Marauder Kronos: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Mating Wars) by Aya Morningstar Read Free Book Online Page A

city – more green grass and crystal clear lakes seemingly floating miles and miles above your head.
    But when I see New Rotterdam, the only thing about it that resembles those habitats is the basic shape.
    The ground is nothing but dirt with weeds everywhere, and all the buildings are made of rusted sheet metal rather than marble. The lakes are brown, and the main source of color is horrendously gaudy neon signs, advertising upstanding businesses such as whorehouses, drug dens, and black market pawnshops.
    “Oh, look,” Delphie says. “ That whorehouse will give you store credit if you get an STD. Nice.”
    I consider saying something, but think better of it. Nothing I say is going to make Delphie feel better.
    “Welcome to New Rotterdam,” Kronos says. “It’s a bit of a shithole, but it has its charm.”
    “Really?” I ask. “What charm?”
    “Hmmm,” he says, stroking his chin. “I guess some of the signs can be a bit poetic, like that one.”
    He points.
    I read it aloud. “’Put one of our needles into your veins and feel the warmth of the summer sun shining into your blood,’ and... that , you think that’s charming?”
    Kronos shrugs. “Poetry is subjective.”
    “It’s shit,” Delphie says. “This whole place is shit. Let’s buy as much food as we can afford and get the hell out of here.”
    “Why don’t we get a nice sit-down meal?” Kronos says. “I’ll pay.”
    Delphie’s eyes bulge. “You never offer to pay? You – ”
    Kronos looks at me and starts talking over Delphie. “She’s just giving me a hard time. I’d be happy to get us all a nice meal.”
    “Thanks, Captain,” I say.
    I try to sound sincere, but I’m not quite sure that a “nice meal” is a possibility on New Rotterdam. I am grateful, however, to eat anything other than ship rations that I have to cook myself.
    I still feel hungry, but the all-consuming and painful hunger from when Jerky first bonded with me seems gone. I feel hungrier than I normally would, but not that much more. Hopefully I won’t have to feel embarrassed by how much I eat. I doubt anyone has ever seen a human woman out-eat two Seraphim.
    Once we exit the elevator, we start to walk down the street. There are dozens of other elevators on either side of us, all coming from the hangar bay – from the center of the habitat. When I look up, many kilometers in the air I see the metal cube of the hangar above us, the elevator shafts receding into it until they look like thin strands of rope.
    And all kinds of people are flooding out of the elevators beside us and moving down the street. There are at least fifty cars crowded and parked around the elevator shafts, and their robotic voices are shouting abrasive advertisements, each one trying to be louder than the other. The advertisements merge together into a horrible drone, and we have to shout at each other to be heard over it.
    “Let’s walk,” Kronos shouts. “Better to get the exercise.”
    “Or you’re just feeling cheap again,” Delphie mutters.
    Some of the cars start to fly off as soon as passengers board, but as soon as one takes off, another one that has been hovering above like a vulture slams down into the empty space. I even see two of the cars trying to ram each other for one of the spots.
    “They’re programmed to fight for parking?” I ask.
    “It’s New Rotterdam,” Delphie says, as if that explains everything.
    “Yeah,” Kronos says. “I told you, it’s got character. No boring and polite cars here.”
    I’m suddenly quite glad that Kronos is too cheap to take a car. I don’t want to ride in a car with “personality.”
    I watch the crowds as we walk, and as we get closer to the taller buildings, the crowd thickens. It starts to take real effort to stay together with Kronos and Delphie, but I notice Kronos shoving other people back quite aggressively to keep me from getting jostled. Either he sincerely wants to protect me, or he’s worried that Jerky will take