by Erin Tate
“Sleep?” Hysterical laughter bubbled to the surface. “You want me to sleep? I’m bleeding and tired and crying and you people-ish aliens stole me and—”
And a slight sting to her left arm had her flinching and twisting her head. Except the commander held her in place, the purple and blue-eyed bastard. She stared at him, trying to glare but he was just so… pretty. His dark hair and tanned skin and those eyes… They… were… so… so…
“Sleep.”
* * *
The small Terran slumped in his embrace, the tension she’d been carrying suddenly gone as the tixpaf made its way into her system. It was a drug the medicos used to sedate members of the crew when they were injured. Doshan males did not like to be incapacitated and Resane had long ago become agile with the hypo. His only hindrance with Joyce was the fact she was a female. A Terran female.
A Terran female he still held in his arms. She perfectly fit his embrace, her curved form adhering to his body as if she were made for him.
“Commander Tria?” Resane’s tone was still timid. “If you will place the Terran—”
“Joyce.”
“Yes, Commander. If you would release Joyce, we can begin our examination.”
He narrowed his eyes at Resane. “There will be none of this ‘probing’ she speaks of.”
“Never, Commander.” The medico paled in agitation. “The platform will complete all scans and repairs. The Terrans provided us the base scans for both male and female forms. It will detect any injuries and make necessary corrections.” He pressed his hand to his chest in a salute. “On my honor, Commander. We will not touch her save to move her to a more comfortable bed.”
Kede snarled. He didn’t want them touching her. Period. If they touched her, she may choose one of them for her Needing. She had not yet propositioned him to sate her desires, but when her desperation became too severe, he would be there for her.
“I will move her.”
A small tremble wracked the medico and Kede almost regretted snarling at his friend and warrior in such a way. He would feel bad later.
Resane was quick to confirm Kede’s order. “As you say, Commander.”
He grunted. Yes, as he said. “How long will she require repair? I do not want her leaking further.”
No, she called it bleeding and crying. He would look those words up in the database.
“Of course, Commander.”
“And have a language implant inserted.”
“Commander?”
Kede glared at Resane. “She has been chosen. She will be the ship’s ambassador and requires a language implant.”
Eventually. He would do his best to convince her of this when she woke.
“Of course, Commander.” Resane was quick to agree this time.
“The Terrans provided base scans?”
“Yes.”
“What of…” He only inquired because of her impending Needing. If he sated her during that time, he needed to know if their joining could produce young. There were no thoughts of mating with Joyce permanently in his mind. There could not be.
Yet the question could not be denied. “Could she carry Doshan young?”
“Comm—”
“Do their scans show she could carry offspring? Are they…” He sought the word he needed. “Are they close enough to us genetically? Compatible?”
Resane gaped at him, the male’s mouth hanging open wide. “They did not provide genetic information due to the varying abnormalities. With our technology, it is easier to deal with structural repairs to their bodies. We can perform genetic analysis and modification on a case by case basis as necessary.”
“Then this is one such case,” he snapped the words. “Perform the analysis. I will be in command. Comm me before she awakens.”
Chapter Three
Joyce came awake slowly, easing to wakefulness in gradual increments. The first thing she noticed was that her surroundings smelled different. Not bad or wrong, but not right. The noises were odd as well. The constant click of the fan hanging over her bed had transformed to a low purr. The mattress beneath her seemed to mold to her body, cupping every curve and cradling them in a gentle embrace rather than springs poking and prodding her ass.
She gently lifted her eyelids and they parted to reveal a dim space. The walls were dark pewter, made nearly black by the low light, and the flooring the exact same color. Hell, everything in the room was that burnished silver hue. Furniture, decorations, even the bedding covering her was dark and blah.
Wait. Covering her?
Joyce snared the edge of the blanket and lifted, revealing her body in all of its nude glory. Nude. As in naked.
With a squeak, she plastered the sheet to her body and pressed her hands atop the smooth surface, catching the fabric with her arms and holding it in place. No one was around to try and remove it, but better safe than nude for the aliens to see.
Of course someone had seen because she was damned sure she was wearing clothing before she was knocked out. Come to think of it, she knew she’d been dressed with her ripped pantyhose and wrinkled blouse and…
Dear God, was she probed? She flexed her butt cheeks, testing her body. She didn’t sense any soreness, but that didn’t mean much.
A soft ding had her gaze sweeping through the room, hunting for the source. Then the wall opened, just sorta slid apart to grant someone entrance. No, not someone. The commander.
Conscious of her nakedness, she scrambled upright and inched along the bed. She came up against the wall, halting her escape, but the solid surface also made sure no one could sneak up on her.
She’d take the good with the bad.
He spoke aloud, his words much more fluid than they’d been when they first met. Single, grunted syllables now slid from one into another, almost lyrical in their tempo. The bastard only pretended not to know Terran!
She was gonna… Do nothing because suddenly his words filtered into her brain and reality caught up to her.
“Yes, bring all her belongings. No, I understand the procedures in place for Ambassador Martins. No, Miss Enner is not like Ambassador Martins. She is the Vehly representative. I understand her current designation, Second Commander, but hear my truth. She is the Vehly representative.”
