There wasn’t much to see. Gray metal walls broken up only by a door and a small panel next to it. There was no furniture except for the bed that was bolted firmly to the wall. She felt like she should be scared but instead there was a relaxed feeling of bemusement as she took in her surroundings briefly and then returned to examining what she could see of the man holding her.
His skin was beautiful; a deep, rich golden color that reminded her of amber or honey. It was speckled with silver flecks, and the overhead light glinted off of them as he moved. Long black hair hung over his shoulder, tickling her face, and when she inhaled there was a spicy scent unlike anything she’d smelled before, but not unpleasant. She couldn’t tell if it was shampoo, cologne, or just him, but it was interesting.
She’d never seen such a muscular chest up close and she suddenly had a completely inappropriate urge to lick one of the sparkling freckles, but that was mostly because she was groggy and half asleep. The combination of the strange location and the unusual appearance of the gorgeous man holding her had her mistaking him for part of some sexy dream, but as she felt the mattress giving under her weight, her left arm was jostled and a sharp pain shot through it from her elbow to her wrist. She gasped in pain and realized it couldn’t be a dream at the same time.
And if it wasn’t a dream then that meant she was being placed on a bed by a stranger, and she couldn’t think of any good reason for that to be happening. He looked like he’d just strolled off the cover of a fitness magazine but that didn’t mean he had good intentions. In the seconds it took for everything to click into place, the soft sleepy feeling of confusion vanished only to be replaced by cold terror.
The sound of pain had alerted him that she was conscious, and he looked down at her. For the first time she could see his entire face. His mouth opened to say something just as an ear-shattering scream burst from her throat. She hadn’t intended to scream; it had been his eyes that caused the terror to skyrocket.
There was nothing normal about the solid black color or the slightly larger than human size of them. They reminded her of an insect and there’d been no holding back the shriek at that point. But with the piercing sound came the ability to move again, and when he jerked back from the force of the scream, she tried to make a break for it. Unfortunately, there was no place for her to run.
His large body was blocking the only escape route. Likewise fighting seemed futile since she was completely unarmed and without even a set of car keys to defend herself from his attack. Worse there was something wrong with her arm and moving it caused a wave of agony that had spots appearing in front of her eyes.
It had to be broken. She cradled it against her chest as she wiggled backwards awkwardly until she was pressed to the metal bulkhead the bed was bolted to. He straightened to his full height and frowned down at her, which made him even more intimidating.
Her heart was racing, and adrenaline surged through her body as it ignited her fight or flight instinct, but she couldn’t flee and one look at the way his muscular body towered over her in the small space made it clear that she had no chance of fighting him either. With no other options, she held her good arm out in front of her in warning and tried screaming again.
It wasn’t a mindless response to being scared this time but calculated. She’d done some recording work thanks to her impressive lungs. Getting paid to provide realistic shrieks of terror for sound effects was a good gig and her piercing screams could be heard in a couple of horror movies. It wasn’t the same as acting, which is what she wanted to do, but it was a step in the right direction.
And it wasn’t the first time she’d used her voice as a weapon either. The screams were impossible to ignore, so it was no surprise that the stranger winced and backed up quickly to get away from the noise.
“Stop that!” he snapped in a tone that said he was used to being obeyed.
Well, she had no intention of obeying and opened her mouth to scream again hoping either he would give up and leave, or someone would hear and come to her rescue. To her disappointment neither happened. Instead he moved towards her purposefully, kneeling on the bed and leaning in to get close to her as he settled his large hand over her mouth cutting off the sound.
Her eyes widened in surprise. She hadn’t expected his touch to be so gentle, not the way he was built and not if he’d kidnapped her. It didn’t feel like weakness but like he was carefully controlling himself, so he wouldn’t hurt her. She wasn’t sure what to think of that. He wasn’t pressing down enough to truly stop her from making noise, so she opened her mouth to scream again but he shook his head in warning.
“No. Stop. Screaming. Now,” he said, enunciating every word. His voice was barely above a growl, and it sent a shiver through her.
She shut up quickly, not just because he’d ordered it, but because she was getting a close look now at his alien eyes. The way he pinned her down with them made her feel like prey. She understood now why rabbits froze when they were chased. She’d never seen anything like them, and they had to be alien because nothing else made sense. The sight of them had triggered the return of fragmented memories.
She’d hoped recalling what had happened would help with the confusion, but it didn’t. If anything, it made it worse because what she was remembering was unsettling, and she had to push the thoughts away for the moment to avoid the panic that was threatening to overwhelm her.
“Where am I?” she asked, but with his hand covering her mouth it just came out garbled.
He hesitated, narrowing his eyes in suspicion, which oddly helped them look less inhuman. “Don’t start screaming again,” he warned.
She noticed that there was something strangely pleasant about his voice as she nodded. He slowly took his hand away, ready to slap it back in place if he had to, but she was done screaming for now. It hadn’t helped anyway.
“I said, where am I?” She tried to sound calm; cooperative, though her mind was working overtime to find a way out of this.
