Her round eyes locked on his, and for a moment Kash feared she would pounce on him and he’d be forced to grapple with her. He’d been warned by Cherra that a human bite with those dull teeth was not only painful but terribly unsanitary.
Rather than attacking, though, she stunned him by drawing in a deep breath and sitting back on her haunches, mimicking his own position. She brushed a cascade of dark hair from her lustrous eyes and narrowed her gaze at him. “Jesus H. You’re Sha-Shiri.”
* * * *
Victoria’s cell mate sniffed the air between them and the corded muscles beneath his velvet pelt coiled in anticipation. She’d surprised him, though not nearly as much as he’d surprised her by speaking perfect English.
He was gorgeous, all sleek golden fur, blonde mane, and tawny amber eyes. A dark leather harness crossed his broad chest, the jeweled straps separating triangular pectorals tipped with brown nipples. A black loincloth hung from a thick belt that sat high on his waist making his torso seem compact and amazingly powerful. With his booted feet folded beneath his calves and his massive thighs flexed, he looked ready to spring at her. Instinctively, she blanked her expression, fighting to keep the loopy, excited grin she felt from exposing her teeth to him.
When he held out one hand to her, she saw that his claws were sheathed. His lips were also closed, hiding his own sharp teeth to convey lack of aggression. “I will not hurt you.”
“Good. I’m relieved.” She put her hand out toward his and brushed her fingertips against his palm. At the brief contact, her heart jackhammered and she let out an involuntary gasp. Good God, she’d just touched an alien.
“You know what I am?” he asked.
“Of course. I’m half Sha-Shiri.”
* * * *
Kash glanced at the camouflaged shield and wondered if Cherra and Sirris were as shocked by the female’s revelation as he was. They’d all surmised that due to the suspicious nature of human society, the hybrid’s Sha-Shiri heritage would have most likely been hidden from her to keep her safe from the authorities. The fact that she knew of her status would no doubt only serve to further the cause of the Val’tek and expedite their ill-conceived breeding program.
“We had not expected you would be aware of this.”
The female leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. “My father told me everything. I know he came to earth twenty-six years ago with a scientific hunting party to study North American animals. He was injured and left in the woods, expected to die, but my mother found him, and even though his hunting party returned, against the rules, to find him and bring him home, he decided to stay with her. I spent my whole life hoping I’d get to meet some of his people one day. By the way, I wish you’d just said hello. No need to knock me out and lock me up.” She finished with a pointed glance at the featureless walls of the cell. “I ... uh ... mean you no harm and I’m not afraid.”
Kash breathed easily for the first time since her arrival. “I apologize for our methods. I trust you’re not injured.”
“I’ll recover from a bump on the head.” She held out her hand to him again and Kash brushed her fingers with his own, as she’d done to him. The softness of her naked skin surprised him. “I’m Victoria Cambridge, by the way. I suppose you were in the woods looking for me?” Now she drew back her lips and Kash had to remind himself that the gesture denoted humor and happiness among humans rather than a show of strength.
He ‘smiled’ back. “Do you?”
“My father always said, after he sent his hunting party away for good, most of the eastern half of the United States would be off limits for a long time. I have to figure the only reason you’d come back would be to meet me and find out how I turned out.”
Kash began to worry that the hybrid was perhaps too intelligent for her own good. Fear of the Sha-Shiri might have kept her compliant with his plans, but her obvious curiosity might get them both in trouble before his true mission even began. He rose, stretching his stiff leg muscles and offered his hand again to help her up, as well.
“You figured correctly. Our curiosity about you brought us back to find you and learn from you. I hope you’re not offended by our ignorance in assuming you would resist our efforts to contact you. Our doctor has performed some medical tests on you already and, with your permission, would like to do more.”
She laughed, a guttural sound that would have startled Kash had he not spent so much time studying human interactions. “I always imagined alien probes would factor into my life at some point. I’m cool with it. Did you find anything interesting?”
“Only that you are in heat.”
