Chapter Three

“That sounded like ‘come help me’ to me,” Monica murmured.

“Yeah. So they have been pretending they don’t understand us. I mean, assuming we’re right and that’s what she meant.”

Apparently that was exactly what she’d yelled because in a few minutes another warrior arrived and the two ducked through the door of the prison/cage. Each of them was grabbed unceremoniously by an alien, hauled up and out of their cage. The binding at their ankles was removed and then they were marched through the village and out the other side.

Noelle, convinced they were on the way to a sacrificial ceremony, began to fight for her freedom the minute that thought occurred to her, fought for all she was worth—which was not much since she was still tied. The warrior woman merely hauled her up and flung her over one shoulder, gripping her thighs hard enough she couldn’t kick and ignoring the blows she rained down on the woman’s back with her bound fists.

She reared up, trying to see where they were going, trying to convince herself they would’ve headed to an altar or maybe the main lodge near the center of the village if they actually were plotting a sacrificial ceremony. She was still struggling to break free when the woman abruptly stopped, dragged her from her shoulder and then half shoved, half pitched her backwards.

Flailing wildly to recover her balance, Noelle caught nothing but a flash of rocks. She screamed at the top of her lungs as she felt herself flying backwards and descending—her first thought that she’d been thrown from a cliff—a scream that ended in a gurgle when she hit water and sank below the surface like a stone. As tired as she was from fighting the warrior, the fear of drowning galvanized her. She began beating at the water around her and trying to push herself upwards with her feet.

That was when she discovered the water she’d been tossed into was only a few feet deep.

Monica was bobbing up and down a few feet away, screaming her head off when Noelle stood up.

“Stand up!” Noelle yelled at her. “Can’t you reach the bottom?”

The question seemed to penetrate Monica’s terror. She stood up shakily. “I was in a hole,” she lied.

The two alien women, they discovered, were laughing at them.

It was the first time in her life that Noelle had actually experienced the urge to kill. She thought, though, that if she’d had a weapon to hand she would have slain both of their tormentors in that moment.

She exchanged a long, speaking look with Monica. “It’s a damn good thing I don’t know their language,” Noelle muttered. “I might be tempted to say something I shouldn’t.”

“Bathe!” the alien that had carried her to the river snapped. “You stink!”

“And you smell like a goat,” Noelle responded in the alien tongue, although, naturally enough the aliens didn’t know what a goat was. “See, Monica! They aren’t nearly as stupid as you said they were.”

Monica gaped at her. “Are you trying to get me killed! That bitch is twice my size!”

“But I have a rock by my foot. When she charges in here to throttle you, I’ll bash her head in.”

Monica’s eyes widened momentarily with a mixture of horror and outrage. After a moment, though, she turned to look at their guards assessingly. “Let’s not try that.”

“But there’s only the two of them and we’re away from the village. We might not get another chance!”

“You think this is a chance? We’re tied up! They’ll just wade in and drown us!”

Noelle frowned. “You think they can swim?”

“I don’t think we can when our hands are tied!”

Noelle released an irritated huff of breath. “Fine! Bathe then. I guess we’ll have to think of something else.”

“Shut up and bathe!” the bitchier guard snapped.

“I hope this is your drinking water I just pissed in,” Noelle said, smiling at the alien woman.

Monica gaped at her. “Tell me you didn’t! I’m downstream, damn it!”

“Sorry. I had to go. Bad! There was no holding it when she threw me in.”

Monica stared at her a long moment and then snickered. “I wet myself, too.” She thought it over. “Oh my god! I swallowed a pint of fucking water! I’m going to choke you, Noelle!”

“Choke the bitch. It was her fault. Better yet, I told you I’d found a rock. I’ll give it to you and you can bash her head in.”

The silent guard waded in and Noelle and Monica immediately retreated, or tried. It didn’t take the damn giant long to corner them against the rock wall that lined the opposite side of the channel of water. Fortunately, her intention didn’t seem to be anything violent in nature. Although she did produce the wickedest looking knife Noelle had ever seen, she merely used it to cut their wrist bindings.

Relieved when she waded out again, Noelle and Monica made a stab at washing. It wasn’t as if they could actually get clean! They had no soap and no wash cloths and they were standing in a natural body of water! True the water didn’t look nasty, but it was out in the open! There was no telling how many things had pissed in it!

Or died in it.

Or what was living in it, for that matter.

Finally, the alien women seemed satisfied they’d bathed long enough and summoned them out of the water. That was when Noelle discovered the ‘silent’ guard had brought a change of clothing for them.

Not that she didn’t appreciate the change of clothes! Hers were wet and didn’t smell that great even after the dunking. But she couldn’t imagine the clothing they were being ‘offered’ was terribly clean, either—probably riddled with alien germs!

