by Kym Dillon
“That's Ferex. Home.” As he said the word, she felt a thrill shoot through her. A thrill of...of what? She might have called it recognition, but surely that couldn't be right.
“You must miss it very much,” she said, softly, and the slight smile that stretched his face was full of a longing she couldn't understand.
“That will change soon,” he said, and then he pulled her close. For a moment, she simply marveled at how good the warmth of his body felt against her, and then he was tilting her face up for a kiss.
Oh, they have kissing too, she thought, so much better than budding. She lost herself to the sheer sensuality of her body meeting his.
The kiss started out gentle and quicksilver light. His mouth was surprisingly soft and tender, and she relished the warm taste of him, the way simply the touch of his mouth sent shivers of sensation through her. His warm hand splayed at her lower back, and she whimpered a little as he dragged her even closer to him.
Instinctively, Stella's arms went around his neck. He might have started it, but now she wanted nothing more than to explore the sensations he was sending through her entire body.
Something in her slight motions against him sent a subtle tremor through Zan's body. His hand against her lower back pressed her closer, and his mouth grew hungrier.
The beginning of their kiss was gentle and exploring, but it quickly became something different all together. Zan's tongue pressed hungrily between her lips, claiming her mouth as if it was his by right. It should have bothered her, but it was the single most erotic thing she’d ever experienced.
When she drew his tongue deeper into her mouth, sucking slightly, he groaned, and Stella found herself lifted into the air. With a soft cry, she flailed until she could latch her legs around his waist.
“I won't let you fall, little star,” Zan murmured. “Not ever.”
His words were heat against her lips, trailing down and melting her core. There was nothing else she wanted more than to drown in this strange man. She wanted to remember this moment forever. When she opened her eyes and dreamily glanced around the gunner’s deck, her jaw dropped open in shock.
“What. The. Hell!”
The sky above them was blacker than she had ever seen, a deep and unyielding expanse of the blackest velvet littered with thousands upon thousands of jewel-like stars. She had thought she knew what the night sky looked like, but she now realized that everything she had ever seen was tainted by the slights of distant cities, slightly orange in hue or even blue. These stars were without any human-made light to get in the way, and that meant...
She gave Zan's chest a hard shove, and she might have landed straight on her rear if he hadn't lowered her to the ground carefully. Stella scrambled over to the edge of the gunner's deck, and with a bone-deep, chilling shock, she watched the curve of the earth drop away with incredible speed.
“No. No way. Oh my god...no fucking way!”
Zan came up behind her, and she would have turned to shout at him, or slap him, or kick him in the shins, but she couldn't take her eyes away from the blue-green planet that hung below. It grew smaller and smaller with every moment that passed, and all Stella could do was watch with her heart in her mouth.
My home, she thought numbly. That's home, and I'm leaving it.
The deep well of panic in her belly grew, and it wasn't until Earth was no larger than a marble that she risked a look at Zan.
“What did you do?” she cried, and for the first time in all of this, she was truly afraid.
“I'm taking you home,” Zan said, and in the complete confidence of his reply, Stella realized that she was in a great deal of trouble.
4
Stella stared out of the window, her entire body frozen in shock and horror. She felt as if her mind were a foot over her head and a foot in front of her body. Nothing was real, and for one horrid moment, she wondered if she was going to be sick.
Earth had disappeared, swallowed by the blackness, gone as if it had never been, and Stella felt a sob choke her chest. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering, and to her shock, Zan wrapped her up in his arms. He was as comforting as a warm blanket, and for a moment, before she remembered that he was the cause of her distress, she simply let herself relax into his embrace. Then realization flooded through her mind with the sizzling burn of acid and she sprang away. There was no Earth to look for anymore, so she glared at Zan.
“Why? You have kidnapped me. Abducted me from my home,” she snarled. “Why? What do you plane to do with me? Probe? Prod? Experiment on me?”
Zan stared at her, and though it seemed there was perhaps a touch of confusion marring his features, there was also an unsettling blaze of triumph.
“I shall not experiment on you,” he said. “Welcome aboard the Righel. It’s here you shall stay with me until we reach Ferex.”
She shook her head because surely he couldn't be serious.
“So you’re... are you kidnapping me?” It seemed too ludicrous to be real, too strange and foreign to even consider. On Earth, women got kidnapped by creepy men in windowless vans, it didn't happen because of handsome spacemen with large spaceships. Not in the books anyway… “Wait a second. You’re abducting me to serve as a sex slave! Once you reach your home planet, you’re going to auction me off to the highest bidder, aren’t you? I’ll have you know, I am not a virgin. So there.”
Zan straightened slightly, his face darkening. “This is not a kidnapping,” he said, his words even. “Not that. Not any of that.”
“Then what?” Stella’s voice was becoming hoarse.
Zan started to answer her, but then there was a discreet beep. Stella couldn't see exactly where it came. It sounded like it came from his shirt. Sure enough, Zan pressed a tiny gleaming black button pinned to his collar. She had thought it was a decoration at first but now she realized that it was a communicator of some sort.
