Exposed

by Tana Stone

  The flat screen was gone, along with the contents of the bookshelf and the framed prints on the wall, leaving metal hooks to dangle at eye level. Her mouth went dry and she dropped her bag and keys on the floor.

  No, this wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. How had they been robbed? Mark was supposed to be home all day.

  “Mark?” She went into the bedroom, and saw that her laptop was gone from her desk. She opened the closet and her heart tightened. Where her boyfriend’s clothes had been were only a few wire hangers, but her clothes were all still there. They hadn’t been robbed. Mark had left. “And that bastard took my computer.”

  She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed his number as she stomped back into the living room. She didn’t mind his leaving, nearly as much as she minded him taking everything of value in the apartment. The asshole hadn’t even paid for any of it.

  Katie instinctively went into the kitchen and flipped open the box on the counter from Dot & Dough. He’d even eaten the last of her custard-filled doughnuts. It was official. If she ever found him, she was going to kill him.

  Her call went straight to voicemail, as she tossed the empty doughnut box in the trash and returned to the living room. Typical. She doubted he’d be answering any of her calls from now on. She left him a colorful message telling him exactly what she thought of him, then threw the phone onto the carpeted floor, sinking down next to it and letting her head fall into her hands. She was broke, and she’d been cleaned out, and her stomach was growling from hunger.

  After a moment, she straightened up. Mark had been right, even if she hated him for being the first one to think of it. She had to get out of there. She didn’t have money for rent, and that was due in less than a week. She couldn’t make money with every paparazzi in town angling for a photo of her. She needed to get out of town before it was too late.

  She hurried back to the bedroom, reaching under the bed for her suitcase. Nothing. The dick had even taken her suitcase.

  “You have got to be shitting me,” she screamed, then took a deep breath and tried to shake it off. It was fine. She’d just have to pile her clothes onto the back seat of her car.

  She grabbed an armful of shirts from the closet and headed for the front door, stopping and nearly dropping them when she saw the man standing in the doorway. If she wasn’t already so upset, alarm bells would have been going off in the back of her head. As it was, she was too irritated to be afraid, even though the man had to be almost seven feet tall and built like a linebacker.

  “Can I help you?”

  He wore sunglasses so she couldn’t see his eyes, but he pivoted his head to take in the shabby surroundings. “I believe it will be the other way around.”

  Chapter Three

  Zayn flexed his shoulder muscles and hit the punching bag again. It felt good to be able to move his arms. The doctors on the station had told him his rib was completely healed, but he flinched as he pulled his arm back again. He may be healed, but he could still feel the ache of the muscles that had been bruised so badly. He welcomed the pain, though. His atonement for surviving the mission no one else had.

  A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead, and he swiped it from his eyes. It had been a long time since he’d been in a gym this well equipped. He looked around at the wide room, with the high ceiling and punching bags hovering in mid air. Mats covered part of the floor, and there were several weight benches and sophisticated training machines in one corner. A shirtless Drexian warrior dodged punches thrown by a holographic opponent in a ring that levitated several feet off the floor, and another threw javelins at shimmering holographic targets spiraling through the air above.

  Zayn had heard that the station—know as the Boat—was the best equipped in the Drexian Empire, but he’d never seen it for himself. He also knew the opulence had been created for the tribute brides who were brought to be mated with the Drexian warriors. He’d only seen a small portion of the station so far, but what he’d seen had impressed him.

  He knew that much of the elaborate environments relied on holographic technology to create oceans, mountains, and exotic deserts, but even the other areas were impressive. The officers’ lounge had a stunning view of space, and the main open-air atrium soared over twenty stories in the air with a clear domed ceiling. For a soldier who’d been kept in a dimly lit cell for weeks, everything on the gleaming station seemed a little too bright and a bit forced. Part of him wished there had been a closer Drexian outpost or ship, but the Drexian ship that intercepted him had brought him here. He doubted the scavenger whose ship he’d hijacked would have been happy to fly all the way to the Drexian home world, although the Jerengi scavenger had been well compensated for his detour—even if Zayn had used his blaster to do most of the convincing.

