by Becca Van
When she became aware in that stage between a deep sleep and wakefulness and felt warm, gentle, yet calloused fingers on her face, she wanted to sigh. It felt like forever since she’d been touched by anyone except her best friend Chloe, and it was so nice she didn’t want it to stop. Whoever was touching her cheek removed their hand from her face and she felt a slight tug on her hair.
She could hear deep masculine voices but didn’t understand a word that was being said. The sun was so warm on her tired body and although she knew she should push herself to wake up, she didn’t want to. It had been such a long day and then a fun night of dancing, and she was still tired. But when she once more felt a finger on her face and then her arm, she decided it was time to surface back to the land of the living.
Her eyelids fluttered open and then lowered again. She opened them once more, blinked, and then squeezed them tight. Darcy drew in a deep breath and whimpered with fear, but berated herself for her overactive imagination. She could have sworn she saw two very large, muscular men leaning over her. Once more she forced her eyes open and this time she couldn’t refute what was in front of her own eyes.
They weren’t human.
She screamed, pushed to her hands and feet, and crab-walked backward away from the two men. When she heard the pounding of running feet heading toward her, she looked up and then screamed again. Three more men were heading toward her. Fast.
She tried to scramble further away, but her heart was beating so fast it actually hurt, and even though she was gasping for air she couldn’t breathe. Dark spots formed in front of her eyes and although she blinked they didn’t fade. And then she felt herself flopping back down on to the hard ground as she fainted for the second time in her life.
* * * *
Drac felt guilty for frightening the female enough to send her to asleep again, but he didn’t think he or his brothers would have been able to do anything different. She still would have been scared. His chest started to ache and he felt protective of her, which was strange, since he never really cared for anyone besides his sibs and his remaining sire. But right now he was worried that she could be ill.
“We need to take her home so she can be examined by one of the remedials,” Plat said.
“Aye. I was just thinking the same.” Drac rose to his feet and moved closer to the beautiful female. He knelt down and scooped her up into his arms and stood up again.
“We’ll bring the hovers.” Cark nudged Lowl and Plat, and the three of them jogged toward the hover tandems.
Drac stared down at the female and was shocked when his chest began to ache even more. But that wasn’t all. His body was responding to her sweet and musky scent. His cock was so hard it was leaking and twitching in his leather warrior pants, and his balls felt like they were about to burst open, they were that full of his seed.
“Do you want me to take her?” Froz asked.
Drac tightened his hold a little and just refrained from growling at his brother. “No.”
“She is so little.”
“Compared to us she is.” He and his brothers were all approximately seven feet tall. The small female would barely come up to his chest when she was standing. She reminded him of a minor but from what he could feel of all her curves, she was far from it.
Drac nodded at Plat while his sib held the hover steady as he straddled it. When he was seated, he shifted the female in his arms, resting the soft, yet surprisingly firm cheeks of her butt on one thigh, and draped her legs across his with her feet dangling to one side. He moved her head to rest against his chest and shivered when her soft, silky hair brushed over his arm. By situating her this way, he would be able to control the hover tandem with his right hand. “Let’s go.”
Lowl took the lead. Cark and Plat glided beside him and Froz followed in the rear. The female was surrounded by them and was safe.
Drac just hoped that she wasn’t ill. He didn’t like the fact that he and his brethren had found her sleeping on the ground and then watched as she once more fell to sleep because they had terrified her.
He wanted to know everything there was to know about this female, where she had come from and how she had gotten here, but he suspected they would need to insert a universal translator into her so she could understand him and his brethren.
Drac wasn’t used to feeling so much other than hostility and even though he wasn’t sure he liked it, he had a feeling it was all because of the female in his arms.
He just hoped she didn’t get hysterical again. He wasn’t sure his ears could take another bout of her screaming.
Chapter Two
Darcy frowned when she heard the low, deep cadence of men talking nearby. For a moment she couldn’t remember where she was, but when the memory of being surrounded by five huge, hulking men slammed into her mind, she nearly gasped out loud. Her muscles tensed, but she concentrated on relaxing them while trying to keep her breathing deep and even. She hoped by playing possum that she would get some answers.
“The female is very fit and healthy,” a man said after a beep sounded.
“Are you sure, Remedial Tark?” another deep, gravelly voice asked.
“Aye, Sen Drac.”
“Then why is she still sleeping?” yet another voice asked.
“M–maybe she is tired.”
“Is the translator active?”
How many men are in here? What do they want with me?
“Yes, Sen Plat.”
Darcy decided the only way to get answers to her questions was to wake up. She just hoped like hell these men weren’t out to hurt her. She could maybe take down one of them, possibly two, but no more than that. She almost snorted when she remembered how frigging big they were. They could probably snap her neck with just their fingers. It didn’t matter that she was a dancer and had martial arts skills, she didn’t think she was strong enough to take on any of them. But she would try if it was necessary. There was no way in hell she would go down without a fight.