“We’re on my ship.” It was a simple and entirely unhelpful answer.
“A … boat?” she asked. It didn’t feel like they were on the water. There was no sensation of moving that she could detect. It did explain the metal walls and bolted furniture, but the confused look on his face told her she’d gotten it wrong.
It took him a second to answer and when he did the words sounded uncertain, as if he wasn’t quite sure about them. “No. It’s an interplanetary ship. A spaceship; my spaceship. We’re just outside your solar system right now.”
And just like that the world dropped out from under her feet, literally. Her mouth opened and closed several times, but she had no words for what she was thinking or feeling. The memories in her head, they were the last things she remembered from Earth—and she was no longer on Earth. It took her several long minutes to work her way through that and during that time she kept forgetting to breathe, and only the dizziness would remind her.
More minutes passed before she could finally draw in a shuddering breath of air and pull herself together, but inside she was adding the bits of memory she had from before with this new information and the result was … not good. Very not good.
When she hadn’t screamed, he’d relaxed, settling back to give her a little space. She used that now to lunge for the edge of the bed with her eyes on the door, but the second her feet hit the deck, he was snatching her up into his arms again. He spun her around and dropped her back on the bed in one smooth motion.
She landed partly on her injured arm, and the yelp of pain caught his attention immediately. The annoyed look on his face changed to something she couldn’t read. It was his eyes that made it hard. She searched for emotion in them and found nothing but herself reflected in the glossy black, but there was tenderness in his touch as he reached out and carefully probed her arm.
She hissed in a breath, and he frowned. “You’re hurt.” He actually sounded concerned which confused her.
“It must have happened when you kidnap
ped me,” she said. She made no attempt to hide the accusation in her tone, but to her surprise, he just tilted his head.
“Kid. Nap?” He said it like it was two separate words and then after a pause he shook his head. “No, I’m not the one who took you.” He got up and went over to the wall. Even though it had been seamless a second before, once he touched it, a panel sprang open so he could reach inside and retrieve a handheld object.
It looked vaguely like some kind of strange alien weapon and her heart jumped up into her throat as her eyes widened with fear. She wondered if he was about to kill her but instead of cowering away, it sent her into a dramatic rant. Her uninjured arm waved in the air as she spoke in an increasingly louder voice.
“Great! I’ve been—I’ve been abducted by an alien with bug eyes. I’m on a freaking spaceship in the middle of nowhere, and now I’m going to get killed and no one will even know what happened to me. If that isn’t just my luck!” She sounded a little hysterical even to her own ears, but when she said it out loud, she couldn’t help the slightly crazed laugh that spilled out after it. She couldn’t entirely believe he was an alien, or that she was on a ship, but the fact that she was in trouble was undeniable.
“You’re exciting yourself,” he commented, ignoring the rest as he sat back down next to her and reached for her arm saying, “Let me see.”
It was so opposite to what she’d expected that she let him take it and watched as he used the weapon—which turned out to be no weapon at all. One slow swipe up the length of her arm and the pain vanished instantly. She gasped and as soon as he let go, she tested it, twisting and turning as she waited for any sign of the throbbing agony to show itself. Nothing; it was good as new.
Up until that moment, it had been in the back of her head that this was all an elaborate hoax. The skin could have been faked with makeup though she’d never seen such good work. The eyes would be trickier, but it was possible maybe. She had no explanation for the weird things she remembered, but she was trying not to think about those yet.
As for the bare room, it could be anywhere. The idea that some guy had gone to such lengths to fool her was scary because she could only guess his purpose, but that didn’t mean he had to be an alien. The one thing she couldn’t explain, was the fact that she’d been sure her arm was broken, and now it was working fine without any pain. She tried to hold on to her doubts, but it got harder to fight the evidence.
“Th-thank you,” she said. It felt weird; after all, she wouldn’t have been hurt at all if it weren’t for him, but manners were instinctive.
“You’re welcome, and I didn’t abduct you.”
“How did I get here if I wasn’t abducted?” she demanded. Her gratitude vanished, and her voice had taken an accusatory tone again.
“You were abducted, just not by me. I rescued you, and you’re welcome for that too,” he said dryly.
That seemed so implausible that she laughed. He had to be lying, though why he’d bother she had no clue. “Yeah right, sure. One alien kidnaps me and another just happens to come along in time to rescue me. That makes no sense.”
“I saw him grab you in the park and followed, but he took you off planet before I could stop him.”
“Uh-huh. And the park was just full of aliens? Why would you help me anyway? You some kind of alien cop or something?” She knew she was pushing pretty hard for someone with zero power, but while she reluctantly had to admit she might be on an alien ship, that didn’t mean she believed this stranger had rescued her out of the goodness of his heart. There had to be more to it.
“Why don’t you rest, and we’ll talk about this when you’re calmer,” he suggested. He stood up and went to put away the healing device. Once he’d closed the panel, it vanished again and even when she squinted, she couldn’t see any sign of it. Very strange.
