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Mia came to gradually. Her first awareness was of a strange dizziness, almost like vertigo, as if she were detached from the world and it spun wildly around her. She focused on her breathing for a moment, and when that didn’t help, curled her fingers into the fabric beneath her, using it as an anchor. The chaotic whirling stopped abruptly, and she sighed.

There. That was better.

She risked opening her eyes a slit, and when the dizziness remained at bay, opened them wider. The space around her appeared to be a bedroom, if the bed she lay on served as any kind of clue. It was wide enough for two people, barely, and covered in a soft gray sheet.

The bed, small though it was, occupied a full quarter of the room. At its foot rested a black trunk. A shelf to the open side of the bed held a few random objects she couldn’t identify and looked as if it could be folded into the wall, judging by the indentation in the wall itself. Despite the spartan nature of the room, the walls were white tinted with soft swirls of soothing colors. The floor, on the other hand, was a stark black and looked like bare metal.

She turned her attention to the details, to the two arches inset into the walls (doors, she assumed), to the protrusions to the sides of those arches (though she couldn’t fathom their function, if they had any), and to the soft glow illuminating the room. Try as she might, Mia couldn’t pinpoint the source of the low lighting.

She sat up slowly, as puzzled by the lack of dizziness as her surroundings. Where on Earth was she? A vague memory nudged at her, of the elation of watching her seedlings sprout, of chatting with Leona and Kira, of a giant ship descending from the heavens, and of a mountain of an alien pinning his gaze on her and saying, emphatically, “Mine.”

Her heart fluttered in her chest and sank like a stone, and she pressed a trembling hand to her stomach. Oh, no. Had that ridiculously attractive alien abducted her?

The door on the opposite wall slid back, and said alien stepped over the threshold into the room wearing the same skintight outfit, or a similar one. As before, his gaze zeroed in on her. This time, though, instead of stalking toward her, he merely stood just inside the room staring at her. Large as he was, the distance didn’t really help. He was just so big and muscled and horned .

She forced herself to stay exactly where she was, when everything inside her screamed at her to scramble away, to put her back to the wall, to ready herself for him to pounce and claim her as his hot gaze promised.

“You are awake,” he rumbled in that lightly accented English.

Well, duh , she thought crossly. “Where am I?”

“Shipboard. Come, little klika . I will show you.”

Uh, no. No way was she going anywhere with him. Anywhere else , she corrected silently, since clearly he’d taken her somewhere.

“I’m fine where I am,” she said. “Thanks.”

His nostrils flared and he sniffed. “You wish to rut now?”

She wheezed out a breath and squeaked out a startled, “ What? ”

“Rut,” he said, seemingly unruffled by the volume of her response. “That is your purpose here. In exchange for technology, your government promised to give us our choice of breeding females.”

Red hot embarrassment flared through her. She slapped her hands over her face and moaned a low, “Oh, my God. We don’t do that anymore. Women have a choice , you, you barbarian . You can’t just kidnap anybody you want!”

“They reneged.”

“So!”

“So.” His shoulders rolled under the black shirt-thing he wore. “We took you.”

“You say that as if you truly believe you’re in the right here.”

His expression remained implacably, furiously firm. “We upheld our word. Your governments did not.”

She sank back against the wall, shocked to her very core. Had some moronic government official really promised to exchange fertile women for technology? Surely whoever had made that deal had intended for the women to volunteer. If she’d had a choice…

She shook her head firmly. But no, she hadn’t had a choice. This lout had kidnapped her out of her own greenhouse without so much as a by your leave . All that work! Years of research, down the drain because she was here, wherever here was, locked away by this…

Barbarian seemed too weak a word for the anger and frustration filling her. How dare he take her against her will! How dare he!

“Did it never occur to you,” she gritted out icily, “that I might have better things to do with my time? That I might be in a relationship already?”

“It did,” he said evenly. “You are not.”

“That’s not the point,” she muttered.

“Is it not?” In one stride, he reached the side of the bed and snagged her wrist in a surprisingly gentle hold. “Come, little klika . You have much to learn.”

In that moment, she wished she were as brave as Kira, who’d left India against her parents’ wishes to travel to the States for grad school, or as feisty as Leona, who would’ve flattened this alien guy as soon as he walked into the room.

