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Then I play the whole scene back, rewinding even farther than I needed.

I watch the magic we shared in bed. Well, it obviously wasn’t magic for him.

But it was for me. He was such an attentive lover.

Although I’ve never had an actual lover, I’ve had bot lovers for years who had only one goal in their programming—to be attentive to me.

And yet, they couldn’t hold a candle to Zorn.

Then I replay that moment where he asked to do it again, and the way his eyes looked when he said, “I do. I do insist.” I pause my mental replay and zoom in on his handsome blue eyes.

He’s a lot of things—a proud captain, a patient male who could have been an asshole that first day when I discovered him in a cage in the cottage. But he’s not a liar. Or an actor.

I inspect his face in my mind’s eye for long moments, then a slow smile stretches across my face as I watch what played out after that.

The alien-haters, their demands, their offer that I could go free, and my insistence that I stay.

After the shot was fired, it was clear those crazy women weren’t playing.

So, he got rid of me the only way he could in the heat of the moment.

He said despicable things to me because there was no time to argue, and he wanted to keep me safe. Those eyes are what was telling the truth. His lying lips were just trying to keep me alive.

He saved me. Now I have to save him.

What a stroke of luck that the female we bought our wristbands from offered to put trackers on them.

I consult mine and see his GPS far from my own. Yes! He’s still wearing it. Now all I have to do is follow the signal and figure out how to break him loose.

I can’t call the authorities. At least not right away. As much as I’ve hated what my mom did over the past week, I love her. I don’t want her to get in trouble, and I’m pretty sure she could wind up in jail for buying him from her high-placed friend and then imprisoning him in our cottage.

If the anti-woggers wanted to kill him, they would have already done so. I’ve got time to figure something out. I give myself two days. In two days he could already be slipping into torpor. I can’t risk his life and health longer than that. At that point, I’ll have to call the authorities.

I slide behind the wheel and hover as fast as I can toward Zorn’s tracker.

Hours later, the sky is lit in shades of tangerine and violet as the sun sets. Although it’s been a long day, I’m full of energy. I’m close now, really close. I crossed into what used to be called Idaho and is now called Amity, then left the park and am still traveling west.

The district has lost population over the last eighty years.

But the areas I’m traveling through were never heavily populated.

At least that’s what I’d guess by the lack of .

. . anything. No fuel stations, hundred-year-old abandoned buildings by the side of the road.

I’ve passed very few hovers or people. But up ahead I see some lights. It must be a small town.

Zorn’s tracker has been stopped there for over an hour. I think I need to do reconnaissance on foot because my hover would stick out like a sore thumb. The naked man and No Shame logo would be certain to attract attention.

Parking in a wooded area by the side of the road, I make certain my stunner is on full charge and approach the lighted area.

When I finally get to town, I see one store and four abandoned buildings. The store looks like something out of an old zombie apocalypse movie, but the lights are on.

Zorn’s tracker light is flashing from right around here, but I don’t see him. Perhaps he’s in one of the old cinder block buildings emblazoned with the faded name of the town—Rhyolite. I double-check my wrist-comm, then backtrack a bit.

By the readout on my GPS, I should be standing right on top of it. I use the light feature on my wrist to examine the ground and find his tracker in a clump of grass in the gravel. My stomach squeezes in panic and my chest tightens in pain.

Picking it up, I see the clasp was ripped off him. They evidently got smart and realized they needed to dispose of it. I hope they didn’t dispose of him, too.

My face heats and tears threaten to spill from my eyes. I’m lost. I can’t do this. Two things strike me with the power of a thunderbolt. First, I’ll never be able to find him. Second, dear God, I have feelings for the Draalian.

Yes, the male I initially thought was repulsive passed into attractive territory days ago.

But it’s more than that. So much more. I really like him.

My pussy clenches as I think of him fisting his cocks the other night.

My clit quivers when I picture what we were doing right before those bitches surrounded my van.

But it’s more than sexual attraction—far more.