It was clear that they could voluntarily change, though, or the guards would ‘help’. Resentfully, Noelle shed her waterlogged clothing, took the shift that seemed to be made from animal skin and pulled it on. Not surprisingly, it dragged the ground.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it! The shift was a simple T design with a seam across the tops of the sleeves and a gap left between for the head. The neckline, very modest on the native women, was too wide for Noelle’s shoulders and kept slipping off first one shoulder and then the other, nearly exposing her boobs.

She surprised a look on the ‘silent’ guard’s face that unnerved her when she looked up from trying to adjust the garment.

She wasn’t actually used to seeing such a blatantly lustful look on a man’s face when they examined her. Sexual harassment wasn’t tolerated among the colonists and however much any of the men might admire any of the women, they were never so blatant in their sexual interest. She certainly wasn’t used to another woman looking at her like that!

She was unequivocally heterosexual for one thing and wouldn’t have noticed if one had, but, more importantly, the colonists chosen for the trip were expected to populate the new colony with new humans and no one who preferred partners of the same sex had been included for the simple reason that they couldn’t offer that particular, all important, service to the colony settlement.

Feeling her face heat with discomfort, she glanced at Monica to see if she’d noticed, wondering if it had been imagination of her part, and discovered Monica was studying the alien female through narrowed, assessing eyes. After a moment, Monica met her gaze.

Noelle wasn’t certain, at first, what Monica had been trying to convey with that look, but the more she thought about it, the more closely she studied the guard herself. By the time they were nearing the village again she’d arrived at a shocking and thoroughly confusing conclusion.

The ‘female’ guard wasn’t a female!

All sorts of questions instantly crowded her mind, foremost the puzzle of why, if they had two distinct sexes, they would go so far to hide that fact.

She didn’t actually get the chance to discuss her conclusion with Monica, however. They’d barely reached the edge of the village when they heard a sound above them that drew everyone’s attention.

The sight that met their gazes froze everyone in their tracks.

Noelle was so shocked she couldn’t even think for several moments.

There was an airship descending from the clouds, heading directly for the village!

A spacecraft!

Bedlam abruptly erupted all around them. A hundred women screamed seemingly at once and began to charge off in every direction like a flock of birds startled by a predator. “The barbarians! It’s the Flaxens! Run!”

The two guards escorting Noelle and Monica gave them a shove that knocked both of them off their feet, screamed at them, and took off at a run in two different directions. “It’s the Flaxens! Run!”

That was almost as shocking as all the rest—to suddenly discover they’d not only been freed. They’d been abandoned.

Who the hell were the Flaxens? And why were the giant alien/Amazon warrior women so terrified of them?

Particularly when they hadn’t seemed the least bit impressed or intimidated by Earth technology!

Monica grabbed her with hands curled into claws that dug into her flesh hard enough to break through her shock, jerking at her to urge her to her feet. “Move!”

Almost as if they were one person, of a single mind, they scrambled up, whipped a look around to get their bearings, and then headed toward the colony like the hounds of hell were on their heels.

A bizarre sense of unreality settled over Noelle as she and Monica, tethered together by their hands as if they’d been permanently joined and as mindless in their shock and terror as the villagers apparently were, struggled to fight their way through the madness to the other side of the village. Noelle didn’t think ‘home’ ever actually entered her mind. She simply headed toward the safety of the colony because her primitive mind was totally in control of her actions.

In this particular circumstance, their wits would have been better weapons than their survival instincts, however.

They were on the far side of the village from their colony when they first spotted the spacecraft coming in for a landing. The village itself was laid out haphazardly, with no regard for the movement of traffic and there was no straight shot through in any direction. Which meant they would’ve been far better off, despite the fact that the stream they’d so lately visited lay at the foot of a steep cliff they couldn’t hope to climb, if they’d simply whirled around and headed back that way.

Their wits had scattered like leaves in the wind, however, with the panicked scattering of the barbarians who’d been holding them prisoner.

For if the ‘barbarians’ arriving by airship were capable of striking that much terror into the hearts of the savages they’d been dealing with ….

Well, it didn’t bear thinking on!

Not that either woman was actually capable of doing a lot of thinking at the moment.

They charged through the village, hands linked, knocking down or being knocked down by anyone who tried to run between them, first one then the other slamming into immovable objects. Rather than release their death grip on one another, however, they finally simply plowed through the melee single file—Noelle in the lead part of the time and Monica switching places with her when she’d caught her breath enough to outrun Noelle.

They’d lost sight of the ship as it dropped to land, but they managed to get a very good view of it as they managed to leave the village at last, for they were the only ones who actually ran toward the landing ship rather than away from it.

Not that they had mistaken the alien craft for one of their own even momentarily! The ‘alien’ look to its designed was unmistakably not human. Besides that, the thing looked ancient, so rusted with time that it flickered through Noelle’s mind to wonder if it was actually capable of space travel at all!

