Alien Warrior II: War Prize

II of Alien Warriors

Kaitlyn O'Connor

Tags:
captured, multiple heroes, alien warriors, woman with male harem, slave women

capturedttt multiple heroesttt alien warriorsttt woman with male haremttt slave womenttt

Arabella and her fellow colonists had barely arrived on the target colony world when they were invaded and captured by an army of giant alien warriors.

What they were having trouble grasping, because there was a major language barrier, was that they were considered prizes of war, playthings of the giants and subject to their whims.

ALIEN WARRIORS II:

War Prize

BY

KAITLYN O’CONNOR

( c ) copyright by Madris DePasture writing as Kaitlyn O’Connor, 2022

Cover Art by Jenny Dixon, 2022

ISBN 978-1-60394-

Smashwords Edition

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

The planet below them was greening up so fast it was beyond a ‘little’ unnerving. It had been earmarked for colonization despite the fact that it had barely livable conditions for anything ‘Earth’ … because they were convinced they’d found a ‘shake and bake’ planet.

And ‘perfect’ was extremely rare—had become the catch phrase for anything close enough.

‘They’ being a collective of Earth scientists and Government and investors.

It was in the goldilocks zone and it was close enough to Earth in size and air density to make it comfortable. The sticking point was that the percentage of oxygen in the air mix was low enough, when it was discovered, that they were going to feel like they were living on Mount Everest if they didn’t carry oxygen with them whenever they worked outside.

And, well, it was a colony and that meant the colonists were officially hunter-gatherers.

Except in this case there was nothing to hunt and gather that was food—plenty of other stuff, but nothing edible.

The average temperature, the soil composition, and the elevated levels of carbon dioxide had suggested it would be a fabulous place to farm, though, so that had been their first objective when they’d reached the planet and inserted the ship into orbit. They’d dropped drones to spray down the terrain with plant seed that had been coated with fertilizer and a growth accelerant.

Naturally enough, it was a little more complicated than that. They’d had to ‘zone’ the planet and make up batches of baby plants/seeds that were most likely to survive the conditions particular to each area.

And voila`! They had a planet nearly ready for herbivores already and the herbivores were still weeks or in some cases months away from being ready to turn loose—already getting too big for the hold, for certain—but not mature enough—yet—to be self sufficient.

The really good news—pleasant surprise—was that the plants had blossomed so abundantly that the oxygen content in the atmosphere was almost as high as Earth’s at this point.

They needed to get those animals down there to start ingesting oxygen and producing carbon dioxide if they didn’t want to introduce climate change that could cause the biosphere to shift!

Playing god, Arabella reflected, was unnerving when so many lives depended upon it.

Dismissing her qualms, Bella left the observation window, scanned the lab she’d occupied for the past two years and was about to leave—permanently—and finally left it with a sense of having been liberated. When she got to the hold, she saw the stock carriers were almost ready to launch. She headed toward the nearest and went inside to check the animals to make certain they were properly secured for the trip to the surface.

They were babies and it was really, really hard to remain detached and scientific about babies—of almost any kind—the fuzzy ones, especially. She did her best to ignore their frightened little cries and keep her hands to herself, though. They were supposed to be wild, needed to be—merely performing a quick check and then leaving them for a look at the next ship.

The young animals would be ‘nurtured’ robotically and kept in a safe area until they were mature enough to strike out on their own. She and the other members of her team would continue to monitor them to determine how well they were adapting, or not, but it would all be electronic from this point onward.

She was sad to see them go—excited to know they had introduced life on a barren rock and she had been a part of it—but still suffering separation anxiety.

The whole planet was going to be one enormous lab, she thought with wry amusement—probably forever, but certainly until they had had time to see if they had gotten the balance of nature right.

It was a totally unique experience—the scale of it. They were the only colony that had taken everything with them. Their children and descendants, hopefully, would live on a world that was very close to the home world they had left—closer than any other. Although, of course, all of the colony ships had taken some flora and fauna from Earth to introduce to their new homes. Humans were a part of an ecosystem, however, and they needed that system, or at least a facsimile of it, to thrive.

She left the hold when she’d finished checking all of the animals in all of the carriers and took up a position at an observation window to watch when the ships were launched. When the bay doors had closed behind the last, and the air pressure was restored, she headed to the shuttle that would carry her to the surface with a quarter of the other colonists.

Hopefully, this would be her first night on solid ground since they’d left Earth.

It all depended on how well the construction bots had performed.

Everything that could be checked from orbit had been and, according to their data, it was all in working order, but she never counted on anything she hadn’t checked out in person.

Humans weren’t infallible, and neither were machines—because humans built them.

Fortunately, the ‘hive’ was everything they had expected.

Entibe, as they’d named their new home since it was a ‘distant shore’, was habitable when discovered—not especially hospitable, but not entirely hostile to Earth life forms. And the terra-forming they’d done already had improved it beyond what it had been to begin with.

But it wasn’t Eden. They couldn’t live without shelter and the environment within the structure they all referred to as the ‘hive’ was far more welcoming than the natural world at that point.

It was their first test of ‘roughing it’.

On the ship they’d had cabins—tiny cabins, but privacy.

The hive was one huge warehouse for the colony supplies, labs and equipment, and colonists. The most privacy it offered was the tiny cubicles that surrounded the toilets. Even the showers had no dividers. They had one big shower room to accommodate a dozen people at the time and the barracks was just that, not even separated from the electronics and labs by more than a clear walkway.

The first colony city was already laid out in a grid map—on the computer—though. And the robots that had constructed the hive had replicated that map on the ground.

All the new colonists had to do was to choose a spot and assemble their first habs—which consisted of a sleeping area big enough for a single bed and a self-contained bathroom.

Sadly, it wasn’t something they could do immediately.

Because Bella was wired to do just that and it chafed that there were tasks that had to be done before she could focus on her own little patch.

By the time they’d put together a meal, set up their sleeping area, and checked on the systems already installed and the animals already transported to the ground, it was too late in the day to even take a walk to look around.

Fortunately, Bella had managed to wear herself down enough to tamp her enthusiasm and she was able to sleep. She was up again, though, almost before the sun had managed to crest the distant horizon, dressed, and ready to head out and explore.

The first ‘law’ of the colony, though, was that no one went anywhere alone until they had established themselves and knew of any and all potential threats. They had a wealth of information about their colony world from the probes that had been sent to ‘explore’ and map it. Everyone was convinced it had been sterilized of life at some point, by something, but they weren’t going to be positive of that until they’d done studies.

And beyond that kind of possible threat, the terrain was a complete unknown. They didn’t think there were any ‘traps’ for the unwary like quicksand or sinkholes, but they weren’t a hundred percent certain of what was there.

So Bella still had to contain her impatience. Luckily, she wasn’t the only one eager to get outside and explore. Pretty much everyone got up within a few minutes of her and settled with coffee or breakfast, made short work of it, and headed out.

As an armed group, they left the hive and headed out to the furthermost land lots that had been marked off.

It was something of a disappointment to discover the spot marked for the colony was basically featureless, flat and smooth. There were young plants growing everywhere, but not an actual tree in sight, and no more than a gentle roll to the ground.

There was a mountain range in the distance and its highest peaks were coated in snow, but otherwise—nothing to see or do.

“I think we should spread out,” Bella remarked speculatively, to no one in particular. “I mean … I left Earth because I was tired of being up under everybody’s ass.”

“We don’t know that that will be safe,” one of the others, named Charlie, Bella thought, remarked.

Bella gaped at her. “But … as far as we know there isn’t another living thing within light years of us!”

“That’s the whole point, Bella. What we don’t know out here can hurt us,” Kelly, a member of the flight crew, said incisively.

* * * *

The leader duo, Korin and Enan wore nearly identical, stony expressions as they approached the bridge where the Commander awaited. It was never a good thing when they were summoned by the delizo commander, Jud, and the expectations of both men were that the meeting they had been summoned for would be … unpleasant at the very least.

More often than not, it had to do with some disciplinary action he had thought up for some infraction that he had invented in his mind. It was at times like that that their captivity chafed nearly unbearably and Korin had to wrestle with his desire to bludgeon the bastard till he was no more than a greasy spot.

Of course he could not.

Quite aside from the fact that they would instantly blow his head off with the control collar he was forced to wear and could not remove, there were other considerations that were far more important to him than his head at this point.

The people of Eos.

His people. His world.

In all likelihood they were long gone now. Their world and all they had left behind had most likely perished before they had been fully indoctrinated into the war machine of the Delizo Empire.

But they could not risk the home world for their freedom. They would not.

And it was that threat more than any other that kept them from turning on the creatures that had enslaved them and slaying them with extreme prejudice.

Korin’s belly knotted as if in expectation of a fist to the gut when they reached the bridge and Jud turned to grin at them—a stomach churning expression on the reptilian face at the best of times.

It threw Korin since he had been convinced a round of punishment was about to be ordered.

“We have discovered some juicy colonists!” Jud announced gleefully.

Korin’s gaze moved to the viewing screen, but he could see nothing to support the statement—nothing but endless black space. “You picked up heat signatures?” he asked somewhat doubtfully.

Jud cackled. It grated on Korin as nothing else and he clenched his jaws to prevent a shudder. “Yes! We have enhanced it to expand our range! The mother ship is still in orbit around the planet, but we have reason to believe a good bit of equipment and supplies have already been transported to the surface. You must ready your men for a two pronged assault. I am thinking that it would work best if you coordinated your attacks so that neither would have the chance to warn the others, but I am no military man—certainly not with your experience. You must decide which will work best. Deliver them to me and I shall be satisfied. I do not care how you do it.”

Korin stared at the bastard, mesmerized by his complete lack of empathy for other living things. “Colonists?” he repeated, unadvisedly. “They are not likely to have much of any value to the Empire, surely?”

Jud’s mood soured instantly. “Beggars cannot be choosers!” he snarled, sending out a spray of spittle as he spoke and gestured toward the screen. “We are in the back of beyond. There are precious few targets, as you may have noticed when you and your men have done nothing for months beyond kicking your heels and eating up my supplies!”

Fury washed over Korin. Kicking their heels? They had been recovering from the last battle Jud had dropped them in to. Due, according to Jud, to some unknown interference the delizo had ‘misread’ the data and dropped them in middle of a well armed force nigh three times their numbers. What he might have done or said in response to the accusation, however, remained unspoken. If they had not been the elite warriors of Eos, they would not have been able to fight their way out of it.

And they certainly had not emerged victorious and unscathed.

His duo, Enan, shifted subtly in his direction so that they touched, shoulder to shoulder—more of a brush, really. But that was enough for Enan to use his empathic abilities to calm the waters sufficiently to allow Korin to reconsider splattering the bastard across the room.

A head butt would do it, Korin thought, greatly tempted, relishing the thought of taking the bastard out with his own bomb—wired into the slave collars they were forced to wear—if he managed nothing else.

Then again, the blast might well take out the bridge, or enough to leave his men stranded in space even if the ship didn’t implode.

And, of course, his duo, Enan, would die with him and he could more easily accept his own death than Enan’s.

Grinding his teeth, he bowed his head. “I will ready the men for the attack, Commander.”

Enan hesitated when they had left the bridge, struggling to keep pace with his duo, Korin, when his stride alone spoke volumes about his state of mind. “Will we not need Intel beyond the fact that it is colonists?”

Korin’s lips tightened. As if the Intel they had received was ever to be relied upon! “It is sufficient to know they are colonists—assuming, of course, that Jud has a clue,” he responded tightly. “They will be poorly armed and have little or no defenses to being breached when it is clear they have only just begun to set up their base.”

Enan swallowed with difficulty. “It will be a slaughter then,” he responded, struggling to remain neutral when he felt anything but that.

Madrone warriors did not make war on those too weak to defend themselves. If they were indeed colonists, there would be women and children and Korin was so disgusted about being ordered to attack them he felt ill.

It was against their code to strike an unworthy opponent.

Korin sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It will not. We were not ordered to slaughter them. Some will most assuredly perish—many if they are of a mind to fight us, for I will not expect our men to hold themselves in check while they are attacked.”

“We will leave them to die slowly?” Enan ground out.

Korin turned a furious look upon him and abruptly cut the feed of his communications device. “To your mind it would be kinder to slaughter them? I will not mind action when we have been idle so long that the men are becoming less and less cautious when we have mock battle. It would do us all good, I am certain, to have something to kill other than one another.”

“But you do not expect much of a challenge?”

Korin was silent for several moments. “I suppose that will depend upon how many there are, how desperate they are to protect what is theirs, and if they perceive that we are evenly matched.” He hesitated. “Go and see what Intel you can collect that may be pertinent to our endeavor.”

The men were practically vibrating with anticipation from the moment he gathered them to announce that they had a mission. Ordinarily, he was not inclined to take the entire force. With the exception of the last near disaster, they had not—thus far—encountered resistance that would warrant it and he was certain the colonists, if they were colonists, were not going to be a challenge. But the men were dangerously restless and he thought any action at all would relieve some of their frustration. Simply being free of the ship for a short time would help. “I have been advised by Commander Jud that the operation will more likely result in success if we divide our forces, coordinate our efforts, and strike at the same time. Ordinarily, I would dismiss that, but in this instance it seems … prudent.”

The men remained stone faced, but he could see the flicker in their eyes that told him they had as much contempt for Jud’s military prowess as he did and that they realized instantly that the ‘prudence’ referred to appeasing Jud’s ego rather than the danger of the mission.

Unless Jud was wrong and it was not a colony ship.

That, he realized, was entirely possible since Jud was prone to wild mood swings and impulsiveness. He had concluded that it was a colony ship based on no more than the heat signatures as far as Korin had been able to discern.

Nevertheless, he felt confident that they would be more than a match for their adversaries—even if he split his forces.

The main question was whether to divide his men in half or otherwise. Enan arrived with the intelligence that no more than a handful had been sent to the surface so far—which might have been what had convinced Jud that they were colonists. If that remained the case by the time they were close enough to launch the attack, he thought a quarter of his men would be sufficient to round up the surface colonists and the others should attack the ship since the probes had reported well over two hundred separate heat signatures.

Summoning his second in command, Dayne, and Dayne’s duo, Dax, Korin put Dayne in charge of the ground forces and the two of them settled to working out the logistics of the assault. There was no high ground. As confident as he was in his men and Dayne’s leadership, he was not happy with that circumstance. It was not something they could change, however, and it merely convinced him to reverse his earlier determination about dividing his forces. He decided that it would be best to divide his forces more or less equally. Even though they would have a much smaller force to contend with on the ground, they would be dealing with a much larger area and a flat terrain that was not only going to mean they would have no cover, it was going to make it difficult to impossible to surround and contain the enemy. They would, perforce, have to spread themselves thinly in order to encircle the compound the settlers had established. That could leave them open to snipers if any of the enemy just happened to be outside the perimeter when they landed, but they, their opponents, would have no more cover than his men had and he thought they could be dealt with swiftly to minimize casualties within his force.

The force he planned to lead would have a confined area to work with and far more targets and there was very little that they could determine about the layout of the craft.

He finally decided that, even though it would give his enemy time to prepare to repel them, he and his men would board via the hold of the ship and fan out once they reached the populated levels. Once they were inside, there would be very little the occupants could do beyond surrender … unless they just decided suicide would be preferable.

In which case, they were all fucked.

He dismissed the possibility fairly quickly, however, not because he thought it highly unlikely that they would choose that option but because his fighting blood was up. And the closer they came to their quarry, the more focused he was on battle.

In any case, there was no choice in the matter. They had been ordered to take the target and take it they must.

Chapter Two

As luck would have it, just as they were moving into position to launch the assault, they discovered their target had shifted their own forces with perhaps half remaining on board ship and the other half moving to the surface.

Almost as if they were well aware that they were in the crosshairs of an invasion force.

Korin could not believe they had been detected, but he could not dismiss the possibility and that required some eleventh hour repositioning of his forces and adjustment of their attack plan.

He gave Dayne the command of the force that would take the alien ship and allocated three quarters of the men to the ground assault—in case their target actually had discovered them and was completely prepared to repel their attempts to take their base.

Fully anticipating that a counterattack would be launched the moment they materialized, Korin assumed an attack stance when he stepped on the transporter with his duo, Enan. Taking their cue from their commander, the other warriors also prepared to launch an instantaneous attack.

Korin discovered he was not prepared for the sight that greeted his eyes when they focused, however. The image, or the figure, in point of fact, hit him with the force of a physical blow and froze him where he stood for fully long enough he could have been attacked and slain if they had been so inclined.

His war cry dried in his throat as his brain relayed the as-it-happened-false identification of a friendly, a madrone woman—a beautiful madrone woman—strangely colored.

Then he realized the figure was far too small to be a madrone woman.

A child?

His brain and his cock could not seem to sync up.

That thought brought his gaze to her breasts, however, and he realized she was indeed full grown—or at least mature.

It was not until she screamed at him and began to screech completely unintelligible words at the top of her lungs as she took flight toward the building far into the distance that it hit him that she was not, in fact, a madrone woman at all. He could dismiss everything else but that—was completely willing to. But she—every female within his sight—and there were dozens—running in circles, running in every direction—was far too tiny to be madrone, the language was not theirs and he had never, he was certain, seen a madrone woman with the skin and hair colors that these women had.

Jogged by the realization that, rather than a fight on their hands, they were going to have to chase them down and capture the females to subdue them, Korin shoved his ax into its holder and gave chase.

* * * *

Bella had just straightened from examining one of the fawns in the tiny herd she’d bred when she saw a very confusing and strange phenomena—a ball of light hit the ground barely three yards from her and then … solidified.

Bella gaped at the giant alien warriors that appeared out of the light, her mind perfectly blank.

That lasted for a handful of seconds and no more, because the moment the thing fully materialized, she realized he had lifted a tree trunk sized arm that was tipped with a fist the size of her head and holding … what looked like a medieval battle axe. And his face contorted into a mask of rage a split second before he let out a roar that went through her as if she’d been electrified.

That unfroze her—virtually instantaneously—and pretty much jellified her musculature.

Unfortunately, it did not magically open the closed corridors of her mind or bring order to chaos.

It did open a flood gate of instincts, however.

Bella screamed—so loud it rattled her eardrums, whirled in place, and hit for the compound, her legs churning so fast they nearly outran her and she came all around sprawling out repeatedly. Simultaneously, she struggled to think of words to express the breadth of her distress and find her vocal chords. “Help! Guns! Weapons! Aliens! Ugh!”

The last word wasn’t an actual attempt at communication. It was forced from her lungs when the beast clothes-lined her with one arm from behind and lifted her clear of the ground.

It took her a handful of moments to realize she was no longer making any progress even though her legs were still churning. She wasn’t sure she would have then except he clamped a hand the size of her face over her face, silencing her, blinding her, and cutting off her air all at the same time.

That was enough to send another dizzying rush of adrenaline through her and a landslide of instinctual battle tactics. She began flailing her arms and twisting her hands in an attempt to use her nails to claw him, pounded her heels against his legs and tried to catch the skin of his palm with her teeth.

He dropped her abruptly.

She didn’t waste time wondering whether that was to make it easier to slice and dice with the axe or for another reason. As soon as she slammed into the ground she began scrambling away, trying to get back on her feet.

He caught her hair, halted her attempt at fleeing, and lifted her upright by it.

Fortunately, there was enough slack once he had her on her feet to allow her to whirl on her attacker and fight back.

Of course, she might have been able to do so a little more effectively if she could’ve gathered her wits, but she didn’t have time for that. She balled her hands into fists and wind-milled her arms to pound on him.

He shifted his grip from her hair to her face, pinched her jaw hard enough to leave bruises, pushed his face into hers, and bellowed … something, loud enough it blew her hair back.

Whatever he said did not magically become English so that she could understand it because he used a mega volume to say it.

It pierced her shock and horror sufficiently that sanity returned, however. The adrenalin abandoned her abruptly and left her so weak she could no longer lift her arms. She went limp. If he hadn’t had a firm grip on her she would have hit the ground.

He studied her for a long moment and finally set her back on her heels and drew back far enough she could focus her eyes.

That was when she discovered that he was human.

Well, he looked human—his face.

He wasn’t human. He couldn’t be.

Moments passed before she realized he was studying her with …. Actually, she couldn’t read his expression, but she thought he must be as stunned and surprised as she was.

He set her away after a prolonged several moments and scanned her length with his gaze. It settled somewhere in the vicinity of her belly.

Before she could get too wound up about that circumstance, he jerked her weapon from the holster at her waist.

Embarrassment instantly flooded her. Dismay was a little behind that.

She’d forgotten all about the weapon when she’d seen him.

It was her embarrassment that brought her out of the cocoon her terror had wrapped her and her attacker in sufficiently that she glanced around to see who’d been close enough to see she hadn’t even drawn her weapon. That was when she discovered the one giant facing her wasn’t the only one. As far as she could see, there were dozens more of them—either chasing the other women or holding them and, to a man, they were giants.

The one who’d caught her gave her a nudge to get her to move and she saw as she turned, that the giants were leading all of the other women inside the hab.

A few of the other colonists glanced in her direction, but she couldn’t even be sure they’d actually looked at her. They all seemed to be in shock.

Well, she was.

She’d barely taken two steps when she heard one of the baby animals squeal. The sound acted on her like a rope, pulling her head in that direction, and when she saw that one of the giants had picked one up she forgot everything else.

“Put it down!” she screamed, charging the man with every intention of snatching the fawn away from him and beating him down if he tried to resist.

He froze and stared at her.

The one that had been marching her toward the hab grabbed her and jerked her to a halt.

She turned on him mindlessly and tried to fight free of him.

“Put the creature down,” Korin said tightly, “before this little fool hurts herself.”

Enan shrugged uncomfortably. “I would not harm it. It is a baby … I think. I was merely curious. It is a pretty creature.”

“I know that,” Korin said dryly. “She does not. And she is clearly attached to them if she is alarmed enough to attack me … with her bare hands.”