“What?” Zan snarled, his voice a harsh command, and whatever he heard in response made him swear with such vitriol that her translator couldn't handle it.
He spared her a look that was just short of dire, making her flinch a little bit, and then nodded at the ladder.
“Get down.” And because she was apparently on a ship run by a scary madman, she obeyed, her teeth chattering.
The moment her feet hit the ground, Zan leaped down beside her, disdaining the ladder entirely. He took her by the elbow, giving her the choice to either be dragged or walk. Stella walked.
“Will you tell me what's going on?” she demanded, and he spared her a swift look back.
“Business.”
She started to ask what kind of business he meant, but then she thought of the gunner's deck they had been on. All of that thick glass that offered such a stunning view of the stars were designed to allow the use of the massive guns that were mounted there. Stella went pale, and Zan nodded. There was a slight smile on his face, a little fierce.
“I see you understand my meaning.”
They came to a door that he opened by slapping his hand on a reader mounted beside it. When it slid open, he pushed her in.
“Wait,” she exclaimed, and then she fell silent. What in the world could she say? There was so much going on that she felt as if she were going to be sick with it, and from the words he had exchanged on the communication device, he had better things to do than to comfort her.
Zan looked at her for a moment, and to her surprise, his face softened. He looked almost kind, if she didn’t already know he was a kidnapper. He drew her to him. His grip was implacable, but he was gentle as he did it.
“Do not worry,” he said. “Clan Mordra wins its battles.”
The kiss laid on her lips was no less potent than the last, but it was designed to comfort. Like the last, it took her breath away, but this time only lasted seconds before he was pushing her back into the dimly lit room, the door sliding shut between them.
“No, don't lock me…in.” But, of course, it was too late. The door slid shut, and w
hen she pressed her hand against the reader on this side, it had no effect. She’d read enough sci-fis to surmise that the locking mechanism was keyed to Zan rather than herself, and the door was sturdy enough that it did not even shudder when she pounded on it.
For several long moments, it was all that Stella could do not to slide down to the floor, curled into a small ball of nerves and terror.
The facts assailed her. She had been kidnapped, no matter what Zan might call it. She could have cursed her own stupidity. One of the first things that people taught their children was not to get into cars with strangers, and she had done that on a much larger scale. Where the hell was she going? Why in the world had Zan taken her on the ship in the first place?
She could hear running feet outside in the corridor, some loud voices giving orders. She told herself that at least it sounded orderly for the moment, no chaos and nothing that sounded like weapons, but how the hell was she to know?
Stella knew that if she let herself, she could become quite hysterical. Or, she might simply sit and sob, or she might freeze, unable to do a single thing to help herself. She refused all the above. Instead, on legs that began shaky and then steadied slowly, Stella forced herself to stand up and look around. If she stayed upright and curious, she might learn something that could help her. At any rate, it was better than simply assuming that she was helpless.
The room where she had been placed was obviously not some empty and personality-less guest room. It was divided into two sections by a low wall. The side she was on had a beautifully made couch taking up one wall and what looked like a fire pit in front of it. The couch was enormous, made of a fabric that resembled gray velvet. The thing was large enough to hold all of Zan’s ample frame should he want to stretch out on it. The mental picture of Zan stretched out it, the gray accenting the lavender of his skin to an almost opalescent shine, made her blush. To her surprise, there was a stack of books on a small chest next to the couch, and instinctively, she reached for them. A quick flip made her realize that the chip in her head was useless for written translations though. The script printed in the books was rolling and elegant, something akin to Cyrillic and Arabic. It was lovely and utterly unintelligible to her eyes. She would have put it back, but then her aimless flipping came across an illustration. She opened the book again, looking for the picture she had seen before.
When Stella realized what the picture depicted, she blushed, nearly dropping the book again. The drawings were stylized rather than naturalistic, all hard angles and dark lines as opposed to curves, but the subject was clear.
It was a man on his back and a woman mounted on his hips. The man held the woman by the hips, as if steadying her while she rode him. Both were naked, and their heads were thrown back in apparent ecstasy. Stella had seen porn before, of course, and mostly she had been unmoved. However, looking at this simple drawing in an alien book made her eyes widen and her heart beat faster. There was something primal about what they were doing, and with fingers trembling slightly, she flipped the page, looking for more.
There were several illustrations throughout the book, growing progressively more athletic and improbable, but all depicting the same act. So apparently Zan's people weren't as different from her own as she might have thought, and she was honestly not sure what to make of that idea.
The truth was, however, that there were some parts of her that knew absolutely what she thought of that, and she put the book down reluctantly. Stella eyed the rest of the pile, wondering if they contained more of the same, but she turned away abruptly. What the hell was she doing looking at dirty pics in her captor’s alien ship? Wow, life was bizarre.
She walked past the low wall from the living area to what she realized must be the sleeping area. Besides a wardrobe set in the corner, the entire space was taken up by an enormous bed. It rose past her waist, and was covered with a black pelt of—who knew what kind of animal. The dark fur was so dense and soft that she stroked her hand along it before she could stop herself. There was a soft scent of wood smoke and spice in the air, an odor that left her feeling languorous but not tired. It was a sensual smell, one that was perfect for the commander of the Righel.
