EnforcersCraving

DJ
Michaels

Dragon Alliance, Book One

Chelsea is
kidnapped from her Melbourne home and taken to an alien planet to be sold at
auction. Luckily, she a gets a last-minute reprieve and is rescued by Tarkan
and Ari, two sexy male dragon riders. The Enforcers have long resigned
themselves to the fact that they will never have a woman of their own. But when
Tarkan lays eyes on Chelsea he concocts a plan to ensure she not only commits
to them, but will fight for their right to be together.

Chelsea has many challenges in her
new world but her biggest and most immediate concern is finding her best
friend. Alone and without support, she turns to the only two people who have
offered to help. If Chelsea accepts the bargain, the Enforcers will do whatever
it takes to rescue her best friend. Chelsea is attracted to them, but can she
risk herself and her heart with two men she barely knows?

A Romantica®
futuristic
ménage erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Chelsea fought the dark fog of unconsciousness and struggled
to surface, the urgency in her best friend’s voice pulling her forward much
faster than the incessant shoulder shaking.

“What?” Chelsea mumbled, squinting against the harsh glare.
“Did we have an accident? You okay, Tans?”

“No, we didn’t have an accident and no I’m not okay.” Tansy’s
voice wavered. “I don’t think any of us are okay.”

Chelsea was lying on a hard bunk bed and as she struggled
into a sitting position Tansy sat down beside her. Blinking against the harsh
light Chelsea looked around the room but what she saw made no sense. She was in
a large, rectangular room made of white laminate—walls, floor, and ceiling—and
each wall was lined with beds stacked four high. Two doors provided the only
break in the room, one heavy and firmly shut, the other half open and leading
into what appeared to be a bathroom.

There were about thirty young women scattered about the room,
all different ethnicities, all looking as confused and shell-shocked as Chelsea
felt. Her mind was sluggish, her thoughts vague and fragmented and she couldn’t
come up with a plausible explanation for what she was seeing. Her voice was
whisper soft as she leaned closer to Tansy. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” Tansy’s usually tidy hair was scrapped back
into a messy ponytail and her light-brown eyes showed a level of fear that
pushed Chelsea’s adrenaline sky-high.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Tansy asked.

Chelsea rubbed her forehead, trying to diffuse the ache. “We
were in my car, coming home from the movies. The engine and electronics died,
and I pulled over to the side of the road.”

“And?”

“That’s it.”

Tansy frowned. “That’s as far as I got too. I don’t know
where we are or how we got here.”

“Do they?” Chelsea asked, gesturing to the other women.

“Not so far. We’ve been able to establish an array of
nationalities, mainly from central Europe and the Americas. Most of them speak
English but you and I are the only Australians, as far as I can tell.”

“In this room at least.” Chelsea looked around the sterile
chamber. “I wonder how many other rooms there are.”

“I hadn’t even thought of that. Bloody hell, Chelse, there
could be hundreds of us.”

Chelsea’s heart clenched, skipped a beat, and then thundered
like a race horse. “All women, all young and healthy. Do you think the people
who took us are slave traders?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then what?”

Tansy had no answer and neither did Chelsea, so they sat on
the floor and clung to each other in silence.

It was impossible to gauge the passage of time in the white room
but eventually the locks on the large, heavy door clanked and clicked. At the
first sound, Chelsea’s eyes jerked to the entrance and by the time the portal
swung open she’d joined the other women as they came to their feet.

Chelsea tightened her death grip on Tansy’s hand as they
stood shoulder-to-shoulder. Two men came into the room, each holding a bulging
bag, while a third stood in the doorway with some kind of weapon cradled in his
arms. They looked like mercenaries to Chelsea—perfectly capable of taking care
of themselves in a fight, but without the clean precision of trained military.

One of the unarmed men held up his hand, revealing a small
black box attached to his palm. He began to speak in an unfamiliar language,
but the box translated for him and his words came out loud and clear in easily
understood English.

“Stand here,” he instructed, “two in front, everyone else
lined up behind.”

Chelsea didn’t let go of Tansy as they made their way to the
line, but at the last minute Tansy pulled her hand away and stepped clear,
turning to face the guard head-on. “Look, none of us know what’s going on here,
perhaps if you—“

The mercenary turned his cold gaze on Tansy and spoke over
her. “The translation only works one way. You need to hear me to follow my
orders, but I don’t need to hear you. So keep quiet, and line up.”

Tans was a fighter, she’d served in the Australian Army for
six years and she didn’t take shit from anyone. Even when she should. She was tall
and her body was strong and athletic. “Listen, mate, I’m not asking for the
moon. Just an explanation.”

The armed guard near the door shifted position and lifted
the barrel of his weapon, raising an eyebrow in challenge. His posture was so
threatening he didn’t need words to intimidate her. One look from him and every
bone in Chelsea’s body liquefied in fear. She didn’t know if the man would
shoot Tansy or not but the calculated, detached expression in his eyes didn’t
make for good odds.

Chelsea took half a step out of line and extended her free
hand. “Please, Tans. You won’t solve anything by confronting him when he’s
armed and you’re not. Let’s do as they say for now, and bide our time.”

Tansy gave her a hard stare. “Is that what you’re doing?”

Chelsea ignored the attitude, understanding Tansy was a scared
as she was. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. But I do know I don’t want
to see you get killed because you’ve got a short fuse and a Xena complex.” She
waited another beat. “Please. I can’t do this on my own.”

“Fine.” Tansy moved next to Chelsea and pushed back into
line, but her surface compliance did nothing to diminish the fierce anger that
pulsed from her body.

