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Prologue

P resent Day

Somewhere in space on the bridge of the spaceship Sweet Deliverance

23 days ago

Grace

Tyree’s handsome face thrashes against the pillow of his hospital bed as he tosses and turns in agony. Sometimes he just lies there, completely out of it and comatose, but for the past hour he’s been restless. He’s shifting wildly under his covers, moaning in pain and talking gibberish. My subdural translator is having trouble deciphering his words—maybe because they’re only fragments. Whatever he’s saying, he sounds frantic and terrified.

I smooth a wet washcloth over his forehead, trying to calm him.

“It’s okay, Tyree. It will be alright,” I croon. But I’m lying. I’ve watched him over the last few days, and he doesn’t seem to be getting any better. If anything, he gets weaker and less tied to reality with every passing hour.

He groans again. His exposed arms over the covers are cramping so tightly I can actually see the muscles spasm under his skin. My God, he must be in excruciating pain.

I glance at the readout above his head. I’m no nurse, but Dr. Drayke taught me how to decipher the numbers. His temperature’s spiked again.

“Medbot, administer four ligulas of Tri-cam Nine,” I instruct, just like the doctor taught me.

But the meds don’t seem to help. Nothing seems to help. The doctor’s twenty feet away in his adjoining lab, up late again tonight, scouring the Intergalactic Database looking for a cure.

A little over two weeks ago myself and nine other females were kidnapped from Earth and brought aboard this spaceship as breeding stock. We were each chipped with a subdural translator, placed in a pain/kill slave collar, and thrown into a cell with an alien gladiator. I didn’t yet know my cellmate’s name when we were forced to mate under threat of death. Shadow was physically harsh and emotionally distant.

One week later we overthrew our captors and took over this ship. Getting my own cabin and not having to interact with Shadow was a huge relief. It was only then that I began to come to terms with the fact that I’d never see Earth again.

Tyree and I became friends after the insurrection. He was three feet tall and non-threatening. I was comfortable with him, and despite the fact we were from different planets, it felt like we’d known each other for years. He wasn’t just small, we all thought of “him” as “her.” We now know he didn’t have a gender.

Two days ago with no warning, he transformed into the huge, muscular alien lying on the bed in front of me. I imagine his declining condition is the result of the stress on his system from morphing in the span of half an hour from a Keebler elf to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

In the few days between our escape and his illness, he and I had been building a friendship. In fact, we had a couple “sleepovers” when we watched vids together in bed and played a gambling game he taught me. I felt closer to Tyree than anyone on board.

I’ve been watching him 24/7 in this medbay since his change—I haven’t left his side. I want to make certain his vitals don’t crash if the doctor is preoccupied or leaves for a moment.

I’ve learned some basics on how to care for him. Dr. Drayke can’t be here constantly, but I can. I have no nursing training, but keeping his brow sponged and filling his feeding reservoir with nutri-food isn’t rocket science.

Tyree settles for a moment, his massive body quiet and still. This scares me as much as when he’s thrashing. I glance at his vitals on the screen. His blood pressure is approaching the dangerously low numbers that indicate he’ll need a shot of adramine. The doc taught me how to administer that, too.

With one eye on the medscreen, I pick up my instrument. I bought it recently on planet Numa and dubbed it “String Thing.” My music is the only thing that seems to calm him.

Since we won our freedom, new tunes flow out of my fingers almost without effort. At this moment, I improvise a lilting melody that sounds like an ancient Irish folk tune. It makes me picture happy people converging toward a medieval fair. The chords are festive and inviting.

This seems to have a calming effect on Tyree, and his huge frame relaxes, the tense muscles in his face loosen. I stop playing long enough to smooth his sheets and tuck them around him. He grabs my hand, opens his luminous emerald eyes, and pierces me with a penetrating stare.

“Grace,” his voice is no louder than a sigh. Then he closes his lids, groans, and flails his arms.

His violent movements heave the covers off his bed and onto the floor. I reach over to pull the bedrails up before he falls.

“Doc!” I call, but he doesn’t answer. Maybe he hurried to his cabin for a quick nap.

Tyree’s now back in his unconscious state, so I bend to retrieve the sheets, then turn to cover him. I’m caught off guard by his nude, flawless, masculine body. I’m paralyzed in mid-motion. How could any being possess such perfection?

I quickly cover him, pulling the sheets all the way up under his chin. But the image I just glimpsed is now burned into my brain. I picture him from tousled blond hair to strong brow, to aquiline nose. His lips are full and inviting. The lean muscles sculpted under his skin belong on the statue of a Greek god.

My mouth is parched just from that brief flash of bronze flesh and hard muscle. I position his arms on top of the blanket and smooth a nonexistent wrinkle. Why do my fingers itch to trace the strong veins that run from inner elbow to wrist?

I finally force myself back to my chair, grab String Thing, and return to my music. But this isn’t the happy tune that could be played at a Renaissance county fair. This is a tune of longing—a woman pining for a lover who was conscripted and forced to march off to war. A woman who desires her man.

No one knows I was a virgin when I was thrown into a cell and forced to mate. A virgin by choice. I’ve never considered myself a sexual being. At twenty-five, I was very comfortable with the idea of being single forever. But right now, this minute, I question that decision with every fiber of my being. Because this alien male who I was becoming friends with awakens feelings in me I’ve never had before. There’s a deep, long-hidden part of me that wants to be more than friends. Much more.