The Nanny and the Alien Warrior
Treasured by the Alien
Honey Phillips
Bex McLynn
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Authors’ Note
Other Titles
Chapter One
“This way. Hurry,” Sultavi urged.
Joanna clutched her cloak closer to her neck with one hand and tightened her grip on the little girl with the other.
“Are you sure?” she whispered as Sultavi led them down a back alley in the warren of buildings that made up the commercial center of Isokau, the main city in Lord K’herr’s domain.
The market wasn’t asleep—it never truly slept—but at this hour, most of the activity was concentrated around the bars and the gambling houses. The shops surrounding them were dark and still.
“I’m sure.” Sultavi spoke with the absolute confidence of a precocious six-year-old, but Joanna wasn’t convinced.
They had been to the market many times before, but they had always been accompanied by Lord K’herr’s guards. She was no fan of the big warriors—they were there to prevent her from escaping as much as to protect Sultavi—but right now she would have welcomed a few bodies surrounding them as they hurried down the dark passageway.
But they were all dead, and she and Sultavi were on their own.
A lump formed in her throat. Even though she hadn’t cared for the guards, they had never treated her badly. With one exception, she thought with a shudder. And now they were all gone.
Nohta, the captain of the guards, had been the one to rouse her a short time ago, thrusting a confused Sultavi into her arms.
“Take the girl. We have to go.”
She hadn’t argued, pausing only long enough to throw a cloak over her nightclothes before lifting the girl into her arms. Sultavi had already been wrapped in a dark uniform shirt, her face pale and scared.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered as Nohta set off at a rapid pace through the extensive gardens that were part of the House Sodan compound. She could hear the sounds of fighting in the distance and see flames burning at the rear of the main building.
“Father is dead,” Sultavi said, a tear rolling down her cheek. Her body quivered in Joanna’s arms, but she seemed to understand the need for silence.
“We were betrayed,” Nohta said grimly.
Her mind flew back to the previous evening. Sultavi had been dressed in her finest clothes and taken off to some type of ceremonial banquet for a visiting relative—a cousin of some kind. Joanna had been forbidden to accompany her, but she’d been waiting when the little girl returned, tired and grumpy. The ceremonial outfit was uncomfortable, the food had been “yucky,” and she didn’t like her father’s visitor.
“Who was he?” she asked as she unfastened the ceremonial braids and brushed out Sultavi’s long purple hair.
“Lord T’paja.” The little girl yawned. “A third cousin once removed on my father’s side. His father was Lord T’norwa, who lost his estate in a card game.”
Joanna wasn’t surprised that Sultavi knew all the details of the family lineage. Lord K’herr was raising his daughter as the future leader of their House.
“There. All finished.” She smoothed down the last shining strand and dropped a kiss on the little girl’s head, then helped her up into the big bed. “Why didn’t you like him?”
“He talked to me like I was stupid.” A frown made the tiny dark horns pull together. “He said if I came to visit him, he’d give me a dolly. I’m not a baby.”
“If you went to visit him?”
Joanna’s heart skipped a beat. As much as she hated being a prisoner, she knew what to expect in Lord K’herr’s compound. Another Allikan lord might not afford her the same protection. But it was almost worse to think of Sultavi going without her. She loved the little girl like her own child.
“Father didn’t like that idea. He made one of his mean faces.” Sultavi giggled. “So then I accidentally spilled my juice on Lord T’paja’s robes.”
“Tavi, you shouldn’t have done that. You know your father expects you to be on your best behavior.”
The girl shrugged. “I don’t think he minded. He told me it was time for bed, but his eyes were smiling. I wish they did that more often.”
“I know, sweetheart,” Joanna said sympathetically.
She honestly believed that Lord K’herr loved his daughter, but he didn’t seem to know how to express it. It didn’t help that he always seemed to be busy. Other than meeting with Sultavi once a week to instruct her on her future duties, he rarely saw the child.
“It’s late. You should go to sleep.”
“I want a story. Please.” Big purple eyes gave her a pleading look, and Joanna succumbed.
“All right. But just a short one. Once upon a time…”
Sultavi’s usual determination to stay awake long enough to hear the end of the story was defeated by exhaustion from the late night. Her eyes were closed before Joanna had even reached the midpoint of her tale. Joanna kissed her again, tucked the covers around her, and went off to her own bed in the small adjoining room.
Who would have thought that she would have ended up using her doctorate in medieval history to come up with stories to tell the daughter of an alien warlord, she thought as she prepared for bed. Her usual day outfit was a simple gown in the colors of House Sodan—with the insignia that marked her as its property—but the House tailor had made her a white tunic and pants for sleeping.
Before she climbed into bed, she added the day’s notch to the collection of scratches she used to track her time in captivity, then froze as she took in the neat squares.