Enan leaned down and set the fawn free and then joined Korin. Boxing the female in, he reached up to his helmet and turned off his communicator. “I believe that you saw more action than anyone else,” he said in a voice rife with amusement.

Korin sent him a sharp look before amusement lightened his features. “Do not scorn her efforts,” he said, mock stern. “She fought very bravely. I am … impressed with her determination.”

Enan’s gaze settled on her for a long moment. His throat closed with a thirst that had nothing to do with blood lust or dehydration. “I feel … a very great deal of things I should not, but scorn is not one of them. She is … a thing of beauty.”

Korin had been thinking much the same in spite of every effort not to, but he shook his head. “Do not … think about things you cannot have. She is a war prize of the delizo,” he said warningly.

Naturally enough, Bella had no idea what the two were discussing, but it said a great deal for her state of mind that she was actually able to notice. Not that she wasn’t still in a state of uproar, but she’d regained some of the senses shock had deprived her of, some of her mental facilities.

Curiosity had tempered her sheer terror.

She was actually heartened by the fact that they hadn’t killed her on the spot as soon as she’d tried to resist.

‘Try’ being the key word since it was hard to deny that she’d been completely ineffectual.

She wasn’t sure she was going to live long enough to get past her disgust with herself that she’d been so panicked she hadn’t even thought about the weapon she was carrying, but she thought it might be a silver lining that the alien men hadn’t seemed intent upon slaughter.

Because when she’d been ushered inside, and managed a head count, she saw that all of the other women were there and looked unharmed—thoroughly ruffled—terrorized, but not injured.

That thought hadn’t even fully come to rest in her mind when the male she’d first encountered, clearly the leader, said something to his men and there was a stampede of giants toward the women—which threw maybe half into hysterics, the remainder being too terrified even to manage that much.

Thankfully, the warriors merely forced them into a line up so that the leader could walk down the line and look them over.

Apparently not satisfied he said something else and the first three women in the line were seized and stripped while the remainder of the women had hysterics and tried to break loose and run.

The rebellion didn’t actually get a chance to take hold, unfortunately. Apparently the warriors had anticipated a revolt—possibly even hoped for it since it gave them the opportunity to manhandle the women—because they closed in on the women at once.

Contrary to what they’d expected, the leader merely looked them over and then tossed their clothing back at them.

Still skeptical, the next group was, nevertheless, able to contain their hysterics when they were forced to strip and then the next group until they got to Bella.

Telling herself that none of the others had come to any harm, struggling to ignore the pounding of her heart in her ears, Bella removed her own clothing and stood as still as she could manage while the giant alien man looked her over.

It seemed to her that he spent a good deal more time looking her over than he had the others, but she thought it was probably pure imagination.

And she was still vastly relieved when she was able to pull her clothes on again—no wiser as to why they’d decided to examine them, but relieved it hadn’t meant gang rape.

At least not right away.

Every moment they survived—intact—was a moment to be grateful for.

* * * *

Korin counted their prisoners—twice.

Frowning, he told his men to line them up so that he could inspect them.

Fifty—all female as far as he could see. Fifty more being held outside the now very crowded structure they had built. And the tiny heat signatures, he suspected, were the tiny creatures they had seen the woman with—not their young as he had supposed.

After a moment, he sent Enan to take four quads to fan out from the structure to search for any males.

He did not expect to find any due to their reconnaissance of the group and the head count, but it confused him that they had not found a single male among them and that made him uneasy.

What sort of colony could be established without men?

Unless his mind was playing tricks on him because of the lust he had instantly felt as soon as he identified the females as madrone? Well the one he encountered that had scattered his wits.

Redirected them toward his groin where the brain cells were useless.

They were not madrone and because they were not, he had no way to know what sort of creatures they truly were. Since he and his men had been taken by the delizo, he had seen many strange beings—some that were both male and female, or perhaps neither—some that he could not tell the female from the male without examining their genitals—which he had no great desire to do.

He could not see these beings as a threat even if there were actually males among them passing as female for some reason.

But perhaps they were ‘alone’ because they needed no males?

That thought made his stomach churn, but he took care not to examine it too closely.

Either way, he intended—needed—to find out.

They fought the battle of the clothing when he decided he had to be certain—and it was an unexpected battle because the aliens put up far more resistance than they had when they had been captured to start with. Grimly determined, Korin insisted and then inspected them and tossed their clothing back to them.

He managed to remain fairly immune to their feelings on the matter, and to his … until he reached ‘his’ captive.

His mind when perfectly blank when she had stripped.

Because all of the blood in his head rushed to his cock.

His mouth went dry with want.

She was, as Enan had pointed out, a thing of beauty—so perfectly formed and proportioned despite her miniature stature that it was all he could do to keep his hands to himself.

Because he wanted to grab her and claim her that very moment.

Fortunately, one circumstance prevented it.

The desire to breathe.

And then another circumstance finally penetrated the heated fog of his mind and took root, diverting him.

They had a dilemma on their hands.

Colonists, supposedly, with no men present.

They were still screaming, crying, and, he didn’t doubt, cursing him when he finally emerged from his preoccupation with the woman and activated his communications device. “Dayne.”

He waited for several moments. Just as he was trying to decide whether to wait to try communication at a later time or rush to the ship to see if his men had won the day or not, Dayne responded.

“We have taken the compound and accounted for all of the colonists. There was … no real resistance. There are no males present.”

“There are none aboard the ship either. You are certain?” Dayne asked sharply.

“One hundred pairs of breasts—no balls, no cocks. I am fairly convinced,” Korin retorted dryly. “I made them strip.”

Dayne was silent for several moments. “That must have been fun for all,” he responded dryly.

“Yes. They fought like wild beasts.” He considered it. “The first several, at any rate. And since they seemed determined to kick me in the face, I had a very close look at the genitals, and I can say with conviction that they are female.”

* * * *

Korin did not know what to make of the report he had from Dayne. It was not that he doubted Dayne’s word. The circumstances simply made no sense to him.

Strategically speaking, he would have thought the warriors would go to the surface of the planet first to secure it, but he considered when he discovered that that was not the case that perhaps they had known that they had nothing on the planet to be concerned about. And, for some reason that escaped him, they had decided to send the females down first.

At the very least he would have sent an equal number of males to females.

Since they had found that was not the case, it suggested the males were all still aboard the ship if the ground base was occupied by females.

However, that did not seem to be the case either—and he trusted that Dayne had been as thorough as he had in determining the threat level.

Could they simply accept that they had captured all of the colonists?

Because the headcount did match the heat signatures the delizo had counted—if one took into account that the smaller heat signatures they had detected were the small beasts they had found.

Had their people simply decided to split the colonists up for transit? Again, it seemed it would have made far more sense to send the males ahead to await the females rather than the other way around.

But he had to concede that it was possible—perhaps probable since he was convinced their captives were entirely female and needed males to reproduce.

They gave every appearance of being colonists as Jud had supposed.

But how would they make a colony with no men?

Did that mean they should remain on alert for another ship—one filled with warriors?

He thought they must.

He hesitated to contact Commander Jud, but he knew the bastard would be raging at him most any time and demanding to know what had transpired.

Deciding to dismiss his instincts in that regard, he left his duo Enan in charge and ordered Dayne to have him beamed up to the ship. Once there, he conducted a thorough inspection of the captured ship himself, reported to Jud, and then had his men carry the women down to the hold and load them into the crafts they had found there. Leaving only a small portion of his men to guard their ‘prize’ he headed down to the surface with the women he’d captured.

It seemed highly unlikely that Jud would simply dismiss them and leave with the prize they’d taken—the ship, still loaded, from what he could see, with most everything they had brought with them. But he thought it was worth a try and he could not bring himself not to even make the attempt to save them from the Delizo Empire.

Perhaps, as Enan had said, they would die a slow death, but he knew if they were his own people that they would prefer that to accepting slavery—and that was what the future held for them if Jud decided to sell them in the slave market.

Or worse.

He was not certain he could stomach watching the bastards take the women for their own use when they looked so much like madrone women.

But although he generalized the thought, it was the beautiful woman he had first encountered whose image rose instantly in his mind and with it, far more helpless fury.

And that made him recklessly disregard what he knew Jud would demand.

Chapter Three

Bella divided her wait time between worrying about her own ass and worrying about the tiny animals that were the hope of a future on their new planet. In the back of her mind, she felt like there was no real hope. The aliens hadn’t harmed anyone, but they also didn’t look like they would be leaving any time soon and that could not be a good thing.

They were waiting for something. She was convinced of it.

Part of that was because the guy that seemed to be ‘big boss’ had disappeared. She thought, at first, that he just wasn’t where she could see him, but she decided when she kept seeing the one who’d stuck to him like his twin that that was a sign that he wasn’t around. Otherwise, she thought she would still have seen the pair together at some point.

He must have beamed back up to their ship.

Because that was how they’d arrived.

Her mind hadn’t been able to really grasp that and hold on to it at first, but she knew that had to be what had happened because she hadn’t seen or heard a ship.

They hadn’t tripped the alarm system.

And it was for damned sure they hadn’t been on the planet when the colony ship arrived.

The first thing they’d done was to survey it. While they began the process of terra-forming, they had spent weeks checking out everything on the planet and comparing it to data collected from probes that had been sent earlier.

So the warriors had come from somewhere else and they hadn’t been captured as invaders?

She considered that and realized she still couldn’t rule out the possibility that they were in the wrong—at least to the minds of the aliens—that the planet/territory had already been claimed.

They hadn’t discovered any planet close by that looked habitable, but they’d been looking from a long way off and couldn’t rule it out completely—especially when they’d been laser focused on the planet they’d named Entibe.

She thought she might have been easier in her mind if she could have figured out why the aliens had captured them, what the motivation was, since that would, she thought, have a direct bearing on their future. But it simply boggled her imagination if they hadn’t done it because Earth people had trespassed on claimed territory.

In time, her anxiety about the animals began to outweigh her fear of the aliens—especially since they didn’t seem inclined toward violence—didn’t actually seem particularly interested in them, to be truthful.

She finally decided to try to communicate when she noticed the one who’d picked up the fawn watching her. She gestured in that direction and made a cuddling motion with her arms, then pointed to her eyes. “Can I check on them? Please?” she asked earnestly. “There’s nowhere to go, no way to go. It isn’t like I could run and hide.”

“Are you out of your mind?” the woman next to her growled in an under voice.

Bella glanced at the woman in surprise, feeling her heart jumping with nerves—partly because she’d been called out and partly because she was unnerved at her own daring. “What?”

The woman—ship’s co-pilot, Cory Trainer—shook her head. “Don’t draw their fucking attention in my direction. God only knows what they mean to do with us, but I’m in no damned hurry to find out,” she growled in a low voice and then looked away quickly.

Warned by Cory’s behavior, Bella glanced back toward the alien man she’d been trying to communicate with and discovered he was striding toward her. Realizing it was too late, now, to be more cautious, she met his inquiring gaze uneasily. “The fawns,” she said a little hoarsely, “the small things? Can I just … go make sure they’re ok?”

He stared at her long enough she knew he had no idea what she’d said and disappointment flooded her, then he mimed picking it up.

A thrill of triumph went through her. “Yes! The little animal.”

He frowned, glanced around the building and finally summoned one of the others and spoke to him. When the man saluted, he reached for her, grasped her upper arm, and pulled her to her feet.

It unnerved her, sent a wave of fear driven adrenaline through her that sucked the strength out of her so that her legs felt strangely rubbery when he urged her to walk.

She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t that he would walk her out and the fear instantly assailed her that Cory was right. She shouldn’t have drawn attention to herself.

Now, maybe, he was going to take her out and execute her.

Or … other.

He glanced at her as they left the building, frowned and then shook his head slightly. “Ok.”

That sent a jolt through her. It wasn’t just clearly enunciated. It seemed pretty damned convincing that he knew or at least suspected what it meant.

And he was trying to reassure her.

Should she be more worried?

“You speak English?” she asked uneasily.

He frowned and she realized he was turning over what she’d said in his mind, but was that because he was wondering if he should answer? Or because he didn’t really have a clue what she’d asked? And if he didn’t, how had he grasped ‘ok’ so quickly?

“Spake Engish?” he repeated after a prolonged moment.

Distracted by her focus on the animals as they approached the pen, Bella scarcely heard him.

Well, actually, distracted by the giant aliens standing near the pen.

As if guarding it.

A jolt went through her as she realized that nothing they thought of as theirs was theirs anymore.

Granted, she should have grasped that right away, but she was still in shock, she supposed, and not thinking very clearly even when she could put two thoughts together.

Rock bottom least, though, these guys were going to take everything they had and leave them nothing she realized in that moment.

Well, not everything—unless they took the hab and all of their equipment, as well.

Which they might, she realized in deepening alarm upon further consideration was entirely possible.

Dismay flickered through her when she thought about the fact that they’d brought their entire ‘ark’ down with them—all of their DNA samples—every plant and animal they’d brought from Earth—including their future families.

“Shit!” she muttered, glancing around the compound at the dozens of giants with a fresh sense of horror and dismay.

The one who’d walked her out grasped her arm and redirected her attention toward him.

His expression was angry and suspicious and it leapt into her mind that he thought she’d just come up with the idea of checking on the animals so that she could see what was going on.

Her face heated guiltily at the thought even though it hadn’t crossed her mind until she’d thought about losing everything.

Gathering her wits with an effort, she pointed into the distance, where she’d had a larger area prepared for the growing animals—away from the rest of the colony since the women had a hard time resisting the urge to try to pet them.

And they weren’t going to stay wild if everyone was determined to handle them.

“Could we … move them down there?” she asked, pointing toward the new corral in the distance.

He looked and then met her gaze again.

She chewed her lip, but, as senior science officer, the animals were entirely her responsibility and a lot of work had already gone into getting them as far as they had. She had to try to save them.

Especially if they stood a strong possibility of losing their lab, equipment, and samples. These could end up being the only living things on the planet outside of the colony—well living animals. She thought the plants might be well established enough to survive.

Maybe.

She didn’t honestly think they had enough animals yet to insure a healthy population and prevent inbreeding, but it was all she had to work with at the moment.

She caught his wrist where he was gripping her arm and tugged at it and then mimed looking.

Thankfully, he seemed to catch on.

Either that or he thought she was trying to get him alone, she thought uneasily, feeling a rash of sensation pebble her skin.

It wasn’t entirely from fear.

It should have been, but she supposed she was having trouble linking ‘alien’ with their human-like appearance.

She’d discovered as soon as her terror mellowed out a little that the warriors in general and this one in particular weren’t hard on the eyes at all. In point of fact, they were, in general, a handsome race—or species. And she supposed she was at the mercy of preconceived notions regarding what was a threat and what wasn’t.

Whether he understood or not, he resisted her efforts to get him down to the new wild animal enclosure and she realized she could hear a voice coming from his helmet ever so faintly. When he looked up at the sky, she followed his gaze and felt her heart hit her toes.

The shuttles from the ship were coming in for a landing.

She hadn’t realized until that moment that, in the back of her mind, she was convinced that the people still on the ship were safe.

Delusional! Absolutely nothing in her life before, or her colonist training, had prepared her for this as a worst case scenario. And no experience, for her at least, equaled a complete breakdown of any understanding at all.

* * * *

Korin’s gaze was immediately drawn to his duo as he debarked from the ship and because it was, he zeroed in on the female next to him that was very likely going to get him killed.

Because he instantly forgot everything else in that moment and strode directly toward them.

Fortunately for his hide, no one thought anything of it since the woman was standing with his duo and it was the most natural thing in the world for a madrone warrior to ‘reconnect’ with their duo immediately, before any other consideration, at any time there was any sort of separation.

It was disconcerting that she had the same effect upon him as he approached as she had had the first time—almost a sense of being disembodied.

Except for the fact that heat rose in him so fast it almost seemed to fog his brain.

“Why is she here?” he asked Enan absently, his gaze still attached to her upturned face.

“She seemed concerned about the little beasts that are, apparently, in her care.”

That penetrated and Korin managed to drag his gaze from her to meet Enan’s, briefly, before he scanned the beasts in question.

“That is why her hand is on yours?” he asked coolly, struggling with emotions he was entirely unaccustomed to—possessiveness being dominate.

Enan felt his face heat. He struggled with an odd sense of resentment for a moment—not for being questioned but because he could see the possessiveness in his duo—before he managed to dismiss it. “I am not certain. She seemed to be pulling at me and she pointed toward something in the distance.”

“Which direction?”

Enan pointed.

Korin stared hard, but he saw nothing. Finally, he turned to the woman and grasped her free arm, tugging in that direction.

He looked down at her questioningly when she didn’t instantly comply with his urging.

Bella moistened her dry lips, regretting the impulse that had prompted her to separate herself from the other colonists.

Deeply sorry she had no idea what they were discussing.

She didn’t think she was more afraid of this particular warrior than any of the others.

Ok, so she was just a little bit, but she thought, maybe, that was because she had the sense that he was the leader and that, in and of itself, suggested he was the most dangerous of all.

Korin frowned, struggling to dismiss the fear he sensed in her that was directed at him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t since he hadn’t sensed more than a little uneasiness until he had grasped her arm.

And worse, there was no way he could think of to reassure her he meant no harm when he did not have even one word of her language to use, because, unfortunately, the translator had not collected enough to begin to decipher it.

After a moment, he gestured toward his eyes. “See that? See what?” He asked, imitating her hand movements.

Bella followed the direction he pointed after he’d indicated his eyes and knew immediately what he was asking.

Swallowing her fear, she nodded and tugged at the arm he held to lead the way.

He didn’t release her, but he allowed her to lead him off.

They arrived at the new pen far faster than she had expected—because his stride ate up the ground and, since he held on to her, she had to jog to keep up. She was breathless by the time they reached it, feeling more than a little faint because the thin air had compounded the results of the unaccustomed exercise.

He hooked a fist beneath her chin and tapped it upward until she met his gaze. “Ok?”

She nodded since she saw no point in trying to explain that she was lightheaded and felt like she might pass out from a lack of air.

“What is your name?”

Bella stared at him, trying to decide what he was asking—something, certainly. She could tell that from the tone. Deciding he must be asking what she wanted, she pointed back toward the animal pen and then to the one that was new—erected across a tiny stream that would furnish the beasts with an endless, they hoped, supply of fresh water. It was also large enough to encompass a good bit of forage for them and well within the area where they had started planting a forest.

Just as importantly, or maybe more so, it would put them out of contact with the aliens and hopefully out of their dinner plans. “Can we move them here?”

Korin found it was actually easy to grasp what she wanted even with the language barrier. A pen had been built that was perhaps double or more the size of the one near their living structure and was fed water from a small stream.

He was fairly certain, though, that it had a good deal to do with protecting them.

They weren’t hungry enough to consider eating them, but he did not doubt Jud would instantly see them as supplies.

And, again, he thought it was worth the effort to at least attempt to save them—whether it actually worked or not.

He pinched her chin between thumb and forefinger lightly but with enough force to command her attention. “What is your name, little one?”

She stared at him blankly.

Taking her hand, he lifted it to his chest. “I am Korin.”

Bella, feeling like she might pass out, curled her fingers and jerked at her arm.

Korin released it despite an urge to keep it once he had taken it.

“My name is Korin. What name are you called?” he asked again, touching her shoulder.

“She does not understand,” Enan, who’d accompanied them, said, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

Korin met Enan’s gaze assessingly. He had no trouble interpreting the possessive edge in Enan’s voice. He felt it himself despite every effort to dismiss it from his mind. “She does. She is simply frightened of me because she can sense that I want her so bad I can taste it. Can you not, little beauty?”

Bella glanced from one man to the other feeling her perceptions abruptly shift. In a split second, she went from a primary focus of protecting her tiny herd to a hyperawareness of the two men staring down at her—as powerfully attractive males, not aliens.

The assessment she saw in their eyes was, she was instantly certain, unmitigated lust.

Worse, it didn’t provoke a wave of fear. It inspired a near staggering response in kind from her own body—almost as if it wasn’t hers to command, but theirs.

Her brain seemed to go into instantaneous meltdown and she couldn’t, for the life of her, remember what she’d thought they were talking about.

Maybe they thought she’d led them out from the compound to try to seduce them, she thought a little wildly?

Korin pointed to his duo. “This is my duo, Enan. His name is Enan. My name is Korin.”

Bella moistened her dry lips, struggling with the effort to jog something loose from her brain. It hit her abruptly that drawing attention to oneself as an individual was recommended by psychiatrists since it was harder for a predator to commit mayhem if they couldn’t distance themselves and see you as merely a ‘thing’.

And that was what they were asking.

To put her at ease, she thought, and make her feel less threatened. “Bella. I’m Arabella, but I don’t think you could say that. It’s kind of a mouthful even for people that speak the language. Bella.”

Both of them frowned and she realized that she must have confused them. She pointed to the leader and then his friend—wondering abruptly just how close they were. She’d thought she had seen desire in both of their expressions, but they were alien, she reminded herself. She couldn’t judge them by what she knew of human men. “Korin and Enan.” Then she pointed to herself. “Bella.”

Their brows cleared. Korin nodded and turned his communicator on. “Jal—round up about a dozen volunteers and … uh herd the … little creatures down here.”

Bella was excited when she saw that he had not only grasped what she was asking, but he meant to do it.

Until she saw the reaction of the poor little babies to being chased by the giant aliens.

That was highly distressing, especially at first, but then she realized they actually were guiding the animals in their direction and, in a short time, they had relocated the tiny herd of deer and also brought the pens containing the other young animals.

The poor little things were clearly in shock but they cowered and ceased to shake quite so much when they had been chased into the pen and were able to convince themselves that they were hidden as soon as the giants ceased to chase them.

The endeavor cost them—as insignificant as Bella had thought it would be in the scheme of things. They had a huge value to her and the colony, but she couldn’t see them as anything of any great significance to invaders. They were young, very small, and not even domesticated/ farm beasts.

