When they were done pawing through her belongings, they’d locked her in. From that
point on there were two guards posted outside her door at all times and her meals
were delivered like clockwork by said guards. Except for Noah Beaumont, who’d dropped
by to personally deliver her pink slip that first day, she hadn’t seen nor talked
to another human being since. It was depressing and frightening. What motive could
the Garathani possibly have for detaining her?
Shaking with the effort, she finished her last few crunches and dropped to the floor.
Thank God they’d left her workout equipment and DVD player or she’d be out of her
mind by now. As it was, she was starting to feel like Sarah Connor after her stay
in the mental hospital—lean, mean and a danger to herself and others. If they didn’t
let her go soon,
she
was going to go Terminator on someone’s ass.
Jasmine scowled. After her performance on the
Heptoral
, the Garathani would probably laugh themselves silly if she put up her dukes.
She unhooked the pull-up bar with a sigh and shoved it under the bed. Peeling out
of her shorts and athletic bra, she eyed herself critically in the bathroom mirror.
She
was
lean and mean, more so than she’d ever been in her adult life. Though she hadn’t
intentionally set out to lose weight, her mother’s death had killed her appetite for
weeks, and then once she was over the initial shock, she’d decided now was as good
a time as any to get back in shape. Isolation and loneliness had become her friends,
driving her to move and keep moving, rain or shine. When the weather was decent, she
ran for a couple of hours on the compound’s quarter-mile track, and when it wasn’t,
she ran on one of the treadmills in the exercise facility. She’d ordered a BowFlex
and the pull-up bar and made it a point to use one of them whenever she watched TV.
Of course she’d eventually had to order a whole new wardrobe to go with her new body,
but such were the hardships of getting in shape.
Now three sleepless nights had created dark circles under her eyes and anxiety was
etching permanent frown lines on her forehead. She may not intimidate the Garathani,
but her biology students back in Denver would probably back slowly away at the sight
of her.
The bruises on her wrists and upper arms still stood in stark purple relief against
her pale skin, and she rubbed the thumbprint on her left biceps with unsteady fingers.
Shauss was the one element of her ordeal aboard the Garathani vessel she had yet to
work through. She’d had no trouble consigning Lieutenant Zannen to her mental File
Thirteen—she hated him, period. The minister and Commander Kellen had been harder,
though she’d eventually accepted having wronged them and paid the price, thereby compartmentalizing
her encounters with them.
But no matter how she approached it, she couldn’t even begin to sort out the conflict
with Shauss. There was simply too much to process and she got agitated every time
she let herself think about it. Just trying to reconcile that hate-filled snarl with
his typical coolly amused expression made her stomach twist with dread. It would have
been horrifying enough to see such a transformation as an innocent bystander, but
to know she was the cause of it…
Jasmine dropped her hand and turned away to start the shower, putting him firmly out
of her mind. Time enough to plow through all that emotional crap when she was well
away from here.
The hot water felt good while it lasted, which as usual wasn’t nearly long enough.
Afterward she blew her hair dry and pulled it up in a ponytail then dressed for comfort
in thin thermals, blue jeans and a baggy ski sweater. Not that she was going anywhere—she
just couldn’t stand to open the door to a Garathani warrior in her nightclothes. Plus,
it was freaking cold on the north side of the building. The Garathani must be hogging
all the heat—the offices were always unbearably hot.
She pulled on wool socks and her sheepskin slippers and then glanced at her watch.
Almost three hours to kill until dinner.
Sighing, she pulled a DVD out of the rack and popped it in.
Independence Day
—that was a good one. If she couldn’t whip some alien butt herself, might as well
watch Will Smith do it.
While the previews were running, she grabbed her nasal spray out of the bathroom and
stuck it in her pocket so she didn’t have to get up for the next dose. She pinched
a few dying leaves off her plants and dropped them into the trash can on the way back
to the bed. Then she closed the blinds to cut the glare of sun on snow, kicked off
her slippers and stretched out to watch the movie…
Coming to on her stomach, Jasmine grabbed wildly for the bed. Adrenaline pounded through
her, leaving her shaking. God, she hated waking up like that!
