Yes, Lorcan said with a yawn. Standing, he stretched and looked around. We must stun them. You know we can’t transport to the ship in this form.
Lorcan was right. For some reason, the transporters maimed or killed their kind if they attempted to travel in human or wolf form.
Stun them all, and then we’ll shift before grabbing the woman and transporting out of here. He glanced at the other two women on the train. They appear to have no family. Perhaps we should take them as well.
Tarin shrugged. It doesn’t matter to me. The more women we have with us, the less likely the others will try to steal Dana away.
Don’t fool yourself. They’ll attempt to steal her away regardless. We must mate her quickly.
But she must be acquiescent. You know the ritual doesn’t work on the unwilling.
Damn shame that. Sometimes, it would be so much easier if they could force compliance from the mates-to-be. Once mated, they were always happy to be what they were. It was what led up to the ritual that frightened them. While some liked the concept, most human women weren’t used to the idea of multiple mates. For some reason, they thought people would think less of them for it.
Not on Taos. On Taos, they were all expected to take multiple partners, regardless of sex. Even he and Lorcan would have taken another male into their circle if the male were compatible. They found no such male and found happiness in the knowledge that they would share a female mate between them. Females meant offspring, and he and Lorcan had both hoped for children.
First, they changed into one of their other forms. The form acceptable for transport was their mid-form. Half man, half beast, they stood on two legs, their elongated snouts sporting large canine teeth. The mythology here on Earth named them werewolves. The ancient legends only served to prove that their kind had been here before, possibly mating with their women.
Usually, they were vulnerable in this form. Their short back legs struggled to support bodies too large and tall for them. Top heavy, they wobbled a bit as they walked and did not fight well. That was why they needed stunners. Though they were stronger as wolves, they couldn’t survive the transport in that form. No one knew why their weakest fighting form was their strongest form for their fastest means of transport. Apparently, everything was good for something.
Tarin paused to look at his stubby, clawed fingers then pulled the stunner from his inner jacket pocket and leveled it at the men in the back. They had agreed to stun them first, assuring they couldn’t put up a fight. It was only after he stunned the couples then leveled the weapon at the two women in the front of the car and fired that he heard a bloodcurdling scream. Both Tarin and Lorcan spun around. Dana stood at the back of the car, her eyes wide. Her mouth open, she held her satchel pressed close to her chest as though the carpeted bag would somehow protect her.
Damn! Frightening her like this was the last thing he wanted. Lorcan glanced at him with a shrug, raised his stunner and shot their future mate before she made herself ill. “Son of a bitch! Now she will fear us. Why did she have to wake up?” He growled the words more than anything else. Talking was difficult in mid-form.
Lorcan paced the length of the train car between Tarin and the men in the back. “Take them all,” he said with a growl, gesturing to all three of the women. “Who knows when one of our kind will get such an opportunity again?”
This was an unbelievable opportunity. Most human women were difficult to capture. For some reason, their men were never far away and almost always itching for a fight if one even looked at the women the wrong way. That they found three unprotected women on this backward planet was a find beyond belief.
“We must add this planet to our star charts. The women here are not difficult to abduct like those we found on the other few human-inhabited planets we discovered. Their lack of technology leaves them vulnerable.”
Lorcan did little more than look at him, raise an inky brow, and agree. “Indeed.”
Chapter Three
Dana awoke to the sound of complete silence. If she listened hard enough, she could hear a slight hum, but nothing more. There was no sound of the train moving over the tracks. There was no rumbling or the slight rocking sensation as the wheels bounced over the seams in the rails.
A terrible memory rose to the surface. Dana brought her hand to her mouth to stifle a scream. What were those…those things she saw on the train car? She sat up and looked around. Where was she? The room she occupied was no jail. There were no bars or restraints and, most telling, was there was no door. She looked down at the floor, then up out of desperation. Where was the door?