Bella had no clue of just how much, but then again she had no clear idea of what was happening. She had merely done her job. Her heart was in it. She was a scientist and a colonist, but she was human and a woman before either and the joy of life had led her to the career to start with. So it mattered to her whether ‘her’ babies survived on every level, but she would never have put them before the lives of her fellow colonists if she’d had any inkling that she might be doing that.

Or have created problems for the aliens willing to help her, for that matter.

She began to get an hint, however, shortly after the two alien warriors, Korin and Enan, had taken her back and deposited her with her fellow prisoners.

Her first realization that things were about to get way worse and in a very big hurry was when she heard the sounds of panic of the women corralled outside.

Korin had received some message that had instantly transformed him into a stony giant alien warrior and erased every emotion from his features and then he had strode briskly outside with Enan in lockstep beside him.

Bella waited tensely after their abrupt departure for what seemed like so long a time that she had just reached the point where she could no longer maintain the tension when she heard the screams and gasps, and those sounds of fear and distress shot her into orbit again.

It brought every woman inside to their feet instantly and the only thing that kept them rooted where they were was the giants guarding them and the confusion as to which way they might run.

And she still reacted with horror when she saw what strode into the hab.

It was … humanoid, but far more reptilian in appearance than human.

And it was very clear that this thing was the one ultimately in charge.

And he was furious—clearly highly displeased … about something—and she thought that fury was likely to spill over to encompass everyone.

Guilt instantly speared through her and the instant certainty that something she had done, or encouraged them to do, was the source of his anger.

“Why did you bring them here?” Jud roared, turning on Korin furiously.

Korin retained his mask of indifference with an effort. “To remove them from the prize we had taken for the Delizo Empire,” he responded, promptly enough that it sounded almost reasonable, even to him.

And it only enraged Jud more to be met with calm reason. “They are part of the gods damned prize!” he roared. “It is for me to decide how to dispose of them!”

That comment sent a shaft of horror through Korin, which he was at pains to hide, for he knew Jud was as liable to demand they be slaughtered as not and he did not have the stomach for such a thing. He was a warrior. He would face any enemy on the field of battle, but he could not kill unarmed, helpless creatures—not if his life and the lives of his men depended upon it. “As you see, they are all present and accounted for,” he responded after a long moment. “They are frightened but docile. We did not find it necessary to kill any.”

Chapter Four

Jud continued to fume for several moments, but finally his gaze settled on the captives and his mood shifted. Striding toward the nearest, he dropped to a crouch and grasped her face in one hand to examine her.

She screamed in terror when he did, loud enough to deafen him, and he retaliated by slapping her hard enough to take her head off—almost literally.

Korin surged forward before he had time for thought.

“You have killed her,” he said, keeping his voice even with an effort.

Jud shot to his feet and looked around, finally summoning one of their medics to look at her.

Naturally enough, he had no knowledge of or experience with the alien creatures. But he looked her over carefully. “I do not think she is dead.” He hesitated, because Jud was unpredictable when given bad news, and finally stepped away from the creature. “She may be too damaged to recov ….”

He did not manage to get the statement out before Jud pulled his weapon and finished her off.

Fury washed over Korin in a red haze.

Enan grasped his arm, just above the elbow, squeezing it tightly.

Korin scarcely seemed to notice, but it halted him, removed the look of mayhem from his eyes before Jud had the opportunity to see it.

If Bella hadn’t been staring straight at him when the nightmare played out, she wouldn’t have seen his reaction, wouldn’t have guessed that it moved him at all. But she was and she did see that he wasn’t indifferent to their plight. Whether he actually cared what happened to them or not might be a matter for debate, but he did not seem immune to it if for no other reason than the waste that it was.

There was a lesson in it for all of them, however.

The giant warriors may have captured them, but it was the lizards that were in charge and they had illustrated their ruthlessness in a way that none of them could deny, ignore, or explain away with mitigating circumstances. He’d injured poor Charlotte for no other ‘crime’ than fear of him and what his intentions were and then coldly disposed of her.

“I have found something!” one of the engineers from the ship announced abruptly, distracting Jud.

He turned toward the sound of the voice. “What?” he demanded impatiently.

“They have brought seed with them!”

Jud’s face settled into an expression of disgust. “They are colonists, you imbecile! Of course they brought seeds!”

Dismay and discomfort flickered across the man’s features. “No, Commander! These are seeds of all kinds—Yes, plants. And possibly domesticated beasts. But I am convinced they have brought what they need to reproduce without bringing the males of their species. I cannot read their language, unfortunately, but this is what it appears to be.”

A jolt went through Korin at that announcement and he instinctively sought the woman, Bella, with his gaze, feeling a dizzying rush of thoughts, emotions, and sensations he was helpless to prevent and equally unable to decipher.

It was sufficient that ‘implanting seeds’ was sown into a mind already feverish with the desire to do just that.

He was not the only one whose focus was directed immediately to the women. Unfortunately, it riveted the attention of every male in the building—both the madrone and the delizo.

Fear was not a perfume Korin found to his taste, however, and the moment it finally sank into him that that was the women’s reaction to the male interest they had attracted, it threw him out of the state that had gripped him.

“They are very like the madrone,” Jud said speculatively.

Korin whipped a look at Jud. “They are not madrone,” he responded with a cold edge to his voice that Jud, unfortunately, did not miss, however oblivious he was ordinarily to subtle undercurrents.

“I know that!” Jud snapped angrily. “They could not ….”

Be? A chilling wave of enlightenment washed over Korin when Jud broke off.

They had been told their service to the Delizo Empire insured the continued existence of their world and their people.

They had been lied to.

He knew it in that moment without any reservations and the sickening rage that reared up in him was so intense it was all he could do to maintain the façade of impassiveness required of an elite madrone warrior.

Not that it was a huge surprise to discover the bastards had lied, Torin thought angrily, but they had allowed themselves to be enslaved to protect their home world and people. They had felt they had no choice.

Because they had wanted to believe their world and their people still existed outside of their minds.

Had Jud just admitted they did not?

Or was it one of those instances where Jud used such a device to test them, Torin wondered, unwilling and unable to completely give up all hope?

“I am only pointing out that they are a very similar species.”

Korin realized he could not challenge that statement without instantly putting more of them in danger, without Jud deciding to have them taken apart in the search for the ‘truth’.

And if he had noticed Korin’s fascination with Bella, she would be the one to suffer.

“Pretty little things,” Jud said, almost in a purring voice. “So tempting, don’t you agree?”

Korin felt his warrior’s stoic mask slip. If he agreed, the women would instantly become a tool to torment them all with—especially him. If he disagreed—Jud would know he was lying and they would become a tool to be used against the warriors—another tool.

Because Jud was not satisfied just to enslave them. He had a cruel streak that made him desire to inflict pain, humiliation, and mental torment.

“I believe they will be the most valuable prize of all,” he continued musingly after a moment. “I think I will sell them at the slave market. Or perhaps we could simply barter them for things of value without bothering with the market? Mayhap we could keep a few to reward your men with?”

Korin was so sick with rage by the time Jud decided he had toyed with him, perhaps, a little more than was wise, and walked off that he was not even aware that the bastard had removed himself from temptation.

“Fucking bastard,” Enan growled almost before the commander was out of earshot.

Perhaps before.

Jud stiffened, but he continued on his way, apparently deciding not to test the bounds of their tether any further.

The comment brought Korin around to the realization that he had not offered any sort of comment at all—which, unfortunately, was as much of a giveaway of his feelings on the subject as if he had spoken.

Unable to resist, he flicked a gaze toward the woman—Bella.

It was not altogether a pleasant surprise to discover that she had, apparently, watched the entire by-play between him and the commander.

Perhaps, from her expression, she had even begun to suspect the plans for them.

Or perhaps not.

The killing of one of their group was sufficient, he was sure, to explain the expression.

Dismissing her with an effort, he summoned a duo to remove the body of the woman that was slain.

It caused another ripple of distress—greatly subdued—from the females, but it was not going to help their feelings to leave it.

He left the building then—not to oversee the burial, but for fresh air … such as it was.

He discovered it was pleasant and calming to take in fresh air after being confined to the ship for so long, to feel the warmth of a sun on his skin.

There was little of beauty about the landscape—beyond the women they had captured, but it was raw nature and that in and of itself was pleasurable and soothing. There were young, green plants in abundance and, in the distance, a red mountain against a blue sky—wispy white clouds drifting slowly across the blue. It was quiet and peaceful and the air carried the scent of growing things.

Jud did not leave him long to enjoy it.

“There is nothing here. I cannot imagine what drew them here. But that is of no consequence! I have decided we will stow them in the madrone common area for the time being. That way you and your men can keep an eye on them and be certain they do not decide to create difficulties.” He paused and grinned—as if he was certain Korin would be thrilled. “And then you and your men will have something pretty to look at … for a bit, anyway.”

It took all Korin could do to bow his head in respect and keep his expression carefully neutral. “We will make certain they are taken care of.”

Jud waved his hand at him. “Get your men to start loading them. I had thought we might enjoy a little respite here, but it is far too desolate. We will take on as much fresh water as we can find and carry and then purge the waste systems while we are loading up our captured supplies.”

* * * *

Dread filled Bella when the giant aliens flushed them from their cowering space and out of the ‘hive’. A renewed wave of it. She actually hadn’t been free of it from the moment she’d spotted the strange ball of light that Korin had emerged from, but it had waned for short spells. Partly because none of the aliens had done anything that was overtly violent and threatening until the lizard man had killed poor Charlotte. And partly because it was sort of like holding your breath—something you could only manage to hold on to for short periods of time.

Once she’d cleared the door on the way out, she saw that there was an absolutely enormous, alien craft settled on the ground no more than a quarter of a mile from their colony.

A jolt went through her, not the least because it was almost like it couldn’t possibly exist.

She should have heard something that big land.

But it certainly wasn’t a mirage. The aliens, both the lizards and the giants, were busy carrying off everything they owned. The lizards—just to prove they were the technology behind the raid—were the ones who’d taken apart all of their electronics and carried them off.

“We should try to make a break for it,” the woman beside Bella whispered.

Bella snapped a sharp look at her and discovered it was the ship’s navigator, Terry. “You can’t be serious?” she gasped.

“If you get grabbed and they carry you off they’re going to kill you,” she growled.

Bella gaped at her, struggling to make sense of the statement. “You mean like a regular human abduction?”

“Any abduction,” Terry said pointedly.

Bella scanned the landscape as far as she could see without just stopping and turning all the way around. “I don’t see any possibility of that netting us anything but a quick death.”

“Well that might be better than what we have to look forward to!”

Bella felt her sphincter flutter and her belly knot up. She’d been trying really hard not to think about what they might have coming.

Because it wasn’t going to help her, at all, to scare herself shitless. Keeping her wits about her might.

Also might not, but, as scared as she was, she didn’t see that Terry’s suggestion had a snowball’s chance in hell of working.

“You might be right. You probably are, but I think I want to hang on to my life just a little longer and then when things start getting really bad, I’ll try something stupid.”

She thought for just a minute that Terry was going to punch her.

She hadn’t actually meant to say that Terry was stupid. It just came out that way.

Of course, she just didn’t see it working or she would’ve been willing to give it a try, but she wasn’t scared enough to lose all her marbles—yet. The planet was desolate. They were the ones who were supposed to bring life back to it and she could see the aliens were packing everything up and taking it.

Maybe the babies she’d bred would survive and if they got the chance to escape they might be able to live off of those and the grasses and such that they’d planted, but it was damned little to survive on for a prolonged period.

And there was no place to hide within range.

And they were dealing with giants. They damned sure weren’t going to outrun them.

She’d already tried that.

And nobody she knew of could outrun a projectile from a gun or a laser beam.

“It isn’t doable, Terry,” she said tightly. “And I’m not trying anything that has next to zero chance of success—unless I just decide I’m ready to commit suicide and want someone to do it for me. Then … maybe. Right now I think they have some sort of plan for us or they would’ve just left us here to die or killed us and left us in a pile when they herded us out of the hive.”

“What kind of plan do you think they’ve got?” Terry demanded angrily. “We’re women and they’re men … or male anyway.”

Bella had actually been trying not to think about that either—harder to convince herself she didn’t have to worry about that particular threat, unfortunately, since she’d noticed the way they looked at her and … loathe though she was to admit it even to herself, she didn’t find the giants repulsive.

The lizards for sure and thoughts of being raped by any of them made her skin crawl.

And she wasn’t as convinced as she would’ve liked to be that the lizards weren’t interested in them that way.

If they were anything like human men having to do without for just a little while was enough to make anything with a hole desirable.

Regardless, she damned sure didn’t want to be raped by the alien men just because she didn’t find the giants horrible to look at. They had captured them. Maybe they were under orders to do it and had no choice and maybe they were in cahoots with the lizards.

She wasn’t convinced they were. She couldn’t see any warm blooded species wanting to get cozy with cold blooded ones, but one never knew.

And besides, she thought she was looking for the possibility of empathizing with the giants because they looked so much like humans.

Beyond that, she knew most people, her included, tended to think evil was ugly and that was the way to tell if anything was evil—a sure sign of it. And, logically, she knew that was just wrong. A case could certainly be made that ugly in their civilization so often resulted in tormented and mistreated that there was at least a fifty-fifty chance that they would be made to be evil even if it wasn’t actually their nature. But it wasn’t the ugly that made them evil or the evil coming out in ugly.

So even though she was inclined to think the giants were ‘pretty’ it was just plain stupid to see that as a sign that they weren’t evil.

And that was subjective anyway.

They gave every appearance of being a more primitive race and they were clearly warriors so … they wouldn’t see violence as evil. They would consider it necessary to survival and therefore ‘good’. And the better the warrior, the more admired he would be.

Using the human nature as a yardstick, and she had nothing else to measure them by.

She thought, by that standard, they wouldn’t see any female as anything but an object.

And that meant they wouldn’t consider it wrong to take whatever they wanted from them.

On the other hand, she was fairly convinced that both Korin and Enan had been furious when their leader had killed Charlotte.

She’d been looking at them more because she didn’t want to see what was happening to Charlotte than because she’d expected them to do anything to stop it.

And what she’d seen, or at least interpreted, had made her think they wanted to stop it and couldn’t.

So, maybe there was some hope with them? Some possibility that they might be convinced to save her and the others?

It was a slender hope, she knew. If she was right and the giant aliens hated the lizards, then they were holding something over them that must be pretty powerful and she thought they would have saved themselves if they could have. So that didn’t augur well for her and the other colonists even if they could convince the giants to empathize with them.

She redirected her focus from inward to her surroundings as they neared the alien ship and, once they’d gone up the ramp and into the bowels of the craft, there was no problem focusing on their problem.

Because their colony ship was parked in the hanger bay.

At first, it almost looked like a miniature model of their ship, but it was definitely the U.S.S. Valiant.

Some of the women began to weep when they saw it.

Bella felt a knot form in her throat that threatened to choke her.

But then it occurred to her, forcefully, that she was looking at what was very likely their only hope of escape.

How likely or possible the chances of it were was still to be determined, but it was something to hang on to when they’d had no hope at all on the planet’s surface.

Very likely that alien frog bastard had had it cleaned out like everything else, but unless they’d taken the fuel, it should still have flight capability.

It probably wouldn’t take the bastards five seconds to recapture them if they tried, but they might think of something, might come up with a plan that would work for them.

They were led across the bay area and up to another level via stairs. When they reached that level, they were ushered down a maze of corridors and finally arrived at an enormous room—that seemed to have only one way in and one way out.

There were tables and chairs—giant sized—and pushed against a far wall so that most of the floor space was open.

It seemed to be their final destination.

They milled around uneasily when the giants stopped ‘pushing’, trying to decide what was about to happen—what new horror might be presented. They waited in tense silence for a very long time and finally began to settle on the floor when it didn’t seem that they were going to need to run.

Bella didn’t like the idea of getting even that comfortable, but weariness eventually won out. She’d hardly settled, though, when a group of warriors entered the doors where they had come in.

Among them was Korin and Enan.

Korin searched the group of women until his gaze lit on her. “Bella!” he called out, lifting one hand in a summoning gesture.

Bella felt the sound of his voice go through her, leaving weakness in its wake.

Unfortunately, she saw that pretending she didn’t understand wasn’t going to go over well. She saw his expression harden when she didn’t instantly comply, saw that he tensed as if he meant to come after her.

That was enough to convince her to get up and she popped up like a jack-in-the-box—still uncertain of what her goal was. But even as her gaze slid toward the exit, she realized that would be useless and stupid.

Instead, pretending she hadn’t even considered running, she responded to his summons.

He gave her a sardonic look when she finally presented herself.

He didn’t lower his hand and, very reluctantly, she placed hers on his palm.

It was warm, thick with calluses and faintly rough against hers. His hand was enormous, dwarfing hers, engulfing it as it closed around hers.

Some, unnamed and unidentifiable, emotion sizzled through her—almost as if she’d stepped on a livewire.

He hesitated and met her gaze for a long moment, almost as if he had felt it, too.

Then he led her across the room and through a large door that she discovered led to—heaven! Bathroom facilities! He showed her how everything worked—not a lot different, thankfully, than the things she was used to—and then led her out once more.

She saw all of the women were staring at her when they came out again.

She had a pretty urgent need for the facilities herself by that time.

So, rather than making a general announcement when Korin left her that might result in her being last, she merely waved a summoning gesture and headed back in.

She’d finished, thankfully, before the actual stampede. Because, despite the fact that she’d waved them in, everyone had still been too suspicious and unnerved to figure out what it was all about until a few brave souls had followed to see what it was they were being urged in to.

Brave but not bright. They’d made the announcement and nearly got run down before they could get inside and make use of it.

Korin and Enan had disappeared again by the time Bella managed to fight her way past the crowd to get out.

She didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry of it.

But she finally decided it was a good thing. The more distance she could put between herself and the aliens, the better.

Her reaction to Korin in particular was pretty damned unnerving.

Not bad, really, considering Terry was very likely right, but … disturbing.

Chapter Five

The colony group didn’t have a leader, per se. They hadn’t thought it was really necessary to jump right in to trying to form a government. They had the ship’s captain, the crew as peace keepers plus security officers and each group on the ship had a department head—just as Bella was lead science officer.

And, quite possibly, that had been their downfall, Bella thought wryly.

They were a dedicated group of colonists, all women who weren’t predisposed toward violence but rather resolving their issues through communication, and they had settled in an area they believed was unoccupied on a planet that certainly was. Naturally enough, because it was critical, they had focused on getting the colony off the ground and the terra-forming that would make life possible for their future and future generations.

Security was on a back burner.

They had set up electronic security systems, but not all of them were even online or completed.

And, although every colonist was armed—issued a weapon—most of them had stopped carrying their weapon with any regularity after their first week on planet because it wasn’t something they were used to and it seemed unnecessary.

That reflection made Bella feel a little better about the fact that she had failed so miserably to offer any resistance at all when they were attacked, but not a hell of a lot.

So when Captain Eason summoned her as soon as the group had begun to wander back from the bathroom, uneasiness instantly went through Bella. Like a child who has done something forbidden, being met with authority was all it took to jog her sense of guilt about the sacking of their colony right back to the forefront of her mind.

“You’ve had some communications with the aliens?”

Discomfort wafted through Bella. She shrugged. “They can’t speak English.” She frowned. “But the one with their leader used the word ok—so they’re learning it pretty fast, I think.”

“I’m not judging—just asking.”

“He wanted to know my name. I guess I caught their attention when I was trying to get them to let me see about the animals. Anyway, it was a Tarzan-Jane situation—a lot of gesturing and miming. But he told me his name and the other guy’s and then I knew it was because he wanted me to tell him my name.”

The captain shrugged. “So … contact. Maybe something we can use … down the road.”

Bella nodded. “I doubt we’d get much out of them even if we could speak the same language, Captain,” she said finally. “They seem … very disciplined.”

The captain shook her head faintly. “I don’t think we should use titles—even if they don’t seem to understand us. Brandy. They’ve been looking at the women, though,” Brandy countered. “As … stone faced as they are, there’s something about their body language that convinces me they aren’t disinterested in us as women.”

“Tell me you aren’t suggesting we … prostitute ourselves,” Terry, who’d made no bones about listening in to the conversation, demanded tightly.

Brandy’s face reddened—but it seemed mostly from anger. “I’m not going to tell anybody what to do. We aren’t on the ship anymore. But I damned well don’t think it’s a good idea to try to fight these … giants. That could only end badly. There’s no cavalry going to come charging up to save the day. And I don’t think a single one of us has a ghost’s chance of winning any physical contest with any of them. Resisting any … overtures they might make would not only be useless, it could be deadly—and I don’t see martyrdom as a solution to this problem. At this point just surviving, it seems to me, would be a triumph—and make it possible for a future attempt at freedom, but it’s about mindset.”

That was so true Bella felt sick to her stomach.

Brandy’s expression was sympathetic but firm when she had studied her for several moments in silence. “I’d suggest anyone that wants to survive this should consider honey catches more flies than vinegar. I plan on being nice. I plan to survive. I want to prosper if it’s at all possible. They brought our ship. I don’t know if that’s something we could turn to our advantage or not, but we need to keep our heads attached to use our wits.”

Bella stared after her when she walked off, met Terry’s gaze for a long moment, and then turned away from her and began to search for ‘her’ people. They were huddled in small groups, thankfully, and she relayed what the captain had said. “Nobody can be ordered to do this. The captain … uh Brandy … just feels like it will give us all a better chance of survival and, I’ll add, some possibility of getting away at some point. It seems like sound reasoning to me. I’m going to try my best to follow her lead.”

“She’s … suggesting we try to …seduce them?”

Bella gaped at her friend, Deborah in horror. “Nobody suggested that!” she gasped finally. “I would be too terrified to try it if I knew how it could be done. That would be bound to make them suspicious of us anyway, don’t you think? I think Brandy just meant that if we could adjust our outlook and accept what we don’t have a hope in hell of changing it would be much easier to bear—assuming they were to demand it.”

