Javik

Vaznik Warriors: Book Five

Ava York

Starr Huntress

Contents

Addie

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Epilogue: Addie

Are you a STARR HUNTRESS?

Rogue Mate

Kazan

Kalyn

Dejar

Kalyn

Addie

In the morning, I rose with the sun. It was another beautiful sunny, spring day. For the first time since winter, birds chirped outside my window, almost as if they were wishing me well. I chose to take it as a good omen, even though I had no reason to. I’d never been one to romanticize anything.

Life had been too hard for dreams.

John knew of my plan, but I was sure he’d still be in bed by the time I left. When I entered the kitchen, I was surprised to find my brother already awake and seated in the only chair at the table, waiting for me.

“You’re really going through with this,” he said.

It wasn’t a question. His piercing blue eyes, so like my own, burned like glacier ice into mine.

“Of course I am,” I said. “You know my feelings. It’s not like we haven’t discussed this to death. Think of the money, John. We could finally leave this trash heap and have a better life!”

I was exasperated at having to have this discussion again on the morning of my departure. It truly was beating a dead horse. He’d been against the idea since I’d come up with it and for seemingly no good reason.

“There has to be a better plan, Addie. One that doesn’t involve you leaving for a year to give birth to a half-alien child that you’re just going to abandon—just like our parents did to us. Doesn’t the thought of that upset you?”

It didn’t, actually. I’d always been someone to focus on immediate issues, not hypothetical ones. John and I needed to move on, to escape the chains of our upbringing. Any child I bore would be taken care of by its father and his people—it wouldn’t have the life I’d had. It wouldn’t be left alone.

“It’s only for a year. Mate and pay, remember?” The words had become my mantra, ever since I’d decided on this path. “Once the child is born, I can come back and things will go back to normal—better than normal, because we won’t have to scrape and beg anymore. It’ll be fine. Mrs. Tobias will be here to help and maybe you could finally find something you like to do around town. It’ll be easier for you once I’m not here to look after everything.”

Truthfully, one of the reasons I wanted to do this so badly was to force John to wake up and get his own life together. I was only a year younger than him, but because our parents always harped on about how females are “natural caregivers” I was forced to do all the work. It was time for him to step up and look after himself.

He sure as shit wasn’t going to do it if I was still there.

He turned silent then, just staring at me with a sullen gaze. Nothing he could say would make me change my mind and he knew it.

Without another word, I moved to the counter to make something to eat before my journey to the matching center. All we had was a piece of bread that was starting to get moldy, but I cut off the bad edge and ate it plain. We didn’t have anything to put on top of it anyway.

John remained at the table as I returned to my room to pack, arms crossed as he stared out the small window over the sink, refusing to look at me.

It didn’t take long to gather up my things—there wasn’t much to gather, after all. I stuffed a pair of jeans and the only three shirts I owned into a threadbare knapsack, along with some undergarments I barely ever wore because I didn’t have enough to last an entire week, and sealed it up before getting dressed.

Thinking it best to make a good first impression, I pulled on the only nice outfit I owned: a thin yellow cotton slip dress with a pattern of tiny, cornflower blue flowers on it, paired with a matching blue cardigan. It was a dress I’d barely worn over the years, reserved for holidays and special occasions, so it was still in near-perfect condition.

We rarely celebrated holidays. That kind of thing required money and love, both of which were sorely lacking in our home.

I pulled half of my long dark hair up into a ponytail to highlight the fine bones of my face and my eyes, and let the rest hang straight down my back. I’m sure there would be prettier girls at the matching center, but it’d have to do. I didn’t think appearance mattered much during the matching process anyway, but I was desperate enough to try anything.

I took one final glance around my room, in disbelief that I might not be back here for a year.

I could do this.

Of course I could.

To hear the whispers around town, all the Mahdfel were concerned about was perpetuating their race anyway, so my leaving my match would be a non-issue once I gave up the baby.

Before I switched off the light, my eyes settled on a small stuffed bear that sat on my dresser.

John had won it for me years ago at the county fair. It was the only soft thing I’d ever owned. I stared at it for a moment before returning to grab it, stuffing it down deep beneath my clothes in my bag.

By the time I returned to the kitchen, the cab I’d hired the night before was waiting outside. John was still sitting at the table, glaring angrily at me.

“You’ll be fine,” I told him. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I can, if you care to know how things turned out.”

His eyes softened at my words. “Of course, I care, Addie. You’re right—I’ll be fine. I’ll just...miss you, is all.”

His words shocked me a little. I cared for him, but we’d never been affectionate siblings, and I didn’t let them dent my resolve.

“I’ll see you in a year,” I said, and left the house.

Two years ago, my parents disappeared on another bright, sunny, spring morning—not the kind of day you’d expect to turn your world upside down—but to be honest, my world was never right-side-up anyway.

At first, I was sure they’d come back.

They always did. It wasn’t the first time I’d awoken to find them missing. Most times, though, they’d return after a few days, after their drug-fuelled bender had come to an end and they remembered they had children.

Then they’d drag themselves home, bleary-eyed and mean, and the short reprieve my older brother John and I enjoyed during their absence would quickly come to an end.

I’d taken care of them for longer than I should have, especially at my age. When they should have been taking care of me I was cooking their meals, keeping their house—if you could even call our ramshackle, two-room hovel that—and working odd jobs around town to pay not only the bills, but for their drugs, too.

So when I woke to find them gone that spring morning, I didn’t think much of it. The longest John and I had ever been alone was two weeks. They’d be back. I was convinced of it.

Except, after two weeks, they didn’t show. Then a month passed. Six weeks. Then two months, then six, then a year.

After a year of scraping by, supporting John because he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—bring himself to leave the house, I promised myself if another year passed without my parents showing up, I’d volunteer for the Mahdfel genetic matching program.

My birthdate hadn’t yet been called, but I knew all about the money. That kind of money would save my and my brother’s lives. We’d never want for anything ever again.

The night before the two-year anniversary of my parents’ disappearance, I went to bed early. I felt raw, like my nerve endings were too close to the surface of my skin. My heart beat ferociously in my chest, like a bird in a cage trying desperately to escape.

Part of me was scared to go to the matching center the next day, but the other part of me was excited. I wouldn’t allow myself to hope to find someone to actually love me—who ever had, after all?—but being away from my life for a while wouldn’t be too bad.

I’d only be gone a year at most, anyway. A year to meet my mate, get knocked up, give him the child his race so badly needed, and get back here with a million dollars for John and me. It’d be a hard sacrifice, but we were used to those.

And if I died, well, the money would go to John anyway.

I’d already arranged assistance for John from our neighbor, a kindly elderly lady who’d always tried her best to help us. She’d check in on him from time to time while I was off on my mission.

That’s what I thought of it as—a mission to start a better life.

The drive to the matching center didn’t take long. We lived on the outskirts of a main hub city, so I arrived within a half-hour of departing home. Reporting to the reception desk, I told the woman seated there I’d come to volunteer for the matching program.

I made sure not to say a word about ‘mate and pay.’ Somehow I didn’t think they’d appreciate it, even if I thought it was a perfectly reasonable idea. Easy steps. Things I could do.

“Well, look at you, pretty as pie! Not many girls volunteer for the service. Those who do don’t need to wait, though, so I’ll bring you back to the labs myself,” she said in a strong accent.

“Thank you, ma’am,” I replied, remembering my manners.

The hallway she led me down was lined with closed doors, all testing facilities. I knew this already because every girl received a tour of their closest matching center when they turned sixteen, just to learn the process if it ever came time to pass.

We stopped at Laboratory #4 and she led me inside. She introduced me to the clinician already present, and then she was gone.

“You have a seat there, Adaline,” the clinician said, using my full given name as she read the identification card I’d handed her, which nobody ever did.

I followed her instructions and sat down, used to doing what I was told.

“This is the easy part—I’m just going to take a bit of blood from your fingertip and run it through this machine here and we’ll know within five minutes if you have a match,” she said as she slid a sterilization swab over my finger and then punctured it with a tiny needle.

She collected the subsequent drop of blood onto a thin glass slide and then wheeled her chair over to the machine she’d mentioned, inserting it into a little slot.

I held my breath as the machine set to work, not knowing what result I truly wanted. In the end, it didn’t matter anyway. Before I had time to decide, the machine beeped and a green light lit up, determining my fate for me.

Somewhere out there I had a match, and it was time for my new life to begin.

Javik

After what seemed like the longest mission ever, my team and I had finally secured the cursed object our superiors had sent us on a wild hunt searching for. I never would’ve guessed it would turn out to be a giant egg, but there I was, sitting in my lab, examining an egg of unknown origin and wondering what the hell I was supposed to do with it.

The first day had been…interesting. Oby had curled over the egg, fluttering and hissing, just as she had back in the caves.

It had taken Lila and Wiley hours to coax her away, convince her that I wasn’t going to hurt her treasure.

And I was becoming convinced that’s what it was. Egg shaped, and possibly an actual egg, but every analysis I ran indicated that it wasn’t Oby’s egg.

Which was good. Lila might have Rekker wrapped around her finger, but I wasn’t sure what he would say with another flying snake thing on the ship.

The ladies would love it, though.

At first, I’d merely observed it. For over a day, I’d let it sit in a makeshift incubator I’d created, thinking it just might...do whatever it was supposed to do on its own. Open? Hatch?

Was there even anything inside it? It was hard to tell, to be honest.

After nothing happened from leaving it alone, I started running tests. I performed heat and cold tests. I submerged it in various solutions to determine its density. I flaked of a microscopic sample and ran it through one of my spectrometers, discovering it was made of some kind of calcium and stone hybrid that was tougher than nails and much heavier.

It was unlike anything I’d ever seen, and I’d seen a lot.

As the Calliope’s resident doctor and scientist, there wasn’t much I hadn’t come across over the years. My team, the Vaznik warriors, belonged to the Mahdfel race, so we were used to seeing some crazy shit. I’d repaired more gruesome injuries than I cared to remember. I’d witnessed the other guys, Rekker, Kyre, Cedroc, and Derrix, get into more scrapes than I ever thought possible, but we’d survived them all together.

This last mission, to retrieve this artifact our commanding officers simply had to have, had been by far the most intense. We’d journeyed to a far-off, uncharted planet, met a race we’d never even heard of before, delved deep beneath the surface into caverns of lava and stone, and lived to tell the tale.

But craziest of all, four out of the five of us had been matched with mates, even as the situation unfolded. Sent from Earth, Lila, Ferne, Coralie, and Wiley had joined our ranks, bringing a certain sense of femininity and grace to our group. Each male had quickly become completely enamored with his mate, even if he’d been reluctant to have one assigned to him in the first place.

One by one, I’d watched them fall in line and then fall in love. It had amused me greatly, as out of the five of us, I was the one who most wanted a mate of my own and I had yet to be matched. I’d never told the others that, of course, but my lack of transparency with my team didn’t make it any less true.

They all thought of me as a scientist, concerned with logic and facts above all, not love and fornication. Even though I was completely comfortable around them—we’d been a team for so long and relied on each other so much I couldn’t be anything else—the thought of letting them see my softer side always made me nervous. Like if they knew I wanted something...romantic out of life, they wouldn’t take me seriously anymore.

As a doctor, the one responsible for keeping them healthy and in top condition, they had to take me seriously. They had to trust me. Personally, I didn’t place much stock in anyone I found to be too emotional. Emotional people were irrational and unreliable, and I never wanted those two adjectives applied to me.

But even still, I’d felt left out seeing them all pair up and take part in the mission with their mates. Sitting back alone and mostly observing, waiting for them to need my assistance, definitely wasn’t fun at all.

At first, when it was only Rekker and Kyre who’d been matched, it hadn’t been so bad, but once Cedroc matched with Coralie it was almost a foregone conclusion that Derrix would be next. My hypothesis had been correct—Wiley had shown up and, after a bit of a rocky start, had stolen his heart.

It was strange at first, seeing him go from being so reluctant to have her, to risking his very life for her within days of her arrival. At first, I’d wanted to deck him because I couldn’t understand his reticence to being with her when it was all I wanted for myself. Wiley was beautiful, and clearly very interested in him, and he’d been so standoffish. They’re thick as thieves now, but for a while, I’d been worried.

Even though I wouldn’t be at all surprised to have my own mate arrive soon, seeing as we’d seemed to have fallen into a bit of a pattern, there’s a part of me that worried I may not have a perfect genetic match. I knew I wasn’t easy to be around, too straight-laced and logical. I was practically married to my work and research.

Those who know me well tended to describe me as cold and aloof. I wasn’t sure how well my personality would fare if matched to the kind of woman my fellow Vaznik have found as mates. The women who have joined us are all soft and lovely. They’re warm and friendly and although I’ve come to care for them as I do for any other member of my team, I didn’t know how I’d do with a mate of my own.

Would she understand the importance of my work? How vital my role was to maintaining the functioning order of the team? How much of my time would she demand I dedicate to her alone, and would she understand if I couldn’t give it to her?

I hadn’t even been matched yet and already I felt like a bundle of raw nerves thinking about it, which proved how much of an emotional mess I really was, despite the image of myself I projected.

I took a long, deep breath and leaned far back in my chair, removing the magnifying spectacles from my face and placing my head in my hands. Perhaps I needed a break from my research on the egg. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept or had anything to eat. I could feel my energy levels swiftly depleting.

I hated having a lack of knowledge about anything, so being stuck on what seemed like an unsolvable problem with the egg was driving me insane. My brain actually hurt from trying to figure out how to—both literally and figuratively—crack it.

But that was the issue, wasn’t it? I couldn’t just crack it and risk destroying the damn thing. Upper Command would have my hide for that, especially when it seemed to be such a huge deal for us to find it in the first place. And anyway, we’d risked our lives for it—I’d hang myself if I did anything to jeopardize it.

All I could do was keep running tests until we could deliver it to the High Council and have his research team take over, if that was even his plan. There seemed to be an awful lot they weren’t telling us about this so-called artifact, so it could be possible he already knew what it did and had a plan for it.

I didn’t allow myself to dwell on that thought, though. It would just drive me crazy, knowing someone else knew something I didn’t, especially if it made me waste my time.

I was just about to rise from my chair, intent on wandering to the dining hall to find something to satisfy the now-constant rumbling in my stomach, when the ship’s teleportation pad, nestled in the corner of my lab, hummed to life. Shocked, I flew to my feet and approached it swiftly, wondering what was going on, but nearly sure I already knew.

Just as I’d suspected, the coordinates read that whoever was coming through was on their way from Earth. This had happened four times already, so I knew what to expect. And since there were only five of us on this ship and everyone else had been matched already, it could only mean that if it was indeed a human woman coming through, she was my genetic match.

My palms instantly began to sweat at the thought of it. My heart started to race, pounding a rhythmic staccato deep beneath my ribs. I could scarcely breathe with the anticipation of her arrival—I had, after all, been waiting for this my entire life.

When she finally materialized through the pad, I couldn’t believe my eyes. She was a stunning beauty, slight, but with curves in all the right places, long dark hair that fell down to her waist, and the most brightly piercing blue eyes I’d ever seen. I couldn’t believe that this woman was meant to be mine.

I was more than ready for the next phase of my life to begin, and how fortunate I was for this beautiful creature to be part of it.

Addie

“What the...?”

I stumbled forward, narrowing my eyes.

Bright white lights flooded my field of vision, and I felt a sudden spell of dizziness. For a moment, I actually thought that I was going to throw up, but I took a deep breath and my stomach settled down. Dazed and confused, I raked one hand over my face. It only took me a couple of seconds before I felt like myself again. Even though teleportation wasn’t fun, it wasn’t as bad as some people had told me it would be.

“Where am I?” I muttered under my breath, taking in my surroundings as my eyes adjusted to the lights. I was standing in some sort of lab, but in no way did it resemble the one at the testing facility. The walls seemed to be made of naked steel, thick metallic beams going from the floor to the ceiling at regular intervals, and every piece of furniture was bolted down to the floor. I thought I was completely alone...except I wasn’t.

My breath caught in my throat as I noticed the hulking shape of a man by the corner of the lab. He had a white lab coat thrown over his massive shoulders, and he was standing beside some kind of incubator, the transparent glass reflecting the lights mounted overhead. Inside it was what appeared to be a giant egg, laser sensors projected all over its smooth surface.

Behind me, the teleportation pad hummed softly, and I looked back over my shoulder just in time to see it shut down. The faint glimmer of light radiating from the platform faded into nothingness, and a gentle chime indicated that the connection between the two teleporting platforms had been severed.

Goodbye, Earth, I thought. Hello, new place, wherever you might be.

When I finally glanced at the man once more, my heart tightened into a fist as I realized he was staring at me.

He had turned to fully face me, and his eyes were alight. His skin was of a deep blue, and there were golden tattoos peeking from underneath the collar of his black shirt. He had an imposing frame, one that made the lab coat he was wearing fit him awkwardly. He also had horns, long and smooth protrusions of bone with a gentle curvature, their tips as sharp as a knife. More than a scientist, he looked like a barbarian.

A very sexy barbarian.

I gave myself a slight nod, and then strode forward.

“Hello, I’m Addie,” I said, doing my best to keep a perfect posture. My back was straight, my chin was held high, and I felt a confident smile hanging on my lips. So far, I was doing a great job following my self-imposed script. “Am I right to believe that you’re my assigned mate?”

“Addie,” he repeated.

I wondered if he could understand a word of what I was saying. Translation chips were supposed to do the heavy lifting when it came to stuff like this, but I wasn’t exactly an expert when it came to communicating with alien species.

“I, huh, don’t know...” he continued, then took a step back and removed his lab coat. Before I could stop him, he pulled his shirt over his head. I hadn’t really expected for things to move this fast but, hey, I had volunteered for it.

“Can I at least know your name first?” I asked him, but I couldn’t even tell if he was paying any attention to what I was saying. He was too busy looking at his own body, his fingertips running over the intricate pattern someone had inked on the back of his shoulder. The ink glowed, the golden hue emanating from the thin lines so strong that I had to narrow my eyes again. Weird. I had never seen a tattoo glow before.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered to himself, and then he turned his attention back to me. His face was expressionless, but there was something in his eyes that gave me pause. There was curiosity there, but it was more than just that. “The name’s Javik.”

“Nice to meet you, Javik.”

“It seems like you are correct,” he continued, his deep voice enough for the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up on end. In an unconscious gesture, he brought one hand up and brushed his fingers over the glowing tattoo once more. “It appears that you are right. We are a match.”

“Alright,” I said, wondering if that glowing pattern on his shoulder had something to do with his sudden realization. I wanted to ask him about it, but I couldn’t find the right words. As it turned out, a shirtless hot alien made it almost impossible for me to remain focused. I had to make a conscious effort for my eyes not to wander down his body, but it didn’t take long before I caved in.

His pectorals emanated raw strength, and his wall of abs seemed to have been cut out of a marble block. Further down, the muscles below his abs cut into a perfect V. Each line and groove on his torso was a testament to perfection. My body immediately reacted to the sight of all that perfection, a pleasant warmth spreading from my belly throughout the rest of me.

Focus, damn it, I thought, and then snapped my eyes back to his face. Clearing my throat, I took one more step forward and offered him my hand. He looked down at it and knitted his eyebrows together. Eventually, he realized my intentions and grabbed my hand, his fingers so long that they brushed against the inside of my wrist. My imagination kicked into overdrive right away, and I wondered how it’d feel to have those large hands wandering all over my body, their warmth spreading onto my skin. I had thought I was making a sacrifice by coming here, but maybe I was being too pessimistic.

“Happy to make your acquaintance, Javik,” I said, returning his gaze as we shook hands. I made it a point of having a firm handshake, my posture never wavering as I did it. “Where am I?”

“You’re, huh, aboard the Calliope,” he replied. His speech was careful, almost as if he was a predator circling its prey, wondering from which angle it should strike. “It’s a Vaznik military vessel.”

It made sense. After all, this guy looked like he’d be right at home among a bunch of meatheads, never mind the fact that he also knew how to rock a lab coat.

“So, you’re some sort of scientist slash soldier?”

“I guess you could say that.” He glanced around the room, and then waved one hand at all the scientific paraphernalia surrounding us. There was all manner of screens with complicated readouts, workstations littered with vials, high-definition microscopes in every corner, and some other things I had no idea what they were. “If it can be done inside a lab, then I’m the guy for it. Aboard the Calliope, my role is that of science officer and ship’s doctor.”

“I see.” Not bad—he was brawny, but he still had brains. At least I wouldn’t have to wonder about the genetic quality of our offspring. Without a moment’s hesitation, I took one more step forward and closed the distance between us. We were so close now that you wouldn’t be able to fit a hand between our bodies. “I guess a lab is as good a place as any.”

He looked down at me, the lines on his forehead deepening. In order to return his gaze, I had to tilt my head up, almost as if I were standing at the base of a skyscraper while trying to figure where the penthouse floor was.

“What are you talking about?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” I asked him. “You’re my mate.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t follow.”

“We’re mates,” I insisted. “We have to consummate our relationship.”

“We have to...what?”

Javik

Yeah, great.

Addie was crazy.

“Hang on,” I said, taking a step back. I didn’t notice the standing desk behind me, and so I bumped hard against it. A few vials that had been resting there wobbled for a moment before tipping over, and then started rolling down its surface. One of them crashed to the floor and exploded into a dozen pieces of glass, causing her to jump back. “Seriously, Addie. What’s the hurry?”

“What do you mean by that?” Folding her arms over her chest, she remained frozen in place. Her forearms rested comfortably under her breasts, pushing them up slightly, and that was enough to draw my gaze. It was hard not to stare at curves designed with one purpose—to drive me crazy—and it was working. I even felt my fingers twitch involuntarily, my hands eager to feel the shape of her body.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I threw back at her, suddenly feeling annoyed. I had been so damn excited when I had heard the teleporter chime, but now...it was hard to know what to think. Even though she definitely met the biological parameters for an attractive mate—meaning that there was sin and temptation oozing out from her pores—I truly didn’t know what to think about her whole demeanor.

She had just materialized inside the lab, asked for my name, and was ready for intercourse. Intercourse. I fucking hated how that word sounded inside my head. It sounded so clinical and sterile, and it drained all the fun out of the equation. Sure, as a man of science, I was well-aware of the biomechanics of sexual relationships, but there was no way I was going to handle my mate as if I were solving some workbook problem.

“I don’t get it,” she said after a few seconds of silence. She sounded genuinely confused with my reaction. “Is there something wrong?”

She shook her head slightly as she spoke, and a few locks of her black hair tumbled over her sharp cheekbones. Somehow, that only made her even more beautiful than she already was. The contrast of her jet-black hair over her porcelain skin, the way her light blue eyes demanded all of my attention...yeah, she definitely met all the criteria I had for an attractive mate.

No, fuck that.

She blew my criteria out of the water.

“There’s nothing wrong,” I finally replied. “Look, you’ve just teleported here. Shouldn’t you take a seat? Most women can barely stand after they’ve done it for the first time. C’mon, here.” Turning around, I pushed a small lever at the base of a lab stool, and the magnetic base turned off. I picked it up and set it in front of her.

“Thank you.” Her words were polite but, once again, there was something clinical about the way she was talking to me. A mating bond was supposed to translate itself into passion and warmth, but our interaction had none of those elements. “I feel fine, though. Teleportation might be a bit disorienting at first, but it’s not as bad.”

“Huh. Is that so?”

“Sure,” she said.

She looked down at the stool one more time, and shrugged her shoulders with a barely noticeable gesture. Slowly, she lowered the seat a few inches and sat down on the cushioned pad.

“So...” Shifting her weight, she crossed her legs and stared at me. I just stared back at her, trying to read her expression and failing miserably at it. When I didn’t say anything, she blew a lock of hair away from her face and bit down on her lip. Her eyes shot down and, for a moment, she seemed hesitant. “You sure there’s nothing wrong with me? With the way I look?”

“What?” I felt my eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and I had to do a double take before I understood what she was saying. A problem with the way she looked? What in the galaxy could she be talking about? There was absolutely nothing wrong with the way she looked. In fact, it was pretty much the opposite. “You look just fine.”

“Then what’s the problem?” she insisted. Breaking eye contact with me, she looked around the lab, her eyes lingering on the door for a moment. “I’m sure there must be a way to lock that from the inside, right? We can have some privacy. Or maybe we can—”

“Calm down for a moment,” I cut her short. Grabbing one of the stools, I placed it right in front of her and sat on it. I took a deep breath, trying not to think of how stupid it’d be to have sex in a place that was supposed to remain a sterile environment, and only then did I continue. “Your name’s Addie, right? Why don’t you tell me where you’re from?”

“Yes, my name’s Addie.” She gave me a slight nod, but didn’t offer me an answer to my second question. My first thought was that she was a private person, and that she didn’t feel comfortable sharing details like that this early in our relationship, but considering that she had just offered to have sex with me...well, I had no idea what to make of her.

“You got selected during the lottery, right?” I asked.

Maybe she thought I was some kind of space barbarian that would take advantage of her, and so she had decided the best strategy would be to surrender herself willingly. That had to be it. After all, it couldn’t be easy to be dragged out of one’s home, be forced to take a genetic test, and then sent to the other side of the galaxy without having any say.

“I volunteered, actually.” And, just like that, my theory went down the drain. “I got assigned to you back at the lab, sent here, and now I’m ready to fulfill my side of the contract. Really, that’s all there is to it. You don’t need to worry about me. I know what this situation is supposed to entail, and I’m ready for it.”

For a moment, I actually thought I was talking to one of those shark-eyed lawyers. The words ‘assigned’ and ‘contract’ made the whole affair feel like some kind of legal exercise, and I really didn’t feel comfortable with it. Sure, most guys would be happy to have a woman as hot as Addie willing to throw herself into their arms like this, but that just wasn’t my style.

“You’re telling me that you’re just here to fulfill your contractual obligations?” I asked her, and felt a wave of self-loathing wash over me. Why the hell was I the one talking like a lawyer now? Whoever Addie was, she was having a weird effect on me, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it. “Nothing more, nothing less?”

“Sure,” she replied in that neutral tone of hers. My wording didn’t seem to bother or frustrate her. “What else would I be doing here? The lab has indicated that we’re a genetic match, and so they’ve sent me here to mate with you. We mate, I have the baby, my family gets paid. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

My first thought was ‘holy shit’. It was hard to believe, but this woman wasn’t just messing with me. She had actually bought into the bullshit she was spouting. She didn’t look at me as her mate, but as a numbered item part of a contractual obligation.

“What do you think?” Annoyed, I rose to my feet and pushed the stool to the side. I turned my back to her and, placing my hands on the standing table, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I had to keep my cool. “Listen, this whole ‘mate’ thing...‘mate’ isn’t just something that we’re supposed to do. It’s something that we are.”

My explanation didn’t seem to impress her.

Her neutral expression slowly turned into one of disbelief, and I knew I was in trouble once she lowered her head and sighed. It felt like I was having my schoolteacher be disappointed over my low score on the weekly quiz.

“Is there a difference?” she asked, and the worrying part was that she sounded genuine. There was no snarkiness in her tone, just mild frustration. “We are mates, I get it, but we still have to do something, right? I mean, it’s all semantics. Maybe we should just stop using our words and get it done.”

Oh, man.

My mating tattoo had lit up, so there was no doubt about it—Addie was my mate. Thing was, if I had a ‘this female is gonna be trouble’ tattoo on my body, I was pretty sure that it would be glowing, too.

Addie

To say I didn’t get this guy would be putting it mildly.

Most men would be happy to rip the clothes off my body and have a quick romp, but Javik didn’t seem particularly interested. Sure, his eyes betrayed the fact that he wasn’t indifferent to me, and I had noticed him staring at my breasts before, but his closed-off demeanor was doing a pretty good job at shooting down my advances. Now that was something I definitely hadn’t been expecting.

Back in town, most of the girls of testing age whispered between themselves about how lust-crazed the aliens must be, and they were all terrified.

They had convinced themselves that their potential mates would only want their bodies, but they never really considered how wrong they could be.

Maybe I was just like them: a foolish girl out of her depth, nothing but false expectations to keep her afloat.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Javik continued, pacing around the length of the lab like a caged tiger. He sounded frustrated, if not angry. “We can’t just stop ‘using our words’ and ‘get it done’.” He said it with air-quotes, and his expression would have been comical if it weren’t for the fact that this entire conversation was going off the rails.

“What are we supposed to do then?” I asked. “I mean, my contract was pretty specific.”

“Forget about that damn contract for a moment.” He crossed his arms abruptly, and the muscles on his shoulders rippled in such a way that I felt my insides clench. Dear God, he really was massive.

Unable to stop myself, I snuck a glance at his crotch, my heart tightening into a fist as I imagined what he could be hiding between his legs. Judging by how well-built he was, I was pretty sure I was in for a surprise. A very large surprise.

“Can’t we just have a normal conversation? Get to know each other? If we’re going to share a life, then I think that—”

“Wow, slow down,” I said and, before I even knew what I was doing, I shot up to my feet. Did he really say we were going to share a life? There was nothing about that in the contract, and I sure as hell hadn’t signed up for a wedding, a house with a picket fence on some weird-ass planet, and a mutt running around happily with a name tag around his neck. The entire thing was supposed to be about sex and procreation, not some freaking romantic fantasy.

“I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? We should get to know each other.”

“I mean, sure, yeah.” Clearing my throat, I ran one hand through my hair as I tried to organize my thoughts into a coherent and kind argument. He seemed interested in more than just sex, and I didn’t want to hurt him. “Thing is, I didn’t come here to find a husband. I didn’t volunteer because I was looking for love and adventure.”

“Then why exactly did you volunteer?” he asked. By now, mild frustration had given way to raw exasperation, his voice dipping down into a half-growl. He was as confused with the entire situation as I was.

Well, at least we had that in common.

“Look, it doesn’t matter why I volunteered,” I replied, not interested in telling him all about the dirty details of my life back on Earth. That was private. I had nothing against him, but I hadn’t come here to pour my heart out to a stranger. “What matters is that I’m standing right here.”

I ran my tongue over my lips and took a step forward. I stood right in front of him, forcing him to stop his frenetic pacing, and reached for him with one open hand. I laid it on his naked chest, right above his heart, and offered him the most heart-warming smile I could conjure.

That seemed to help.

He stopped moving, his breathing became deeper, and his entire body tensed up with anticipation. Even his heartbeat seemed to increase. No matter what he said, he was clearly interested in my touch. Taking that as an encouraging development, I allowed my hand to wander down his naked torso, my fingertips going over the hard ridges of his abs.

“Don’t.” Moving fast, he wrapped his fingers around my wrist, stopping me from going further down. Unable to control myself, I closed my eyes and let out a heavy sigh. What a damn shame.

“You’re making it harder than it should be.” Pulling my hand free, I placed it on my hip. “This could be fun, you know? You’re not bad looking, and you’re clearly attracted to me. Why keep on beating around the bush? Just let it happen.”

“Have you listened to a single word that I’ve said?”

“I have,” I replied. “And I think you’re being unreasonable.”

“I’m being unreasonable?”

“Stop thinking of me as your mate,” I continued. “Just think of me as a woman with whom you can have some fun. Trust me, I’ll get out of your hair once you get me pregnant. And if you’re worried about the child, you don’t have to. I’ll do my best to ensure that—”

“Wait,” he interrupted me. “Did you volunteer because you wanted a kid? Is that it?”

“Of course not.”

“Then...” he trailed off, his voice turning into a low whisper, and then his eyebrows shot up as he connected the dots. “You volunteered because you wanted the money.”

I didn’t say a thing.

To be honest, the way he worded it kinda hurt. The way he had said it, money sounded like a dirty word. Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong—I had volunteered because of the money—but it wasn’t because I wanted it. I needed it. I would have never sold myself like this on a whim, or out of pure greed.