  Zayn crushed his fist against the punching bag and grunted from the impact. It felt strange to be somewhere dedicated to pleasure and seduction. Neither of those had ever been high on his list of skills. Sure, he visited some of the pleasure planets with his fellow warriors, but he’d never felt comfortable on them or with the various alien females that had been paraded in front of him.

  Even the name of the station sounded strange to him. Casually referred to as the Boat, it was actually dubbed The Love Boat—a reference to something on Earth that the station’s designers used for inspiration. He couldn’t imagine why humans would have a floating vessel for love, but he found the idea of humans strange, in general.

  Physically smaller than his species, not to mention technological inferior, humans were systematically destroying their own planet, yet focused few resources on discovering places to migrate to off-world. He’d heard the Earthlings weren’t even aware of the existence of alien species, which he found laughable. If they weren’t genetically compatible, he knew the Drexians never would have made first contact or established the mating agreement.

  Unfortunately, Drexians no longer produced females, so it had been necessary to find a compatible species. Luckily, humans had been a match and they had also been a target of the Kronock. His species stepped in with an offer to defend Earth from invasion if Earth would provide a select number of females for Drexian warriors to take as mates. The governments on Earth had agreed, as long as the deal was secret and the general population never knew. That had been thirty years ago.

  Zayn had a hard time reconciling life as a Drexian warrior with romancing Earth females. The few he’d seen aboard the station looked too soft and delicate for someone like him to touch. He hit the punching bag again, and droplets of sweat fell from his brow.

  The door at the far end opened, and a man entered in formal military uniform. Most of the Drexians he’d seen on the station were in casual clothes or, at the most, fatigues. He recognized the officer as one of the ones who’d debriefed him after his arrival. Kax, that was his name. Kax of House Baraat. One of the ruling families, not a commoner like him.

  “Looking good,” Kax said, approaching him with his hands clasped behind his back. The dark uniform of the Drexian military looked pristine with a highly decorated sash across one shoulder.

  Zayn steadied the punching bag and raised a wrapped hand to his chest in salute.

  “I hear your wounds are healing well.”

  “Yes, sir,” Zayn said. “The medical team here is excellent.”

  Kax grinned. “I think you may have met my brother’s mate in the medical bay.”

  “The human?” Zayn remembered a pretty female with long, brown hair who’d cleaned his wounds. She’d talked a lot, but hadn’t looked at him like the damaged soldier he was, and he’d been grateful for that. “I remember her.”

  Kax shifted from one leg to the other. “She’s still training.”

  “Do all tribute brides have tasks?” Zayn caught another rivulet of sweat with a wrapped hand before it went into his eye.

  Kax shook his head. “No, but we try to keep them happy, so if they want to work, we encourage it. My own mate is teaching other tributes
dance.”

  Zayn cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t ask why tribute brides needed to dance. “A few more days, and I should be cleared to return to duty. At least, according to the doctors.”

  Kax cleared his throat. “The High Command doesn’t want to send you back out again so soon. Not after what you’ve been through. You brought us valuable intelligence. Information we can use in our fight against the Kronock. That deserves a reward, don’t you think?”

  “No reward necessary,” Zayn said, almost flinching at the thought of receiving praise for his failed mission. “Just doing my duty.”

  “Well, you’re getting a reward anyway,” Kax said. “At least, High Command thinks it’s a reward.”

  Zayn rested his hands on his waist and tilted his head to one side.

  Kax slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t look so terrified. You’ve been matched.”

  “Matched?”

  Kax glanced around him. “You do know where you are, don’t you?”

  Zayn followed his gaze around the gym.

  Kax laughed. “A tribute bride. You’ve been matched with a tribute bride from Earth.”

  Zayn’s stomach tightened. “I thought they’d stopped the transports until the situation with the Kronock is settled.”