Another door led to a small bathroom with sink, shower and toilet. Stella found herself at a loss. She realized with a start that she had no idea how much time had passed since Zan had placed her here. Feeling a bit foolish, she tentatively asked for the time out loud, like they did on Star Trek, and she got no answer for her query. Trying the door again led to nothing, and finally, she huddled on one edge of the couch, feeling unaccountably tired and frail.
Where the hell am I? How am I going to get back home?
Much later, she heard shouts, and once, alarmingly, what sounded like gunshots. She shuddered at the idea of a bullet penetrating the walls of the ship, breaching the hull to let the vacuum in. Was that how it worked? She had read so little science fiction...
The sounds subsided to silence, and Stella couldn't figure out if that was more comforting or less. Despite all the stress and questions that were racing through her mind, she fell asleep, curled up into a tight ball in the corner of the large couch.
Stella came to a drowsy wakefulness when she heard steps in the hallway. She had just enough time to take stock of her surroundings and sit up in wonderment before the door slid open and what looked like a crowd of people spilled through. She recognized Terani in the mix, riding on top of a figure that seemed to be carved from sandstone, and at the head of it all was Zan himself.
He was laughing at something someone else had said, and somewhere along the way, he had lost his shirt. The only thing he wore on his upper half was a bandage wound around his right shoulder and the right half of his chest, over his ribs. The bandage was shockingly white against his skin, and then he turned to face his crew, straightening up to his full, impressive height.
“Get out of here! All of you, out!” His voice sounded amused and his words slightly slurred. “We've all had bites taken out of us. It's time to lie the hell down and lick our wounds.”
“Or perhaps have them licked for us,” came a voice from somewhere in the crowd.
The crew cheered at his words, and Stella could have sworn that Terani winked at her. The crush reversed its motion and streamed out the door, Zan following to herd the stragglers out before he locked the door with another press of his palm. From his stiff motions, it was clear to Stella that he was not altogether in control of himself, and she watched him with careful eyes.
After the last of his crew had departed, Zan remained very still, still facing the door, one hand raised against it to hold himself up. Stella wondered if she should stay quiet, allowing him to simply forget about her and stumble to bed. She wondered if, in retrospect, she could have slithered her way out of the room with the rest without his notice. But then what? Look for an escape pod? She couldn’t even drive a stick shift.
“Stella.”
Instead of being loud and boisterous, there was something soft and hesitant about the way he said her name.
Stella was tempted to keep her distance from him, to stay out of reach of his imposing muscular form, but there was something about his single utterance of her name that made that impossible. Instead, she rose from the couch, coming to stand beside him.
“Zan? What is it?” She almost called him commander again, but after all, he wasn't her commander, dammit.
“I got chewed on by a big Larenian bastard tonight,” Zan said. “I would be grateful if you would be so kind as to lend me your assistance. Help me to bed?”
Without arguing, Stella came to stand next to him, pressing her shoulder against his good side so that she could support him. Zan had come into the apartment with a swagger, but now his steps dragged and she had a real idea of how very tired and pained he must be. Of course, she realized, as a commander, he had been putting on a show of strength in front of his crew. He wouldn’t let them see the extent of his injuries, or what they took out of him.
; She staggered a little under his weight, but managed to support him until he could slump on the bed. He sat up long enough to tear off his boots and socks, and then wearing only a bandage and his trousers, he sprawled on the dark pelt covering the mattress. Injured or not, he looked delicious half naked against the dark fur. She stared for too long before she tore her mind away with a blush.
“Are you all right?” she asked, before biting her tongue a little. Of course he wasn't okay.
“Ha, I will be,” Zan said, some trace of a commander's confident swagger in his tone. “Ferexians, we heal fast and completely if we're given enough time to rest.”
Stella was relieved to hear that, and a bit surprised to realize that she truly didn’t want anything to happen to him. That realization, however, brought a whole new dread. He had promised her that nothing bad would happen to her under his command, but what if something happened to him? What of he was no longer in command of the ship? She watched Zan's eyes flutter shut before she started to back away into the living area.
“Stop.”
She turned to see him eyeing her from under half-closed lids. He patted the mattress by his side.
“Come to bed with me,” he said simply.
“Oh, hell no. In your dreams, buddy.”
A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “Where I come from, sleeping with another person skin to skin is meant to help the healing process.”
“Okay, well, we—you and me—are definitely not going to sleep ‘skin to skin’,” she said tartly.
However, when he didn’t argue, she didn't have it in her heart to deny him, not when he truly looked too injured and exhausted to be of harm. She hesitated for a moment, and then forced herself to strip off her jeans, folding them carefully to throw over the half-wall. She was left in her t-shirt, bra and panties, and though she disliked the idea of sleeping in her stiff bra, she sure as hell wasn't going to take it off.
She approached the bed, scrambling up with only a minimum of difficulty. The dark pelt was slippery but sensual against her bare skin. For a moment, she knelt at the edge, looking down at the commander of the Righel. His eyes were still open, but barely, and she bit her lip a little, wondering what in the world he saw when he looked at her.