She was not anything related to whatever “the Vehly” was. Joyce worked as a secretary and she didn’t see anything that needed to be alphabetized on the spaceship. So, she’d take her temporary, under-paid ass and go back to Terra on the next transport.
“Yes, everything,” Commander Tria continued.
No, not everything. Not anything. She’d tell him that just as soon as she worked up the nerve. Maybe in a hundred years.
The commander paused, staring down at some sort of device in his hand. “Rearrange T deck to accommodate the expansion,” he growled. “I said she is not like Ambassador Martins. I want her belongings installed as soon as possible.” He threw the device onto a small shelf. “And don’t forget to install the connecting door. I want her suite to be accessible. Tria out.”
Rearrange… belongings… connecting door?
Hell. No.
Joyce snapped her fingers, drawing his attention and she ignored the shocked expression on his face. She’d show him shock.
“Look, buddy, Commander, whatever. I don’t know what’s going on, but I want clothes and a transport off this hunk of metal. Now. And when I get back to Terra you can bet I’ll file a lawsuit. Just see if I won’t.” She shut her mouth after that little tirade and pressed her lips together. She probably should have thought about the words before simply spewing them into the air. Plus, what was she gonna do? Waltz into a lawyer’s office with a “gee, let’s sue the aliens.” So not happening.
The commander stiffened and slowly turned his body toward her, his gaze narrowed. “Joyce, we had this discussion. You were chosen.”
“We did not have this discussion. I hurt my foot, you picked me up, you grunted, like, five words at me and then poof here I am. T
hen there was the no probing, and—there was no probing, right? I am very anti-probing.” He dropped his head back with an annoyed sigh. Yet another action that seemed universal. She took his movement as a silent no. Plus, she’d already established there was no tenderness in her exit-only place. She did notice that her foot wasn’t aching any longer. She wiggled said foot and tugged the blanket up enough to see the new bandages. “Please thank the doctor for fixing it.”
He shrugged. “You were leaking.”
Leaking.
“Bleeding. I was bleeding.”
He mouthed the word, forcing his lips through the motions as if it were foreign to him. “Blee-ding.”
“Yes, bleeding. You should practice your Terran, bleeding sorta happens when Terrans get hurt. Which reminds me,” she half-wrapped the sheet around her and sat up. “What’s with the dumb-guy routine on Terra? Do you just pretend not to speak so the director doesn’t annoy you? I gotta tell you, that’s a great idea. Too bad it’s too late for me to tell him I don’t know Terran.”
The commander grinned. “I was not pretending. My difficulty with Terran has not changed.”
“Of course it has,” she furrowed her brow. “Unless you’re not Commander Tria.” She gasped. “Are you a clone? First probing and then cloning? Does the government know? Oh, God, now that I know, I’m gonna die aren’t I?”
His face paled, so white it nearly glowed in the low light. “We did not probe you!”
That was about the time she remembered that a pale Doshan was a furious Doshan. Good going, Joyce.
“You have a bit of an anger problem. You should talk to somebody about that.” Of course, that was so her, let’s give advice instead of figuring out how to escape. Smooth move.
“Do you know Doshan, Joyce?” The flush was gone, once again replaced with a smirk that was way too sexy. Why couldn’t he be ugly or obnoxious? Why did he have to be so alluring? If he were fugly, she wouldn’t be thinking of all of the lovely ways to get him naked.
“No, I mean, maybe a word or two. Less than your grunting when we were on Terra. Why?”
“Because,” he stalked forward, his massive bulk moving with a smooth grace. She wondered what all of those muscles looked like in action. She also wanted to know if he was that golden and tanned all over. Oh, and what the colors of his hypnotic eyes meant. And did he have body hair? She’d read that they had very little. Just a light sprinkling on their chests and then their groin and she’d heard some wild tales about that. “You do now.”
Joyce yanked her mind from her musings, cursing her inner-slut for having all of those wonderful, panty-wetting thoughts. “I do now what?”
Commander Tria tilted his head to the side, grin still in place. “Speak Doshan.”
“I do what now?” She opened her eyes wide.
“You,” he pointed at her. “Speak Doshan.”
I speak Doshan. She repeated the words in her head. Both in Terran and Doshan. Oh, shit. She pointed at the commander, her wide-eyed gaze transforming to the meanest glare she could muster. “I told you no probing!”
Now he glared at her. “We did not harm you. We scanned you and repaired your injuries. A small amount of blood was taken for genetic analysis to ensure you could be appropriately cared for by the medicos and your code was added to the database.”
The little flick of his eyes when he mentioned “genetic analysis” had her wondering what the big guy was hiding, but then she sorta thought about everything else he said.
“Blood…” Oh, a panic attack was so lurking on the horizon. “And knowing Doshan? How did that happen?”
She didn’t want to hear the answer. Not at all. Not ever. Because if he said the words, they sealed her fate. If he told the truth, she was no longer able to set foot on Terran soil ever again.
“You were given the language implant.”