“No, I want to talk about it now,” she said. She straightened and swung her legs off the bed to show him she had no intention of resting, and if he was going out that door then so was she. “Why don’t you show me your ship while we talk?”
Maybe there was nothing outside that door but a regular house, or a shed. Maybe he’d just put together a really elaborate story and built this room to trick her, and somehow had fooled her into thinking her arm was broken too. But if there was truly an alien ship out there then she needed to see it to be sure. At the very least she wanted more space around her in case he tried anything. The small room made her feel trapped and vulnerable.
“No.” It was firm, and the tone said there was no room for arguing. “You’ll stay here and rest. I’ll bring you some food and drink once I take care of a few things.”
“You can’t keep me in here,” she said. She got up and went straight to the door, pushing past him only to find that she didn’t actually know how to open it. She pressed and prodded at the panel on the side, but nothing happened. When she finally looked at him for help, she found that he was just watching her with his arms crossed over his chest, looking amused.
“I can actually keep you in here because that door won’t open for you,” he said. But then unexpectedly he leaned past her and placed his palm on the panel. There was a hiss, and the door slid open to expose a short corridor with the familiar gray metal walls.
She hesitated, nervous now about leaving even though she demanded the right. She looked from him to the open door and back again. “I can go out? It’s all right?” she asked, sensing a trick.
He chuckled as if her sudden reticence amused him even more. “If you like, but you won’t get far. None of the others will open for you, either.” She looked again and saw that the hall ended with another sealed door, so there was really no place to go.
She kicked the wall in frustration, and then winced. She’d woken up with bare feet and had no idea where her shoes had gone. They’d probably slipped off during her abduction, which was a pity because those heels hadn’t been cheap. But that was the least of her problems at the moment. She was apparently providing plenty of entertainment for her host, who she could tell was struggling not to laugh.
“This is ridiculous. Kidnapped to an alien ship and not even allowed to see it? And you, you think you’re so funny? Well, you’re not!” she snapped. She sounded like a bratty child and she knew it, but she was overwhelmed, frustrated, and confused, and this was how she tended to act when she didn’t know what else to do. “I don’t think any of this is real; you’re trying to trick me into believing you’re an alien,” she added.
“I will show you the ship later. Your body will need sleep and food to replace what was used to fix your injury,” he said, gesturing at her arm. “And I’m not sure the venom is out of your system yet either, so you will rest now.”
She could tell he wasn’t used to explaining himself, but now that he’d mentioned it, she was starting to feel groggy again. She struggled to fight through it and her mind fixed on one word. “Venom? You mean like poison?”
“It’s a natural secretion they use for hunting. It has a paralytic effect on most animals, but I can’t say what other effects it might have on you since they aren’t meant to be using it on humans.”
She bit her bottom lip, gnawing it nervously as she tried to think. That made sense; it explained a lot actually. “Memory loss? Does it cause that? Because all I have are these weird pieces that don’t make much sense,” she said after a hesitation.
“Possibly yes. It could also be—” He paused and looked like he wasn’t sure how to phrase it. “The Guaran are shapeshifters, so you would not see them as alien at first, but when they move to capture, they shift to their natural form which is not humanoid. I would think the sight of that, for someone who’d never seen it, could be traumatic. You might have been in shock.”
“Shock,” she repeated in a dull, lifeless voice. The room wavered, and she closed her eyes, suddenly seeing a gorgeous man with sparkling blue eyes and a wide generous mouth that smiled at her. The image fractured and then there were hands with wicked looking claws reac
hing for her. And then mouth wasn’t just generous anymore but enormous and filled with so many sharp teeth.
Her stomach lurched, and she doubled over retching.
And then he was picking her up and carrying her back to the bed. “Breathe, it will be fine,” he said.
But she couldn’t be consoled that easily now, not with those pieces of memory starting to fit back together. She’d been so stupid. “He—he was so good looking, and I was flattered that he was interested. I knew I shouldn’t go off alone with him, but a walk in the park under the moonlight—what could be more romantic, right?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. She was angry, mostly at herself.
“You didn’t know what he was. The Guaran are experts at stalking. He’d probably been hunting you for a while so he would have known what would work to make you trust him,” he said.
“I knew better than to go off with strange men,” she snapped, because of course, she did. But then on the heels of that came a rush of fear. “He had so many teeth. Was he going to eat me? Do aliens eat people?” She stared up at him with wide eyes, and trembled when she remembered he was also an alien.
“You are not people to him. The universe is a vast place, little human, and to some, you would make a good meal. But no, I don’t believe he was going to eat you.”
He brushed her dark hair off her forehead gently and caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. The unexpectedly kind gesture brought tears to her eyes. “Then … what did he want?” She could see him visibly working out how to explain this and prepared herself for the worst.
“Your planet is off-limits, and visitors are strictly regulated. The penalties for breaking the rules are high and could affect his entire planet, so I don’t believe he’d go so far just for food. However, some of the Guaran are traders of exotic pets. The right human …could be very valuable.”
Stolen and Seduced Page 37