A year. She had been on this alien world for a year now.
A lump caught in her throat. There were times when life on Earth seemed like nothing more than a distant dream, or times like now when she still couldn’t believe what had happened to her.
She had been walking home after an evening class. The campus was quiet, the shadows heavy between the lamp posts, but it hadn’t occurred to her to be afraid. And then she’d heard a muffled cry from under the trees lining the path. Even then, she’d simply thought that someone might have hurt themselves and had gone to help.
Only to discover a white-skinned man bending down over the limp body of a female student. She’d opened her mouth to call for help, and then a blinding pain shot through her shoulder and the world went dark.
When she awoke, she was in a small white cell barely large enough for a metal cot. A glass wall at one end of the cell revealed two of the white-skinned men standing there, staring at her.
Not men, she realized with a sickening thud as she took in the details she had missed in the dark night. White, almost plastic-like skin, matte black hair like that of an animal, and eyes that held an eerie red glow.
She was still staring at them when she realized that she could understand what they were saying, even though she was quite sure they weren’t speaking English.
“I don’t know. I think she’s too old,” the first one said.
Too old for what?
“For breeding maybe.” The second speaker shrugged. “But the captain says there’s a demand for all typ
es of females.”
“He’d better be right. I have plans for my share of the profits.”
“We couldn’t leave her alive after she saw us.” Another shrug. “And a meager profit is better than none.”
Breeding? Profit? Her mind still struggled to make sense of the situation, but she pulled herself to her feet and went to the glass wall.
“Let me out of here. You can’t do this,” she protested, but even as she spoke she knew it was a stupid thing to say.
The first male seemed to agree, smirking at her. “We can and we have.”
He scanned her up and down, his eyes cold and assessing. “I just hope some of our customers prefer a more… seasoned product.”
Before she could respond, his companion tapped him on the arm. “Come. Let’s go evaluate the rest of the stock.”
They disappeared down the white corridor, and she sank back down on her bunk.
Aliens. She had been kidnapped by aliens.
Her rational mind wanted to scream a protest, but it all seemed a little too real—from the faint medicinal tang in the air to the smug certainty on the face of her captors. She examined her cell thoroughly, looking for a way out, but she couldn’t even find anything resembling a control by the glass panel. The rear of the cell did contain a concealed panel that led into a tiny bathroom, but she found nothing else.
As she sank back down on her bunk, she thought longingly of her friend June. The other woman was a whiz with anything computer-operated and could no doubt have hacked her way out. Joanna’s skills did not lie in that direction.
Her captivity settled into a monotonous routine. The lights would dim periodically, and when they brightened, an alien would come by and thrust a tray of bland food through an opening that appeared in the glass wall. She could never determine how he made it open, or figure out a way to take advantage of the situation. And as the time dripped by, they were getting further away from Earth and any chance of escape.
Nothing else broke up the monotony except nightmarish visions of the possible fate that awaited her at the end of the journey. She had no illusions about her value on a slave market, especially if they wanted breeders. Theoretically, she was still capable of bearing children, but the chances were low at her age. And while she was fine with her appearance, straight brown hair, ordinary brown eyes, and a short, plump body didn’t tend to inspire lust in the male breast. But maybe that’s a good thing under the circumstances, she thought dryly.
To keep boredom—and terror—at bay, she spent her time reviewing her latest research paper in her head, or reciting medieval poetry. She had gotten so used to the routine that when an alien appeared at the wall of her cell in the middle of the day, she was actually surprised.
The glass panel slid aside.
“Come, human. It’s time for you to establish your worth.”
The voice sounded familiar, and she thought she recognized him as one of the ones she had seen on her first day.
“I know my worth, thank you very much,” she said, her teeth gritted.
“That is irrelevant. The only worth that matters is how many credits someone will pay for you. Now come.”
He grabbed her arm—six fingers cold and surprisingly strong—and hauled her to her feet. She instinctively started to struggle and he yanked her arm up behind her back until it felt like it was on the edge of breaking.
“Do not try my patience. An unconscious female has less value, but she will still sell. Is that what you want?”
She shuddered. The idea of being unconscious while her fate was decided horrified her.
“I don’t want that,” she whispered.
“Then behave.”
He released her aching arm, then prodded her out into the corridor. More women, most of them the age of her college students, were emerging from similar cells. Their expressions ranged from panic to shock, and many of them were crying as the white-skinned aliens prodded them along. She wanted to slow down, to speak to some of them, but her captor hurried her out in front of the others.
“We might have an offer for you. Better hope it works out,” he hissed.
“Offer? What offer?”
“Just shut up and keep moving.”