Maybe realizing what I was feeling, he cleared his throat.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“No, you’re right.” Pursing my lips, I locked my eyes on his. “I did it because of the money. Now, can we get it over with?”

He fell silent.

Instead, he just sat back down and looked straight ahead, his eyes vacant. I didn’t know what the hell he was thinking about, but I could almost see the gears turning inside his head. When he finally looked back at me, his thoughts became as clear as the blue sky. He wasn’t angry, nor was he frustrated. Instead, he was disappointed.

“You realize that to find your genetic match is like finding a needle in an asteroid belt, don’t you?” He raked one hand over his face, then shook his head. Grabbing his shirt from the floor, he put it back on. A part of me felt disappointed about that, now that I had grown accustomed to how devilishly amazing he looked when bare-chested. “Most people will never get the chance to meet their mates, Addie. The universe has given you a good hand for you to play, and all you can think about is money. Money isn’t everything.”

Ah, here we go, I thought.

I should’ve seen it coming, really.

He was resorting to that old saying because he had never lacked for anything. How would we ever see eye-to-eye when we were clearly so different? Whoever had come up with all this genetic match concept might have made a miscalculation somewhere in the process. Maybe genetics weren’t the holy-grail of finding your mate, after all.

Either way, I wasn’t about to give up on him. I had stepped into that teleportation platform with a purpose, and I wouldn’t leave this before seeing it through. No matter what happened, I was hell-bent on following the contract.

Javik

I was going crazy.

Addie refused to listen, and it didn’t matter what I tried telling her. She was a woman on a mission. Any other occasion and I would have used that as a compliment, but that wasn’t the case here. Her mission was, after all, the stupidest thing anyone could have ever come up with.

Putting some distance between us, I began to get busy about the room. She remained on her seat, watching me work, and didn’t say a word. Clearly, my last words had hurt her. That wasn’t my purpose, and I wouldn’t mind apologizing, but I just didn’t know how to deal with her anymore.

Right then, all I wanted to do was leave the lab and head into the dining hall. I needed a drink and, more than just that, I needed some male company. Maybe the guys would have some insight about this screwed-up situation. After all, the four remaining members of the Calliope’s crew had all been designated mates like this, and they seemed to be doing just fine. Maybe they were doing something I hadn’t noticed before.

I made a mental note to talk with Derrix—I knew that he had struggled with Wiley at first—then swept the broken glass into the recycler. One of the screens beside the workstation where I had the artifact beeped, announcing that the latest structural analysis had been completed, but I didn’t even glance at it. It would have been impossible to focus with such an awkward atmosphere in the room. As it was, my priority was to smooth things out with Addie.

“Alright, we might have started this on the wrong foot.” I stood before her, hands on my hips, and took a moment to think of my next words. I didn’t want to aggravate her, or make her feel uncomfortable. She didn’t care for me, that much was obvious, and I didn’t want to antagonize her even more.

“All I’m saying is that you are a beautiful woman, and that you seem very interesting.” I patted my shoulder with one hand, and then smiled. “That glowing thing you saw before is a mating tattoo. It was only meant to start glowing once I found my mate. That means there’s a connection between the two of us. I just think it’d be a shame to ignore that.”

“Yes, there’s a connection,” she said, and I felt my body relax. Of course, her next words ruined it. “That’s what the genetic match is there for. Something in our genetic makeup seems to be aligned, and that means that we have what it takes to produce healthy offspring. That’s the whole point of the treaty Earth signed, isn’t it? So far, it seems to be working. You guys can pass on your genes, and we get paid for it.” Finally, she returned my smile. “It’s simple.”

“Simple,” I repeated after her, the word leaving a foul taste in my mouth. This entire exercise should be about strengthening two different individuals through a mating bond, not about pimping out the Earth women. The entire concept was ridiculous. “Really, I don’t get it. If you really think there’s nothing more to it, why would you sign up for it? I mean, sure, the pay must be fine, but...”

Sighing, I just shook my head. To the side, the analysis monitor beeped once more, reminding me that the results were ready. Not knowing how to continue the conversation with Addie, I decided to take a mental break and made my way toward the workstation. There, I brought up the results on the screen.

The structural analysis of the artifact hadn’t revealed anything out of the norm, and so I instructed the terminal to perform a radiation test. I was running through the different parameters, setting up the test conditions, when I felt Addie come up behind me.

“Are you just going to ignore me?” she asked.

I suddenly felt embarrassed. She wasn’t being aggressive, nor was she trying to pick a fight. Besides, she didn’t even have an idea of where she was. If I just kept on working, she would have to roam the Calliope’s corridors all by herself. I couldn’t do that to her.

“Is there something I can do? To speed things up, I mean.”

I didn’t like the way she wanted to ‘speed up’ things, but I figured it was worth a try.

“What about dinner?” I asked. “I’m not exactly a good cook, but I can whip something up later today. I know a few human dishes that I think you’d enjoy, and I—”

“Dinner sounds nice,” she interrupted me, “but I really don’t want to wait until then.”

“What do you mean you don’t want to wait?”

“I mean, we could take care of things right now,” she said, a lull to her voice as she adopted a teasing tone. Immediately, my heart leaped inside my chest. When she laid her hand on my forearm, her delicate fingers caressing my skin, it took a very conscious effort not to grab her. It was what she wanted, sure, but I didn’t want to play that game. There had to be more to being mates than just sex.

Looking away from her, I tried to calm down. If I snapped at her, things would get nowhere.

I had to be strategic about things.

“Alright, what do you say I give you a tour of the Calliope?” I said. “You’ve only seen the lab, but there’s more to this ship than these four walls. We’ll take a walk as I show you around, and we can figure out a place for you to sleep in. What do you say to that? We can have a conversation while we do that.”

“We’ve been having a conversation,” she said, rolling her eyes in despair. Running both hands through her hair, she closed her eyes and took one long, deep breath. She was as exasperated with the whole thing as I was, and it showed. I still didn’t know her that well, but I was pretty sure she was close to the breaking point. “Besides, I don’t really need a place to stay for the long term. No need to worry about finding me a room for now, I’ll be sleeping with you, won’t I?” Her smile flickered. “All I want is for you to put a baby inside me. That’s it.”

Don’t engage, I thought to myself, using whatever remained of my willpower to keep my cool. Think of something positive to say. It was hard—the more we talked, the more I felt that I was going insane. Soon enough, I’d be the one past my own breaking point.

“Did you know anything about the Mahdfel before you got here?” I asked, trying to regain some control of the conversation. “Was there anything about us that you liked? I mean, you must’ve liked something, since you didn’t mind volunteering.”

“You’re stalling, aren’t you?” She didn’t sound happy. At all. “You’re just trying to buy time. Why’s that?” I didn’t even know if she was talking to me or to herself. Suddenly, though, her jaw dropped and her eyes widened. “Oh my God...don’t tell me that you...” she trailed off, and then bit on her bottom lip.

“That I what?”

Hesitantly, she raised one close fist, and then lifted her index finger, taking her time as she rolled it up. “You can’t...perform.” She said it in a deadpan tone, her angry and frustrated expression from before slowly turning into one of compassion. “God, I’ve been such an ass. I didn’t know that you couldn’t get it—”

“I can get it up just fine,” I cut her short more abruptly than I had intended. Still, what else could I do? She was driving me up the wall, and the situation just kept on getting more and more ridiculous with each passing minute.

“Look, it’s fine,” she continued, ignoring what I had just said. “You don’t need to be ashamed of that. It happens.”

“I’m not—”

“Maybe I can help you with that.” Offering me a devilish smile, she ran her tongue along her lips in a lustful manner. “Most men like very specific things. Maybe if I knew what buttons I should push...” I was far too stunned to say a thing. As she drew closer, one of her hands back on my chest, I simply held my breath as boiling blood rushed through my veins. “Do you want me to fight a little? Or be on my knees? Or maybe I could—”

“Just give it a rest, woman,” I finally snapped, the adrenaline coursing through me making it hard to think straight. One more second of her teasing and I would have gotten so hard that I’d ruin my pants for good.

As lust took over my thoughts, I found myself on the verge of giving in. Why torture myself when the most attractive woman I had ever seen was dying for a piece of me? In a way, she was right. We could just do it and be done with it. I sure as hell wouldn’t mind it.

Get your shit together, a single thought cut through the fog in my mind. She’s supposed to be your mate, not a slab of meat.

Man, what a disaster.

Addie

Maybe it was time to change tactics.

Javik’s hesitance was baffling, but I didn’t think my irritation would help turn him to my way of thinking. I smiled at him, and decided if honey didn’t work to catch my fly, I’d use BS instead.

“So, how about that tour?” I asked, brightening my voice. “I’m really interested in seeing the ship.”

No, I really wasn’t. But he didn’t have to know that. And if I could get him to relax and lower his guard . . . then maybe I could make some headway.

Javik nodded, his stiff expression easing. “You’ll probably want to meet the other women.”

I suppressed a grimace. “Yeah, absolutely. Girl . . . talk, and all that.”

If there was anything worse than having to take a tour of the ship when I was itching to get things on the road, it was having to make nice with a bunch of women I didn’t know. Women could be judgmental, and I didn’t know if I could keep up a charade of being interested in happily ever after like Javik seemed to want.

It was probably best I didn’t even try. If I slipped up, and they learned I was only in it for the money . . .well, a group of mean girls could make what little time I was planning on spending here unbearable. I sighed to myself. That was an inevitability I would just have to brace myself for.

“This way,” Javik said. “We’ll head to the dining hall. You’re probably hungry, right?”

“I could eat. My last meal was a slice of old bread.”

He stopped and turned to look at me. “What?”

I frowned up at him, wondering why he drew his eyebrows together in a scowl. “What do you mean, what?”

“You said your last meal was a slice of old bread. Why didn’t you tell me?” He nearly snapped the words. “How long ago was it?”

“I don’t know, eight hours?” On cue, my stomach rumbled. I shrugged, well past the point of being embarrassed by my poverty.

He grabbed my wrist, muttering something under his breath. I didn’t catch the words because the touch of his fingers on my skin jolted through my arm. The only person I ever touched was my brother, and I wouldn’t be able to see him for months. Hopefully, just months. I swallowed. The faster I seduced Javik, got pregnant, and fulfilled the contract, the faster I could get home.

“Slow down,” I said when he picked up the pace. “Your legs are longer.”

He slowed. “Sorry.”

“Why are you so upset?”

“You’re my mate. And you’re hungry.”

It slowly dawned on me what this was—and it made me uncomfortable. He cared, at least on an instinctive level, which I guess I understood since we were a match and that seemed to mean something to Javik. But I didn’t want him to care, not really. Just enough to do the deed, not enough to try and keep me.

“It’s okay,” I said, trying to reassure him. “It’s not the first time. No big deal.”

That didn’t help at all. His shoulders tensed and he said nothing else as we walked through narrow, utilitarian corridors and finally entered a room with bolted down metal tables and chairs.

“This is the dining hall,” he said, waving his free hand. “Sit.”

“This is your idea of a tour?” I teased, putting a hand on my hip and flashing him a flirty smile. “Okay, so show me how everything works. Since you want to fatten me up and everything.”

He frowned at me, then nodded as if I made sense. Of course I made sense. Javik showed me how to use the basic appliances, both for preparing food and sanitizing dishes. I stared at the digital menu, at all the selections, my eyes wide.

“You have so much food to choose from,” I said.

Javik blinked at me, looking taken aback. “This is nothing. Military rations.”

“Yeah, but . . .” I trailed off. Ok, so just because I was used to bread, peanut butter, and dried beans didn’t mean that was how the rest of the galaxy ate.

But Javik was looking at me with a peculiar expression. “You . . .” he stopped. I waited patiently as he began again. “You—” then he shook his head. “Never mind.”

I wondered what he’d been about to say, but I didn’t press, instead selecting a meal. “I guess this is our first date.”

Javik choked on the cup of water he’d been drinking. When he was done wheezing, he said, “You aren’t hard to please.”

We chose a table and chairs. I tried to smile, but couldn’t quite dredge one up. “I just know what matters, is all. And I don’t have unrealistic expectations.”

I almost grimaced at myself. I was supposed to be seducing him. Upbeat, flirty, all that stuff. And here I was being a downer. I sat up straighter in my chair and dug into my meal, smiling at him again, determined to change the subject to something happy.

Something that would get him in the mood.

Javik

I don’t think Addie realized how much information she’d revealed in the last few minutes.

I studied her across the table as she dug into the rations like it was the finest meal from the most expensive restaurant in the galaxy. Suddenly, the slenderness of her alluring form took on a new significance. What kind of existence had she come from if her last meal before the biggest day of her life had been a slice of old bread? She’d shrugged off my astonishment with an indifferent, almost impatient look, as if starving was a matter of course.

“Would you like another one?” I asked when she finished. I began calculating her daily macronutrient needs and determined the meal she’d just eaten wouldn’t be sufficient.

She was about to respond when the door slid open, revealing the laughing voices of at least two females. I looked over my shoulder as Coralie and Wiley entered the room, then halted.

“Oh shit!” Wiley exclaimed. “Another one.”

I glanced at Addie just in time to see a shadow cross her face, and her lips tighten before she relaxed into a big, bright smile. I frowned. Something about that smile was off.

Coralie was staring at me with an exasperated look, one hand creeping up to her hip. “Really, Javik? When were you going to tell us?”

“Oh. Well, I—”

“Never mind.” She rolled her eyes and sashayed forward, giving Addie a bright smile.

“I’ll go get the others,” Wiley said, then darted out.

“There are more?” Addie asked.

Her voice was flat. I narrowed my eyes. Now I knew something was wrong, but until I got her alone again, I couldn’t ask.

Coralie eyed her sideways. “Yes. We’re a big, happy family. I’m Coralie, by the way. The girl who just left is Wiley.”

“Addie.”

“How long have you been here?”

“A few minutes.”

Coralie’s expression cleared. “Oh. You must be in shock.” She cast me an accusing look. “Don’t mind Javik. None of the guys quite know what to do with us at first.” She stopped, then her cheeks colored. “Well.”

Addie made no attempt to extend the conversation, just sat there. I watched her face and saw it thaw into something if not quite friendly, at least not so closed off. She seemed to shake off whatever dark mood had overcome her, and sat up straighter, giving Coralie a small smile.

The other women entered the room minutes later and surrounded Addie, filling the air with laughter, chattering and soon, friendly arguments. Wiley wanted to debrief her, Coralie wanted to measure her for clothing since, like some of the others, she’d arrived with nothing but the dress on her back and a small pack.

“I bet this is all a shock,” Lila said, echoing Coralie’s other words.

“Not really,” Addie said. “I knew I was coming.”

“You volunteered too?” Wiley asked, leaning forward. “So did I. Adventure! Glory! The great outdoors . . . well, not so much lately.”

Addie was staring at her like she was crazy. “Adventure? No, no, I don’t plan on staying. I just want to fulfill the contract and go home.”

Silence descended. “Well, um, that’s okay, too,” Wiley said.

“But why?” Ferne asked, eyebrows coming together. “Why did you volunteer?”

I felt defensive on Addie’s behalf. It wasn’t their business, and they were interrogating her.

Addie looked baffled. “For the money. Why else? I mean, I suppose some people might volunteer for fun.” She stopped and scratched her head as if confused at such a motivation.

Coralie’s eyes widened, and she coughed. “Well, I can’t say I blame anyone who wants to be rich.”

“I don’t need to be rich. I just need to have some money.”

With that flat statement, my patience evaporated. Addie didn’t owe anyone an explanation—even though I planned to question her later. I needed to understand her better, and the clues I was picking up let me know that whatever her monetary motivations, it couldn’t be purely mercenary. Maybe she was in some kind of trouble.

“Addie, are you done eating?”

Just then, Rekker and Derrix walked in and stopped. “Well, damn me,” Rekker said. “Another one.”

“Your mate?” Derrix asked, a surprised question in his voice. He sounded surprised, if not confused.

“We heard.”

“Yeah, Wiley was shouting the news all through the ship.”

“Huh, guys,” I said. “This is Addie, my mate. Addie, this is the Calliope’s crew.”

Soon everyone was talking. After a time, Addie stood and turned to me. “I’m tired. Is there some place I can rest? We’re sharing a room, right?”

Someone coughed.

I wouldn’t say no in front of the crew, even though I wanted to explain why that was a bad idea. Just because I wanted to understand her better didn’t mean I was going to let her try and seduce me again. Not until I’d changed her mind about the mate-and-pay scenario.

But I ushered her out and my feet led to my cabin rather than an empty one. She seemed like she needed the peace and quiet, the set of her shoulders was tense.

“Your crew asks a lot of questions, don’t they?” she said as we walked. “Real chatty.”

“I’m the last one to be matched,” I said as neutrally as possible. “And the women are glad they aren’t alone. You didn’t have to mention you were here for the money, though.”

“Mate and pay,” she shrugged. “I’m not ashamed. It doesn’t look like the tall blonde one has seen a hard day’s work in her entire life. I’ve brushed up against that type.”

I frowned. “Coralie? She pulls her weight.” Now, anyway.

“If you say so.”

Stopping in front of the door to my cabin, I sighed. “Here it is. We pitched tents outdoors on our last assignment. You just missed that great fun by a few weeks.”

“Excellent timing.” She slipped inside when the door opened and looked around.

I watched as the stiffness around her eyes softened, and her shoulders drooped a bit. “I can bring some snacks in here if you’re still hungry.”

Addie stepped forward, closing the small distance between us. She looked up with another flirtatious smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. I wanted to run my fingers through her hair, rub the weariness off her face.

“You look tired,” I said softly. “You don’t have to seduce me tonight.”

She sighed. “I do. There’s not much choice.”

I didn’t move as she twined her arms around my neck. My jaw clenched, my body reacting even though I really, really wished it wouldn’t.

Resentful of how she affected me, and seemed so unaffected herself, I lashed out. “There’s always a choice. There’s a choice not to sell yourself. There’s a choice not to make a baby and dump it off and walk away.”

Addie jerked away, her arms leaving me bereft as she stepped back. Her eyes widened in outrage, and I braced myself.

“What do you know about it?” she demanded. “Here you are on your ship, no family, no one to look after but yourself.”

I bit back a growl. “That isn’t true.”

She glared. “Isn’t it? You’re surrounded by people who can all take care of themselves. But what if they couldn’t? What if you were the only person they could depend on? What would you do for them if that was the case?”

I opened my mouth to retort, and her words sunk in. I was not an emotional person, or one given to lashing out. This whole situation had me off balance and not thinking logically. I already knew there was more to Addie than met the eye. If I wanted any chance at convincing her to see things my way, insulting her and getting angry that she’d come to me with her own agenda wouldn’t do any good.

“I would do anything for them,” I said. “You’re right. I can’t judge whatever decision you’ve made based on the responsibilities you have.” I waited, gave her time to process my words. “But I can help you if you let me in. I don’t know anything about you.”

Finally, she looked away, a little deflated. “There’s nothing to know. I didn’t realize my mate would make things so complicated,” she added in a mutter.

“See, we have something in common.” I shook my head at her so she’d know I wasn’t trying to argue. “Let’s have a drink. It’s been a long cycle.”

Addie

Sitting in the dining hall with all those chirpy, well-fed pretty women, I’d tried not to look resentful. Bitter wasn’t attractive, and I needed Javik attracted. I’d struggled, though. The curly-haired one—Wiley, right—thought we had so much in common. After all, she’d volunteered too. I suppressed an eyeroll and congratulated myself for not sneering. What kind of blessed life did she leave that her only concern in the world was whether she was sufficiently entertained after her belly was full?

Thinking of my brother waiting for me, I settled even deeper into my determination to execute the plan. Have the baby, get the money. No more last suppers of moldy bread. No more wondering day to day how we would survive.

“Here,” Javik said, handing me a cup with clear liquid. His look was inscrutable, and the feeling of annoyance I’d gotten from him earlier was gone. In fact, he looked thoughtful.

“The women here all seem to get along,” he said.

I took a sip of the liquid and coughed. “I’m sure they do.”

“They’ll help outfit you and things like that.”

“Great.”

Javik crouched at my feet, putting a hand on my knee. “I was a little hard on you. I apologize.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“You’re right, I can’t judge you. I want to know about you, though. Like I said.”

I tried to dredge up some coyness. “All you need to know is that I’m 36-28-38.”

My joke obviously fell flat. Javik frowned, perplexed. And, okay, I had no idea what my measurements were, but I thought it was funny.

“Okay,” he said, giving me an odd look. “That’s . . . good to know.”

My head felt light, airy. “What is this stuff?” It was cool, sweet, and potent.

His lips curved in a smug smile. “Something we harvested from our last on-planet mission. The ladies like it.”

The ladies, the ladies. Ugh. He seemed to expect me to make friends. Fine. If that would make him like me better, I would.

“My brother would like it,” I said without thinking.

Javik froze. “Your brother?”

I frowned into the cup, then took another long sip. “Yes. He’d like the meal I just had, too. And the seconds.” Guilt rubbed my nose in the fact that I’d just filled my stomach to bursting. What was my brother eating right now? I closed my eyes, sick.

“Addie?” Javik sounded alarmed.

“I’m fine.” I blinked rapidly, then opened my eyes. “I’m just peachy.”

“Who is at home with your brother?”

I snorted and shoved the glass at him. “No one. More. Stuff’s good.”

“Ah . . . we’re on rations. Sorry.” He hesitated, then touched my knee lightly. “Will he be okay?”

I didn’t pretend to misunderstand. I shrugged, then smiled determinedly, feeling my mood sink. I couldn’t afford to be a downer. I had a mission, after all. I waved the cup. “Just one more? Please?”

He nodded, and when I sipped, the universe got fuzzy around the edges.

Javik stood, looking down at me. “Why don’t we get you into bed?”

* * *

Whatever that stuff was, I paid for it when I awoke. The cabin filled with a soft, simulated morning light. I dragged myself off the bunk, saw a stack of clothing on a chair that I assumed was for me, and after I cleaned up, got dressed. The clothes would need work—they did nothing for my agenda.

As I finished grooming, a chime sounded on the door. “Enter.”

It slid open to reveal the women. All of them.

“We come bearing breakfast,” Ferne said cheerfully, holding up a platter overflowing with food.

They all entered without another signal from me and were soon chattering and passing out breakfast.

A black feathered snake thing unwound from around Lila’s shoulders, and I shrunk back.

“Hey, it’s just Oby.” Wiley said. “Think of her more as a kitten than a snake.”

It took a while, but eventually I had a puddle of purring darkness melted across my lap as I scratched behind where I guessed Oby’s ears were.

“So, we noticed you fled in panic last night,” Wiley said with a friendly smile. “Sorry about that.”

“We understand how the first days can be,” Lila added, “getting acclimated to your new life, getting to know your mate . . .”

It wasn’t that I didn’t like the women, I just didn’t want to make friends. I wasn’t here for emotional attachments. Not when I knew I was leaving as soon as the contract was fulfilled. But I was starting to realize they might not let me keep my distance. If I had an agenda, so did they.

“We thought we’d get you outfitted,” Coralie said, nodding at the uniform I had on. They all wore similar clothing, pants and shirts in neutral shades. Nothing fancy. Certainly not sexy.

I sat in the chair in Javik’s room. I’d collapsed in his bunk last night and, to my chagrin, he’d stretched out on the floor. Not that I would have been useful for much, not after two cups of that cactus juice.

“Look,” I said, deciding honesty was the best course, “I don’t plan on being here long. You don’t have to go out of your way for me.”

“You’ll be here at least nine months,” Lila said dryly. “Maybe longer, since we’re not entirely sure how a Vaznik human gestation works.’

They began to get comfortable, stretching out on the floor, the bunk, anywhere there was space. I watched in amazement. This easy, inclusive camaraderie was something I’d never experienced before. But I guess it’s easy to make friends when you don’t have to worry about basic survival.

“Addie?” Wiley prompted. “You said you volunteered. Why?”

I realized I’d been staring at the wall, thinking, and shook my head. “Mate and pay? You know?”

“Yeah, you mentioned,” Ferne said. “We figured there was more to the story. You don’t look mercenary.”

Coralie snorted. “What does mercenary look like? Some of the prettiest girls I knew were the most money-grubbing bitches ever. Talk about gold diggers.”

I gave Coralie a look. I’d pinned her right—probably a former socialite that got caught up in the system. Definitely from money.

“No one volunteers to be matched, have a baby, and leave, all for the money if it’s just about being rich,” Ferne said quietly. “Because that’s what the contract says we all have to do. Have a baby. But, Addie, if you aren’t planning on staying, and you’re here for the money . . . were you really going to leave the baby?”

The women were all staring at me now, as if that part had just occurred to them. “I don’t really have a choice.” I didn’t know why I felt like explaining myself to them. Maybe because the way Ferne said it, it was starting to hit home what I had to do. I’d been so focused on the goal, so focused on getting back home to my brother. “I have someone at home I’m taking care of who needs me, like in a bad way. I have to get back to him.”

Coralie’s eyes widened in sudden horror. “OMG, are you married?”

“What? No! I have a brother. Not a husband. Married women can’t be matched.”

“Of course not,” she said, calming down. Then she smiled sheepishly. “My mind just went straight to the drama. Sorry.”

“He’s by himself?” Wiley asked, sympathy in her voice. “I can see how that must be tough.”

“We all left family behind,” Lila added.

I looked down, not wanting to continue the conversation.

“But, Addie . . . you can’t just walk away from a match. You and Javik are mated.” Ferne looked worried. “How are you going to leave him, and your baby?”

I tensed. “I said there’s no choice.”

She pursed her lips. “There’s always a choice. If we put our heads together, we can come up with something.”

“We always talk about heading to Earth for a visit,” Coralie said. “We could check in on your brother, Addie, make sure he got the money and was comfortable. He’s not a child, is he?”

“No.”

“That’s something, at least.” She sighed. “These situations are tough, I know, but I just think you should prepare yourself for the possibility that once you become . . . used . . . to Javik, you won’t want to leave him.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, saying nothing. They were trying to talk me out of my plan, but I couldn’t lose sight of the goal even if in the back of my mind there was planted the tiniest seed of doubt.

“Everything will be okay,” Ferne said.

I believed her. I wouldn’t allow anything but okay.

* * *

It had been three days, and Javik was playing hard to get.

From everything we’d been told about our matches, nothing had prepared me for the eventuality that I would have to hunt down my mate and seduce him, that he would actively resist, and sometimes even avoid me.

We spent time together. He finished my tour, and we ate together in the evenings and sometimes lunch, as well. But as soon as I tried to get close, he would flee.

The women thought it was hilarious. “And I thought my mate was hard to get!” Wiley laughed. “It took me days to wear him down. Don’t worry, Javik will come around eventually. They literally can’t help themselves.”

“This is going to require supernatural intervention,” I said darkly. “Something happening where he’ll have no choice but to stay close to me.”

“Knock on wood,” Wiley said.

“But she’s talking about just fulfilling the contract,” Coralie pointed out. “I doubt he wants to wind up a single dad whose mate left him with a newborn.”

They sobered and looked at me. I suppressed a sigh, shifting in my seat uncomfortably. The more they talked about it, the less I was able to compartmentalize what I’d come here to do. Deep down, I knew it made no sense . . . leave my child to save my brother? It always came down to that. But, really, what else was there to do? I couldn’t just abandon my brother.

“She might not want to leave him, either,” Ferne said in a practical tone. “I think the best thing we can do is help her get her man.”

Coralie eyed me up and down. “Not in that outfit.”

I agreed. The dress I’d arrived in had been washed and put away. “I can put the dress on.”

“A romantic dinner in your quarters,” Lila declared. “Wine, dim lights.”

“No talk of leaving,” Wiley added with a smirk. “Tell him more about his eyes.”

“Ha,” I said, then sighed. “I’ll try anything about now. But not in his quarters, his guard will be up. In the lab, maybe. We’ll still have privacy, but it will be on his turf.”

“We should wait another day or two,” Lila said. “Let him get good and frustrated.”

“Good thinking,” Ferne said, rubbing her hands. “Let’s get started planning, ladies.”

Javik

I realized soon enough that the pretext Wiley had used to lure me from my lab was false. I halted. She turned and looked at me, eyes wide and innocent.

“Wiley, what are you up to?” I asked. Addie had been suspiciously absent the entire day, but I’d known she was spending time with the other women so hadn’t thought much of it. In fact, I’d been pleased.

She grimaced. “Ah, shit. I told them you weren’t dumb.”

“Thanks.”

“See, the thing is, I need you to stay away from your lab for about thirty minutes. So, can you just play along?”

I frowned. “Why would you . . . is this to do with Addie?”

She rolled her eyes. “What else? Just play along, okay?”

Sighing, resigned, I let her lead me to the dining hall. “I figured it was only a matter of time before the women intervened.”

“Ha. And we have intervened, big time.”

Running through the scenarios in my mind, it didn’t take much to deduce that this was another attempt to seduce me. Except this time, Addie had help. On one hand—alarming. On the other hand, the fact that she had enlisted the women indicated a certain amount of relationship building which could only bode well. The more Addie developed emotional ties to the ship’s people, the easier it would be to talk her into changing her plans to leave me.

Because one thing was for certain—I was running out of time, barely hanging onto my willpower. How much longer could I keep her at arm’s length? Not much. So, if the jaws of her trap sprung and caught us both, all the better.

Coralie poked her head in the room and looked at Wiley with wide eyes. “Oh, hey, Javik.”

I stared at her.

She cleared her throat. “Um, I think Addie was looking for you. I saw her in the lab.”

I stood, grimacing at them. “I guess I will go see what she wants.”

“Great, have fun. I mean, you do that.”

Shaking my head, I left the women whispering together and headed to my lab. I hoped they hadn’t rearranged my supplies or anything important.

The lab door slid open, revealing Addie in the dress and sweater she’d been wearing the day she arrived, just a few short days ago. She stood next to a small table, hands clasped in front of her. Halting just inside the threshold, I stopped.

Addie smiled. “I thought we could have dinner together.”

“We have dinner together every night.” I drew my eyebrows together.

“I know, but usually with other people. This is,” she waved a hand, “alone, you know.”

“Ah.” I surveyed the table. They’d cleared a small space but a quick glance around showed that nothing was out of order. The egg was in its position. The tableware from the dining hall looked carefully arranged, and there was a pitcher next to two glasses. I was betting it was the cactus juice. Just then, I noticed the lights were dimmed, adding . . . ambience, I guess.

I turned my attention back to Addie. “You look nice.”

She blinked, and I saw a faint blush of color in her cheeks. “Thanks.” She plucked at the dress. The cloth clung to her form, reminding me of why I was losing my battle to not touch her. “Well, we should eat.”

We ate. Addie didn’t touch her drink, and I thought that a wise decision since her mood seemed to be negatively affected by the alcoholic beverage. Which would not be conducive to her attempts at seduction.

“How have you been getting along with the ladies?” I asked.

“I like them,” she admitted. “We’ve been talking a lot.”

“Oh?”

She pushed food around on her plate. “About being matched. About the contract.”

“Ah.” I cleared my throat. “And have you changed your mind about anything?”

Addie shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s more complicated than I thought it would be.”

That was a good sign. At least she was beginning to see my point of view. But that wasn’t really good enough.

“Addie . . . I can’t give you what you want. Not under your terms.”

She blew out a breath. “Okay, I can see that, but do we really have any alternative? We have to fulfill the contract. The treaty between our peoples stipulates–”

“I don’t care.” I had to rein in my tone. She didn’t deserve my irritation—none of this was her fault. “I’m not a stud.”

Addie rolled her eyes. “If I’m a broodmare, then you’re a stud. That’s just how the cookie crumbles.”

“What do cookie crumbs have to do with this situation?” I stared at her, baffled.

“It means that sometimes stuff happens we don’t like, and we just have to accept it. It’s an Earth saying.”

