hitched up his pants by his belt and fiercely uttered the next words. “But I’d make time for you.”

Silar touched her face one final time and merely muttered, “Where you go, I go.”

“Did you just… growl at me?” the warden asked in astonishment. He’d apparently removed his hat a moment ago, and he held it in his claws now as he stared down at me, his sleek white eyebrows raised. “I didn’t!” I protested, heat pouring through my cheeks. “My stomach did!” “Your stomach growled at me?” His intense orange eyes made an agonizing exploration down my neck, to my breasts, to my belly. Where it stayed. “Stop that,” I cried. “Stop what?” he asked, still staring at my stomach. I wondered if he could see the way it swooped so sharply beneath his gaze. “Stop looking at me!”

“I am trying to ascertain,” he said grumpily – grumpily! The nerve of this man! – “why your stomach does not like me.” His gaze returned to my face, set and serious. “Do any other parts of you have a problem with me?”

He never told me about the histories of the men here. He didn’t even apologize for withholding that information from me. He was a scoundrel of the highest order, and he… He had the cutest fucking ears I’d ever seen.

Part of that was because it felt rather ridiculous to consume food that had been arranged in the shape of a smiley face on my plate, something Fallon had very proudly claimed credit for.

HE STILL DOES THIS HAHA 💀

They were parts of couples, each of them with a wife at their side. I had no one at my side. All I had was a face made of meat and cheese smiling lopsidedly up at me from my plate.

And this-” Her finger landed heavily, nearly accusingly, on the dangly bit. “-is the cock tail.” I stared in bewilderment at Darcy’s screen. “It’s like an itty bitty lasso!” Cherry chimed in, as if that was supposed to make any sense at all. “You guys,” I said, stopping to close my eyes and rub my temples. “Please. I am begging you. Be so real with me right now.” I opened my eyes to find Darcy and Cherry staring innocently back at me. “Are you fucking with me?”

“I also sent him that document,” the warden suddenly added, holding up his tablet. “The one you wrote.” “Hopefully he reads it,” I said. Warden Tenn’s nostrils flared. A zip of white flashed in his eyes.

“What are you doing with your eyes?” Fallon asked loudly, bending down to closely examine his wife’s face. No wonder the man didn’t get away with murder. Not a subtle bone in his big alien body.

“That’s alright,” I assured her. “I can handwash my clothes tonight and just sleep naked, I guess.” Something croaked behind me. Like a very large animal getting choked. Or unexpectedly punched in the face. “What’s the matter, Warden?” Fallon asked with concern. He crossed to the warden and slapped him on the back. “Is there a bit of bracku bone caught in your throat? Here! Open your mouth and I will check!” “What? When have I ever required one of you lot to look inside my mouth?” Warden Tenn rasped, glaring at Fallon.

give me a 500 page book of fallon just being big and dopey and i would eat up every single page 😭💀

Fallon remained, looking like he wanted desperately to stay and chat with us about whatever the hell had just happened. But unfortunately for him, a purple tail snapped back into the room, seized sharply upon Fallon’s belt, and then proceeded to haul him out the door.

Fallon was easily one of the kindest men in this province, if not the entire colony. I had not, however, ever considered him to be one of the wisest.

Once you’ve got her measurements, I will stay up tonight and help you make them.” And all at once, I was reminded why I was doing this. Why I was doing my utmost to make sure this might all work out. Because my men – all my men – were good. They deserved happiness. Fallon, luckily, had already found it.

I leaned forward until my nose bumped the door’s surface. “Hello, Tasha.” Silence. “I am at the door,” I added. A small sound. It could have been a laugh or a sigh, neither of which were ideal.

“Supplies to make you some clothing and…” “And?” Empire help me. I’d already forgotten the ridiculous human word for sleeping clothes. “And… The things you wear for sleep. The jamborees.”

“Are you talking about pyjamas?” “Yes. Of course I am. That’s what I said.” That drew a startled laugh from her as I fetched the measuring strip from the pile. “That is absolutely not what you said,” she replied. “You probably misheard me,” I grunted. “I understand that human ears are not nearly as effective as a Zabrian’s.”

As if, in the space that stretched between us, I was not aware of every single move she made, every breath she took.

I shook the hide at her. “I need to measure you! For the clothing! And the jammeronis!” “Jammies?” “Once again, that is precisely what I said.”

I swept my tail off its hook, tossed it between us, then looped it round her waist. “Excuse me!” she cried as I dragged her closer. “You are excused,” I muttered.

“That’s fine,” I said quickly. Too quickly. Like maybe it wasn’t really fine, but it would be humiliatingly pathetic to admit it.

“Aren’t you going to write these numbers down?” “No. I’ll remember them.” “All of them? Do Zabrians have really good memories?” “I do not know if our memories are any better than a human’s,” I admitted, moving to her other side so I could repeat the process on her right arm. “But I have no trouble remembering the things that are important.”

“Absolutely not,” I replied, holding the strip out of reach. “Who knows what kind of shoddy job you’d do? You’d probably only measure the right leg and not bother to check the left. For all we know, one of your legs could be a full microspan shorter than the other.”

“What style do you want?” I asked her, unfurling the fabric. “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” she said quickly. “Of course it matters,” I replied instantly. “If you’re going to be wearing it, then it matters. It matters to me greatly.”

“I see. So instead of holding me hostage, like I thought a second ago, your real strategy is to just butter me up?” “You want me to put butter on you?” I supposed I could, if she asked.

It only leaves room for the important things. Truth. Endurance. Survival.” “Surely the sort of pyjamas I want isn’t anywhere on that list!” “Incorrect,” I growled. “That issue is currently at the very top of my list.

It was as if she could not sit quietly and face me – or herself – with the fact that she’d just asked me for something. It made me wish she’d ask more of me. It made me want to give her things. Things beyond a simple two piece set of jamberinos. Did she have anyone else in her life to ask things of? To give her things?

I was seized by the image of her seated there, her hands raised and arranged so artfully that way, her human face in profile, lit by the candle on the table. Elegant. Pristine. So lovely in the way that things were never lovely here.

“And before you get any ideas,” he said on a growl, but with mirth in his eyes, “the stunner is biometrically assigned to me. You can’t use it on me, or anyone else.” “I wasn’t planning to!” “That’s what you want me to think,” he smirked. “But a good warden must always be prepared for anything.”

Instantly, he was moving. On his feet, two big steps, then down on one knee before me. The room brightened with a new source of light – his eyes. “Are you alright?” Crackling urgency made his words quick, almost harsh.

“Let’s go, Rabbit.” “Did you just call me Rabbit?” I asked. “What? No. That’s my shuldu’s name.”

“If I were going to call you something besides your name, I wouldn’t be calling you something that refers to an animal.” “Oh? And what would you be calling me, then?” He paused for so long I thought he wouldn’t bother answering. But then, suddenly, he said, “Something pretty.”

No one had ever told me I deserved anything pretty before.

Her smile returned. And for a moment, I felt very unsteady in my boots.

“Fine,” I said, removing Rabbit’s saddle and reins. Lapin whinnied at her return, tossing his white head.

“Blast,” I muttered under my breath, shaking water from my boot and aiming the hose into another empty bucket nearby. “That wasn’t my fault,” I told Rabbit defensively. “She distracted me.” Rabbit snorted loudly before she lowered her head to drink.

That is truly how I would have to survive. Masturbation and suffering.

One tent. As in, singular. The opposite of plural.