Joyce glared at the woman standing near the door-thing.
She thinks you’re hot. Gorgeous? Blah, blah, blah…
“Thanks for that,” Joyce snapped.
The stranger raised a single brow.
Stranger? Hell, that word was too generic considering everyone she’d come in contact with were unknown to her. Five minutes on what she assumed was a Doshan ship and she was confronted with the woman by the door-ish, Commander Tria, the guy on the command deck thingy, and two guys who could possibly be doctors of a sort. The commander explained they were healers. He also promised no probes. She did not sign up to be probed by aliens.
Then again, she hadn’t signed up for anything, had she? No, dammit.
And yet, here she was, laid on an altar like a sacrificial lamb, destined to be probed in her exit-only place.
The bitch who announced her desire for touches in her private places flashed an evil grin. “You’re welcome.” She strode forward, ignoring the doctors and the commander at Joyce’s side. “Ambassador Martins.”
The chick extended her hand and that’s when Joyce realized she still clung to the commander like a spider monkey. Heat flushed her cheeks and she slowly forced her fingers to release him. With a soft, whispered apology, she pulled back and leaned away to put space between them.
“Joyce Enner.” She grasped the woman’s hand and gave it a gentle shake. Up close and personal, Joyce finally realized she wasn’t looking at another Doshan. Her skin was deeply tanned like the aliens, but her eyes matched each other. “You’re human!” She sighed. “Thank God, please tell them to take me back. A cut foot doesn’t deserve a trip to space and whatever this choosing thing is, I am not a to-go box. No training, no passing go and no getting a raise has happened here. I’m a temp.”
“Choosing? You… They had…” The woman’s face flushed red and then just as quickly returned to its normal color. “I don’t recognize you from any of the training sessions or the files detailing the hopefuls.”
“I don’t…” Joyce shook her head. “Yeah, I’ve talked with a couple of ambassadors in training and read some files, but look, I’m a secretary. I make coffee and take notes for Director Wardsen and I’ve only been doing that a week.”
She obviously knew of the women in training, it was the purpose of Norbeach, but with her limited involvement in the program, it was sort of an abstract concept. Like dieting or doing cardio. They existed, yet…
The ambassador narrowed her eyes and compressed her lips until they were a thin, pale line dissecting her face. “You haven’t been trained? Haven’t been through the program? Did you even complete your out processing?”
No. She couldn’t mean that training or that program or… out processing. As in out of the damned atmosphere? No, this chick had to mean orientation for all base employees. Because she wasn’t… She’d never… She liked living in Florida. She didn’t want to end up on a s-s-spaceship.
“I’m a secretary,” she reiterated her job title. Sure, the world tried to be all politically correct and call her an administrative assistant, but she was a damned secretary. There was no point in pretending.
“Chosen.” The commander grunted and then he turned toward one of the doctors, barking out what had to be an order in Doshan. Suddenly the other two men were on the move, their hands reaching for her, one or two palms actually managing to touch her.
“No, we talked about this.” Panic assaulted her once again and she kicked at the males attempting to capture her. “No probing! You don’t need my arms to fix my feet!”
She slapped at one man’s hands while the other continued to fight with her good leg. “Stop it. Bad alien. No treats for you. Quit it.”
Joyce really should have taken some sort of self-defense course so she could bust out super-amazing kung-fu moves. Instead, she’d smack the massive alien to death. “I said no. Quit touching me. Exit only, damn you!”
The commander growled and she paused in her defense. Hell, all three of them froze, waiting to see what the biggest, baddest motherfucker was going to say. Joyce focused on him, noting the way his eyes seemed brighter and glowed.
“Calm.”
That was it? That was his big attempt at resolving the situation? How the hell had he become the commander of a massive space ship? Calm. Lame.
One of the doctors twitched and Joyce went back to protecting herself, tugging, pushing, and smacking the men as much as she could. “No. I’m fine. Perfect even. Stop touching me.” She fluttered her hands in a rapid attack. “This is workplace sexual harassment!”