Scrubbing my face with both hands, I take a deep breath and try to decide which branch of government would be the ones to call. The Department of Extraterrestrial Protection Services, I guess. What would that conversation be like, I wonder.

Hello, can I speak with the person in charge? I have a kidnapping to report. Oh, no, not the initial kidnapping tacitly sanctioned by my mother who bought him from despicable aliens who traveled the galaxy to bring him here for the entertainment of selfish Earth girls like myself.

And no, not the second kidnapping where I helped him escape his initial imprisonment and traveled across country without benefit of legal papers in an unsanctioned search and rescue mission for his equally mistreated brother.

But the third kidnapping where he was taken by women calling him a wog and who I think want to hurt him. Probably kill him. Yeah. I want help with that.

I’d better warn mom first.

I retrace my steps back to the van. “I want to come inside you,” one of the Jasons croons.

My gaze darts to the back where the bots are piled.

“I wish you guys could help me,” I say as I sit up straighter and prepare to call my mom.

I’ve read books where the heroine described the world as if it slowed down, but always thought it was the author’s poetic license. It’s not poetic license, because I feel it now.

All thoughts stop swirling in my head. My dread at having to call my mom and the authorities is a distant memory. My vision zeroes in on the bots in the back of the van.

“I’m going to find you, Zorn,” I say with confidence into the quiet van. “And we’re going to rescue you.”

Moments later, I’m on the phone with mom.

“Oh my God, Annora. Thank goodness. I’ve been so worried ever since you disappeared. Are you okay? I messed up so badly. Now that I think about it, I can’t believe I bought him, much less put him in a cage and locked you in with him.”

This is the woman I grew up with. She was the most loving mother on the planet.

She didn’t exactly spoil me . . . well, who am I kidding?

Of course, she spoiled me. She went to great lengths and expense for in vitro.

That was when there were still males on the planet with functioning sperm.

But it was hella expensive, and she had some problems that required a lot of treatments.

Yes, this is my real mom. Not the one who shoved me into the guest cottage and locked the door, but the loving one who would do anything for me. She’ll come through for me. I know she will.

“I’m okay, but Zorn isn’t.”

“Oh. I bought him on the spur of the moment. I was just looking you know, just to see what was out there. I was daydreaming about what it would have been like if I’d had the opportunity to have someone like that to talk to and love me.

I think I was half in my imagination when I chose him and called my friend to see if she could pull strings.

You know how it is to suddenly hit the ‘buy now’ button when you had no intention to do so.

I should have never done this. I’m so sorry. What’s wrong?”

After I explain, she asks, “How can I help, sweetie? What can I do?”

“You’ve got a security team that has been battling cyber-theft of our designs. They’re top-notch people. They’ve been ferreting out industrial espionage for years. They have ways of finding out information. I’ll need their help.”

I explain everything, trying to give all the facts in the shortest download possible so she can have the team start working immediately. I know, though, that my feelings for him have snuck through. She has to know I have a crush on him by the time I’ve told her everything.

“Share everything with your team, mom. I’ve given you all the information: the time the anti-woggers left my van in Yellowstone, and how long his wrist-comm has been lying in the same spot in Rhyolite.

“They have to be at a home base, and it has to have been close enough that the woman at the geyser got her gang to join her after Old Faithful went off. The geyser went off shortly after eleven this morning. They accosted us around three. They have to be within a four-hour radius of the geyser, and they’ve passed this way.

“There can only be so many places they can hide him. Get your team on it. Maybe they can intercept communications.”

“I’ll contact my security team and call you right back.”

Ten minutes later, I’m on a call with my mom and Drennan, the head of No Shame security. She’s a beautiful woman, and the strongest, savviest one I know. She was in the military and retired to work at No Shame. If anyone can get the job done, she can.

“I’m mobilizing a team now. We’re putting everything we need on a hover-truck and will be on our way in half an hour.

We’ll take turns driving as we continue to use every resource we have to try to find him.

Nav says it’s a little over a twenty-hour drive.

We’ll get there sooner. Don’t do anything.

Let me repeat. I know you Annora. Don’t do anything until we get there. ”

“Okay.” No way .