* * * *
Victoria’s whole body stiffened. She wasn’t sure what kind of a response she expected, but this certainly wasn’t it. She reared back a little, taking a step away from her nameless captor. “I’m what?”
“You are ripe for mating. According to our healer’s calculations, your ovulation cycle is about to begin. Sexual intercourse at this time would have the highest likelihood of resulting in conception.”
She stared at him, jaw slack, heart pounding in her ears like a drummer on steroids. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I could summon the healer to explain the human reproductive cycle, if you’re unfamiliar--”
“No thanks. I’m familiar.” She cut him off with a wave of her hand then brought her fingers up and pinched the bridge of her nose. This was utterly insane. “Please tell me this isn’t some sort of ‘Mars needs women’ plot because I’m really not in the mood.” Her thoughts turned briefly to Mark Beck and the indecent proposal he’d made that had precipitated her decision to leave Beck & Donnelly in the dust. Did she have the word ‘breeder’ stamped on her forehead in neon letters or something?
She looked at the Sha-Shiri who had narrowed his golden gaze on her. Maybe she did.
“If you’re referring to the fourth planet in this system, all of our studies show it to be uninhabited.”
She sighed. Pop culture references would be lost on an alien of course. “So you haven’t kidnapped me in order to repopulate a dying planet?”
His hesitation made her nervous. “Yes and no.”
Good lord, this just kept getting better. She cocked one hip at him and gave him her best ‘don’t bullshit me’ stare. “You’d better start explaining, Felix, or I’ll be forced to hurt you.”
“My name is not Felix. It’s Kash-Koori. I’m a member of the ... Val’tek, a faction of Sha-Shiri society dedicated to forging peaceful coexistence with humans through interbreeding. As a hybrid--the only human/Sha-Shiri hybrid in existence--you are a great asset to our cause. This ship, the Katavarri, has been sent to collect you and I have been chosen to mate with you in an effort to produce another generation of hybrid offspring, hopefully one that will be more suited to space travel and life on the Sha-Shiri homeworld. It is our sincere hope that you will be amenable to this exchange and every effort will be made to ensure your comfort and well-being during the process.”
Victoria blinked at him. After a fulminate pause, she spoke. “You rehearsed that speech for a long time, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. So I’ve been chosen for the Sha-Shiri breeding program.”
“Yes.”
“I’m flattered.”
Kash-Koori seemed shocked by this. What had he expected? Apparently Victoria Cambridge’s DNA was in high demand all over the universe.
“We needn’t begin immediately, of course. It was factored into our mission schedule that you would require a few days of adjustment before intercourse could occur. To that end, I would be happy to answer any of your questions and perhaps show you the ship and introduce you to the other crew members who are understandably anxious to meet you.”
“Slow down, buster. You’re talking like this mating thing is a done deal. I didn’t say I was amenable to any exchange of anything at the moment.”
Kash appeared disappointed now. He lowered his head and nodded. “Of
course we’re prepared to detail the particulars of the breeding program for you. You seem intelligent enough to--”
“Intelligent enough? Yeah. Okay. Let’s put the breaks on. Just so we’re clear, nobody is mating with me now or any time in the foreseeable future. I’d be thrilled to tour the ship and meet the crew--in fact it’s been a dream of mine to meet some of my long lost alien relatives, but I’m not having anyone’s baby, got that?”
Kash nodded. Again his hesitation worried Victoria and she took a step back as his features morphed from benign curiosity to thinly veiled aggression. He bared his teeth, but this time not in a Sha-Shirian attempt at a smile. A low growl rumbled in his wide chest and he reached for her arm and pulled her close. “Your cooperation would be greatly appreciated, but it is not required.”
Victoria’s body responded to the threat on instinct. She’d always had a hair trigger self-defense mechanism and the sudden change in Kash’s demeanor set off every alarm bell in her still partially scrambled brain. She sprang at him, fists flying, without thought as to what she would do with the rest of the crew if she managed to rip her way through this one arrogant Sha-Shiri.
