Katrina felt a blush building on her cheeks. The heated rush of blood rising told her immediately she was flushing.

Damn him.

This man—alien—called Rush. There was something about him that absolutely got to her. It made her forget her mission, even. Yes, alien. Six months ago, she’d have never thought she’d have this level of feelings for a man from another planet. She’d also not have thought she’d have been a mail order bride.

Let’s face it. That’s what we are. Not much different than the women who signed up to marry strangers in the Old West.

Except Katrina didn’t want to marry a stranger. She didn’t want to marry anyone. But now, she had to.

If she hadn’t taken the money, then she wouldn’t be in this fix.

If I hadn’t taken the money, my sister would still be unable to walk.

And the surgery Misha had required was needed if the girl was to be out of a wheelchair. And she was. Except now, the piper had to be paid. And, unfortunately, the piper Katrina had chosen to help had very definite ideas about what he wanted for payment.

Like the Pied Piper of the old story she’d heard as a kid, Katrina likened this man to the original character. He brought promises and led her down a road to destruction.

I’d still have taken the money, even if I’d known what I had to do.

And that had turned out to be two-fold. First, she had to apply to become a mail order bride to some alien on a distant planet.

No big deal, right? Wrong. The second half of her task was to deliver a piece of jewelry from the piper to some contact on the alien planet.

She’d asked the piper why they didn’t just hire someone to handle it. He laughed, then told her he didn’t trust most corsairs not to simply try something underhanded.

Of course, then she’d wondered why he was one to judge since what he was asking her to do was clearly underhanded and secret.

That was the first time she’d heard the word corsairs, as it involved the alien race she’d been introduced to.

Then the piper had told her either she was in or she was out. And which was it?

She’d said yes.

Well, here, things got tricky. The agreement she had to sign allowing her to become a mail order bride said she’d stay married for a year.

Married for a year to some alien.

Now granted, luckily, these aliens looked nothing like those in the sci-fi movies or the graphic novels Misha read.

Nope, they didn’t look like anything Katrina would ever have imagined aliens looked like.

These guys looked like regular men on Earth.

Now, how the hell was that? was the first thing Katrina had wondered.

She gave Rush a dirty look. Half because of the fact he was staring at her, and half because she didn’t appreciate the way he made her feel. Like her insides were melting and dripping.

A wave of heat traveled through her body at the thought of him. She’d seen him in just a towel, stepping out of what must have been the men’s community shower area. That chest. Those muscles. That wide back rippling as he wrapped the scrap of fabric around his waist before he turned to find her staring. Oh God, had she been drooling?

Of course, the way he’d been standing, his hands at the knot he was putting in the towel just over his hip, had drawn her attention to the V shape ending under the towel.

She deliberately kept from looking down where the V would converge, where she knew there was probably an indication of what the man—alien, she reminded herself—was packing.

And, yet, no matter how many times she tried to tell herself he was an alien, another part of her reminded her he was a man. All man. And they looked so much like the rest of Earth’s population because of some dispersal theory Emily, the other mail order bride, had told Katrina and Smyrna.

Something like humans splintering off into various parts of the universe or galaxy an untold number of years ago. Emily hadn’t been any more specific because she’d used the magazine article about the aliens to make origami birds.

Katrina finally addressed Rush’s comment. “I know I’m on Janus. I know I’m in the city of Asmute. I know I’m standing next to you, though I’d rather be standing anywhere else than right here next to you.”

She unconsciously rubbed at the spot behind her ear where the Unilan translator had been implanted. A subcutaneous injection, all done while she’d been awake after a small local anesthetic, right before the ship that was to take them to Janus had left.

The gadget translated all words to Unilan, the universal language of all the cosmos; so they’d told her. And sure enough, it allowed her to communicate with someone she knew would be speaking a language she didn’t understand.

She looked at Rush to see how he’d react to her brush off.

He frowned at her. Those indigo eyes of his flaring, pupils dilating and contracting with his anger at her statement. “Caayn asked me to keep an eye on you. To make sure you came to no harm.”

“I don’t need to be guarded. I can take care of myself.” She fumbled with the locket about her neck.

Could she really? She’d made a decision that had landed her in a foreign country—no, an alien planet—and now she was supposed to deliver this necklace with the locket to some man who would supposedly find her. And she had a timeline to get it done.

That’s what the piper told her. “Or else,” he’d added.

She’d asked him what the or else included, and he’d showed her a picture of her mother and sister.

That made Katrina’s decision to become a mail order bride and a carrier much easier.

She exhaled slowly. Her next task was to meet-up, somehow, with the guy she was supposed to give the locket to. She’d memorized his name. Ernansis V’dnen. What a mouthful.

Somehow, she was supposed to find him if he didn’t find her first. And she still had to get married, or as these people called it, handfasted. And she couldn’t have said who she was supposed to marry. She just filled in the blanks the best she could in order to find someone—anyone—who wanted to marry her.

She bit back a gasp when Smyrna and Caayn kissed at the altar, in front of the governor, the audience, and all creation.

Am I supposed to do that?

Then the next thought occurred to her, a thought that chilled her blood.

I’ll have to sleep with him.

Holy hell, no way. Not a chance.

A cold sweat broke out on her forehead. She tried to nonchalantly wipe her skin with the back of her hand.

Again, the thought occurred to her, repeating like the most hated mantra. I’ll have to sleep with him. Oh, hell no.

It wasn’t like she was a virgin. She’d had a boyfriend or three. But…

How am I going to get out of sleeping with him? I’m a damned fool.

“Are you feeling all right?” Rush looked at her with concern.

She stared at him. Chiseled high cheekbones. Dark-blue bedroom eyes. Firm, perfectly full kissable lips. As pissed as she was at him, more often than not, she found herself wishing—desperately, if she were honest with herself—the man picked for her to handfast looked more like him.

Just like him.

“I’m fine,” she snapped, unsure if she was angry at him or herself for wanting him.