That was pretty much all that flickered through her mind for some time, however. Because just as she and Monica cleared the village at last, passing the few huts along the outer fringe, the gangplank was lowered and a horde of bellowing barbarians waving swords fully as long as she and Monica were tall poured out of the ship.

Her eyes felt as if they would pop from her head as she stared in horror at the thundering horde.

Monica tore loose from her frantic grip and poured on more speed as one of the barbarians—the one in the lead who seemed taller than all the rest—looked straight at them, bellowed something barbaric and completely unintelligible and headed straight for them. Screaming, Noelle tried to pour on more speed herself, tripped over the fucking hem of the oversized gown, and plowed several yards of dirt and gravel on her belly. She thought for several moments she might actually make her escape by surfing down the hill on her belly, but despite the fact that she managed to outstrip Monica in her race down the hill, something heavy landed on top of her and halted her forward progress, knocking the wind from her lungs at the same time.

Too stunned to do anything beyond grunt when the wind was knocked out of her, Noel focused on trying to breathe past the choking dirt she’d plowed up and the weight that seemed to be crushing her chest.

Monica screamed and raced toward the barbarian that had pancaked her on the ground and began pounding on his head and shoulders. He bellowed an obscenity, planted a hand on her belly and gave her a shove. She flew backwards, hit the ground and slid down the hill on her ass.

By the time the barbarian had gotten off of her and gained his feet, Noelle had recovered enough to be furious that he’d shoved Monica down the hill.

Granted Monica had been trying to beat him senseless, but that was because he’d provoked the attack to start with by tackling her!

“You bastard!” she snarled in his language the minute he jerked her to her feet.

She saw a look of amazement cross his features—either because she’d insulted him in his native language or because she swung at him and tried to punch him in the face—then he snatched her off her feet and absolutely stunned her by planting his mouth firmly over hers.

She wasn’t certain what her reaction might have been under less stressful circumstances, but the natural mating chemicals he injected into her with his kiss felt like liquid fire pouring through her, scalding her lungs and scouring her veins like acid. At the same time, it sapped every ounce of willpower and fight from her, liquefying bone and flesh. Within five seconds, she was perfectly limp and barely conscious, as if he’d tried to smother her rather than kissed her completely senseless.

He tossed her across one shoulder, retrieved his sword where he’d dropped it in the dirt, threw a triumphant glance in Monica’s direction, and turned back toward his ship.

* * * *

Despite his reservations about the trip, Drak felt his pulse rate shoot upward as they cleared the cloud cover and spotted the village below them.

Part of this, naturally enough, was relief that the ship had held together for the duration of the trip and anxiety about whether or not their pilot would be able to set the damned tooth rattling thing down on the ground in one piece.

His hunting/mating instincts were also fully aroused, however, by the time the ship had settled with a hard jolt firmly on the ground. Grabbing their swords in case they met resistance in the form of rogue males or determined female warriors, they lowered the gangplank and Drak led the charge to claim a mate.

Almost the moment he stepped into the opening, movement caught his eye. More specifically, this was the fragile pair of females fleeing past the ship and headed in a completely different direction than any of the other villagers.

Because they clearly weren’t villagers.

They did not, in point of fact, look like they belonged to any of the tribes he was familiar with. Beyond their coloring, which instantly leapt out at him, they were far too slight in stature to belong to any tribe he was familiar with.

Despite their size, however, they were certainly adults not children.

Because his gaze was immediately drawn to what was very definitely a generous pair of breasts churning frantically against the tops of their shifts twice as fast as their feet were churning up the dust.

The one that immediately snagged his attention, though, had the hair of a flaxen and pale skin unlike any tribe he had ever known.

He couldn’t see well enough to tell if she had a lovely face, but that was immaterial when he could see that she had a lovely body. And she was amazingly fleet of foot and agile! He was within inches of snagging a handful of the flapping shift she was wearing when she dove toward the ground to elude him and damned near succeeded in getting completely away since her impetus in conjunction with the incline of the hill was sufficient to send her into a swift glide! Loathe though he was to follow suit, he could see she was going to escape him if he didn’t and he finally dropped his sword—which he would never have done under any other circumstance—and launched himself at her, trying to catch her and still prevent his entire weight from landing on her.

She very nearly slipped away from him because of that maneuver, but he did manage to halt her flight.

Which was when her companion whirled and flew at him like a wild turant, pecking at his head and shoulders with her tiny fists until he had, perforce, to shove her off before she could inflict some actual damage besides giving him a pounding headache.

Then, when he got up and lifted his ‘prize’ from the dirt, the tiny woman he’d captured stunned him by calling him every foul name she could lay tongue to and launching herself at him as if she actually stood a chance of taking him down!

