Desire by Kallista Dane

Chancellor Athene:
When I took the place of the corrupt former Chancellor Ravensworth, I recognized my life would no longer be my own. Late nights and early mornings would be part of the job even if I wasn’t trying to undo all the evil of his regime. The Brides Program is the antithesis of yet another of his criminal actions—kidnapping young women and sending them as sex slaves to the Arythians, an alien warrior race whose planet, and all the women and children thereon, were murdered. Fortunately, the Arythian leaders were better than ours, and those who joined them found themselves as valued mates rather than what Ravensworth and his cronies intended.
We entered into a relationship with the Arythians in which Earth women could, of their own desire, join these warriors on their new planet, Centauri. Working with Commander Zaroq, who handles the program from their home across the galaxy, we’ve sent hundreds of women who desire not only an intergalactic adventure but a relationship with a strong, dominant warrior who will cherish and protect them throughout their lives together as they give birth to a new race that, to all accounts, holds the best of both of our worlds. A promise for the future.
It’s all going perfectly. And I shouldn’t wish for more, but each time I interact with my counterpart, Commander Zaroq, I do. I wish for everything those young women are flying toward, but my life is here, so I suppose it’s time to find my friend a mate, even if he hasn’t asked for one. He’s too amazing to live alone.

Commander Zaroq:
I wake every morning in my temporary pod home on Centauri thanking the gods that our people were granted a solution to what seemed an unsolvable problem. When our planet was attacked and everyone on its surface murdered, the Arythian people were left with only a small number of males who happened to be in space at the time. And Felice, a starfighter pilot who we did not know was still alive. Without an influx of females, our race would die out, and we’d yet to find another species in the galaxy with whom our genetics were compatible. Until the Terrans. The first women who came to us were sent “to meet our needs,” but we soon learned they had been unwilling emigrants. Unable to reject the only females our scientists said could produce viable offspring with us, we did not send them back. And, thank the gods, they seem to have found happiness with us.
People ask when I will take my turn, and I tell them there are many ahead of me, but the truth is I already know who my mate is, and her life is elsewhere. So…I’ll find my joy in the happiness of our warriors. They had a lot of pain before the Terran women arrived, suffered so much loss. Every smile of a warrior tells me I’m doing good with my life. And that will have to be enough.