“Which isn’t exactly wild conjecture,” Deborah said dryly. “I wouldn’t mind being friendly or very friendly—if it would help my case.”

“That would beat the hell out of being beat down and raped,” Laura agreed. “I think everybody saw what that lizard bastard did to Charlotte—everybody that was inside. I don’t think any of us could survive a beat down.”

The other women in the group shuddered. “We have to consider this even with the lizards?”

A wave of nausea swept through Bella. She wanted to say no. Unfortunately, she was pretty convinced they were also interested and probably way more dangerous to say no to. “I’m afraid so. Given that scenario, I’d way rather the giants fucked me.”

Bella couldn’t tell that anyone was happy about the suggestion. She was, in fact, pretty convinced that most of them had flatly rejected the proposition, but she thought the captain, Brandy, was right. She’d already concluded that on her own.

Unfortunately, they were completely at the aliens’ mercy and she had doubts that either the primitives or the lizards had more than a passing acquaintance with that concept.

* * * *

They hadn’t even managed to make the rounds discussing the pros and cons of ‘cooperation’ with their captors when chaos erupted.

A predator, they realized even through their shock and terror, had entered the ‘hen house’ and grabbed a hen.

Everyone not directly involved in the tangle of wildly gyrating arms and legs froze for a handful of seconds, focused on the life and death battle moving through their midst like a whirling dervish, which made it impossible to miss or dismiss. Then they took flight, squawking and screaming and running in every direction like a mindless flock of chickens.

Bella was frozen to the spot, watching in wide eyed horror as Terry—the very one who’d so vocally renounced any intention of yielding to a greater force—fought her way free of the lizard man that had caught her and ran. Straight into the arms of the two lizard men who’d raced over to help the first one subdue her. She screamed and fought them, as well, nearly breaking free of them several times.

The more she screamed and fought them, the harder they laughed.

Either it was her actions that excited the predator in them or the fact that they’d torn her clothing and exposed her in the battle, but the fight shifted from mere containment to purpose. The three of them began to drag her toward the far corner of the room.

A fourth and then a fifth joined them.

Bella, ever the optimist, thought, at first, it was to calm them down, to demand they desist, but it was clear fairly quickly that they’d joined the ‘fun’.

The giant aliens watched in stone faced silence for a moment, glanced at one another and then around the room—as if searching for an officer to put an end to the situation. They shifted uncomfortably when they saw the other lizard men had merely stopped to watch and then resumed their guard stances.

Bella had no idea what compelled her to act—either then or later—but she saw everyone else was frozen in horror and unable to act. She saw that Korin and the frog man leader had just entered the room in a large group and stopped as abruptly as if they’d hit a brick wall.

No one was going to help.

She still had to make herself move, to mentally command her body to act as it generally did without any conscious prompting. Slowly at first and then gaining speed, she began to work her way through the maze of captivated audience toward the woman that had been seized. She was nearing her objective when someone abruptly caught her and stopped her.

It was Brandy, she discovered when she whipped a look toward her captor. The captain shook her head fractionally—warning her away.

Fear tightened around Bella’s heart. She knew what the captain was trying to say, but she had to do it. She had to try to help. She couldn’t stand by and do nothing.

She met Brandy’s gaze and peeled her fingers loose.

And then slammed into an immovable wall when she whirled to rush to Terry.

She fought him, for all the good it did. He merely shifted his hold from her arms to her wrists, crossed her arms across her body and used them to bind her tightly against his length until she’d run out of strength to fight him.

Almost the moment he grabbed her, he bellowed a command, however, and she twisted her head, trying to see what was happening.

She could only see bits and pieces of the disaster being played out, but she could see well enough to see that the lizard men had Terry down on the floor. They’d torn her clothing half off of her, and manacled her to the deck spread eagle. A lizard man was holding her arms above her head and two others holding her legs wide.

They’d frozen into a tableaux at the command bellowed by Korin—but she couldn’t tell if he had commanded them to stop or had been yelling at his men, several of whom had gathered around the lizard soldiers.

As abruptly as he’d grabbed her, Korin shoved her away and left, and she was grabbed by someone else—Enan, she discovered, glancing up at him before she began to strain to see what was happening.

Korin had covered maybe half the distance when two of the giants grabbed two of the lizard men by the throat, wrenched them lose from Terry and slammed them into the back wall.

Korin bellowed something else at them and launched himself into a run.

He was between her and the explosion that went off. He seemed stunned, frozen. Abruptly, he turned away and headed back toward the group of lizard men he’d entered the room with.

Bella jumped and screamed along with a few dozen of the other women—startled by the deafening report that echoed across the room—but she didn’t actually see what happened.

She wasn’t sorry. The aftermath of it—which she saw as soon as Korin moved away—was stomach churning and frightening enough.

The explosive—whatever it was—had blown a hole in the side of the ship. There were four bodies piled in front of the hole—two lizard men and two giants—all of them now headless. Blood, bone, and chunks of meat, hair, and brain matter were strewn over the walls and floor and Terry—who’d managed to roll onto her side and gather her clothing to her.

“Remember Eos,” Enan bellowed abruptly.

Bella didn’t know if what he’d said was directed at Korin or the other warriors, but it had a powerful effect upon all of them. Korin, who’d been stalking toward the lizard leader, checked, and then changed directions and continued more slowly. The other warriors backed away from the scene and resumed a stance of rigid, stone faced discipline.

The lizard leader rushed to the spot and stared down at it and then at the hole and began to scream and vibrate with fury.

Korin could not be said to have ignored the bastard, but he had grown accustomed to tuning his rages out to retain control of his own temper. And, at the moment, that was less difficult than it generally was due to his own rage.

They were all fortunate that the ship had not yet launched from the surface or they would all be dead, he thought in disgust.

Instead of only two of his best men.

Who had not only ignored his order to back off, they had escalated an already disastrous situation.

He did not know why they had chosen to throw their lives away only to take out a couple of the delizo bastards, but he had seen their intent in their eyes.

And he could not stop it.

He felt like throwing up.

Keeping his expression an unreadable mask with an effort, he studied the unrecognizable remains, and finally turned to look at Jud, who’d followed him, struggling with his temper.

“What the hell is the meaning of this!” Jud roared for perhaps the fifth time.

As if the fucking bastard did not know exactly what had gone down. He had simply chosen to ignore the disciplinary action he should have taken with his men and stopped what was happening.

Or he’d been enjoying it too much to consider stopping the show.

Korin’s eyes narrowed. “This is what I would like to know. We were ordered to care for your … cargo. And yet when my men stepped in they were slain.”

Jud gaped at him, clearly struggling with a mixture of outrage that Korin would question him, at all, and annoyance that the episode had been so costly.

Fortunately, he never had great difficulty in finding someone else to blame and the woman’s feeble attempts to get up were enough to direct his attention towards a good target.

The urge to kill the bitch that had instigated the entire mess washed over him. Fortunately, he did not have a weapon handy.

“Get that whore out of my sight!” he bellowed furiously “In fact, remove all of them. Split them up, and take them to your cabins. They’re in need of discipline. Clearly they’re too stupid to grasp that they are the property of the Delizo Empire—to do with as we damned well please!”

Surprise flickered through Korin, but he did not argue. He thought the sooner the women were removed from Jud’s sight the better. Turning, he summoned Enan and sent him to see to it that the women were divided up and removed from the view of the delizo bastards as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, he did not have to tell Enan that Bella was to be taken to their cabin. Enan went directly to her and kept her beside him while he ordered the others to their cabins with the women.

Also fortuitous, the women were in too much shock and terror after what had transpired to put up the fight they might have otherwise.

And it still took a good deal of time to empty the common room because of the numbers.

When he saw that his men were evacuating the women as efficiently as possible, Korin redirected Jud’s attention to the breach in the hull by walking over to examine it.

Jud instantly began to foam at the mouth about the hull breach. Happily, that sort of thing was the responsibility of the delizo since Jud was convinced the ‘barbaric madrone’ did not have the skills to perform such tasks and, besides, he distrusted them not to sabotage the ship.

For good reason since they weren’t shy about their hatred of all things delizo—and familiarity had not improved their feelings for the delizo one iota.

Having removed and safely stowed the women in their cabins, the warriors returned to take their fallen comrades from the ship. It didn’t occur to any of them until they had reached the surface once more that there was no way to follow the ritual burials their people practiced on their home world.

The alien world, as far as they could see, was barren of anything that might be used to make a funeral pyre.

Korin was tempted to send a party inside to search for something they might use, but the two fallen warriors were not the first they had lost since the delizo had taken them from their home world and likely would not be the last.

They would have to make do, to improvise with what was available.

Dismissing it after a moment, he gave the closest friends and family of the two men the task of preparing the bodies and sent others to gather stones.

Enan appeared on the ramp after a few moments, cast a look around the area, and then moved toward Korin.

“I do not think the woman was injured—not physically, at any rate, beyond a good deal of bruising,” he said when he reached Korin. “I cannot speak for the state of her mind—unfortunately. Tarn’s duo has done what he can for her.”

Korin nodded. “Bella?”

“She seems … eerily calm,” Enan said hesitantly and then shrugged. “I could not honestly claim to know the mind of a madrone woman let alone one of these.”

Korin frowned. “These are … contradictory.”

Enan snorted. “There is nothing unique in that … from what I recall. It seems the natural female condition.”

“They were bold enough to face colonizing a new world alone,” Korin said slowly. “Even our own women would not consider leaving the warriors behind and striking off on their own—not to build a new village on Eos and certainly not to leave our world and start over on another. And it is clear enough from the things they brought that they knew what they were facing. I think they are frightened because this was unexpected and we are an unknown potential threat. And I think when they are calm—we need to worry.”

Chapter Six

Bella felt much the same sense of ‘let down’ as an almost sneeze that one braced for that failed to materialize.

Her first thought—and she thought it had probably run through a lot of the women’s minds—was that they were about to be ‘disposed of’. Terry had created a ruckus. Discipline had fallen by the way side. And men had died.

Because it was as clear as a bell to her, despite the language barrier, that the lizard man considered it was their fault that four soldier/warriors were killed.

Maybe she was just transferring human behavior/motivations—or more specifically the male human—who never accepted responsibility for his own actions because they were never expected to, but it certainly ‘felt’ like they were being blamed for being women and enticing men to their death. All of them. Not just Terry, who’d clearly offered herself to the lizard bastards and then changed her mind!

She was thrown for a loop, though, when she realized the giants had separated them and were dragging them into separate cabins—not herding them out in mass for a slaughter.

She had about two seconds after that to figure out what was going on and it only took half that—they’d been handed over to the giants as play things.

And then Enan had taken her into a cabin, pointed imperiously at one of the two bunks and babbled something at her.

Then turned around and left before she could decide whether to play stupid and just wait for the assault or to save herself by opting for cooperation, stripping, and laying down.

She stared at the door panel blankly for some time after he left, feeling oddly let down as if someone had jerked a rug out from under her, waiting for it to open again. She had no idea how long, but eventually weariness began to steal the strength from her. Finally, still feeling strangely let down when she’d braced herself for what had seemed inevitable, she looked around for a place to settle.

There were two bunks and although both were made up with military precision, she thought that didn’t mean they weren’t claimed.

It flickered through her mind that the cabin must belong to Korin and Enan, but she wasn’t sure if the conclusion was reasonable or not.

She didn’t make the mistake of thinking they’d decided to treat the women as guests.

They were prisoners and they’d been taken to separate ‘cells’.

She decided as weak as she felt she did not want to sit down on either bunk. That might seem too much like an invitation if anyone came in.

Ditto the large chair the room boasted.

Floor space was minimal, but she settled on it anyway.

She didn’t want to replay what had happened in the big room where they’d been taken, but her mind ignored her wishes, going over it again and again until she wasn’t certain what she’d actually seen and what her mind had ‘invented’ to fill in the blank spaces. She hadn’t had a particularly clear view of what was happening since the women crowded around her were close to her in height and there’d been a pretty sizeable crowd between her and the ‘event’.

She hadn’t seen or heard anything to give her any idea of what had started the … incident.

She didn’t believe for a minute, though, that Terry had done anything to deliberately attract notice. She’d been very vocal about her feelings on the subject of ‘what to do in case of male sexual aggression’.

So the lizard man had just … seen, wanted, and grabbed?

Even considering they were captives, that was hard to swallow, but she supposed that was the only thing that could have happened.

Unfortunately, it seemed the fight Terry had put up had not only attracted a lot of attention, but it had inspired the other lizard men to want to join in. And the harder she tried to get away the more determined they were to dominate.

She wasn’t sure of when or how it had gone from determination to subdue her to a focus on rape, but as horrific as that idea was, she was firmly convinced that was what they’d intended.

What she wasn’t sure of was the giants’ intentions.

She didn’t think they would want to ‘join’ the rapists, but it was also hard to imagine they would have tried to step in to protect Terry. She couldn’t mean anything to them.

And it seemed inarguable that they were risking death to do anything considering they’d died.

Maybe they had been uncertain of what their orders were?

The attack certainly hadn’t been part of the plan that she could see. As shocked and distressed as she’d been she had seen that all of the other aliens—both lizard and giant—had been taken off guard by the assault and they didn’t appear to know what to do about it. She’d noticed them looking around as if searching for some guidance from leaders.

It occurred to her to wonder if the two giants had felt the same compulsion she had—that she couldn’t just stand by and allow such a thing to happen without challenging it.

She was more confused about what had transpired between the one called Korin and the others. His men had hesitated when he’d yelled something at them. She hadn’t noticed even a hesitation in the lizard men, though.

So did that mean he had ordered his men back?

And if he had, what did that mean?

He knew they would die? And he didn’t feel like his men should lose their lives to protect Terry?

Maybe.

Men in general seemed to have this idea—expressed the opinion fairly often—that raping a woman didn’t hurt them.

And yet psychiatrists said that rape was about domination/power, not sex—which suggested men had to know that they were ‘breaking’ a woman even when they left them breathing.

But of course that was humans.

She’d never dealt with intelligent life that wasn’t human—nobody had that she knew of. She couldn’t even communicate with them—to discover anything. There was no telling, really, what sort of culture they had, how they looked at things.

She frowned.

The impression she’d gotten at first ….

Well truthfully, the very first impression was bloodthirsty barbarians, but it seemed to her that they had relaxed that posture fairly quickly. That they’d been braced for a battle that didn’t materialize and had stood down as soon as they were convinced they were in control.

Not that they weren’t still scary. They had to be at least six and a half to seven feet tall on average and probably three feet wide and they had muscles on top of muscles—long hair and they wore clothing that looked like barbarian garb—leather of some kind.

And they used archaic weaponry.

And yet, in some ways the lizard people seemed way more dangerous and cold blooded and barbaric. Well, in every way except for the fact that they had advanced technology.

They were every bit as bad as she’d first thought—and she’d thought the worst.

The warrior giants might not be, but she couldn’t be certain of even that much.

Especially when she’d been taken to someone’s cabin for some purpose that she was afraid she might know.

It seemed like a very good time to work on accepting the thing that couldn’t be changed so that she could look beyond that to a possibility of a future of some kind. It defied imagination to try to come up with possibilities or even ‘a’ possibility, but she knew the captain was right. Their lives had changed, drastically, in the blink of an eye from what they had been and the future they’d anticipated. It was in their hands now. They had three choices that she could see.

They could die as quickly and painlessly as they could manage.

They could accept what had happened and try to make the best of it.

Or they could refuse to accept and make a change.

She had generations of passive resistant women to guide her.

She decided she would emulate them. She would be strong and bend in the ‘wind’, yield to forces stronger, physically, than she was so that she couldn’t be broken.

Terry—any of the others that hadn’t taken Brandy’s advice to heart—were just wrong. The way to win was to give ground when necessary until opportunity fell in their laps.

* * * *

Korin was still angry and disgusted when they had completed the ritual burial and headed toward the gang plank to return to the ship. He had finally acknowledged that the deaths weren’t necessarily the result of a discipline issue or his failure as a leader, however.

It was morale.

Which was also his responsibility, but it was something beyond his control.

Or it had been up until they had taken the women.

He had struggled to dismiss the solution that had been presented to him by the bastard that had destroyed their lives, their people, and their world—because he knew the son-of-a-bitch couldn’t be trusted.

He had flung the fate of the women at him in a fit of temper.

And he could just as easily and quickly snatch that order back, swear he never said any such thing, and then punish them for ‘ignoring’ his orders.

That was far more likely than it was that he would leave it standing.

And it was also possible that his fury wasn’t entirely the reason for it.

The sick bastard did like to toy with his victims.

Which was a large part of the low morale—the other part being no real challenge for them to excise their frustrations in months.

If there had been an actual battle to engage them when they had taken the women a lot of their anger would have been spent. It was possible the disaster still would have happened, because their blood would have been up from the fight—especially if the delizo had so blatantly challenged their right to their war prize—as they had. But he thought it would have been something that could have been deescalated and stopped.

Or that bastard, Jud, could have stopped it by making his men stand down instead of stopping to watch.

Water under the bridge, he thought.

And yet it wasn’t. It might be too late for the men they had just buried on this godforsaken alien world, but the others were still in danger of exploding, figuratively and literally.

The question was, if he decided to use what he had that was available, would it diffuse the situation? Or would it transpire to be the flame to light their funeral pyre?

He shelved the thoughts as he entered the ship, his thoughts shifting to his cabin and Bella. Instead of yielding to the impulse the moment it occurred to him to go there, however, he headed to the gathering room. He was ripe, he thought with disgust, from the labors he had engaged in for the past several hours.

It would not help anyone’s chances of acceptance, he thought wryly, to present themselves as they were—wet and wreaking of sweat and dirt.

With that thought, he ordered the entire unit to the gathering room to bathe.

There was some grumbling—another sign that discipline was shaky if he needed it—but no one argued. They went to discard their filthy uniforms and bathe before heading to their cabins for a change of clothing.

His first thought when he entered his cabin was that Bella had taken advantage of being left alone and taken off. Even as the adrenalin leapt in his veins, though, he spied her curled into a tiny ball in one corner.

Her head jerked upwards at his entrance and he stared into her wide, wide eyes for a long moment feeling conflicting emotions crash over him.

Desire was the strongest and very nearly obliterated any ability to think beyond it.

But possessiveness was directly behind that in potency.

And trailing that a sense of protectiveness he should not have felt at all.

Disconcerted, he dragged his gaze from her and moved toward his locker with barely a pause—but with the discomfiting certainty that she had noticed everything.

He was wrong as it transpired.

Bella didn’t notice anything at all from the moment she discovered he was next door to naked and she was virtually eye level with the beast behind the thin veil of wet and nearly transparent material. She would have shot to her feet, but the adrenaline abandoned her almost as quickly as it shot through her and left her so weak and heavy she thought she might pass out.

It was just as well she didn’t manage to get up, she thought later, because Enan was directly behind him and just as gloriously veiled—leaving just enough to the imagination that she found herself straining to pierce the thin fabric.

Unfortunately, she discovered she was blocking Enan’s access to his locker—although that didn’t cross her mind at first when he came to stand over her with an air of waiting.

Because nothing really crossed her mind beyond the dick and balls directly in her line of sight.

She simply stared at the gently swinging mass of flesh blankly, completely unable to jumpstart her brain functions.

Thankfully, he dropped to a crouch after a moment. Grasping her shoulders, he lifted her up as he straightened and dropped her onto the bunk beside her.

Her face reddened to fiery as it sank in that he’d been waiting to get into the locker behind her while she was staring at his genitals as if she’d never seen any.

And, really, it was her first encounter with alien giant genitals, so she thought she might be pardoned for being mesmerized.

Her first close encounter.

That thought had the unfortunate effect of reminding her that she’d been staring at Korin’s before and she whipped a guilty look in his direction.

It disconcerted her to discover that he was studying her, but there was just something about his posture and his expression that evoked a powerful and totally unexpected rise of heat in her. Almost as if he knew it the moment it happened, his expression hardened and heat blazed in his eyes that shot her initial reaction through the roof.

It took an effort to drag her gaze from his, but since it was immediately snagged by Enan’s and she saw a similar reaction in him, it didn’t help.

Thoroughly rattled and embarrassed by her reaction, she covered her face with her hands and curled into a tight ball.

Which, of course, was so telling she was even more embarrassed.

After a few moments, she sensed that Korin had moved close to the bunk and she lifted her head uneasily. He was holding his hand out, palm open, she saw with surprise and looked up at him questioningly.

“Bella ….” He stopped and glanced at Enan. “Do we have enough language …?”

Enan shook his head. Seeing that Bella had transferred her attention to him, he made an eating motion with his hand.

Bella’s stomach understood before her brain did. It growled.

Korin’s lips were faintly curved in a smile when she glanced at him.

And it was an enticing smile that instantly scrambled her brains.

He caught her hand and urged her up and she clambered ungracefully from the bunk. They led her from the cabin and down a maze of narrow corridors. Along the way, they encountered others—giants with more of the colonists.

Nobody talked.

The silence, broken only by the scuffing and impact of booted feet on the metal decking was uncomfortable but not as eloquent of fear as before.

Because, Bella thought wryly, they thought they were going to be fed.

Trusted they were.

The thought made her uneasy. Thankfully, they hadn’t gone far before the scent of cooking food hit them and that bolstered everyone’s spirits. None of them had eaten since early morning and they’d been frightened half to death, chased all over creation by barbaric giants and had disgusting lascivious glances from frog people. Watched men die—watched helplessly as they dragged Terry off to rape her. They were weak and sick from it.

And the food smelled amazingly familiar.

Anger began to simmer in all of them when they realized why that was.

It was their food—had been.

Reminding herself that the lizard people had demanded everything that had been theirs didn’t help cool the anger.

Well, actually did cool it.

