Their Accidental Bride

By Aria Bell

To save the galaxy, she must love them both...

 

Mindrin Zeras has no idea she's about to become a bride to not one but two alien princes. But that's exactly what happens when she accidentally stumbles her way into an intergalactic wedding while trying to fix a malfunctioning elevator. Thanks to a treaty between the mar'don, the celestri, and humanity, the bride's identity is to remain secret until the ceremony begins, exactly when she finds herself at the altar. Talk about stressful work days. Now she's wed to both stunning, powerful males who seem eager and skilled enough to claim her in every way possible. There's only one little problem. Both believe they're marrying a bride painstakingly selected for them, not an impostor who was merely at the wrong place at the right time. She's rapidly losing her heart to these two aliens who make her soul soar and her body quiver, but if they discover the truth, the peace treaty might go up in flames.

 

Nothing will stop Prince Valdur from doing his duty. The mar'don are respected warriors, and Valdur is both fierce and dedicated to honoring his new mates in the name of peace. His little human bride has more than enough spirit and beauty to make her a challenge, even if he must overcome his possessive instincts and share her with Tyal. She might even make him smile, but there's something odd about her too, and Prince Valdur hates to be deceived.

 

Meanwhile, the charming Prince Tyal has secrets of his own, and more than a few suspicions about his new bride. Tyal loves a mystery, but he's beginning to suspect that unraveling this one might not be the best idea. Only someone else seems to know who Mindrin really is, and they don't care how many are hurt when the truth finally comes to light...

 

Reader note: contains M/F/M ménage romance and aliens

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wolf Hill Publishing
• Release date: Aug 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201305444

Book preview

Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Look for these titles from Aria Bell

Title Page

Copyright Warning

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Epilogue

About the Author

Also by Aria Bell

More Romance from Etopia Press

Excerpt from Mated to the Jardan Warrior

Look for these titles from Aria Bell

Now Available

The Galactic Alien Mates Series

Mated to the Jardan Warrior (Book One)

Mated to the Warrior Prince (Book Two)

Mated to the Jardan Pirate (Book Three)

The Waterworld Series

Their Accidental Bride (Book One)

Xenshi Mates

Mated to the Xenshi (Book One)

Taken by the Xenshi (Book Two)

Their Accidental Bride

Aria Bell

Copyright Warning

EBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/).

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Published By

Wolf Hill Publishing

1643 Warwick Ave., #124

Warwick, RI 02889

Their Accidental Bride

Copyright © 2017 by Aria Bell

ISBN: 978-1-947135-45-1

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First electronic publication: October 2017

~ Dedication ~

For Blixy, who was a good dog.

CHAPTER ONE

The Falling Water Temple on Andurai

Before the Andurai Peace Accords, Mindrin Zeras believed she’d landed the best job in the Delfi system. Andurai was a stunning ocean planet. She had a low-stress career working as a sys/mech technician. And finally, her pay at the Falling Water Temple was more than enough to meet her needs. But since the signing of the peace accords, her opinion had changed drastically.

Of course she wanted the galactic peace to continue—who didn’t? And her pay was still fine, the planet still breath-taking, but the stress… Holy stars, her stress right now was off the charts. All the techs had been working in crisis mode ever since the announcement that the wedding between a mar’don, a celestri, and a human would be held at the Falling Water Temple.

The event would be the focus of the entire galaxy and had to be perfect. And right now, the biggest wedding ceremony in the galaxy—a marriage keeping war at bay and scheduled to happen in less than twenty minutes—was about to be derailed by a critical malfunction in one of the elevator lifts.

Mindrin hurried down an access corridor, trying not to panic, with her small GRX-D Grixdee maintenance robot flying at her side. She was confident she could deal with the problem, but how quickly was the vital question. The lift was crucial to bringing the bride to the central amphitheater, and if it didn’t work, this entire spectacle would fall on its face.

Mindrin had her tool box and her scanner, and with Grixdee matching her near-run, she’d almost reached the understage area below the temple’s amphitheater. The lighting in the windowless access corridor was blue-tinged from the transparent flow pipes that fed the thousand waterfalls throughout the temple. The ocean water gave off a cool glow thanks to all the bioluminescent cordekon and other plankton-like life drawn in through the temple’s water intakes.

She heard music and a great many voices ahead of her in the understage room where the lift was located. She took a deep breath to steady herself as she tried not to appear frantic. To get to the lift, she had to pass through the lift’s assembly room where the human delegation had gathered. She would keep her head down and ignore them and hopefully they would ignore her so she could do her job.

Two beefy security guards stopped her at the end of the corridor. She let one of them scan her credentials, trying not to fidget at the frustrating waste of time when she had so little to spare. The security guard went back and forth on his comm, talking with someone who sounded even grouchier than he did, until finally he waved her through with a scowl. She wasn’t intimidated by a suspicious glare from a no-tech meathead. She scowled right back as she hurried into the pre-stage assembly room and moved straight for the elevator lift.

