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Match Foiled (Mudden Men Book 3) Preview
Nova forced her face into a frown. Not that it needed much effort, everything about the situation pissed her off anyway. But she wanted to make sure the people looking at her would assume she didn’t want to be there.
“With this string, you are bonded together forever,” the old guy in the fancy robe said.
“Forever,” Altair repeated. He looked at her with such intensity, she was having a hard time making eye contact. It wasn’t a passionate look. He remained guarded. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. His large hand held hers in a firm, warm grip that had her heart beating just a little faster from realizing first-hand just how much stronger he was than her.
He didn’t look particularly happy either, which was strange because she’d been told this was supposed to be the happiest day of his life. Maybe he was annoyed by the fact that almost no one had shown up to watch him get married. They could hear the roar of cheers coming from the room next door where another wedding ceremony was taking place, where the other women had been taken. By contrast, the people sitting in this room looked bored. Rich. But bored.
She looked Altair over, trying not to make it obvious. He was good looking, with strong features and broad shoulders. Kemp Dougal, his grandfather, was the leader of the Mudden clan and the most powerful man on the planet. Yet Altair wore nothing to indicate his status. But he did hold his chin up like he thought he was above the rest of them.
The old man raised his arms out like he wanted to hug the world. “Welcome, Meghan, to the Mudden clan.”
The few people in the room clapped politely.
Meghan.
That was the name of the woman whose identity she’d stolen. Not that the real Meghan was going to mind. Nova had saved her from being kidnapped and forced to marry a stranger.
If she believed Elizabeth, the woman who’d hired her to come here, the Mudden government used an algorithm to find their men perfect matches. In that case, Nova had also deprived Meghan of meeting her perfect match. But looking at Altair’s smug face, she had a hard time feeling sorry about that.
“You may come up to congratulate Altair and Meghan,” the old man said.
Altair smiled thinly as he removed the string from around their hands and turned to the people who’d lined up to shake his hand, turning his back to her, just assuming that she would follow.
No asking how I’m doing after being drugged and kidnapped?
Well, she’d been drugged. It wasn’t technically kidnapping when she’d consented, but he didn’t know that. The way he treated her spoke volumes to the kind of man he must be.
She crossed her arms over her chest turning her glare to the people coming up to them. No one forced her to shake hands, instead they smiled at her, gave their congratulations, and left.
A man in his fifties wearing a vest embroidered with gold threads came up to shake Altair’s hand. It was meant to be a friendly gesture but his smile had no love in it.
“Meghan,” Altair said, addressing her for the first time. “This is my uncle Devon.”
“Welcome to the Dougal Family,” Devon said, extending his hand out to her.
Devon, that was the son that Kemp had chosen as heir, passing over Altair’s father. Nova shook his hand. She didn’t have much choice. The way he looked at her suggested that if she didn’t, she might be thrown in jail.
After him came a small woman who introduced herself as Lauren, his wife. Nova shook her hand too.
“Nice to meet you, Meghan,” Lauren said with a more genuine smile than her husband’s. “I’d love to have a chat with you.”
Nova knew all about “the talk.”
“You can stay here,” Altair said. “We’ll go out in the hall.” He followed Devon and left the room. Nova found herself alone with tiny Lauren. If she were a real kidnap victim, this would have been her chance to run. But she was here to spy on Altair, so she crossed her arms over her chest in a suitable appearance of rebellion and waited for Lauren to speak.
“I’m here to explain to you why you were brought to the planet Mudden,” Lauren said, taking a seat on one of the chairs that had been left on the stage from a previous event.
Nova knew the spiel but pretended to be interested. The men living on the planet Mudden could only have male children and no one knew why. Blah, blah, blah. They kidnapped women from other worlds to survive. An algorithm told them if the women were a match to a Mudden man seeking a bride. Blah, blah, blah. All women on Mudden had been kidnapped at some point and never allowed to leave.
“An algorithm?” she asked so Lauren would know she was listening.
