Mated

By Alice Gaines

For the sake of her people, Princess Meriane must mate with an Earth man to bring more diversity into the gene pool. When she's conceived a child, her mate will join the other males in the men's colony. In this way, her culture has perpetuated itself in peace for generations after banning the hated Triani from their midst. Finding a proper bed partner shouldn't be hard at Earth Con, should it?

Zarim has been sent to Earth Con to masquerade as an Earther in order to worm his way into Meriane's bed and her heart. When he finds himself falling in love with the virginal but feisty princess, he has to discover a method to make peace between their peoples. Unfortunately, his very identity makes him an outcast on her planet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Changeling Press
• Release date: May 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9780782002522

Alice Gaines

Alice Gaines likes her fiction hot, hot, hot. Alice has a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. She shares a house in Oakland, California, with her pet corn snake and a stray cat that lives in her yard. When Alice isn't making up stories in her head, she spends her time cooking, gardening, and listening to her favorite band, Tower of Power.

Book preview

Chapter One

Her Highness, First Princess Meriane, couldn’t help but feel a few flutters of fear along with tremendous excitement. She was about to be mated, after all -- a rite of passage for every princess of Phaena, and as usual she’d be doing it with a male from another planet. A new species to add to Phaena’s collection of sperm donors.

More intimidating, she’d be required to perform the physical act -- the invasion of her body by her mate’s -- strictly for ceremonial purposes, of course. Her kind had done away with that kind of vulgarity generations ago. Still, she’d make the sacrifice for her people to celebrate her fertility and symbolize their connection to the past.

The Committee of Elders stood assembled around the throne where she sat. Wise women all, and virgins, never having borne children. Today she’d learn her fate from them.

Mother Gara opened the ceremonial scroll normally kept under high security at the temple to Phaena, the goddess from which their planet took its name.

Since the time of the banishment of the Triani in the Age of Lia… Mother Gara read, It has been the duty of the First to create a new generation --

Meriane held up a hand. Wait. I know who Lia was. Who were the Triani, and why were they banished?

Some of the mothers exchanged glances, while others simply avoided facing Meriane. Finally, Mother Sim, the court historian, cleared her throat. Legend, Your Highness. Supposedly they were a violent race who shared Phaena with our kind. They created all sorts of mischief -- wars and crimes. Princess Lia had them removed for the general good.

Where did they go? Meriane asked.

You needn’t worry about such things, Mother Gara said. With her sour face and even sourer disposition, Mother Gara had acted as teacher and task mistress for as long as Meriane could remember. When Gara warned Meriane off a topic of discussion, Meriane had listened. But now Meriane was to become a woman in the most basic and graphic way possible, a painful and humiliating act according to the elders. If they expected her to sacrifice her body for the sake of Phaena, they could very well answer her questions.

A distant planet where they can no longer bring harm to our kind, Mother Gara said.

Nor make us engage in sinful practices, Mother Jewel added with a definite shudder. Although sometimes I wonder --

Mother Gara cut Jewel off with a sharp glare. Best not spoken of.

It’s all legend, Your Highness. Mother Sim held up her hands and smiled to soothe things over.

It must be written down for a purpose. Meriane gave them all the regal glare she’d learned from her birth mother before her death. If it matters to my mating, I need to know everything.

Of course. Mother Sim made a small bow. It’s said the Triani made a few attempts to return, but Lia had constructed defenses against them. Eventually, they took to warring among themselves, and the fabric of their society broke down. They’re no threat to us currently. And it’s all legend anyway, Highness.

How odd all of this had been kept from her. Her birth mother must have learned it at the time of her mating. Surely, she should have shared the story with Meriane. How could she have kept such an important secret?

I’ll proceed, Mother Sim said as she raised the scroll again. To perfect our peoples and to assure the Triani never again sire their mischief on Phaena, the First Princess shall take a mate from a new population to be determined by the Committee of Elders.

That’s why we’ve gathered today, Mother Gara said with another bow.

Now to the meat of the issue at hand. The mothers would reveal what planet they’d chosen and discuss the mating process. Only the First performed the act and only to conceive the next princess. She would take on the burden so the rest of the citizens could be inseminated without messy complications or danger.

We’ve found an ideal planet for you, Highness. Earth, Mother Gara said. Not only are the inhabitants the same form as ourselves, but they have a yearly congress where they dress up and play-act different species from across their galaxy.

Or how they imagine the galaxy, Mother Arb corrected. It’s really taken from their fiction.

In any case… Mother Gara gave Mother Arb a disapproving glare. No one contradicted Mother Gara without some sort of punishment. They won’t be alarmed at all at the appearance of someone who really does visit from a different world.

So I won’t have to worry about fitting in or seeming odd, Meriane said.

Everyone at Earth Con is odd, Mother Arb said.

Wonderful, Meriane said. So I will go to Earth and select a mate from among the males there.

They seem a pliant species, and the men have a reputation as always willing to copulate. Mother Jewel shuddered again as she uttered the last word.

Which brought Meriane to the question of the physical mating process. What exactly would be expected of her? Would she have to do it several times or just once? Was it really as repulsive as the books suggested? And the mating itself -- do the scrolls have any wisdom on how I’m to accomplish that?

You read the materials we supplied, Highness? Mother Gara said.

I did. I must say they didn’t make a lot of sense, and there were things left out. The books told of a part of a man’s body