This room was far more representative of the temple’s beauty than the access corridors. Huge windows at opened at either end of the room, giving sweeping views of the unending Andurai ocean and the clouds high in the atmosphere. The sunlight streaming in through the windows was bright, and the room’s floor had more of the big ocean water flow tunnels beneath transparent plasti-steel panels, making it seem as if the gathered people were walking on top of aquariums. Not counting the heavy security, at least twenty people were gathered here, many of them clustered around the bride. She ignored the dignitaries, advisors, and assistants and tried to catch a glimpse of the bride.

As expected, the woman was stunning. Probably had genetic code modifiers too, Mindrin guessed, though she tried not to be bitter about it. She was an auburn-haired, green-eyed beauty with perfect skin. She held herself with poise and dignity and didn’t seem the least bit nervous or stressed about the looming event. Her gorgeous bridal gown even made Mindrin feel a surge of clothing lust, even though she usually didn’t go in for apparel emphasizing form over function. The elegant wedding dress was made of shimmering venkose silk, with deep purples and blues and a scattering of illuminated diamonds.

Mindrin forced herself to stop being distracted and focus back on her vitally important task. She certainly didn’t have time to waste yearning to look as beautiful as the bride did and maybe wear something far more attractive than her technician uniform. Someone had to fix the lift. Otherwise this bride would be stuck here looking beautiful a hundred meters below the amphitheater stage, miss her wedding, disappoint billions of planets tuning in to the subspace video feeds to see it, and worst of all, jeopardize the future of the peace treaty.

No pressure.

She wove through the crowd with Grixdee floating beside her, trying not to growl at all the people in the way. She reached the far end of the room where the problematic lift rested in a five-meter wide, semi-circular alcove. She set her tool box down and ordered Grixdee to begin running system calibration scans.

An aide of some sort rushed over to her. What is the meaning of this? You shouldn’t be here. His voice was puffed with self-importance but also sharp with worry. Seems she wasn’t the only one stressed today.

She didn’t bother to look up from the data on her scanner. If you want the bride to reach the main stage platform without a rocket pack, you need to back off and let me do my job.

She isn’t in any danger, is she? he demanded.

No, because unless I fix the servo firing sequence, this lift isn’t moving from this spot. Now, I can either waste more of my time explaining things to you, or you can keep quiet and let me do my job. Usually she wasn’t so curt, but time was rapidly slipping away. She had no doubt that if she failed, it would cost her this job. The political marriage between not two but three different races—a mar’don prince, a celestri prince, and a Terras Alliance woman chosen by a quantum supercomputer to be the perfect match to them both—was one of the biggest events in the galaxy.

With an offended sniff, the aide left her alone. Thank the stars. She began to review the data coming from Grixdee’s deep scans, but a voice sounded in her earpiece, breaking her concentration. It was Brysen, her team supervisor in the temple’s high tech control booth. Give me a status update.

Servo firing sequence failure, she said. Recalibrating the actuators now.

We need this finished yesterday, Mindrin. I have high level ambassadors demanding updates.

You want it done fast or do you want it done right? She initiated another diagnostic, looking for program feedback loops. Something was definitely screwy here.

Fast.

She decided to ignore him, shifting her attention on the servo activation sequence Grixdee was fine-tuning. She stepped onto the lift, which was locked into position flush with the floor. At the center of the lift, she pulled the access hatch, and scanned the power-feed lines. Looking good for the most part, but one of the sequencers was still off. She began to adjust it with a grakon torque wrench. They’d just done a thorough maintenance check yesterday. How had this thing gone so wrong in such a short time?

And then Brysen decided to interrupt. Again. What’s your status, Min? The wedding happens in minutes.

Working on it, she growled. How did he expect her to concentrate when he was chattering in her ear every two seconds?

"Hurry!"

She ignored him for the second time, running a calibration adjustment on the servo firing sequence. She was finding a lot of corrupted data, commands that were shunted off into feedback loops, and that was a serious problem—

The guard rails shot up around the circular lift platform, startling a squeak from her that had heads turning her way. On her scanner screen, the local override suddenly went into a cascading data fail before she could halt it. The servos hummed to life. Grixdee’s warning alarm went off, but it was too late.

The lift rose upward into the access tube, leaving the understage area behind. Dread turned her veins to ice as she caught a glimpse of security guards running toward her and the panicked expressions on the faces of the aides. Then the room was already below her and out of sight as the lift ascended the tube-shaped elevator shaft. She didn’t even have Grixdee along with her on the lift as she was rushed upward toward the temple’s amphitheater. The lift would stop at the main