That was what finally lit the flame of hate that hadn’t even gripped her—any of them—before. They’d been too shocked and terrorized to be able to sort anything in their minds. They’d been dismayed and demoralized when everything they had thought of as being their property was loaded into the alien ship.

But their food—the one thing they needed to survive if they managed to escape ….

Bella did her best to hide it—everyone did—but she didn’t think she was alone in the sudden awareness that the lizard men were enemies.

She didn’t think the lizards saw them as enemies. They were too damned arrogant to consider they might be making enemies that could cause them any harm. But they had made enemies and at that moment Bella discovered a heretofore hidden part of herself.

She had a lot stronger capacity for hatred and lust for revenge than she would ever have thought she was capable of.

She didn’t think she was going to be satisfied with just escaping the bastards. She wanted them to pay for what they’d done—the harm they’d caused, the unprovoked attack, destroying everything they had worked so hard for and taking everything they needed to survive.

Chapter Seven

Without volition, Bella’s gaze went instantly to the corner where the attack on Terry had played out. To her surprise in the hours since it had happened, the hull breach had been fixed—the outer hull. The inner wall was in the process of being patched by a pair of lizard men.

The area had been thoroughly cleaned up, however, and all signs of the fight and attempted rape removed.

Except the hole they were currently patching.

Korin walked her to a table and helped her into a chair then turned and stalked purposefully toward the lizard men.

Apparently, they sensed or heard his approach. They paused and turned to gape at him for a moment. When it finally dawned upon them, however, that they were his target, they hastily grabbed up their tools and materials and beat a quick retreat to the door and went out.

Korin paused to watch their departure and finally headed into the kitchen area. Taking a plate for himself and Bella, he headed back to the table.

Enan grabbed three drinking mugs, his own plate, and a vessel of water and followed him.

Bella stared at the food on her plate a little blankly for several moments and finally picked up the utensil she’d been given to eat with.

It smelled like food she was familiar with.

It didn’t look or taste like it.

She frowned, trying to decide if she’d been wrong about the food or not.

Finally, it occurred to her that the aliens had prepared it and couldn’t possibly have known how it was supposed to be prepared—which explained why it didn’t look or taste as she’d expected.

Grudgingly, she was forced to admit that it actually tasted better—whatever they’d added to it.

Two other giant aliens joined them at the table, drawing Bella’s attention.

Korin’s expression was unwelcoming and so was Enan’s.

She glanced from them to the newcomers uneasily and discovered that they were focused on her. Noticing he had her attention, the heavier set of the two spoke smile at her in a way that made her pulse leap upward a couple of notches.

“I am Dayne.” He pointed to the man beside him. “And this is my duo, Dax.”

Bella frowned, but she realized the words were vaguely familiar.

Because Korin had said much the same words.

She glanced at Korin.

He seemed to relax fractionally—to force himself to relax. He touched his chest. “Korin.” Then he pointed to Enan. “Enan. Dayne. Dax.”

She’d thought they were introducing themselves. She just hadn’t decided how she was supposed to react. She managed to smile at the newcomers with a mixture of shyness and uneasiness. “Arabella. Or Bella.”

“I think she suspects,” Dayne said in a voice deepened by the desire he was struggling with.

Korin cocked an eyebrow at him. “Suspects what?”

Dayne met his gaze. “We will have to share, you know,” he said instead of answering the question directly since he knew very well that Korin was in no doubt of his meaning.

Korin’s expression hardened. “Is that a challenge?”

Dayne struggled with his temper. “If you have not noticed the men are on the verge of explosion then you are not the man I thought you were. And you do not have the best interests of the madrone people at heart.”

“Now, that definitely sounds like a challenge,” Enan growled.

“I am willing if there is a need for it, but it was intended as a warning to avert disaster,” Dayne said testily. “I do have the best interests of the men at heart.”

“Especially your own,” Enan responded tartly.

Korin said nothing, merely stared at him for a long moment and then returned his attention to his food.

He wasn’t actually surprised that Dayne had approached him with the demand for answers. He had been wrestling with the question himself since Jud had flung the order at him to ‘discipline’ the women.

Bellowed it where the men could be in no doubt it had been sanctioned by Jud himself.

There was a major problem with simply discarding all considerations beyond the one uppermost in the mind of every man on the ship, however—him included.

It could and probably would lead to a disaster on an epic scale compared to the one they’d already experienced.

“I also have the men’s best interests at heart,” Korin responded tightly after several tense moments had passed, although, in a general way, he was not inclined to share his thoughts—and certainly not to explain himself.

Truthfully, though, he had been wrestling so hard with his own desires that, until Dayne had pointed it out, he hadn’t considered that there were more men than women—more duos—because the duos worked as one and always had and it did not occur to him to consider whether these women, who looked so like their own, might not be accustomed to duos. They were not madrone women. In his mind he accepted that and understood they were different—but he was still inclined to measure them by the rod he had—his own people.

It should not have been a consideration at all. This was not a mating under discussion. This was to be a claiming of the spoils of war—granted by their masters—as much as it irked him to think of the delizo in that way.

As a fighting unit, they shared the fruits of their labor just as they shared the danger.

That was the way of the madrone.

He was not entirely certain of why he was reluctant to share, but he sensed the same reluctance in all of the men and that was what had prompted the wrestling with his conscience and practicality.

Part of it, perhaps the biggest part.

The rest was due to the bastards that had enslaved them. They could not be trusted in any sense. It was not at all beyond the realms of possibility that Jud would pretend he had never ordered it and punish them accordingly if they took the step he had suggested.

Or, contrarily, to punish them if they failed to take the statement as an order.

Not that he had any intention whatsoever of ‘disciplining’ the women in the sense that Jud had suggested. They did not deserve to be punished only because they were frightened and trying to protect themselves.

And he did not like the ‘damned if we do’ ‘damned if we do not’ potential.

Once acknowledged, though, it occurred to him that they probably were looking at discipline regardless of which direction they jumped and, that being the case, it would be best to allow the men to have whatever succor they might find. Without doubt, they deserved some pleasure for what they had endured since they had been taken.

Despite that conclusion, though, he had the uncomfortable suspicion that he still had not thoroughly examined all angles—no great surprise since his needs were as desperate as any of the others and the object of his desires was seated across the table from him, watching him with such wide eyes it was clear she had some idea of what the discussion was about.

That was enough in and of itself to raise his needs to near feverish—again—especially when he was convinced he had sensed her interest in him.

He might have thought it purely wishful thinking if not for the fact that Enan had responded as if he, also, had sensed it.

If there was interest, he could convince her to accept him, he knew, and that thought was enough to make him far more reckless than was his nature.

* * * *

Bella was unnerved before she discovered Dayne was sitting across from her giving her the ‘I could eat you alive’ look she had like never had aimed at her but had seen and experienced vicariously.

Ironically, she discovered it was nearly as frightening as it was exciting.

To think she’d always been envious!

And Dayne was an amazing looking man—as attractive as Korin or nearly so even if he wasn’t quite as handsome.

To save her life, she could not prevent her body from responding to it.

And the minute it did she had the full, unwavering attention of every man at the table.

And several at the tables close to them.

Mostly, they looked pissed off, though, and she tried to convince herself it must have been something Korin had said that they’d overheard—with fairly indifferent success because she remembered almost immediately that Korin and Enan had seemed to react before in the cabin when she felt a wave of sexual interest wash over her.

Impossible!

If they were human men, certainly. A woman could club them over the head and they were oblivious—unless the woman was completely disinterested and then they were convinced the woman was sending out ‘signals’.

She’d never figured that out.

Men and women of Earth did NOT work on the same wavelength.

And that seemed to make the case that it just wasn’t possible the giant alien warriors could notice anything as subtle as a chemical change/attraction, right?

Clearing her throat, she tried to pretend she hadn’t noticed that she had their unwavering attention by casually glancing around the room.

And Jesus fucking Christ there were men across the room staring a hole in her!

That effectively killed all sexual interest and bathed her in a cold sweat.

Discovering Brandy seated at the table next to hers, she sent her a ‘help me’ look. Brandy met her gaze, glanced around, and then shrugged.

Thanks, bitch!

Brandy cleared her throat. “Everything ok with you?” she asked in a high voice very unlike the voice Bella was used to.

There was just a tiny edge of hysteria in it, Bella thought.

Unless she was projecting.

Thank you! Thank you! You angel! “Yeah,” she responded in a squeaky voice. “They took me to a cabin. Uh .. that seems to be theirs.”

Brandy nodded, glancing at the men to see if they looked threatening. “Well they are some huge fucking mother fuckers,” she said with a tight smile. “I feel like a Chihuahua being sniffed by a Great Dane. How about you?”

“Ditto. They’re … uh … very handsome Great Danes, but … uh ….”

“Good! Excellent!” Brandy said briskly. “Because I think we’re about to get the chance to test the waters.”

“Oh my god!”

“Handsome! Remember! You’re attracted. You’re very attracted. This will be fun!” she said with only slightly forced enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, that was true. She did find them attractive … for giant barbarians! And she was pretty convinced they’d noticed, but that did not mean she was ready to hit the bunk on her back and spread her legs, damn it! “You think men always want to fuck any woman they find attractive?” she asked weakly.

“Yes. And a lot of women they don’t find attractive at all,” Brandy said flatly. “There’s nothing on this fucking ship but men that I’ve seen. I think if we looked like the lizards they’d want to fuck us. I mean it’s about spreading the species, right? All males have the urge—wherever they’re from.”

“Oh my god! You don’t think we could get pregnant, do you?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“If you have contraceptives in your system. I don’t. I didn’t figure I needed the chemicals poisoning my body when we were going to be light years from a damned man that could get me pregnant.”

“Ditto,” Bella responded unhappily. “But … biologically speaking?”

“They look really human to me.”

“Yeah … but ….”

“If we live long enough we’ll probably find out.”

Not what Bella wanted to hear. Fortunately, the men interrupted. Urging them up, the women were guided into the kitchen where they discovered they were expected to handle clean up.

It wasn’t as if that wasn’t the case for them anyway. It was part of the work of living—cleaning up after every activity.

Should they be relieved that it seemed like they had some use for them besides the sex?

Or were they about to be worked to death?

If the kitchen had been big enough to accommodate all of them, it wouldn’t have been a hard task at all. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case and the other women working in the dining area were all busy collecting more stuff to clean.

They decided it was only fair to switch positions/jobs when they’d cleaned roughly half.

That was how they managed to make it into the general area just in time to see the warriors clash.

* * * *

Korin addressed the men once they had gathered their armor and weapons to hone their fighting skills as was their habit five days out of every eight—the final three days of each week being reserved purely for the purpose of exercise to maintain their strength and agility.

When they’d formed up to begin, he faced them and signaled to them to turn off their communicators to limit the talk the delizo could pick up. “Unless you are deaf or you just were not paying attention, I am certain you heard what Jud said. I believe it was an order, but I would remind you that he is a creature of impulse and when he has time to think he is prone to reversing decisions abruptly and retaliating against any who have taken his word to heart.

“These women are war prizes—but it was not ‘our’ war. They belong to the Delizo Empire—just as we do. We cannot allow ourselves to think of them as ours—even if we are allowed to assuage our needs upon them.

“And a reminder—Jud could change his mind at any time.

“These are not madrone women. But they are also not our enemies. If we treat them as if they are, then they will become enemies.

“Beyond those considerations, there are far more of us than there are of them. For the good of all, you will be expected to share. Today we will settle who is to be first with the women. Loser will lose only the first round with them and fall into second place. Next week, if there is another, we will again hold a contest of who is first. So there is no benefit in killing one another over the women.”

The men chuckled dutifully, but it was clear that, to a man, they were grimly determined to be first.

Korin shrugged internally. He had expected no less. They were the elite of the madrone warriors. Accepting second place was accepting defeat and they were not inclined to accept defeat.

He had expressed his expectations, however, that they would not go out of their way to kill one another.

He was also not surprised when Dayne and his duo challenged him and Enan for Bella, but he was pissed off about it.

* * * *

They had no sooner announced that it was time to swap jobs than there was a veritable stampede into the kitchen that damned near ran down the women trying to exit. It created so much confusion, in point of fact, that it wasn’t until the kitchen group had squeezed through that they discovered why the women outside the kitchen were so anxious to switch places.

The entire giant war force—in war regalia and carrying all sorts of weapons for slicing and dicing—swords, daggers, and axes—and bludgeoning implements—like hammers—were formed up … for something.

Bella’s first thought was that it must be practice.

Anyone that had to fight as a way of living had to keep toned and polished if they wanted to live through the next encounter.

But even when practicing hand to hand, she’d never seen human counterparts wearing more than pads for protection.

And the first clash wiped ‘reason’ right out of her mind despite her best efforts to convince herself it was ‘just’ practice.

She thought if they had been human sized men it would have been unnerving to hear the bellows and growls and the hammering of metal against metal.

A pair of giants would have unnerved her.

The group that was battling it out looked absolutely dead set on killing each other and, beyond that, hysteria was highly contagious.

All it took was one woman screaming and dashing toward the door and all of the others, including Bella, fell in behind her and tried to outrun her.

A warrior moved to block their path.

The group as a whole swerved away, made one circuit around the great room—discovered the kitchen doors were barricaded and about half of the giants had decided to give chase, and mowed the door guard down on the next pass, leaping over him and taking off in every direction.

The giants that had chased them around the room leapt over the man down in the doorway and continued the chase until the women had expended all of the energy they had and collapsed on the floor, struggling to catch their breath.

Bella looked up and saw Korin, his eyes blazing with fury, and tried to crawl away even though she felt like she was going to pass out from lack of air. He caught her by one ankle and dragged her back and then hauled her up and slung her across his shoulder.

She did pass out at that juncture.

She could tell when she came around and discovered he’d dumped her across the table in the common room that he suspected she’d been faking it, but she was too dizzy and weak to feel more than a spark of anger over that silent accusation.

She discovered she was actually beyond caring if he meant to kill her or not. Death, at that moment, held no terror because she was just too damned exhausted to feel it.

He shook his finger at her. “Stay, woman!” he growled.

That sparked another tiny spurt of anger, but she wasn’t able to feed the fire. She merely stared at him a moment and lay back, closing her eyes and trying to focus on breathing slow and deep to feed her system the oxygen she needed without throwing up.

She was only dimly aware of the resumption of battle and, by the time she’d recovered enough to care, she realized that it was mock battle—because there were no bodies.

Feeling a little embarrassed on top of exhaustion, she managed to sit up after a few minutes and climb off the table. A wave of dizziness assailed her but it passed fairly quickly and she got down on the stilts that had replaced actual flesh and bone where her legs were and looked around. The others who’d taken part in the freedom stampede were laying or sitting or curled up next to the wall in the far corner.

Girding herself, she staggered over to them and half sat half fell to the floor next to Brandy.

“That was fun,” she said a little sickly. “I haven’t had that much exercise in …. Well, a long time.”

“I thought my heart was going to explode,” Brandy agreed. “So now we know we don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of outrunning them.”

Bella help up one finger. “Tried that. I hope that bitch, Terry, was paying attention.”

“That was her in the lead,” Brandy said dryly.

“Oh. Did she get away?”

“No. That’s her in the corner with her head buried in the sand and her ass in the air.”

Bella nodded, but she didn’t look. “Well … I feel just a little silly. Looks like practice, huh?”

Brandy reddened. “A warning might have helped.”

Bella frowned as uneasiness slithered through her. “I think they’re picking up English … scary fast. Korin shook his finger at me and told me to stay put.”

Chapter Eight

Brandy looked a little alarmed. “You think?”

“They wear that communicator all the time. It must be the computer that’s picking up our speech and translating it,” Bella said thoughtfully.

Brandy swallowed a little sickly. “If that’s true it’s something way ahead of what we have. It hasn’t even been a full day.”

Bella frowned. “Really? Seems like longer,” she said unhappily. “Must be because so much has happened. But it’s still shocking to think it could have picked up enough already to start translating. I mean the sounds the frog people make don’t even sound like they’re talking and they must have invented it.”

Brandy shrugged. “The only other possibility is that the giants are just that good and just that smart.”

Bella chewed her lip. “Honestly, they appear to be barbarians, but I see a lot of intelligence in their eyes. I think they’re really smart—just not technologically advanced like the lizard men. Who honestly don’t seem nearly as smart even though they’re the ones with the technology.”

“Too much dependence on their technology to do everything for them, probably. Fuck! It’s really unfortunate that all we have going for us is our wits,” Brandy said unhappily. “We can’t even strategize if they can understand us.”

Bella knew she was right.

Pussy might have been a good bargaining chip except the aliens could just take that away from them when they wanted to and probably would. All they could really hope for was that ‘being nice’ would mean the giants wouldn’t also beat them to death or choke them or toss them out of the airlock. She had a bad feeling, though, that just being cooperative might not be enough. The aliens might take it in bad part if they didn’t throw in a lot of acting like they were having a great time.

Earth men certainly wanted praise for their ‘skill’ when they let a woman play with their joystick.

Brandy agreed with that assessment although Bella had actually hoped that she would shoot that down and tell her it was unreasonable and therefore unlikely. “Who knows—I sure as hell don’t. They’re alien and they have a culture, I know, that’s different. And yet, I can’t help but compare them to our men, and you and I both know they expect women to be grateful when they present them with ‘the dick’. You damned sure get black marks if you can’t manage to pretend you’re happy about it.” She shrugged. “Black marks in this case could be very, very bad. Because I can’t see that they’re all that excited about keeping us.”

Bella thought so, too, and yet it was really hard even to try to be civil when she was scared shitless. She didn’t think she could ‘do’ warmth. Even the thought of ‘acceptance’ terrified her.

It really sucked that they’d only managed to make one another more uneasy rather than to come up with even a germ of an idea when the men, apparently, finished up with trying to kill each other and turned their attentions to the women.

The look of intent in Korin’s eyes when she found him bearing down on her thoroughly unnerved Bella. The adrenaline had barely erupted in response, though, before he reached her and she didn’t even have time to pop up, let alone run, before he hauled her up and tossed her across his broad shoulder again.

There was no point in looking around for help, she knew, but she did anyway—which supported her guess. All of the women who’d been in the corner with her were draped over a broad alien shoulder and the other giants were busy demolishing the barricade the women who’d trapped themselves in the kitchen had built.

There was some screaming and running, but the bad thing about the kitchen was that it had only one way out and the one narrow doorway prevented them from leaving in mass. The men simply grabbed them when they tried to dart out. They went in for women who chose to try to hide instead.

She had time to consider what was about to transpire as Korin left with her and headed down the corridor to his cabin—she thought—but not nearly enough to think of a way out of it or to compose herself to behave ‘appropriately’.

Thankfully, Korin seemed to grasp that. Instead of setting her on her feet once he got inside the cabin, he dropped her onto the bunk and followed her down, capturing her mouth beneath his while she was still in a state of total chaos. She sucked in a sharp breath and jolted at the moist, heated contact of his mouth on hers, dragging in a deep, intoxicating draft of his essence in the process. A tsunami of dizziness, disorientation, and moist heat enveloped her on the instant and awoke every nerve ending in her body to acute sensation.

Fear fluttered through her mind and then winked out of existence with the first heated, faintly rough stroke of his tongue along hers. A rash of sensation followed. Pinpricks of desperation tingled to life.

She felt dwarfed by Korin.

She was dwarfed by the size of him, surrounded by him, weighed down, overwhelmed.

It was thrilling and scary at the same time.

And yet he managed to coil himself around her and touch her everywhere at once without causing her any pain or even discomfort.

Relieved, she focused on relishing the feel of him curled around her.

She felt a twinge of reluctance when he broke contact, lifted away just enough to meet her gaze and tug at her clothing.

The expression on Korin’s face was enough by itself to set her heart to fluttering madly with excitement, though.

And that wasn’t all that was fluttering like crazy.

His expression tightened when her lower muscles began to palpitate with anticipation. His eyes blazed.

His dexterity fled.

He managed to get both of them thoroughly entangled in their clothing before he lost patience, broke off, and set her away to strip her.

Fortunately, her suit was designed for easy on and easy off with a closure that covered neck to ankle.

He removed her panties by snapping the seam at one side.

He didn’t remove any of his clothing.

He simply dragged the ‘club’ out and let it hit her on the thigh hard enough it parted the heated haze of brainlessness and she looked down at it.

She made a valiant attempt then to ‘swim’ out from under him.

He grabbed her shoulders, ignored the fact that she’d clamped her thighs as tightly together as she could, and plowed between them.

Fortunately for her, it was too damned big to ‘slip’ it in even though her stuff was awash with anticipation by that time.

Unfortunately for her, he was determined it would fit if he was just persistent enough.

And apparently he thought the route to paradise led through the jungle of foreplay. He gnawed on everything until she was clawing at him, panting, and whimpering and when he tried to make ‘it’ fit the second time, she helped.

Because she was absolutely desperate by that time to get it in.

But they were both drenched in sweat, huffing for breath, and sticking together before they managed to break the lockdown and make any headway.

Heartened by the fact that she’d managed to encompass the head—which seemed to be slightly bigger than the shaft, Bella coiled her legs around his hips, dug her heels into his ass, and tried to shoehorn him in.

He dug her heels out of his ass and rolled into a sitting position with her astride his lap and began bearing down on her.

It scared the fuck out of her when he broke the deadlock and drove all the way in—hit the bottom.

For half a second.

Then the shockwave hit her.

It disappointed Korin because he still had a few more inches, but he decided he was as close as he was going to get—and he quit worrying about it when he felt her convulse with pleasure because it set him off. He managed a half a dozen thrusts through sheer teeth gritted determination.

He almost felt as if he’d been turned inside out as his body emptied of the seed that had been backing up longer than he wanted to think about it. Relief flooded him when his body finally stopped seizing.

Pleasure followed, making him feel mellow and so relaxed he just wanted to follow the darkness down the hole.

He’d almost reached oblivion when discomfort began to nag at him—both physical and mental.

