Zoey woke to blinding light. She turned her face away, squinting against the glare. As her eyes adjusted, the light dimmed to something more tolerable. Confusion furrowed her brow.

She recalled the accident, the roar of twisting metal and shattering glass, and then explosions, gunfire, and screams. She remembered consuming pain and brutal cold.

Am I in a hospital?

She lifted an arm to touch her face, but it bumped into something above her. Frowning, she looked up to find herself beneath smooth, curved glass. Her breath quickened as she pressed her palms to the smooth surface.

Where the hell was she? Had…had the government caught them?

Ren! Oh, God, please don’t let them have taken Ren!

Zoey smacked her hands against the glass. “Let me out!”

A strange, warm tingling blossomed inside her.

The glass slid up into a hidden recess with a hiss of air.

She hurriedly climbed out of the machine. Her knees buckled as her feet touched the floor, and she crumpled. Absently, she covered her bare chest with an arm as she sat there panting; her nudity was the least of her problems. With wide eyes, she looked around her. There were two more of the bed-like things next to the one she’d been in, and those were the easiest part of her surroundings to wrap her mind around.

Zoey crawled backward until she bumped the wall.

The large room was sleek and polished, something right out of a sci-fi show, with strange controls, honest-to-God holograms, and pieces of equipment she couldn’t identify along the walls. A circular platform stood at the front of the room, raised slightly off the floor, with several large chairs atop it. The chairs were surrounded by more controls. The lights overhead were soft and pure, neither too bright nor too dim.

This wasn’t like any hospital room she’d ever seen.

“Zoey?”

One of the chairs on the platform turned, and Rendash rose out of it, all four of his eyes wide and staring at her in disbelief.

“Ren,” she rasped.

He was here! He was safe!

By the time she pulled herself to her feet, he’d already crossed the distance between them. He gathered her into his arms for the most desperate, relieved hug she’d ever received, lifting her off the floor.

“You’re awake,” he said breathlessly. “You’re alive. I was afraid you wouldn’t…”

Zoey wrapped her arms around him, clutching at his back. “How? I thought I was…I was dying.”

He gently lowered her, settling one pair of hands on her hips and the other on her shoulders. It was only then that she realized what he was wearing — a wide belt with intricate, alien patterns etched across it and a loose, layered cloth wrap around his waist, hanging to just above his knee. It was almost like a kilt, but the fabric and its bright colors didn’t quite match that gruff Scottish look.

“You were,” he said, calling her attention back to his face. He frowned deeply, a crease appearing between his center eyes. “A little longer, and you would’ve been gone. I transferred most of my nyros into you, hoping it would save your life. I had no other choice.”

Zoey’s eyes widened. “Your...nyros?” She focused on her body, searching for anything out of place, anything different, but she only felt wonderful. Whole. She felt…

Ren.

“I-I feel you.” She placed a hand on her chest. “I feel you…in me.”

She sensed him in her mind, her body, and in her heart. He was all around her, inside her; a steady, comforting presence. She smiled.

“And I feel you,” he replied, settling a hand over hers. “I didn’t know what else to do. Didn’t know what it would do to you.”

“You saved me,” she said, leaning her head forward to press her lips against his bare chest. “Thank you.”

“You saved me first.” He kissed the top of her head. “I would not have made it far, were it not for you.”

Zoey rested her cheek on his chest, relishing his closeness. They were alive.

After a while, she lifted her head and looked around again. “We’re on your ship, aren’t we? In space?”

Ren twisted, leaving his left hands in contact with her, and followed her gaze around the command module with his own. “Yes. We’re currently on the fringes of your star system.”

“And we’re going to your home?”

Icy fear pricked in her gut. What would they think of her? She was an alien to his people, as foreign and strange as Ren had once been to her.

“We are. It is called Algar. But I have plotted a slow course. It will allow you time to learn of my language and culture before you are thrust into it…” He brushed the back of a finger along her jaw. “And it will be some time before I am ready to share your attention with anyone else.”

Relief, warm and soothing, flowed into her to thaw her fear. Though she undoubtedly had a lot to learn, his consideration was touching.

“Thank you.” She ran her hand down his chest and over his abdomen, smiling. “I’m not ready to share your attention either.”

He grinned at her, granting her a wicked flash of his fangs. As always, his roguish smile flooded her with heat, but now it felt stronger, like her reactions to him had been enhanced.

“Do you feel as though you can handle my attentions, little human?” His gaze slid over her naked body, trailing fire across her skin.

“This little human has handled your attentions just fine.” She dropped her gaze to his groin, where his erection was lifting the fabric of his wrap. “And I find myself craving more.”

Zoey laughed when he closed the distance between them and lifted her body against his. She wrapped her arms behind his neck and her legs around his waist. A moment later, her back met the wall, leaving her no room for escape.

Why the hell would I want to escape?

Their lips met in a ravishing kiss, and he growled against her mouth. His lower hands slid between their bodies and unfastened his belt. It fell to the sides, the cloth falling with it.

“I need you in me, Ren,” Zoey breathed, moaning as his scales grazed her nipples. “Now.”

“As you command, kun’ia.” Hands on her hips, he drew her down onto his cock, and her slick sex accepted it greedily.

She dropped her head back as he sank into her, stretching her, filling her. His hips pumped, setting a maddeningly steady rhythm that teased her with the slow glide of his shaft. He pushed deeper with every thrust, until finally the pleasure must have overpowered his control and his motions quickened.

She sensed him everywhere. Their coming together was the same as it had been before, but it was also more. It was galaxies crashing together, the cosmos swirling in a blinding display of a million impossible colors, and stars bursting to cast their brilliant dying light through space and time.

Lifting her head, she locked her gaze with his. The overhead light made his eyes sparkle like emeralds. He looked upon her with all the love in the universe, and Zoey knew that she had finally found her home.

“I love you,” she whispered, pleasure spreading through her entire being as he thrust inside her one final time, fusing them together as close as any two bodies could be.

Rendash cupped her cheek and pressed his forehead to hers. “And I love you, kun’ia.”