The large room sported sea-blue walls and a large bed. The bed was big enough for an entire family, with tall posts on each corner. Drapes hung down from the frame around the top of the bed, their shining, sky-blue, silken material unlike anything she had ever seen before. There were no windows, yet light spilled from the ceiling, allowing her to see into every corner of the room. She was alone. Her stomach grumbled. It seemed she was hungry as well.
“How long was I asleep?”
“About twelve hours.”
Spinning around, Dana came face to face with the owner of the voice. She hadn’t expected an answer. “You! Where did you come from?” He wasn’t there just a moment ago. She would swear it. She pressed her hand to her throat, her stomach doing somersaults at the sight of one of the men she had admired on the train. Goodness, he’s handsome.
Closing her eyes, Dana willed her attraction to go away and was disappointed to find the attraction still there when she opened them again. What was it about his dark good looks that drew her so? Her face grew warm when she realized he watched her as she admired him. “Where are we?” She spun around in a circle. “Where is the train, the other passengers?”
Dana leaned sideways a bit to look around him. There, just behind him was a door. She frowned. How had she missed seeing that before? She turned her attention back to the man and felt her face grow even warmer before she turned away so she could think.
She must do something to keep the man from realizing that she found him so attractive. But what? Turning to face him, she scowled. No one should be that handsome. He was either an angel or a devil. Knowing her family and those her uncle would likely associate with, the man must be the devil himself with that midnight-black hair and eyes as dark as sin. She felt her shoulders droop, certain she was caught. For one thing was certain, they must be agents of her uncle’s sent to drag her home.
This man was the devil incarnate. He must be. He made her feel things deep inside that no decent woman should ever feel. Her stomach clenched down low, and moisture seeped from inside her and wet her under things.
The parts of her that were unmentionable and untouched by any man grew slick with a strange moisture she had never experienced before. That tiny nub between her legs that she washed regularly, but never once suspected had any function at all, throbbed just looking at the devil.
What was this odd sensation, and why did he bring out such a strong reaction in her when she had been so attracted to his companion as well? She felt her face heat once again. Apparently, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. She was her uncle’s niece after all if she could feel such an attraction to two men at the same time.
A terrifying memory flashed through her mind and she gave a start. “What…what were those things on the train?”
The man tilted his head and looked at her as though he didn’t know what she was talking about. “What things on the train? Do you mean the seats, the cars, or the conductor? I’m not certain I know what you’re talking about, Miss…” He deliberately baited her to tell him her name.
Dana wasn’t that stupid. If he didn’t know who she was, she wasn’t about to tell him. “Deidra,” she said a bit breathlessly, using the name she had invented for herself. “I’m Deidra Sims. My husband just passed, and I thought I would head out west to find our daughter and her husband.” She dropped her gaze to the floor and thought of her father. If anything could make th
e man believe she’d just lost a loved one, she would have to think of a loved one that she’d lost to bring tears to her eyes. “They have invited me out west to live with them.”
“Uh-uh.” He shook his head. “I’m not believing that.” He stepped closer, forcing Dana to step back until her body pressed against the cool wall behind her. Reaching up, he grasped her chin, lifting it until she was forced to meet his gaze. “You aren’t a day over twenty-six. You can’t have a daughter of marriageable age. Try again, sweetheart.”
“Well...I...uh—” Dana paused then scowled. “What difference does it make how old I am?” She huffed. “She’s my stepdaughter if you must know.” There! Let him put that in his pipe and smoke it. She crossed her arms and, for the first time, noticed that she no longer wore her padded woolen gown that smelled like an old goat that had rolled in manure. It may have smelled awful, but that stench had been better than armor.
“Where are my clothes?” she asked with a gasp when she noticed that she not only wore different clothing, but it was rather revealing when she thought about it. The outfit she wore covered her from neck to wrists and ankles but it was form fitting and clung to every one of her curves like a second skin. It made her very self conscious. Not only that, her feet were bare as well. This man could see her bare feet and her ankles. It was scandalous!