But no, she was just plain ol’ Mia, crop research scientist. Meek, biddable, too curious for her own good. He’d said the magic word— learn —and that curiosity had already overridden her brief spurt of fury.

Too bad. She could really use some indignation right now.

“No rutting?” she said, entirely too timidly for her peace of mind, but still, there it was. She’d drawn a line on acceptable behavior.

“We will rut,” he chided gently.

“You don’t have to sound so happy about it,” she muttered.

He cocked his head as his heated gaze slid down her body, warming her in places she’d almost forgotten existed. “Happy is not correct. Hunger, yes? Any male would feel the same upon meeting his mate. Is it not the same among humans?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again and shook her head. No man had ever looked at her the way this one did, and none had ever wanted to keep her before.

Finally, she said, “I wouldn’t know.”

“Then we shall learn together.”

Ok, not ideal, but she could work with that. Knowledge is power, right? And the more she learned about this alien, the better prepared she’d be. Learning was fine, great even, so long as he kept putting off this rutting thing.

Honestly, who even used a word like that anymore?

Carefully, she slid off the bed. Her bare feet landed on cold metal, and briefly she wondered what had happened to her shoes. Oh, well. At least she was still dressed in her own clothing, stained and disheveled as it was.

The alien towered over her, making her feel even smaller and meeker than she had when she’d been sitting. He was just so massive, like a living statue that had peeled itself off a rock wall, only his hand was warm against her skin, and he moved with the grace of a trained predator.

Awareness shivered down her spine. She abruptly pushed the warmth of his touch out of her mind before it caused any trouble. Learning she could handle. Trouble, not so much.

He guided her to the blank wall to the left of the entrance and pointed to the series of protrusions beside it, to a particular button-like square inscribed with an entirely foreign symbol. “Press this.”

She glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes. “Why?”

In answer, he merely maneuvered her closer to the wall and pointed patiently to the button-thing again.

With a sigh, she reached forward and pressed it. Immediately, a thin rectangular slab swung down from the wall and stopped parallel to the floor. It looked like a plain piece of black metal to her, but when the alien touched the corner closest to the wall and door, it lit up like a screen, filling with a picture of an alien woman standing in a landscaped garden, her back to a distant jungle.

Mia gasped and leaned forward, sliding into the seat extruding from the wall. “Who is this? Is that your home world?”

“Yes. It is Zephyria, my planet. The female is my mother.”

“Your mother,” Mia breathed as she studied the woman. Horns similar to his, albeit smaller and more delicate, jutted from her temples, curling back along the sides of her head. The woman’s hair was braided out of the way, and she wore a deep red, embroidered robe over loose white pants. Alien, yet beautiful in her own way. Mia could see a slight resemblance between mother and son in the proud expression, the hawkish nose, the set of the woman’s strong shoulders.

“You will meet her soon,” the alien said. He tapped the middle of the screen, and it turned a solied, lurid green. “Press your hand there.”

Mia glanced at him again, uncertain despite her curiosity.

He gazed down at her from way above her, his green eyes darkening. “You wish me to touch you again?”

“No, no,” she said, and hastily slapped her palm to the screen. A searing heat scorched her skin. She yelped and snatched it away, but the pain had already receded. “What was that for?”

“Imprint. Now you may access our database at your whim.”

“Oh.” She stared down at the screen now showing what looked like a search box. “I don’t know your language.”

“You need not. Speak and it will understand.” He squatted behind her, his thighs bracketing hers, one arm wrapped around her waist, the strong line of his jaw brushing her temple. His free hand danced over the screen, tapping buttons inscribed with images and those unfamiliar symbols, then the screen changed and everything was displayed in English. “Now you will learn, yes?”

“Oh! Yes,” she said, entirely too aware of the male heat surrounding her, of his large hand splayed over her stomach, of his face so close to hers. She cleared her throat nervously and reached for the manners her mother had drilled into her. “Thank you. That was very helpful.”

He grunted and buried his face in her throat. She stiffened against him. Would he try to do something now? Rip off her clothes? Throw her on the bed and force himself on her?

Were they even compatible that way?