It was the mental discomfort that took precedence, however.

He’d given pleasure not merely taken it, he told himself. He was certain of it.

Almost.

He didn’t have to search long to find the source.

He had exploded almost the moment he managed to enter her—like a callow youth with little or no experience.

With an effort, he shifted his weight and pretty much just fell off of her.

She was sprawled limply where he had pinned her to the bed.

Apparently sensing his gaze, she opened her eyes a slit to meet his.

He saw no censure there, but his discomfort mounted anyway. Gathering her clothing up, he wadded them into a ball and plunked them on her belly. It was a struggle to find any words in her language at all, but finally he found what he was looking for. “Go Enan bed.”

She opened her eyes wider then and he frowned, turning the words over and wondering if they were the wrong words after all.

“Fuck Enan now.”

Her mouth opened, her eyes widening in a look of shock, but she rolled off of the bunk as if he’d planted his foot in her ass and shoved her.

Thoroughly demoralized, Bella bent to snatch the clothing she’d dropped off of the floor before it occurred to her that she wasn’t ‘done’. Glancing around a little vaguely, she finally just threw them into the corner she’d occupied earlier and headed toward Enan’s bunk.

He got up and politely gestured toward it.

Struggling with her emotions and her confusion and dismay, Bella placed a knee on the mattress and climbed up, then sprawled in the middle on her back and drew her knees up and spread her legs.

The sarcasm was wasted on Enan.

A glazed look entered his eyes the minute she assumed the position.

He stripped naked with hands that shook so badly she thought he wouldn’t manage to remove the garments without tearing them off. Fortunately, they seemed to be sturdily made. He got them off with an effort, in one piece, tossing them to fall where they might.

By the time he was completely naked, however, Bella was thoroughly enthralled and had pretty much discarded her pique and her feelings of abuse.

He wasn’t just handsome. He was built like a god.

It came as a shock to her.

Because she’d been too focused on studying the dicks when they’d come back from the showers half naked and trying to peer through the thin, wet fabric to notice the bare stuff.

And Korin hadn’t bothered to strip.

She’d seen some well built men in her time—a few when she was younger—but she had never seen one whose shape and proportions made ‘beautiful’ leapt instantly to mind.

She could’ve admired him endlessly … except he had other ideas.

He climbed between her thighs and immediately planted the head of his club in Girly’s mouth.

Bella wasn’t sure she was ready for round two.

Girly was. She was so wet—between her own juices and Korin’s—if he’d been a lesser man he might have fallen in.

Fortunately for her comfort level and ego, he discovered it was almost as difficult to surmount the slick channel as Korin had.

Also fortunately, it occurred to him that he needed to prime the pump and he planted his mouth over hers and jumpstarted her heart. It turned her brains to jelly and Girly filled so fast with extra lubricant Bella was just relieved she didn’t start snorting and gurgling.

And then he made progress and she forgot everything else in favor of focusing on helping him.

Surprisingly, and thankfully, he wound her up so fast she found herself ready to take the leap almost before he’d gotten a good start and began to pump into her like his life depended on inflating her as quickly as he could. It prompted her to pull out all the stops, the certainty that she wasn’t going to hit orbit if she didn’t move fast.

She achieved lift off, strumming his back with her nails and gurgling the national anthem.

It must have thrilled him despite the faint hisses of pain when she dug into him a little too hard because he grunted, slammed into a handful of times and joined her in orbit.

It was an unlooked for gift—two Earth shattering climaxes in a row with two complete strangers who were also alien.

She’d never had ‘stranger’ sex in her life. It was dangerous, in the first place. In the second, she didn’t see sex as something she just had to have—regardless of the circumstances. She did see sex as an important part of a relationship—or building one—mostly because it was borne in upon her at a fairly young age that that was the only thing that could convince a man to consider a ‘relationship’. Consider being the operative word there.

That being the case, she’d been unnerved at the prospect, not looking forward to it, even though she knew Brandy was right and she should brace herself for it.

But, aside from being treated like tissue and tossed aside as soon as he’d finished, it hadn’t been an ordeal at all.

Because Enan booted her out as soon as he was done just as Korin had.

Maybe because of whatever it was that Korin said to him—probably—because he’d seemed willing to share the damned bunk until Korin said something about it.

Feeling weak and wobbly in the aftermath—her thighs were spasming like crazy—Bella stood indecisively for a couple of moments and then looked around for a place to settle.

Option one, the chair.

Option two, the floor.

She gathered her clothing up and climbed onto the seat of the chair. It would have been nice if it was a recliner type of chair, but it wasn’t. On the other hand, it was huge and roomy enough she could curl up in it and almost be comfortable.

She put her uniform on to keep from freezing to death.

Korin stripped it off of her when he retrieved her from the chair for round two just about the time she managed to get deeply asleep.

She staggered back to the chair when he was done, or at least toward it, but Enan decided he wanted round two, as well.

They both seemed dead to the world in the aftermath of round two.

Bella was practically dead on her feet—too tired to think straight. But the chair seemed a little exposed now that she thought on it. Tiptoeing to the wall of lockers, she quietly opened one, climbed in and curled up on the clothing inside, and passed out.

It wasn’t easy getting comfortable even as exhausted as she was. She felt like she’d just gotten to sleep when someone jerked the door open and she sprawled out on the floor.

When she managed to get her eyes open, she found herself staring up at Korin—who was looking down at her like a thundercloud. And Enan, whose face was totally blank.

She would have scrambled up, but she discovered not only were certain crucial parts of her body still asleep—paralyzed by poor circulation—the rest of her felt battered from all of the unaccustomed exercise the day before.

Grunting in pain despite every effort to hide it, she managed to get up.

Torin struggled with his temper and managed to beat it into abeyance, but he was left with an unpleasant feeling in his gut due pretty much entirely to the fact that Bella had managed to ‘disappear’ twice, convincing him she had fled, without even trying hard.

He still didn’t understand why the hell she had climbed into his locker.

Or how she’d managed it for that matter.

But he had an unpleasant feeling he did not want to know why she had hidden herself.

“Why was she in there?” Enan asked blankly.

Korin felt his face heat as he glanced at his duo.

Enan stared at her for a split second before he felt his own face heat up with discomfort.

He just was not entirely certain of why he felt it or why Torin seemed to.

There was anger in there, confusion … but discomfort seemed to dominate.

Mayhap because Torin had some idea of why she had hidden?

He was damned if he did! He knew he had pleased her.

At least, he was fairly convinced of it.

But the more he thought about it, the less convinced he was.

She would not have hidden, he finally decided, if he had acquitted himself well.

And very likely Torin realized that also and that accounted for his discomfort?

Doubt still plagued him as they left their cabin and headed to the common room to use the facilities.

He had bonded with Torin when they were both still very young and, because he had, he was accustomed to sharing everything with his alpha and understanding Torin as well as he understood himself. Quite often they even seemed to share the same thoughts at the same time. Torin would speak and it was almost the very words that had come to his mind.

This situation, he did not entirely understand, however.

Torin had taken pleasure and given it.

He knew that with absolute certainty because he had watched and he had connected to Torin and he had felt, as well.

He was not certain the second time Torin had taken her because he had been too focused on waiting his turn, but the first time, certainly.

“Do you think I gave her no pleasure and that is why she hid?” he asked tentatively.

Torin’s face darkened in a way that he had never seen it except when he was in a rage—which was rare. “I am not certain,” he responded finally. “I was too focused on enjoying her to consider it.”

A shockwave went through Enan. “That is … not good.”

Torin glared at him and Enan shrugged. “I was too focused on my enjoyment, also,” he muttered. “I think she will not want to fuck again.”

“Luckily, we need not concern ourselves overly about whether she will want to or not,” Torin growled.

Enan gaped at him. “But … did you not say it was important …?”

Torin’s lips tightened. He slid a narrow-eyed look at Enan, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

Chapter Nine

Bella was so near dead she’d been standing under the showerhead for far longer than she should have before she discovered Brandy was standing next to her.

“Ok, so I’m pretty sure if the widespread near dead condition is anything to go by that my theory was proven correct last night,” she muttered, “part of it anyway.”

Bella stared at her tiredly for several moments before her brain deciphered it for her. “The fucking part?”

“Yeah. That part. Unless your experience was different than mine, though, I think we can forget any possibility of earning brownie points for it.”

Bella thought back over her experience. “I don’t think they’re in love with me yet,” she muttered dryly. “In fact, I’m not convinced they would’ve been able to tell me from you or any other female in the colony group. It was just that personal. And then Zug said ‘fuck him now’ and shoved me out of the bed. And then Lug said ‘fuck him now’ and shoved me out of his bed.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” Brandy paused to wash her uniform—which she was wearing—with the soap, rinsed it, and then removed it and washed her under clothes.

Shrugging since their clothing was made of self-cleaning fabric, Bella followed suit.

Of course, the cleaning process worked with light and sunlight worked the best, but there was artificial light …. On the other hand, her crotch was full semen ….

She felt better, she discovered, when she’d slathered soap all over herself and the clothes and then rinsed.

Brandy stopped her when she reached to turn the water off.

Mystified, Bella turned the water on again, ignoring the complaints of the women behind her. “What?”

“I think the sound of the water may make it harder to record our conversations,” Brandy said.

“Good thought!” Bella exclaimed, feeling a brief flare of hopefulness.

“What we need, though, is a code of … conduct, if you know what I mean.”

Bella frowned, but it didn’t actually take a lot of imagination to figure out what she was getting at considering the discussion that preceded it—the giants weren’t likely to come to their rescue. They were going to have to do it themselves. But they needed a way to safely communicate. “I’ll give it some thought.”

Brandy nodded, turned her water off, gathered her clothing and moved out of the way. Bella followed, thinking about the discussion, wondering how the hell they were going to come up with a code that all of them could understand when they had no way to record it or messages made with it to pass around.

It was depressing that Brandy had come to pretty much the same conclusion as she had.

The aliens didn’t see them as intelligent individuals. They were merely objects to be used and it was unlikely they would grow attached to them—certainly not to a degree to take any kind of risks for them.

Well, she acknowledged, that would probably never have been a possibility. It took a very strong bond or a special kind of person to risk their life for someone else for any reason.

So far she was impressed with the barbaric aliens—scared to death of them—but awed, too. However, she hadn’t actually seen anything to suggest they were empathetic to any great degree. They hadn’t hurt them when they could have, but then again, none of the women had actually provoked them either. It wasn’t much of a test, given that, and therefore the hope wasn’t likely to materialize.

Of course it did probably—might—mean they just weren’t vicious brutes, but that was something really special given their predicament if they could count on it.

The men had settled at the tables to eat when they came out.

Not that Bella had a problem getting her own food or even preparing it—assuming she could figure out the alien kitchen—but where to sit? Would she be in trouble if she didn’t sit down with Torin and Enan? Or in trouble if she assumed she was supposed to?

Brandy, unfortunately, looked as doubtful as she felt.

“Maybe we could just screw around and wait for one of the others to try it?” Brandy suggested in a low voice. “I mean … given the fact that we weren’t allowed to sleep in the same bed you’d think we were totally dismissed and they wouldn’t care, but ….”

“Yeah … but, unknown entity. Sounds like a plan to me, but it looks to me like most of the women had the same idea.”

Brandy shrugged. “Let’s see if we can find anything to eat and then worry about it.”

In the kitchen, they discovered the women had found dehydrated eggs, freeze dried pork bits, and bread and made them into a sandwich—which eliminated the need for a plate—and thus a lot of clean up.

Their supply of coffee was nowhere in sight so Bella opted for the egg sandwich and water even though she generally felt a little delicate first thing in the morning and felt far worse than that after the night she’d had.

As she’d noted when they went in, none of the women felt like they wanted to discover whether they were allowed or invited or required to sit with the alien men. They’d congregated near the kitchen door, most of them standing. Deciding that was cover of a sort, Bella threaded her way to the back wall and settled on the floor. In a few moments, Brandy joined her.

Bella had managed to eat about half before there was a stir near the front. She didn’t have more than a moment to wonder at it. Korin plowed through like parting the red sea. She shot to her feet guiltily when she saw him, swallowing the mouthful of food she had just taken with an effort.

Thankfully, he didn’t decide to fling her over his shoulder again. Bella was fairly certain she would’ve puked down his back. He merely grasped her arm and led her over to the table where he was seated with Enan.

Embarrassed, a little unnerved and a little resentful, she allowed him to lead her off without any attempt to struggle or argue.

Not that she could see it would’ve done any good to try to argue. All she could’ve gotten across was anger and that could’ve been dangerous. It wasn’t as if she could talk to him and figure out what it was all about.

After a few days, though, she decided it must be like a territorial thing. Because even though she couldn’t see that it bothered Korin at all to pass her to Enan, he made it clear that he expected the one called Dayne to keep his distance.

Until they had swap day, then he handed over to Dayne as coolly as if he was passing a library book he’d borrowed and walked off.

Bella glanced uneasily at Dayne and then his ‘shadow’, Dax, but it was as plain as day they were next in line.

She supposed, glumly, that it didn’t really matter. Not that it hadn’t been fun, but she was tired of having fun. The only respite she’d had was that Korin and Enan apparently decided twice a night was enough after they found her hiding in the locker.

She glanced unhappily at Brandy, but when Dayne took her hand, she managed to curl her lips upward in a polite smile and follow him without resistance.

She couldn’t decide why she was so unhappy about it. She didn’t know any of them. They were all the same to her—strangers and aliens—just as she seemed to be to them.

Except not.

She’d grown attached to Korin and Enan, she realized, almost as horrified as she was dismayed about it.

She didn’t know how it could have happened.

She knew them better than any of the others—and still not well at all.

They hadn’t mistreated her—but then none of them had.

They had at least seemed to be kind to her or the animals—she wasn’t sure which, but kind.

She thought.

But they’d treated her as if she wasn’t a person at all.

That was why she was unhappy, she decided. It wasn’t because she’d grown attached.

At least not in a ‘normal’ sense.

She’d thought, hoped, that they were becoming attached to her and that would increase her odds of survival.

And now she knew that was just wishful thinking.

She was just a convenience to them and they enjoyed it, but they could swap her for another and be just as happy about it.

It was a struggle to empty her mind of the thoughts distressing her when they reached the cabin that Dayne and Dax shared, but she made the effort. When Dayne released her hand, she reached for the closure of her suit and focused on removing it since it shielded her expression without her trying to present a false one.

He stilled her movements by settling one hand over hers and then tapped her chin to make her look up at him. “Hab want Bella since first see,” he murmured, touching her face lightly. “Bella no want Dayne, doh?”

Bella blinked at him, trying to decipher what he’d said—which almost sounded like English except mispronounced and so thick with his native accent she couldn’t make sense of it … at first. When she finally gasped it, she felt the color leave her face. Her mouth went dry while she searched frantically for something to say to convince him she really, really wanted to fuck—him.

He shook his head at her. “I did not mean to frighten you, love. I would not harm you.”

After a moment, he led her to his bunk and helped her onto it and then settled beside her and dragged her close to his chest, stroking a hand over her shoulder and arm in a leisurely way. “I have not been near a woman in so long, little Bella, that I could almost convince myself that holding you would be enough.” He paused, thinking—or trying to think of a way to soothe her. “What name Bella home world?”

Bella tipped her head upward to look at him, considering if it was something she should tell him or not.

But then he wouldn’t know it by name anyway, she realized. “Earth.”

“Bella warrior?”

She gaped at him. That was almost laughable. She was barely coordinated enough to walk and talk at the same time. “No. Scientist.”

He frowned and she could see he had no clue of what that was. But she had no idea of how to explain it and she thought he probably wasn’t that interested to start with.

He was just trying to put her at ease.

And it was working, she thought wryly.

Because when he hooked a finger beneath her chin and tipped her face up she parted her lips in anticipation and was rewarded with a kiss that totally bowled her over.

It was gentle and so savoring in nature that it made her feel … adored and desired.

It was a beautiful lie.

She knew it was and she was still captivated by it, felt her heat rise astronomically—from gentle pleasure at being held by him to a state of need.

And when he lifted his head and gazed down at her, she remembered the desire he’d inspired in her the first time when he had looked at her across the table and let her see he wanted her.

She hesitated and then yielded to temptation. Lifting her hand, she touched his cheek with her fingertips, stroked downward to examine his hard jaw and pugnacious chin and then stroked one fingertip down the narrow ridge of his nose. “Who are you, Dayne? Where do you come from?”

He swallowed audibly, parting his lips when she traced them and sucking on the tip of her finger.

Her belly did a slow shimmy.

“Madrone warrior,” he murmured, “of dead world, Eos. Bella’s lover, yes?”

He didn’t wait for it to sink into her fully that he’d understood what she’d asked and answered. He diverted her by rolling so that he was half atop her and exploring the flesh she’d exposed when she’d begun to open her uniform. By the time he’d finished, he had worked the opening all the way to her belly and Bella was ready to remove the rest.

He rolled away when she reached to finish opening the suit and stood beside the bunk to shed his own garments as she stripped hers off.

He was as wondrously built as Korin and Enan, she thought vaguely when she’d discarded her clothing and lifted her head to study him, wondering if it was natural to them or the results of their trade as warriors. She thought it must be both. Making war as they did, with sword and shield, axe and mace, was certainly physically demanding. Years of lifting and swinging them, in practice and in battles, would be bound to develop a heavy musculature.

When he didn’t come to her at once, she reached for his hand and tugged until he placed a knee on the edge of the bunk and moved over her.

She had as much reason to feel afraid with Dayne, she knew, as she’d had with either Torin or Enan and yet, in making her feel special to him, he’d also made her feel trust, feel safe.

It was an illusion, she knew, a beautiful lie, but it was so needed she turned her face away and allowed the belief that it was real to take her to the heights of passion.

In the aftermath, while they caught their breaths, he completed the picture by cuddling her close and lavishing a lover’s caresses upon her.

She sat up when he finally moved away. After a brief hesitation, she leaned down to kiss him lightly on the lips and got up. He caught her hand and carried it to his lips.

“Dax is duo,” he said releasing her hand to press his palms together. “One wid Dayne.”

She studied him in confusion for a moment. “Dayne’s shadow?”

He frowned and finally nodded. “Protect back in battle.”

Enlightenment dawned like a thunderclap. This was why they moved in pairs almost as if they were one entity! They depended on their ‘duo’ to watch their backs—and they watched theirs.

Nodding, she crossed the room and met up with Dax—Dayne’s other half. Slipping her arms around his waist, she leaned in to plant a kiss above his heart.

It seemed to shake him, almost literally. He caught her shoulders, squeezed them, and then planted his hands on either side of her head and urged her to look up at him.

There was something … intoxicating about their kisses she thought dreamily as he carried her to the bunk and showed her paradise as Dayne had.

And Korin and Enan before them.

This wouldn’t be bad, she thought. She could stand it.

She couldn’t get desperately attached to any of them if they were all so willing to share.

* * * *

The common room, apparently, was neutral ground.

Maybe something like purgatory?

After three days with Korin and Enan and then three with Dayne and Dax, Bella discovered they were allowed two days of rest.

She didn’t know who had ordained it, but she was almost delirious with happiness when she finally realized that was what was happening at that point.

Well, actually, she thought at first that they were all tired of her and just ready to take a break and it was entirely possible she was right, but the end result was two days to recover.

In the common room where they had to sleep under guard on the floor.

Bella didn’t know about the others, but she’d never needed the ‘time off’ like she did then.

When she’d bathed and then eaten the morning after their three days, Dayne had pulled her into an embrace, kissed her stupid and handed her over to Dax, who’d repeated the process before he had turned her loose, sent her to stay with the women.

Trying to hide both her embarrassment at the public display and her wooziness from the kisses, Bella looked around a little vaguely and headed toward the wad of women in the far corner of the room. She’d covered perhaps two thirds of the distance when she heard something from behind her that made the hair on her head standup, almost literally.

Whipping around, she discover Korin and Enan faced off with Dayne and Dax—all four of them bristling like cur dogs over a bone.

She gaped at them, too stunned to figure out what might be happening. In a moment, someone grabbed her arm, whipped her around, and force marched her to the group of women. Brandy.

“What happened?” she asked anxiously when Brandy had dragged her to the back and dragged her down on the floor.

“It isn’t what happened. It’s what’s about to, I’m afraid,” Brandy said tightly.

“Oh my god! What’s about to happen?”

Brandy looked at her, hard, but then her expression softened. “Male dominance.”

Bella felt her jaw go slack. She frowned, trying to think up a scenario that made sense, but nothing came to her. “Practice?” she asked finally.

Brandy patted her hand in an almost motherly way. Or maybe like someone trying to soothe a person with mental disabilities? “Probably.”

Bella was still dismayed.

“I’m sure that’s all it is. Don’t worry about it. Not our problem.”

Bella thought it over, but she couldn’t dismiss the fear that something ugly was about to happen. Or the feeling that she had to do something to avert it. It was probably crazy—well, she was sure it was—she thought when the idea popped into her mind, but she couldn’t think of any other safe distraction.

Or actually any other song to ‘soothe the savage beast’, but she knew it could soothe—even plants.

“Oooh say can you seeeee ….” Her voice echoed across the vast room and it disconcerted her so much, she lost her nerve. But it left absolute silence in its wake.

“By the dawn’s early light,” Brandy sang to encourage her.

Several other women began to pick up the lines of the song and in a few minutes all of them so that the cavernous room filled with the sound of freedom, of triumph over tyranny.

Bella got goose bumps.

“That’s it!” Brandy gasped with excitement when the song died away. “Our culture. No one knows our culture—our songs, our vids, our plays. Our code of conduct.”

Bella stared at her blankly for several moments, turning that over in her head, but she saw it had some potential. “I think we’ll need to stick to the stuff we memorized on the trip out,” she murmured. “Otherwise, there’s so much it might be hard to get on the same page.”