“Yes. It is extremely advanced and accurate. Mudden couples experience high marriage satisfaction. There are no divorces on Mudden.”
“Is divorce allowed?” she asked, genuinely curious.
“Well…no. But that’s not the point.”
It seemed to Nova to be a very important point, but she just shrugged and listened to Lauren prater on about her amazing marriage.
“That’s all I had to tell you,” she finally said. “Oh, and Altair has no experience with women so don’t judge him too harshly when you go home tonight. He’s been lonely a very long time.”
Nova’s stomach turned. Was Lauren suggesting she submit to whatever fantasies Altair may have had about his wedding night?
She’d been warned that the mission would be dangerous. She’d been given full permission to use force against Altair if necessary, though now that she’d seen him she wasn’t sure she could win against him in hand-to-hand combat. He was twice her size, and she had nowhere to run away.
Nova thought about the other women that had been kidnapped with her, how scared they must be not knowing what was going to happen to them or if they would be safe tonight.
Lauren finished talking and opened the door to the hallway. “We’re all done here,” she called out. Nova had the feeling she was eager to get away. “Altair will feed you dinner,” Lauren said, and Nova’s stomach growled. “You must be hungry after your long trip.”
Trip?
She made it sound like Nova had been on a vacation instead of stolen from her home.
Altair walked back into the room. “Let’s go.”
He looked at Nova then turned and walked back out.
She followed him out the door, dragging her feet, hating how sure he was that she would do as he said. If her mission wasn’t to spy on him, she would have walked out the back door. Instead, she walked behind him as he made his way out of the building.
The lawn in front of the building had been decorated for a party. Long tables with large platters of food were scattered under colorful streamers forming a canopy above. People sat at the tables all chattering loudly. She recognized a few of the girls that had been locked up with her on the ship. They all looked to be in shock.
But Altair didn’t lead her to a table, instead he continued walking down the street toward a vehicle on wheels.
He opened the door and held it open for her to get in. Every one of her instincts screamed no, don’t get in with the stranger who wants to harm you. But again that was the whole point of being there in the first place, and the only way that she could leave the planet.
“What’s the party back there?” she asked instead.
“The people of the Baedden clan are celebrating their wedding ceremonies.”
“Why aren’t we joining them?”
“Get in,” he said. No explanation necessary.
*****
The vehicle stopped in front of a house identical to all the other houses on that street.
“This will be our home for as long as we are living in Baedden,” Altair said as he walked through the front door in front of her.
The inside was as unimpressive as the outside. A quick scan revealed nothing of value. The room looked almost empty with a plain couch being the only furniture in the living room area. She counted four doors, two on each side of the room. It was all very underwhelming. She couldn’t help but analyze and value every object in the room. It was a force of habit, part of her routine as a thief, to constantly be on the lookout for something to steal. But there was nothing in that room worth taking.
The dining room table in the corner had already been set for two people.
Altair disappeared behind one of the doors and came back holding a platter of food and set it in the center of the table.
“Sit,” he said, sitting down at the table himself.
Nova followed his directions, mostly because she was starving, and on the off chance that she was going to have to fight him, she didn’t want to do it on an empty stomach. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten anything. They’d fed her on the spaceship, but they’d traveled for hours to get to Baedden from the spaceport, and it’d been hours more to get her cleaned up, dressed, and to the ceremony.
“What is that?” she asked, eyeing Altair as he picked up the plate in front of her and filled it with food from the platter with a large spoon.
“Meat and vegetables.”
Nova had been to a lot of places in the system, but food always came in the same prepackaged meals. Then again, she’d only been to the civilized places. There was nothing worth stealing in the backwater planets or stations.
“Eat,” he said, placing the plate in front of her.
She tried not to glower at him, the commanding tone of his voice irked her, but she picked up her fork and did as he instructed.
“It’s really good,” she said, surprised.
“Yes.”
No thanks for the compliment.