She stiffened as several things hit her at once. She couldn’t reach the edges of her
mattress. It sounded as if half the candidates were holding a rally right outside
her door. The air was suffocatingly warm and humid. And her bed smelled strangely
earthy, kind of like—
Her eyes popped open.
Biologic pad.
Gasping, she pushed up on one elbow and gazed into a forest of ankles. This time she
had
to be dreaming. There was no way in hell she was back aboard the ship.
Someone staggered and she rolled backward in time to avoid getting stepped on before
springing to her feet. Holy crap, she
was
aboard the
Heptoral
, in the cavernous transport bay—only this time it was bursting at the seams with
women.
What in God’s was going on here? The candidates weren’t supposed to be beamed up for
weeks, and she sure as hell wasn’t a candidate.
Grabbing the first arm she saw, she asked, “What happened? Why are we here?”
The boxy blonde looked frightened. “The compound was under attack, so they evacuated
us.”
“Under attack! By whom?”
“I don’t know. Didn’t you hear the jets?”
“No, I…” Jasmine frowned. Yes, she’d heard jets, but she’d been dozing off and thought
they were part of the movie.
Well that was just fabulous. Was she ever going to get away from these brutes?
She made her way toward the edge of the bay, taking note of her surroundings. There
were a dozen or more guards lining the bay’s upper tier, watching over the crowd like
long-haired cowboys minding a herd of cattle.
She shuddered.
Cattle
. That was an apt analogy for what these women were to the Garathani, who were paying
eight-figure settlements to the families of every candidate who accompanied them on
the one-way trip to Garathan. Most of them had been selected for their ability to
bear the aliens’ extra-large offspring, and the rest for their ability to accommodate
the aliens sexually. Garathani males couldn’t ejaculate unless both their primary
and secondary sexual organs were buried to the hilt in a female, which was why they’d
come to Earth, looking for women when most of theirs were wiped out by the Narthani
biowar virus. While human females didn’t have corresponding nooks to accommodate the
spurs like Garathani females did, their anuses had proven an acceptable alternative
for receiving the finger-sized secondary projections.
Deliberately blinking away the memory of Shauss’ spur emerging above his rampant penis,
she stood up on tiptoe and looked over the sea of feminine heads for Dr. Snow’s white
pompadour. The idea that all these women were basically selling their bodies to aliens
made her skin crawl. It would be different if they were doing it for love—love made
even the oddest matches acceptable—but they weren’t. They were letting a computer
and some alien committee determine which males they wound up with almost sight unseen.
God only knew what the rest of their lives would be like.
And God only knew what hers would be like if she didn’t get her
perfectly good piece of ass
off this ship, pronto. She had to find Dr. Snow or Noah Beaumont. If any Terrans
aboard knew what was going on, they would.
Her watch chimed. Going tense, she patted her pocket and sagged with relief to feel
the outline of her nasal spray bottle. After a quick look around, she pulled it out
and inhaled two quick puffs in each nostril before stuffing it back in her pocket.
Crap, it was hot in here!
She pulled the sweater off and hooked it over her shoulder before weaving her way
through the crowd again. Too bad she hadn’t worn a T-shirt instead of this thermal
undershirt—she was going to die in this heat.
Twenty minutes later the only thing she’d discovered was that they were locked in.
Damn it, where were the medical and support personnel? Between doctors, executives
and maintenance, there’d been at least thirty men living at the compound, but so far
she had yet to see one of them. In fact, all she’d seen were the candidates, and there
was no way she wanted to be included in that cattle call.
“Could someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?” she finally yelled
at the top of her lungs.
A handful of female voices echoed the call.
“The minister will address your concerns shortly,” a disembodied male voice announced.
“That’s not good e—ow!” She tried to jerk away from the fingers pinching her elbow.
“Haven’t you caused enough problems?” Shauss growled in her ear.