She opened her eyes but kept her lashes lowered as she studied the six men surrounding what she presumed was the bed she was lying on. Although she could tell that the men were not human, they were close enough that if they had been on Earth they might have passed as a normal man. That was if their eyes weren’t glowing. From what she could see, they all had different-colored irises but no pupils, and their hair was shaded from black to a dark brown. Their noses were slightly broader and flatter than a human man’s, but it didn’t detract from their good looks.
Darcy nearly snorted, again. Good-looking wasn’t quite the right word she was looking for. They were so damn handsome it nearly hurt her eyes to gaze upon them. Plus they were huge in more ways than one. They were so freaking tall she felt small and delicate, and she wasn’t considered short for a woman. She was five-foot seven when she wasn’t wearing shoes, but she had to admit she was slim because of all the physical activity she did with her dancing and martial arts classes. However, she also had muscles, although she didn’t have the physique of a body builder, thankfully. She never wanted to look all bulging and sinewy like those women who competed in body-building competitions. Not that there was anything wrong with that, because there wasn’t, but that wasn’t her.
The idea of pitting her skills against these giant, muscular men was almost laughable. She was the one who would probably get hurt trying to take one of them down, let alone two or more.
“Thank you, Rem Tark. You may go.”
Darcy saw one of the men bow and then he turned and headed for the door. She figured he must be Rem Tark. But who were the other men, and where the hell was she?
She opened her eyes fully and watched as five pairs of eyes pinned her to the bed with their stares. After drawing in a deep breath, she released it slowly and hoped they didn’t hear how nervously anxious she was when she managed to get her tongue unstuck from the roof of her very dry mouth.
“How are you feeling, little female?” the man with the glowing green eyes asked.
&
nbsp; “Other than freaking out? I’m fine.”
“What is freaking?” the guy with the glowing hazel eyes asked.
“It’s…Never mind. Can you please just tell me where I am? How the hell I got here? And who you all are?” Darcy inhaled deeply when she heard the panicked tone in her voice and exhaled slowly, but that didn’t help slow her racing heart or her panting breaths.
“I am called Froz Bim and these are my brethren, Drac, Plat, Lowl, and Cark. You are on our home world, Zennox, but we have no idea how you arrived.”
Darcy felt like everything was surreal and thought that maybe she wasn’t even awake. Yes, that sounded like a likely scenario. She had to be dreaming. Don’t I?
“What are you called?” Drac moved closer to the bed and sat down on the side. His brown glowing eyes were so beautiful and she wanted to keep looking at them, but she looked down at the bed instead. That was when she noticed that the thing was huge, but she expected since they were all so damn tall and bulky with muscles that they needed oversized furniture.
“My name is Darcy Archer.”
“Darcy?” Cark said, drawing her eyes to where he was standing at the bottom of the bed. She felt herself being pulled into his amazing hazel glowing eyes and had to forcibly drag her gaze away. But she couldn’t help meeting them again.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Cark gave her an intense look and she felt her face heat and quickly looked down again. “I was just trying your name on my tongue.”
She was feeling rather overwhelmed at having such gorgeous men giving her all of their attention and wasn’t sure where to look, so she glanced around the room. It was simply decorated with what looked like beige-colored rock walls, but the furnishings were a dark contrasting brown. There was even a dresser near the far wall, which was bigger than she was in height and so wide she wondered how they had gotten it into the room. Although the doorway was larger than normal, they wouldn’t have been able to get the dresser in without difficulty. But as she studied the door and thought about getting up and running for it, she noticed another panel next to the entrance and wondered if that could be opened, too. She decided to stay where she was for the moment because she didn’t know where she could run to and she had no doubt one or all of the five men would stop her.
“You have nothing to fear from us, little female,” Lowl said in a deep smooth cadence and she shivered in reaction.
What the hell, Darcy? Why are you reacting physically to these men, aliens? You don’t even know them and they aren’t human.
And then she remembered the gold bracelet and looked down at her arm. It was over her bicep and even though she tried to push it down, she couldn’t get it off. It wouldn’t budge. She even tried to move it around rather than down and that didn’t work either.
“What are you doing?” Plat asked in a low, gentle voice.
“Trying to work out how the hell this got from around my wrist to my upper arm,” Darcy muttered. She couldn’t even see a clasp to undo the piece of jewelry. She finally gave up with a sigh and looked back at the men. What she couldn’t understand right now was why the hell she wasn’t freaking out.
Oh wait! I already did that earlier and then I passed out. God, what am I going to do? If I can’t work out how the hell I got here, then how do I figure out how to get home again?
“Do you guys have a space ship?”
“We do,” Froz answered. “But we don’t like traversing space.”
“Why not?” Darcy asked. If they didn’t like space travel, how was she supposed to talk them into taking her home?
“There are a lot of pirates and other species out in the galaxies that like to war for no reason at all,” Cark said.
Lowl nodded. “We have enough trouble keeping our aggression under control without dealing with them, too.”
“What do you mean by keeping your aggression under control?” Darcy asked as trepidation surged through her body. She pushed up to a sitting position and scuttled back until she was resting against the headboard.
“Zennoxian males are very aggressive and territorial,” Plat began. “We are nearly always out on border patrol so the males from the South, West, and Southern Provinces stay on their own land.”