“If you’re talking about that shapeless black sack you had on when you fainted, I burned it.”
“You...you what?” She frantically cast her gaze about the room, looking for her satchel. It had the miniature of her parents in it and her mother’s jewelry. She would just die if they took it from her and burned that as well. “Where is my satchel?”
He leaned on the front of the small dresser that sat against the wall, stuck his long legs out and crossed them at the ankles. “It’s safe. Don’t worry about your things. They’re all safe.” He shrugged. “Well, except your dress.”
* * * *
Lorcan watched as several emotions chased across her face. He could tell she found him attractive, but she didn’t want to. He could also tell from her expression that she feared he had taken her valuables and, most of all, she was afraid they intended to take her back to her uncle.
It was interesting that she was frightened of her own blood relative more than she was alarmed by the animals she saw on the train. Her green eyes filled with tears when she talked of losing her husband, but he knew from her letters that she was a virgin. Perhaps the tears were for her father. She had written about him often and with great candor.
She raised her chin, looked him in the eye and stomped her foot. “I want my things.” She looked down at herself in the jumpsuit he and Tarin dressed her in, plucked at the shimmering, gold, elastic material and mumbled, “I want my clothes back, too. This thing—” She paused to hold her arms out at her sides. “This thing is indecent.”
“I told you I burned them.”
She pinned him with a glare. “I don’t believe you.”
Of course she didn’t, but she was less likely to believe what he really did with it. She would most likely faint dead away or turn into a screaming and raving lunatic. She wasn’t ready to hear that he had shot her ugly and odiferous dress out into space anymore than she was ready to hear what they were and what they wanted with her.
They must give her time. They had to find a way to give her time to adjust to who and what they were. She must understand that they would never harm her and come to love them because they couldn’t force her to mate with them even if they wanted to.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me. Your ugly gown is gone and those clunky black shoes are gone as well.” He pushed away from the dresser and moved to stand in front of her. “You don’t have anything to fear from us, Dana.”
“Ha! I knew you knew my name.” She smiled at first—a glowing grin that nearly made him step backward. It transformed her face into more than just a thing of beauty. She was female perfection itself until she frowned again. “Wait a minute,” she said, resting her hand on his forearm. “How did you know my name?”
The muscles in his arm clenched beneath the warmth of her hand. Shit! What should he tell her now? He hated lying. It compelled one to continue the practice once begun. He sighed, knowing he would lie to her anyway. “There were men at the station with a likeness of you. They were offering a reward for information on your whereabouts.”
She paled, her hand going to her throat. Stumbling backward, she made her way to the bed and sat down. “Why didn’t you take the reward? You obviously recognized me.”
“I didn’t take the reward because they weren’t the type of men I would trust to care for a beautiful young woman.” He didn’t tell her that Tarin likely scared the piss out of them and sent them back to her uncle empty-handed. He would wager that the men would refuse to search for her again.
Looking up, she frowned. “Beauty. Ha! What good is being pretty when all it gets you is people who want to do unspeakable things to you?” She fisted her hands in the comforter and rocked back and forth as she stared into her lap. “What good is it when people kidnap you and take your freedom from you?” Raising her gaze to meet his, she stared at him for a moment. “That’s what you’ve done, whether you’re willing to admit it or not. You’ve taken away my freedom just as surely as my uncle would have in his damned cathouse.”
Lorcan wanted to laugh at her expression when her tirade ended. Her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes grew round as saucers. “Oh, my goodness! I’ve picked up sailor talk from that horrible Captain James.”
Chuckling, Lorcan moved closer and knelt down in front of her. “No one here has stolen your freedom,” he lied. After all, she would be free to do whatever she wished as soon as she mated with them. It was only a matter of time.
“Then I’m free to go?” She turned to look over her shoulder. “I can stand up and walk out of this room right now and you will do nothing to try and stop me?”