“That makes no sense. How are cookie crumbs . . . forget it.”

She made a face at me. “Ok, how about this. How about I agree to keep an open mind about the eventual outcome, and we consummate the relationship?”

It was tempting . . . so tempting. Even sitting across from her, arguing with her, I felt alive in a way I never had before. Alive, and in pain, physically as well as emotionally. My body demanded I claim her, and my heart wanted us to become one. But not yet. Not yet. I had to wait until she came to me with a completely open, willing heart. Or else I wasn’t just risking my own pain, but that of our child, who would be motherless from birth.

Slowly, I shook my head and spoke gently. “I can’t, Addie. This is too important. No matter how much I may want—no matter.”

Her expression darkened as I spoke and she opened her mouth, shut it, and seemed to think twice about whatever it was she had been about to say.

“We’re not getting anywhere, are we?” Addie asked, and it seemed like she had finally accepted defeat. I couldn’t tell if that was a good or a bad thing. She tucked a stray lock of hair over her ear, and then gave me a smile. I could tell she was making an effort, and I appreciated it. “Alright, maybe we can find something else to do, at least until you come to your senses.” Her tone remained polite, but underneath her words lay the unwavering conviction that she wouldn’t be denied.

“Okay, sounds fair.”

Nodding, she stood beside me. “Alright, so...what is that thing?” she asked, pointing at the artifact. “I’ve never seen such a giant egg.”

Before I could do anything about it, she reached for the artifact and pulled it from the stand I had it on.

“Wait! You have no idea what we went through to get that,” I said. “You shouldn’t be touching it.” I laid one hand on the egg, and the other on her forearm. I was ready to pull it free from her hold but, as soon as my skin made contact with hers, darkness fell upon us.

One moment, we were aboard the Calliope, and the other...

Well, the other, we weren’t.

Addie

What the...?

I blinked once, and then did it again just to be sure.

The entire lab had disappeared, and its four walls had given way to an expansive scenery. There was green as far as the eye could see, and lush vegetation sprouting everywhere. My jaw dropped as I looked up at a clear blue sky where the lab’s cold ceiling should have been.

I was standing on a massive balcony, the floor made of smooth marble tiles, and it overlooked a lush garden, a few dashes of red and purple interspersed through the greenery. Up ahead, a hedge maze took over a large part of the landscape, just like something one would see in a royal manor. As I looked back, I realized that the balcony wasn’t even part of a house—it belonged to a sprawling mansion estate, stone arches and large floor-to-ceiling glass panels everywhere.

“What the hell did you do?” I heard someone say, and only then did I realize that I was still holding on to the egg, Javik on the other side of it. He was looking at me, and he seemed to be completely bewildered. Clearly, he hadn’t expected this to happen.

“I didn’t do anything,” I said meekly. “I just touched the egg and then...I don’t know, this just happened out of the blue.” I paused, then did a double take. “What in the world are you wearing?”

“What do you—oh.”

He was no longer wearing his lab coat, and his black shirt had been replaced by a casual button-down shirt with a flowery pattern. There was a pair of glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, but they were the only thing on him that indicated he spent more time looking at a screen than doing whatever it is that men do. He looked as if he had just stepped out of some extravagant intergalactic cruise.

“Well,” he finally said, “you don’t look bad either.”

Surprised, I looked down to see that my old clothes were gone. I was now wearing a flowing chiffon dress, the white fabric cool enough to make the heat tolerable. And thank God for that—the air around us was humid, and the sun shone fiercely enough that I would’ve boiled inside the sweater I’d had back at the lab. Whatever this place was, it seemed to be part of some tropical region.

“Care to explain what’s going on?” I asked him, finally letting go of the egg. Instinctively, he pulled it against his chest, almost as if he was cradling a newborn. “Did we teleport somewhere? We weren’t even close to the teleporting platform.”

“You’re asking me?” Cocking one eyebrow up, he shook his head and then looked out beyond the balcony. The sun reflected off the lenses in his glasses, and the brightness of it all made it seem as if his blue skin was glowing. “I have no idea how we ended up here.”

“Come on, you gotta have an idea,” I insisted. “I mean, your lab was filled with all kinds of crazy tech.”

“There’s nothing in the lab that could’ve caused this.”

“Are you sure of it? Because something must’ve done this.” I glanced at the egg in his hand, but said nothing. Could that weird looking thing be the reason we had ended up in this place? Maybe Javik had been right when he told me not to touch it. Unfortunately, it seemed like his warning had been too little, too late.

“This happened when you touched the artifact,” he replied, looking from the egg to me.

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just saying that—”

“I’m sorry to interrupt you, sir,” I heard a voice say behind us, and I looked past Javik to see a middle-aged man stand at the end of the balcony. Other than his wrinkled green skin, he looked pretty human.

He had just come out of a large room to which the balcony belonged, the luxurious wooden doors fully turned on their golden hinges and resting peacefully against the stone wall. “There’s someone on the line for you.”

“For me?” Javik asked, and I could tell he didn’t know how to react.

“Of course, Mr. Javik,” the man continued, and Javik’s eyes widened at the mention of his name. I looked at the newcomer, trying to decipher if he was messing with us, but there was nothing threatening about him. He had a thin frame and the serene expression of a man that knew his place in the world. His grey hair seemed to be thinning, but he looked fairly fit and he wore a black suit, one that seemed almost too formal for the place we were in, and that’s when I realized that the man had to be some kind of servant.

“Huh, alright,” Javik said, and the man stood to the side and waved us inside the room. As we walked past him, he bowed his head at me.

“Miss James.”

“Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath, too freaked out to acknowledge the man with more than just a pale smile. How the hell could he possibly know my last name? Whatever this place was, I was feeling really conflicted about it all.

Following Javik, I stepped inside what looked like an office. There was a large desk at the center of it, the wood smooth and polished, and underneath it a luxurious rug with formal patterns. The entire room was made of paneled wood, and every single inch of it was screaming ‘money’.

“If there’s nothing further,” the servant announced and, with a respectful bow, he took two steps back and opened a door on the side wall. Silently, he slipped from the office, leaving me alone with Javik.

By now, the tall blue-skinned Vaznik was busy inspecting the walls. The terminal on the desk was blinking, a sign of an incoming call, but Javik just ignored it. Curious, I approached to see that he was looking at the photographs that hung from the walls. There were a lot of them, the frames covering most of the room.

“Is that you?” I asked him, noticing that Javik was in every single one of the photographs. He was wearing a suit in most of them—which fit his powerful frame surprisingly well—and was often accompanied by other business-like characters. In some, he was receiving some sort of award.

There was always a confident smile on his face, and in most of the pictures he was shaking someone else’s hand. What the hell? Why had Javik acted as if he had never been here before? This seemed like it was his house.

Narrowing my eyes, I looked at him. “Have you been here before?”

“That’s a no,” he replied, but he didn’t bother looking at me. He just raised one hand and pointed at a couple of photographs I had missed. “What about you? Ever been here before?”

“Just how in the galaxy would I—?”

I fell silent the moment I noticed a dolled-up Addie smiling at me from one of the photographs. I was standing beside Javik, and I had a black gown.

We were arm-in-arm, and we looked pretty comfortable. As I looked around, I realized that there were even more pictures of me, all of them mementos of a life I didn’t remember.

“This can’t be real,” I muttered, clutching at the egg in his hands, too confused to say anything else. “What the hell is happening here?”

“Look.” Ignoring my question, Javik moved to the other side of the room and pointed at the frames that hung there. Instead of photographs, there were all sorts of diplomas and certificates hanging from the walls, all of them with Javik’s name at the bottom.

I saw a math degree, a business diploma, and a few others certificates stating that he was an expert in fields I didn’t even recognize. If there was any truth to those diplomas, it seemed like Javik was a master of more than just one trade.

Dazed, I stumbled away from Javik and sat on the leather chair behind his desk. It felt odd to think of it as his desk, given that he kept on saying he had never been here before, but I didn’t know how else to think of it.

After all, there were photographs of him everywhere, and the servant had spoken to him as if he were the master of the house.

Javik placed the egg carefully on the desk, and I sunk into the chair, closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose.

Back on Earth, when I’d made the trip to the testing lab, I hadn’t known if I was going to be paired up with someone.

I’d kept my hopes at a reasonable level, and always reminded myself that, even if I was a match with some alien, it’d be unlikely that he’d be a rich one. Most women, especially the ones that volunteered, tended to harbor the hope that they were going to meet a wealthy, handsome alien that’d cater to her every desire. I tried to avoid that trap but, even though I knew reality was harsher than that, part of me still yearned for that sweet fantasy.

No way this is happening, I thought. I had fantasized of a wealthy, sexy alien with his own private island, and the universe had given me just that.

Genetic lottery, they called it.

A fitting name for the process, except I never really cared much for the lottery part of it. Now, though, sitting here on a tropical island...

Yeah, it did feel like I’d just won the lottery.

Javik

“This is crazy.” Still looking at the certificates on the wall, I looked inward and tried to see if I still had any knowledge of biology and chemistry. It was all in there, as was all the knowledge I had acquired during my career.

Whatever was happening, it seemed like every fact I had amassed throughout the years hadn’t vanished, no matter what the certificates on the wall were trying to say. “What is this place?”

“Don’t ask me,” Addie said. She was sitting behind the desk, elbows propped on its smooth surface, and she was looking at the picture sitting next to the terminal. “Why are there so many pictures of us here?”

She turned the frame to me, and I saw Addie and me sitting on some paradisiac beach, her smile wide and genuine. Even though it was stupid of me, I felt a small smile tugging at the corners of my lips. Whatever I was looking at couldn’t be real, but it still made me feel damn good. Maybe one day I’d be able to put a smile like that on Addie’s face.

“None of this makes any sense,” I continued, finishing my inspection of the certificates. “According to all the photographs and diplomas, it seems like I’m some kind of businessman, not a scientist.”

“Yeah, and you’re rich, too,” Addie said. “I mean, look at this house.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about business, so I’m not sure how any of this is possible.”

Scratching my chin, I looked around the room, hoping to see a teleporting platform somewhere. Of course, there was no platform to be found.

Aside from a couple of shelves lined with books that looked like expensive relics, the photographs, and the desk, there wasn’t that much furniture in the office, let alone a teleporting device. But if that was the case, then how the hell had we ended up here?

“Whoever was trying to call you has just given up,” Addie said.

I turned around to see that the terminal had stopped blinking. With all the weird stuff going on, I had completely forgotten about the reason I had stepped inside this room. That had been foolish of me. The person that had been trying to reach me could have had an explanation for this madness.

“Let me see that terminal.” I headed to the desk and sat in the chair after Addie left it. I booted the terminal up, a holoscreen suddenly appeared in front of me, and I went straight to the communications menu.

There was a comms code and frequency for the person that had been trying to call me, but no caller ID. I hesitated for a moment, and then switched the frequency and input the codes for the Calliope. Almost at once, a message flashed on the screen: communication channel not found.

“That’s not good,” Addie muttered. “Are we stuck here?”

“It looks like it. At least for the time being.”

Pulling up the contacts sidebar on the screen, I started scrolling through it, but I didn’t recognize any of the names in there. Some had titles under their names—such as CEO and CFO of companies I didn’t recognize—and others even had pictures to go along with the caller ID. Most of the names were the kind humans would use, but there were a few Mahdfel, as well.

“Anyone you recognize?”

“Not really.” Exhaling sharply, I leaned back in my seat. I drummed my fingers against the tabletop while I thought of what my next steps should be, then closed the communications menu. “Let’s see what’s in here,” I muttered, and started exploring the contents of the terminal.

There were a lot of financial reports, all of them concerning different companies, but nothing that made sense to me. Despite the degrees hanging on the walls, it didn’t seem like I had gained any expertise when it came to the business world.

There were also reports concerning the logistics of different companies and supply lines, but nothing that jumped out to grab my attention.

As far as I could see, everything on the terminal was something you’d expect a respectable businessman to have. Aside from the fact that I wasn’t a respectable businessman, nor did I own several different businesses churning out a constant profit, everything seemed to be normal.

Growing desperate, I tried to find some kind of mapping software that could tell us where we were, but the terminal didn’t seem to have access to any. Unless I wanted to get ready for a business meeting, there was little I could do inside this office.

“What about those books?” I asked Addie, pointing toward the shelves.

She shrugged, walked toward one of the shelves, and pulled a book from it. She eyed the cover for a moment, flicked through a couple of random pages, and shrugged again.

“It’s just an old book,” she said. “Some kind of old treaty on economics.” Slowly, she placed the book back in its proper place, and I noticed her wobbling slightly.

Ever since we had arrived in this place, she seemed to be growing weaker. I wasn’t particularly concerned, as in some rare cases the side-effects of being teleported took a while to present themselves, but I still kept an eye on her.

“You think that servant guy might have some answers?” she asked, turning toward the door the man had used to leave. By now, her voice had become a faint whisper. “Maybe he’ll know what’s going on.”

I opened my mouth to reply but, when I turned the chair around, I saw that Addie’s complexion had acquired a ghostly tonality. Her porcelain skin had turned snow-white, and her shoulders seemed fraught with tension. Even her posture seemed to have weakened.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah,” she answered me, but her voice told me a completely different story. She sounded as if she was about to faint. As if to confirm my theory, she took an awkward step back and lost her balance.

Before her knees buckled under her weight, I shot up from the chair and held her up, lacing one arm around her waist. “Sorry, I’m just feeling a little dizzy.”

“Here, take a seat.” I offered the chair, and she sunk onto the cushion with a groan. Closing her eyes, she threw her head back and breathed in deeply. Her breathing had grown labored, and it seemed like she was really struggling. “Tell me what you’re feeling. Does your chest hurt?”

“No, not really,” she whispered, running her tongue over her parched lips.

“What about your head? Any headaches? Or nausea?”

She shook her head.

“No headaches. But yeah, I do feel nauseous.” As if to confirm it, she leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. For a moment, I almost thought that she was going to throw up on the rug, but it didn’t happen. “God, I was feeling just fine moments ago. What the hell’s wrong with me? It feels like I have a damn brick inside my stomach.”

“Teleportation side-effects,” I told her, already looking around the office for something I could use. I noticed a small drink-cart by the corner, and went there to find a pitcher of water. I poured some into a glass, dropped a cube of sugar into it, and then pushed it into Addie’s hands. “Here, drink some of this.”

“Thank—”

Before she could finish her sentence, she placed both hands over her stomach and tensed up. Moving fast, I grabbed the trash bin from underneath the desk and placed it at her feet. Not a second later and Addie was emptying the contents of her stomach into the bin. Carefully, I held her hair up.

“See? Having a mate isn’t that bad,” I said.

Addie

“I feel like shit.” Groaning, I tried to sit up, but that only made it worse. The more I moved, the more my body seemed to rebel against me. My stomach felt as heavy as concrete and, even though I hadn’t eaten anything in almost a day, I still felt its walls squeezing the gastric acid up my esophagus.

It was awful. I was already struggling to get along with Javik and, now that he had seen me at my lowest, I was pretty sure that things would become even more complicated between the two of us.

“Drink a little.”

I rinsed my mouth and then took a sip, then another.

“It’s normal,” he said, his tone patient and kind. He didn’t seem particularly disgusted with the fact that I had thrown up in front of him. Aside from being a scientist, he had also told me he acted as the Calliope’s doctor, so maybe this kind of stuff didn’t faze him as much. “I know you said the teleportation didn’t affect you that much, but sometimes the effects are delayed. Besides, we teleported here, although I’m not sure how. Two teleportation jumps in such a tight timeframe...well, sooner or later you were going to feel it, Addie.”

“Fantastic. Just what I needed right now.”

“Come, let’s go outside,” he suggested, and helped me to my feet. I allowed him to support me with one arm around my waist, and we ambled out of the office and onto the balcony. Sunshine fell upon me right away, and the warmth made my skin prickle.

From below us came the sound of chirping birds and rustling tropical leaves. The place felt foreign, but there was a peaceful aura to it. “Take a seat on one of those loungers.” Gently, he helped me sit down on one of the four lounge chairs placed against the wall.

Groaning, I ended up lying down, one forearm draped over my eyes. Whatever my body was going through had somehow affected my mind, and I could feel my thoughts start to spiral out of control. My facade of confidence slowly gave way to anxiety and fear, and I no longer knew if volunteering for this had been the right course of action.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so damn cocky.

I thought I’d be able to handle the entire matching process and all that came with it, but now that I was really thinking of it, I was clearly overwhelmed.

My body had taken a beating, and my mind was struggling to process everything that had happened. I had left Earth, ended up on a spaceship, and now I was in some exotic locale I couldn’t place on a map.

I had no idea what was happening, and I was slowly starting to freak out.

“Can you give me some more of that water, please?” I asked, and Javik went back inside the office. I tried to calm myself down, staring at the horizon line while taking deep breaths, but that didn’t seem to help much.

“Here it is.” Dutifully, Javik returned with a full glass of sugar water.

I sat up and reached for the glass, but he just waved me down. Smiling, he placed one hand on the nape of my neck and brought the glass up to my lips. It was weird to feel this fragile, especially when I had been feeling just fine moments ago, but at least there was a silver lining to it: to have Javik looking after me felt good.

“You’ll be fine soon enough,” he told me. “Just give it some time.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. I thought of lying back down but, afraid that the nausea would return, decided to remain sitting. “Does everyone feel like this after being teleported? I knew it wasn’t easy, but I thought most people were just scaremongering.”

“It really depends on the person,” he replied. “You do it often enough, and the side-effects become insignificant. I’ve done it countless times and I barely feel it now. For a newbie, though, teleportation can be harsh, especially if you’ve never done it before. Most people are a wreck the first time they step out of the teleporting platform. You’re actually the first person I’ve met that endured her first jump so well. You took a couple of seconds to reorient yourself, but then you were fine.”

“Well, not anymore.”

“You did jump twice in just a few days, and we don’t know what technology was used for this jump.” Shrugging, he looked into my eyes and smiled warmly, the expression doing what words couldn’t. I sat there and returned his gaze, my heart tightening as something broke open inside me.

A tear rolled down my cheek, its saltiness biting at my lips.

I had spent my entire life caring for others, always worrying about the future, and now here was someone hell-bent on looking after me. Sure, John had always treated me right, but this was different. For the first time in my life, I actually felt that I could be fragile without feeling guilty about it.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Javik whispered softly, brushing the tears away with one finger. I trembled under his touch, bit on my bottom lip, and that was when the tears really started to come. I felt like such an idiot, but I couldn’t help myself. All my life I had operated under the assumption that a show of emotions was a weakness, a trait that wouldn’t help me get anywhere in life, and now here I was...bawling like a child.

“I’m right here,” Javik continued, the tenderness in his voice enough to soothe me.

Holding me in his massive arms, he stroked my back and hair, and a shiver ran up my spine as his fingers grazed my neck. There was something magical about his touch and, for the first time since leaving Earth, I actually started thinking of the ‘mating bond’ concept as more than a marketing ploy to sell the idea of genetic matches. Maybe there was something to it, after all.

“I...I’m sorry for this.” I tried to steady myself, but Javik ignored my efforts. He kept his arms around me, almost as if he had decided he’d protect me from every single thing that could hurt me, and didn’t let go.

“I might have no idea about what’s going on here, Addie,” he whispered into my ear, the conviction in his voice making my heart beat faster, “but I swear that I’m going to fix it. You don’t have to worry about a damn thing. Whatever’s happening here, I’m going to make sure nothing will happen to you, alright?”

I turned around so that I was facing him.

My eyes locked on his, and something inside me just gave in. No matter how frustrated I had been before, no matter how single-mindedly I had acted, it was impossible not to be touched by his attentiveness. Even though he barely knew me, a lunatic that had ruined his routine by teleporting into his lab, he had always been patient with me.

As hard as it was to wrap my head around it, Javik seemed to actually care for me.

Slowly, I reached for him and laid one hand on his face.

I didn’t even think about what I was doing. For a moment, I forgot all about the genetic matching and my mate-and-pay plan. Time stopped around us, the real world seemed to fade into nothingness, and the only thing that mattered was that we had each other.

Slowly, I leaned in.

My eyelids fluttered, I held my breath, then our lips touched.

And, just like that, we were kissing.

Javik

The last thing I expected when I went to comfort her was for her to show affection. Concluding that she did not want intimacy had been very painful, but I could not force her hand or convince her otherwise.

And I refused to consider simply breeding out of obligation to a contract.

We were at an impasse, and our conversations thus far had proved that.

When she turned her lips up to mine, I thought that maybe I was trapped in a dream. It seemed absurd that she could go from crying and shivering to a warm, soft, sensual creature in the space of a few heartbeats.

It shocked me to my bones. I knew that from a medical standpoint, she was fragile. All of the stress from her recent exertions was catching up to her. She would be feeling weak and shaken, possibly even sick.

By the time her lips met mine, though, she did not seem ill. I wanted to show sympathy for her condition. I had come to hold her just as support, not in lust and certainly not in expectation.

Yet here she was, turning her lips to mine. Opening her mouth as if begging me to dive deeper. My shock began to fade quickly as I explored her, careful with the brush of my fingers not to push too hard.

I wanted to run my palms all over her body, trace every inch of her skin with my tongue. I held back, knowing that she was not going to tolerate such swift actions, but the need in me was rising. It had been since the first moment I saw her.

She couldn’t have known how tempting it was when she asked to mate right away. I was offended, certainly. To me, gaining a mate was so much more than one encounter or the production of a child.

But I wanted her. I wanted her with every fiber of my being. As my hands ran gently down her arms, I imagined pulling her close to me, pressing my body against hers, feeling her yield to me.

More than that, there was an intensity deep within that had nothing to do with lust. It was far deeper, somewhere beyond my heart. This was what I had expected of my mate. Open and giving, offering me her love and emotion because she knew I was worthy of it. The sensation rose to an almost painful pitch as my heart answered hers.

With great care, I parted her lips with mine. I let my tongue explore the edges of her mouth and, to my delight, she opened her lips further to invite me in.

I tightened my arms around her and felt her body soften towards me. I pulled her against my chest and when our lips parted, she sighed with pleasure.

I brushed her hair back gently, cradling her face with one hand as I lowered my mouth to hers again. Her eyes were dilated, and her breath came fast, but I was sure that she was encouraging me from a place of need, not blind submission.

She returned the kiss, a smile blooming across her mouth. Perhaps now she could feel it, the deep kinship between us. That we were linked long before we ever knew each other. From the moment my tattoo glowed, I had felt it, bone deep.

We were one.

Addie pulled away from me slightly and I was not disappointed. In those few moments I was happier than I had ever been. I could be patient, because I knew now that she cared for me. Even if she wasn’t fully aware of it, her body understood.

“Thank you,” she said softly. I pulled back a little, wondering what I was being thanked for.

“I mean, thanks for your help just now. I really felt bad for a second there. Lucky I’m stuck with a doctor, huh?” I could tell by her pale skin and the circles under her eyes that she was still not well. She would need a good meal and a long sleep to fully recover her strength.

“Addie.” I shook my head. “I didn’t help you because I’m a doctor. I’m your mate.”

“Well, I know that, of course.” She smiled, looking brighter by the second. “It’s just that I haven’t exactly acted like your girlfriend, so...”

I didn’t know exactly what that ‘girlfriend’ business was, but it didn’t sound like what I meant when I said ‘mate’.

“Are you saying that you did not expect me to help you, just because we are not mated?”

“Well, a human guy might have helped me, but it’s a big maybe if I had been so... difficult.”

“You are not difficult!” I let the words out before I could think. Of course, she had been somewhat difficult, I couldn’t deny that. But the last few minutes had made up for that completely.

“You are in a new world. Getting used to the Calliope would have been enough of a struggle, let alone finding yourself in a strange new world.”

“But... thank you. Okay? I really felt bad. Alone. When your arms went around me, though, I just felt whole. You really helped me.”

I smiled and pulled her against my chest again. She leaned into me, stroking my arm gently with her fingers.

“I’m your mate,” I said, almost fiercely. “It’s my job to love you and care for you. I will always be by your side.”

She shook her head just a little. I truly believed it was an expression of disbelief. What could have happened to this sweet girl to make her so distrustful of love? It seemed that the more open I was, the more hesitant she became.

“My feelings for you are not a manipulation,” I said suddenly, not even sure where the words had come from. “They are real.”

She looked into my eyes and reached up to stroke my cheek, her gaze full of pain and longing. She began to speak, then looked away, closing her eyes.

I let her go reluctantly, heading for the balcony railing again. The landscape was so strange. It was lush and beautiful, but unlike any land I had ever seen. How far away was the Calliope, and why had we been dropped here?

“We need to get back to the ship,” she murmured, echoing my thoughts exactly. “I mean, it looks pretty comfortable here, and I don’t think that we are in danger, but it feels strange here.”

“Like a dream,” I muttered, looking over the awesome view, blue skies scattered with clouds and the odd flock of birds. “As if I could walk down there and find that everything is insubstantial, an illusion.”

She touched the arm of the chair gently, nodding. “I mean, it feels real enough. But I understand.”

She still looked so tired. I went to her, rubbing her shoulder.

“We do have to find the ship. But I think you need to rest and eat first.”

“No, no.” She waved a hand at me. “I’m alright.”

I shook my head. “No, you aren’t. As you mate and your doctor, I forbid physical exertion. Got it?”

“Yeah.” She laughed a little, stroking my wrist. “You really like to be in control, don’t you?”

I was baffled. “Is there any other way to be?”

“I don’t mean in control of me. I meant of the situation.”

“Oh. Well, I am used to being in control of the situation. Being the chief medical officer and resident genius, I don’t often find myself lacking in understanding.” I frowned as I looked out at the landscape again, and Addie laughed.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m sorry. I’m not making fun of you. You just talk about being the smartest guy in the room with such a serious face.”

I felt strange at her comment. As if I had missed something.

“But I am the smartest.” I was confused.

She shook her head again. “It’s okay. It’s just a silly Earth inflection.”

“Well, I understand what inflection means.” I rubbed my chin thoughtfully.

“On Earth, it’s kind of weird to stand up and say you’re the smartest person in the room. People will compete with you if you do.”

“How ridiculous.” I passed that off with a wave of my hand. “It’s a fact that I’m the smartest Vaznik I have met. By many measurable standards. Someone competing against me would simply be absurd.”

“It’s okay, Javik.” She reached out to hug me. “I get it. Let’s just use that big brain of yours to get out of here, okay?”

“Okay.” I shook my head, still wondering at the strangeness of her comments. Earth must be a chaotic place to live.

Addie

Finding myself in Javik’s arms with no intention of mating, just enjoying the moment was strange enough. Finding out how much I liked it was practically mortifying.

I just felt so alone. The first teleportation was not trying for me, but suddenly appearing in a new world not so long after had wrecked me mentally and physically.

His body was warm and his hands comforting. I didn’t know what I was thinking when I kissed him, only that there seemed to be a pull towards him that I could not resist.

Maybe this mate thing had more complications than I’d realized.

What if I really can’t leave him?

Looking up into his handsome face, I knew that I was already attached to him. Now that we had kissed, there was definitely something drawing us together.

“I’m sorry that I totally lost it,” I said.

He turned from the railing, looking at me with concern. “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘lost it’, but I’m assuming this is an Earth euphemism? What did you lose, practically or metaphorically?”

I couldn’t help it. A big grin stretched across my face. This guy was smart, and he made sure everyone knew it in every conversation.

“It’s just a term for not being able to control yourself. Sometimes it means emotionally, sometimes physically, and occasionally both. Although both is usually called ‘totally lost it’ indicating all levels.”

He nodded, stroking his chin. “As a doctor, though, I can’t understand this phrasing or your apology. The physical state cannot be completely controlled. Definitely not while it is in crisis. Soldiers have the capacity to overcome pain from injuries or exhaustion, but only for a short time and it usually results in permanent damage later in life.”

This was one of those moments where I couldn’t follow what he was saying. He was even staring into the distance like he was contemplating a universal paradox.

“It’s cool.” I didn’t want to explain that I was referring directly to the kiss. The last thing I wanted to do was offend him or lead him on, and my short moments of pain and doubt had brought my defenses down enough to make me hold him close as if he was the only thing familiar in this world.

Well. He was.

“Cool.” He shook his head. “I’ve heard the other women use that and even the men have picked it up in our travels. I’m still contemplating the temperature relation to the mental state.”

I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “Javik, can you stop thinking, just for one second?”

He frowned. “That would be impossible.”

“Seriously? You need a lesson in subtext.”

He scowled. “Yes, I suppose I do.” He looked around.

“But if you are recovered, we should go back inside and see if we can find any clues. Before we can compare the facets of our languages, we need to get out of here.”

“It’s very beautiful.” The room was spacious and elaborately decorated. When I went to the window, the view of fresh green vegetation and flowing waters was absolutely breathtaking, strange birds gracing the sky overhead. “And the only person we’ve seen so far is friendly.”

“That is a sure sign of a trap.” He headed for the desk. “We don’t know where the Calliope is or how to get back to it. They could be looking for us right now, and we need to signal them or try to find them before they can go off course. I know where the ship was and where it was going, but if they break course to look for us, we might never find them again.”

I hugged myself, stroking my arms. I really hadn’t known what to expect from the mate- and-pay’ deal, but this place didn’t seem so bad. Leaving home was a commitment to the strange and unknown, so in that regard, one place was as good as another.

Javik started going through the drawers of the desk, pulling out stacks of papers.

“There has to be something around here that tells us where we are.” He started shuffling through the papers. “There has got to be a logical explanation.”

I sighed, walking over to a nearby cupboard. He was right—we weren’t meant to be here. If we had been brought here by force, captured, then we needed to figure it out quickly.

I couldn’t shake the idea that we had fallen into some kind of dream, but both of us? At the same time? Unless he was a figment of my imagination. That was possible, but he was so very Javik. I didn’t know him well enough to continuously come up with fresh responses and frankly, I wasn’t smart enough to come up with his conclusions.

Okay. So, he wasn’t a dream then. That meant the rest probably wasn’t either. I didn’t feel like I was in danger, but it wasn’t like I had a lot of experience in being teleported to strange planets.

The servant we’d met seemed to expect us to behave in a certain way. If we gave a wrong answer or action, would the people here know that we weren’t who we said we were? Anything could happen to us if we were found out.

Javik was still going through the desk, finding endless piles of paper and folders. I went through the cupboard, finding a stack of cubes. When I tapped them, more photos appeared. Javik and I standing in front of buildings, boats, scenes I couldn’t imagine.

“Looks like you own a lot of stuff, Javik.” I flicked through a couple more photos. “And you, we, seem to travel a lot.”

“Yes.” He frowned at his documents. “Apparently we own several businesses, but this is strange. The sorts of calculations on these pages are from a different field entirely. It’s nothing like the work I’m used to doing. It’s my handwriting, my signature on the bottom, but I couldn’t have done this.”

“Any mention of where we are?”

“No.” He shook his head.

For a few quiet moments, we searched cupboards and drawers, finding more records and business information, but nothing about where we were or how to get away.

“No sign of a vehicle or spacecraft in that stuff?” he asked as I put back another folder.

“Some vehicles, maybe. It doesn’t list the names of things I know, but similar things. I don’t think any of it is going to help us find a spacecraft.”

“Most planets have regular flights going to space stations in orbit. From there, we could find the Calliope. That’s where we need to be.”

I looked out the window, taking in the beauty of the world. “It doesn’t look like a highly developed world, but at least it has holoscreen and communication technology.”

“Let’s hope there are parts of it that are even more modern.” He held out his hand to me. “We need to search the rest of the house. Or office, whatever it is.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I agree. We will run into people, though.”

He shook his head. “Unavoidable. Just be vague, act confident. It should be easy enough if they don’t ask us any direct questions.”

“And if they do?”