Abruptly, he pushed away from her and palmed the door open. When he spoke, his voice held a gruff tone that sent a delicious shiver through her. “You are hungry. I shall retrieve human food for you.”

He left before she could contradict him. She wasn’t hungry. She was scared and irritated and curious and—

Her belly growled, and she poked it. “It’s a fine time for you to show up,” she scolded it. “I’ve got bigger problems right now than an empty stomach.”

Shifting light caught her attention, and she moved her gaze back to the screen. It now displayed an image of the human body, straight out of an anatomy and physiology textbook. With a laugh, she forgot about her hunger and the alien who’d carted her off to his man cave, and began testing the limits of the database he’d opened to her.

Zoran paused outside his shipboard quarters and rolled his head back, closing his eyes to savor the feel of his female’s body fitted snugly against his. A pretense, he admitted to himself. Helping her had only been a pretense to hold her, to see how well they suited. Her scent lingered on his skin, some light daintiness never used by Xeruvian women. And her skin! It had been so soft against his own.

Despite her earlier anger, she had not objected to his touch. Did she then harbor the same attraction he felt for her? Would she again reject the pleasures of a physical mating?

How could he feel such for so slight and weak a female?

He heaved a great sigh and resumed his course down the ship’s narrow corridor, toward the cargo hold and the women held there. When the human government had refused to honor the treaty, Zoran and the other warlords had scrambled to refit the largely empty space for the journey back to Zephyria. Their women deserved better treatment. They deserved better than stark metal walls, blankets for beds, and dried rations and raw vegetation for food. This was what they had to work with, however, and it would have to do until they reached home.

Zoran found Nyklan standing guard just inside the cargo hold’s entrance, as if the humans could escape. The women had clumped into small groups on the far side of the space, huddling together and murmuring softly. Occasionally, one threw a narrow-eyed glare at the warlords.

“How are they?” he asked in his own language.

“Irritating,” Nyklan retorted. “Already the tall yellow-haired one has tried to push past me twice.”

Zoran sought out the woman Nyklan described and found only the one who’d been standing beside Mia before she’d run from him.

“Relax. I brought her no harm.” Nyklan lowered his voice and muttered, “She is not mine.”

Zoran glanced at the healer, surprised. “You have found a mate among these women?”

“I could never mate one of these females, not while the memory of my own beloved lingers in my blood.”

“My sister would not want you to mourn her, Nyklan, when you have an opportunity to honor her.”

“How is bedding one of these beasts honoring my beloved?” Nyklan snuffled out a breath through his nose, his expression full of the same bitterness he’d carried since the deaths of Kygana and their eldest youngling.

Zoran allowed Nyklan a moment to regain control of his emotions before continuing. “If you believe them to be beasts, why did you agree to breed with one?”

“Because we are dying,” Nyklan gritted out. “Because if we fail to act, we will cease to exist. Because I have an obligation to my people.” He drew in another breath, then lowered his head and turned his back on the women. “She is there. I shall do my duty and bed her, but do not expect me to bring her into my home. She can never replace my beloved. I will not allow it.”

He left before Zoran could counter him.

Zoran turned his attention to the women, studying them for signs of maltreatment, and yes, searching for the one Nyklan’s mating instinct had singled out as his alone. If sorrow filled him for the loss his sister’s mate carried, for the grief and shame he carried as well, he could never acknowledge it. Could not afford to acknowledge it. Nyklan was right. They were too close to losing themselves as a people, too close to dying out. They had to try mating with the humans, even if it meant diluting their own strength and culture.

But Zoran was right, too. Kygana would never condone Nyklan’s mourning in the face of inevitable extinction. She would want him to move on, to find another mate, to fill their home with the laughter and love of children. Never replace her, no. But to deny him love again? She would not wish it on even the meanest among them.

Just as their father would want him to move on.

He saw again the face of the man who had been friend and mentor, felt the desperate grip of his calloused hand on his own. Heard the words his father had whispered as he fell beyond Zoran’s reach.

Save your mother, Zoran. Save my heart.

Zoran’s hands curled into fists at his side, the claws digging deeply into his flesh, drawing blood. He had honored his father’s final wish. Would that doing so could ease his own shame.

