“Pardon me, my lady. I am here to attend to you,” said the meek looking woman standing in front of her. Kaya found it odd she looked so submissive when the woman was easily six inches taller than she.
“Attend to me?”
“Bathe you, dress you, prepare you for your tutor.”
“My tutor? What is it I am going to be tutored in?”
“Why, your education in the ritual of Daya N’goul, of course.”
“Die a na ghoul?”
“Yes, Daya N’goul … and you will learn soon enough, I am not trained to be your teacher. Come, we must ready you, as your tutor will be here momentarily.” The woman clutched her arm and tugged her toward the bathing area. Kaya pulled her hand from the woman’s grasp. “Wait, I have a lot of questions. To start, what is going on here? Who are you? Why am I held captive and what education am I to receive? I’m not interested in being brainwashed, so you can tell my teacher I’m not interested.”
The woman just smiled dazedly at her. And it infuriated Kaya even more.
“What the hell is going on? I want to go home, dammit!” Kaya screamed as she stomped her foot like a spoiled child.
“Do not worry yourself so. We are not going to brainwash you. We are simply going to teach you our culture and our history to put you at ease and help you understand Daya N’goul. Your teacher will tell you much more. That is, if I can prepare you in time.” The attendant pushed her toward the bathing room as she went on. “He is a very impatient man, but he will answer many of your questions.”
The woman’s seemingly sincere words, calm demeanor, and smile calmed Kaya a bit, but she was still fearful and confused. She felt like she was in an episode of The Twilight Zone.
“And by the way, my name is Be’in. And my sister and I will be your lady’s maids.”
“As a captive here, I will have lady’s maids? I didn’t have maids at home, but I get abducted and get two.” Kaya shook her head in exasperation. “This makes absolutely no sense at all.”
“It will. Soon, everything will make sense. Come, and let me prepare you for your lessons.”
Kaya let herself be pulled into the large tub filled with hot sweet smelling water. Be’in’s strong hands bathed her and washed her long auburn hair. Kaya wasn’t used to having someone do such intimate acts as this, and she stiffened at the touch, demanding to wash certain areas herself.
Something in the water must have had a calming effect as Kaya nearly fell asleep from the aroma, the warmth of the water, and the kneading hands over her body. Be'in pulled her weak limbs, standing her, and urged her from the tub. Another woman came through the door, and the two women dried Kaya’s body thoroughly. “This is my sister, J’ Halle. As I said, she will be your other lady’s maid.”
The other woman was much younger than Be'in and quite shy. She gave a timid smile to Kaya and turned her head as Be'in pulled Kaya to a seat in a corner of the bath she assumed was the dressing area. Kaya turned when prodded by the women to take a seat in front of some sort of vanity.
She looked into the mirror and nearly screamed at the sight she beheld. The image looking back at her was herself, yet different. Her hair was much, much longer, and tied up on her head. Her body was thinner and toned. Her extra few pounds had evaporated overnight. And her freckles were gone. She had always hated those freckles, but without them she looked so strange. So alien.
After the initial shock of seeing herself looking so differently, she settled in to the ministrations of the two women, almost numb from everything happening around her. She kept telling herself answers were coming with whomever the tutor was and kept repeating that as she tried to hold on to the edges of her own sanity. She’d fallen down the rabbit hole, and she wondered if this were but a dream.
The maids pulled a comb through her thick hair and drew it away from her face with a gold-jeweled clip. Tendrils wrapped and curled around her face, and her tresses shone with health and curled down her back. They next applied makeup, something she rarely wore. Heavy dark liner went around her eyes and gold dust was applied all around her face and neck.
Then a beautiful green gown was brought into the room and wrapped elegantly about her. It fell off one shoulder and twisted in complex turns all around her upper body and then flowed to the floor, with slits from the waist down on either side due to the oddly collected fabric and all the complex ties.
Kaya looked down and noted the fabric was shear and she could easily see her dusky nipples through the cloth, even with all the twists of the fabric on her body. Soft sandals were put on her feet and tied up her legs to the knee. And then the final touch, jewels were added. She was adorned with a thick golden choker, golden earrings that covered her entire ear like a shell, and a golden headband resembling a weaving branch of ivy, as well as gold bands on both upper arms and wrists.
She looked into the mirror and tears formed in her eyes. Fear, fatigue, the ministrations of these women and the unexpectedness she would ever look so beautiful all caught up with her at once and she began quietly sobbing.
“Please, please. Don’t cry. You will ruin all our work, and you will be late for your first lesson. You must stop … look how beautiful you are. There is no reason to cry.” Be'in had hugged her to her chest and was rubbing her back, actually making her cry more.
She remembered her home, her life, and her business, everything she had been pulled away from, and she refused to show any more weakness to these people. Pulling herself together, she stopped crying. Although she hated to admit it, a small part of her did not want these women to be forced to redo all their hard work. Looking back into the mirror, Be'in fixed a couple of small spots on her face and then beamed at her. “My lady, you look ravishing.”
