Even though massive floor-to-ceiling windows lined an entire wall and there was light, cream-colored décor sprinkled around the space, the room felt as confining as a dungeon. I’d spent my life in open space, roaming the mountains of Montemba as a young A’li-uud with Duke, working on tree farms for wood harvests when I was a little older, and finally joining the ranks of Montemban warriors to train in the wide, unsheltered arenas from dusk until dawn. Traveling in the ship to Earth had been a level of restricted space I’d never experienced before—and, frankly, one I never wanted to experience again—but I would have gladly traded sitting in the deceptively suffocating room for another spaceship journey.

When we’d finally reached our destination, and the humans wrenched us out of the truck, I was fairly certain I’d been brought back to New York City. Only a few short months before, when Duke still reigned as Elder, I’d been captured with a handful of other warriors by American military personnel and held hostage in one of the many sky-reaching buildings. It was safe to assume they’d intended to hold us there temporarily until finding more permanent and secure prisons for us, but Duke and his new human lover had shown up and freed us before we were moved or killed.

This time, I was not joined in the room by my captured comrades. As soon as the five of us were removed from the truck, the soldiers had released me from the binds that joined me to Lokos. Two had pulled me aside while the rest guarded my warriors and linked Lokos’ chains to the three remaining warriors. I expected to be connected to the group next, but I was wrong. The two humans who had hold of my arms and pointed guns at me with their free hands started shoving me toward the great glass doors that opened into the skyscraper as my warriors were thrust back into the truck.

“No!” Lokos cried in English, his large eyes growing larger as he realized we were to be separated. He shoved his heels into the concrete beneath his feet and tried to steel himself against the forceful pushes of the soldiers, but his balance was off-kilter due to the adjoining shackles on his ankles, and he stumbled. If Silah’s beefy shoulder hadn’t been there to catch him, he would have fallen face-down on the street.

“Control yourself, alien!” barked the same human who’d snapped at us from the front seat of the truck.

I ground my own heels in an attempt to prevent the separation, but to no avail. The butt of a gun cracked into my shoulder blade, knocking me forward and sending a searing pain down my arm. All of my warriors let out angry snarls of rage.

“Do not provoke them,” I hissed over my shoulder to my men in A’li-uud. “Remember Ki’lok.”

The butt of the gun met my shoulder blade again, this time with enough force to make me stumble, but I ignored the unspoken order for silence.

“They need me for intel. I will not be harmed, at least not yet,” I continued, my voice growing louder as the distance between us became greater.

“Shut up!” the human jamming me shouted.

“Do what you must to stay alive, but do not put yourselves at unnecessary risk. Stay together, if you can. There is strength in numbers.”

The last syllable of my command was cut short by a sudden kick to the back of my knee, and I was sent crumpling to the sidewalk. My hands were still restrained behind my back, leaving me unable to catch myself before I landed, so my nose and chin were the first to hit the ground. Pain shot through the center of my face in a bolt of agony. I wanted to cry out from the shock of it, but I refused to give them the satisfaction and remained steadfastly silent. They heaved me back up to my feet by my underarms and thrust me through the glass doors as my warriors were returned to the inside of the truck.

Now I found myself sitting alone in a room with my wrists and ankles chained together, the chains also attached to the chair upon which I sat and the long table before me. There wasn’t much to look at in the space, but everything I saw was unnervingly muted. The table was made of a strange wood with unnaturally straight grain and a dull crimson undertone that gave the structure the illusion of being blood-soaked. Artwork hung on the walls depicting various waterscapes, but their steely colors reminded me more of memories than of paintings in their vagueness. Even the view outside the wall-sized windows was strange: gray and slightly hazy. It was a far cry from the vivid azure sky with luscious lavender curls that stretched over Albaterra.

The lone door that separated me from the rest of the world opened. Stillness resumed for a beat, and then a woman entered.

There was nothing muted about this woman at all.

Long tendrils of smoky black hair tumbled from her head to her chest, coming to rest on the soft curves of her breasts. The flowing tresses framed a dainty, heart-shaped face of perfect porcelain smoothness. Her eyes were so wide that she seemed blessed with perpetual innocence, but there was a sultry curve to her lashes that made me salivate. I was instantly reminded of the foliage in the Albaterran rainforests as I noticed the depth of her emerald irises, and a sudden bout of homesickness gripped me by the chest. Her smart blouse and unassuming skirt hugged a voluptuous figure of such femininity that I had to bite down on the inside of my cheek just to keep myself under control.

It had been a very long time since I’d been with the fairer sex, six months at the least, and this woman was like a walking aphrodisiac. The fact that she was human didn’t seem to quell my arousal for her in the slightest.

“Good morning,” she said, closing the door behind her. With a small, indulgent smile, she added, “Well, I suppose it’s afternoon now, actually.”

I didn’t respond, but she didn’t seem affronted by my lack of acknowledgment. On the contrary, she didn’t even maintain eye contact with me as she strode to the chair opposite mine, almost like she had no expectations of idle conversation. Her indifference to social proprieties surprised me. Every human I’d encountered since coming to Earth who was of any authority had tried to demand respect from the A’li-uud, even when the only interaction was to battle to the death. The egos of the delicate humans were far greater a detriment to them than we were. This woman, however, was either a very good actress or truly didn’t care about my perception of her, and the latter intrigued me.

“My name is Roxanne Rigby. I am the Ambassador of Alien Relations,” she continued. She leaned her lithe body across the table slightly with her hand extended to me. I stared at her in silent incredulity, and, after a second, she snapped her hand back and cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Sorry,” she apologized. “I forgot you were restrained. I suppose you don’t shake hands anyway, though, do you? Most countries around the world don’t, so I can’t imagine a planet an entire galaxy away picking up the practice.”

I continued to stare at her, but my incredulity had melted into wary fascination. She was correct: we didn’t shake hands. In fact, the A’li-uud generally reserved greetings of physical touch for loved ones only. We were a nature-driven and spiritual people, living to honor the Grand Circle and the planet it granted us, and physical touch only served to interrupt the meeting of souls—with the exception of family and partners, of course, as the souls were already bound in love.

Roxanne slid into the seat across from me and placed a file on the table before her. “I guess you’re probably wondering why you’re here.” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Our Intel has reason to believe you are the ground leader of the A’li-uud, reason confirmed by you to Sergeant Hawkins earlier today. I apologize if the manner in which you were brought here was less than luxurious, but we felt it was imperative for the safety of our race, and yours, that we meet with you immediately.”

Even in a tone of no-nonsense professionalism, her voice lilted in such a way that it was nothing short of a song in my ears. Each word she spoke seemed to roll off her tongue like rippled waves on the shore, and her succulent lips flowed from one word to the other like swaths of silk. As she bent forward in her chair to close some of the space between us, I watched those lips draw nearer to me and had to force myself to hear her rather than just see her.

“We wish to discuss a peace treaty,” she said. Her brilliant green eyes bore into me, and I could have sworn I was back on Albaterra again.