He smiled. “Walk away quickly and say you have to attend urgent business.”

I laughed again. “Okay, hot shot. Let’s do this.”

“Another strange phrase.” He covered his eyes briefly. “Can you please not do that to me? I’ll be overthinking it for the next few hours. Who is hot, why did he get shot? Why would heat itself get shot? With what? By whom? It makes no sense on a scientific level.”

I laughed again, delighted. “Colloquialisms aren’t supposed to make sense. It’s like if you took a metaphor and a simile and smashed them together with sarcasm.”

“I understand sarcasm.” He nodded thoughtfully. “But I’m still lost on subtext.”

“Most people are,” I said with some disappointment. “They don’t know what they’re missing.”

“When we are not in such a strange situation, Addie, I would like to talk more on this subtext. My intelligence demands I master it as I have all aspects of alien physiology and genetics, human medical administration, and thermonuclear engines. I could go on about what I know, but let’s just say the English language is not on the list.”

“That works out perfectly.” I smiled up at him as we moved towards the door. “I’m no English major, but I know the ins and outs.”

“Stop that!” He sighed, exasperated. “English major? There is an army for the language? How do you become a major? In and out of where?”

I laughed again. “Look, I don’t think I can completely stop with the comments, so just store them for later. Can you do that? I’ll try and keep it simple and if you don’t understand it, just file it in your memory for later discussion.”

“I can do that.” His face smoothed out a bit. “I can’t promise I won’t comment, but I’ll try.”

“Okay, cool.”

Javik furrowed his brow.

“Forget about it,” I laughed. “Let’s just get walking.”

We headed out the door, ready to see more of the place. As we left, no alarms rang, no guards came running. It seemed like we weren’t prisoners.

But when you find yourself locked in a world that looks like a dream, how could you ever know which way to go to find reality?

The most perfect of prisons would look exactly like a place you didn’t want to leave.

Javik

Walking through the wide marble hallways, carefully holding the egg, Addie stayed close to my side. The place was massive, with high ceilings and expensive decor. There were silken tapestries, statues made of gold, and crystal patterns set into the marble.

Addie didn’t quite take my hand, but she walked closely enough that our arms brushed against each other. Every small touch thrilled me, made me feel like I was finally where I was meant to be. It was my nature to question things, but this, I did not want to analyze. Not only was I too close to it to get a useful conclusion... I was enjoying the moment itself.

Occasionally, she looked my way and smiled, especially when our arms touched. Sometimes she drifted closer to me and gently stroked my arm. That one moment of closeness had made her so much more comfortable with me. I dared to hope that we would become as close as the others. Perhaps we just needed time.

We also needed to figure out this strange place we had found ourselves in. Sometimes we passed little courtyards with fountains in the center, the edges overflowing with green vegetation. We stopped by the door of one, the centerpiece of the great stone fountain a strange fish with long feathery fins.

The trees and ferns around it supported a flock of birds like hummingbirds. They flew close to Addie, as if they expected her to feed them.

“How lovely,” she whispered. I was entranced by her expression in that moment. Every moment we spent together set in stone that she was truly the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

We turned to head down the hallway again, hoping to find a clue to our location. I could tell we were both enjoying the scenery and the mystery of it all, but I knew we could actually be in danger. Until I had a better idea of where we were and what was happening, we couldn’t let our guard down.

A side hallway opened up, the marble changing from soft blue-white to darker gold, with pillars black and shiny as obsidian. Addie brushed my arm again as we started around the corner, looking up at the mosaics in the ceiling.

There was a large doorway at the end of the hall, and we peeked our heads in tentatively, hoping we weren’t intruding on someone. The room appeared empty. As we came inside, I saw a side table with a mirror on it. There was an ornate silver hairbrush amongst the other items there and it was engraved with Addie’s name. I held it up for her.

“It looks like this is our room.”

“How strange.” She shook her head. “This whole place seems to know us and welcome us. But we haven’t got a clue where we are, and nothing is familiar.” She placed the egg carefully on the side table.

I shrugged and started opening drawers. “We will figure it out. That’s a fact. We can’t be here for an extended period of time without working it out.”

“But what if we never do?”

I stopped my searching and turned to look at her. She was standing in the middle of the room, looking confused and tired. She had been through a lot and had no rest. I turned her towards the bed.

“Why don’t you sit down, Addie?”

She nodded, moving over to sit on the huge bed. It was big enough to fit about ten people without any of them touching if they rolled over, and it had a massive crimson canopy that was tied up around its framework. I sat beside her and rubbed her shoulder gently.

“Practically speaking, this place appears to operate by basic laws of physics. It didn’t feel like a teleport and there was no teleportation pad, but we were definitely moved by an atom transfer—taken apart and then rebuilt at the other end.”

She groaned and grabbed her stomach. “Please don’t talk about it like that.”

I shook my head. “All I mean to say, Addie, is that this place obeys the natural laws of most habitable planets. Breathable air, solid gravity, vegetation, biology, fresh water. It has to be part of the reality that we are familiar with. We have only been here a short time and haven’t had a chance to gather data. But we will. I will make conclusions and figure out where we are.”

Her eyes swept around the room, lingering on the gold threads in the bed canopy. “It’s so rich here. I have never seen anything like it. It was... not easy for me, my life before.” She swallowed hard. “The only thing I had to worry about was money. It hung over my head every second of my life.”

I leaned towards her, hugging her gently. “I’m no stranger to hardship. Before I secured my position on the Calliope, I was not living a life of comfort.”

She looked up at me, eyes shining just a bit. Our lips were inches apart.

“I didn’t mean to offend you before. I just really need the money. My brother...” She let her voice trail away.

“I have found purpose with my crew,” I said softly. “I hope that you can share that with me.”

Addie turned, pressing her body against mine. Her hands came up and cupped my cheeks. I was almost afraid to move. It was like taming a wild cat, waiting for her to move first so she did not see you as a threat.

She shuffled forward, almost onto my lap, and kissed me. I kissed her back, not sure what to do with my hands. When she shuffled closer and slithered into my lap, I couldn’t help myself. I reached out with both hands and squeezed her ass, tugging her close against me.

She moaned, quite loudly. Her hands came up and grabbed my shoulders hard, and I went into the kiss with more energy than before.

She thrust her hips towards me, wrapping her legs around me. Her hands stroked the back of my neck and I heard my own moan rising to meet hers.

Almost breathless now, I stood up, bringing her with me. She barely moved, clinging to me with her arms and legs half tangled in the gauzy dress. I turned around and dropped her, letting her bounce on the big, soft bed.

She started clawing at her own clothes and I took off my trousers faster than I ever had in my life. The dress appeared to be made of countless thin layers. No sooner had the first come off, but another underdress confronted us. The second it was gone, I tugged her panties off her legs, our garments strewn around the room as if there had been a whirlwind.

I looked at her spread out before me. I wanted to take my time, savor her slowly. I couldn’t do that, though—this place was still so strange, and I didn’t trust it. The other reason I couldn’t slow down, was because my body was aching for hers and I had to join us, now.

I stroked my fingers up her thighs, watching her part her legs and rock her head back, pushing her hips towards me. My body ached so bad, worse than any wound I had ever received in battle. When I reached out and touched her slick folds, it was as if my balls were stabbed with a sharp object.

She was wet, she was hot. I could smell her, feel her, and almost taste her.

When I explored the slick folds with my fingers, she writhed and moaned. I couldn’t take it anymore and grabbed her legs, dragging her towards me. I teased her entrance with the head of my cock, pressing on her gently. When she started crying out and twisting her body from side to side, I pushed forward.

I was so eager to please her that every thought had flown from my mind. I had never felt so free. There was only Addie in my entire universe. I pulled her closer towards me, gripping her legs even more firmly as I parted her further, her heat so tight, but accepting my long, thick staff with ease.

Shudders ran through her body as I penetrated her, and her hips wriggled. I could tell that she was happy with the joining, and that surprised me.

I knew that she’d wanted to mate quickly. I didn’t think that she had expected to enjoy it. I had worried that if we mated too soon, then we could not have the full experience of emotion, but it seemed these last few hours had built a bridge between us.

I reached down and ran my hand over her beautiful body, letting her breasts fill my hands so the nipples rubbed against my palms. I pressed my hips forward, starting to thrust. Desire was taking me over and she was my entire world.

As my movements became faster and more forceful, she reached up to grab my arms. She pushed against me, driving her hips up to send my cock right to the end of her. I gasped, leaning forward over her as she screwed her hips back and forth, pressing us together until there was no space between us. Her eyes were closed, and she was biting her lip, her passion was so intense.

I let her wriggle her body against mine, staying still and hard while she writhed under me. When I leaned over and crushed her in my arms, nibbling on her neck, she gasped. As her hands ran down my neck and her nails dug into me, I started to nip against her skin.

She responded with gasps and sharp thrusts of her hips. I grabbed her shoulders and started ramming her as hard and fast as I could, my restraint finally giving way to the needs of my body.

Addie

Javik was at the edge of the bed, balancing on his knees. His firm grip on my thighs was almost painful, but I liked it. No, I fucking loved it.

His hard cock drove into me, hammering at my cervix. I could hear cries of joy leaping from my throat and I was almost out of my mind with the waves of pleasure running through my body.

I looked up at him and saw that he was watching me carefully, and even though he had that blank look that told me his mind was slave to his body, he hadn’t stopped looking out for me.

I felt so safe and so loved. I wasn’t ready to love him back yet—I mean, maybe I already did, but I wasn’t going to declare it—but I was grateful for his care and attention.

I had been withdrawn, acting as if he didn’t deserve my trust. It was clear by the gentle way he handled my body that he was worthy of me.

I didn’t think anyone had ever handled me with so much care before. It was a strange feeling, but I wanted to keep it. I wanted to feel this way every day of my life.

Javik slowed down, his hardness stroking me from entrance to end. It was more intense than the faster strokes had been. I looked up and saw his smile as he carefully played my body as if it was a beautiful instrument. He was dedicated to its melody and becoming a master of its tunes.

I wrapped my legs around him a bit tighter, leaning back so his huge cock stroked my G-spot. With my head thrown back, I couldn’t see him, but I felt his hands on me as he stroked my body in time with his thrusts.

Just when my body started to convulse from the inside out and I knew I couldn’t take it anymore, he grabbed my hips and pulled out. I looked up with surprise, but that was all I had time to do as he flipped me over and grabbed my hips again.

I leaned forward into the luxurious sheets—the finest satin I had ever dreamed of—putting my face near my hands as I let him grab my ass and drag it towards him. He ran a finger over my wet lips and then I felt the press of his tongue.

I gripped the sheets, screaming into the incredibly soft mattress. I was already so hot, so close to orgasm. The touch of his lips and tongue on my pussy was almost unbearable. The pleasure was searing between my clit and the deeper lips that begged to be pounded again.

He used his tongue slowly, gently, rubbing the tip into each crevice and exploring. His lips found my clit and he sucked on it gently, pressing it with his tongue.

When he stroked my pussy with his long fingers, I felt it looming from somewhere deep inside myself, a shuddering rush that seemed to start very high up then come rushing through my pussy, each convulsion bringing with it a flood of slick juice.

He moaned, pulling me even tighter onto his mouth. My orgasm lit up again, a never-ending force. He kept licking and sucking at me, alternating gentle and rough. Every time he felt my orgasm throb through me, he would moan in pleasure and increase his efforts with his tongue, as if to swallow every drop.

When I lay plastered against the bed, whimpering softly, he stood up again, stroking my buttocks and thighs. Then he used the tip of his hard cock to tease my lower lips. I gasped, my throat raw from screaming during the recent orgasms. He started to push his way inside and I clawed desperately at the sheets, my grip almost tight enough to fray the fabric.

As he slid all the way home, I let out a small cry. My body was exhausted, strung out and loose in every way. His attentions with his tongue had drawn so many multiple orgasms from me that I didn’t think I could move at all.

I didn’t have to. He took a firm grip of my hips then started thrusting, slow at first, then faster. Our bodies slapped together as I slipped forward and he held my hips tightly against him.

I kept slithering forward into a puddle, no matter how hard he tried to pull me up. He let me go and I fell forward, crumpling into a mess of motionless limbs.

“Are you okay?” He brushed my hair back.

I looked over my shoulder with a smile. “Wonderful. I just seem to have lost control of my body.”

He laughed. “That’s okay, just give it to me.”

I couldn’t answer. I wanted to give myself to him, quite desperately. I knew that I wasn’t ready emotionally, but right now, sated on orgasms, giving him my body seemed like the only choice in the world.

He pushed me gently, so I rolled over onto my back, lifting my arms lazily over my head. He leaned over, tracing my breasts with his tongue. When he reached my nipples, he bit at them gently, holding them between his teeth.

I writhed under his attention, still too tired to reciprocate much. He trailed one hand down my belly and let his fingers search inside while his tongue and teeth teased my nipple.

My throat was too hoarse for another scream, so I gasped instead, grabbing the back of his head. He moaned in pleasure as I wrapped myself around him, hungry for more.

Javik rolled on top of me and held himself up with his arms. Looking into my eyes, he leaned down and kissed me.

I felt that kiss in every part of my body. It affected me deeply, not just in a carnal way, but emotionally, too. It was as if he was reaching through me, connecting to my soul more than my body or mind.

I thrashed, hips moving up and down. I could feel his cock so close to me, but not inside me. I reached up, grabbing his cheeks to kiss him harder and deeper.

I writhed against him and still he refused to put it in, teasing me. While our lips stayed locked together and our tongues explored each other’s mouths, I ran my hands down his body and grabbed his ass. I squeezed the cheeks, gripping him firmly. Then I tugged him towards me and raised my hips.

His hardness slammed into me, shocking us both. He leaned back, grabbing my shoulders. I could tell by his expression and his grip; he couldn’t hold back anymore.

Every inch of his skin pressed against mine felt right. My hands were tracing his tattoos, his eyes seeing every single part of me. I couldn’t deny it. I was meant to be with this man. In a way I could not explain, we were locked together.

He started to thrust, and this time the strokes were hard and fast. He quickly went into an uneven rhythm as his body demanded release. I gripped his arms with my hands, bracing against him. I kept my legs wrapped around him but loosely, so he could thrust without any resistance.

He threw his head back, mouth stretching into a grimace. My keen observation of him was suddenly interrupted by my own body reacting to the frenzy and subjecting me to another wave of orgasms. They seemed to come from everywhere at once, exploding through my pussy and leaving sweeping trails of goosebumps across my skin. Javik got so hard and thick he couldn’t thrust anymore, my muscles squeezing him as if to keep him inside, and the length of him filling every inch of me.

On the last thrust, he came, his hard cock spurting and jerking inside me. My legs clamped around him as my spine bowed, my entire body reacting to the pleasure.

He pulled himself off me, collapsing beside me on the bed. I curled towards him immediately, ending up under his arm, where I let one hand trail across his chest and belly. Both of us were breathing hard, an intimacy in the air that needed no explanation.

No matter where we were, the only important thing now was Javik. We could explore this place and worry about how to get home, but I was home. I would go wherever Javik went.

I had never known a feeling like this before, but I wasn’t ever going to let it go. He was made for me and I belonged to him.

That was all I needed to know.

Javik

I was smitten.

Sure, I already had some suspicions that Addie would be incredible, but I’d never thought she would be that incredible. Even exhausted as I was, lying on my back while I tried to catch my breath, I could still feel the electricity crackling under my skin, a cocktail of endorphins coursing through my veins.

I had felt a connection between us the first time I saw her, her sharp cheekbones and blue eyes enough of a hook for me, but now I had reached out and touched that connection with my bare fingers.

“That was...God, I don’t even know how to put it into words,” she said, her head resting on my naked chest.

Her voice drifted through the room lazily, and the mattress shifted under her as she adjusted her body. She peeked at me through locks of her disheveled hair. There was a tender smile on her face, and she had the kind of glow on her skin that the guys back at the Calliope were always talking about.

She looked absolutely perfect.

“That makes two of us,” I whispered, threading my fingers into her hair.

Taking one deep breath, I allowed her scent to coil itself around each and every one of my thoughts. Intoxicated, I draped one arm over her shoulders and pulled her tight against my body, enjoying the warmth of her skin on mine.

Now that those initial waves of lust were finally receding, a kind of comfortable warmth was taking their place. It felt good to be so close to her.

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.” Still smiling, she reached up and brushed her thumb over my lips, a glint in her eyes.

Right then and there, I started imagining how it’d feel to wake up with this sight every single day for the rest of my life. That was a tall order, considering that Addie had only volunteered because of the money, but I couldn’t stop myself from imagining it. After all, we had concrete proof that there was chemistry between us.

Even Addie wouldn’t be able to ignore that.

“Listen...” I started to say, but quickly trailed off as I realized how much of a bad idea it would be to tell her all that in such a blunt way.

I didn’t want her to go back to Earth, sure, but I couldn’t just lay it on her like that. She had a life on Earth. I couldn’t simply demand that she leave it all behind. Sure, the sex was absolutely mind-blowing, really off-the-charts stuff, but I didn’t know how well something like that would fare when weighed against whatever priorities she had.

“I’m listening,” she said, cutting through the silence and teasing me.

“I’m just happy that this happened,” I said. It was embarrassing, but I didn’t have the courage to tell her everything that I was feeling. There would be time for that later on, when we managed to get back to the Calliope.

My priority had to be the situation we were in, and possible solutions for it, and if I poured my heart out to her right now...well, the only thing I would achieve would be the muddying of the waters. “Maybe I should’ve listened to you. If I knew you were going to be this amazing...”

“Oh, so you had doubts?” She laughed. “Is that why you turned me down back at the lab?”

“I did turn you down, but it sure as hell wasn’t because I had doubts. I mean, look at you.” I let my eyes wander down her body, her naked skin enough for my heart to start kicking my rib cage once more. “You’re beautiful, Addie.”

“Well, now you know what I have to offer.”

“I do,” I said. “But I think you have more to offer than just—”

I was cut short by a loud humming sound coming from outside. Narrowing my eyes, I sat up in the bed, trying to figure out what that was. The sound became louder and louder as the seconds ticked by, and then I finally realized that it was the sound of an aircraft approaching the ground.

The furious growl of dual engines, the whistling of the air as hard metal cut through it...there was no doubt about it.

Someone was coming.

“What the hell is that noise?” Addie asked, following me with her gaze as I jumped out of bed.

I redressed and made a beeline toward the window. I opened the shutters and glanced outside; small critters seemed to be fleeing from the patch of green grass right below our window, perhaps knowing what was to come, and the breeze from before had picked up.

Looking up, I saw a black dot cutting across the blue skies, and it started growing in size with each passing second. It didn’t take much mental math to know that, whatever that aircraft was, it was heading straight our way.

“That’s a ship,” Addie whispered beside me, the sharp contour of the aircraft’s fuselage now visible to the naked eye. “Is it from the Mahdfel?”

Holding my breath, I watched as it made a sharp descent, its nose aimed straight at the lawn in front of the estate. Its approach was haphazard, and I tensed up as I realized that the damn thing was about to crash land. I put one arm in front of Addie, ready to push her down to the floor if it became necessary, and watched as the ship approached.

“Fuck,” I breathed out as the ship’s fuselage hit the lawn fast, dirt and grass flying everywhere; a few loose rocks hit the glass on the bedroom window, threatening to break it, but the frame absorbed most of the impact.

The craft’s wings clipped a few trees as the ship skidded to a halt, and the tubes mounted at the rear started hissing, large clouds of steam emanating from them.

“Do you recognize that ship?” I asked Addie, hoping that she would have a hint about who the newcomers were, but all it took was one quick glance at her to know that she had never seen anything like that.

That made two of us.

“Look, it’s opening,” she said, and my gaze followed the direction her finger was pointing. On the right side of the ship, the thin contour of a door had appeared on the jet-black fuselage. Slowly, that door lowered itself down and became a ramp, until it touched the lawn. For a moment, there was only silence.

Suddenly, a single creature rushed down the ramp.

It moved like some sort of massive ape, pushing itself forward with its arms, but its skin wasn’t that of a mammal. Covering it from its powerful hind legs to its barrel-chest was some sort of chitinous exoskeleton, its black surface so smooth it reflected the sunlight. The patches where there was no exoskeleton seemed to be covered in greasy scales, and sharp horns protruded from the creature’s wedge-shaped head.

It had long fangs, too, and they seemed even sharper than its horns. That damn thing was as tall as I was, and it didn’t seem to lack in strength, either.

Lowering its snout, the creature seemed to sniff the grass underneath its legs, then it looked back up the ramp. It snarled, the sound shrill and vicious, and I felt Addie recoil in horror beside me.

“It’s like a mutated ape,” she gasped, her eyes widening as she watched. “And there are more of them.”

A fraction of a second later, I watched as dozens of creatures barreled out of the ship, moving on all fours as they went down the ramp.

The one that had come out of the ship before rose up on its hind legs and, once it reached its full height, it let out a bloodcurdling scream. It sounded like a battle cry, a call to action. The others responded with shouts of their own, their horrifying chorus filling up the air and, next thing I knew, they started running.

There were dozens of creatures heading across the lawn, making a straight line toward the mansion. A few tripped as they tried to vault over the hedges, but they didn’t allow that to slow them down.

They just kept on charging.

Taking Addie by the arm, I looked into her eyes.

“Run.”

Addie

“What?” Looking back at Javik over my shoulder, I hurriedly threw on the layers of my dress. “You weren’t expecting me to go out there butt-naked, were you?”

He said nothing at that, but crossed the length of the room and opened the door. Quietly, he peeked outside, every movement a calculated gesture. The soldier in him was finally surfacing, it seemed, his casual demeanor replaced by militaristic efficiency.

“We have to leave,” he muttered, almost as if he was talking to himself. “And find some weapons, if possible.”

“Weapons?” I repeated. “You really think we’re going to need guns?” Of course, the moment those words left my mouth, I immediately felt like an idiot.

The creatures we had seen outside didn’t look exactly friendly, and I was pretty sure they hadn’t landed here for a cup of tea.

Their entire appearance held a promise of violence.

“I’d rather have a weapon and not need it, than need it and not have it,” he said, his eyes never leaving the corridor outside the room.

It was hard not to panic. If someone like Javik was worried, then the situation couldn’t be good. Thankfully, I had him with me.

Had I been alone, I probably would’ve passed out the moment those creatures started running over the lawn. “Are you ready?”

Grabbing the egg from the Calliope, I held it against my chest.

“I’m ready now,” I replied, a knot in my throat. “Or, well, as ready as I’ll ever be.”

Javik acknowledged me with a nod and slipped out of the room. I followed after him, doing my best to keep up as he ran down the corridor. Every five seconds or so, he glanced back to see if I was still behind him. After he did that a couple of times, I asked, “What’s the plan?”

“A place like this is likely to have some kind of shuttle,” he replied, although I could tell he wasn’t sure of that. “We should try to find it, and then maybe we can get back to the Calliope. Or, you know, someplace that isn’t swarming with bloodthirsty monsters.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said, the growls and snarls coming from outside becoming louder and louder with each passing second.

From the lower floors came the sound of glass shattering, then there were screams. Whatever those creatures were, they had already managed to enter the mansion.

“Fuck, this place is like a maze.” Freezing in his tracks, Javik looked around the large hall we were in. There were various doors all around, each one of them leading down a different corridor, and there was no map we could use.

Up above, expensive looking chandeliers hung from the vaulted ceiling, their dim light casting a pale atmosphere onto the hall. Under that light, Javik’s face seemed harsher than I was used to, a hard edge around his eyes. “Alright, let’s try that one.”

Taking my hand in his, he dragged me along the length of the hall and toward a set of double doors at the end. As we rushed down the wide corridor, a group of five women burst out from a room, their panicked expressions making my stomach lurch. They were all wearing blue uniforms, and at a guess, they were more servants.

“What’s going on?” I asked them, and they stopped their frenzied run to straighten their backs. They exchanged glances, all color drained out of their faces, and then one of them stepped forward.

“We have no idea, Miss James,” she said, her voice quivering. “There are monsters outside. We got word from downstairs that they’ve been attacking the servants and we—” More screams came from behind us, and the woman’s eyes widened so much I was ready for them to pop out from their sockets.

“Oh, dear God,” the woman breathed out, then turned on her heels and started running as fast as she could, the remaining four servants rushing after her.

“It’s not going to be easy to leave this place,” Javik muttered, following the running servants with his gaze. From the hall we had just left, the sound of screams was replaced by the furious snarl of the monsters. “Shit, they’re getting close.”

Before I had the chance to say anything, Javik grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me inside the room from where the servants had appeared.

The walls in the room were lined with washing and drying machines, and there was a large counter at the center of it, tall stacks of folded laundry on top of it. The scent of freshly washed clothes gave the room a serene aura, a stark contrast to the horrors that were taking over the hall. Closing the door, Javik went to one of the low machines in front of it and then flattened himself beside it. He gestured at me, and I did the same.

I was about to say something when he held his index finger in front of his lips. Nodding, I remained silent. A couple of seconds later, I heard heavy footsteps coming down the corridor, and my blood froze in my veins. The scent of fresh laundry was overpowered by something more pungent, and I felt a wave of nausea wash over me. It smelled of rotten flesh, or something equally putrid.

Placing one hand over my mouth, I did my best not to gag as I curved over the egg. Carrying it around was ridiculous, I knew. But the other woman had explained how they’d all worked so hard to find it, and Javik had been trying to understand it ever since they left that crazy planet.

It was a hassle, but I didn’t want to be the one responsible for losing it along this mad trip.

Besides, focusing on the egg might keep me from screaming at the sound of the monsters outside.

If they enter this room, we’re dead, I thought, the chorus of footsteps outside making my imagination go wild. Those creatures were only a few yards away from us, and it sounded like there were at least a dozen of them.

As strong as Javik was, I doubted he’d be able to handle so many of those things at once. Sure, he wasn’t alone in here, but I was pretty sure I would be useless in a fight, especially considering those damn monsters seemed to be as big as Javik.

Suddenly, the footsteps reached the other side of the door and stopped. There was silence for a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity, and I held my breath as I waited. A few seconds later, the door handle started to turn, and I felt so gripped by terror that my knees went weak.

Holding one hand up in the air, Javik told me to remain still, and that’s exactly what I did. Even though my lungs felt like they were reaching their breaking point, I didn’t even dare to breathe in.

Finally, the handle turned back to its original position, whoever was on the other side of the door apparently distracted by something else

We waited for a couple of minutes, and neither of us said a thing as we waited. Eventually, Javik gave me a slight nod and unblocked the door. Cautiously, he opened it and glanced outside, his whole body relaxing at once.

“They’re gone,” he said.

“You think we should keep moving?” I asked. “There are a lot of those things. Maybe we should just wait here for it all to blow over.”

He looked at me, weighed my words, and shook his head.

“No, that’d be too risky,” he said. “We have no idea what those creatures are, nor do we know what they want. If we remain here, we might end up as easy pickings. It’s better we remain on the move and be proactive about it. That way, we’ll have a shot at surviving this.”

“Alright.” I didn’t feel very confident about his plan, but I figured it’d be better to follow his lead. After all, he was the soldier, and he was smart enough to delineate a solid strategy.

I trusted him far better than I trusted my own instincts, and I knew he’d do anything to keep me safe. “Lead the way.”

No longer running, we hurried down the corridor, slowing whenever we came to a corner. The mansion was sprawling enough to ruin my sense of direction and, after only a couple of minutes, I no longer knew where the hell I was.

Javik, though, didn’t seem that lost.

“The foyer is just downstairs,” he whispered, the two of us flattened against a wall. Up ahead was a flight of stairs that hugged the next corner at the end of the corridor. “I don’t hear anything, so maybe those creatures haven’t been through here yet.”

He paused, as if to organize his thoughts, and only then did he continue. “I think we’ll improve our odds if we get outside. It’ll be easier to look for the estate’s hangar from outside the building and, even if we don’t find a shuttle, we might hide in that hedge maze we saw before.”

I nodded to acknowledge his plan and, just a couple of seconds later, we were going down the stairs leading into the cavernous hall.

The entire estate looked like something out of a rich man’s wet dream, but the foyer was something else entirely. The marble tiles on the floor had intricate patterns inlaid throughout, and there were golden statues in each corner of the room.

There was a single chandelier hanging from the ceiling, but this one was so massive it could throw its shadow over an entire shuttle.

There wasn’t anyone in there, and the massive double doors were still closed.

“Let’s make a run for it,” Javik told me, and we started making our way toward the door. We were only halfway across the room when vicious growls drifted in from outside.

We both froze in our tracks immediately, and it only took a fraction of a second for the doors to explode inward. Standing on the other side of the ruined door were three of the monsters.

Their beady eyes locked in on us and, for a moment, nobody moved.

Then, all hell broke loose.

Javik

“Get behind me, Addie.”

I kept my eyes on the three monsters standing a pebble’s throw from us, their chitinous bodies tensing up as they hunched their shoulders.

They flexed their arms, huge muscles rippling underneath scaly shoulders as if they were preparing to attack. Unconsciously, I clenched my fists, my fingernails digging into my palms hard enough to draw blood.

One of the creatures, the one standing at the center, stepped forward with an air of command. The other two spread out, slowly advancing in an attempt to flank me.

They looked like brainless monsters, but there was some kind of intelligence behind those beady yellow eyes. Unfortunately, that intelligence seemed to be spinning around an axis of violence—no matter how hard I tried, I doubted these creatures would listen to reason.

“Alright, you fuckers,” I growled, “who wants to go first?”

Like wolves, the two creatures on the sides kept on widening their position, and I was forced to take a step back so that I could keep them in my line of sight. I pushed Addie back, keeping my own body as a firewall between her and the monsters, and placed my feet apart. Lowering my center of gravity, I settled into a defensive stance.

The one in the middle stopped moving, its yellow eyes narrowing, and then it snarled something unintelligible. A shadow moved from the corner of my eye, and I instinctively turned around as one of the fuckers charged me.

It pushed itself forward by using its hands on the floor, and then it stretched its arms toward me, its claw-like fingers aiming straight for my neck. I dropped down to one knee and broke the creature’s charge, punching it in the face with one closed fist.

Pain shot up my arm from the impact, but it didn’t seem like I had caused much damage. Slimy green pus oozed from the creature’s broken nose, but its expression wasn’t pained. Shit, I didn’t even know if they could feel pain.

“Javik,” Addie screamed.

I turned on my heels as the creature to my left rushed me. Spinning, I rammed my elbow into its face, then felt something heavy land on my chest.

I collapsed to the floor, all the air pushed out of my lungs, and opened my eyes to see the group’s leader on top of me. Its alien expression was hard to read, but I could almost swear the fucking thing was grinning, yellow saliva dripping down its sharp fangs.

I tried to punch it, but the damn thing was too fast. It gripped both my wrists and pinned me against the floor, beads of its viscous saliva landing on my shirt.

“Motherfucker,” I growled, then slammed my head forward as fast as I could. My forehead smashed against the creature’s face and, once I felt its fingers relax around my wrists, I rolled to the side and kicked it in the stomach.

It didn’t do much—its exoskeleton absorbed most of the strength in my kick—but I still managed to push myself away from it.

I kicked its head repeatedly, slamming the sole of my shoe against its nose, and that seemed to give it pause.

Seizing the moment, I closed the distance between us and put one hand around its neck, slamming its head against the floor as hard as I could. Now that the tables had turned and I was the one straddling it, I pummeled its face with both my fists.

I only stopped when the creature’s face had turned into a pulp and my fists were bloodied, and I would’ve killed the fucker if it wasn’t for one of its buddies.

Tackling me from the side, one of the creatures pushed me away from the leader, and I immediately jumped up to my feet and readied myself for more. I would’ve charged at the monster facing me, but I was distracted by screams at the far end of the foyer.

I looked back to see a group of servants streaming out from one of the rooms, a group of the ape aliens chasing after them.