The men went back to business. Starting at the top of the
line they worked their way down each side, affixing a thin metal band to the
outside wrist of each woman. As soon as hers was snapped into place Chelsea examined
it closely. It was as thin as paper, about five centimeters wide and there was
no obvious opening or closing mechanism. The band was loose enough for her to
fit one finger underneath and the smooth surface reflected the light with a
cool, frosty gleam. Chelsea thought it might have been an identification tag of
some sort, but as it had no markings or writing she couldn’t be sure.

Once all the women were tagged, the mercs retraced their way
up the line. When they got to Tansy they grabbed her and hauled her out into
the middle of the room. The one with the translator held up his hand. “You are
now cargo, duly registered and itemized. The cuffs on your wrists are
officially for identification. Unofficially they’re there to help you
acclimatize to your new life.”

Tansy turned to him. “What new life?”

His expression didn’t change, he simply pressed a button on
the translator and she collapsed to the floor, her body writhing in agony
before jerking to a halt, every muscle frozen. Her back arched almost in half
and the tendons on her neck stood rigid and clearly visible. Chelsea rushed
forward but the moment she laid a hand on Tansy’s arm she received a jolt of energy
so powerful it knocked her across the room. By the time her brain unscrambled
and she began crawling back to her best friend, Tansy’s body was lax, her harsh,
gasping breaths a match for Chelsea’s own ragged breathing. The guard walked
over to Tansy and toed her with his heavy boot. “Consider that part of your
orientation.”

Chelsea fought a surge of panic as she crawled unsteadily to
where Tansy lay. She’d only caught a brief ricochet of the energy and it landed
her on her ass. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the agony of a full dose.

As soon as she was close enough, she cradled Tansy’s head on
her lap, smoothing a palm over her tear-stained face. Chelsea fought back tears
of her own. “I’m not going to ask if you’re okay.”

“I will be.” Tansy struggled to sit up. “I’m not letting
those fuckers take me down. Or not for long, anyway.”

Chelsea smiled as she helped her friend to stand. “Tough
soldier-girl, huh?”

“Bet your ass on it.”

They were both wobbly as they shuffled over to join the line
and the moment they were in position the guards moved them forward. They snaked
out of their room, along what felt like kilometers of passageways, until they
came to a chamber where the column halted.

“Remove your clothing and put it in the chutes over there,”
the guard said, pointing to a series of trapdoors set into the wall. After the
salutary lesson provided by Tansy, the instruction to strip was followed
without a whimper. Nobody liked it but no one wanted to be convulsing on the
floor in agony either.

The women reformed their line and walked into another room,
this one much smaller than the last. The ubiquitous white walls, floor and
ceiling were still in evidence, but this room was completely empty. The door
slammed behind them and Chelsea’s fight-or-flight response kicked into
overdrive. The adrenaline coursed through her body and she could do nothing but
stand there, because there was nowhere to go.

The clunk and whir of machinery heralded another event of
some sort and Chelsea tried to keep it together. Part of her was expecting
fatal gas or perhaps a hail of bullets, but when openings appeared in the walls
and spewed out pink, fluffy foam she laughed in relief. The absurdity of pink
foam after the horror and uncertainty of the last few hours seemed to snap
something inside her. She knew her laughter was out of place but she couldn’t
stop, not even when the foam got into her mouth and stung her eyes. Even when
her lungs started burning and black dots floated across her vision.

Tansy grabbed her upper arms, strong hands pinching despite
the slipperiness of their skin. “Chelsea, knock it off. I get that you’re
scared, we all are, but you have to keep it together.”

She leaned into Tansy’s neck, sheltering her face from the
spray so she could take breaths deep enough to get herself under control. It
took a while. “I’m okay. Thanks.”

Tansy pulled her hands away and pushed her saturated hair from
her face. “Good. All this naked touching is freaking me out. But I was looking
forward to slapping you back to normal.”

Chelsea laughed, a real one this time. “I bet you were,
hardass.”

The foam stopped, replaced by a cool, clear mist that rinsed
them clean and dried in a matter of seconds. Then a door opened. More
shuffling. Another room, this time medical.

That was the moment Chelsea’s drugged-fuzzed brain finally
got back to work. The austerity of the room she woke up in, the advanced tech
of the translation devices, the control bracelet—those things could probably be
had if there was enough money involved. But what awaited them in this room went
far beyond anything she’d ever seen or heard about.

The technicians looked normal enough but the machinery and
devices in the room weren’t like anything she’d ever seen, outside of a movie
set. Ten stations were set up, each waist-high cubicle boasting identical
equipment and instrument trays.

Chelsea panted against her rising panic as the women were
herded forward and handed off to the techs. Her heart raced almost out of her
chest but she managed to stand still as she was scanned with a handheld machine
and inoculated with some kind of pressure pump. The technician handed her a
series of small cups containing various pills and liquids and she couldn’t do
anything but swallow them.

Then one of the guards stepped up behind her and braced her
tight against his body, holding her immobile. She struggled to get free but
when the tech came at her with what looked like a small nail gun she froze in
horror. Closing her eyes against whatever horror was coming, she felt the cold
press of metal just behind her ear. When the gun clicked, pain exploded in her
skull and she clutched at her head in a futile effort to fend off the agony.

The guard released her before she was ready and she
staggered against the partition. Almost in tears, she sagged against the hard
plastic and rubbed at the wound behind her ear. No blood and the pain had
started to recede.

She was still pretty shaky when they were herded into yet
another room. This time they received clothing and she quickly dressed in loose
trousers, a knee-length tunic and pull-on booties. They were herded off into
more corridors but by now Chelsea was too traumatized to pay attention. She
almost sagged in relief when a door opened to reveal the white room with the
bunks. Not home but at least something familiar in this strange and scary
place.