Brandy shrugged. “It’s something to work with and right now we’ve got nothing.”

That was so true Bella felt her spirits plummet. “I think,” she said hesitantly, “this whole thing has just … turned my mind, Brandy.”

Brandy sent her a look of alarm. “We can talk about it when we meet in the shower,” she said warningly. “Can it wait that long?”

Bella nodded. It was enough to know she had someone to discuss it with, to help her decide if she really was going off the deep end.

Chapter Ten

On some level, Torin was aware that his rage was way out of proportion to what he had seen, that it was unreasonable, and that a confrontation was liable to get everyone involved killed. His attempts to regain control as he stalked across the room to confront Dayne fell by the wayside, though.

Partly because Enan was way more outraged than he was, or at least as infuriated, and tried to outrun him to get to Dayne and Dax first when it was his job to be peace maker.

The problem with being in a rage, however, was that it reduced intelligence to a level where communication was almost impossible.

“I will throttle you both if I see you kiss her like that again,” Enan growled before Torin could formulate a threat—that would be an acceptable challenge without alerting everyone to the fact that he was blazing mad because Dayne and Dax had had the unmitigated gall to slobber all over Bella right in front of him.

As if she was their woman when they had all agreed that none could claim a woman strictly for themselves. That would mean some were completely deprived of the succor of a woman and that way led to disaster.

“We are sharing … for the good of all,” Torin growled, “and your time with her was up when you brought her back.”

Dayne studied him for a moment. “I do not recall that a specific time and place were discussed at all.”

Torin grabbed him by the throat, intent on squeezing the life out of him.

Then he heard a voice.

A woman’s voice.

Singing.

It brought him to a sense of his surroundings and he released his grip on Dayne and looked around for the source. By that time, however, it seemed most of the women had joined the first.

And the translator was … completely confused, producing what sounded like random, senseless verbiage.

“At … early morning hail was seen in the sky. Proud they were that it still hailed after long night … Bombs and rockets exploded red and glared at them ….”

Korin turned the communicator off. He did not particularly care what they were saying. He liked the sound of their voices.

It was a ritual of some sort, he decided when his anger had faded enough to allow more rational thought.

Spiritual, he surmised.

Because the sound of it lifted his spirits and he thought that must be the purpose of it.

He turned to glare at Dayne again when they grew silent. “We will discuss this further when we meet on the next mock battle day.”

Dayne’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. I am ready. I will win first time with her,” he growled.

“You made her unhappy,” Dax growled. “And that was uncalled for!”

Dayne grasped his duo’s arm and led him away before he said anything else that might provoke an unsanctioned fight.

Rage flared in Korin again at that accusation, but that time Enan had the forethought to grab his arm and bring him down. Korin met his gaze and then glanced at the women, seeking her out.

Bella.

His Bella, by the gods!

Disappointment filled him when he could not see her for the others between them. The impulse clawed at him to stride over and demand to know what he had done that had made her unhappy, but he wrestled the urge and finally turned away.

“Lying bastards,” Enan growled through his teeth. “If she was unhappy, it was because we gave her to Dayne and Dax. It was nothing we did.”

Korin felt a coldness wash over him at that comment, but he resolutely dismissed it.

* * * *

Instead of getting under the showerheads to bathe the following day, Brandy led Bella to a corner on the other side and settled with her on the floor.

Bella looked around curiously, wondering why Brandy had been so specific about the spot.

“We’re out of camera range here,” Brandy said as if she’d read her mind.

Bella’s heart flipped out and she whipped a look up. There was a camera, she discovered, in one corner aimed at the double row of showerheads, but she thought Brandy was right. The angle looked like it would miss them in the corner on the same side of the room as the camera.

“Those bastards!” Bella growled.

Brandy shrugged. “This was the men’s shower before we were allowed to use it and the camera was already there. Who knows if its monitored by anyone but the computer.”

All true, Bella was obliged to admit. And she still didn’t like it.

“What was it you were worried about yesterday?”

Bella chewed her lip, discovering she actually didn’t feel like talking about it … now.

“Whatever it is,” Brandy said pointedly, “I’m not judging, ok? I just wanted to offer a shoulder if it was something you felt compelled to talk about.”

Bella covered her face. “I’m … just so confused.”

“About the situation? We all are, I guarantee.”

Bella dropped her hands to her lap and shrugged. “There is that. It’s … hard to explain.”

“We have a few minutes. Collect your thoughts, ok?”

The problem was, she couldn’t make any sense of any of her thoughts and that was what was bothering her. “I wasn’t sure I could do what you said, you know. It sounded like good reasoning and I wanted to try, but I just didn’t think I really could. I was scared when they took me off because I was sure I knew why. And I was right.”

Brandy nodded when she stopped. “I was pretty scared myself if you want the truth of it.”

Surprise flickered through Bella. Brandy seemed so cool under pressure, so calm, it would never have occurred to her to think Brandy was afraid of anything … unlike lesser mortals like her. “Yeah … but the thing is …. Well that only lasted until he, uh Torin, kissed me and … I swear to god I just totally lost my mind. I never felt anything like it.”

“Well … that’s a good thing isn’t it?” Brandy said neutrally.

Bella chewed her lip. “Uh … I thought so … just at first. But then Enan kissed me and I was just as excited about that.”

“Oh.” Brandy frowned, clearly thinking it over.

“Then I got traded off, you know, and it hurt my feelings so bad. I don’t even know why it did. I mean, I expected it. There aren’t nearly as many of us as there are of them and, well, I think even if there had been they would have done that.”

“Probably.”

“Actually I do know why it upset me—and that’s the crazy part. Well some of it. I’d gotten this stupid idea, though, that … well, that Torin and Enan really liked me, that it wasn’t just the sex.”

“Ah! Well, I’m not going to say I felt the same way, because I don’t know how you felt, but I sure as hell felt stepped on.”

“You did?” Bella asked, surprised.

Brandy nodded, frowning. “I think at least part of it—my feelings—was disappointment because as stupid as I knew it was, I was hopeful they would get to be fond …. It’s not that I am generally dependent on anybody else to take care of me, you know? But in the circumstances, I feel … inadequate.”

Bella was thoughtful. “I guess that was part of it for me, too.” She was silent a moment. “What really threw me for a loop, though, was that five minutes after I got to Dayne and Dax’s cabin, they’d convinced me I was desperate for them. There’s something about the way they kiss …. Well, not the way. It’s pretty much like any kiss I ever had in … uh … execution. It’s just … like a fever when they do.”

“Yeah … been there,” Brandy muttered. “Wait! There was this mating study done on humans a long time ago and they determined that there was something addictive in the male saliva—addictive for women. They decided that was how men made women dependent on them. Maybe these guys have something similar, but way more potent? Or maybe it’s more potent because they’re fucking monsters? I don’t know about you, but it definitely makes me feel better to think it could be something like that because I was really starting to worry that I was a slut and didn’t know it.”

It did make Bella feel better, a lot better—for about five seconds. “But if you’re right, where does that leave us?”

“In love with however many of them get a shot at us,” Brandy said dryly. “Brainless when we need our brains.” She looked at Bella. “Maybe not that bad. At least we can enjoy being their sex slaves.”

Bella smiled with an effort. “At least if I’m crazy I’m not alone. I still don’t know how to handle my emotions, but it’s not really real, is it?”

Brandy wrestled with that. “It’s as real as your brain tells you it is. Not saying it won’t go away just as fast—I don’t know. And I don’t really think it’s anything they, the alien men, have any control over anymore than it is with our guys. But I think knowing you’re chemically addicted to men who hold your life in their hands is going to make our lives more difficult. Because it’ll make us want to give up and give in and I don’t think that would be the best thing for us.

“And on that note …. I’m going to have to do some reconnoitering before we can even try to come up with a plan.”

“Oh my god!” Bella gasped, instantly diverted from her personal woes. “What if you’re caught?”

Brandy’s lips flattened. “I’d rather not think about that, thank you. Someone needs to go and get eyes on, though, or there’s no way to plan anything. We don’t know what condition the ship is in. We don’t know where our weapons are. And then we don’t know shit about this alien ship or the aliens in it. The giants we can maybe figure out since we’re sleeping with them … sort of. The lizards … well I don’t really want to get close to those bastards, but I have to learn what I can about the enemy.”

“But … why you? We’re going to need you if we try anything.”

Brandy studied her. “This is why I’m discussing it with you, Bella. If anything happens to me, the others will need a leader.”

Bella felt like a giant hand had curled around her throat. “Oh Brandy! Don’t talk like that! I’m the last person you should consider anyway.”

“No, you’re the best. You were willing to risk your life to help Terry even though I know you don’t even like her. The only person fit to lead is one that will put all of the lives of the others ahead of their own and do their best for the good of the many.”

“Let me go, then,” Bella said firmly.

“Do you know where the cameras are?”

Bella gaped at her because she hadn’t even noticed the damned camera in the shower until Brandy had pointed it out. “You’re saying you do?”

“Maybe not all, but a good many. Anyway, I’m going to need you to try to distract our guards so that I can slip out and, if I make it back, to distract them so I can get back in. It’s pretty critical to anything we might think of that the aliens don’t know what we’re up to or what we know.”

Bella still didn’t like it but she realized getting Brandy in and out would be critical to any kind of plan they came up with beyond collecting the Intel. She swallowed with an effort and nodded. “I’ll do my best. I hope you know this gives me diarrhea just thinking about it.”

Brandy chuckled. “Good! I knew you would. And don’t worry too much about getting attached to the big lugs, ok? I think mental health wise, you’ll be better off to get attached. And actually they discovered years ago that it was ‘natural’ for people to grow attached to their captors as part of the survival instincts. Right now, it’s probably for the best. Later—we’ll work on therapy to get detached, ok?”

* * * *

Torin did not sleep worth a fuck after his unpleasant encounter with Dayne and Dax. He told himself that it had nothing to do with that or with Bella. What really disturbed him was the sense that he and his men were unraveling. Given the years in service to the bastards of the Delizo Empire, it seemed almost as if it was overdue, but he could hardly dismiss it whatever the cause. The men were his responsibility. Their health, mental and physical, was his responsibility.

If he had made a poor decision that was going to lead to getting them killed ….

He spent most of his waking hours trying to second guess himself, to turn the situation and twist it in search of a decision he could have made that would have been better, but nothing came to him.

The hard truth was that his men had been on the verge of cracking from the strain from the moment they’d been torn from their home world. They had done their best to convince themselves that they were merely warriors and they were still expected to perform as warriors even if it was not for the people. And it should not matter who they fought for.

But it did.

Nor could they truly say that, in essence, they were still fighting for their people since the delizo had made it clear their lives depended upon their service.

Because he was convinced they, none of them, had ever truly believed that was true and the longer they were captives enslaved to fight for the delizo, the more certain they were that they were fighting for nothing. Their people and their world were long dead.

It was the women, he decided finally, because he could not prevent his mind from wandering to Bella over and over no matter how hard he tried.

It was the first taste of something that felt like life—that felt like living instead of simply existing.

It was the first vision of the possibility of a future they had long ago accepted, deep down, that was beyond their reach forever.

He had told himself they were not mates.

He had told his men they were not mates.

But he could not slake his thirst for Bella because that was not what he hungered for—the sex alone—and he was as certain as he could be that the same could be said for all the others.

Their time had come. They wanted the mates they would have been able to expect if they had not been torn from their home world.

He had seen the thinly veiled hostility between them.

This was not the actions of men squabbling over a woman’s favors.

If that was all that it was, there would be no reason to feel any threat from the other men at all. In time, they were all to sup from the table and they knew it.

The problem was, they wanted the table.

They didn’t want to fucking share.

He had lied to himself when he had told himself that were not madrone women and therefore they could not be considered as mates even if Jud was kind enough to allow it—which of course, the bastard was not.

The problem with acknowledging all of that was that it really changed nothing. They were slaves of the delizo and the women were the war prizes of the delizo. They could decide nothing. Jud would decide—had decided.

He was going to sell the women at the slave market and there was not a fucking thing he could do about it.

Any attempt on their part to take the ship and the women would have only one result that he could see. The delizo would either render them unconscious with the slave collars and slay them while they lay helpless and senseless.

Or they would use the collars to blow their heads off—in which case, instant peace—but the women would be completely at the mercy of the delizo—and those bastards had none.

* * * *

Bella couldn’t say that her discussion with Brandy really helped a lot. It did help to put her ‘romantic’ situation into perspective which, unfortunately, didn’t particularly help her feelings on the subject. On the other hand, it pretty much put it out of the realms of possibility, diverting her from ‘unhappy’ to scared shitless.

She wanted to escape.

Maybe a little less than she had before she’d turned soft in the head about her fuck buddies, but still ….

And she wasn’t stupid enough or naïve enough to think that achieving freedom wouldn’t put them at risk.

But there was a chasm of difference between thought and deed, between general and specific—between thoughts of ‘someone’ taking risks and considering jumping in the fire herself.

She was convinced that Brandy was badly mistaken in her assessment of her. She wasn’t leader material. She wasn’t bold.

She was cautious.

She wasn’t fearless.

She was … ok, a coward.

She pushed all of those doubts back, repeatedly, trying to shore up her courage, but they kept returning to plague her.

Truthfully, she knew Brandy was one hundred percent right about reconnaissance. They couldn’t do a damned thing until and unless they knew where all the chess pieces were on the board.

And she really didn’t think it was anything she could do even to save her own life.

But what if Brandy didn’t find out what they needed to know? Didn’t make it back? What the hell was she supposed to do then?

Go to plan B?

There was no plan B!

The guys had snatched that right out from under them when it had been plan A.

That was at least part of her unhappiness about it, she told herself. She hadn’t expected the men to find her irresistible. She hadn’t thought they would fall for her even a little. It was the total collapse of their first plan that really upset her.

Because she knew she couldn’t possibly be falling for them anymore than they were her. Why would she? Because she felt like crying for them because Dayne had told her their world was dead? Because they had all but told her straight out that they were slaves?

Just because they were staggeringly, amazingly well built? Handsome? Intelligent? Gentle? And at least seemed kind hearted?

That was just plain stupid—because, she was sure, she’d invented all of it and they were none of those things.

Chapter Eleven

If anything, the next battle practice session the men conducted was more unnerving than the first. As determined as everyone was to pretend they weren’t rattled by the sheer ferocity of the mock fights, they inched a little further from the fight and a little closer to the other women until they’d formed a fairly tightly packed, unwilling audience in the far corner of the room.

Bella made her way to Brandy before she settled uneasily, struggling with the urge to watch and pretend she wasn’t bothered by it and the desire to close her eyes and cover her ears. “I’m never going to get used to this,” she muttered. “It seems … way more violent than it was the first few times.”

“Because it is,” Brandy agreed. “I don’t think it’s your imagination. Granted, when it looked like Torin and Dayne would come to blows that day Dayne kissed you, I thought I had to be wrong about it—especially after the conversation you and I had afterward. Now, I’m not so sure. This really feels like they really want to hurt one another.”

Bella whipped a look of surprise at her. “What are you talking about?”

“The day we ended up singing the national anthem because it looked like there was going to be all out war?”

Bella stared at her. “How the hell did I miss that?”

“Damned if I know. Dayne brought you back after his fuck session, kissed you, and Torin lost his mind. That’s why I rushed over to grab you and remove you from harm’s way. But then it wasn’t just those four that faced off. There were … rumblings all over the place. Then you started singing and it just … Well it seemed like it broke some kind of evil spell. They all stopped and looked around and then they walked away from each other. I’m thinking they suddenly remembered they were on camera.”

Bella frowned, trying to cast her mind back and capture the memory, but all she could remember was hearing something behind her after she left Dayne and Dax and then Brandy had rushed over and walked her to the back corner.

She did recall there’d been angry sounding voices, but she hadn’t actually seen anything. She’d reacted to the anger she could ‘feel’ when she’d started singing.

“What do you think they were … arguing about?”

Brandy shook her head. “No clue, really. At the time I thought Torin had gotten angry because Dayne kissed you, but that doesn’t really make any sense when Torin is the one that handed you over to Dayne. So … I don’t know. And I have no idea why they seem … so intent on killing each other today. We haven’t known them that long. Maybe they’ve gotten their period?”

Bella’s eyes widened at that. “Oh my god!”

Brandy frowned. “Men do have ‘spells’ even if it isn’t their period.”

“No! My period! I think I should have had one by now—or it’s coming up. I’m not sure. What day is it? Do you know? Maybe that was why I was upset last week? My cycle. And I don’t have any extra period panties for it, damn it!”

“Uh oh,” Brandy murmured. “That had totally slipped my fucking mind! I can’t believe I forgot! Just because we got captured and hauled off to space by aliens! If it’s coming up, then we could be in the fertile zone. Shit!”

“Oh my god! Could this get any worse?” Bella muttered, trying to wrap her head around the possibility, trying to convince herself there was no possibility. “Maybe we’re ok, you know? We’ve been under a lot of stress. Mine’s late when I have a lot of stress. Sometimes I skip it altogether.”

Brandy swallowed a little sickly. “Maybe, but we can’t count on it. And we’re probably all synced up in our cycles like we were about halfway into the trip. I think we’re going to have to figure it’s possible even if it isn’t likely. Because we aren’t going to have much time to do anything at all if it’s true.”

Despite her own uneasiness, Bella shook her head. “I think it’s another factor that has to be considered, but it doesn’t make the situation more urgent, really, than it already was. If it’s even possible they could knock us up. Because the longer we’re on this damn ship, the further we are from our planet and the slimmer our chances of making it back, I think.”

“True,” Brandy agreed, trying to fight down the sense of drowning that had swept over her. “Looking at it like that doesn’t help my feelings worth a fuck, mind you. I’ve been trying really hard to focus on one thing at the time. But you’re right. It’s just one more nail in the coffin, so to speak. A problem we don’t actually have yet. Maybe we’ll be lucky and hit the peak fertility on our free days? Or … maybe we could convince them to pull out before they cum?”

It was a thought, but Bella discovered that was a resounding no.

She was lucky she even managed to round the thought up, in point of fact, because the minute the guys finished trying to kill each other, they charged the women with bellows of triumph that scared the pure pee out of most of them—almost literally.

Unfortunately, they’d gathered into such a tight pack that even though they leapt to their feet, screamed, and ran like hell they didn’t cover much ground before the triumphant warriors swept them up, slung them over one hard shoulder and made off with them like the barbarians they were.

Bella had completely forgotten the pregnancy issue until Torin strode into their cabin, allowed her to slide toward the floor just far enough to give him the access to her he wanted and then pinned her between himself and the wall and planted his mouth over hers.

Familiarity, she discovered without a lot of surprise, had not bred contempt. If anything, his kiss seemed more potent than it had before, more intoxicating, heart revving, and combustible. By the time he broke the kiss and charted new territory across her cheek to her ear, she’d completely lost her train of thought. Thankfully, when he plugged his tongue in her ear it prompted the resurrection.

“Torin!” she gasped. “I think … uh … I think I’m fertile. If you cum inside me, we could make a baby.”

She thought, at first, that he hadn’t heard or hadn’t understood if he had, but in a moment he lifted his head and met her gaze with a heated, heavy lidded look.

It threw Torin for a handful of seconds. How could she not be sure? Why would she think he could not tell?

“Yes, dis I know,” he murmured raggedly, focusing almost immediately on ‘unveiling’ her.

Relieved that she’d managed the warning and he’d apparently understood, Bella decided to help by trying to strip him while he was undressing her.

It was only successful in the sense that she convinced him to wait until he’d stripped himself before he commenced to trying to mount her on his hood ornament. By the time he managed it, Bella had forgotten all about the ‘danger’ of getting pregnant. All she could really focus on was achieving a deep connection with him and once they had managed it, to focus on the amazing feel of his body against hers and moving inside of her.

Despite the desperation both of them felt, they managed to draw the pleasure out enough to be thoroughly exhausted by the time they hit paradise.

Weak in the aftermath, Bella slumped against Torin, thinking Brandy was right. If it felt this good, why agonize over it? She should just thank her lucky stars that it was as far from horrible as it could get.

There was still that tiny bit of unhappiness that it felt … or made her feel like a bonding when it wasn’t, but she struggled to feel philosophical about it when Torin withdrew his flesh from hers and set her on her feet.

She released him and stepped away, turning toward Enan.

To her surprise, Torin caught her waist with one hand and guided her to his bunk. She looked at him questioningly. He answered by dragging her down onto the surface. “Stay wid me, Bella,” he murmured, tucking her against his side and stroking her arm and back.

Bella relaxed against him, confused and surprised, but feeling tentatively happy that he hadn’t immediately discarded her.

Well, at first. By the time they’d spent most of three days in the bed screwing Bella was beginning to be pretty desperate to end the session—regardless of how charmed she was when Torin called her ‘my Bella’ or ‘my woman’. She’d cum until she was raw and he’d cum until her damned eyeballs were floating.

Every time he walked her down to the gathering room to bathe and or take care of her needs—like eating—she was hopeful she could avoid sex for an hour or so, but except for brief respites, he …. Well, he was clearly working on making a fucking baby, she thought with some dudgeon.

How he could have gotten it so completely backwards was beyond her, but there didn’t seem much point in trying to explain to him that she’d been hoping to avoid making one.

In the first place, he was way too damned enthusiastic about it for her to feel like he would take it well to be told she was not in a place to welcome a pregnancy—even if he hadn’t been an alien.

In the second, it seemed to her that it was too late to worry about any kind of precautions. If it didn’t take, she would at least know it wasn’t something she needed to worry about.

“Well thank god we realized we could be mid-cycle and fertile,” Bella said to Brandy when she finally got turned loose and managed to wobble over to where Brandy was sitting.

Brandy looked over at her vaguely, clearly too exhausted to make sense of the sarcasm in Bella’s voice at first.

She frowned after a moment. “You remembered to warn him?”

“Yeah. But apparently he thought I meant I wanted to get screwed to death on the off chance he could knock me up.”