He pulled her along the corridor, then out of the ship and down a ramp. They were in a vast enclosed building, like a huge airplane hangar, with what looked like a makeshift stage in front of the ship. Beyond the stage, a dizzying array of aliens milled around with glasses in their hands, or claws, or tentacles. She just had time to notice that they all seemed to be dressed in elaborate clothing, with jewels sparkling in some extremely strange places, before her captor marched her down a set of steps and away from the stage.
The noise behind her increased as the other women began to emerge from the ship and saw the stage and the waiting audience. Their frantic cries mixed with appreciative sounds from waiting aliens - everything from growls to clicks to hisses. Her guard ignored the racket, leading her to a door on the outer wall of the building. He thrust her through it into a small room, blessedly quiet after the turmoil outside, and slammed the door behind her.
Only one other person occupied the room, a big alien with dark purple hair pulled back from two curved horns and plaited in a single long braid. Unlike the glimpses she’d had of the other customers, he wasn’t festooned in luxurious fabrics or dripping with jewels. He wore a simple leather vest with a small insignia on his shoulder, but the lack of finery did nothing to lessen his air of command. She was quite sure he was a male used to being in charge.
But he’s not in charge of me, she thought defiantly.
She straightened her shoulders, raised her chin, and did her best not to flinch under his cold, thoughtful gaze as he surveyed her.
“I have a daughter,” he said finally.
It wasn’t what she had expected him to say, and she frowned at him.
“She needs a female to look after her,” he continued.
“What about your wife?” she asked tentatively.
His face grew even colder. “My mate is dead.”
She felt an unexpected pang of sympathy, but from his expression she suspected he wouldn’t welcome such a sentiment from her. He’s an alien slaveowner, she reminded herself. He doesn’t deserve compassion.
“Our race does not have many females.” His fists clenched at his sides. “The few who exist are spoiled schemers. They would not treat Sultavi well.”
“Why not? If females are rare—”
“They would see her as competition for their own child. Perhaps even as competition for my… affections.”
“I’m sorry, but what’s that got to do with me?”
He sighed, and for a moment she saw weariness cross the hard face. “Since the Red Death, all females are in short supply. The female companions I have hired for my daughter were all lured away by males desperate for mates. As a slave, you will not have that option.”
Her stomach clenched at the complete certainty in his statement. I am not a slave, she thought defiantly, but despite her resistance, she couldn’t see a way out of the situation.
“Why me?” she asked again.
“You are a mature female, and your sales packet states that you are educated, despite your primitive background.” The skepticism was quite obvious. “Sultavi needs the care of a female. You appear to be the best option.”
“But I don’t belong here. I have a life back on Earth.” A safe, peaceful life with her books and her classes and her plants.
“That life is over.” There wasn’t a trace of remorse on his face. “I’m offering you an alternative. Unless you’d prefer to be auctioned off for more… physical purposes? Your age would be against you,” he added dispassionately. “But as I said, females are in demand.”
She shuddered, remembering the raucous crowd outside.
“I don’t want that,” she said quietly.
“Then I will make the arrangements.” He didn’t seem to have had the slightest doubt that she would a
gree, exiting the room without a backwards glance.
She had still been thinking of that long ago day when Captain Nohta had found her. Now she and the little girl she loved so much were on the run and everything had changed once again.
Chapter Two
“That’s it,” Sultavi whispered, pointing to a pink house perched on short poles and drawing Joanna’s attention back to the present.
They had reached the edge of the market and the beginning of the residential district. The row of small houses that lined the street varied wildly in color and style, but they were all neat and well-kept with attractive gardens. The pink house was the exception, the jungle of plants that surrounded it looking completely out of control.
“Are you sure, Tavi?” Joanna asked again.
“Yes. My last nanny used to bring me to tea here sometimes. She was Trevelorian too.”
A clatter of noise sounded from further up the street, and Joanna pulled the girl back into the shadows, her heart pounding wildly. The sounds faded but she couldn’t quite force herself to leave the safety of the dark patch.
“That’s the one who got mated and moved away, right?”
“Yes. I was sad. But then Father brought you to me and everything was all right again.”
Sultavi gave her a sweet smile, and Joanna’s chest ached. She’d never quite been able to tell the girl that she was only here because she had no choice. But was that still true? Even if someone magically offered her a way home, she didn’t think she could leave Tavi.
She shook her head. Right now, staying out of Lord T’paja’s clutches was more important than a theoretical choice to return to Earth.
“All right. Let’s go while it’s quiet.”
They hurried across the road, but even that short distance in the open made her feel terribly exposed. She ducked into the overgrown bushes with a sigh of relief. Even in the darkness, she could tell that the garden was made up of an astonishing array of plants. Their scents surrounded her, almost dizzying in their intensity. She had to force herself to concentrate on following the narrow path that led to steps up to the front door.
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