The Gigolo's Bride (The Necklace Chronicles)

The Gigolo’s Bride

The Necklace Chronicles

by R.E. Butler

Copyright 2012

Smashwords Edition

The Gigolo's Bride (The Necklace
Chronicles)

Copyright © 2012 by R.E. Butler

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to
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and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.

**Cover Design: Deer Watson Media**

This e-book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s
imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is
coincidental.

Disclaimer: The material in this book is for
mature audiences only and contains graphic sexual content and is
intended for those over the age of 18 only.

* * * * *

Many thanks to Alexis Arendt at Word Vagabond for
editing this book. Her guidance and insight were invaluable. Thanks
also to Deer Watson Media for the fantastic cover.

For my father, who spent countless hours watching
Star Trek with me so I could develop a love of science fiction, for
my Aunt BL, who is always there to offer encouragement, and for my
husband...I love you.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Contact the Author

Preface

Five Years Earlier

Norlan Homeworld, Dena System

Giu Medical Center, Kyvern City

Eden stared up at the ceiling of the
medical center, silently cursing the friend who had saved him.
Overdosing on
kotik
would have been so simple. He’d already
started to drift away, free of pain and misery for the first time
in ten years. It was bad enough that Paoli had saved his life, but
Eden would now have to add the hospital stay to his long list of
debts.

The door to his room opened, and he heard his
sister Sloan’s soft gasp of alarm. Of course she had come. She
thought he could be saved. But there was no hope for him. He was an
empty vessel: his soul long gone, his heart so broken it would
never mend.

“
I know you’re awake, Eden,” Sloan, older
by four years, said angrily.

He turned his head towards her, his unkempt
blue hair falling across his eyes. He’d tried to lessen his appeal
to potential customers by not grooming himself, but it hadn’t
seemed to matter. They wanted him, clean or dirty.

“
What do you want, Sloan?” His voice was
weak, his throat dry. He’d been in the medical center for three
dins
now, and he knew it wasn’t the first time she’d
come.

Sloan was lovely and kind. A medical officer,
she had an affinity for lost and broken souls. Eden’s soul wasn’t
broken, it was missing entirely. She tucked a strand of dark brown
hair behind her ear.

“
I wanted to tell you that I think you’re
an asshole and an idiot, and selfish, too.” Her mouth curled in a
snarl, her brown eyes dark and stormy.

“
What?” Sloan had never talked to him that
way.

“
You heard me. How dare you try to take
your life! Do you know how important you are to me? You’re my only
brother, Eden. I love you. I need you to stick around.” She dashed
tears angrily from her cheeks.

His mouth opened in surprise. “I...I...” he
stammered, but he didn’t know what to say.

She handed him a credit. “I paid for you to
do the soul-walk, Eden.”

Bile rose in his throat. No woman would want
someone like him. Someone used up. He had nothing to offer
anyone.

Sloan sat on the edge of the bed. Her angry
snarl softened, and she smiled sadly. Taking his hand in hers, she
said, “I know you hate yourself. I tried to love you enough for
both of us, but that didn’t work. I realize now that you have to
love yourself, too. You have to forgive yourself for the life you
were forced into and make changes for the better. When you get out
of here, do the soul-walk. If you have a bride out there, then
killing yourself is selfish and insane. You will leave her for
someone else to have.”

“
I’m not worth having,” he said in a voice
thick with sudden tears.

“
You are, I promise. You’re the kindest,
sweetest person I’ve ever known. Any woman in the galaxy would be
lucky to have you.”

She leaned over and kissed his forehead.
Straightening, she said, “I paid for your hospital stay. They’re
keeping you here for another two
dins
, and then you’ll be
released to my home for one more
din
. You can do the
soul-walk then. Think hard before you decide to throw that credit
in the trash, Eden.”

Ashamed, he nodded at her mutely and watched
her leave. Turning the credit in his hand, he wondered if there
really was a woman out there in the universe that was waiting for
him. There were males that came back from the soul-walk without
finding a female, but the majority were linked to a female
somewhere.

Maybe, though, if he did find himself linked
to a female, he could get her to love him first before he told her
about his long life spent degrading himself for his own people.
Maybe if she loved him enough, she could overlook all that he’d
done.

For the first time in years, a glimmer of
hope shone inside him. He clutched the credit in his hand and made
a vow to the heavens that if he was given a mate, he would do
everything in his power to set his life to rights and make her
proud of him.

*Three Days Later*

“
Eden Atarn?” A young male called out as
Eden sat next to Sloan in the soul-walk agency’s main office. He
was still feeling a little shaky from the drugs used in the
soul-walk, but he was euphoric with the news that he did have a
soul mate, somewhere in the universe.

He waved his hand and the young man came over
to him. “Your bride is on a planet called Earth. So far, only three
other males have females on that planet and the minimum for an
extraction trip is twenty-seven.”