“Calm her,” the commander growled again and it was a repeat of before. Big guy huffing, everyone else freezing and holding their breaths to see what’d happen. Those irises were even more vivid, the color intense. Except, this time, he wasn’t glaring at Joyce and the docs. His attention was focused on Ambassador Martins. “Calm her.”
The ambassador looked from the commander to Joyce and back again. “Interacting with Doshan appropriated, excuse me, hired Terrans is not part of my job. I act as an intermediary—”
“Between Terra and the high council.” The way the commander finished the woman’s sentence made Joyce think that it was one often repeated.
Basically, a nice way to say “not my job, man.”
Goody.
“Leave.” He growled at the ambassador and the woman didn’t even flinch beneath the weight of his rage.
“Good luck. You’ll need it.” The woman gave her a wicked grin, but Joyce saw rage lurking in her eyes.
Now she was alone with the three males. Again.
She was locked in a small room with two doctors and the male who’d “appropriated” her. They stole her. She was doomed to a life of alien sex slavery, never to be heard from again. If she had a family, she’d weep over losing them. If she had pets, she’d cry and demand they be cared for. Hell, if she had a plant, she’d beg to have Suzy in accounting be notified so she could water the thing.
Since she had none of that, she simply sniffled and a lone tear escaped her right eye. Which caused the two doctors to gasp and the commander to release a string of words she was sure translated to a wonderful flow of fucks, shits, and damns in Doshan. Somehow cursing was universal.
“More leaking,” the commander growled.
That had her growling. “Look. I get that you can’t understand me, so I’m gonna lay it out for you. At worst, you understand me and send me out an airlock. At best, you glare some more. My foot isn’t leaking, I’m bleeding. I cut my foot. Terra has amazing things called Band Aids. Slap one on and send me home. My eyes,” she pointed at her still teary eyes, “aren’t leaking, I’m crying. Because you stole me. I was stumbling along, minding my own business and cursing the existence of concrete and then your stupid, sexy ass had to get in the way and…”
She sniffled some more. She was gonna cry. Gut-wrenching sobs were on their way and she couldn’t hold them back. How the hell would they take her with snot dripping from her nose? She’d really be leaking then.
“Sexy? I know this word.” The gorgeous, mismatch-eyed male purred.
Were Doshans secretly shapeshifters and no one bothered to tell the world? Purring?
Wait. He knew that word? “Of course, that’s what you understand.”
She sniffled and one of those gut-wrenching sobs wiggled its way up her body. No, she wasn’t going to have a breakdown in the middle of her probing.
The commander reached for her and she didn’t have enough “give a shit” left in her to move. It was going to happen. Whatever “it” was, anyway. Probing, plugging holes because she was leaking. Something was going down and it wasn’t as if she could stop it. The human woman, who she figured would have at least helped, merely walked away with a “good luck.” She translated that to “fuck you, evil whore who is stealing the job I wanted.”
Martins had stared at Commander Tria a little too long.
The doctors gaped at Joyce. The commander looked at her like she was chocolate fudge and he had the biggest sweet tooth known to man. Er, alien.
He cupped her face, his thumb caressing her cheek and spreading her tears. “Your eyes are broken?” She shook her head as much as she could. “Then no more leaking.”
She hiccupped. “I’d stop if I could.”
That earned her a frown and then his attention shifted to the doctors, specifically the one she thought he called Resane. He rattled off a bunch of words she didn’t understand and that fact had more tears emerging from her eyes. She was going to be an alien sex slave for years and she wouldn’t even know if they were saying, “Ooh, baby, ooh, baby,” or, “You have a fat ass, lose some weight.”
Maybe not knowing was best.
Finally the commander finished speaking at—since he didn’t let the other men get a word in edgewise—the doctors and returned his gaze to her. “Sleep.”
“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.”