Page 8

It was an empty threat. There was no way my brother wouldn’t use me to his advantage, and throwing me out on the street wasn’t in the cards. We glared at each other, and then Travis came around the desk. It was all I could do to not flinch when he took one arm, and Kurt the other.

Strung between them, they frogmarched me out of the office and down the hall to the hole we used as an admin staff lunchroom. Where they released me, and then left. I heard the lock click.

It was a deliberate feature for this room. Combination containment area and lunchroom. Every office should have one.

I circled the table in the center, over and over again. There was no escape—a snake might squeeze through the air duct in the ceiling, but I certainly couldn’t .

I flung open the fridge and pulled out a jar of jam. Tossed two slices of bread into the toaster and minutes later, sat down to eat.

Nothing else to do. Might as well have supper.

I heartedly regretted not sticking my remaining knife into a vulnerable and valued place, preferably on both men. But especially Kurt. If he couldn’t father children, I’d hopefully be off the hook.

His twisted expression flashed through my mind. Maybe not. He’d keep me—just to be a bastard.

There were washroom facilities attached to the room. I walked in and looked at myself in the tiny mirror over the counter. As usual in the pallid lighting, my eyes looked brown. Which they weren’t—they were actually a deep blue.

My mother’s eyes, apparently, although I had no memories of her. She’d disappeared shortly after I was born. My father had never been able to determine what had happened to her.

For just an instant, as I stood there, an image of brilliant emerald eyes flashed through my brain.

That Drake had been so handsome. Very different features from the over-sharp bone structure and obsidian eyes of the Taziers, whose gazes were cold and cruel. This member of the Raptor Clan had possessed the same arrogance, but his eyes…

I must be imagining things. He was a Drake . The enemy. Just because he had pretty eyes, didn’t mean he was any different from the others.

My butt was itchy where I’d been tagged. Maybe if Kurt saw me scratching it, he’d be so turned off he wouldn’t want me. I reconsidered. Nope. Knowing him, he’d likely be turned on by it instead.

I pulled the pins from my dark, wavy hair and let it fall around my shoulders and down my back. Before I returned to the lunchroom and made myself more toast.

For over two hours, I contemplated my miserable options in life. Eventually, the door opened again.

I stiffened, but I had been expecting them.

Purplish leathery skin was barely visible through their woolen hats and the heavy scarves wrapped around their heads.

With the usual complete disregard for complimentary colors, their parkas clashed horribly with their uniforms. They were about my height, and their skin color pronounced them as male.

Drolgok registration officers. Their kind had served the Drakes for many generations. And their thrashing tails were a clear indication that they were not amused at being summoned this late in the evening.

Both took off their parkas and unwound their scarves, revealing large yellow eyes above pronounced snouts.

My brother hovered over them. “There has been a discrepancy with her true birthdate,” he lied. “We have been remiss in not checking our records.”

“You could have brought her in earlier,” one complained. “We were ready to head home for the day.”

“I apologize,” Travis stated. “We had a shipment to deliver, and got held up.”

Their expressions matched my own—enough to make me wish I had a tail to thrash, too. This was something I’d hoped to avoid. The eartags were designed to keep track of every female on the planet. And the injection—that was something else again.

No one could tell me exactly what the injection did.

One of the Drolgoks pulled out a chair and gestured to me. “Come here.”

I eyed Travis and the open door beyond him, but it wasn’t as if bolting would gain me anything now. On the city streets, my freedom would only last a matter of days, if that. The eartags couldn’t be blocked, and I’d never heard of anyone successfully removing them.

I walked over and plunked myself down. The fingers that pulled my hair back to expose my left ear trembled.

The assistant Drolgok had everything ready, and he handed his boss the eartag. I winced as the pins shot through the cartilage to secure it .

Then the assistant handed him a syringe. I couldn’t help it. I flinched from him, my feet gathering beneath me to launch away.

The three-fingered hands were attached to arms deceptively strong for the lack of height. One of them pressed down on my shoulder, the fingers spreading up my neck to hold me steady as he injected it into the far side. That stung too.

Overall, just a swell experience.

