Page 1 of The Intergalactic Duke's Inconvenient Engagement

Chapter 1

Rayna Quaye dreamed that she woke in a glass coffin.

Staring at the translucent pane right above her head, she blinked in confusion, hazily conscious of her hands crossed peacefully over her breasts. With another blink, she focused past the glass to the stars—stars?—above her.

Had she died in her dream? A glass coffin seemed a little pretentious, not her style at all. Was this heaven?She’d tried to lead a good life—she’d raised her younger sister after their mother left, she worked hard at her part-time job as a sales associate at Mr. Evens’ Odds & Ends Shop, she paid her taxes willingly to help others except for that one time she’d bitched about a proposed sidewalk improvement tax because she kind of liked Sunset Falls, Montana, being so rustic, but God wouldn’t hold thatagainst her, would he?—so she hoped it wasn’t theotherplace…

Wait, if she was dreaming, why was she still thinking about sidewalk taxes? If she was in heaven, why was she still in a coffin?

Her heartbeat ramped up, pounding against her palms.

If she was dead, why was her heart pounding?

Because she wasn’t dead.

And the only thing worse than being dead in a pretentious glass coffin was beingnotdead inanycoffin.

The dreamy confusion evaporated in a rush of adrenaline. She slammed her hands onto the glass above her, her heart raging as if it wanted out of her body as much as she wanted out of this box. Though the pane appeared thin, it held against her wallop. Panicked breaths seethed between her teeth, along with a scream she dared not release. Not until she got out. How longhad she been in here? How much air did she have left?

She pulled her elbows tight to her sides then punched upward again, bracing herself for the bite of glass. But there wasn’t room enough for more than a glancing blow. Shewasgoing to die in here after all—

No.No no no. The scream she dared not let out echoed crazily in her head. She’d moved to Big Sky Country specifically because she neededher freedom. She’d sworn she’d never be stuck again…

She screamed.

She couldn’t help it. The hoarse sound tore raggedly at her throat, ripping past her dry, cracked lips. With all the force of that wordless shriek, she launched her fist at the glass right above her heart, twisting her shoulders and even her hips to put everything she had behind the fierce strike.

Her fist broke through andthen the rest of her arm. Momentum carried her upright, and she smacked her head on the pane. As if the breaking glass was a broken spell, the entire structure of the coffin shattered, practically dissolving in a heap of octagonal shards around her.

Above, the stars twinkled—approving or mocking, she couldn’t tell.

She rolled to one side, slithering on the broken glass. And fell off the platformwhere the coffin had been resting.

Another scream jolted from her before she hit the floor just a couple feet down. Good thing it hadn’t been higher… She scrabbled in the debris, her palms stinging from the splinters, and forced herself upright on wavering limbs.

The thin, white shift that was her only clothing swung around her thighs, and the glass bit at the bare soles of her feet as shetwisted, staring around wildly.

What? The? Fuck?

A dozen more glass coffins in a row—she was near one end—glowed softly in the starlight under another glass dome, this one several stories overhead, like the atrium of a greenhouse. But there was no sunlight here, just that black night sky speckled with pinpoints of faraway light.

She was no astronomer, but she’d spent more than a few nightsat the unimproved sidewalk seating outside the Sunset Falls Saloon, admiring the Big Sky at night. And none of these constellations looked at all familiar.

A chill—not just because of the ridiculously short shift she was wearing—prickled over her skin.

Where? The? Fuck?

Cautiously, she sidled through the glass fragments, her heart throbbing faster than the twinkling stars with one message:getoutgetoutgetout.

She edged toward the next coffin, half expecting alarms to blare or someone to rush in to investigate the ruckus orsomething. But the atrium was eerily silent except for a soft shush of sound like ventilation, as if the room was breathing. Maybe that was why she hadn’t suffocated in that coffin.

Getoutgetoutgetout, the hush whispered.

Well, yeah, but which way? She hadn’tthought much pastgetoutgetoutgetoutof the coffin.

As she paused at the next coffin to glance around for a door, she looked down through the glass.

“Oh god,” she whimpered.