“Fuck me,” I muttered, watching as the monsters caught up with the servants and started tearing them limb from limb.

My stomach lurched as I watched the walls being sprayed with blood. Forcing myself to focus on the task at hand, I turned my attention back to the bastard standing in front of me. “C’mon, let’s get it over with.”

I had no idea if it understood what I was saying, but it still charged at me. I ducked under its arm as it swung, but then I heard Addie scream. The sound of her voice shattered my concentration, and I caught the creature’s closed fist with my face.

I stumbled back and fell on my ass, pain radiating from my jaw. As I pushed myself up to my feet, hurrying so that the creature wouldn’t pin me down, I looked to the side to see why Addie was screaming.

One of my opponents had given up on me, and was now closing in on Addie. She had backed up against a wall, the artifact clutched against her chest, and her eyes were filled with terror.

Shit.

A sudden growl in front of me reminded me that I was still locked in a fight, and I spun around and kicked high. The creature deflected my leg with its forearm, but it was thrown off balance.

I seized the moment and delivered a punch to its neck, putting all my strength behind it. I heard the windpipe collapse with a crunching sound as my fist connected with it, and the creature wobbled for a few seconds before it collapsed.

I didn’t stick around to see if it was still breathing.

Turning on my heels, I started running to where Addie was.

“Fuck, what the hell?” Addie was no longer there, nor was the creature that had been chasing her. What the creatures hadn’t managed to do, Addie’s absence achieved—my heart started beating at a thousand miles per hour, a wave of panic washing over me.

I spun around, watching as chaos and madness descended upon the mansion.

The servants were being slaughtered by the creatures, screams and shouts echoing throughout the massive hall, and only a few of the humans had managed to escape. I looked out the doors to see a few of them running across the courtyard, and my breath caught in my throat as I saw a glimpse of Addie’s black hair.

The monster had caught her and had thrown her over one of its shoulders. It had already crossed the length of the courtyard, its long legs now carrying them across the garden, and I fell into a run almost immediately.

A few of the creatures tried to stop me from leaving, but I just elbowed them out of the way. I felt their claws tear through my shirt, a few of them cutting my skin, but I didn’t let that stop me.

Addie needed me.

I ran as fast as I could, but the creature started moving even faster than before once it saw I was giving them chase. It vaulted over a tall hedge and cut across the stone path leading straight into the maze.

The shadows cast by the tall hedges fell upon it and, a moment later, both the creature and Addie went through the maze’s entrance and disappeared out of sight.

“Fuck,” I muttered, but I still caught a glimpse of them once I entered the maze. Following as fast as I could, I threw myself forward once I was within range and managed to grab one of the creature’s ankles.

It fell over and Addie rolled forward, the egg still in her hands. The creature tried to crawl toward her, its claws digging into the dirt.

“Not a fucking chance,” I growled, pushing myself to my feet.

I took one step toward the monster, and forcefully slammed my foot down on its neck. With a shudder, its body finally stopped moving.

Wiping the sweat off my brow, adrenaline still coursing through my veins, I took one deep breath and looked at Addie.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “I think so.”

“Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

Addie

It was harder to leave than we had expected.

The tall hedges made it impossible to see over them, even if I climbed on Javik’s shoulders, and the endless snaking paths seemed to go on forever, endless bifurcations and dead-ends completely disorienting us.

We could still hear the servants shouting somewhere in the distance, windows being smashed and monsters growling...but inside the maze, none of that chaos reached us. Either the creatures hadn’t ventured inside the maze, or they were as lost as we were.

“How are we going to get out of this mess?” I finally asked Javik.

We had been walking for what felt like half an hour now, and we seemed no closer to finding our way out of the maze.

Never mind that, even if we managed to leave the maze, our situation wouldn’t have improved that much. We had absolutely no idea where we were, nor did we have a ship. Oh yeah, and the entire place was crawling with murderous monsters.

That didn’t help.

“We’ll find a way, Addie,” he replied, but I wasn’t buying it. He was just trying to keep me calm.

Even though I knew his intentions were good, I didn’t want to be treated like a scared schoolgirl. I needed to know what his plan was, or if he even had a plan. Judging by how shitty our situation had just become, I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear he had no idea about what we should do.

“Be straight with me,” I insisted. “We’re lost, and you have no idea how to get us out of here.”

He froze, and turned around to face me. His eyebrows were knitted together, but he didn’t seem to be mad at me. Still, I could see the gears turning inside his head as he tried to think of something to say that could placate me. “Don’t try to tell me it’ll all be alright. I can tell that’s a lie. You know as much about what’s going on as I do.”

“That’s true,” he admitted, then he lowered his head. “Thing is, we have to be strong. We can’t give up, Addie. We have to keep on pushing ahead. Do you hear those things outside? They’re going to keep on tearing through the estate, and sooner or later they’re going to find their way into this maze. You don’t want to be here when they finally do. The best course of action remains the same. We have to find a way out of this maze, and then we keep on looking for a way out of this place.”

It was frustrating.

Pursing my lips, I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself down. It didn’t work. I felt angry, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

The worst thing was, I didn’t even know where to direct my anger. Part of that anger was directed at myself and at how stupid I had been to think that I could handle the entire process of being shipped across the galaxy...but part of it also flowed toward Javik.

I knew that he wasn’t to blame, and that he was trying his best to keep me safe, but I couldn’t stop thinking that if he hadn’t played so damn hard to get when we first met each other...well, if he had listened to me, maybe we wouldn’t be in this position right now. It didn’t make much sense, but it was hard to control those stupid thoughts.

Sighing, I put the egg down on the ground.

“What are you doing?” Javik asked me, one of his eyebrows cocked up. “We should keep going.”

“I know...” I said. “It’s just that...I don’t know. Give me a moment.”

“We don’t really have the time to—”

“Of course we have the time,” I snapped. “We have all the time in the world. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s no deadline for us to meet. We don’t have a set schedule, nor do we have a place to be. Hell, we don’t have a damn thing.”

“Addie, I—”

“Besides, I doubt that there’s a shuttle waiting for us outside this maze,” I continued, finding it impossible to stop my tirade now that I had started it. “We have absolutely no idea what this place is and, as far as we know, there isn’t a single ship here. Aside from the one filled with those monsters, that is. Unless you’re thinking of asking them for a ride. You think that’d work, huh?” I clenched my fists, the tension in my arms strong enough for me to feel it in my shoulders.

Despite my anger, I felt bad for taking it out on Javik, and turned my back to him. My temper had always sucked, or so John liked saying, but Javik didn’t deserve for me to treat him like this. He had just saved my life, for God’s sake. Why the hell was I acting like such an annoying bitch? Why couldn’t I process my emotions like a reasonable human being?

What a mess.

“I don’t get it, Addie,” he said, and then I heard him approach me. His hand rested on my shoulder and before I could stop myself, I recoiled from his touch. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” I shouted, spinning to face him. “We don’t know what’s going on. We’re completely lost and out of options. The only reason I volunteered for that stupid genetic selection was to help my brother out, to give him a future that wouldn’t suck as hard, and now I don’t even know if I’ll ever see him again.”

“Addie...”

“I hate it,” I continued. “I really do.”

Suddenly feeling deflated, I went down on my knees and ended up sitting on the ground. A few feet away from where I was, that damn egg seemed to be staring at me, and I felt a sudden urge to kick it into oblivion.

Why the hell did I need to carry that stupid thing around? It wasn’t as if it was going to help us.

“Alright, let’s take a breather,” Javik said, his tone patient and gentle. Somehow, that only made me angrier. I didn’t know what it was about people that managed to remain as cool as a cucumber during an argument, but they sure got under my skin. Maybe the problem with that kind of people was that they shone a light on my inadequacy—because I couldn’t control my emotions, I felt jealous toward those that could.

“Is there something I can do, Addie?” Javik asked, going down on one knee in front of me. “I don’t like seeing you like this.”

Goddammit, how could he be so damn perfect? Did he never get frustrated? Angry? Would he always be a reminder of how inadequate I was?

“You can leave me alone,” I said. “That’d be a start.”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I turned my back to him.

Yeah, really mature of me.

Still, it was better for him to leave me alone while I cooled down. Whenever I got like this, it was useless to carry on with a conversation.

I hated how childish and stubborn I could be at times, and promised myself I’d try harder to be a better person. If I wanted for things to work out between Javik and me, then I would need to make an effort to—

It was then that I realized that, for the first time ever, I was starting to think of Javik as more than a quick check to be deposited in my bank account. That thought alone scared me to no end.

Here I was, lost in some God forsaken tropical resort overrun by monsters, and I was starting to develop feelings for him. I was definitely going crazy, no two ways about it.

“No, no, no,” I muttered under my breath, shooting up to my feet so fast you’d think I had springs under my feet. Nervous, I started pacing around, my thoughts speeding inside my skull. Again, the damn egg caught my attention, and I directed all my anger and frustration toward it. “Do we really need to be carrying that stupid thing around?”

“What are you talking about?” Javik asked me, and I could tell he had no idea how to deal with me. I’d shot down all his attempts at kindness, which made me feel like a terrible person. Well, shit. Maybe I really was a terrible person. “We can’t get rid of it. My crew went to hell and back just so we could retrieve it. I have to get it back to the Calliope safe and—”

“We don’t know if we’ll ever return to the Calliope,” I cut him short, his eternal optimism getting to me. Before I even knew what I was doing, I had picked up the egg from the ground and raised it over my head. Screw the egg, and screw this damn planet.

Screw everything.

“No, don’t!” Javik cried, and rushed toward me so fast I didn’t even have time to move. Before I could let go of the egg, he placed both his hands on it. That moment a strange warmth spread over me, and the hedges that had been surrounding us disappeared. As did the maze, the entire estate, and every single atom around us.

Oh, no, I thought, not again.

And yet, it was happening.

We were teleporting.

Again.

Javik

Well, shit.

I looked around me, overwhelmed by the bright lights and loud sounds. It was night, and there was a crowd around us, an endless stream of people bumping against us.

Carefully, I pulled the artifact free from Addie’s hands and held it against my chest. I couldn’t afford for it to fall over and break. Not after all the shit we had gone through to find it.

“What is this place?” she asked, her eyes wide as she took in the scenery. The anger was gone from her voice, replaced by wonder and amazement. That was an improvement.

She was tiny and delicate, but she had one hell of a temper. Thankfully, she also knew how to be the sweetest damn thing.

“I know you’re probably getting used to me saying it, but I have absolutely no idea.”

We were still wearing the clothing we’d appeared in back at the mansion, but now we were in some kind of sprawling metropolis, surrounded by tall buildings. They rose into the heights like titans, so massive that I couldn’t see where they ended. Looking up, it seemed as if the buildings were being swallowed by the night.

Littering the walls were endless neon signs, and hologram advertisements popped up into existence every five yards or so.

Food stalls were everywhere, and the crowd was a blend of various species. I recognized at least a dozen languages being spoken at the same time, the air filled with a thousand simultaneous conversations. Even the advertisements added to the soundscape, most of them having to do with entertainment—from gambling to brothels, it seemed like everything was fair game in this place.

“Move ya, slimy dae,” a squat little man barked, pushing his way between Addie and me. He spoke in an amalgam of languages, some kind of creole I didn’t recognize. It seemed like a lot of people around us were speaking in that language but, even though I could pick up some of the words, even with the translator I couldn’t fully grasp what they were saying.

“Let’s move,” I told Addie and, before she could protest, I took her hand in mine and dragged her away from the crowd. I headed toward the far end of the street, next to a large outdoor restaurant with bar stools mounted around a circular counter. Behind it, a large man with a paunch was busy stirring the contents of a small army of pots and pans.

“Ya wanna adchop?” he asked me in that pidgin language and, not knowing what to say, I nodded.

“Yeah, for two,” I replied, holding up two fingers.

I helped Addie onto a stool and sat beside her, the egg resting between my legs. I raked one hand over my face, and simply watched as the man dropped in huge ladleful of noodles and some kind of beef into a pot, stirring it at the speed of light. Grabbing a menu from the side, I tried looking for some valuable information.

“Are we supposed to have a meal like nothing happened?” Addie asked me, looking at me as I read the menu. “I mean, sure, I’m hungry, but I don’t know if—”

“I’m not looking at food,” I replied, and put my finger over the small letters at the bottom of the menu. “See this?”

“It’s the name of the restaurant.”

“Yeah, and underneath it?” I asked, putting my finger underneath the words I wanted her to read. She leaned in and narrowed her eyes, still not convinced that what I was doing had any use.

“It says ‘registered in Palyndra Prime,” she read. “Is that supposed to mean anything?”

“Of course it does.” Smiling, I waved one hand at the chaotic madness around us. “This city is Palyndra Prime. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of it. Its casinos and brothels are renowned all over the galaxy. I mean, you must’ve heard about it.”

“Have you forgotten that I’m just a bumpkin from Earth?” she asked, but there was no malice or anger in her voice. She actually sounded amused. “Enlighten me. I’ve never heard of this place. It’s some kind of sin city, right?”

“Pretty much,” I nodded, and waited as the fat man behind the counter placed two steaming bowls in front of us, two sets of chopsticks along with them. I only continued speaking once I was sure the man wasn’t listening to us. “Palyndra Prime isn’t just a sin city, though. It’s the capital of sin. Brothels, casinos, violent sports...anything you can imagine, it’s in here. Money flows through these streets like a river during a flood. I’ve never been here before, but I’ve heard stories about this place.”

“I see,” she muttered, cautiously looking around. “And where exactly is this city?”

“Palyndra Prime is the capital of Palyndra,” I replied. “It’s a long way from the sector we were in back on the Calliope. It’s going to be tough to reach out. Most personal transmitters won’t be able to transmit a signal that far out into space, at least not without a lot of delay, and we don’t have enough money on us to book a teleporting platform.”

“So...we’re stuck here?”

“Kinda, but better here than in that weird tropical mansion,” I said. “At least no one here is trying to kill us.”

“Yet,” she added. Turning forward, she eyed the bowl in front of her. She picked up the chopsticks, then tried to stab the noodles with them. “How the hell are you supposed to eat with these things?”

“Here, let me show you.” Laughing, I helped her fingers into the right position around the wooden chopsticks. With a focused expression, she finally managed to fish a piece of beef from inside her bowl. “See? Easy.”

“Yeah, kinda.” Moving faster now, she leaned forward and started using the chopsticks to shovel noodles into her mouth. She was eating as if she hadn’t seen a plate of food in months. To be fair, I was feeling hungry myself. “So, how much money do you have on you?”

“Huh, let me see,” I muttered, and placed both hands inside my pockets. There were a few plastic credits in there, but I didn’t dare put them on the counter. Palyndra Prime was a tourist haven, and that meant it was also a haven for thieves and pickpockets. “I have some. It won’t last us long, but I think it’ll be enough for us to book a room somewhere, at least for a couple of nights. That should buy us enough time to figure out a way out of here. With some luck, we’ll be able to relay a message to the Calliope, and then we’ll just have to wait for them to pick us up.”

“Didn’t you say your ship is far from here?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “And with the message’s delay...it could take a couple of weeks before the Calliope gets here. I’m just guessing, though.”

“Well, at least there’s some light at the end of the tunnel,” she said, putting the chopsticks to the side and bringing the bowl up to her mouth. Once she was done with it, she placed it back on the counter and let out a satisfied sigh. Emptying my bowl, I did the same, and placed a few credits on the counter, which the man behind the counter quickly scooped up.

“You should be tired,” I said, slipping off my seat. I placed the artifact under one arm, and helped Addie down from her stool. “The last couple of hours were insane. It’s better we find a place for us to spend the night.”

Truth be told, I was also feeling dead tired, and my body was covered with cuts and bruises from those creatures. I needed to clean those wounds, and I needed a shower. More than just that, though, I was worried about Addie. I didn’t want her to go into shock again.

“Yeah,” she finally said, her voice mellow and exhausted. “Let’s do that.”

And so, we slipped back into the crowd.

Addie

“What do you think about this place?”

Pointing toward the building on the other side of the street, I shot Javik a questioning glance. The building was located in the city center, and it was devoid of any advertisements on its outer gray walls.

While most of the hotels we had seen so far doubled as pleasure centers—brothels that catered to every kink imaginable—this one resembled an actual hotel. It was the least sketchy option we’d seen, and I figured it’d be a good place for us to spend the night.

Javik looked at it for a couple of seconds, then replied with a nod. With one hand on my lower back, he led me across the street and through the never-ending crowd, stopping before the façade’s sliding glass doors. They slid back lazily, and a soft chime filled the air as we entered the doorway.

Inside, an empty counter ran across the pristine white wall at the end. We only had to take a small step forward for a receptionist’s hologram to materialize behind the counter.

“Welcome to the Aeon Resort,” the holographic woman chirped happily, her accent non-existent. “I’m here to assist you. Am I right to assume you are looking for a room for two?”

“Correct,” Javik replied, and I waited as he ran through the gamut of options with the hologram. Eventually, he settled on a small room located in one of the corners, a location that offered an expansive view of the city’s busiest avenue.

He paid with the credits that he had in his pocket, which were deposited into a slot that appeared on the counter, then the hologram guided us toward the elevators at the end of the reception area.

“You will find your room at the end of the corridor,” it said, appearing before us as the elevator doors opened on our floor. “Your biometrics and facial data have already been uploaded to our system, so the door will unlock for you—and only for you. We pride ourselves on offering our customers a private and secure experience.”

“Huh, thank you,” Javik said.

“Would you like to order anything to eat?”

“No, we’re good.”

“Very well,” the holographic assistant said, clasping her hands together. “A bottle of Jalian sparkling wine has been left in your room, courtesy of the Aeon Resort’s staff. I hope you enjoy your stay. Anything you need, feel free to summon me.” With that, the hologram’s translucent image flicked and disappeared.

“That gave me the creeps,” I said as we walked down the corridor. “It looked like the real thing. And it talked as if...I don’t know, that thing sounded intelligent.”

“It’s just the building’s AI,” Javik explained. “They’re designed like that. It’s complex to create an AI like that, and they do sound smart, but they’re not really that intelligent. Don’t worry. The holograms aren’t going to become self-aware and try to take over the galaxy.” Then, with a small smile, he added, “At least not tonight.”

“That’s comforting.”

The door to our room unlocked, the locks disengaging once we were just a couple of feet away from it, and we slipped inside. A large bed sat in the center of the suite, and two sliding wooden panels led into a private bathing room with a showering area and a small jacuzzi.

The outer walls were made of floor-to-ceiling glass panels and, according to what the receptionist had explained while Javik booked the room, they were all covered in a transparent layer of one-way film. We could see the city outside, but no one could see into our room.

“Not bad,” I said. “A bit expensive, but not bad.”

“Well, I figured it’d be worth it to spend a few extra credits,” Javik said. “There are a lot of shady hotels and brothels in this part of town. It’s best we keep out of places like that.”

“Agreed.” I kicked my shoes off and walked the length of the room, feeling the soft carpet under my toes.

On a small table facing the bed lay an elegant bucket, a bottle of wine peeking from between large chunks of ice. Smiling, I took hold of it and popped the cork off. It shot up into the air, ricocheted off the ceiling, and hit Javik on the back of his head.

“What the...?” Frowning, he looked at me. “What are you doing?”

“It’s complimentary, isn’t it? That means free, and free is good.”

Grabbing two glasses, I poured some wine into them. It had a sweet fruity taste to it, and it went down my throat like liquid gold. Considering that we hadn’t paid for it, at least not directly, it was a pretty good wine. Not that I knew anything about wines—back on Earth, John and I would call ourselves lucky if we managed to buy a few cheap beers over the weekend.

“Here, have some,” I said, pushing a glass into Javik’s hand. He hesitated at first, but then downed the contents of his glass in one single gulp. For a guy his size, an entire bottle of wine wouldn’t really make a dent on his mental sharpness. A glass that size, his stomach probably wouldn’t even notice it.

Sitting down on the bed, I watched as Javik placed the egg beside the ice bucket, balancing it so that it wouldn’t tip over and roll off the table. He handled it carefully, almost as if he were afraid the damn thing would break any second now.

“Why is that thing so important?” I asked him, and he just looked at me and pursed his lips.

“I’m not entirely sure,” he said after a couple of seconds. “The orders my crew had were to retrieve this artifact, and that’s what we did. We don’t know much about it, to be honest. All I know is that we have to deliver it to our superiors.”

“Don’t you think it’s weird that we were touching that egg each time that we—”

“Teleported? Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t exactly know why, but it seems like the artifact is connected to what we’ve been experiencing. It might be creating some kind of quantum interference in the spatial magnetism of the—”

“Slow down,” I cut him short. “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“The artifact must have some kind of teleporting abilities, and I suspect that whoever’s touching it is the one directing it.” He paused for a moment, then scratched his chin in an absent-minded way. “I was thinking about sex when I stopped you from smashing the egg and, lo and behold, we ended up on a pleasure planet.”

I almost choked on the wine.

“You were thinking about sex?” I protested. “What the hell, man? We were having a fight.”

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “You are attractive, and seeing you angry like that...I kinda like how fiery you can get. Besides, we had already enjoyed a moment before, remember? The whole thing was still fresh in my mind.”

Can’t blame you there, I thought, fully aware that I hadn’t stopped thinking of his naked body ever since. I watched him explore the egg with his fingertips, then he stopped, a pensive look on his face.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Back at the lab...” he started. “Remember when we first teleported? What were you thinking about then?”

Oh, shit.

“Huh, well, I...” Clearing my throat, I tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I was kinda mad at you, and so I was wondering why I hadn’t been matched with some wealthy businessman who just wanted an heir. It seemed like an easy fix for all my problems. Then I touched the egg, and we ended up at the estate.”

“Makes sense,” he whispered, still looking at the egg. He didn’t look annoyed with what I had just told him. His scientist-mode was now on and fully engaged, and he probably didn’t have much space inside his head for trivial stuff like that.

It was slightly maddening—no girl likes being replaced by thoughts of quantum-quantum-something—but at least I knew he was working on a solution.

“Are you going to try and activate it?” I asked, jumping off the bed and going to his side. Up close, the egg looked like...well, like an egg. Sure, it was the largest egg I had ever seen, but there was nothing in its appearance that indicated it could zap people from one side of the galaxy to the other.

“Not tonight,” Javik replied, and pushed the egg back against the wall. “We’ll have to try it sometime, but we need to rest tonight. If we try it, and we’re sent to some dangerous place...I don’t want our energy stores to be depleted if that happens. I want to be ready for anything.”

“Point taken,” I agreed, and threw myself on top of the bed. The moment I felt the mattress underneath my back, a wave of exhaustion washed over me. Javik was right—we needed a good night of sleep. Besides, we were in a fancy pants hotel.

No harm in enjoying it, I figured.

Javik

Addie’s giggles were adorable. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, leafing through the brochure for the resort, idly waving her hand as she flicked through the holographic animations. I was content to just watch her for a few minutes, taking her in.

Her coloring was so dramatic, but her manner was gentle. It made her cute more than stunning, even though that jet-black hair paired with pale blue eyes was certainly striking. She put her chin in one hand while she examined the page, reading through carefully. When she giggled again, my heart jumped up into my throat.

This was all I wanted for the rest of my life. To watch her, listen to her, understand her. Yes, she was beautiful, almost painfully so. But it was more about understanding her mannerisms, why she looked a certain way when she was thinking or moving.

She laughed again and finally my curiosity was getting the better of me.

“Okay, tell me,” I grinned.

“This one’s an oil slide. Kind of like a water slide, but they rub you in coconut oil. You can do it with a partner and try to have sex on the way down or they can send a ‘pleasure specialist’ with you.”

“What is a ‘pleasure specialist’, and how does one achieve this level of sensuality?” I used a mocking tone so that she knew I was trying to make use of sarcasm and subtext. She grinned up at me.

“Here.” She flipped to the beginning of the cycle where there were a few pages of beautiful people, both male and female and from all possible species. All of them wore pleasant expressions and were made up as elegantly as possible.

She took the tablet back, speaking in time with the narration.

“All of the pleasure specialists are fully qualified to support your experience here at the resort. With extended experience in all manner of sensations that the universe has to offer, we will guarantee that you find your experience climactic!”

She giggled, crushing the tablet a little before flicking through the holos again.

“Look at this one. ‘Full virtual reality sex. Have sex with anyone you desire. Mental manipulation is complete, stimulating your brain on the cortical level. You will walk away with the full experience of sex with your chosen paramour. Caution, this exercise may involve slight brain damage’. Seriously, who’s going to do that?”

“Show me.” I reached for the tablet, reading the article for myself. After scanning through, I found myself quite horrified.

“The brain can’t tell the difference between a real experience and an imagined one, it’s true. But these guys aren’t doctors, they’re barely even technicians. This should be illegal.”

“Did you see the price for it, though? It must work.”

“Wow.” Like a lot of places in the universe, it had mixed payment options but anything that they would accept was far above my usual salary. “Insanity.” I shook my head, hoping that the experience was worth the fried synapses.

The next video in the cycle caught my eye. It showed still, dark pools lit by candles. Sweet flowers were scattered across the water and elegant vials of oil stood between the dim lights.

“How about this. ‘Scented baths and erotic massage. Attend with partner or choose a pleasure specialist for your experience.’ That looks really nice, actually.”

Addie took the book back, looking at it for some time. “It does look nice.” She bit her lip, just a little.

“Maybe we should take the opportunity to do one of these activities.” I tried to speak as casually as possible so it wouldn’t be completely obvious that I was desperate to get her into an oiled bath. “You never know if we’ll be able to come back.”

“Yeah,” she said idly, turning the page, then flipping the book sideways, frowning. “Some of this alien stuff is super weird.”

I had to laugh at her expression. “Maybe to you. Imagine what they would think if they ever saw human mating.”

She made one of those precious giggles again as she turned another page.

“Like you can talk! You were the one thinking about mating when we were literally running for our lives!”

“What’s so weird about that?” I frowned, still unsure about the proper times to think about sex. Was that even something you could help doing?

“Look, from my perspective, it’s a bit strange. I was worried about getting killed or having a heart attack from stress while you were thinking about...well, your parts, or mine.”

I could tell from her wry grin that she had more colorful words to use but had chosen tamer ones for modesty. Perhaps to avoid escalating the situation towards sex.

From my perspective, everything was pretty sexy already.

The memories of the last time just didn’t stop flowing through my mind. This was why I just couldn’t understand what she’d meant about thinking of sex while I was fighting. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Not for a second.

I wanted to slide across the bed and crush her against my chest. Hold her tightly against me until the heat from my body awakened hers. Tease her with my lips until she begged to be kissed. Touch her all over with some of that hot oil. We hadn’t really had a chance to explore each other yet and rubbing her down with oil seemed to me a perfect way to discover every last inch of her.

But what could I do? I had no way of knowing if she was ready now, desiring me. I really couldn’t understand how we could be so close and intimate one moment, then fighting the next. How was I supposed to know when was the best time to touch her?

Maybe she really didn’t want me to. She was the one who said from the very beginning that it was just sex and she wouldn’t get emotionally entangled with me. I was confused by the entire situation, especially since we had come together with so much intensity.

She liked me, or at least liked what I did for her. The up and down emotional state was the only thing holding me back.

Did she want me, or not?

I tried to frame that in Earth words, mulling over it while she giggled over the brochure. My body was responding to the sexual suggestion in the room and I knew that pretty soon, I wouldn’t be able to hide my arousal.

“Addie.” I turned towards her and the magazine dropped into her lap. She grinned at me, clearly still thinking about the activities in the tablet.

“How do you feel about this situation? About me?”

She frowned. “Being here in a pleasure resort with you?”

“No. I mean about me...us. In the beginning, you just wanted things to be simple. Mate and pay, I think that’s how you put it. I know we’ve got other stuff going on, teleporting all over the place with an artifact, not knowing what’s happening… but have you thought any more about how you feel about us?”

She stared at me, looking shocked and slightly dumbfounded.

“Is there a future for us?” I decided to push on, why not? I was already in deep.

She looked down, clearing her throat. I saw her eyes flicker around, as if she wanted to escape the conversation.

“I may have misunderstood the situation.” She looked up at me with wide eyes. “I didn’t think that being genetically matched was that big of a deal emotionally, and I really focused on the idea that children were the result. It was naive of me to assume I could meet the person I’m a perfect match for, fuck him, and leave him.”

I felt my heart and my spirit—as well as other parts of me—rise with her words. I slid a bit closer to her on the bed.

“I should have thought about it a bit more.” She looked away again, as if looking into my eyes was too challenging. “I mean, there was plenty of information about it when I signed up. I just didn’t bother.” When her eyes turned back to mine, she was searching my face.

I could tell that she didn’t have the courage to fall head over heels for me. Not yet, but she was getting there. She was sweet and loving inside, but her treatment over time had forced her to grow a hard, spiny shell.

That was okay. I could spend a lifetime unwrapping her. It didn’t make her undesirable, it made me even more eager to figure her out and learn all there was to know about her.

“I know what I said in the beginning,” she sighed. “But I don’t think I can just walk away.” She turned her face up to mine, getting quite close to me. “I don’t really know what to expect. But it seems impossible to leave you. I can’t even imagine it.”

She was so beautiful and vulnerable at that moment. I had never seen her look so lovely.

Without hesitating, I leaned in, gently pulling her towards me. When our lips met and she kissed me back with real passion, I knew that she wanted me just as bad as I wanted her.

Addie

When his lips met mine, it was explosive. I could feel it rising in me the whole time we were talking and I was already painfully aroused when he came over to me.

I knew that I wanted him and there was no point in trying to deny it. I wasn’t ever going to stop wanting him, either. The idea of us being separated was terrifying.

The kiss deepened right away, and I slid across the bed towards him. The brochure crackled as we kicked it aside. I still had visions of hot oil running through my mind. Imagining his beautiful, hard body under my hands while I spread oil from one end of him to the other was making my mouth water.

I ran my hands over his shoulders, thinking even more about the exciting things I had read in the booklet. I wanted to do everything with him.

To do that, I had to shove aside a lot of my previous ideas about running the moment we conceived. It was as if a ghost existed in my mind and the new me—the one in love with Javik—was slowly exorcising her.

I had never felt such an intense connection before. Sex and relationships had all hit the same level of disappointment in my life. That’s if I’d been lucky and it wasn’t worse.

I had never met anyone that smoldered like he did, though. He was so sexy I was surprised water didn’t boil near him. He was smart, as well, but he didn’t use it against me or anyone else.

Best of all, he was completely attentive.

He paid attention to me, literally. People could interpret ‘attentive’ in a few different ways, but Javik knew what I was thinking or feeling and if he didn’t know, he kept watching me until he figured it out.

He wanted to know everything about me, even things that most people wouldn’t consider important.

The way his body reacted to mine was intoxicating. He made me feel beautiful and sexy in a way I never had before, just by wanting me.

I leaned into him, grabbing his arms to pull him closer. His hard biceps against my hands were warm, his mouth hot. I felt fire burning inside me that demanded to be fed.

I pushed him down by the shoulders, surprised by the little growl of need that leaped from my lips. As he hit the bed he laughed, pulling off his shirt when I paused to do the same. My hands went straight for his pants and his eager smile as he watched me tug them off urged me on almost as much as my own arousal.

I bent my head to his cock, using the lightest of touches with my tongue around the head. He cried out like he was being murdered with hot pokers. I grinned around my tongue, stealing the tiniest little licks while he held his body still, determined to submit to my intent.

I slid my hands up his thighs, enjoying each moment that my palms ran across his skin. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted oil involved. I wasn’t going to stop now though, and I knew, neither would he.

When my hands came together at his crotch, I used one hand to grab the base of his cock while the other went lower, stroking his balls. His back twisted against the mattress as he struggled to stay still.

“Careful, big boy,” I whispered. “Or I’ll have to tie you still.”