“The Mudden planet is divided up into different clans,” Altair said out of nowhere. “The Mudden clan is the most powerful and is in control of the kidnappings. I am a member of the Mudden clan, and now that we are married, so are you. But I was stationed here in Baedden clan territory by my grandfather, Kemp, the leader of the Mudden clan. My uncle Devon, whom you’ve met earlier, is the heir.”
Nova knew all this already, but she supposed Meghan might be curious about the history lesson so she listened attentively.
“We were not invited to the dinner celebration outside the council building because I am not a member of the Baedden clan, and to be honest, they are not happy about my presence here.”
Ah. He was answering her earlier question.
“That’s fine,” she said. “I don’t feel like celebrating.”
He frowned but stayed quiet. After five minutes of silence, Nova figured she should start a conversation.
“The ride to Mudden was awful,” she said, volunteering information he would have asked her himself already if he were a caring person.
“I’ve never been in a spaceship.”
That wasn’t what she’d meant to talk about, but sure, she could go with it.
“Why not?” she asked.
“I’ve never left the planet.”
Yeah. Can’t leave a planet without being on a ship.
“Because…?”
“I wasn’t allowed.” He looked down at his plate and continued eating.
“Are you going to make me say ‘why’ again?”
He looked up, surprised.
“Very few people are allowed to leave.”
She gave up. She worried if she insisted too much he might get suspicious of her motives.
She had a hard time keeping her eyes open as she finished her plate. It’d been a very long day.
Altair watched her through narrowed eyes as she yawned for the umpteenth time.
“Let’s go to bed,” he said, his voice as neutral as it always was.
Nova, suddenly wide awake as fear made her heart beat a hundred times a minute, got up from the table and moved a safe distance away.
“I’m not sleeping with you.”
“Don’t worry, I am very knowledgeable in this subject,” he said. “I do not expect you to have sexual relations with me on the first night.”
“That’s a relief. Can you tell me exactly which night you will expect it so I can sleep with a weapon under my pillow?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, not finding her funny apparently.
“I cannot tell you exactly, no. I expect it will happen naturally and fairly quickly. The average time, according to research I did a few years ago, was approximately two months.”
“Are you saying that you think in two months I will willingly sleep with you? After you had me kidnapped and are now keeping me prisoner?”
“No. In approximately two months you will have sexual intercourse with me. You will sleep with me tonight.”
Funny how he could completely ignore the whole kidnapping part of her statement.
She crossed her arms in front of her chest too.
“I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Sleeping in the same bed will make us bond faster.”
“I don’t want to bond with you.”
She should probably be nicer to him considering the job she had to do, but she couldn’t help it. His condescending I-know-better-than-you attitude got on her nerves.
He clenched then released his fists.
“My research showed sleeping in the same bed reduced the waiting period by two weeks.”
She sat down on the couch, sticking to her position. “Then get ready to wait.”
The look on his face was utter disbelief, mixed with a little bit of I’m-talking-with-crazy. Finally, he turned around, walked into one of the rooms, and came back a moment later carrying sheets and a pillow. He dumped the entire pile next to her. “The bathroom is over there.” He pointed to one of the closed doors. “Goodnight.”
Altair turned around and disappeared behind a door.
“Goodnight,” she called after him, slouching with relief against the couch.
*****
Nova had planned to wake up in the middle of the night to do some snooping, but it was the daylight on her face and the sound of someone moving around that woke her up. She’d rarely slept that deeply in her life. It was the space travel, it really messed with her sense of time. Who knew how long of a day she’d had yesterday. Elizabeth had taken her comm when they’d gone onto the ship. She’d said Mudden didn’t allow any of that communication technology on the planet, which meant she also had no method of telling time.
She heard a door open and close and footsteps approaching, then nothing but Altair’s breathing. A shiver went down her back. Was he watching her sleep? She stretched and pretended to wake up. She sat up, and sure enough, he stood looking at her with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Good, you’re up. Do you always sleep in all morning?” There was irritation and condescension in his voice.