  Kax shrugged. “Apparently this one was a special favor for my sister-in-law.”

  What did that mean, Zayn wondered. Why was his tribute bride a special favor?

  Kax must have noticed his confused expression. “My sister-in-law can be very persuasive. That’s probably all I should say.”

  “But I never requested a tribute bride,” Zayn said, the nervous churn in his stomach persisting. “I never submitted an application.”

  “Well, they couldn’t exactly send you back out on another mission so soon. And I can’t think of anyone more deserving.”

  Zayn watched the fellow officer’s eyes move around the room and wondered what he wasn’t saying. He’d had enough training to know when someone was keeping something from him, and there was definitely more to this than Zayn was being told. Did they want an excuse to keep him on the station and under observation? He knew he couldn’t ask point-blank, so he nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

  “My own honeymoon is almost over,” Kax said. “I’m about to be deployed, and the intelligence you brought back should be very helpful.”

  Zayn looked the man up and down again, taking in his fancy uniform. “Deployed?”

  “I’m returning to field work. Military intelligence.” He rolled his shoulders back. “I’ve missed it sitting on the High Command. Now that we have new information on our enemy and their intentions, intelligence gathering is more important than ever.”

  Zayn felt a pang of guilt that this was the man who would be following up on his information. It should be him going back out there. He was the one who failed his team. He was the one who should take the risk, but he knew it was pointless to debate with his superiors.

  “Good hunting, sir,” Zayn said.

  “Thanks.” Kax said, his mouth quirking up slightly.

  As Kax turned away, Zayn grabbed his sleeve. “Wait. There’s something I didn’t mention before.”

  “Go on.”

  “The other prisoner in the cells? He was Drexian.”

  “You said you were the only survivor.”

  “I was, and I didn’t know anyone else was being held until I was escaping.”

  Kax crossed his arms. “You couldn’t get him out with you?”

  Zayn heard the judgment in the question and felt shame flood his face. “He wouldn’t come.”

  Kax waited for him to continue.

  Zayn closed his eyes for a moment. “I’ve been second-guessing myself, telling myself that I was seeing things, telling myself that he wasn’t real. They tortured me so much I could’ve been hallucinating.”

  “But you don’t think you were, do you?”

  “No,” Zayn said, letting the word rush out of him. “The other prisoner was Drexian, at least he used to be Drexian. He was also part machine.” His voice broke. “The Kronock were turning him into one of them. He had an eye implant, and said they’d been putting things in his head. He said he was fighting an urge to kill me.”

  The muscles in Kax’s jaw twitched. “I’ll do some digging. Find out which of our warriors might have been taken by the Kronock. Some of our officers are on deep-cover assignments, so we may not know immediately.”

  “I wanted to get him out,” Zayn said. “Even if he’d been brainwashed, it felt wrong leaving him.”

  “You did what you could.” Kax gave him a curt nod. “Now finish up your workout, soldier, and go meet your bride.”

  Zayn watched Kax walk away and looked down at his bare arms. Even after healing, his forearms still had the puckered marks where the Kronock’s laser whips had burned his flesh. He swallowed a sour taste in his mouth as he attempted to push the memory of his torture out of his mind, and he turned his focus back to the punching bag. What female would want a warrior who’d failed to protect those under him? If he couldn’t save them, what kind of warrior was he? Not one who deserved a reward. What was the High Command really doing, matching him with an Earthling? Did they suspect the enemy had turned him? Were they using a tribute bride to distract him, or maybe to spy on him?

  He slammed his fist into the bag and felt a satisfying jolt of pain. He knew one thing for sure. He would find out.

  Chapter Four

  Katie blinked a few times and stared up at the ceiling, the gossamer fabric draped above her billowing in the breeze. The air felt nice, better than the usual stifling LA heat. Had she left a window open in her bedroom?

