A Highly Unsuitable Mate

By Michelle Marquis

For Ambassador Susan Slade it was nothing but a routine business trip. She wasn't looking for love nor did she think she'd ever find it. Her work helping others was enough. She was content. But all of that changes after a shuttle crash when she's forced to work with hunky Japanese-Kirillian bounty hunter Noriko. Dependant on his strength for her survival, Susan comes to realize that not every bad man is as bad as he appears to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Torrid Books
• Release date: Jan 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781611601565

Book preview

Prologue

The day was dismal and overcast with only a hint of rain. The sky was an oppressive iron gray and according to the newscasts, it would be like this for the next few weeks. Ambassador Susan Slade sat in an outdoor café with a dark brown headscarf concealing her identity. It was one of the downsides to being an outspoken opponent of slavery on a planet that depended on it.

Kirillia hadn’t started out as the slave trading capital of the galaxy but, over years of suffering through corrupt governments, it had become just that. Even if you were born with a decent heart it was soon crushed by the cruel reality that you had to make a living on the backs of other people. Almost everyone here made their living on the slave trade, except of course for her.

With a sinking heart she watched the slave markets opening for the day. They wheeled out caged people of all shapes, sizes and breeds into the cramped avenues and placed a sign next to each indicating what the price was. The inhumanity of it sickened her.

A bounty hunter stood with his night’s catch by one of the stands which housed the area’s wealthiest broker. The bounty hunter was a towering juggernaut, proud and handsome, like a throwback from a more ancient and primitive time. He was obviously of oriental ancestry but there was a definite strain of Kirillian in his size and strength. His hair was long and black and pulled into a ponytail that ran to the center of his back. He wore a weathered leather jacket with his bounty hunting license stitched on the upper right arm. The jacket covered a frayed tan T-shirt. He also wore dark green utility pants which he tucked into heavy leather boots that came up to his knees. The boots had silver buckles running up the outside and bulged where the buckles had been damaged enough to be missing a clasp.

Susan stared at his face again. Aside from being astonishingly good-looking there was something both ancient and modern about him. A flash of danger highlighted his features, a veil of murder and cruelty that repulsed her just as it made her blood race. What in the name of all that’s holy is going on with me? This man represents everything I’ve fought all these years to destroy. Why would I be attracted to such a completely unsuitable mate? Perhaps I’ve been alone too long.

Susan stared behind the bounty hunter and saw approximately twenty potential slaves. They all carried government issued wanted posters identifying them by name and crime. Most of the charges were probably made up. The Kirillian government liked to dispose of its most outspoken critics. Once political prisoners disappeared into the slave trade, they were rarely heard from again. Susan’s stomach clinched in grief. How she wished she could help them all.

She touched the arm of one of her bodyguards. He leaned down and she caught the musty spike of cigarette smoke on his clothes. Who’s that?

The bodyguard moved his thick lips into a frown. Bounty hunter scum named Noriko. He has a nasty reputation for capturing every bounty he’s assigned in record time.

Is he human?

From what I’ve heard his mother was a Japanese slave and his father Kirillian. She killed herself when he was nine years old.

Susan nodded, distracted, and wrapped her hand around her cooling cup of tea. She wanted to ask why a man would continue to feed into the same slave businesses that destroyed his parent but sadly she knew why. Slavery was a disease here, an accepted way of life. It was even considered a legitimate way to make a living even if everyone who engaged in it knew better.

She watched the man and couldn’t help but wonder what the death of a mother would do to a nine-year-old boy. Could she blame him for what he’d turned into?

The bodyguard leaned down startling her. It’s almost time for shuttle take off, Ambassador. We should get going.

Susan stared into her teacup and tried to push away her sadness. What a depressing day. She dropped a few generous coins on the café table and followed her bodyguard out into the crowded streets of the city.

Chapter 1

The space shuttle was small, cramped and hot. A weighty stuffiness clung to the seats, probably the result of too many bodies crammed into too small a space. Noriko Kamakura shrugged off his mild claustrophobia, checked his boarding pass and then went to his seat. He was pleased to see it was an aisle seat as he’d instructed when he’d bought his ticket. Nothing was worse than climbing over someone when he wanted to visit the john or just stretch his legs. Noriko tended to be particular about such things because being half-Kirillian meant he was much larger than most humans and needed the extra room to be comfortable. He settled into a creaky chair and closed his eyes hoping to fall asleep before takeoff.

Excuse me.

Noriko looked up into two of the darkest green eyes he’d ever seen. The woman was lovely in a fierce, hard kind of way. Her look excited him and he found himself staring without meaning to. Her perfume was delicate