Kaya smiled and let the woman lead her through the bedroom and out to the living area on the balcony. There was someone waiting for her and as he stood her knees nearly buckled. Before her stood the most gorgeous man she had ever laid eyes on in her entire lifetime, if he could truly be classified a man. He looked human enough, but he was more. The fact he towered above her was only the first thing she noticed. A thick ridge across his nose was another.
Be'in smiled up at the incredibly tall, striking man before them. “Kaya, this will be your teacher, Lord Fatel. He will instruct you in Daya N’goul and can answer your many questions. Lord Fatel, let me introduce you to Lady Kaya.”
Thoughts of her captive status completely fled from her mind as she smiled up into his eyes, and then blushed as she remembered her near nakedness. She covered her bosom with her arms, embarrassed to be so on display in front of this gorgeous male. Lord Fatel stepped toward her and grasped her hands in his, pulling her closer to him, his pale blue eyes roving over her form as he smiled his approval.
He spoke huskily, in almost a whisper, apparent desire showing in his eyes and filling his words. “I have been waiting for our classes to begin with much excitement. Be'in, if you will excuse us,” he said over Kaya’s shoulder to the maid before resting his gaze back on her face. “And then we can begin for the day.”
A shiver ran down Kaya’s back as she recognized the look she witnessed on his face. He looked like a hungry man seated in front of his first meal in days.
Standing so close to the heat of this stunning man, she could see the desire he felt written over his face. Add in the fact she was still reeling from everything that had happened to her thus far, and her knees finally gave out. She began to fall, even with her arms held in his grasp. Quickly releasing one of her limbs and grabbing her at the waist, the muscular stranger dragged her close to him.
She felt his erection against her upper abdomen, and heat rushed into her core. Why would a stranger … this stranger … cause such a reaction in my body, especially given my captivity?
“I see you are as excited as I to start your lessons.” He looked down at her with mesmerizing blue eyes. “I will never tire of holding you next to me, Princess.” He had the gall to wink at her as he set her down on one of the
large pillows gracing the floor. “Are we ready to begin?”
Chapter Two
Sitting down on the pillow next to hers with a grace she never knew a man to possess; Lord Fatel smiled at her with humor in his eyes. His grace was even more awe-inspiring due to his huge size. She guessed him to be at least seven feet tall, if not taller. Kaya was a tall woman by Earth standards, towering over many men and women at five foot ten, but everyone she had encountered here so far was much taller than she. Even her maids stood nearly a head above her own height.
She glanced at him and noticed the ease with which he lounged on the pillow and wished she had that kind of fluidity of body. He was amazingly beautiful, which was not a word she normally used to describe a man. His light brown, short, wavy hair, his beautiful clear blue eyes, and his even tanned skin, his masculinity all but overflowed, plus this unmistakable “something” she could not describe, just made him more than sexy. It made him beautiful. Stop ogling this man and get to the questions, Kaya!
The fact she desired him, a man who had possibly been instrumental in her abduction, finally settled into her head. And the anger, not only at him for imprisoning her, but the anger at herself also for wanting him welled inside her quickly.
“Why am I here?” she spat with more malice than she intended, but she had to get a grip on the rising lust she felt.
“You are the Daya N’goul of the General of the Aegarian East.”
“So I have been abducted by aliens? Great … well, at least I have a story to sell to the tabloids when I go home.” Kaya hoped her dripping sarcasm would anger him; she was too angry herself not to push him a little. “That is, if I ever leave. Which leads me to my second question. When can I go home?”
“Possibly in about a month.” He signaled for her to let him finish by raising his hand, and she let out a huff, giving him a moment to continue. “We request you allow me to teach you of our culture before you go. If after that point you still want to go home, you will be free to do so.”
“You want me to stay here a month? Why a month?”
“You cannot see your Daya N’goul for one Si’ ni mon. It is about a month your time. After I have taught you our culture and you have the opportunity to meet General Besh, if you still chose to leave, you will be allowed to go home.”
“Do I have a choice if I stay the month or not?”
“I don’t see what is so wrong with asking you to stay one month. You will be kept in luxurious surroundings, be given your every whim, and from the looks of the life you lead, you could use the escape.”
How dare he? “And just what is that supposed to mean?”
“You are in serious threat of losing your café, and with that you would also lose your home, which you mortgaged to buy your business. Your business is just starting to flourish, but you do not yet make enough to pay the bills you have floated in the time spent building your business. And you have few friends due to your busy work schedule, something you had even before you opened the business, and almost all of your family is deceased. And you haven’t even had a lover in over two years.”
Rage filled every pore in Kaya’s face, and she jumped to her feet, pointing her finger at the infuriating man. “How dare you investigate me and then judge what you don’t know! And how will I save my home and business if I am here and not there to work to raise the funds?”
“We needed to know if you had obligations before we asked you to stay. We knew it would be unfair of us to cause you undue hardship. And it is not in our best interest to cause an incident with you when we are trying to earn the trust of your world’s inhabitants. So, your bills have been paid up through the next year. If you chose to go back, you will be in better shape than when you left. So your life will be there, awaiting your return.” He pulled her back down to the pillow on the floor and brushed a curl of her lush hair away from the angry set of her jaw. “And I did not judge. I merely said you deserved an escape from it all. You are a hard worker, and I respect the drive in you … but a woman as passionate and beautiful as yourself should be treated like the queen she is, not a servant in a kitchen.”