He moaned and I didn’t know if he was enticed by the idea or not. It didn’t matter right now though, not while I was punishing him with my softest attentions.

I held the base of his cock firmly while my other hand played with his soft balls. I wrapped my lips around the head, letting my tongue sneak down to tease the shaft. I could hear his breathing, rasping sharp and short.

My hands came up while I let my mouth slide all the way down until he was completely nestled in my throat. My fingers caressed his abs and tickled over his sides while my mouth pleasured him.

As I started to bob up and down, I glanced up to see him clawing at the blankets. His face was a mixture of need and wonder. I kept up my slow work until he was trembling with desire.

I stood up on the bed and slipped my dress off. I turned my back to him and leaned down to take off my panties, very slowly. He let out a groan as I bent over, leaving everything exposed for him to see.

His body braced as if he was about to rise and grab me, so I dropped to my knees. I climbed him quickly, letting my breasts rub against him as I crawled up and gripped his shoulders.

I rocked back and forth from the hips, feeling his cock reaching for me. Every time it bobbed upwards, I felt my pussy painting it with juice as I teased him, just slightly out of reach.

He was breathing hard, trying desperately to stay still. I could feel the tension running through him. He wanted me to do my will, even though he was dying to be in charge.

I moved my hips just a little, needing almost no guidance to slide him into me. The shudders running through his body intensified and he let out a sharp shout as I pressed my hips down, pushing him all the way to the end inside me.

I stayed still for a blissful moment, enjoying the two of us joined as one. I couldn’t believe that I had been going through life thinking that sex was a waste of time, sweat and effort for very little reward.

The people who’d said ‘you aren’t doing it right’ really weren’t kidding.

My pussy was clenching around him, from the opening to deep inside. He moaned as my insides squeezed him, the orgasm already building. I lifted myself up and down a few times, enjoying the deep friction.

I leaned forward, pressing my clit to the hard muscles at the base of his cock. It took a bit of stretching, but I reached his mouth with mine and kissed him. His hands came up to stroke my upper arms and I opened my lips, deepening the kiss.

When we were joined like this, I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began. With my eyes closed, it was just one great mystical ball of pleasure that encompassed us both. It was impossible to tell who was giving and who was receiving. It didn’t even matter.

Gripping his shoulders hard, I started to thrust with my hips. He pressed his own hips up, making sure I had a firm base to push against with my clit. He let me control the movement, even though he did jerk himself upwards every now and then to bounce me.

My nails started to dig into his shoulders as the friction built inside me. I was starting to gasp out loud and I think I might have been saying his name. I just didn’t know, I didn’t care. This was the most incredible experience of my life and I would never give it up.

I felt his cock getting even harder and thicker inside, and the sensation of my inner lips being stretched made me scream. I let go of his shoulders to sit right up, moving so that his cock stroked me from every angle.

As my deep inner muscles began to pulse, I went completely still. I wasn’t even sure that I could move.

My hands started to tremble and deep inside me, the explosions began. My muscles grabbed at him and I pulsed with the power of a thousand suns. I knew that I was screaming, but I couldn’t hear it. The only thing that was real was Javik’s hands on my waist, steadying me.

Then he sat up, still holding me steady and enjoying the feeling of my multiple orgasms streaming over his cock. When he put an arm at the small of my back and grabbed my nipple in his teeth, my body snapped back and forth as if I’d been lashed.

He grabbed my ass with both hands, pushing himself forwards. I clutched his shoulders, feeling my nails digging in but I didn’t care and neither did he. We pushed against each other, the motion becoming a rolling tide that ate us up and swept us away, a dark tide that contained only pleasure.

I screwed my clit even harder into him at the exact same time he started to thrust into me, slowly but powerfully. That was it, I was done. I collapsed against him, feeling my body going loose in every joint.

Moans kept ripping from my throat as he pounded me and all I could feel was the relentless, mind-blowing orgasms that just did not stop coming.

Javik

We were wrapped together, literally as locked as two physical bodies could be. She was in my lap, her arms around my shoulders as she gasped near my ear. Her legs were loosely around my waist and I held her tight.

My hands slid down to cup her ass and rock her closer to me. Her deep inner muscles wouldn’t stop trembling and she was so hot and slick inside, I knew she was experiencing intense pleasure.

It made me so happy to make her feel so good. Her teasing with her tongue at the beginning was inspired and so very mischievous. I was on a peak of sexual intensity that I couldn’t have imagined before Addie.

I rocked back and forth a little, feeling myself hard and stiff inside her soft folds. When I moved, I gently lifted her, laying her down beside me. She curled onto her side, smiling. I ran my hands over her body, her smooth skin delighting me all over again.

She rolled onto her back and opened her legs, looking up at me with an extremely naughty expression. I obliged her immediately, rubbing at her clit. My cock felt hard and sharp, like it could cut permasteel. I turned her over gently and she went up on her knees immediately, presenting herself to me.

I couldn’t wait. I put my cock into her, watching as my body parted her delicate, juicy petals. I grabbed her hips and started rocking, letting her bump against me.

I was ready to let myself go completely when she whispered, “Take all of me, Javik. I’m yours. Take all of me.”

The sound was so quiet and breathy I wasn’t sure it was real. Surely it was a specter risen by my desire. I rubbed her ass cheeks, teasing closer and closer to the puckered hole. She leaned back against me and I tried to moan but it got stuck in my throat.

I was so full of emotion and need, I couldn’t think. My body moved without any mental effort as I pulled out my cock and teased her ass with it. I fingered her, using the slick juice to paint her crack and rub at her, making sure this was really what she wanted.

She leaned into me, saying softly, “Yes, yes.”

I think I lost my mind for a second. I slid forward on my knees, watching as I slowly penetrated her. She bucked under me and the sensation pounded my oversensitive cock. For a few seconds I just held on to her, folded forward as if I had been shot.

She started to moan and rock, and I knew that I couldn’t take it a second longer. She did intense things to me just by sitting casually reading a tablet, so this was an onslaught of carnality even a man of my making was helpless against.

I thrust, maintaining control by sheer will. When she leaned back on me, I started to thrust harder and faster. The physical sensations were enough to make me lose my mind, but the level of trust, the intimacy was what truly aroused me.

This was why I had been so insulted in the beginning by her mate-and-pay idea. I knew that when I came together with my mate it would be like this, all encompassing, body and soul.

I knew that she was learning the power of the mate bond and the feeling of us coming together in complete understanding and shared sensation completed me almost by itself. Addie feeling the same pleasure as me, trusting me, heightened every sense.

I let my body lose control, leaning into her. She was gasping, holding herself up under me to rock from the hips. I slid one hand around and rubbed her clit, making her buck under me and scream. When I dug my fingers in deeper to tease her wet pussy, she writhed like a snake, body convulsing with another orgasm.

My mind blanked when the climax finally took me. It was like my mind suffering a complete wipe, nothing but pale white behind my eyes. My body shuddered as I spilled my seed, crying out like I was being destroyed, remade from the inside out. I suppose in some ways, I was.

As I fell forward on the bed, Addie rolled towards me and I turned on my side, welcoming her into my arms. I snuggled her close, the smell of her hair, her soft lips adding to my satisfaction.

For a few moments, only our breathing broke the silence. With every moment that passed, the only thing that occupied my thoughts was that I wanted my mate to be happy. Nothing else in the universe mattered.

“Addie,” I said softly. She looked up at me, eyes half closed.

“Hmmm?”

“I want you to know that I love you. I love you so much, nothing has ever meant as much to me as you do.” I sighed, ready to speak the words that would probably take her from me forever.

“I know that you want to go home. I’ll support any decision you want to make. I just want you to be happy.”

The silence that fell after that made my heart go completely still in my chest. I waited for her to say something, anything.

Her fingers brushed against my chest, her breathing very soft. She didn’t make any effort to move, just stayed pressed against me while she spoke.

“I love you too, Javik. I really do. I didn’t think I could really love anyone. Not like this, anyway. But it’s not as easy as that. I want to stay with you, but...”

“But what?”

“I’ve always looked after my brother. We didn’t have a great upbringing, as you know. He’s just not strong. I can’t explain it. I need to care for him.”

I hung on her words, waiting for them to turn into the lifeline that saved me or the noose that killed me. I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. Perhaps even she didn’t know what she wanted and staying in between was the safest place.

I hoped that something would come along to break the mood, because we had gone from extreme sexual intensity to just extreme intensity. Our breathing didn’t seem like calm background noise, but sharp-edged blades. Still, we clung to each other, less likely than ever to let go.

There was a loud rhythmic pounding and at first, I thought it was one of us, heart beginning to pound so hard it could be heard in the stillness of the room. When my mind finally separated the sound, I realized it was drums and they were not far away.

I hurried to the balcony, Addie following close behind. Down below, a band had started playing, unlike any I had ever seen.

Drums and reed instruments fed the primal beat as if individual musicians had stationed themselves around the atrium below and started to play without a common tune in mind.

The drums beat against each other, harmonizing as they played. The flutes and pipes soared high over the beat, tracing the senses with pleasure like salt on the sweet edge of a dessert.

We looked at each other, then down at the party again. People in strange costumes were flocking in from different directions. Some had already settled onto massive piles of cushions, starting their own foreplay without a care to anyone who might be watching.

I thought Addie might be offended by the overt sexual display, but when I turned her way, she was smiling, bottom lip caught in her teeth. She shrugged and looked down into the courtyard again.

“Shall we go and see?” She was excited and curious, clearly wanting to throw herself into the next adventure. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Her beauty was matched by an indomitable spirit that would not give up. Every time she opened up about her past, I respected her even more.

She looked down at the antics below and her eyes lit up even more. I grabbed her hand as we hurried inside to get ready.

Addie

We hurried around the room, looking for our clothes. I was pretty tired of the layered dress by now, and the white wasn’t nearly as bright as it had been. Searching around, I found a nice, short-sleeved red robe in one of the chests by the bed.

As I slipped into my sandals, wrapped the robe around myself and tied the sash, I looked up to see Javik staring at me.

I had to giggle. He looked slightly ridiculous, standing there in his flowered shirt but with no pants. His cock hung down, still huge but it made me feel incredibly close to him to share a random moment of unconventional intimacy.

Javik kept staring at me, walking toward me slowly, as if we were in a dream. He stopped by the vase of flowers on the side table, plucking out a vibrant red flower something like a lily. He tucked it behind my ear, smoothing my hair.

“You look amazing in red,” he said gently. His wide eyes and appreciative look made me feel loved and wanted.

I giggled at him again. “Put your pants on. Don’t you know, on Earth it’s a crime for a naked man to wear socks? The fine for going pantless but with a shirt on is less, but still completely against the law.”

He stood up as he struggled into his pants, grinning at me.

“Wait, wait.” He shook a finger at me. “That is an Earth joke, isn’t it? You almost had me there. I was going to ask about the punishment. But you mean it’s so unattractive it might as well be a crime. Correct?”

I let my face fall, shaking my head. “Well, that’s it. How am I supposed to have any fun with you at all if you’re always going to be a step behind?”

Javik laughed at my word play, quickly crossing the room to pull me into his arms.

“I can think of plenty of fun we could have without using words at all.”

He leaned down, kissing me and holding me tightly to his chest. It felt possessive and kind of macho, but I liked it.

I liked being his.

Did that mean I was ready to stay with him? I just didn’t know.

I pulled away, grabbing his hand. “Come on, tough guy. Let’s go check out the party.” I glanced to where he’d put the egg. “Do you think we should take it with us?”

Javik frowned, considering. “It’s probably safer here, hidden, then out in the streets with us.”

After building a little nest for it of layers of blankets, we headed downstairs, still holding hands. The looks we exchanged were excited and almost secretive, like new lovers’ should be.

I couldn’t help but feel the overshadowing of my choice though, knowing that no matter which way this thing went, I was going to get hurt and hurt someone that I loved.

As we wandered through the building, I admired the decor of the place. There were wall hangings for lights made of gold and crystal. They didn’t illuminate the place very much, but the shadows only enhanced the red and gold patterns on the walls.

Everything seemed alien, unfamiliar, and yet there was something about it that still echoed Earth culture.

There were things I would miss, if I never went back. Knowing the curve of the sun, and the cool wind that crept along the ground just as the light was dying in winter. Seeing the full moon above and feeling her pull against the planet somewhere deep inside me. Even humans not born on Earth reacted to her season and the regularity of her days. Standing between the sun and moon on the day of an equinox was nothing short of magical.

I didn’t think I’d ever been on high alert like this for so long, either. Every moment since I left Earth had been either frantic or intensely exciting. For all the drudgery of my old life, the simple joy of relaxing while reading a book and drinking tea was something everyone could enjoy. I couldn’t depend on having a quiet moment out here at all—maybe never.

But greater than my tugging sense of loss and confusion was the rising excitement from being with Javik. I couldn’t believe that only a few days ago I’d been poor, living in a house that was falling apart so fast I couldn’t plug the holes in the walls quick enough to keep the wind out.

My brother and I had literally dreamed about good food and comfortable beds!

Now I was in an opulent hotel and before that I had been in a mansion which had possibly been constructed by my own thoughts.

We walked through the hotel foyer together, Javik looking quiet and curious. I didn’t even really know how I felt, and I might prefer to keep it that way. I had too much on my mind and every day that I lived this crazy new life, I got further from my old one, further from the reasons to go back.

We entered the courtyard and the first thing I saw was five aliens wrapped in some act I couldn’t even describe. I watched, shocked, for a few seconds, until Javik covered my eyes.

“Don’t stare, Addie,” he laughed.

“They don’t seem to be complaining.”

“No, of course not. But if they look up and see you staring, they might invite you to join in.”

“Oh, yeah?” I turned to him, grinning. “Maybe I’d just say yes.”

He laughed, pulling me towards the musicians and people dancing. I assumed immediately that he wanted to dance and started shimmying my hips, trying to catch the pulse of the music.

They were like a jazz band with completely different instruments though—they were doing constant improv without the familiar sounds. It was impossible to predict anything except the throbbing beat.

“I, ah, I don’t—”

“Don’t you dare tell me that you don’t dance.” I grabbed his hands and put them on my hips. “Turn off your big brain for just a couple of seconds. And dance.”

“But I don’t—”

I leaned in, covering his mouth with my hand. “Shut up. Feel me. Just feel me.”

He pulled closer, trying to sway his hips at the same time as I did. He looked for all the worlds like a duckling with big feet trying to make it up the bank to the pond. I wrapped myself around him, still swaying to the constant beat.

“Close your eyes,” I whispered. He did. “Just follow me.”

I closed my eyes, too, stroking his arms as I stayed pressed to his chest. I rocked back and forth, easing my weight from foot to foot until he was swaying with me.

That moved on to knee-bends and more energetic swaying. As we started to spin and twirl, letting our bodies go, I could see that Javik was feeling the rhythm. He still looked out of place, but he was hearing the music with his whole body.

“It’s kind of like fighting,” I said, breathless from a particularly vigorous movement. “Just listen to your body. Don’t try to control it.”

With that, I saw understanding flash across his face. He seemed to change immediately, his movements becoming more fluid.

He was still a nerd in a lab coat at the prom, but at least he looked like he had some moves. A cool nerd. The one that doesn’t give a fuck if he’s a nerd, because he’s cool with himself.

I was really glad that I didn’t share every thought I had aloud. That one would have twisted Javik’s head up pretty bad. He was getting pretty good at deciphering Earth slang though, but I was holding some in reserve just to see his reaction to them.

We pulled closer, my arms sliding around his waist as he hugged my shoulders. I could feel his heart beating against my cheek. It matched the drums, the vibration that pulsed through the air.

That beat was running the energy of the entire party, the high flute sounds over top capturing the mind with complexity while the drumbeat awakened the base urges.

I knew that he could feel the beat, not just of the music and how it affected everyone it touched, but how it found our hearts and linked us as one.

I pulled back a little to look into his eyes and he was looking upon me with unbridled wonder. As always, his reaction to me only enhanced the intensity that I felt for him.

I leaned towards him again, coming up on my toes to kiss him. I just couldn’t stop touching him and every moment I wasn’t kissing him, I was thinking about it.

How could I live my life without Javik?

I couldn’t. That was obvious by now.

Just as our lips were about to touch and my mind and heart almost rolled into one, a scream pierced the beat throbbing through the party.

It was so sudden and so grating, I leaped away from Javik, covering my ears.

It went on, piercing terror playing against the harmony that had existed only seconds before.

Javik

I couldn’t remember a time in my life of pure revelry, any day where I had been allowed to just let myself go and party. It was rare for the Vaznik to get time off, and even when we did, we never had female companionship.

Being with Addie made me feel slightly mad, as if my common sense had been cast to the winds and my intelligence was of no importance. The only thing that mattered was her hand in mine, the light in her eyes and the joy in her smile.

The music was like nothing I had ever heard. There were no modern instruments or electronic enhancements, only the basic drums and flutes which could have been forged when any race was brand new. The throbbing of it affected me deeply and I wanted Addie again, right there on the dance floor.

The surrounding people and aliens certainly didn’t seem to care about the rest of the party watching them. They threw themselves down on the available furniture or even on the floor, tearing at each other’s clothes as if they had succumbed to a frenzy. I could feel it in the music, like the marrow of my bones was trying to dance like the rest of me.

I was dancing awkwardly, I’ll admit that. Even after starting to think of it as a type of fight—given that some hand-to-hand techniques mimic dancing—I knew I still didn’t have natural rhythm.

It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was Addie. I couldn’t think about her possibly going away, back to Earth. I knew I would have to let her go if that was what she wanted. I was glad of the strange pleasure planet whisking us away and even happier about the party that was going on. It took us away from our troubles and delayed that moment where one of us would have to decide.

She leaned in closer and I knew she was going to kiss me again. The music combined with the memory of our recent coupling almost undid me. I had to have her. The second her lips touched mine I might not be able to control myself.

The first thing I noticed was a frown fluttering across Addie’s features. I knew something was wrong, but my blood was running so hot that for a moment, I couldn’t understand it. I wanted to ignore it and focus on the music, be lost in Addie.

Then it cut through my perception, the sound of fear stark against the sounds of the party. It annoyed me, I knew that sound was making Addie hesitate and all I wanted was for her to kiss me again.

It was a scream.

My body hardened and I almost snarled as I looked around. It was just one peal of terror against a thousand other sounds, but it was keen. My body reacted immediately, telling me that there was danger nearby.

Then another scream joined the first. My nerves sang and my muscles tensed. This wasn’t one upset person, it was an event affecting the others, as well. My first instinct was to go towards the sound and discover the threat, but I couldn’t leave Addie.

Then people started to run. They went tearing past us, falling all over each other. The music stopped quite abruptly and then the air was simply full of fear and its affects. The sounds of people and aliens running in terror roared through the courtyard. The only beat to be heard was the relentless footsteps of the partygoers as they fled towards the hotel.

Anyone who had been on the ground enjoying the sexiest aspects of the party was pretty much trampled. I saw huge waves of people going down as they tried to leap over or stampede around others, getting caught and plunging to the ground.

The screams themselves were enough to frighten a warrior. These people weren’t just scared, they were running from the knowledge of a horrific death.

I grabbed Addie, holding her tight to me. Running towards the hotel was practically suicide. We were getting jostled from side to side as others pushed past us, racing for shelter. There was a massive crowd all starting to punch each other with desperation as they tried to get in through the narrow door.

I kept my eyes peeled for another route of escape as people ran towards us. As the crowd began to thin, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Those horrible alien things that we’d seen at the tropical estate were charging through the crowd. They cut people down with their claws and horns, running low to the ground and moving fast. They were disgusting beasts and I couldn’t believe we were running into them again so quickly.

With a roar, I leaped towards them, catching one on the chin with a powerful fist. As he went down, I rammed my shoulder into another one and took down three as I rolled forward.

I spun as I came up, landing on my feet. I took out another one with my fists as I heard a scream behind me.

I spun around, and four of the creatures had Addie. They were holding her arms and legs, trying to wrestle her to the ground.

Even though they were very strong, she had the strength of a madwoman and was trying to tear herself free, screaming and struggling.

I took one step towards her when I was stopped by something hitting me hard on the head. I went down to my knees, my hand coming up by itself to grab the weapon as whoever wielded it tried to hit me again. My fingers gripped it mid arc and I twisted it in the opposite direction, feeling it connect.

I didn’t even look behind me. I leaped up and made a wide sweep with the weapon. I felt it connect with several of the things behind me, then I launched myself towards Addie.

I came down on top of one of the ugly bastards, hearing its skull crack as I hit it with all my strength on the back of its head. Addie managed to get a leg free and started tearing at the other two. I swung the weapon—a short staff—and got the next one in the belly.

Only two on her now.

Something hit me from behind and this time it was a blade, not a staff. Fire sliced above my ribs, but it hardly slowed me down as I turned to hit my attacker full force in the face.

Three more were coming at me and I charged them. My own roar sounded impossibly loud and vicious as I ran towards them, determined to take them all down.

I’d barely engaged when I heard Addie screaming again. I turned around to see the filthy things all over her. As I tried to go to help her, I got hit on the head again. Immediately after, someone hit me in the wound across my ribs.

This can’t be happening.

I could feel myself going down, the darkness making a haze at the edges of my vision. I felt the hard ground under me as I hit it face first. I was already getting up, reaching for Addie, as a growl rose in my throat.

They started hitting me, all of them. I didn’t even know how many there were any more. I kept trying to get to Addie, her screaming and struggling was too much for me. I felt like if I could just have one second to take a breath, then I could save her.

Something hit me hard in the back of the neck. I’d never known such horror as I felt at that moment, when the world faded away and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get up to save her.

I was only out for the blink of an eye, but it was enough time for the filthy things to bind me and start dragging me through the streets.

I could see Addie not far away. They were dragging her along too, letting her scream and fight. I fought to move, but they had me tied tightly, the disorientation from my injuries making me weak.

As they moved us along, we got closer to a shadowy bulk at the end of the street. I recognized it as the ship I’d seen the last time they’d jumped us.

The nasty fuckers were going to take us away on their ship, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

Addie

Heading toward the alien ship, I was so terrified, I almost couldn’t breathe. Everything had happened so fast. Part of my brain kept trying to return to the peaceful moments of the party and the music. Those magical moments were only just minutes ago in the past. I didn’t want to move away from them, especially into a violent future.

The horrible things gripped my arms tightly as they dragged me along. Their claws scratched at me. I stumbled a lot and they just kept walking, letting my feet drag along the ground. They pulled on my arms, hauling me up as I struggled.

I panicked when I saw Javik go down. It was such chaos the second those things showed up though, I was amazed that he’d had time to react at all. They were as tall as he was and powerfully strong. They had an intense determination, all of them attacking us with focused intent.

Whatever their cause, they believed in it completely. I knew that the first step in negotiations was figuring out what everyone wanted, then bargaining for it. They must want something, otherwise, we’d be dead already.

Nearby, Javik stumbled as four of them held his arms, keeping him moving. He got his feet under him again and I could see him looking around at the aliens, trying to find an opportunity to attack. There were too many of them right now for him to even try to escape, but I could tell he was just waiting for his moment, but I had no idea how he’d manage anything, tied up as he was.

I turned my eyes back to the ground, alternating trying to keep up with the things and letting them drag me. When we finally got close to the ship, the creatures paused by the big ramp to talk and signal those inside.

Javik was standing very still, looking around with intent. These things were either underestimating him or just plain stupid, because he was figuring things out, ready to escape the first chance he got.

I had complete faith in him. I knew he would get us out of it. We’d only just found each other, and I was not about to let our story end so soon.

After some chattering, they pulled us up the low ramp. The passageways were fairly dark, and I got the feeling these things didn’t like light.

We came to a large room lit with soft blue light. The tech in this room was a slightly brighter silver than items in the other rooms and lights were blinking all over the console. A larger alien stood with his back to us, fiddling with dials on the control panel.

“The aliens?” he asked. One of the shorter ones chirped. I wondered if they could speak English. The guy in charge obviously spoke it and maybe the short guy understood.

Before he could turn around, the rest of our captors yanked our ropes until we knelt down. When we were on our knees and held there by their scaly hands, the one at the control panel turned around.

He looked somewhat refined, with longer, tidier horns than the others and a slightly more composed face. He looked us up and down, his scary yellow eyes glimmering.

“Where is the device?” he asked simply, voice grating in his throat.

“Device?” Javik looked at him in disbelief. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We came here with nothing.”

“I know you have it.” The creature’s eyes started to get a bit wild and I wondered if the calm manner was just an incredibly good ruse. “We have been waiting for it to activate for many years. There was no mistaking it. We have tracked it to you twice now.”

Javik shook his head, clearly thinking that these guys were out of their fucking minds. How did you negotiate with someone who was not sharing the same reality?

“Look, let the girl go and I’ll talk about whatever you want. I can find this thing for you and everything. But let Addie go.”

The guy—who must be the leader—shook his head.

“Her signature is on the device. She’s used it. We can’t let her go.” His mouth twisted into a terrible parody of a smile. “And if I did, I’d be losing my leverage with you, wouldn’t I?”

He gave Javik a fierce stare, daring him to make a move. Javik wrestled against his bonds for a few seconds, trying to get to the guy. Several of the creatures stood close, making sure he didn’t get free.

“Our purpose is the device. It is why we exist. It is unmistakable that you have it and you have used it. The consequences could be catastrophic. You are like children, picking up toys not meant for you. We are doing you a favor. Where is it? If you give it up, we may let you go.”

I didn’t think that either of us missed the ‘may’ part of that. Giving up the strange device they were talking about did not guarantee our freedom.

“Wait.” Javik’s face cleared. “Are you talking about the egg? The artifact?”

There was a flurry of rustling scales as the things all turned to each other to chatter about that statement. The big guy in charge just raised his eyebrows.

“Silver, darkened, but with a sheen.” He held out his hands, giving us a rough size. “It is not metal, but stone. One of the hardest substances ever encountered by any living race. When you say egg...that is not a bad description for it. Sometimes it is called a seed. Others call it a destroyer.”

Javik shifted uncertainly. “You’re talking about the egg-thing that’s been jumping us through the universe.”

Shuffling and hissing rose around us and the leader-guy opened his eyes wide, claws coming up and rattling with anticipation.

“Yes! The device, the seed! You do not understand. It does not belong in this universe.”

“That’s impossible.” I recognized the tone, even though I hadn’t known Javik that long. This was his ‘you’re so stupid’ voice that he used when others in the room were painfully wrong.

“There is nothing outside the universe,” Javik declared with finality. “The universe continues to expand exponentially. There is nothing ‘outside’ of it. Perhaps antimatter, or a reverse vacuum. Nothing living. Nothing that could use or manufacture something like the egg.”

The creature looked at Javik like he was a child. For a frightening moment, I thought he was going to pat him on the head.

“You have limited knowledge of physics. I pity you.”

“What?” Javik practically screamed.

“Not now, Javik,” I whispered desperately. Now was not the time for outrage.

“We must have it! Enough of your games!” He leaned close to Javik’s face. “It does not belong here, that’s all you need to know. We have been searching for it for eons now, time scales that mortal beings like yourselves cannot possibly understand! Give it back.”

“You can probably tell that I don’t exactly have it on me,” Javik replied dryly. He was still hurting from the insult to his intelligence. “Look, the egg is an artifact that was manufactured by a past race and left underground after they died out. It’s clearly from this universe. I don’t know what you guys are smoking out here, but it’s tech. On my ship, my people can figure it out.”

The leader looked like he was literally about to blow a fuse. Just as I was about to warn Javik, he suddenly leaped up, his hands free. The remnants of the bonds they’d tied him with fell away as he rushed at the leader-guy, jumping up to kick him in the jaw.

The others rushed in, but he was ready for them. He swung his fists into the crowd, knocking them against each other and into the walls. He hit the next ones twice as hard, watching them smash to the deck. In close quarters, he could make his strength work for him.

They were all knocked out or dead when Javik came to free my hands.

I was crying a bit, gulping back my sobs. I knew I didn’t have time for a meltdown right now, so I let Javik pull me to my feet. We started to run.

I was totally lost inside the ship, but Javik knew which way to go. Any aliens we encountered along the way were swiftly dealt with. He picked up his pace and my legs started to burn. I didn’t know how long I could keep running.

As if sensing my situation, Javik turned to me and scooped me up, running twice as fast with me pressed against his chest.

I put my arms around his neck and held on as tightly as I could. He would protect me, I trusted in that more than anything else in the world.

Javik

Once we reached the streets some distance from the ship, I heard Addie’s breathing begin to settle down. I knew she could probably run on her own by now so, as we rounded a wide corner, I set her on her feet.

Her eyes were wide and frightened, but I could tell she wasn’t going to let that slow her down. Every moment I spent with her just made me love her more. Strength and feminine fragility, all in one.

Now was not the time to admire my mate and count the ways I loved her. I grabbed her hand and nodded. She nodded back.

We started running together, Addie’s hand in mine as we tried to navigate the streets.

“Where are we going?” she asked, breath starting to come fast, making the words rush through her throat.

“We have to get back to the egg.” It was the only thing I could think about. That thing was definitely valuable, probably dangerous. I cursed the fact that I hadn’t asked the strange alien what it did, because he might have known everything about it. He might even have had instructions on how to use it safely.

I was just too fucking insulted to try and have a real conversation with him. I couldn’t help being frustrated with myself. I may have just literally run away from the most detail I could get on the egg, but at the time I hadn’t even realized it.

We had to get to it. I wasn’t going to wait around a second longer. We had to see if our theory about teleporting according to our thoughts was correct.

Then once we got back to the Calliope, I would destroy the fucking thing. Otherwise, we’d have these ugly creatures chasing after us forever.

The streets were thick with people, even after the recent alien raid. It seemed like everyone just went back to partying the second the threat died down. No one paid any attention to us, even as we streaked through the crowd as fast as we could.

No one even bothered to move. As we got into the more populated area, I was forced to slow down. I didn’t mind barreling into people and knocking them out of my way, but doing that tended to create piles of angry people. I kept shoving, trying not to start a riot.

Addie gripped my hand tightly as I tugged her along with me. We were still too far from the hotel and I couldn’t stop thinking about the egg sitting there unguarded.

It was our best chance to get home.

I needed to talk to the rest of the crew about it and explain why it had to be destroyed. Clearly it possessed a terrible power. The Qitzal had been right to bury it, to build legends about the destruction it could cause.

It wasn’t safe to experiment on it when we didn’t know how it worked.

I was fascinated by it. My intelligence demanded that I work it out. Overshadowing that was the knowledge that those aliens were going to chase it down anywhere it went, as if drawn to it.

They were nasty creatures, and I knew nothing about them except that they were determined and vicious.

“I should have learned more from that bastard,” I muttered under my breath.

From the way he acted, he really did know how to use the thing. He probably wouldn’t have told me, but I could have asked a few questions to get some clues.

I really wasn’t ready for a blind field test, but we had no choice. I had to trust that the thing would transport us safely as it already had, but now that the aliens had come after it again, I was full of doubt.

I really wanted to get back to my crew and figure this out. We had been sent to find that thing, the crew risked their lives for it.

Was its power worth the danger?

No matter what, Command was going to have to deal with those ape-insect creatures.

I pulled Addie through a narrow alley, doubling back towards the hotel courtyard. I thought we were going to make it for a second, when the street in front of me filled with aliens.

Addie pressed herself up against me, watching both sides of us as aliens crept along, waiting for me to attack. I lunged forward and grabbed a short staff out of the nearest one’s hands, tossing it to Addie.

“Hit anything that moves!”

Then I went into them with my fists.

I spared a glance to Addie, seeing her laying in with her staff. She had no training and no technique, but she was giving it her all. As soon as we got back to the ship, we’d have proper training sessions.

And we’d get back.

We had to.