Her face flamed. Why him of all people? Hadn’t she been humiliated enough? “Get your
hands off me!”
In an instant, everything around them disappeared into a white void.
“The candidates are already on the verge of revolt,” he said, glaring down at her.
“The last thing they need is a former compound employee with a grudge leading the
charge.”
“I’m entitled to a grudge or two, don’t you think?” she snapped, trying to pry his
steely fingers off her. “You’ve kept me locked in my room for the last three days.
I don’t know what you call that on Garathan, but on Earth it’s known as false imprisonment
and punishable by several years in prison.”
“Actually,” he said in an informational tone, “unlawful restraint in the state of
Montana is punishable by a fine of no more than five hundred dollars or a jail sentence
of no more than six months.”
She blinked. How the hell did he know that?
“However,” he continued, “your restraint was in no way unlawful. You were a confessed
accomplice in the abduction of our mate.”
“He tricked me and you know it!”
“All the more reason to keep you on a tight leash. Peserin knows who would use you
against us next.”
“I’m no one’s puppet!” she ground out.
His arch look made her want to scream—and cry. Damn the ambassador for permanently
wrecking her credibility!
Taking a deep breath, she told him, “I just want to go home now.”
“That’s not an option at this point.”
“What could I possibly do to you from Earth?”
“That’s a very good question, and one we would just as soon not have to contend with
at the moment. Hence, you will remain aboard.”
“That’s not acceptable.” She slapped at his hand again. “And let go of me, damn it!
You’re cutting off my circulation.”
Her heart went into overdrive when he twisted her arm behind her and jerked her against
him. Leaning down, he said, “Miss King, my patience with you wears thin. Hold your
tongue until the minister has addressed the candidates or suffer the consequences.”
Though she was trembling, she managed to pant, “Screw you.”
“Ah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She tried to look away, but he grabbed her chin
and forced her hot face up to his. Stroking her jaw with his thumb, he breathed into
her open mouth, “Were you very disappointed that I left your ass intact?”
Burning with humiliation, she swung a fist at him but he grabbed her wrist and twisted
it behind her back with the other. The action arched her body more fully against his
and she was startled to feel the hardness of his cock poking at her belly.
“Don’t get too excited,” he told her coldly. “That’s not for you.”
“You’re despicable,” she hissed.
“Be still and listen to the minister.”
Although the white void remained, the voices of those around them were suddenly audible,
and judging from the whispers, all the women were giving the field surrounding them
a wide berth.
“I hope she’s okay,” someone said.
“Ladies, if I may have your attention, please.” Minister Cecine’s voice boomed in
the open bay and all conversation ceased. “I apologize for your unexpected removal
from the planet’s surface but time was of the essence. As I was explaining in the
auditorium, unknown enemies have been circulating anti-Garathani propaganda to the
Earth’s major media, and now those enemies have committed an unspeakable act of terror
against your planet. Less than two hours ago, six major Terran military bases were
simultaneously destroyed by abbarint devices.”
“Oh my God!”
“Hush,” Shauss hissed in her ear.
Jasmine froze, her heart racing out of control. She tried to wrap her head around
the minister’s words but nothing could get past the feel of Shauss’ silken hair brushing
her face. The cool mass felt almost alive as it caressed her cheek. Would it taste
as good as it smelled? She could see herself pulling a strand between her lips like
a honeysuckle style and delicately skimming its nectar onto her tongue, could almost
taste the cloves and honey and fresh, clean—
Crap!
Her eyes popped open. What in God’s name was she doing?
“Although every component required to synthesize the abbarain molecule is available
on Earth,” the minister continued after the women’s noisy reaction subsided, “Terrans
lack the technology to do so, and thus suspicion fell naturally to us. When American
bombers targeted the compound, we felt it prudent to evacuate all residents to the
Heptoral
. The compound itself has since been vaporized.”
Horror cramped in her abdomen. The compound was gone. Her workout equipment, her plants,
her DVDs, her computer…all toast.