CHAPTER 1

Planet Tarra, 2299

"This is what we both get for not grabbing any cock we could find and holding on for dear life."

"Speak for yourself!" Tye's sister growled and tossed the remainder of her cup of cacan onto the fire blazing in the large open hearth. A hiss and curl of smoke accompanied the gesture. The sweet fragrance from the tanco wafted in the chilled morning air. "There's no way you'd get me anywhere near any part of a Metran man, and especially not that particular part. They're a collective society of misogynists and bigots."

While Tye didn't always care for the rules set forth by the men of Metra colony, she hesitated to call them woman-haters. "You wouldn't marry, even to save our home, Wyn? What do you think will happen to us if Father dies? We'll end up indentured servants on this very farm where we've lived our entire lives. I'll survive, but you, my dear sister, are far too beautiful to be ignored for long by the men of this colony."

Wyn narrowed her gorgeous yellow-green eyes fringed with coal black lashes. Her already generous chest expanded with a deep sigh and she tossed her black mane back over her tiny shoulders. Everything about Wyn differed from Tye, but her size most of all. Less than five feet, Wyn reached only to Tye's shoulders.

"I can't marry a Metran," Wyn said. "I'd much prefer death."

Tye believed her, but no way would she reveal how she'd come to her certainty. She may not know much about mating rituals, but she knew Wyn's lovers had all been women, even though, on all the colonies on the planet Tarra, such relationships were forbidden upon penalty of death.

Tye, on the other hand, liked men just fine, as far as she knew. And therein lay the problem–with a sister as breathtaking as Wyn, no one even gave Tye a second look. Unlike her beautiful sister, Tye resembled the ass-spores on a slimy kivla. No man had ever expressed interest in mating with her, even to gain access to property worth a small fortune.

"It's all up to you, Tye," Wyn said. "You have to find a mate and do it quickly before anyone discovers how ill Father really is."

How? Tye knew she wasn't mating potential. And she didn't have a clue how to seduce a man. Wyn had never given her any advice, and their mother had died while both girls were young. "Let's worry about it after the harvest. We have to get out there before someone comes looking for Father."

"You go ahead." Wyn sat her empty cup on the mantle and walked toward the stairs. Tye fought back the jealousy she harbored for her sister's tiny, perfect figure. It grew more difficult with the passing of time, especially when the Metran men made sport of Tye's six-foot frame.

One of the hardest things in life was having the perfect sister.

"I'll help Father out onto the balcony to watch the proceedings." Wyn paused on the stairs to look back at Tye over her shoulder. "As long as people see him, no one will question if you oversee the heralding of the harvest for him. And for the goddess's sake, please be careful. Stay out of the fields."

Tye had a nervous bubble in her stomach that threatened to come out, and bring her hastily eaten meal with it. If they could make it through these perilous six days, they'd be safe until the next lunar year. They just needed to buy time. Time to figure out what had made their healthy patriarch fall ill, and to find a cure for him. Or time for one of them to marry so they could keep the tanco farm. Women on Metra colony couldn't hold land in their own names. One of them needed to find a husband…or else.

The front door slammed, and Tye jumped. Certain she'd locked it, she immediately knew who dared such an act of impropriety. There was only one man on Hajan Farm who had the nerve to come inside their family home. No one on the planet Tarra entered the threshold of another's inner sanctum without a clear-cut invitation. The penalties were too steep.

Did she dare use it to her advantage? Tye had been looking for a way to put their overseer in his proper place. Could this be the chance she'd been hoping for?

She made up her mind in the fury of an instant, a faulty trait none of her family shared with her.

She quickly shrugged out of the warmth of her moram, the traditional shapeless sack dress of the Metran women. Tye turned her back to the doorway, while she stood naked in front of the fireplace and waited…and shivered from head to toe. It wasn't just the cold air at her back, but the fact she'd never been naked in front of anyone, not even her sister.

"Where are your clothes, woman?" The voice of their overseer boomed at her naked backside only seconds later. It took everything she had not to flinch or fly from the room.

"Where are your manners? How dare you–" Tye took a swift breath and turned to face their overseer, Fucian.

Only he wasn't alone!

Tye's heart dropped in her chest, while her nipples, assaulted by the cold air, thrust forward to wave. What had she done? "How did you get in here? The door was locked."

Tye didn't know what to do. Her brazen ploy had backfired in her face. She'd thought to teach Fucian a lesson once and for all, and now what? How could she extract herself from this fiasco with a modicum of self-respect or worse?

Copyright © 2007 Brit Blaise.