“You fight your own people?” Darcy asked, at first a little horrified over the way Plat had spoken so casually, but then she remembered all the wars going on on Earth. It seemed that peace hadn’t been achieved in the universe either.
“If we didn’t protect our lands, the other males from the other continents would steal all our food and take all of our comforts,” Cark said.
Greed and power were terrible things in Darcy’s mind. She couldn’t understand why people would steal from others and why they couldn’t work for the own material things, but it seemed there would always be dictators and covetousness in some people.
Froz began talking. “There is only one way a Zennoxian is able to remain calm.”
Darcy looked at him expectantly, but from the way he was looking at her, he was waiting for her to ask him the next question. When she saw the other four brothers all glancing at each other before turning their gazes to Froz, they looked like they’d just had an epiphany. And then they all turned their eyes to her. She didn’t like the speculative looks in their gazes, but since she had no idea where she was or how she got here, she had nowhere to run to.
Once more she felt her body react to their proximity, but it was really hard to hold their stares when they were all gazing at her as if she was the answer to all their prayers. She was in way over her head, sinking to the bottom of the pool, and couldn’t see the way up toward the light, or the way out.
Darcy was in deep shit. But she still hadn’t quite worked out what that shit was. Besides the obvious, that was.
* * * *
Cark hadn’t even noticed that he was feeling nearly tranquil since the female Darcy had appeared out of nowhere. Froz’s last statement was like a lightning bolt coursing through his body. He’d been physically attracted to Darcy from the first time he’d seen her, his cock was hard enough to crack rock, but it wasn’t just a physical reaction he was having to her. He wanted to offer her comfort and protection, but he also wanted to love her. He rubbed at his chest as he watched expressions flit across her face. When she frowned, he wanted to caress a finger over the crease and sooth it away.
“What way is that?” Darcy asked.
He had to think back because he was so enamored of her he couldn’t remember what had been said. Oh yes! How could I forget that? He glanced over at Froz again, but Drac reached out and took Darcy’s delicate hand in his large one, drawing his gaze back to her, and how little she was.
“If we meet our mate,” Drac said.
“Oh. Well, good luck then. I hope you meet the women of your dreams.”
“I think we already have,” Plat said as he walked around the bed and then climbed up next to Darcy.
“You have? Well, that’s good. When can I meet them? I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but there is just way too much testosterone in this room for one girl to handle. Not that I would handle any of…”
Cark smiled when he heard Darcy swallow loudly. She was rambling because she was nervous. At least he hoped it was because she was nervous, and not frightened. Though when he looked at her, she didn’t look scared anymore, just a little shell-shocked. He probably would be too if he found himself in an unfamiliar place surrounded by strange people.
“Where are you from, Darcy?” he asked, redirecting the conversation. He didn’t think that she was ready to hear that they suspected she was their mate.
“Earth.”
“Earth?” The word sounded stilted on Lowl’s tongue.
“I think I have heard of this planet,” Drac murmured.
“You have?” Darcy asked with a smile and what looked like hope in her eyes.
Cark wanted to tell her that as far as he and his brothers were concerned, she wouldn’t be going anywhere, but he didn’
t want to disappoint her, so he kept his mouth shut.
“Um, guys, do you have a bathroom?” Darcy asked as she gazed about the room and her face tinged a pink color.
He had no idea what a bathroom was but he was more worried about the color in her face and wondered if she was ailing. He hurried across to her and pushed his brethren aside and cupped her face between his hands. The heat in her cheeks was worrisome but she didn’t look ill.
“Are you well, little Darcy?” He leaned forward and inhaled her light floral scent. A rumble formed in his chest and he was unable to contain it as his body reacted to her nearness. It seemed his body had a mind of its own, because the next thing he knew he was kissing and licking at her neck. He drew back when he heard Darcy moan and hoped he hadn’t scared her, but when he met her gaze again he saw that her beautiful blue eyes were glazed over with desire.
Cark had been yearning to taste her sweet lips for what seemed like forever and couldn’t control the urge any longer. He placed his mouth against hers and lightly brushed his lips back and forth over hers. She whimpered, her hands came up and clutched at his shirt, and her mouth opened as she inhaled. He pushed his tongue into her mouth, glided it along hers, and then swirled it around. She tasted so sweet. Her flavor was intoxicating and he knew he would never get enough of her, but right now he needed to feel her soft body against his.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her without breaking contact with her mouth, and placed her on his lap. He devoured her and hoped that she would soon let him and his brothers love her delectable body.
Cark knew she was their mate and he was going to do everything he could to encourage her to accept him and his brethren. There was nothing he wanted more than to hold her in his arms and love her until they were both spent, but he knew she wasn’t ready for that yet.
Darcy pushed against his chest and he lifted his mouth from hers. He groaned when he saw how pink and swollen her lips were and wondered if her sex would look the same after licking her to her pleasure. Saliva pooled in his mouth when he smelled her musky desire, but when he looked into her eyes, he saw a wariness as well as hunger.