Brandy nodded. “Well—I forgot, but it doesn’t sound like it would have made any difference. I think, maybe, they were just all stirred up because of the mock battle they had before.”

“You think?” Bella asked doubtfully. “Enan fought, too. Why didn’t he get to fuck?”

Brandy thought that over. “Damned if I know. Do you think it’ll be the same when we get picked up by the next—whoever gets next?”

“I guess we’ll find out pretty quickly. God knows they wouldn’t want to give us enough down time to get spoiled!”

It transpired that she was wrong, but it wasn’t something she could feel good about. In point of fact, she felt horrible and guilty, as if she was personally responsible.

A group of lizard men invaded just as they had finished the morning meal and the ‘changing of the guard’. He began to call out names—although Bella didn’t realize that was what he was saying until she heard him call Torin’s name.

Well, clearly that wasn’t all that was said because the men looked so stony faced—and pale—she could tell the lizard bastard had said something deeply disturbing to them. And then he’d called out a list names and maybe a quarter of the men in the room, white faced and grim, lined up and marched out.

Bella felt panicked. Fear rose in her that was so profound she thought she might puke. “What’s happening?” she gasped as the horrifying thought rose in her mind that they were going to be executed.

Nobody knew, of course, but in a few moments Enan came to collect her. Helping her to her feet, he led her back to the cabin he shared with Torin.

“What’s happening?”

He shook his head, refusing to respond until they were inside. Once there, he reached up and turned off his communicator and then pulled it off of his head and tossed it aside. Bella grasped his hand, squeezing it. “What are they going to do to him?”

He merely stared at her without answering and she snatched the communicator up and shook it at him. “I need to know!”

His lips tightened. “You no know when I tell,” he growled. Pulling at the neck of his uniform he exposed the slave collar he war. “Control. Punish.”

Bella swallowed against the hard knot of misery that had risen in her throat. “They’re going to hurt him? Why? What did he do wrong? I don’t understand.”

“Try to protect Ert womens from delizo.”

Guilt swamped her. “Will they … kill him?”

He shook his head. “Make wish dead.”

That was so horrible Bella felt like she would burst into tears for several moments. It didn’t occur to her that it might be an exaggeration.

Well, it did, but she dismissed it because she’d already seen what cold blooded bastards the lizard men were.

To her relief and gratitude—since she couldn’t help but feel guilty and felt like he blamed her for it—Enan gathered her close and, then led her to his bunk and settled beside her, just holding her.

She didn’t object. It comforted her—enough that exhaustion finally took over and she fell asleep. She roused a little later when Enan peeled her lose and got up. She looked up at him sleepily.

“Stay beloved. Safe here.”

Smiling faintly at the endearment, she fell asleep again.

Someone entering the cabin woke her a little later and she sat up when she discovered it was Enan—half carrying Torin. Horror filled her. She leapt from the bed and flew across the room to help.

Both of them looked at her uncomprehendingly when she wrapped an arm around Torin’s waist and then Enan pointed at his bunk imperiously. “Sit dere!”

She might have ignored him except Torin peeled her lose and gave her a push in that direction.

Feeling stepped on, she complied, nursing her hurt feelings about being summarily dismissed until Enan managed to get Torin in his bunk. When he had helped Torin to stretch out, he settled on his knees beside the bunk and then examined him with his hands. When he had done that, he settled his palms on either side of Torin’s head and seemed to press.

Torin groaned, turned a greenish hue.

Expecting him to puke, Bella leapt from the bunk to search for something to catch it. By the time she had to acknowledge there was nothing, though, she discovered his complexion was more normal and even the grayish tinge from intense pain had left him.

Enan looked like—like Torin had when he’d first come in—his skin grayish with pain and faintly green from nausea. Then, slowly, his complexion cleared and the pain seemed to leave him.

Bella was perplexed … and shocked.

Something had happened. She just wasn’t sure of what that was.

In seemed indisputable that Enan had, somehow, taken the bulk of the pain from Torin and … banished it.

It occurred to her after a few moments that she’d seen some kind of ‘alien power’ displayed that she hadn’t been aware existed before.

Because it was the first time she’d seen Torin brought low.

Almost more puzzling, she didn’t see a sign of any kind of injury—no outward sign, anyway. She realized, though, that his symptoms almost looked like the effects of a concussion.

What in the hell had the bastards done to him?

After a prolonged hesitation, she approached Torin, stared down at his closed eyes for several moments and finally sat on the edge of his bunk and placed her hand over his.

He opened his eyes, then, making it clear he hadn’t been asleep as she’d thought.

After studying her for a long moment, he turned his hand over, grasped hers and tugged. “Come, Bella.”

She didn’t think he was in any condition to fuck. “I think you should wait on that.”

Surprise flickered in his eyes and then he chuckled and then he winced in pain. “Take sympathy. Not that I would mind, beloved, but I think my balls would only cough up dust at this point.”

Enan uttered a surprised laugh. “You would be lucky if you were not coughing up blood, brother. You fucked for three days straight and you have not had anyone but your hand for company for far too long.”

Torin felt his face heat. He had not had a woman—at all—and Enan certainly knew that if no one else did.

But then again, probably half or more of the men were in the same position as he was—had been taken from the home world before they had participated in his first mating heat.

Not that he was totally ignorant. He was simply not experienced having focused his entire energy on making war until it was too late to turn his interest to the females.

He had not known what he was missing, he thought wryly as he tugged Bella closer and settled her beside him on the bunk.

They came for Enan the following day—while the first quarter of the men were still so ill from whatever it was that had been done to them that their pretense of being fine made the women want to cry.

“Well, I feel like a total bitch to take advantage,” Brandy told Bella when they went into the shower room, “But I think this is going to be my best and safest chance to find out what I can.”

“No. You’re right. Just be careful. Do you want me to cause a distraction?”

Brandy shook her head. “Let’s save that in case of need later. Right now, I think the poor things are too sick to pay much attention.”

It transpired that she did need a diversion, although she wasn’t aware of it at the time. She managed to sneak out without being noticed, but ‘her man’ noticed when he finally managed to look around for her and didn’t see her.

Brandy didn’t think any kind of noise, even singing, maybe especially that, would be a good distraction when the men seemed so sick and hurt, but she urged Torin up and started back toward the cabin with him and enough other women followed suit that they managed to create enough of a distraction long enough for Brandy to slip back in.

One look at her was enough to send Bella into heart palpitations, but she discovered she had to wait for the news Brandy was bursting with.

Chapter Twelve

“I didn’t dare take many. I was afraid it would be noticed. But I got enough for everybody in the colony security detail,” Brandy said in a voice barely above a whisper, holding out a weapon for Bella.

Bella took it, but she was unnerved. “Hide it? Or carry it?”

“Wear it. They haven’t frisked us so far so I don’t think they will. It seems a safe enough bet that they won’t. And the guns aren’t going to do us any damned good if we can’t get to them when we need them. You’ll have to find a good spot for it when you’re on sex detail, but keep it close. I have a sense we’re coming down to the wire. Didn’t catch anything specific … unfortunately.”

Bella bent down and shoved the firearm into the top of her boot. The ceramic the weapon was made of was freezing cold against her calf and, despite the give the boot material had, it was bruising.

Better a little discomfort, though, than to be helpless.

Nodding, she left the ‘safe zone’ and headed to the shower, tapping the next woman as she went by her.

The last to get a weapon.

Brandy had made it back with an even dozen.

That wasn’t much firepower considering what they were up against, but they were at least capable of multiple shots and Brandy knew where all of the weapons were being kept. She thought it might be enough firepower to get them to the main cache.

In any case, they were pretty much all in agreement that their best chance was something subtle.

And they hadn’t worked up a plan yet, anyway.

Depending upon what they came up with, maybe they’d make another excursion to arm more of the colonists.

The ship, Brandy had determined, was pretty much intact. At least, none of the critical systems had been tampered with. All of the cargo had been removed and all of the supplies.

So some good news and some bad.

They couldn’t take off even if they could get away with no supplies. They’d die, most likely, before they could find their way back to the planet they’d been trying to colonize.

Bella had totally lost all sense of time since they’d been taken, but she was pretty convinced they’d been in space at least a couple of weeks. They had no clue of how fast the alien ship was capable of moving, of course, but she had a bad feeling it was way faster than theirs. They could be months or even years, or decades, from where they’d been.

And beyond that, they were going to have to figure out some way to keep the lizards from capturing them again.

And that was going to take more reconnaissance than they’d figured on.

The lizard bastards had made the rounds of torturing all of the giants—or madrone as they called themselves. And all of them had been so ill from it afterwards that they were next door to bedridden for days. The first to go had only begun to show signs of recovery when the last were sent.

It had given Brandy an opening for several reconnaissance missions, which they desperately needed and couldn’t help but be glad for, but Bella, for one, still felt horrible about it.

Then, in their last attempt at surveillance, Brandy, who’d taken Cory to try to cover more ground, made a discovery that was so horrific it put Bella’s guilt firmly in the background of her mind.

The lizards were making slave collars for them like the ones the madrone warriors wore.

“If they get those on us, I don’t think we’ll have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting out of this. They must be close to the slave market, I guess, since they haven’t done it before,” Brandy said grimly. “And, if I’m right, we wouldn’t have time to fight our way out of that before we get there.”

Bella gaped at her in horror, too shocked about the ‘double whammy’ to know which caused her more heart palpitations. She supposed she should have figured out they were going to be sold as slaves, but she hadn’t. And it seemed surreal that they would even feel the need to put slave collars on them.

She’d been furious and horrified when she’d finally discovered that the warriors were forced to wear them but, after all, they were capable of taking the lizards apart. The women were next door to completely helpless without weapons. Not that they hadn’t all had hand-to-hand combat training. They had and some of the moves were clever enough they could overcome a man even without a man’s strength—but a man could still overcome them by sheer force if they managed to get hold of them.

Eventually, her thoughts made the rounds and came back to the madrone warriors. “But … if we launch an attack, won’t they attack the warriors? I mean, they’re slaves, too. Don’t you think they’d think it was a slave uprising and want to take out the big guys while they could?”

Brandy stared at her, her lips tight. “I don’t know,” she said finally, but she was clearly angry that Bella had thought that up and said anything about it.

It transpired that they didn’t have a long time to consider it or worry about it. Everyone, including Brandy, had hoped that she was wrong because weeks sounded like a very short journey to get from one star system to another. And they knew there was nothing habitable in the entire solar system they’d chosen beyond the target planet so any kind of slave market would have to be at least another star system away and maybe further.

But the madrone had barely recovered enough to resume the trade off of the pussy when they were interrupted by the arrival of what looked like a whole platoon of lizard soldiers who commanded the madrone to one side of the great room and the women to the other.

Brandy and Bella exchanged a long, terrified look.

At least Bella was terrified, because she knew they’d come to the moment of truth when they had barely skimmed over the basics of a plan of action. They knew they had to break free and get to the hold where their ship was. They had to hold off the enemy while they loaded the ship and they had to somehow disable the lizards’ ship to make their getaway. But they hadn’t settled on concrete, specific ways to achieve each objective.

Maybe half.

It was now or never, though.

Telling herself that, whatever happened, however uncertain they were, it was better to try than to accept becoming a slave to aliens on an alien world, Bella braced herself, trying to mentally prepare for action.

That was a battle in and of itself. Her heart was thundering in her ears. Her lungs were laboring so hard for air, she began to think she might just pass out.

And then two lizard men stepped forward and grabbed her.

A strange sense of calm fell over her in that moment—shock, she supposed—because she abruptly felt distanced from everything around her.

As the lizard men marched her across to a third man who was holding a slave collar, her mind manufactured a strategy scenario and when the two marching her forward stopped, she executed it.

Perfectly.

She used the hold of her captors, bent her knees slightly, and then leapt upward in a jump kick, extending her right leg out and up until the toe of her boot connected with his surprise slackened lower jaw. The blow snapped his head straight back, pinched the nerves in his spine, and caused instantaneous blackout. Her captors’ surprise was such that they slackened their grip and Bella used her full weight to break their grip and fall to the floor.

She heard a male voice bellow ‘no!’ but she couldn’t allow herself to be distracted. Even as she fell toward the floor, she reached for the weapon in her boot.

* * * *

Torin moved back as he was ordered to but ignored the command to leave, very much fearing he knew what the delizo had in mind.

But as certain as he was, rage and terror filled him when he saw what they had brought—slave collars for the women—and worse, the men went directly to Bella and grabbed her.

And he was frozen as he watched helplessly, struggling to formulate a plan—something, anything he could think to do to protect her.

It was not until he finally ceased to stare at the enemy and transferred his gaze to Bella that he realized Bella meant to act to save herself, that she would try, and fail—because she was surrounded by the bastards.

“No!” he bellowed even as he watched with a mixture of surprise, horror, and admiration as she leapt straight up into the air and slammed her boot into the chin of the delizo in front of her.

Certain they would kill her for her defiance, he launched himself into a run to reach her before they could. He grabbed Bella as he reached her and swung her around behind him with one arm and slung the fist of his free hand into face of the delizo beside her that had grabbed his weapon.

By that time, however, the entire room had erupted into chaos and it was impossible to keep up with the whirl of motion. He felt the impact of his fist and tried to twist toward the second man. But the second delizo grabbed his collar even as he turned and snapped it off of his neck in an attempt to set it off.

Expecting momentarily to be rendered unconscious or to feel his head fly apart, Torin tried to toss Bella out of harm’s way.

Even as it dawned on him, however, that his collar had failed, he heard an explosion and the delizo who’d torn his collar off flew backwards.

They’d deactivated the collars, Torin realized abruptly, to prevent accidentally triggering one during the operation to install them on the women.

Not for a moment did he think it was just some kind of fluke that the thing had failed to discharge.

“Break the collars!” he bellowed at his men. “Now! Before they can turn them on and turn them against us!”

Relieved to see the men already had when they’d seen his didn’t explode or that they were in the process, he turned to look for Bella.

He discovered then that the women had drawn weapons—from somewhere—and had chased the remaining delizo toward the door, firing on them.

Someone picked up the box of collars and hurled them after the delizo.

His men pitched their own in that direction when they’d removed them.

Some never even hit the floor before they went off, but there was a small pile near the door where the exiting delizo had bottlenecked trying to escape and that pile exploded abruptly, creating a debris field of delizo body parts, blowing out a portion of the inner wall and the floor.

More than half expecting the ship to implode even though the damage was to the inner wall and not the outer hull, Torin nevertheless raced to gather his weapons. By the time he and his men had, the majority of the women had already disappeared out the door.

He checked, briefly, wrestling with the desire to follow them and the need to avenge his people. After that short hesitation, however, he turned and led the men toward the bridge of the craft, intent upon ridding the universe, or at least their ship, of the last of the delizo.

* * * *

Brandy, in the lead, headed toward the bowels of the ship where their own ship lay, but as soon as she reached the hold, she veered off toward the storage area where she’d found their weapons and everything else they had brought with them.

She lost maybe half the women between the hold and the storage room.

“What the hell?”

“Don’t just stand there!” Bella bellowed. “Grab our stuff and get it loaded.”

“But … they’ll be right behind us!” someone in the crowd yelled.

“The damn ship is empty! Comprehend?” Brandy growled. “Grab more weapons and line up to defend our ship! Everyone else, load!”

They had to drive the women out of the ship that had rushed into it to hide.

“I don’t care how much you want to cower here and hide, it isn’t going to work!” Bella growled when she arrived to discover Brandy was still trying to get the hiders out to help defend the ship and reload it.

It angered them enough that they leap up and ran—back and forth a half dozen times, grabbing whatever they happened upon and running to the ship and throwing it in.

“Oh my god! We’re going to end up on that damn planet as sex slaves!”

Brandy rounded up her security detail plus a handful of others, armed them, and led them to a position that would allow them cover to keep the lizard men back if they came, leaving Bella to browbeat the other colonists into loading the ship.

The majority, unfortunately, was a lot closer to pure hysteria than rational behavior, but they seemed to calm down as they worked and gained competence and dexterity as they calmed down. They were still so jumpy they kept wanting to call it good, quit loading, and leave.

“We need all of it, damn it!” Bella reminded them. “That’s why we brought it.”

Unfortunately, a lot of their food supplies had already made it to the kitchen and Bella thought it was useless to even try to convince any of them to go back for it when they just wanted to load themselves on the ship and take off.

Brandy reappeared, checked the progress, and exchanged a look with Bella that said, we’re fucked.

“I’m going to take a group and see if I can find the bridge and sabotage enough equipment to help us get away. I guess you should try to find some food supplies to replace everything we lost. There’s no telling how long it might take us to find our way back to Entibe.”

Bella nodded and turned to trying to convince the women to work in a quick and orderly manner instead of just grabbing anything and basically tossing it on the ship.

Their argument was that it could be sorted later.

Which was true, but they didn’t know what they had or if it was damaged and unusable after being thrown in.

Brandy and the entire group she’d taken to guard them came running back.

Bella felt like her hair stood on end when she heard a stampede of boot shod feet behind them and looked up to discover the entire tribe of madrone warriors bearing down on them.

With her heart in her throat, she took up a protective stance near the ship.

“Don’t!” she bellowed at the oncoming horde. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, but we aren’t going to stay and be slaves and raise our children to be slaves!”

To her stunned surprise, the men stopped.

Torin was in the lead, Enan beside him and just behind that pair, Dayne and Dax.

She met Torin’s gaze.

She saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. Slowly, he lifted his arms and tossed his sword, axe and shield to the floor between them. And then he dropped to one knee.

After a brief hesitation, all of the others followed suit, assuming the pose of surrender of the madrone, something so rare among their people that they hardly recalled it.

Confused, Bella glanced around and then met Torin’s gaze again, questioning.

He swallowed, hard. “Do not leave me, Bella,” he said finally. “Or take me with you if you must go.”

Bella felt her resistance crumbling to dust. “Why?”

He struggled with it. “Because I have given you my heart and I cannot live without it.”

Bella thought she was going to cry.

She didn’t trust him, she told herself.

But she wanted to … so bad. It might be the worst mistake she’d ever made, but she wanted to believe. “Watch my back,” she muttered to Brandy and dropped her weapon before she realized Brandy had beat her to the punch, had already discarded her own weapon and was racing to her man. “Fuck it! It’s real or it isn’t. I have to know.”

Torin caught her when she flung herself at him, curled his arms around her and simply held her, his face burrowed against her. “Was afraid you would leave before we could finish off de delizo and reach de hold,” he muttered against her.

Bella sniffed. “I never thought I’d be glad I couldn’t get those assholes to load the ship faster.”

Torin pulled away and looked at her and chuckled. “I am thankful for dem, as well.”

He stood up with obvious effort and Bella discovered to her consternation that he was hurt. “You’re certain you and the men got all of the lizard men?”

He turned to Dayne. “Round up a group and check the ship, top to bottom, again.”

Dayne was staring at Bella, but he nodded.

Pulling away from Torin, she went to Dayne and hugged him and then Dax and Enan.

Torin looked torn when she returned to him, doubtful, angry, confused. “Come on, let’s find some medical supplies and get you patched up, baby, ok?”

Torin hesitated when they passed the door to his cabin and then continued to the gathering room. Lifting Bella past the gruesome debris near the door, he took her hand when he’d set her on her feet and led her into the shower room.

She watched him strip—at first because she was worried about his wounds. When she saw that he didn’t seem to have anything serious, she moved closer to examine his neck. That was actually just about enough to make her pass out. The lizard had broken his collar off, but part of it was still embedded in his neck bone. “Those bastard attached it to your spine!” she gasped. “This needs attention. Everything else may be ok, but this can’t wait.”

It did, though. Torin dragged her under the spray with him and focused on bathing her rather than himself.

Bella didn’t mind the foreplay, at all. He’d been sick so long from what they’d done to him. “You sure you’re up to this?”

“Sure,” he murmured. “If I reach a time when I am not up to dis, you should just put me out of my misery.”

“Not even a little bit funny,” she murmured. “I’d really like to reach a time when neither of us are up to more than touching one another.”

He sobered. “Do you love me even a little, Bella?”

“You can’t begin to imagine how much.”

He frowned. “But … you love Dayne, as well?”

Bella felt her belly cramp, but it was always best to start something as you wanted it to go forward, she thought. “Yes. And also Dax and Enan.”

This is … an Ert custom?”

Bella bit her lip, but how was he ever going to know? “It is now.”

Epilogue

It was just as well for all concerned that the ship landed on the market planet by autopilot because nobody figured out how to fly it before it had. In point of fact, they’d begun to think they might be stuck there before they managed to figure out how to pilot the ship and take off again.

Thankfully, the computer had learned enough of their language they were able to tell it to return them to the planet it had taken them from, but they’d spent weeks trying to figure out how to fly it themselves before someone thought of trying that.

It was pretty scary, actually, to turn everything over to the computer when it was a delizo computer and ship, but it seemed to have no loyalty to them. It took them directly back.

They were able to honeymoon on the way back—at a more relaxed pace, thankfully.

And they returned in plenty of time to get their ‘house’ in order before they welcomed the first crop of mixed babies.

Bella was beyond relieved to discover her little animals had not only survived, they had flourished and were nearly half grown, or in some cases, grown by the time they landed the ship on Entibe. As soon as they’d set up their hive again, she started her next batch of ‘hatchlings’.

The trees they’d planted had grown significantly.

The grasses and flowers had popped out here and there.

They set up their greenhouse and started a food garden.

The warriors took the equipment out of the hold of the ship and tore up the carefully laid out city/first colony grid and then proceeded to build stone mansions.

The women just shrugged. They were giants. They needed the room and since they’d worked so hard to charm the women, they all found a place with the available women. Which meant really large family groups.

It was a little harder to convince the guys of the importance of carefully conserving everything and protecting the environment, but they were smart and they were willing.

And Bella loved her men and they convinced her they loved her back.

That was all that really mattered. Love.

The End.