I was given the language implant. I was given…
“You bastard,” she hissed the last word, unsure if it emerged in Doshan or Terran when it left her mouth. She didn’t care one way or the other.
“You picked me up off the ground, dusted me off, and decided to keep me, didn’t you? Like a stray pet. ‘She looks good, let’s put her in my pocket.’”
“I did not put you in my pocket, I carried—”
“Shut up.” He snapped his teeth together. Well, at least he listened. “Nod or shake your head, these are yes or no questions. Do you understand?” His gaze turned wary, but he nodded. “Good. You were on the surface for a choosing? So you could select an ambassador? That’s what I’m putting together here.”
He nodded.
“And you came across me and decided to choose me instead of the females presented to you? Females who volunteered for service and experienced the six months of training.”
“The directives indicated any female on base was available—”
“Nod or shake your head!” She did not care if she screeched like a fucking bird nor that he could probably vaporize her and no one would give a damning damn.
He pressed his lips together and nodded.
“And you’ve given me the language implant? The one provided to every ambassador who is selected by the Doshan? The ones that are developed by the Planetary Collective, and then inspected by the Terran government prior to Doshan implantation? That’s the workflow here, right?” Tears burned her eyes as she waited for his answer. She held her breath as each second passed. She waited for the last nail in her coffin.
He gave her that wary look again. And then he nodded.
A sob escaped before she could swallow the sound. The first was followed by another. And then another. And yet again. Her throat tightened, making breathing difficult, while her eyes burned with her tears. She cried in great heaves, emotions she’d never expected overtaking her. Curling into a small ball, she hid her face from the commander.
She’d imagined space travel, even toyed with the idea of entering the ambassador program. But she wasn’t smart enough, wasn’t quick enough, wasn’t physically fit enough. She was the healthiest fluffy person ever, but fluffy was fluffy so that meant her fluffy like a cloud ass stayed on Terra.
Then she’d stumbled across pages marked “Top Secret” in Director Wardsen’s desk. And by stumbled, she meant snooping because the man took insanely long lunches and she got bored. Then she’d wished she’d unsnooped. She also realized that not being enough for the program was enough for her.
Low beeps reached her, but she didn’t care about their source, didn’t give a damn about anything but the life slipping through her fingers. It dripped away, melting and sliding into the abyss much like her tears. She thought she heard the soft swish of the door again. It didn’t matter.
“You called for me?” The low, definitively feminine purr that came next, and words filled with sexual innuendo reached her.
Then came the commander’s growl.
Joyce scrubbed away her tears and lifted her head, searching out the alien once again. Ambassador Martins stood before the commander, her thin, lithe body pressed to his while she had her arms wrapped around his shoulders. Her head was tipped back as if waiting for a kiss.
Oh. They were a couple. Huh.
He growled again and it seemed the woman finally made sense of his words.
“She’s leaking again?” Martins sounded just as confused as Joyce felt.
A barking laugh escaped Joyce. Leaking. That was one way to put it.
The ambassador huffed and glared at her. “What’s wrong with you?”
She shrugged. “I’ve been kidnapped, implanted with a language chip, which means I can never return to Terra, stripped, and I’m pretty sure I’m being installed next door as his sex slave. My life is great.”
The sex slave thing. Yeah, she’d forgotten about that one until right then.
All color left the woman’s face and then it was replaced by the deep red of rage. She shot off a handful of words at the commander in rapid fire Doshan and Joyce wasn’t able to catch them a
ll. Was the woman reading him the riot act? Or something else?
Oh, wait, the chick had sexytimes on the brain when she’d walked in. Martins probably wouldn’t be keen on Joyce playing sex slave.
The commander’s deep tan paled. Ooh, tall, dark, and boinkable was really pissed.
He returned her aggression, volleying back with his own round of spat words and then the Terran woman spun on her heel. She stomped to the door, not even pausing to ensure it slid open to grant her passage.
As it slid closed behind her, Joyce felt the need to call out to her only other ally on the ship. “Good talk. Thanks so much for your help!”
Bitch.
* * *
Kede called on his warrior training and fought to ease the growing anger inside himself. True, the anger was kindled by his own actions, but the flames were fed by the Martins woman.
His only salvation was that the Terrans did not yet understand what he’d done.
He had never intended on attending a choosing, surely not in such an expedient manner. And yet he’d been ordered to the planet’s surface that morning.
Had he destroyed another being’s life in mere hours?
No one warned him, no one…
He should have heeded the males with him. Instead, he’d allowed his cawk to lead him to Joyce.
And ruined her life in the process. In more ways than one.
He hadn’t understood…
Kede’s teachers would beat him bloody for his actions, for going into battle unprepared, for making a decision before the facts were laid before him.
Now he had to beg forgiveness and pray she wouldn’t hate him for the rest of his days. He’d never treated a female so poorly. She would be justified in reporting his abuse to his superiors and he would not hinder her if that was her choice.
He could never imagine leaving his ship, being torn from his people in such a fierce manner. And yet he’d done that to her. That and more.
“Joyce,” he sighed.
“Do you know what you did?”