Seeding Eden

One human woman. Two alien men. Lots and lots of babies. I've never laid eyes on a man, not even in pictures. Eden is a woman's world...a world no man has ever stepped foot on. But then the Khetar arrive. They're big alien men, in a big alien ship, with big alien d- Let's just say it's a big problem, especially because High Command assigns me to operate the airlock for a diplomatic mission. I make first contact with their king, their scion: Thuliak. One look into those burning teal eyes is all it takes. He's the first and last man I ever need to see. A woman from Eden may never touch a man. To touch the male form is to become tainted. Thuliak taints me in that airlock with his eyes, then with his hands, and finally with his tongue. Thuliak claims me as his own. He says he wants me to give him babies. There's another problem though. The Khetar can't breed like humans. For them, it takes three. We need a third, my little human. Tschenkar is a rival scion and Thuliak's mortal enemy. Where Thuliak is noble and righteous, Tschenkar is vile, disgusting, perverted. A scion's claim is unshakable, and both men have claimed me. The only thing that drives the Khetar more than bloodlust is the need to breed, and if I can give them both the babies they want, it might just be enough to stop them from killing each other.

One of them claimed me in the airlock. The other kidnapped me. Now I belong to both of them. Well, I will belong to both of them, but Khetar custom says that the Second gets to have his turn alone with me first. That means I'm going to be alone with Tschenkar. At least until I get pregnant. But Tschenkar makes me nervous. I've never done anything alone with him, and now he's going to get me all to himself each and every night. For our "honeymoon," Tschenkar and I were supposed to land together in the city. Instead, we crash-land in Eden's frozen wilderness. But I never feel cold, because Tschenkar is there with me. My alien king. My second alien king. When his little human is cold, he wraps his arms around me. Even as he protects me, he still talks with that utterly filthy mouth of his, but I'm starting to like that, especially because he's not all talk. He does exactly what he says he'll do to me, and it means I never got cold at night. Even without the fire, which we can't have because the pirates will see it. It turns out we didn't just crash. The Hive Mind glitched out. It failed. No one knows what happened, but it means all the Khetar packships are going to crash into Eden in the next few weeks. It also means the packs have no communications with each other. Or with us. I was an engineer before two alien kings claimed me as their own, and I make it my job to build a radio, even if Tschenkar doesn't really think I can do it. The radio is the only thing that can re-establish communication between all the Khetar packs, and I barely finish it in time. It turns out that Khetar babies are ready to be born in just a couple of weeks, and I'm about to have four of them. So as soon as I get my radio working, the first message I'm sending to Thuliak is going to be: Our babies are coming! Get your teal butt down here!

They want to make a "triumvirate" with me. I ask what it does. They smirk. One whispers: "It makes babies." If you're from Eden and see a man, it doesn't always taint you right away. As long as your mind doesn't think dirty thoughts too quickly, and as long as you don't like what you see too much, you're probably safe. At least you'd have time to look away. It's different with Khetar men. If you see one, you think of every dirty thought you never thought you could have, until this lifetime of repressed desire bursts through your resolve like a dam under a tsunami, and the unbearable longing for something you never knew you wanted brings you right down to your knees. Yeah, that all just sort of happened to me. His name is Kaav. I look up, still on my knees and tainted as sin, and he's got parts of his body that we don't even have words for on Eden. Kaav is big and golden, and he says he wants to have babies with me. Normally it takes two, but Kaav is special. He has two bodies. He says that he's all we'll need. When I see his second body for the first time, in all its glistening silver glory, I can't wait to submit to it. To beg it to do to me all the things Kaav says only a Khetar with two bodies can do to a woman. But in order to rescue me, Kaav had to make a deal with the devil. The devil's name is Hive, and it's taken over Kaav's second body. And now it wants to take me too. Taken by Two is the third book in the Seeding Eden series, but it can be read as the first book.