I let myself fall backwards, crushing the fucker that was latched on to my back. I leaped up, moving on my toes to fly after the others. I felt blows landing on my back as I dealt with them by twos and by threes. I wasn’t going to slow down this time.

I could see everything through a red haze, coming down on the last one and crushing his skull, almost as an afterthought.

I looked up and saw Addie beating the hell out of one. He was curled up on the ground, his arms over his head while Addie brought her staff down over and over again.

“Good work, Addie.” I stepped over and grabbed her arm. “You can stop now.”

Her eyes were slightly crazed, her cheeks flushed. “Are you going to kill him? Like you did the others?” She sounded a bit eager about it and I was surprised, but not much.

Getting attacked and kidnapped a couple of times in the same day was enough to raise the blood lust in anyone.

“No.” I stood over the fucker, thinking about how I’d recently missed out on some important information. There was a good chance this guy didn’t know anything. If it was like our military, it was all on a need-to-know basis.

But maybe other command structures didn’t work the same as ours.

He might know everything about the egg.

There was only one way to find out.

“He’s coming with us.” I reached down and grabbed his arm, yanking him to his feet.

“What?” Addie looked between me and the alien in confusion.

“He might have information. Instructions on how to use the egg and details about its origin.”

He stared at me with wide, shocked eyes.

Yeah, this guy knew something, alright.

“Come on.” I started shoving him and Addie grabbed his other arm. “We have to get back to the hotel and get it. Then we can use it to get back to the Calliope and destroy it.”

“Destroy it!” The alien practically shrieked. “Why would you do that?”

“You guys seem pretty determined on getting it. I don’t want to have your filthy claws tracking after me for the rest of my life.”

“Just give it to us. Please. We know what to do with it.”

“Oh, really? And what if that involves killing us? Blowing up planets? I’m sorry, ugly, but we have never encountered you before, so your goals are beyond our understanding. We can’t trust you.”

“Don’t destroy it.” He begged me with his eyes and voice, looking up at me. “You can’t understand what you’re doing.”

“Do you have any idea what it cost my people to get that thing?” I yelled at him. “We aren’t giving it away, and I won’t let its power fall into the wrong hands. It’s too dangerous to even study.”

I was bitterly disappointed by that fact, but it was the truth. I was smart enough to know when something was beyond even my mental capacity and physical limits.

We reached the courtyard and Addie and I pulled the alien onto his feet again, dragging him towards the hotel, avoiding the glances of the other guests. He was starting to tremble, but no longer fighting me.

One nice thing about hiding out in a sex resort. Pretty much anything you did would be ignored.

“You don’t understand,” he pleaded. “You can’t just destroy it.”

“I can,” I muttered. “First I’m going to use it to get myself home, then I’m going to get rid of it. If you’ve got any brains at all, then you’ll help me. Tell me everything you know about it.”

“You aren’t ready,” he said miserably. “It’s beyond you.”

I shook him, hard. “Stop insulting my intelligence! If anyone in this galaxy has a hope of figuring this thing out, it’s me.”

“You haven’t figured it out yet, have you?” He glared at me. “You think you’re so smart, but even though you’ve used the thing, you don’t even know what it is.”

“So why don’t you just tell me?”

He kept going on about how the thing was special, but he didn’t want it destroyed. I could understand not wanting it to fall into the wrong hands, but wouldn’t the best way of doing that be to destroy it?

The ape alien whimpered a little, igniting my rage all over again. If I destroyed the egg, would they keep coming? It could cause a war if his people needed it for something. It could be explosive.

None of that mattered. I would figure it out. I had to stop these things coming after us, after Addie.

Destroying the egg was the only way I could see to do that.

Addie

As we moved through the hotel’s foyer, I couldn’t help taking notice of the alien’s face. Sure, facial expressions were probably different species to species, but if I had to guess, he was shocked into a state of panic, looking forlorn and hopeless.

I had a bad feeling about all of this.

I wasn’t a warrior like Javik. I hadn’t spent any time at all thick in the action of war and battle.

He was also one of the most intelligent beings in the galaxy, perhaps even in the universe.

Beyond that, I loved him and trusted his every word. I supported him without question in all things.

But this guy was really sad. They had seemed so vicious when they came after us, but looking at this alien now, he just looked pathetic.

The egg meant a lot to him and that meant it most likely meant a lot to all of his race.

They had captured me twice but hadn’t hurt me, just scared the crap out of me.

Even though Javik probably killed several in both attacks, they hadn’t retaliated.

This one seemed resigned to being our prisoner, trying to plead with us for the egg instead of fighting us further.

The doubt inside me grew as Javik moved in front of us, clearing a path through the pleasure seekers.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked the ape-alien in a gentle voice. “Did you really come just for the egg?”

He nodded. “We felt it being used. It’s tied into our blood, you see. We knew that it was hidden, and we have searched for so long. Feeling its activation was the first hope we have had in thousands of years.”

“That’s pretty neat, that you can feel it being used. Is that how you tracked us?”

“Yes. We can feel the device when it’s being used, but not while it’s sleeping. We were able to read a physical signal from you that enabled us to track you when the device went back to sleep.”

“What planet do you live on?”

“We don’t have one. We travel the stars.”

“And the egg helps you do that? It’s like a teleporter?”

He turned his yellow eyes to me with a baleful expression. “It’s more than a teleporter. It crosses through the dimensions, dreaming within the multiverse.”

“Excuse me?”

“It doesn’t just cross distances or light years which are the measure of this universe. It can move to any plane, spiritual or physical. The multiverse is truly infinite, and the device can travel through time and space, unhindered by any boundary, until it finds what it is seeking.”

“So, the world where I landed before, where Javik was a businessman...that place is real?”

The alien shrugged. “Everything is real somewhere. If not in this universe, then in a parallel stream.”

“Addie,” Javik growled, “stop having an inane conversation with the prisoner.”

“Are you hearing this?”

“Yes. And it’s making me even more determined to destroy the damn thing. What incredible power it has. Imagine if someone holding it was thinking the wrong thing. Fucking boom to the whole universe, that’s what.”

“Please.” The scary guy tugged on Javik’s sleeve. “You can’t. It’s our future.”

“What? The future where you murder everyone in every universe?”

“No.” He shook his head, turning back to me. “You must listen! It really is what you would think of as an egg.”

“Come again?” I had come far from my simple Earthly existence, but a shiny stone-metal-type egg was still out of reach.

“It is the container for the young of our kind. It’s alive, it has something living inside it.”

That news made me a bit sick. What could hatch out of an egg like that?

As if reading my mind, the alien whispered softly. “The reeven. The next generation of our race. If we don’t take it home, we won’t evolve. This generation will be the last and we’ll die off, one by one.”

I really didn’t like the sound of that, it was like a mass genocide type of deal.

Javik looked over his shoulder, glaring.

“Sounds like a good plan of action to me,” he muttered.

The alien stiffened. “You don’t understand! We only attacked you because we were frightened. We can’t have any harm come to the reeven!”

“Thanks for the info.” Javik turned his eyes back to the front. “It’s not like I’m going to let that thing hatch, you know. You ugly bastards are vicious enough. I don’t want to see the next stage, thank you very much.”

“How long until it hatches?” This stuff was literally blowing my mind. I couldn’t help thinking about what it would look like when it finally broke open.

“Its gestation is about a million of your years. We’ve been chasing it a long time. We won’t know how long it has left until we touch it. Towards the end of the gestation, it becomes aware and starts looking for its parents.”

I thought my mind was already blown. Now I had to cope with the idea of an egg that could seek out its own family before the creature inside was even born.

“So, why does it change dimensions?”

“Because it is carrying the future, essentially. We don’t evolve or reproduce like purely biological matter.”

“Okay, what’s biological matter?”

“Humans,” Javik said shortly. “Mammals, plants. Anything that is solid and physical.”

“Precisely,” the alien agreed.

“Thank the stars,” Javik muttered. “I’d hate to think of you things fucking.”

“So, how did it even get here?”

“We aren’t sure. It’s possible one of the reeven’s keepers touched it by accident, thinking idly of a different world. Once it was loose in the multiverse, then it could have shifted several planes while we were looking for it. The reeven tends to attract bad guys.” His eyes slid over to Javik.

“I’m not a bad guy,” he said, almost offended.

The alien didn’t answer, only frowned.

“It’s always been evil, from what we were told,” Javik said, tightening his grip.

The alien shook his head. “It’s not evil or good. As I said, it attracts people of power. It gives off a slight vibration which is the frequency it uses to move dimensions. People who crave power are drawn to that. The reeven itself is not evil, but it may inspire evil in others, due to its incredible power.”

“Great!” Javik said, laying on the sarcasm. “That thing gets better all the time. You aren’t convincing me to leave it in one piece.”

“Javik.” He turned to look at me and I could tell by his face, he knew he wasn’t going to like what I was about to say.

“I don’t think we should destroy it.”

“Addie—”

“No. Listen! I think he’s telling the truth. Why would he lie?”

“He could be a very good actor, using your good nature against you. It could be a powerful explosive. It could be about to hatch and consume the universe as it grows up. Ever think of that?”

“I understand you. There are risks. But I think it’s worth it. We can’t steal their future.”

“There are bodies piled up in the streets that show you how little I care about their future.”

“It transported us, it literally moved us through time and space to a reality that didn’t even exist.”

“It does now,” the alien muttered.

“What?” I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. He shrugged.

“Your thoughts made a template. As soon as the reeven decided to go there, it created a physical plane to land on. It exists now, but it can only be found by multi-dimensional travelers.”

“Wow,” I whispered.

“Fuck!” Javik exclaimed.

We looked at each other. It was capable of creating entire realities. That was even more power than we had counted on.

“Let’s just give it back to them, Javik. Please?”

“Did you hear that? Did you? It’s capable of creating whole new realities. No wonder everyone wants it. It truly has limitless power. I can’t leave it anywhere that it could be found and I can’t give it back to these guys.”

“It’s their baby,” I pleaded. “They will know exactly how to handle it. Please.”

“They will incubate it and then when it hatches and this reeven thing comes out, what if it eats us all? What if it consumes matter, destroying each universe as it moves to the next?”

“If it can create new realities, it will never run out of fuel,” I said stubbornly.

“That’s great news for the people that get killed by the reeven.”

I could tell by the look on his face that he was considering my words. With his intelligence, he was probably wondering exactly how he would destroy it. It might be impossible to blow it up or cut it to pieces.

If it was dropped into a sun, how much energy would it generate? Could it blow up a solar system? Maybe it could even take out a whole galaxy.

He looked back at me where I was holding the alien’s arm.

I could tell that Javik was pissed and I wished I could just agree with him. But this was one of those things. If I didn’t speak up, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

I truly believed that these guys were innocent, even if they were a bit aggressive.

Knowing that they only wanted to protect their baby only made me more aware of why they attacked us.

Any parent would do the same.

I swallowed hard. Except for mine.

And maybe, except for me.

Had I really been planning to have a baby and abandon it?

Javik’s face went hard and impassive and I knew he was contemplating the issue.

We didn’t have much time until the rest of the ape aliens tracked us down.

But what would he decide to do when they did?

Javik

As we headed into the elevator towards our room, I mulled over what we had learned. I didn’t want to upset Addie, but I was experiencing a direct conflict with my duty.

Officially, I should return the thing to the Calliope immediately and hand it over to High Command.

They had gone to a lot of trouble to get it.

Technically, our crew had gone to the trouble, almost ending up dying in the process.

We’d all been told that info about the egg was on a need-to-know basis.

I had to wonder, though, did High Command even know what it did?

If they didn’t, what was their plan? I couldn’t decide which was worse, that they had spent so much effort getting ahold of a dangerous artifact without knowing what it was, or that they did know...and had some kind of multi-dimensional arms race going on.

I grabbed the alien a bit tighter as we stepped off the elevator, Addie close behind us. When I looked into her concerned face, I knew if I did anything except give it back to the aliens, she would not be happy with me.

I sensed that it would actually hurt her, and I really didn’t want to do that.

I didn’t want to give it to High Command, either.

I wanted to destroy it so no one could use it. The one thing standing in front of my common sense was Addie and her sad eyes.

This was insane. She was so naive that I knew she couldn’t possibly have an objective view about this.

I had to take control of the situation and do what was right by taking that thing out of reach of anyone.

It disturbed me that it had been in a deep cavern for such a long time. The Qitzal had hated it and surely would have destroyed it if they could.

I didn’t want to trust these aliens, but maybe Addie had a point there. They would know how to care for it.

And use it against us.

My guts twisted. I couldn’t trust them, no way.

We arrived in the room and I threw the alien down on the floor. I slammed the door and leaned on it, folding my arms.

“Addie, go and sit near the window. Let me know if you see company coming.”

She nodded, hurrying to sit on a chest by the balcony. I looked down on my prisoner.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” I confessed. “The only reason that you are alive is because I thought you could teach me how to use the device—ah, the egg. Now I’ve got a whole pile of bullshit in my brain about it being your offspring. I don’t know what to believe here.”

“Please.” The alien got to his knees. “Just give it back. We’ll take it out past the event horizon so it can hatch safely, I promise.”

My mind caught up with the evolution concept and I came to a new conclusion.

“Wait up.” I rubbed my chin. “This thing is your evolution. That means you are potentially capable of making more of them. If you only breed one egg, one reeven, the rest of you die out anyway. You must have the potential through mating—or however you guys do it—to make more.”

He looked around furtively, not meeting my eyes. “Potentially,” he muttered.

I could have no way of knowing if he was telling the truth. He was clearly not going to open up about their reproductive process. I was pretty sure that even if he knew exactly how to use the egg, he wasn’t going to tell me that, either.

I sighed, moving over to a nearby chest. I pulled the egg out from the fabric wrapping and rubbed it gently. The alien’s face was full of relief and terror. I could tell he desperately wanted to tear it from my hands, but he was afraid to move.

My guts twisted so hard my vision wavered. This was a fucked-up situation, but I really didn’t know what else to do.

“Okay, dude.” I sat down, cradling the egg carefully. “I won’t destroy it. But I have to use it to get back to my ship. You understand that?”

He nodded, looking between me and the egg. “That sounds reasonable.” His voice sounded so even and trustworthy, nothing like the screeches they’d made when they attacked. I wanted to punch him in the face to see if it was a manipulation, but I kept my seat.

I was pretty sure it was a manipulation, but I wouldn’t know that until we made the next step.

“I just want to go back to my ship, and I don’t want to be followed by you guys.” I met his eyes directly, making sure that he understood me. “I mean this. If I don’t destroy this thing, then you and your ugly friends promise not to come after us again.”

He looked uncertain, eyes wide. He nodded, but not as if he was sure. “My people would have no reason to be in this dimension again.”

“You didn’t answer my question. If I agree not to destroy it, then you guys can’t come after me or my mate ever again.”

He bowed his head. “I swear it. We will take our reeven and go. You may return to your ship as soon as you like.”

I didn’t trust the alien fucker. I stepped over to him and called Addie to me. We knelt on either side of the alien and put it in his hands.

I waited for the backstabbing bastard to teleport out of there immediately, but he didn’t. He cradled the egg gently, stroking it a little.

Addie’s eyes were wide and fascinated, as if she expected it to hatch right then and there.

I knew that I was making a terrible mistake. I had no idea what was going to happen when it hatched. Did the strange reeven creature also have the ability to slip dimensions? What was I unleashing?

I looked up into Addie’s eyes and I knew this was the only thing to do. I couldn’t go against her, no matter how difficult it was.

“Okay, Addie.” My hands hovered near the egg, not quite touching it. “We want to think only of the Calliope. Don’t let anything else enter your mind. Think about the lab, just the way we left it, the surprise dinner table you set up, everything just as it was. We don’t want to end up somewhere that we can’t get out of.”

Addie looked at me, leaning forward to kiss me gently. “Thank you for this. For trusting me.”

I just took a deep breath and said nothing. I really couldn’t comment yet. This could be the biggest mistake of my life, but I couldn’t help making it.

“Ready?” asked the alien. He looked happy, but why wouldn’t he? Whatever dastardly deeds he had planned, he had his weapon of mass destruction back now.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. I had to be completely focused. I looked up at Addie and she nodded.

Both of us reached out, fingers touching the cool, smooth surface. Even though we had done it before, it still took me by surprise. There was a shock, like electricity snapping at my bones. I was surrounded by white light that blinded and seared.

The sense of being dragged through space tore at my limbs and threatened to overwhelm my mind. I pulled myself together, holding my arms around my body. Then I thought of the Calliope, filling my senses with her sound, smell, and touch. I let my memory trace over my familiar lab, all the things I’d been missing since we first teleported out.

It was as if I could feel the egg still, its strange sentience echoing through the wormhole. I stopped thinking about it with a forceful effort and pictured my lab. It was the only place I wanted to be.

We had to make it. There was no other choice.

Addie

I opened my eyes, slowly breathing out as I realized that we were back.

There was the sterile scent of lab equipment that had been wiped down, the dim lights mounted directly over the workstation, and the soft humming of all the different terminals and their endless screens.

A few feet away from me lay the teleporting platform, the first place I had stood on after arriving on the Calliope.

The small table still held the remains of our dinner.

I took one step forward, carefully feeling the deck underneath my soles. It was solid, and it felt real. It had to be.

We weren’t dreaming, nor were we hallucinating.

I touched the pitcher of cactus juice. It was still cold.

Somehow, after all that we had been through, we had finally found our way back to Javik’s ship, the Calliope.

I glanced down, not entirely shocked to see I was wearing my yellow slip dress again.

Sighing with relief, I spun around and threw myself into Javik’s arms. He wrapped them around me, his hands wandering down the side of my body until they were comfortably nestled on my waist.

Leaning in, he rested his forehead against mine.

“Welcome back, Addie,” he whispered, a small smile spreading across his lips. I smiled back at him, the warmth of his body inundating me. I went on tiptoes and brushed my lips against his. Once more, I felt that electric spark the moment we kissed, my heart fluttering rapidly.

“It feels good to be here,” I said, then added, “with you.”

“That makes two of us.”

“You know, I should apologize,” I continued, resting my hands on his chest and creating some distance between us.

Locking my eyes on his, I took a deep breath as I tried to choose my next words. It wasn’t easy: after all, apologies had never been my strong suit. My brain worked best whenever there was an argument going on, as stupid as that might sound. Well, it was time for that to change, anyway.

“I came in here, demanding that you accept my plan, and I never stopped to think about you. I was an idiot to come here and think that I could be with you just for a paycheck. That was wrong, and it was foolish. You are so much more than just a paycheck, Javik. You are everything that I was missing in my life.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” Threading his fingers into my hair, he let them run down until they were on the nape of my neck. He never looked away from me, a glint of happiness in his eyes. “What matters is that we’re together, Addie. And as long as you want me by your side...”

“I’ll always want you by my side. We’ll remain together, no matter what happens.” Smiling, I wrapped my arms around his torso and slumped into his embrace. I could hear his heart beating, steady but strong, and I felt my entire body relaxing.

In his arms, I felt safe. More than just that, I felt loved. “You know, I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that I’ve found you. All my life I’ve wanted someone to care for me the way you do...it’s hard to believe that this is real. It feels like a dream.”

“It isn’t a dream,” he said. “Nor some weird parallel universe. This is as real as it gets.”

“I love you,” I said without thinking. It felt good to say it.

“And I love you.”

I went on tiptoes once more, ready to crush my mouth against his, when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Placing one hand on his bicep, I gave it a squeeze and then took a step back. With my jaw hanging open, I pointed at the thing that was sitting behind Javik.

“What the hell is that?”

He spun around fast, his hands instinctively clenching into fists, and only relaxed when he realized that what he was seeing wasn’t a threat.

“How did that get in here?” he asked, the expression on his face one of bewilderment. “That’s a crib.” He took a step forward and ran his hands over the smooth wooden rails, the curved base causing the crib to sway gently. “Did this thing get teleported here with us?”

“Maybe it belongs to someone in your crew?” I offered, but something inside me told me that wasn’t the case.

The egg had teleported—or forced into existence—that crib, and it had done so for a reason.

Immediately, I felt my heart tighten inside my chest. It wasn’t possible...or was it?

“No, we didn’t have a crib anywhere on the ship,” he whispered, looking at the crib from every possible angle.

I didn’t know what he was looking for, but it sure was entertaining to see him perform a full inspection of it, as if he were facing some kind of new alien species.

Eventually, I had to stop him as he started directing the lasers on his workstation toward the crib, ready to perform a thorough analysis of its materials.

“It’s just a crib, Javik,” I told him, gently placing my hand on top of his. “You don’t need to do all that.”

“But what is it doing here?” he continued, frowning as he stared at the crib. He was staring at it so intently that it seemed he was expecting it to suddenly start talking. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

For such a smart guy, he sure was struggling to see what was happening.

“It’s the egg, I’m sure of it,” I offered. “It has all those crazy powers, and it somehow got this crib here because...” I hesitated, and ran my tongue over my lips, buying some time as I mustered enough courage to continue. “Because maybe it thinks that I’m pregnant.”

“Pregnant? You? But how?”

“Well, when a man meets a woman...”

“I know that part,” he cut me short. “But it doesn’t make sense. You shouldn’t be far enough along in your gestational cycle for there to be a noticeable embryo so soon, should you? I’m not exactly an expert in human biology.”

“No, usually it doesn’t work like that,” I agreed. “But we’ve seen that artifact of yours do all kinds of crazy things. Maybe it somehow sped up the process.”

Unconsciously, I draped one arm over my stomach, almost as if I were already protecting my unborn child. It was such a weird feeling, to know that I might be pregnant, but it wasn’t an unpleasant one.

In fact, it was exactly the opposite.

I felt absolutely ecstatic.

“Maybe you could perform some kind of test? Just so we can be sure?”

“A test?” he repeated. “Sure, a test, of course.” He sounded dazed and confused, as if someone had hit him over the head with a brick.

Moving fast, he started going from one workstation to the next, messing with all the terminals at once.

Suddenly he stiffened. “This can’t be right. The terminal says it’s the day we left.”

I swallowed hard, shook my head.

“Let’s deal with one impossible thing at a time, alright? Baby first.”

“Of course,” he nodded. “You’re human, so I might have to do some tweaks to our scanners, but this should work.”

“You’re a doctor,” I said with a laugh. “You’ll figure it out.”

“Alright, I think I got it.” Standing behind one of the cushioned med-chairs, he pointed at it. “Take a seat, Addie.”

“Sure thing, doc.” The moment I was sitting down, Javik pulled up another chair and sat beside me. He lifted my dress until the curve of my breasts started to show, and then spread some kind of gel over my belly.

Then he attached a few sensors to my naked skin and turned around on his seat, his fingers pecking at the keyboard on the closest terminal.

“So?”

“Give me a minute,” he muttered, eyes glued to the monitor as he analyzed the data that was showing there. A faint image was showing in the corner of the monitor, my ghostly insides painted against a dark canvas. “This shouldn’t be possible. Not like this.”

“What?” Sitting up, I tried to peer at the monitor over his shoulder. “What does it say in there?”

Slowly, he turned around so that he was facing me.

“I don’t understand how this is so far along, but...it looks like there’s a child on the way.”

Javik

My hands were shaking.

I looked at the screen once more, just to be sure, but there was no mistaking it: I was going to be a father.

Me, a father. I knew that if I ever managed to get a mate that, sooner or later, something like this would happen, but I never thought it’d happen this soon. It was hard to believe.

Still reeling from that sudden realization, I looked at Addie.

I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. For the first time in ages, I was speechless. A knot lodged in my throat, and all the thoughts inside my head felt like a pinball bouncing off the walls of my skull.

“Say something,” she whispered, her eyes never leaving mine. She was trying to analyze my reaction, taking in every single one of the details etched on my face. Reaching out, she laid her delicate fingers on top of my hand and gave it a squeeze. “You’re not mad, are you? I mean, I know that you didn’t want for me to get pregnant yet, but I can go back to Earth and raise the—”

“What in the galaxy are you talking about?” I finally managed to say. The nonsense she was spouting was enough for me to return to my senses. “That’s my child you’re talking about. There’s no way I want you gone, Addie. You’re the woman of my life. As for that child, I want to raise it, to see it grow, and I want to...”

I trailed off, suddenly realizing that I was only talking about what I wanted. Addie was my mate, and I had to take her wishes into consideration. “I mean, if that’s what you want, of course.”

“Are you kidding me? Of course that’s what I want.”

“Are you sure?” I insisted, suddenly feeling hesitant about the whole thing. “You came here because you wanted to support your brother, so I assume your plan was to go back to Earth as soon as you had the baby. Now that it’s happened...”

“Not a word more.” Raising one hand, she laid her index finger over my lips, hushing me. “Remember what I told you just minutes ago? I’m never going to leave your side.” Then, draping one hand over her still-flat belly, she offered me a wide smile. “This is our child, right? We’re going to raise it together.”

“You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that.” Gently, I pulled the sensors from her belly, and she swung her legs off the chair.

With both my hands on her waist, I leaned in and brushed my lips against hers. Closing my eyes, I let the joy that was filling me turn into something more, a sudden urge to have her in more ways than one suddenly overwhelming me.

Addie was my mate, and she was going to be the mother of my child.

I was the luckiest bastard in the entire galaxy.

“I love you, Addie,” I whispered against her lips, “and I always will.”

She didn’t answer it with words.

Instead, she used the tip of her tongue to part my lips, our kiss turning into a frenzied embrace. Slowly, I rose to my feet and forced her to flatten her back, pushing her down onto the chair.

Its design only allowed for one person to lie there, but I somehow managed to climb on top of it, my knees on the cushions as I kept Addie’s tiny body underneath me—just the way it should be.

A shiver ran up my spine as I felt her fingers on my waist. She hooked them on the fabric of my shirt and pulled it over my head, baring my torso. Turning her hands into claws, she ran her fingers over my abs, tracing their contour at a leisurely pace.

“I want you so fucking much,” I growled, using both hands to pin her down against the chair. I pulled her dress off and crushed my mouth against hers, enjoying the way her breasts pressed against my naked chest.

Moving one hand underneath her back, I unclasped her bra and ripped it off. Almost at once, her nipples hardened against my skin, and I moved my lips down from her mouth to her neck, laying gentle kisses on a downward path to her breasts.

She was delicious.

Using my tongue, I made the climb up the rising curve of her right breast, one hand cupping the other, and then wrapped my lips around her nipple. I sucked it into my mouth, the scent of her flesh driving me absolutely crazy, and started whipping at it with my tongue. It didn’t take long before her moans were filling up the lab, the sound of her voice coiling itself around each and every thought that I had.

“So good,” she breathed out, arching her back as I moved my tongue from one nipple to the other. Her body was heating up, almost as if the lust coursing through her veins had already started to simmer, and it didn’t take long before unbridled madness took over us both.

We were on fire.

I kept on going further down, my lips now navigating over her belly, and I only stopped when I reached her waistline. The moment I saw the black thong, my heart sped up like a warp engine. I brushed my fingers over it, loving how wet the fabric was, and flattened my palm against it.

“Oh, God,” Addie moaned, pushing her feet against the chair and thrusting upward. Reacting on nothing but instinct, I draped one forearm over her waist and pushed her back down. At the same time, I grabbed her thong with my teeth and peeled it off her body, revealing her wetness in all its glory.

“You’re fucking perfect, Addie,” I told her, and then started kissing her inner thighs.

I took my time, teasing her until she couldn’t take it anymore, and only then did I move in for the kill. Slowly, I moved the tip of my tongue over her inner lips and went all the way up to her clit.

I twirled my tongue around it for a moment, and then sucked it into my mouth, applying just the right amount of pressure.

Her hands shot to my horns, and she gripped them so tightly that, for a fraction of a second, I almost thought they were going to break. She pulled me down, forcing me to press my mouth hard against her pussy, and this time I didn’t offer any resistance. I just gave in to her urges, devouring her as if I needed to do it in order to survive.

“So...fucking...good,” she said once more, her words slipping between her lips with each breath she took.

She swayed her hips from side to side, her movements brimming with lust, and I matched her eagerness fully. Focusing on her clit with my mouth, I placed my hand between her legs and caressed her inner lips with two of my fingers. Gently, I parted her lips and started easing my fingers in, the tightness of her inner walls enough for my mind to start overheating.

I built a rhythm slowly, moving my fingers back and forth, but it didn’t take long before I was ravaging her like a madman. Each stroke of my tongue seemed to make her moan even louder than before, and my fingers only helped to fan the fire.

It was madness, and it was absolutely glorious.

I continued until her moans made my eardrums hurt, her whole body as tense as a drawn bowstring. When I finally felt her inner walls tightening around my fingers, I immediately knew what was to come and redoubled my efforts.

Driving my fingers deep down, my fingertips pressing against that sweet spot inside her, I twirled my tongue around her clit and unleashed hell upon her body.

“Oh, God, I’m gonna—”

She didn’t get to finish her sentence.

Ecstasy took her, her muscles trembling and twitching as she came. I kept my mouth against her wetness as she surrendered to it all, her moans turning into screams, and only pulled back once I felt her body relax.

“You were saying?” I asked, a slight grin dancing on my lips.

“Oh, shut up,” she replied. With a bright laugh, she encircled my neck with her arm and reeled me in. “We’ve only gotten started, so don’t waste your breath with silly jokes.”

“Is that so?”

“Oh, don’t doubt it.”

Addie

I pulled his pants down with trembling hands, my heart tightening inside my chest as his hard length sprung free. It was enormous. It didn’t matter how many times I saw it, it always felt like the first time. How could he be this well-endowed and know what he’s doing? Usually, it’s one or the other.

What a godsend.

“Are you just going to stare?” he asked, teasing me.

I shook my head. “Nope.”

Moving fast, I reached for him and grabbed his hardness by the root. I didn’t even look away from him—I just started stroking him right away, my fingers flying up and down his entire length as I flicked my wrist. His flesh throbbed eagerly against my hand, and that was enough for lust to bloom inside me once more. Even though I had just come, my body was ready for more.

Oh, so much more.

“Fuck, Addie,” he breathed out, his eyes fluttering closed as I increased my rhythm.

Grinning like a woman possessed, I dove forward and opened my mouth as wide as I could. The moment I felt the tip of his cock against my tongue, I allowed it past my lips and started sucking, the flavor of his salty precum inundating me.

He rested both hands on my head, threading his fingers into my hair, and took the lead. Directing my movements, he rocked his hips gently, pushing his length deep inside my mouth. Even though I liked his rhythm, I was feeling so delirious with lust that I couldn’t help it—I had to up the ante. I had to go harder.

My lips rolled down his cock until I felt the skin at the base, and then I started bobbing my head back and forth so damn fast that pain shot up my neck.

I didn’t let that stop me.

Instead, I went as fast as I possibly could, desire fueling me. When his cock became even harder than before, his flesh throbbing against my tongue, I knew that he was close to oblivion. All he needed was a little push. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to have him explode in my mouth...unfortunately, he had other ideas.

Gently, he pushed my head back.

“It’s too soon for that,” he said, his words coming out as a lustful growl. Hearing him like that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end. Grabbing me by the wrists, he quickly lay me down on the chair and climbed on top of me. I didn’t even have to think—reacting on instinct, I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him in, spasms and fire shooting up my spine as I felt his cock against my wetness.

He rested his forehead against mine, looked into my eyes, and grinned.

One thrust and he was in.

“Fuck,” I hissed, every atom in my body burning up.

This time he didn’t bother with teasing me or taking it slow. He went hard right from the beginning, leveraging the full strength of his hips so that he could thrust like a beast. His cock flew deep inside me, pushing my inner walls back, and I let out a scream shrill enough to shatter every single monitor in the lab. That didn’t happen, but I swear it must’ve been close—I had screamed so loudly that I was pretty sure I would have a sore throat once we were done.