He nodded, taking a small memory chip from
the young male, that contained the images Eden had seen in his mind
during his soul-walk. “How long?”

The young male shrugged. “It could be
several lunar-cycles or it could be years. There’s no way to know.
Everything you need to know about the abduction trip and costs
involved is on the memory chip. When the twenty-seventh bride is
located on the planet, a message will be sent to you. Fifty percent
of the cost will be due then, the remainder two
dins
before
the trip’s scheduled departure. If you fail to pay the appropriate
fees, your bride will not be abducted and you will have to wait for
the next trip.”

He nodded, understanding the gravity of the
situation. Without knowing for sure how long it might take to get
the trip ready, he was going to have to work hard to earn enough
money. Not only to set himself free, but also to pay for the
trip.

Eden thanked the young male and turned to
Sloan. She stood up and helped him up. They walked out to
Sloan’s
hover-machen
, and she drove him back to the
Bordelayz. The
hover
-
machen
lingered above the ground
as she pulled in front of the building and got out, offering him
her arm to help him make the walk back to his room.

Bile rose in him as he walked through the
front door, past the two guards who were always stationed there,
and down the long, twisting hallways that led to the small room he
shared with Paoli. The scent of disinfectant mingled with sex
assaulted his nose, and he had an urge to find a needle of
kotik
and forget his troubles. Then he remembered the beautiful
woman in his soul-walk, and he shook himself out of his destructive
desires. She was his, and he needed to snap out of it so he could
bring her home. Home to him.

Paoli rushed to him, hugging him tightly. “I
missed you, friend,” Paoli said, tears shining fresh in his
eyes.

Eden said what he hadn’t said during his time
in the medical center, when Paoli had kept vigil at his side.
Pressing his forehead to Paoli’s, he said, “Thank you, my friend,
for saving my life.”

Paoli nodded silently, and Eden turned back
to Sloan and hugged her. All their lives, he had envied her.
Although he found her beautiful, by Norlanian standards she was too
tall, her cheekbones too high, her lips too full. Their parents
knew that she would not marry well financially, so they had
supported her desire to go into the medical field. But he had never
had a choice in his schooling. When he wished to learn about art,
he was chastised and punished. His young life had been spent in
classes learning about polite society - “your betters”, he’d been
told. He didn’t hate her for what their parents had done to him. He
never had. He counted himself lucky to have her as his careful
guardian and supporter.

“
I love you, Sloan. Thank you for
everything.”

“
I love you, too, Eden.” She brushed a
lock of hair from his forehead. “I wish your life had been
different. I wish I could have stopped them from selling you, using
your beauty to increase their place in society.”

“
It was the path laid out for me.” He held
up the memory chip. “I have a new path, now. Thanks to
you.”

She winked at him with a smile, kissed his
cheek and left.

After meeting with Yuil, the owner, he found
out how much money he owed on his debt to free himself, and added
it to the amount needed for the abduction trip. His heart stuttered
a bit at the large amount, but he knew he could do it if he had
enough time. He didn’t want to ask Sloan for it. It was important
to him that he saved himself first and set his life right before he
brought his bride home.

That night, as Eden lay with one of the
females who had paid for his time, he pictured his soul mate
instead, imagining it was her light skin that he caressed, her
moans of pleasure that touched his ears, and her hands on his body.
Each woman he touched brought him closer to freedom, closer to her.
He was ashamed of his life, his slavery. He didn’t know how she
would react to all that he would need to do to set himself free and
bring her here. But she was his perfect match, and he could only
hope that she would love him enough to overlook his faults. That
she wouldn’t loathe him for selling his body. By law, until he
freed himself from his contract, he could do nothing else to earn
money except have sex.

“
No,” he told himself as he stretched out
his sore body on the cot in the small room he shared with Paoli
several hours later. “No, I will keep my past from her until she
loves me so much she can overlook all I had to do to bring her
home. I’ll love her more than anyone has ever loved her. I’ll give
her everything she could ever want or need. I may sell my body to
pay her way here, but when she’s with me and I’m free...I can make
her proud of me. Proud that she loves a man, not ashamed she loves
a
brokah
.”

For the first time since his freedom had been
taken from him, he felt not only hope at the future, but happiness.
According to the soul-walk company, her name was Ashleigh.

His hope for the future.

His bride.

Chapter 1

“I have a delivery for Ashleigh Turner,” a
young man said as he walked into the Lyttle Tots Daycare. Ashleigh
looked up from the reception desk, where she was filling in for
Gwen on her lunch hour.

“Oh, that’s me!” She signed the small
clipboard and took a heavy vase filled with rainbow-colored roses.
The delivery man disappeared, and Ashleigh put the cut-crystal vase
on the reception desk and looked for a card.

“Please tell me those flowers are for me,”
Gwen said as she came back into the reception area.

“Sorry, they’re for me,” Ashleigh said with a
smile as she pulled a small envelope from the plastic pick and
opened it.