What do you do when there is no escape
route?
By Cara Bristol
Get in, but
make sure you can get out. We like to leave ourselves an escape route, don’t
we?
Our homes have
more than one exit in case of fire. Public buildings and airplanes have
emergency exits.
If we’re going
to a meeting or event that we fear might be long and/or boring, we sit near the
door. We often choose a parking space by how easy it is to get out of. We’ll leave events early to beat the rush.
On a blind
date, we might prearrange for a friend call mid-way through just in case we
need an exit line. We use the good-spouse, bad-spouse excuse to avoid
engagements we don’t want to attend. Gee, I’d love to attend your day-long
multi-level marketing pyramid enterprise seminar, but my husband already made
plans.
We leave
ourselves an escape route with marriage too. “‘Til death do we part” isn’t
final at all. Around 40% of US marriages end in divorce. For couples of certain religious beliefs who
won’t divorce, in many cases, annulment is an option.
But on Xenia,
the alien planet setting for Claimed by the Cyborg, there is no escape route.
Divorce and annulment don’t exist. Once you are “bonded,” you are bonded for
life. No outs. Because of the finality, mate choices are not left to amateurs.
Bondings are arranged by a seer who choses mates who will be the most
compatible.
Most Xenians accept that their bondings are arranged and look
forward to that stage in their life.
An excerpt from Claimed by
the Cyborg
(It’s the eve of Julietta’s bonding to a
man she’s never met. Her completed bonding tunic has arrived and her sister
Marji urges her to try it on)
Marji’s eyes
were wide. “You don’t want to see what it looks like? Come, on! I’ll help you.”
She scooted off the bed. “Try it on, please?”
“All right,”
she capitulated. The tailors had done an excellent job, but it wouldn’t hurt to
verify the garment fit—and it would make Marji happy. At only sixteen solar
cycles, her younger sister’s bonding wouldn’t occur for several years. Like
most girls her age, she talked about her future ceremony constantly, planning
what she would wear, who would attend—and wondering who her mate would be.
Julietta
stripped down to her panties and a lacy bra. She’d adopted Terran undergarments
when she’d attended school off planet. For the bonding ceremony—and thereafter
for the rest of her life—she would wear the traditional one-piece Xenian
undergarment. Her choice of underwear—one more thing bonding would force her to
give up.
She pulled on
the pantaloons sewn in the royal huber fabric. Shimmering threads of pale rose
were woven throughout so that the garment sparkled. Marji undid the fastening
of the shift and held it out. Julietta slipped her arms through it, and her
sister did up the back.
The weight of
her world rested on her shoulders.
Her sister reached for the headdress.
“That, too?”
she protested, but bent at the knees so the crown could be settled on her head.
Her legs threatened to buckle, but she shored up her strength and remained
upright.
“You look beautiful.
Just like an empress!” Marji gushed.
“How
appropriate, considering,” she replied dryly.
The ceremony
brought her closer to becoming the sovereign. The bonding—and production of an
heir—were the only two hurdles left. Then, when her father passed the scepter
upon his fifty-first solar cycle, she would rule with her consort at her side.
The last time
she’d tried on the dress, the crystals hadn’t yet been sewn on. She took a few
exploratory steps.
“How does it
feel?”
Crushing.
“Fine.”
“It’s perfect!”
Marji said.
Could she walk
down the aisle without toppling over, without bursting into tears, without
making a spectacle of herself in front of thousands?
She would have
to—what choice did she have? As firstborn, she was heir apparent. Her future
had been decided on the day of her birth, twenty-five solar cycles ago. “Let’s
take it off now.” She lifted the crown from her head and tilted her neck from
side to side in relief. Marji undid the back of the shift and removed the
garment. While she hung up the tunic, Julietta donned her clothing.
“I can’t sleep,
I’m so excited for you,” Marji said. “Tomorrow night, you get to see your
consort! I don’t know why you never chose to see him before this. As future
empress, you receive special dispensation and could have seen him if you’d
wanted to. I would have jumped at the chance!” She sighed. “But, like everyone
else, I won’t see my future mate until the Sha’A’la and won’t meet him until
the bonding ceremony.”
“Whether I see
him or not, the future will proceed as scheduled,” Julietta said.
“Father says
he’s very kind. Mother says he’s supernova!” she said. “That’s means handsome.”
“I know what it
means. Mother has been watching too many Terran vids.”
Marji giggled,
and, despite herself, Julietta smiled.
Though she
hadn’t seen Earth herself, their mother loved Terran culture and had encouraged
her eldest daughter to study there and explore the wonders of the Blue Planet
before fulfilling her duty. Julietta had had two glorious years of freedom, two
glorious years of being “Jules,” two glorious years of being just another
Terran Technical Institute student, two glorious years with a man who most
definitely qualified as supernova, two glorious years to pretend the future
would never come.
Claimed
by the Cyborg Description
March Fellows assumed he had all the
time in the galaxy to pursue a relationship with Jules, an alien exchange
student from Xenia, until she vanished without a trace. After years of
searching, he finds his lost love on the eve of her arranged marriage.
The daughter of the Xenian emperor,
Julietta never meant to fall in love with a Terran man while visiting Earth.
Leaving to fulfill her responsibilities on her home planet opened up a hole in
her heart that could never be filled.
When March, now a cyborg,
unexpectedly shows up just before she is to be bonded, she struggles to find
the courage to turn him away a second time and follow through with her duty. Before she can
act, the lovers are thrust into a political conspiracy that threatens the
Xenian empire and their lives.
Buy Links
Cara
Bristol Bio
USA Today bestselling
author Cara Bristol has been the no. 1 best seller in science fiction romance,
bdsm erotica, and holiday fiction on Amazon. She’s the author of two science
fiction romance series featuring tough alpha heroes: the Cy-Ops Sci-fi Romance
cyborg series and the Breeder science fiction romance series, which emphasize
character-driven stories written with a touch of humor and sizzling chemistry
between the hero and heroine. Cara lives in Missouri with her own alpha hero,
her husband.
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