“Harder,” I found myself saying, somehow needing more. I didn’t want him to hold back, nor did I want him to be afraid of what could happen. I wanted him to give me his everything, to fuck me until I could no longer remember my own name.

That’s exactly what he did.

I asked for oblivion, and he gave it to me.

Pulling out, he grabbed me by the hips and spun me around, forcing me to go on all fours. The moment I was in the position that he wanted, he closed the distance between us and slid his cock inside me again, slamming his thighs against my ass cheeks. He did it so damn hard that I had to grab the chair’s headrest, my knuckles turning white.

In that moment, nothing else mattered.

Only the sound of flesh on flesh existed, and the way my nerve endings burned up with pleasure. My brain was melting inside my skull, my rationality fading into nothingness. Even my soul felt as if it was on fire. Whatever it was that we were doing, it wasn’t sex, nor was it making love. It was something more, an experience that bordered on the religious.

It was pure transcendence.

“I want you to come hard,” he whispered into my ear, one of his hands going around my waist. He placed his fingers right above my clit and, using the same rhythm of his thrusts, he started massaging it. That was almost enough to push me over the edge. My head dropped, locks of hair cascading down my shoulders, and I gritted my teeth so hard that my jaw throbbed painfully.

Had I died and gone to Heaven?

Was this the afterlife?

“Come for me, Addie,” he whispered again, his voice grounding me into reality. “Don’t hold back.”

“Oh, fuck,” I hissed past my gritted teeth, my insides clenching as ecstasy shot up my spine. A thermonuclear detonation went off inside my head, my eyes rolled back, and I came so damn hard that I think my soul might have left my body.

But I couldn’t stop.

Thrusting back against Javik, I used whatever remained of my strength to punish his body, my backside slapping his thighs repeatedly. It only took a couple of seconds for his cock to throb almost too viciously, and then he spilled his seed inside me, jerky spasms running up the length of his hard member.

“Oh, God,” I moaned as he filled me up, my brain struggling to process all that was happening. It was just too much pleasure for one woman. And to think that this was more than just about the sex...it was unbelievable. Not only was this man a true god when it came to fucking a woman’s brains out, he was also in love with me. I didn’t know what I had done to deserve such a thing, but I felt more than thankful.

Javik was pure bliss.

“Fuck, that was incredible,” he breathed out after a couple of moments, gently pulling out from me. I trembled quietly as I felt his length sliding past my inner lips, and then collapsed onto the chair, breathing so damn hard that it felt like my lungs were two balloons on the verge of popping.

“It was more than incredible.” Slowly rolling to my back, I took a deep breath and smiled. Javik was sitting on the edge of the chair, the muscles in his shoulders and neck tense from the effort. Reaching for him, I brushed my fingertips over the contour of the tattoo on his back. The moment I touched it, the golden ink started glowing, its brightness falling over my face. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Because you make it beautiful,” he said. “If it weren’t for you, that would only be a mark.”

Shaking my head, I laughed. “What did I do to deserve you? You’re perfect.”

“No, you’re—”

“What the fuck is going on here?” A loud voice erupted into the room, and Javik immediately pushed me back. Grabbing our clothes with one quick movement, he threw them over us awkwardly. Somehow, he still managed to cover all the parts that mattered. “Javik? What the fuck is going on in here?”

Standing in the lab’s doorway was the captain. His eyes darted from Javik to me until finally lowered his blaster.

“Hey, Rekker.” Sliding off the chair, Javik put on his pants. He scratched the back of his head apologetically. “Sorry Addie and I disturbed you.”

“I guess that means you two have finally come to a meeting of minds,” he smirked.

I laughed, and Javik joined me.

“Yeah,” Javik said. “And just wait until you hear the story we have to tell you.”

Epilogue: Addie

“I’m not looking forward to telling Strygan about this,” Rekker muttered.

Everyone had gathered in the dining hall to hear the story, and now that we’d finished, heads were shaking.

I looked up from where I’d been petting Oby, who’d wound around my waist, head bumping happily against my slightly rounded belly.

“You’re not,” Javik said, squeezing my hand. “It would be against everything the Mahdfel believe in for our mates to be held responsible for a warriors actions.”

“What do you mean?” Lila sputtered. “We’re a team, right? Besides, they didn’t have a choice. Obviously the reeven had to go back to its people.”

Kyre leaned back against Ferne’s legs, face grim. “It seems obvious to us, sure. But how do you think we’re going to prove our story?”

Coralie raised her chin. “Do they think you’re in the habit of lying to them about missions? Because even I know better than that.”

“Easy, sweetheart.” Cedroc wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her tighter into his lap. “I don’t think they’ll outright accuse us of lying. But the Council really wanted that artifact. They could easily accuse us of being careless with a valuable resource.”

Derrix took another slug of cactus wine. “Valuable resource, my ass. It would have been an incredible weapon. No wonder they wanted it.”

“I wonder if they ever would have figured out how to trigger it though,” Ferne mused. “If it really took the touch of a mated pair to wake the egg. Baby. Thing.”

Baby.

I touched my stomach, eyes meeting Javik’s.

Wiley took the glass from Derrix’s hand, took a sip of the wine. “At least you have all of your recordings from your tests, right? That should at least prove that we had it on board, that we completed the mission.”

“I’m not sure Strygan is going to take some test results, mostly negative, as a replacement.” Rekker looked over to Lila. “It’s more than possible he’ll revoke that bonus and leave. It’ll be longer until we can see your family.”

Her lips pressed together for just a moment and my chest contracted. The plan had been for the crew to take an extended leave after this mission, as a reward for successfully retrieving the artifact.

Lila had chattered non-stop about how excited she was to see her family again, to introduce them to her mate.

I’d known that, but still, I argued with Javik to let the egg go back to the ape-aliens.

Now everything was ruined.

This was my fault.

“That doesn’t matter,” Lila announced, voice wavering only a little. “It was the right thing to do, and now that we’re not stuck on that planet, I can holo my sisters anytime, right? Maybe you can even show them how to bring a transmitter out to the barn so I can see how far along the foaling is going.”

“That’s it!” I exclaimed. “We do have proof.” I touched my stomach again, gently. “Didn’t you say it should be impossible for me to be this far along?”

The rest of the ladies crowded around me, laughing.

“Don’t tell me the last one to join up is the first one knocked up,” Wiley crowed.

I blushed. “Apparently so. And, um, further along than I really should be, apparently.”

Javik rose, lifting me to my feet. “Brilliant and beautiful,” he announced.

“Our story may sound impossible, but he can’t argue with the facts,” Rekker agreed, nodding slowly.

“And the most important fact,” I whispered into Javik’s ear as I wound my arms around his neck. “Is that I love you and our baby. And I’m never going to leave.”

“Welcome home,” he murmured into my hair. “Forever.”

And I was.

~ The End ~

* * *

Thank you so much for following along with our warriors adventures!

Keep reading for a sneak peak of Rogue Mate, book of the Rogue Star Saga or click to get it now!

Or click here to start the adventures of the Jorkan Tribute Mates!

Losing is never an option for me. But when it comes to being matched with this alien warrior, the stakes are higher than any court case.

I've been matched.

But this time instead of being up against another lawyer, it's one of the Jorkan warriors.

He's big, with red scales, horns and a tail, and he's some kind of military hotshot.

Thanks, but I'm not impressed.

No way in hell I'm giving up my career to go be his little woman.

And he's not that interested either.

Not a problem, I'm a master of the deal.

We'll hangout, wait out the 30 days of getting-to-know-you time, and get back to our lives and careers

But as I spend more time with him, a sneaky doubt wiggles into my mind.

Would it be so bad to stay with him?

And when we stumble into a Ripper plot, will we even have the chance?

Click here to get Krazan now!

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AVA

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Rogue Mate

Science fiction romance is the destination of the Rogue Star…. Hop on board!

Our rescuers are a group of pirates. Or smugglers. They're not exactly answering questions, either.

More importantly, they're giant, golden skinned aliens...

And their rogue of a captain seems very interested in the little human commander.

Me.

Rogue Mate is the first in the Rogue Star science fiction alien romance series. Click now to start the adventure or keep reading for a sample!

Kazan

A mate is the last thing on my mind.

Especially one as sassy as the human female they say is my match.

Even if her lush curves call for my touch, and her fiery spirit is equal to my own.

I will endure the thirty days demanded by the Protocol.

But with every look, every word, I can feel us bound closer together.

Will I be able to leave her, even for her own safety?

Kazan is the first book of the Jorkan Protocol Mates. Click now to spend the night with this perfect steamy, funny science fiction romance escape. There's no cheating, and a guaranteed HEA for each alien warrior and his mate!

Kalyn

“This one’s yours, Kalyn.” The blonde woman with a gentle smile and kind looking eyes opened a bland gray door into a bland gray room.

Inside was a bland gray desk, a bland gray chair, and an empty set of shelves mounted to the wall.

There were no windows.

I grimaced, told myself that was fine. Just peachy.

The windows framed a view of the bland gray planet that was now my home.

Pluto.

“Great.” My voice sounded flat. I tried a smile—unsuccessfully. This place was the farthest thing from great, but I didn’t want to say that to the woman who’d opened the door for me.

She didn’t build this place. It wasn’t her fault everything was so bleak. It wasn’t just the station. I felt bleak.

Drained.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name.” I ran a hand through the mess of my hair, tried to focus again. “What was it again?”

“Lynna Forgrave.” She gave me an understanding wink. “And there’s no need to apologize. Using the Flosh drive for space travel is enough to scramble anyone’s brain. I’m just glad your brain is all that’s a little scrambled.”

“So am I,” I laughed, forcing my mind away from the alternatives.

The mortality rate for traveling to Persephone, the single established station on Pluto, was disturbingly high. Flosh drives were a relatively new innovation.

While they cut the travel time to a fraction, saving precious fuel and materials, the cost was high in other ways. One of every four travelers didn’t make it.

And even if you did, it hurt like hell.

“It’s good to have you here,” Lynna continued. “I looked over your history in the Space Force when they forwarded your records here. You’re exactly what we need on this station.”

“I’m glad to be of service.” My throat felt like I’d swallowed moon gravel as I muttered the meaningless words. I should’ve realized someone here would see my history.

Enlisting had never been a part of my plan. After completing my primary studies, I wanted to go to the prestigious university on Mars to study anthropology. After the devastating war on Earth, I wanted to see how the planet’s wealth of unique cultures had changed.

Some of them were wiped out completely, but they still deserved to be remembered and honored. And there was interesting, exciting work to be done tracking the cultural shifts caused by the drastic drop in the male birth rate as a result of the weapons used. Not just what that meant for the future of our species, but how it changed our entire culture.

It had been a nice dream.

My mother, Adastria Askvig, detested the idea of me becoming an anthropologist. She said such a profession was beneath us. We should be making the future, not studying the dusty past.

Adastria Askvig was a powerful woman on Mars, often referred to as the ideal all women should aspire to be.

In her mind, that was especially true for her daughter.

Too bad I’d proven to be a massive disappointment.

“It’ll take you a little while to get used to how things work here.” Lynna’s voice startled me from my thoughts. I tried to look like I hadn’t just been zoning out. I really hoped she hadn’t said anything too important before that.

I would’ve missed it completely.

“I’m sure it’s quite different from Mars,” I replied, stalling just a bit.

“Quite,” Lynna agreed. “Even the most minor procedure here can be dangerous. It’ll be a lot to learn.”

“Why did you come all the way out here? Of course, that’s none of my business.” Most people wouldn’t make the trip voluntarily, but Lynna didn’t seem like she resented my question.

Lynna smiled. “It’s okay. I’m actually here to study the effects the Flosh drive has on the human body, as well as the effects of living far out in space.”

“Learn anything significant?”

Pluto was at the very edge of the Terran system, far from our sun, cold, dark, and unfriendly.

If the poisonous atmosphere wasn’t enough to keep us away, it literally snowed frozen particles of carbon monoxide.

“Besides the fact that the Flosh drive is incredibly dangerous, we’d freeze in less than a second if exposed to the outside temperature, and a single crack in the structure means death for all of us?” Lynna asked, stone-faced.

I nodded, the corner of my mouth twisting.

“Then no, nothing groundbreaking yet.”

Persephone Station was nothing more than a cluster of square buildings made of thick metal connected by clear tubes. The tubes were made of adamantine diamonds refined into sheets.

Both the tubes and the structures were coated in some kind of sealant that kept the worst of the cold out. It didn’t stop frost from forming, though. It was impossible to see out of the tubes, like walking through ice caverns.

A booted foot kicked open the door to my new office as a tall woman with unruly black hair haphazardly contained under a bandana scowled at me. She threw a stack of papers on my desk.

“We need these parts ordered as soon as possible,” she barked as she turned away to leave.

I stared. I hadn’t expected roses and a red carpet, but this wasn’t reasonable.

“Maris,” Lynna said sharply. “This is Commander Askvig. She arrived only a few hours ago. Commander, this is Maris Stoyer, she’s—”

“I’m the chief engineer.” Maris folded her arms across her chest. “I make sure we don’t turn into nitrogen popsicles. And right now, I’ve got a maintenance list longer than my arm.” She raised an eyebrow and cocked her head towards the desk. “Which is why we need those parts.”

I bared my teeth in a. . .smile. “I look forward to working with you.” I recalled my mother’s lessons in management and diplomacy, and tried to make the expression warm.

“That’s nice.” Maris apparently wasn’t the sort to respond to warmth. “Doesn’t change the fact that we need those parts.”

I looked at the papers Maris had tossed my way. I knew what some of the requested items were, but others were completely foreign to me.

Next to each order was a price. The bottom line was astronomical.

“I’ll review your requests and update you shortly,” I said. Persephone Station wasn’t very well funded. That was to be expected for an observation station that had yet to observe anything significant, and mostly seemed to be a holding place for troublemakers, malcontents, and the useless.

Just like me.

“Okay.” Maris clapped her hands together. “Hopefully, the atmospheric converters won’t give out while we wait.”

My not quite warm expression shaded towards flinty. “I trust that you’ll ensure they won’t.”

She left without waiting for me to dismiss her.

“I wouldn’t read too much into that,” Lynna said quickly. “Maris likes to push the boundaries. She’s hard to handle if you’re not prepared for it.”

“I don’t intend on handling anyone.” I softened my voice. “Don’t worry, I plan on a private audience with each crew member to introduce myself.”

“You’ll get the hang of it,” Lynna encouraged.

I could tell she had more to say, but she was cut off by an ear-shattering alarm that nearly gave me a heart attack. A red light mounted on the wall began to flash.

“What is that?” I demanded, heart drumming in my ears almost as loud as the shriek of the alarm.

Ignoring my question, Lynna pointed to a button on my desk. “Hit it! It’ll send everyone to their emergency stations!”

I slammed it without thinking twice, and then we ran.

Dejar

Dejar

“Remember that run on Jendo where we nearly died crashing our ships into each other?” Aavat asked.

Aavat was my second-in-command, my biggest rival, and a total pain in my ass.

“You mean the one where you cheated by planting a tracer on my ship?” That had been a long run. Set up by a bastard of a client who thought having cargo ships race each other was the best way to find a captain for his merchandise.

One of these days, we’d have enough credits in the bank to not bother with games like that.

But this wasn’t the day.

“Well, if you weren’t smart enough to find it, that wasn’t my problem.” Aavat smiled broadly enough to reveal his recently filed teeth. He left them a little more pointed than polite society dictated, but Aavat wasn’t always known for his manners.

“Oh, really? You mean the tracer you hid in a broken garbage bin where none of my men would be willing to look?”

“That would be the one.”

I shook my head. “I still can’t believe the payout for that job was barely enough to refuel us.”

“Really? I got enough to make repairs, as well.”

Of all the…this…with a growl I turned away from Aavat and his games.

“How much longer before the fold is finished, Qal?”

As my primary pilot and navigator, I trusted Qal to fly the Rogue Star through a black hole and out again without damage.

“The AI is having second thoughts. I’m arguing with her now. I think I’m winning, but I’ll let you know as soon as I’m sure.”

He grinned as he typed faster, readjusting coordinates as the AI spit them back out. He might be a fantastic pilot, but I also trusted him to be the least serious person on my ship at the worst possible times.

“Qal. I understand your need to attempt humor, but this is not the moment.” I bared my teeth, and no one on the bridge would think it a friendly grin. “If we are off by even a fraction of a parsec, we set off the Dominion’s alarms and are hunted down and killed. So, I ask again, my soon-to-be-demoted pilot, how much longer before the fold is finished?”

He donned his serious face, one that I was certain was fake. “Only a few more minutes, Captain. The ship’s AI reports that our coordinates have been properly coded. No one will know that we’re here.”

“Thank you, Qal,” Aavat said as he took his seat next to me. He leaned in close to make sure I was the only one to hear his words. “I hate having to come here.”

I grunted, then pitched my voice low to match. “I do as well, but since our last job left us far behind on credits, we don’t have much of a choice. The people of Eca will pay well for this water and ice.”

Our last job was supposed to have been an easy delivery with a big payday.

What we hadn’t anticipated was that our employer would have triple-booked the job, turning it into another damaging race against two other teams that ended up with more than half of the cargo being destroyed.

With no other paying work directed our way at the moment, we had to do the one thing that was riskier than even Aavat and I felt comfortable with.

And to be honest, that was saying a lot.

We’d come to an unevolved, protected system, to harvest the water and ice in the outer asteroids. If we set off any sensors by getting too close to the planets the natives had settled, the Dominion would hunt us down.

Best case scenario? They would confiscate our ship and leave us on the nearest planetoid to fend for ourselves. With the penalties we had already acquired in our career as mostly honest cargo runners, best case seemed unlikely.

The only thing that made this job worth it would be the pay. A shipment of ice would be enough to set us up for nearly a year, let us resupply, buy us enough time in dock to make upgrades even.

So, here we were.

A few minutes from exiting the fold and spending a few hours to a full day harvesting ice. And looking over our shoulders for every minute of it.

I brought my screen up and double-checked the AI reports. The coordinates would place us in the middle of the asteroid belt on the outer edges of the Terran system, just far enough from the sensors to keep us hidden.

While the Terran system had a large asteroid belt between the fourth and fifth planets, we were interested in the much smaller one at the periphery.

Less ice, but less danger.

I hated using the fold. While it sped up travel substantially, it was dangerous and used a lot of power. Our current trip to Terran space would normally take three years to traverse, but with the fold, it only took us a few hours. Unfortunately, it drained our engines by nearly half, and that meant either a long recharge or an expensive refuel, and I hated wasting money and time.

Qal’s voice caught my attention. “Seven seconds to exit, Captain.”

I took a deep breath, counted slowly down to one, and let it out as we exited the fold. Coming out of the fold was another reason to hate it. If the viewscreen had not been dimmed, the exit from the fold would have been nearly blinding to everyone on the bridge.

As it was, I always saw spots after exiting.

Immediately alarms began blaring as a dwarf planet seemed to materialize in front of us.

“What the kopa is going on?”

“We’ve exited in front of a planet!” Aavat yelled. “Move, Qal!”

“Wish I had thought of that!” Qal yelled back as he moved us to the left and kept us out of the planet’s gravity field.

“Status,” I snapped. “What the kopa happened and why are we in front of a planet instead of in the asteroid field?”

Aavat’s science officer, a male named Wrangell, who was much smarter than anyone I’d had on my ship before the merger, answered. “Coordinates show us far inside the asteroid field! Our computers are incorrect!”

Pous, our third navigator, added information to the mix. “We’re at one of the Terran outer planetoids, sir.” A brief pause while he checked the status again. “Kout!”

“I need more detail than that, Pous,” I snarled.

“AI scans show the planet has an outpost down there, we’re getting reports of thirty lifeforms, maybe more. And it’s in trouble!”

“How did this happen? We didn’t detect any life in our initial scans.”

Wrangell looked pained. “Officially, Terran life signs aren’t in the databases, so from a distance we couldn’t pick it up. But up close, it’s hard to miss.”

“How are they in danger? What happened?”

Wrangell replied. “We’ve created a shockwave with our fold exit, sir. The shockwave is destroying the outpost.”

I looked at Aavat.

He immediately started shaking his head. “We have enough troubles of our own. We can’t afford a rescue mission.”

“We can’t leave them. They’ll die,” I argued. “We can’t send a shuttle for thirty people, we have to land the ship.”

“Landing this ship on a planet, even with such weak gravity, without knowing anything about it is foolhardy!” he shot back. “They’re not our responsibility!”

They are now, I thought as I stared at him.

He backed down with a curse and a glare. With a bitter smile, I got on the ship-wide communicator.

“Attention. We’ve inadvertently arrived at a planet and caused the destruction of a Terran outpost. Thirty lives are at stake. We’re taking the ship down to the planet surface to rescue as many of them as possible, and I want that to be all thirty lives. All available crew not currently involved in keeping us in one piece are to report to hangar bay three with rescue gear,” I hesitated a moment, then finished my orders, “and weapons, just in case.”

I looked at Aavat. “You want the bridge or to join in the rescue?”

“I’ll take the bridge. If your stupid urge towards heroism ends up killing you, then someone with intelligence needs to run this ship.”

I slapped him on the shoulder as I made my way off the bridge. “Always knew you hated real work.”

I rushed down to the hangar bay. Twenty men waited for me. Good. I used my communicator to contact the bridge.

“Get us near the outpost and keep close by.”

Qal’s and Aavat’s voices answered me as the ship began to shake. We had entered into the planet’s gravity field.

It might be weak, but it was still a shock to the structural integrity.

But that was engineering’s problem right now, not mine.

I suited up in an external rig designed to protect me from the harsh lack of atmosphere and took an atmospheric regulator mask from the stand next to the bay doors, as did the others.

Several of us stumbled a bit as the ship made its way down, then the sudden slowdown knocked a few of us to our knees. The ship jolted to a stop and the cargo ramp lowered.

“There you go, hero,” Aavat announced. “Outpost is to port, can’t miss it.

Swearing at him, I jumped, the others following me. We bolted across the crust, swearing at the intense cold. Who in their right minds would build an outpost here?

Why?

“Grab and go!” I yelled at the others as I led the men into the outpost. “Anything living comes back with us!” I switched channels. “Qal! Connect me to the ship’s AI and have it pinpoint the life signs, broadcast to all.”

“Yes, sir!” was the response.

Within seconds, the Rogue Star’s AI was pinpointing the life signs of the outpost inhabitants.

The Terrans were all gathered in a small, densely populated area. We ran towards the location, dodging falling debris.

This outpost wouldn’t last long. Broken tunnels of a thin, frosted material led us into a large room, where the Terrans lay scattered. Whatever had happened, they all appeared to be unconscious.

Good. They wouldn’t fight us, at least. They were frail and weighed nearly nothing. I was able to carry two at once, hoping we’d had a chance to do an additional sweep, but the creaks and groans of the building all around us denied us any more time.

In less than a half-hour, we had everyone back on board the ship. “Lift off, we’re done!”

As I watched the outpost fall in upon itself, the Rogue Star took off and rocketed back into space.

“Dejar?” Aavat called me on our private comm.

“What is it?”

“Where do we go?”

That was a good question.

There weren’t any good answers.

If we had set off the alarms, we were going to be hunted. Even if we hadn’t set off the alarms, where could we take the survivors?

Contact with Terrans, with any “unevolved” species, was forbidden.

Bringing a bunch onto my ship? Not exactly part of the rule book, either.

And while we’d played on the shadier side of the law for years, this was a whole new quadrant.

“Get us out of Terran space for now. Get us home. We’ll figure things out after that,” I finally said.

“Confirmed, Captain.”

Now we had a crew full of rescued aliens from a backward system as we raced around the galaxy as potential fugitives.

So…now what?

Kalyn

Hell.

Everything hurt.

I didn’t remember much of what happened after I hit the emergency alarm, but the pieces drifted back to me, vague and foggy.

Lynna and I had dashed to the emergency quarters to pull on protective suits to shield us from Pluto’s atmosphere, all of the women of the station racing to meet us, madly gearing up.

It’s a good thing we did. The moment after I secured my personal ventilation system to my head, the floor gave out from beneath our feet.

I remembered tumbling, my body slamming into metal, rock, and ice. At some point, I must have hit my head.

Every memory from there on was a tangled blur.

I opened my eyes slowly and found I was in a dimly lit room. The other women from Persephone Station were in here, too.

Maris sat upright with her back pressed against the dark wall. She was staring straight ahead, unmoving. At first, I feared she was dead. Then she blinked.

Lynna checked on the other women, none of whom I recognized. I’d hardly gotten the chance to meet anyone before everything went to hell.

“What happened?” I croaked. Lynna’s head swiveled to look in my direction.

“No idea,” she said, sounding drained. “Looks like all of us who made it into this…room made it here alive, though.”

Relief sang through me. I didn’t know what had happened or where we were, but if we were all alive, that was a start. Aside from some sprains and bruises, no one looked seriously injured. Then again, it was hard to tell in the low light.

I took a moment to look around the room. It was barren, aside from what looked like old storage crates pushed into a corner. The walls were curved. The ceiling was wider than the floor. If I held perfectly still, I could detect a slight vibration.

A strange possibility wound through my mind. “I think we’re on a ship.”

Something clicked in my memory. The silhouette of a ship against the pinpoints of light that dotted space. I remembered something else, too, but it seemed too farfetched to be real.

A pair of golden hands reaching for me.

Saving me.

“No shit,” Maris muttered. “What else would it be?”

I ignored her words as she glared at me. I’d have to deal with her borderline insubordination at some point, but this wasn’t the moment. I still had to figure out where we were and what needed to be done.

I was still the commander, even if there wasn’t a station to command. Every woman here was my responsibility. The weight of the situation settled onto my shoulders, sank into my soul.

Deep breath, I coached myself, and slowly rose to my feet. My legs were unsteady, and my back ached like a bitch.

The other women were coming around, as well. Understandably, they started to panic.

“What the fuck happened?” one whimpered.

“Help me! I think my leg is broken,” another sobbed.

“It’s not broken,” Lynna soothed. “I checked it a little while ago, remember?”

“No, I don’t remember,” the girl sobbed.

“What is this place?” someone asked. “It looks like a prison.”

“Where’s Adella? I don’t see her.” One of the women stood up and started frantically looking, the panic contagious.

Chaos broke loose as women sorted out who was in the room and who was not. Finally, Adella was found, shaken and out of sorts, but alive. Whatever had happened had been thorough.

I had to get control of this situation quick. “Everyone, count off.”

“Who the hell are you?” A redhead with a penetrating gaze looked me up and down. She had a lilt to her voice that the others didn’t have.

“Commander Kalyn Askvig.” I probably should have started with that.

“Figures you’d survive,” the redhead scoffed.

“Aryn,” Lynna hissed.

“What?” the redhead, Aryn, replied. “An Askvig is the last thing we need right now.”

“Excuse me?” I demanded.

“Your mother had a say in most of our sentencing,” Aryn snarled. “She’s not our favorite person. None of the higher-ups are.”

“Understood.” I kept my tone brisk, and met her gaze with my own. “And irrelevant to the current situation. Count off.”

There was a startled silence and then the undertone of panic subsided as first one, then another and another crew member began rapidly reciting their name, rank, and status.

“Okay, good,” I said, glancing at Lynna. “Are we—” A dark shape darted between my legs, startling me.

I cursed, grateful it didn’t come out a yelp, and skirted to the side. Pain shot up the side of my leg. I must’ve sprained something, too.

“Was that a cat?” A woman with light brown hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose stared after the dark thing that had zoomed by and immediately got up to investigate. I searched my memory—Shenna.

“Shenna, be careful,” Lynna warned. “It could be anything.”

The women huddled and stepped closer to Lynna as Shenna knelt down, facing a dark corner. She made a series of cooing noises. A moment later, she turned around with a bundle in her arms.

“It’s the station kitty!” She buried her face in its fur and hugged it close to her. The cat, a mangy calico, appeared to barely tolerate the physical contact before wriggling away to twine at her feet.

“The damn cat survived all that?” Maris mused.

The discovery of the cat provided a further distraction from the panic. Grim anxiety knotted in my stomach. The women shot me furtive little glances. They were looking for someone—me—to step up and fix the situation. I didn’t want to tell them I had no idea what to do. It didn’t matter. My job was to pretend I did,

They’re never going to listen to you, a wicked voice whispered in my mind. They know you’re useless. I shoved the dark thoughts down. They might be right, but I had to try.

I owed it to them to at least try to be a decent leader.

“Listen up, everyone!” My voice cracked once, and my legs trembled beneath me. “We need to figure out what happened. Does anyone remember anything after the alarm sounded? Do we know why this happened?”

On Mars, Persephone Station was known as a rehabilitation workstation. Those who didn’t seek it out for the hazard pay were there as punishment.

It was where women were sent when the rest of the world didn’t know what to do with them.

“I was on lookout,” a petite girl with dark eyes spoke up. She looked young compared to the rest of us. “I saw a ship appear out of nowhere, like it was using a much more advanced Flosh drive. Everything seemed to… almost wobble when it appeared. Then the the station started shaking.”

“Thank you.” I nodded to the young woman. She looked away, tucking herself closer to the wall.

Her information provided an unsettling revelation. From her report, it sounded as if the ship was targeting us.

“Why would someone attack Persephone?” I asked.

Maris spoke up. “There’s no reason. Persephone is a pile of crap held together by bubblegum and wishful thinking. We have nothing of value. We don’t even have value.”

“That’s not true,” I said softly.

“The rest of the Terran system disagrees,” Maris said bitterly.

We fell into a strained silence. My mind scrambled to come up with the right thing to say.

“Maybe it was a Space Force ship, testing a new type of engine,” Lynna offered. “Maybe they didn’t know what would happen.”

Maris snorted. “I’d have heard. I might be out of the loop, but not that far out. Sounds like a shock wave of some kind.”

“Our first priority should be information,” I said.

Aryn snorted. “That’s your grand plan, is it? Why should we listen to you, exactly? You’ve been here all of five minutes—I’m not sure you’re the best one for the job.”

A creaking noise interrupted our discussion, which was a blessing, since I wasn’t prepared to face the first challenge to my command. We all turned to look. A door on the far side of the room opened. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it sooner.

A tall, broad figure stood in the doorway, taller than any man I’d ever met, ever heard of. His arms, his hands shimmered golden in the dim light.

Of course. The gold hands I’d thought I imagined before falling unconscious. I hadn’t imagined them after all. Some sort of gloved suit, some strange fabric.

The women collectively moved as far away from him as they could. Swallowing my trepidation, I placed myself between them and the golden form.

“I am Commander Kalyn Askvig of Persephone Station,” I said, biting down on the words to keep the tremble out of my voice. “Don’t come any closer.”

The golden man stepped into the light. I didn’t know what he was, but he certainly wasn’t human.

It wasn’t fabric. It wasn’t gloves. It was his skin.

Not a man at all.

Alien.

Oh hell.

Aliens.

That…was not the information I’d expected to find.

My brain froze, scrambling to process. Couldn’t this all have happened after I’d had a day to sleep off the effects of the damn Flosh drive?

Aliens didn’t exist. Everyone knew that.

But one was here, standing in front of me, wearing something like a dark vest and pants, exposed golden arms covered with thin swirls and patterns.

Face humanoid, but sharper.

Distinctly, definitely alien.

How the hell was I supposed to deal with aliens when my brain was all fuzzy?

The man, the alien, looked me over and then spoke in a language I couldn’t understand.

Not a surprise.

Alien.

Lovely.

He spoke again, and when I didn’t answer, he sighed and motioned for me to follow him.

“Kalyn, don’t!” Lynna warned.

I took a deep breath and nodded to the golden man.

I needed answers.

And alien or not, following him was my only chance at getting them.

Rogue Mate is the first in the Rogue Star science fiction alien romance series. Click now to start the adventure!

Copyright © 2020 by Ava York

All rights reserved. These books or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the Author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.