Lorcan shook his head. “I will do nothing.” I will do nothing but catch you when you fall to the floor in a dead faint. The clear bulkhead just beyond the outer corridor would show her she was in space, if her mind could even conceive of the idea. “I will do nothing,” he reiterated, “but you must keep your mind open because there are things beyond that door that are likely to frighten you.”
Dana hopped off the bed with a smile. “I doubt it, unless you have one of my uncle’s thugs out there waiting to haul me back to his house of ill repute.”
Lorcan’s cock throbbed behind his own jumpsuit as the woman stood and fairly skipped to the door. He couldn’t keep from watching her ass wriggle in the tight jumpsuit as she danced her way to the entrance. It was like a punch in the gut when she glanced back at him. Her face practically glowed with happiness at the idea that she was no prisoner and that they would allow her to go on her merry way to the Dakotas and marry her farmer.
He wondered what she would think if she knew that it wasn’t one farmer she was engaged to, but two. What would she say if they told her that those farmers only tilled the land until they had found her and scared off her uncle before he turned her into a prostitute and broke her beautiful will?
With a sigh, Lorcan followed her to the door and waited for her to cross the threshold into the passageway that would lead her to the invisible bulkhead and the proof of where she was.
The sound of two women screaming came from the left. Dana turned to him and frowned. “Why are those women screaming?”
“I would imagine that they assume they are prisoners as well.” With no visible door, they were probably screaming because they assumed they had been sealed in a room to die.
“Then let’s tell them otherwise, shall we?” Dana marched down the passageway in search of the other women. When the screaming continued to rise in volume, but there was no visible door to be found, she stopped, crossed her arms, and scowled at him.
His stomach clenched at that look. His cock hardened and throbbed with longing, and his ba
lls fairly ached to find release within the warmth of her womanly flesh. Every wolf wanted a strong female to give him cubs, and Dana was nothing if not one of the strongest women he’d ever met.
Fear covered her in its sweet scent, yet she faced him with the courage and bravado he had only seen in the strongest of Taos warriors.
“Where’s the door?” She paced away from him then returned, her frown more pronounced. “Is there a hallway and the doors are on the other side of the room?” She scowled as she stared at the wall. Finally, she saw the small touchpad at chest height and pointed. “What’s that?” She stared at it for a moment. “Is it some kind of device that opens the door?” She studied the wall for a minute then shook her head. “It can’t be. I can’t see a seam for a doorway.”
Lorcan smiled at her ingenuity then reached out to wave a hand in front of the device. The door swooshed open, rising up into the ceiling over their heads. If anyone asked, he would have to say that his mate’s courage and intelligence were exemplary. She didn’t faint dead away as he expected, though she did stumble back a bit, her eyes wide.
The woman inside the room sobbed with relief. Her dark brown hair looked as though she’d thrust her fingers through it a number of times. “Thank God. There is someone here, and I have not been shoved into an oubliette to die.” She fell into Dana’s arms in a show of female solidarity.
The woman’s accent was strange. She must have been from another country. He wasn’t sure. The language lessons they took aboard ship only taught them the language used in Dana’s area of the world. The young woman’s speech patterns were much different than Dana’s as was her accent. Her relief was evident on her young face as she embraced his mate.
Lorcan stood off to the left and waited for the women to settle down before he cleared his throat. “If you ladies wanted to comfort the other woman, she’s just down the passageway from here.”
“Passageway?” The foreign-acting woman frowned. “What passageway? Are we on a ship?” Her eyes grew round, and fear filled her expression once again. “We have been taken!” She held Dana’s hands in a tight grip. When she looked down to their joined hands and back up into Dana’s face, she let go and covered her mouth with her fingers. “Oh! Where are my manners? I should not be so familiar when we have not been introduced.” She held out her hand. “I am Fleur.” She smiled shyly, her fear forgotten—for the moment at least. “It is French for flower. My mother said I was a beautiful flower the day I was born and named me thus.”
Mail-Order Bride [Taos Wolven Mates] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 2