His body was like a brick wall covered in hot velvet. He grabbed her wrists and held them, absorbing vicious kicks to his shins without flinching. “I have no desire to harm you.” His voice had returned to the even, almost friendly tone he had used when she first awoke.
“Well, I have a desire to harm you! You picked the wrong girl for your little baby making scheme, fuzz face.” She combined a kick with a self-defense move she’d learned from her father and in an instant had the Sha-Shiri on the floor. Unfortunately he must have learned the same move because he landed on top of her rather than beneath her as she’d planned.
The breath left her lungs in an explosive whoosh when his broad chest descended on hers. In an instant he’d straddled her and trapped her arms above her head.
For some reason, Victoria felt no fear, only anger. She brought one knee up to connect with whatever lurked behind his loincloth. His privates must have been protected by something, because pain shot up from her knee cap to her hip and she yelped. He only grunted and stretched his body flat over hers.
“Don’t struggle,” he whispered in her ear, even as she bucked her hips against him. “The healer will come in and sedate you again. I will not harm you unless you force me to.”
“Consider yourself forced--get the hell off me.” She writhed, arching her back hard against the cushiony floor of the cell. She managed to wriggle one hand free of his and balled it into a tight fist.
Two things happened then. One wall of the cell disappeared, popping out of existence as if it had never been there, then another Sha-Shiri raced into the room. This one was pure white with delicate features and tawny golden eyes like Kash’s. Victoria briefly registered that this one wore a similar leather harness and jeweled belt, but its loincloth extended all the way around its body like a short skirt. Female? Victoria didn’t have time to ask. Her last coherent action was to land a vicious right hook to Kash’s jaw before the newcomer jammed a sharp object into her thigh.
Victoria screamed a litany of curses before she blacked out.
Chapter Three
An hour later, Kash sat in the infirmary just outside the female’s holding cell. A veil of shame and guilt clouded his thoughts, making the lump on his jaw and the scratches on the side of his face hurt even more with each beat of his weary heart.
Cherra-Sha bustled about, preparing a salve for his wounds and periodically checking on the vitals of the hybrid who still lay unconscious in the center of her cell.
Though his warning to her had had the desired effect, he still regretted inciting her to violence. Making her afraid of him would help his cause and delay the Val’tek mission. Nevertheless he felt like a savage. He’d employed every ounce of strength he had to subdue her without causing permanent injury, and she’d fought him valiantly--like a Sha-Shiri. It had taken a double dose of sedative to calm her and now her breathing was shallow and her furless skin terribly pale.
Oddly, both Cherra and Sirris seemed pleased by Kash’s dubious progress.
“Don’t look so sullen, Kash. We expected this. It’s actually good to see that she possesses some Sha-Shiri traits. I feared our delicate feline genome would be completely recessive to the boorish primate DNA,” Cherra said.
Kash allowed her to tend him, but flinched at the discomfort she caused when she dabbed stinging salve onto his injuries.
“You’re certain she’ll recover?”
“She’ll be perfectly fine. You, however, will need a second dose of antibiotics. Who knows what bacteria lurk under those blunt claws of hers? Who would have guessed she could do so much damage?”
“I would have guessed.”
Kash looked up at the new voice. Ashan-Kona, Katavarri’s engineer and pilot, stood in the doorway of the infirmary. “I came to see how things were progressing,” he said. “Apparently not very well.”
The brown-pelted pilot bent to examine Kash’s wounds. “Blunt claws create ragged tears that will heal slowly. You’ll be scarred for life.” There was a smirk in Ashan’s voice. “You’d better take those antibiotics. I’d hate to lose my best Greshm partner.”
Kash’s mood lightened only marginally. He’d managed to find some enjoyment in gambling with the pilot during the journey from Sha-Shiri. If not for their political differences he might have even seen Ashan as a friend. “I trust Cherra will repair my face. And I can still play Greshm with you. I need to win back the money I’ve lost.”
“There’s no time for games,” Cherra said. She finished her ministrations and Kash growled at the painful sting of the healing salve. “You need to be in the holding cell when the hybrid regains consciousness. You must work harder at establishing your bond.”
