Delivered to the Aliens: Cosmic Connections Read Online Free PDF

something he couldn’t place, something that stirred yearning in his chest. Yes, a female. No self respecting man washed in something that fruity.
    Alton, the other half of his Brace, said nothing but put a plate of grub on the table.
    “You think you can butter me up with home cooking?” Indignation was hard to pull off as he tucked into the meal but Zan fancied himself talented.
    “I cook every day,” Alton said.
    “But this is special, isn’t? You want to impress her.”
    Alton sipped his coffee before answering. “You’re a right bastard first thing in the morning.”
    Zan sighed. It had been a long night and an early start with only a short break for sleep in between. “You sent me off chasing my tail.” Alton sent him off yesterday to fetch supplies from the depot two towns over. Roads on Corra were nonexistent and it was a long journey there and back. All that so Zan wouldn’t be there when the woman arrived.
    “Not true. We needed those parts for the pump. You like water, don’t you.”
    Zan stuffed a slice of toast in his mouth. “It was a dirty trick. You didn’t want me here last night. Were you selfish and did you have her already?”
    “She has a name.”
    “Not interested,” Zan said flatly. He wasn’t interested in a wife. Not now, not ever. Their assignment was too dangerous to risk a defenseless female. Alton sometimes had an itch to scratch. He didn’t begrudge his partner having a bit of fun but it was rude not to include him. “Was she good?”
    “Watch your mouth, that’s our wife you’re talking about.”
    Zan stopped chewing. Wife? “You never.”
    “I did.”
    That bastard, just sitting at their table, in their home, smiling like a fool. A married fool. “Explain,” Zan growled.
    Alton sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I understand you said we were never interested in marrying.”
    “I ain’t.” He wasn’t the marrying type. Relationships never seemed to work out for him.
    “Well I am,” Alton said. “I ain’t getting any younger. I want children, Zan. Our children.” Corravian pregnancies required the sperm from two males. Often, in Corravian culture, men formed a partnership, a Brace, for the sole intention of settling down with the right woman and fathering children.
    “You know how I feel,” Zan said. Alton wasn’t Zan’s first Brace, but it was his most successful. The previous one, short lived and disastrous, put Zan off the idea of bringing little Zans into the world. “We have a good thing. No need to make changes.”
    “Good? We work well together, sure, but I need more. You need more, too.”
    “Don’t tell me what I need. How is it even legal? I didn’t agree to marry and I sure as hell didn’t sign a marriage license.”
    Alton had the decency to flush a dark gold. “About that… You really should pay better attention to what you sign.”
    “You tricked me. I’m almost impressed.” Almost. Zan pushed his plate away and kicked his boots up on the table. Alton hated that. Zan grinned, watching Alton struggle not to say anything about mud and germs.
    “You’re trying to distract me.”
    “Am I? Am I getting germs all over your kitchen table?” He uncrossed and crossed his legs again, knocking dried mud onto the table.
    “We eat here, you savage. How about I just serve you a plate of mud, since you like dirt so much.”
    Zan chuckled. There was his uptight Alton, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
    “Who’d you convince to marry us?” Zan asked.
    “A human.” Zan’s eyebrows shot up. There weren’t a lot of humans on Corra. Some, not a lot. “I used a mail-order service,” Alton explained.
    “Couldn’t find anyone crazy enough to give us a go?” The pair of men could find willing partners when the need for intimacy struck them, but there was not a single woman in the surrounding countryside insane enough consider Zan husband material. Maybe Alton. He was Mr. Responsibility and Mr. Good-With-Kids. Zan was Mr. Bad-Idea