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. Then 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 all. 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?”
“I do now.” He nodded, hating himself even more. She appeared so fragile, so small. He’d carefully removed her coverings to ease her slumber—not violating her privacy by gazing upon her nude body—and had then been unable to allow her to rest anywhere other than his lodgings.
The reason had not only been because he was selfish and wanted to sate her Needing. He ached to have her close when the time came. His further failures were revealed when he gently unbuttoned her top covering and found… unblemished skin.
No Planetary Collective marking marred her skin nor was the agreed upon Terran symbol staining her flesh just beneath it. She was, as of this moment, unclaimed. Homeless.
A possession. His.
“I don’t think you do, but I can’t change anything can I? The chip isn’t removable.”
Kede grimaced. “No, it is not.”
Once in place, any tampering would result in irreparable damage to her spine and brain. She would no longer be able to breathe, move, or eat on her own. She would become what the Terrans called a quadriplegic.
“So, what happens to me now? You’re moving me next door? With a connecting door? For what? Why? So I can whore for you? I didn’t realize Doshans had those.” A laugh bubbled from her, frantic and crazed. “Then again, anything with a cock will do anything to get pussy. Even if it means kidnapping.” Beneath her hysterical laughs, there were tears streaming down her cheeks.
He ached to go to her, wrap her in his arms and cushion her from all pain, but he had done enough. She was right in one respect. He had thought with his staff and nothing else. She’d felt perfect in his arms. Soft and pliant where the Doshan women were not. She would cradle him and comfort him when the stresses of command neared overwhelming.
Or rather, she would have cradled him.
He could force her. She belonged to him now.
But he would not. Because she belonged to him now.
It would take every resource beneath his command to ensure her continued health and adjustment to the Vehly. Because, no matter her feelings on the matter, she’d been chosen and now he had to force her to do her job. Her assumed job. He could not reveal her true status. At least, not until the matter could be rectified and by then the problem would no longer be present. He would hide the truth from her.
Each day he would hate himself for it.
“You will not be used that way, Joyce.”
She snorted. “I heard you speaking with someone about a connecting door. I’m not an idiot.”
“That was… I misspoke.” Martins had informed him the Terran arousal was not a Doshan Needing.
“Pretty little lies.” She shook her head. “What am I supposed to do here?”
As she said. The lies began.
“You will act as the ship’s ambassador. The Vehly will spend a lot of time shuttling females from Terra around the universe and to other collective planets where the Doshan have a settlement.” She didn’t react to his statement so he continued. “Your primary function is to assist other Terran females in acclimating to life on a starship.”
“Orientation,” she gave him a rueful smile.
It was a Terran word, one he didn’t understand. “I don’t…”
“It doesn’t matter.” She shrugged and he knew it did matter. Everything about Joyce Enner mattered to him. “What else?”
“This is all. We are transport and defense when necessary. Offense in very rare cases when no other option presents itself.” The commander’s creed.
“Is there somewhere I can sleep? Or will you require my services?”
Her tone was like acid, burning his skin. “That was a misunderstanding. I thought you endured a Needing like our females, but Ambassador Martins said…” He shook his head. It didn’t matter what the Martins female expressed then or now. “You shall still be assigned the suite beside mine, but that is because all of the ship’s officers are on T deck. Assigning you elsewhere would be problematic.”
She snorted. “Right.”
“The Doshan…” How far should he go? She was a Terran ambassador and yet she was not. It was not simply about her involuntary presence. For now, he would treat her as she was meant to be treated. “Females do not travel on starships. They are safe on Dosha with their family or their mates.”
“They don’t travel?”
He shook his head.
“Ever?”
“No, we cherish our females.” The males lucky enough to have females cherish their own. “We understand Terra’s choices, but they are not ours. This also means that the males are…”
“Horny,” she supplied.
“Lonely,” he countered. “Until they become accustomed to a female presence and the new regulations regarding treatment, it is best if your quarters are close.”
Joyce’s gaze, burning with fierce intensity, lacked tears when she met his eyes. “What about Ambassador Martins? She’s been here for what, months? She seems to have the run of the place.”
The woman was more stubborn than a gaiza. “She is different. Her… attitude repels the men. I do not believe you will have that effect on the males.”
In fact, he knew it for a certainty. Already his warriors expressed interest in her. Several requested access to the Planetary Collective accord to both Dosha and Terra to review the guidelines in regards to interactions with her.
There would be no interacting.
“There will be no connecting door. If you’re telling me the truth, if I’m here to do an actual job other than lying flat on my back, then no one will have access to my quarters but me.” Her words were flat and unbending.
Stubborn like a gaiza left to its own devices. Feral and in need of taming. However he did not wish to tame Joyce. No matter if it was his right.
Kede fought to keep his emotions in check. So few hours in her company and he wanted her by his side. Not as ambassador, not as his property, but something more. He had yet to define that “more,” but that did not matter.
Kashta, hell, he did know how he wanted her. There was no reason to lie to himself. She was compatible. They could produce offspring though she would require assistance during the birthing. Also, she was not of Dosha, not a Doshan female, so she would not be repulsed by him. She would not immediately hear the term “warrior” and dismiss him as a possible harau, a life mate.
She was Terran and would not have a Doshan female’s objections to ship life. He could continue his command of the Vehly and have Joyce as well. He could have a mate and his career. At least, he could have before he stepped in a steaming pile of shoneaf and ruined himself in her eyes with her abduction and assumptions.
And turning her into property. He could not forget that error.
Instead of releasing his objections, and admitting the depth of his errors, he merely tilted his head in acknowledgment. “As you wish.”