“I have someone waiting to apply for a mating license for her,” Travis said.

“He will have to wait the requisite three weeks,” the Drolgok official declared in an annoyed tone. “We will then do an evaluation on her. Depending on what we find, he can then apply for the license.”

Travis’s smile slipped.

I’d heard that evaluations were done, but despite my inquiring mind, lacked any details. “What are you looking for?” I asked.

While the Drolgok assistant placed everything back in the case and began to rewrap his scarf, the boss said, “We are evaluating your suitability.”

My heart thudded. “Suitability for what?” I pressed.

Travis’s mouth opened as if to ask as well, but then, he closed it again. Spineless wimp.

The Drolgoks ignored me as they turned to leave. “We will be back in three weeks.”

Then they were gone, leaving me without answers and with a damned sore ear and neck. Travis and Kurt walked out in their wake, leaving the door open.

If I bolted now, they could find me, no matter where I ran on this planet.

Two tags in one day.

Guess I was just a lucky girl.

When I moved to stand, I discovered that my legs shook .

Could just be a sugar crash. Maybe I’d put a little too much jam on that toast.

I forced myself to my feet and did my best impression of an outraged stalk, aware of eyes tracking me as I passed my brother and Kurt, hunched close together in the office. Exiting the admin building, I headed for the closest hangar.

The admin staff might have gone home for the day, but the night shift was in full swing, hauling crates of merchandise into our fleet of starhoppers—smaller merchant vessels that we primarily used to shuttle goods to the larger freighter in orbit, the Stonehenge.

As I strode through the hangar, I became hyper-aware of the hot and heavy male stares following me as I crossed the busy stretch of floor.

Just as I had with Travis and Kurt, I’d grown up with some of these men, those that had worked for my father.

How much had the unnatural absence of female company affected them?

I’d always danced around the question. Thought I’d been considered family, and that here, in the compound, the scary craziness that happened outside it, stayed outside.

Kurt had always been the bane of my existence. Hovering, interfering, trying to control me. Insisting that he and I had a future. It wasn’t something I even remotely considered as a possibility.

I just hadn’t expected my brother to make the decision for me. I’d been deliberately, obliviously blind. As I glanced around at the men who met my eyes—I finally saw through the smiles, to the lust and longing that shone within them.

First my father, then my brother. The men had respected my father, but they feared and disliked my brother. Until I’d come of age, it had been enough to keep me safe, so long as I remained inside the compound.

But all that was over now. If I didn’t pass—or passed, I wasn’t sure which it was—the Drolgok’s evaluation, it meant I was fodder for any individual human male capable of being approved for a mating license. And even if I was claimed, I would always be rich fodder for the gang harems .

The noose I’d hoped to avoid was tightening around me. Despite my efforts, I didn’t yet have enough currency to strike off on my own in an alien world. But my choices were now limited.

It was all I could do to turn my back on the hungry glances, and climb the Stardrifter’s ramp.

I’d named it after one of my favorite games growing up.

Not that I’d been granted much time to play it, but I still had it loaded on the ship’s computer.

As a long-range starhopper, it was a spacecraft large enough to have its own slipstream drive.

We used them mostly to shuttle cargo to the much larger freighter, but the Stardrifter wasn’t just the ship I piloted.

It was also my home.

A short time later, I sat in my quarters with the only individual I truly called a friend.

Ariyani had started off as a mother figure to a young girl who didn’t have one. But as I aged, she became more like an older sister. Drolgoks were very long lived, and I’d known her all my life.

Unlike the purple skin of the males, her tones were a buttery cream with violet shadows, and eyes more orange than yellow.

Due to the fact that we kept the Stardrifter unnaturally warm, her compact, slightly globular body was relatively skimpily clothed in her customary green mechanics coveralls, complete with authentic grease spots and a hole for the only non-stubby thing on her—her long tail.

As she was a Drolgok and because I kept my own quarters a bit cooler to avoid sweating profusely, for today’s visit she’d crammed a sweater over top of the coveralls. It was orange—I’d crocheted it especially for her, along with two others in pink and blue.