  She rubbed her eyes, wondering why her head felt so heavy, and rolled over on her side. Pushing herself up into a sitting position, she gaped at her luxurious surroundings. This was definitely not her bedroom. Was she having some sort of hallucination, or had she been air-dropped into an Abercrombie & Kent brochure?

  Sweeping aside the sheer fabric that hung down around the bed, she gazed across the wide room that was open on three sides. The ceiling appeared to be buff-colored tent fabric, with dark, wood posts holding it high, and brushed-copper pendant lights dangling from several points. The floor was also dark wood, the wide beams gleaming in the late-afternoon sun. A jute rug covered part of the floor, and was topped with a rustic, leather trunk that had been repurposed as a coffee table. Past the large bedroom was a balcony overlooking an expansive savannah, with long grass and flat-topped trees in the distance.

  Katie put a hand to her head, her feeling of grogginess now combined with confusion. Had she been sent on an assignment to Africa? Was she trailing some celebrities on vacation? Or maybe the British royal family? She knew they loved to visit Africa. But why didn’t she remember anything?

  The last thing she remembered was coming home and finding all of her stuff gone. She felt a flash of anger at the thought of her jerk boyfriend. Make that ex-boyfriend. So how did she end up halfway across the world, with no memory of getting there?

  She glanced to her left, where a ceiling fan with leaf-shaped blades stirred the air lazily over a sitting area with a faded Persian carpet and a side table that held an old-fashioned typewriter. Was it possible she’d time traveled?

  Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself, scooting to the edge of the bed and moving the sheer fabric out of her way. There’s no such thing as time travel.

  She stood and took a moment to get her bearings. One thing she knew for sure, this was not LA. Not even the most elaborate movie sets were this convincing, she thought as she watched a herd of zebra amble past the balcony. As she moved toward them, she noticed a man sitting in one of the lounge chairs. She hadn’t noticed him before, because her view had been blocked by a group of tall, potted palms clustered around one of the tent poles.

  Her pulse quickened when he sat up and turned around, and she sucked in a sharp breath when she saw the scars on his muscled arms. They weren’t fresh, but the obvious bur
n marks drew her eyes and almost distracted her from the sheer size of him.

  She took a step back, even though he’d made no move toward her. He must have been six-and-a-half-feet tall. Or maybe seven. “Who are you?”

  “Zayn,” he said, as if that was a decent explanation for what he was doing in her room. At least, she assumed it was her room. Maybe she was in his room. She was going to go with her first assumption.

  “Okay, Zayn,” she said. “What are you doing in my room?”

  He raked a hand through his dark, choppy hair, and the movement made his shirt ride up and expose a hard row of muscles on his stomach.

  Holy crap, Katie thought watching his veined bicep strain against his dark green T-shirt. This guy was built.

  “I’m sorry about this,” he said. “It wasn’t my idea. Not that you aren’t very appealing.”

  She wasn’t quite sure what to make of that answer. He didn’t meet her gaze, but he also didn’t seem dangerous, even as big as he was. Katie considered herself a pretty good judge of people after all the training her father given her. This guy might be big enough to snap her in half, but she got the definite sense that was the last thing he wanted to do. As a matter of fact, he looked like he was afraid of her.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” he said, “I’ll probably be assigned another mission soon.”

  Mission? What was this guy talking about? Was it possible he was a photographer, too? Another paparazzo following her? She eyed him and tried to calm her rapid breathing. He didn’t look like any photographer she’d ever seen.

  “Do you have any idea where we are?” Katie asked.

  “We’re on the Boat,” Zayn said. “From what I understand, this is the Safari wing.”

  Katie gave a small shake of her head. “Nothing you said just made any sense.”

  He looked up to meet her eyes, and Katie felt the air leave her. His eyes were a shade of blue she’d never seen before—like the brightest Caribbean water she could imagine. He locked eyes with her without saying a thing, and Katie realized she was holding her breath. There was pain in his expression, and it made her want to pull him into her arms, although she knew that was absurd. She still had no idea why this guy was in her room, or what boat he was talking about.