“Only when I dread waking up,” she snarled.
“Today is your first day so you have the day off.”
Off from what?
“I have to go to work so you have the house to yourself.”
Nova tried not to look too surprised nor too excited. This was going to be easier than she’d anticipated. She’d imagined having to sneak around, instead she was going to have the place to herself to look around.
He waited expectantly, though she had no idea for what.
“Thank you?” she said tentatively.
He smiled, obviously pleased with himself. “I know that women like to take care of their own houses. I want you to feel at home. You may decorate any way that you want.”
Decorate? Seriously? That’s what he thought a woman who’d just been kidnapped wanted to do?
But she really did want him to leave her alone so she sealed her lips into a tight smile and said, “Will that reduce the waiting time as well?”
“Yes.”
His cheeks darkened at the admission.
“Don’t go outside,” he said. Well, commanded.
“Why?”
“It’s not safe. You’ll get a tour of the town during your orientation tomorrow. If you want I can take you for a walk when I come home from work.”
Like she needed the hand-holding.
“To be honest, I’d feel safer walking without you,” she retorted because she couldn’t let him get away with saying crap like that.
His face turned a shade darker, from anger this time, and he seemed to be biting the inside of his cheek. “You’re angry.” He said it matter-of-factly.
Yeah, she was angry, but she didn’t want to waste her time talking about that.
“Where do you work?” she asked instead, changing the subject.
“My office is in the Baedden Clan’s Council building.”
He smiled.
Pleased by her interest?
“I will bring you for a visit one day.”
Yes, please. She smiled back politely and nodded. The guy was going to think she had some mental problems that she was snarling at him one minute and smiling the next. She should just stop snarling, but that was difficult when he was being such an insensitive ass.
“There are clothes for you in the bedroom. And food in the kitchen.”
She nodded and he left.
Finally alone, she went to the bedroom first to look for clothes. She still wore the fancy dress they’d forced her to put on for the wedding. Not the most comfortable sleepwear, but she’d been too exhausted to care. She needed to change if she wanted to walk around town unnoticed, and it gave her a good excuse for snooping in the bedroom if Altair happened to come right back.
Altair had made the bed in the morning. The sheets formed perfectly straight lines, and the pillows were fluffed. Personally, she would have just thrown a blanket over the whole thing and called it a day. A large closet stood on one side of the room with a dresser next to it. Along with a nightstand on either side of the bed, that was all the furniture in the room.
She searched the nightstands first. Both were completely empty. The dresser had clothes and sheets in it, all folded into very neat squares. She took it all out, careful to remember where everything went and not mess them up so Altair wouldn’t know she’d snooped. But she found nothing.
The closet was full of dresses. She picked the plainest one she could find. It was floor-length and had an intricate embroidery pattern in silver on the body, but at least it only had one skirt.
She put the dress on and left the bedroom. The next room was the bathroom, empty aside from soaps and what appeared to be shaving equipment. She crossed the living room to open a door on the other side of the room. That room was empty. Completely empty. No furniture whatsoever.
She closed it and went into the kitchen, which contained a small table with two chairs in a corner and counters along the back wall. She searched every cabinet, eating some fruit as she searched.
No wonder he didn’t mind leaving her alone, the house had no personal items in it of any kind. He must really not consider Baedden his real home.
He’d given her permission to make it her own, and she had an idea she hoped he’d hate. She spent the next half hour pushing the couch into the empty bedroom, then getting one of the nightstands from the bedroom to put next to it, and finally moving the closet from the bedroom too. That one was the hardest, but by emptying it first and then sliding one corner then the next, she managed to get it into her room.
There. Satisfied to have her own private space where she wouldn’t be woken up by Altair creepily staring at her, she went back to the kitchen to get some more food. She had no idea what to do with most of the stuff there, so she just ate more of the fruits she did recognize.
Finally, she didn’t care what Altair had said, she was ready to go explore.
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