His obvious compliments would not have usually worked on her, but he was weaving a spell on her with his eyes and body. And there was some truth to his words. She was exhausted. Her attempts to save her business had driven her to her limits. Her bills paid for a year? Was the possibility of financial stability enough for her to open herself up to danger? Apparently it was. She felt herself relax at the thought of going home and not having to struggle as much. One month. It wasn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things.
And her reaction to Lord Fatel was another thing. Her body was at full attention and burning in a fire she had never known, smoldering even through her anger. His touch to her jaw had been the breaking point. Before she knew what she was saying, “Fine. I will stay your month. And then I will go home.” She wrung her hands, looking down, instantly realizing she was missing something important in this odd conversation.
“So what is this stupid Daya N’goul, anyway?”
“Oh … just your stupid soul mate, and hopefully life partner and husband.”
Kaya’s head snapped to fully face Lord Fatel, her eyes wide with incredulity. “My what?”
“Your soul mate, Kaya,” Lord Fatel nearly whispered.
Kaya laughed sarcastically at his softly spoken words. “And just how do you know he’s my soul mate? There is no such thing.”
“A few months ago, none of you believed there were aliens. Open your mind. We are a different race of beings, and there is much for you to learn.”
She sat back, pulling from him a bit as she pondered what he said. His gaze was earnest. She nodded when he silently motioned with his hand, asking if he should continue.
“Aegarian men smell a chemical our mate and only our mate produces. It is expelled into the air through the skin, something like what your people call a pheromone. When an Aegarian man comes close to his mate, her scent drives him wild the first time he meets her. He can’t think straight, feels almost ill from the rush of emotion and lust, and becomes instantly aroused and erect, ready to claim her as his own.”
Kaya felt her face flame with his words. “So some random alien walks by me, gets a boner, and I get drugged, abducted and brought to this place, and I don’t get to see said mystery alien for a month? And then what? I have to marry him?”
Lord Fatel paused a moment, weighing her words and considering his own response to them. “This is why I am here to teach you. You don’t take this seriously at all, nor did we expect you to. Aegarians have mated for hundreds of thousands of years this way, and no one in all those years has ever been unhappy with a mate. Our women understand the old ways and accept their mates into their arms, hearts, and beds without second thought. You are a challenge. As the first person not of true Aegarian blood to be the Daya N’goul of one of our men, you were not expected to accept him, and I see we were right. And with our rules making him absent from your side for a month, he cannot convince you to try. So I am here to give you insight into our culture, our laws, our people, to hopefully open your mind a little to give your mate a fighting chance.”
Not ready to continue talking about her mate, something she was struggling to believe, she decided to change the subject and quickly. She had so, so many more questions to ask this man, alien, whatever he was. “I’m shocked to see how closely you resemble humans. Yet there is something … I can’t put my finger on it. I saw all the soldiers in the suits and assumed the worst was underneath, of course. But you look human, or is that a ruse?”
“We want your people to not know what is under those suits quite yet. A little fear can be a good thing when trying to calm a large group of people. Actually, we are related, humans and Aegarians, so of course we look similar. It’s quite a long story, but I am up to it if you are.”
“Related?” She sensed what he might be about to say and turned her head in opposition. “I don’t think I can absorb any m
ore of your truths today. I’m overwhelmed enough. My brain needs time to catch up.” Deep inside, a deep fear began to grow inside her.
“I thought you wanted answers to your questions?”
She did. She so did. But he wasn’t answering her questions, only giving her more to digest. There were so many questions running through her brain, but she also sensed what he was about to tell her was something she was not ready to internalize. She was already at her limit. “I think I’ve had enough for today.”
“Fine. I will save the story for our next lesson.”
His light stare stoked the fire that had been holding deep in her core. His eyes gazed from the tip of her toes to her auburn curls and back down to her core, and he inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. Once he opened them back again and looked deep into her eyes, she saw the irises darken in lust, and desire rocked her to her core. This man wanted her like no man had ever wanted her, and his gaze alone told her the truth. She found she wanted him equally, and she fought the sensation, fear of losing herself in him, this stranger she should not want.
As if sensing her anxiety, Lord Fatel grasped her by her upper arms and pulled her into his embrace, his soft mouth finding the nape of her neck. He ran his lips across the sensitive flesh found there. She inwardly gasped, not wanting him to feel so good, to smell so good. Not wanting his heat to envelope her and attract her so. She pushed him away and stood, crossing her arms in front of her again, trying to put distance and a shield between herself and the erotic creature still draped gracefully across the pillow on the floor.
She closed her eyes, trying to pull herself back together quickly, and once she opened them back, she saw him smiling up at her face with bemusement.
“You feel as excited as I do, don’t you?” His egotistical smile angered her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve used my circumstances here to manipulate me and take advantage. I have been thrust into a situation I have little control over, and I am confused and disorientated, as you must realize. How dare you try to use your sexuality to confuse my situation even further and bend me to your will?”
Her Alien Abductor (Aegarian Saga) Page 2