Carefully, slowly, he cleared the torment from his mind. The dead could not be unburied. Nyklan would work through his torment in good time. Nothing Zoran said or did would aid him, nor would lingering on it clear the burden either of them carried.

Instead, he sought out the two women who were his own mate’s friends and, from a distance, assured himself of their well-being, then he retrieved enough rations, vegetation, and water to sustain Mia for the remainder of this day and the next, and left, carefully locking the hatch behind himself. Let the yellow-haired woman test the hatch’s security once he was gone. It would amuse the warlords if nothing else, and they could all use some levity right now.

When he reentered his quarters, he found Mia still seated at the console, her very human nose nearly touching the screen. It showed a view of the expansive jungle at the heart of the continent where his jutji lay. She’d turned on the audio and was listening to an explanation of the ecosystem.

Good. She had discovered the encyclopedia. When they arrived at Zephyria, he would take her to the science center where she could indulge in deeper study. Perhaps she would even set up an office there, where she could, if she wished, continue her work, as his people so desperately needed her to. It would be easy enough to shoot any findings she made back to Earth, though he wouldn’t tell her that just yet lest it encourage her to believe she could return there after they mated.

No, for now it was best that the women believed themselves severed from their native planet, until they adjusted to their new lives among his people.

Zoran rubbed a palm over his chest. Just seeing his mate relaxed him, that and knowing she had found pleasure, however small, in one of his gifts. He had watched his own parents’ bond grow and strengthen, had witnessed their joy in each other, but never had he thought it would feel like this. Never had he understood the depth of their need to nurture and protect one another, until his little klika had so wisely allowed him to catch her.

What had he done to that bond by choosing to obey his father’s command?

No, he must not dwell on the past, not now with his own mate yet unclaimed.

He stored the bulk of the food he had brought, then knelt beside her and touched the pause button on her narration. “Drink and eat, little klika . Soon we must rest.”

She absently took a compressed cereal bar from him and bit off a corner, her gaze never leaving the console as she dutifully chewed and swallowed. After a moment, she glanced back at him, her eyes wide. “Sorry. It’s just so interesting.”

“You will find the jungle itself more than interesting. After all, it is part of your new home.”

Her eyebrows drew together. She spun back toward the console and savagely bit off another chunk of the cereal bar, grinding it furiously between her teeth. When she’d swallowed, she said, “I have a home, thank you, and I miss it.”

“You have not been away from Earth long enough to miss it,” he chided gently, amused despite the heavy sorrow lingering in his kii .

“Fat lot you know,” she muttered.

He rose on a sigh, unfastened his skinsuit, and shrugged the sleeves off.

“Oh, my God!” Mia squawked, her gaze glued to the broad expanse of his bare chest. “What are you doing?”

“Undressing. It is time for rest.”

“Over my dead body!”

He cocked his head, puzzled by the expression. “Why would I want to rest with your dead body lying beneath me? Should death find you, I would not rest. I would seek revenge on the thing that had taken your life, be it foe, illness, or time.”

Her jaw snapped shut. “That is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard anybody say. And I was just kidnapped by an extraterrestrial.”

“It is true. Once we have mated—”

“We are not rutting.”

“Rutting is not the same as mating.”

She sniffed and turned back to the console, chewing on the cereal bar.

He took that as consent to continue undressing, which he would’ve done anyway. A skinsuit might protect him from the weapons of his enemies, but it was uncomfortable to rest in. Once it and his boots were off, he stored them in the cleaning closet tucked into the wall near the foot of his bed. A bed he’d brought along for her , he thought, disgruntled. A bed she did not seem to appreciate at all, or she would be coaxing him into it, as a Xeruvian female would in the same situation.

But his little klika was not a Xeruvian; she was human, small, and entirely too fragile, though not as helpless and delicate as he’d first thought. She had no understanding of their ways, nor of the honor of mating with a warrior of his standing, and apparently had no care for the strength and honor he could impart to their children. His mother had counseled patience, and patience he would use.

Until his patience wore thin and he could freely act on his first impulse to claim her in every way possible.

Zoran ignored the redness of her cheeks as he stalked into the tiny bathing chamber attached to his quarters. The room was barely wide enough for him to walk past the toiletry functions and into the shower stall. He adjusted the temperature on the wall outside, then activated the spray and washed quickly, all too aware of the ship’s limited water supply.