Apparently, she thought she was a warrior, despite the fact that she didn’t have either the stature to take on an experienced warrior like himself or the skills.

Clearly, he needed to subdue her before she could harm herself trying to pound him into the dirt and piss him off at the same time.

He thought, given the fact that she was, beyond any doubt, not a member of any tribe he had ever encountered, he was probably as surprised as she was that the mating enchantment actually worked.

Actually, it worked far better than he was accustomed to and that was nearly as stunning as her counterattack. It went well beyond merely subduing her—which was the most effect it had ever had before in his experience.

When he had caught her at the scruff of her neck and dragged her close enough to capture her lips beneath his, she went so limp he had to hold her up to keep her from sliding down his form and puddling at his feet. She was so limp as he tossed her across one shoulder, retrieved his sword, and jogged back to the ship that he was beginning to worry that something had gone horribly wrong by the time he got to his cabin on the ship.

Had he crushed something vital in her fragile little body when he had leapt upon her to capture her?

Had he snapped her tiny neck when he had grabbed her to force his will upon her with the mating kiss?

It did occur to him that she might be feigning, plotting to catch him off guard and fight her way free, but he took no chances there. He didn’t release her until he had bolted the cabin door behind him.

Her knees were as limp as putty when he set her on her feet and she wilted. Catching her before she could crumple to the floor, he settled her on the bed and, against his better judgment, leaned over her to examine her face.

She blinked owlishly several times, staring back at him, but the blinks were enough to assure him she was still alive.

And, fortunately for him, she didn’t seem to have a knife to slip between his ribs.

He leaned back, studying her thoughtfully.

It flickered through his mind that he should leave her and oversee the raid, but he was reluctant to leave his pretty prize so quickly.

And she was pretty.

Besides, he needed to make sure she wasn’t armed since she seemed to consider herself to be a warrior.

More than half expecting her to come around from a feigned half-faint the moment he grasped the hem of her shift, she surprised him and concerned him more when she merely lay limply and allowed him to remove it without any attempt to guard herself from him.

Those thoughts emptied from his mind, however, once he had disrobed her and got an unobstructed view of her nude form because his cocks instantly sprang to attention and impeded the blood flow above that point.

She was beautifully made. Her pale skin almost seemed to glow in the dim light of the cabin.

He had no idea how long he simply stood like a statue staring at her before he was finally drawn by the blood pounding in his ears to the fact that he was beginning to feel downright faint from the restricted blood flow in his body. Sucking in a sustaining breath, he dragged his gaze from her body to her face, met her gaze for a long moment and then abruptly turned and stalked out of the cabin. His hand was shaking when he had locked the door behind him.

It annoyed him.

He almost felt as if the mating kiss had bewitched him rather than the other way around!

Trying to shake the images from his mind, he crossed the main cabin of the ship and paused at the top of the gangplank, abruptly extremely reluctant to leave since it occurred to him that she might only have been pretending to be subdued and be awaiting the opportunity to escape him. It occurred to him, briefly, to wonder if he might be better off if the strange, almost magical seeming creature did manage to escape him. He was enthralled with her already and he had done nothing more than bestow the mating kiss upon her!

That thought brought with it a crushing since of loss, however, and sparked a possessive anger that seemed as alien to him as she did.

Mayhap she was one of the tiny magical people the old ones wove tales about?

He shook that thought. She was undoubtedly a rare find, but he had never been a superstitious man and he was not going to allow fanciful thoughts to fill his mind now!

She might try to weave a spell around him! But she was flesh and blood woman, not a mythical creature, and he would have her and he would not release her until he had had his fill!

He paused again at the foot of the gangplank and looked around for his men. He spied one of the younger men in the group heading back, his head bloodied and a thin stream running down the side of his face.

The woman he had flung over one shoulder was steadily trying to kick him in the groin—and had succeeded at least once if the sickly pallor of his face was any indication. “Tabor! I have locked my prize in my cabin. Take care she does not escape!”

Tabor leaned over and puked at the foot of the gangplank, but Drak didn’t take that in bad part. He’d already deduced the lad was nauseated from a groin kick.

The female he had captured didn’t take it too well when he dropped her in the middle of it, however. She screamed profanity at him and punched him several times before Drak grabbed her by the scruff of her neck. “You had better hope you did not permanently disable his little soldier, woman! Else I might be tempted to launch you from the port after we take off!” he snarled.

He held her until Tabor had recovered enough to recall the proper way to subdue a woman.

Drak had some doubts about the effectiveness of the mating kiss after emptying one’s guts on the ground, but either it was effective or his threat was. The woman settled down and allowed Tabor to herd her up the gangplank.

Shaking his head, Drak strode briskly away from the ship. He paused when he had surveyed the progress of his men in rounding up women and supplies for their trip back and turned to search for any sign of the dark female that had been with his woman.