“Are you sure that’s wise, Cherra?” Ashan asked, voicing Kash’s own concern. “Perhaps Kash should observe from outside until his injuries heal. Thus far he’s proven no match for the primate female.”
Kash snarled good-naturedly. “I let her injure me to boost her confidence.”
Ashan snorted. “Of course.”
Cherra made a disparaging face. “I don’t recall sociology or xenobiology on your work history report, Ashan. Leave it to me to decide how we will proceed with the breeding program.”
Ashan managed to look contrite and Kash shared a glance with him. “I have a plan to gain the female’s trust,” he said. “But it will require lying to her.” He did need to get back in the cell, wounded or not. He had to establish a bond, but not for the reasons Cherra thought.
The healer shrugged. “Whatever is necessary. For the sake of the offspring, I prefer not to do this by force and I don’t know enough about human physiology yet to attempt artificial insemination. You’ll have to do whatever you must in order to impregnate her before her fertile cycle ends.”
Kash nodded, his eyes on the clear force shield that separated him from his ‘mate.’ “I will do what I have to do. Let me back in the cell before she awakens.”
* * * *
Victoria’s head spun and her body ached, particularly her right hand. The solid hook she’d landed to the Sha-Shiri’s jaw had rattled her bones all the way up to her shoulder.
Surprisingly, she’d stunned him, but when the white Sha-Shiri, the female, came in with the tranquilizer, she knew she’d been beat. The sedative the female had injected into her thigh knocked her flat in under a minute. That scared her more than the prospect of another round with the golden male.
Resistance might be futile, but it didn’t mean she had to make it easy for her captors.
A heaviness settled in her chest as she lay contemplating if she should open her eyes and give away the fact that she was finally awake. She’d longed for this, meeting real Sha-Shiri, partly to prove her father’s wild stories that she’d spent much of her adolescence doubting, and partly to prove to herself that she was as special and unique as her parents had al
ways told her. To be their prisoner, their lab experiment rather than their guest, broke her heart.
After a few moments of stretching, testing her aching muscles, she blinked and dragged herself to a sitting position.
She tensed when she realized Kash sat on the cell floor across from her. Small butterfly bandages spanned the deepest of the scratches she’d inflicted on his cheek bone and the lower half of his jaw looked swollen. Good.
She couldn’t decide if he looked angry or apologetic and at this point she didn’t really care. He’d look a lot worse when she finished with him if she had her way.
At least he seemed relaxed. He leaned back against the wall in a casual pose, arms at his sides, legs crossed. Despite herself, her eyes dropped to the loincloth that rested over the bulge between his legs. She hated to admit she was curious. Her knee still smarted from the blow she’d landed there. Was he really that hard, or did Sha-Shiri males wear some type of athletic cup or codpiece beneath their loincloths?
As a teenager she’d fantasized about becoming a Sha-Shiri princess. Kash fit the description of the alien male she’d always imagined. Though his feline features were less pronounced than she’d expected based on her mother’s descriptions of her father’s natural form, his amber eyes and blonde mane made her think of royalty--the lion, stately and austere.
He was beautiful, feral, sensual, and obviously powerful. The thought of letting him touch her again didn’t exactly turn her off, but she’d be damned if she was going to be anyone’s breed mare, human or alien.
“Are you well?” he asked, his voice even and rich.
“No, I’m not. Do I look well? I’ve been drugged and heaven knows what you did to me while I was out.” Her body trembled at the thought. For all she knew, the ‘breeding’ was over already.
“I did nothing. The healer examined you for injuries and has been monitoring your vital signs. As I said before, we truly have no wish to harm you. Violence is not necessary and your cooperation will be rewarded.” He raised a hand to his cheek and Victoria felt a stab of guilt. Her temper had gotten her into trouble quite often in her life and she wondered if perhaps playing it cool would have helped her cause. She realized he hadn’t actually fought back when she had attacked him. He’d merely flipped her on her back and held her down while the healer sedated her. He could have ripped her apart with those formidable claws.
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