His planet, like Earth, was rich in liquid water. Would his mate appreciate that, or disdain it as she had his bed?

He could not help the humor that thought brought, and allowed it to lighten his mood and the fatigue that had been hounding him since his people had nearly been destroyed by the dual strokes of disaster and virus.

When he finished cleansing himself, Mia had finished the cereal bar and now sipped water. Her gaze swung automatically to him, then her cheeks heated, and she sputtered and spun on bare feet, putting her back to him.

“Do you have to walk around naked all the time?” she demanded.

“You will learn to enjoy it,” he countered calmly. “As I will enjoy your nudity.”

“As if!”

By way of an answer, he took her drink from her, stored it next to the bed, and lifted her into his arms. She squawked in an entirely too appealing way and clung to him, sputtering out nonsensical phrases like, “Oh, my God!” and “Never. In. My. Life !”

Her spunk pleased him. She pleased him, with her wide-eyed gazes and the hint of pink in her cheeks and that little wiggle she did when something he said or did irritated her. The latter threatened his control, but he would never tell her so lest she cease wiggling and end his pleasure.

He dropped her on the bed in the middle of one of her sputterings and followed her down, quickly pulling her into the curve of his body before she could mount a defense. Her ass fitted nicely against his hips, enticing him into arousal with every pleasurable wiggle.

She stilled abruptly and whispered, “Why are we in bed?”

“To rest.” He waited until she’d relaxed before rubbing the tip of his horn against her temple. Solely to elicit her delectable outrage, he added, “We may rut now, if you wish. What are the pleasure points for a human female?”

The last he tacked on even though he well knew those pleasure points, having studied such guides as could be found on the human internet.

Immediately, Mia slapped at his restraining arm and tried to wiggle out of his grasp. “Oh, my God, I can’t believe you! Kidnapping me. Taking me away to some, some jungle planet , then acting like it’s no big deal when you throw me onto your bed and try to have your wicked way with me.”

He grinned at her response, a very human gesture he’d learned to appreciate, despite the baring of teeth. How could he not? She pleased him so.

Then, because he could, he teased her with a gentle chide. “Your responses are becoming predictable, mate.”

She glared at him over her shoulder, then turned away, curled into a ball, and muttered, “Predictable. Hmph. Barbarian.”

“My name is Zoran,” he replied.

“I could make so many jokes right now about Zoran the Barbarian. But I won’t. Unlike some aliens, I’m civilized.” She flopped over and turned her hot-eyed glare on him again. “And I am not rutting with you.”

“You will.” He whistled the console above the bed on and set it to show a countdown of their arrival in Zephyrian space. “But because you are human and unused to our ways, you may have time to adjust to your situation.”

She warily studied the display, worrying at her lower lip with small white teeth. “In English, please.”

Obligingly, he changed the countdown to display numerals she could read. As soon as they shifted, she paled. “Thirty-three hours? You’re giving me a day and a half before forcing yourself on me?”

“There will be no force,” he assured her, even knowing he would have to fight against the mating instinct to fulfill that promise. He would protect his mate unto his dying breath.

Even from himself.

The thought of protecting her satisfied him no end, eating away at some of the burden he carried, soothing him. Steadier now, more resolved, he whistled the console off, then the lights, and pulled her back into the curve of his body, wrapping himself protectively around her softer, much smaller form. “Rest now, Mia. We will transition again soon, and you do not wish to be awake then.”

“A day and a half,” she whispered. “I should’ve called in sick this morning.”

“I would have found you anyway. You are mine, little klika . Mine to mate, mine to protect.”

Mine to love , he added silently, and willed the hope swelling within him to subside. It was too soon for hope, too soon to rest the fate of an entire culture on her narrow, human shoulders. Too soon to show her how important she really was to him and his people.

He rubbed the tip of his horn over her temple again, licked the graceful column of her throat, and settled her firmly against him, savoring the taste of her delicate skin on his tongue. “All will be as it should. Trust in me.”

If she heard him, she did not respond. Soon, she relaxed into sleep, and he followed. He was beginning to suspect he would follow her anywhere.