Shit shit shit.

Pain radiated down Krayter’s spine and he knew without opening his eyes that he wasn’t in his speeder anymore. The last thing he remembered was losing altitude way too fast and crashing down through dense forest and splashing into a small river. The guy at the rental place had told him to be careful and mind the warnings posted on his map.

Krayter had, perhaps, been a bit more impulsive than advised.

At least his brother Kayleb was safe back at their quarters in New York City and not… wherever he was. Krayter groaned and opened his eyes. Well, tried to open his eyes. At first he had the disturbing notion that whatever had happened to him had cost him his sight, but the slight tug at something on his face and the brush of his lashes against a piece of cloth told him that he’d been blindfolded. A heaviness across his chest proved to be another binding, he discovered as he tried to sit up.

Krayter considered himself an adventurous Detyen and this wasn’t the first time he’d been trussed up like a prize. But he normally liked to know the name of his playmate first.

“What the hell?” a high pitched feminine voice practically shrieked. His translator took a moment and for a second he didn’t understand. She spoke English, not Interstellar Common. Krayter had only been on Earth and in the United States for a few weeks and it was strange that almost no one spoke the language he’d grown up with.

Krayter opened his mouth and was pleasantly surprised to find that he hadn’t been gagged. But another woman, or girl, judging from her voice, spoke before he could say anything. “You’re not supposed to be here! You were completely passed out! Just pretend you didn’t see this, we’ll take care of it.”

It. Krayter did not like the sound of that. He started to form an idea of where he’d landed. The guy at the rental place had marked off a section of the map in red and told him to stay far away. They didn’t take kindly to aliens, non-humans, in Highland Settlement.

Normal people didn’t find an injured man in a downed speeder and tie him up in a cold building on a very hard slab of something. They offered medical aid and contacted the authorities. Unless, of course, the authorities were more likely to murder the victim then render assistance.

He was in more trouble than he’d thought.

The older woman, the one who wasn’t supposed to be there, made an angry noise and footsteps crunched over the floor, getting closer to him. “You sit out there,” she commanded, “and don’t leave the building.”

“But, Pen─”

“Ah,” she, Pen, cut off the younger one. “Out. There.” He could imagine a slender hand, calloused with hard work, pointing towards a weather worn door. Krayter found that he liked the sound of the older woman’s voice. And if the circumstances were different, he might not have minded being trussed up for her pleasure.

But as he roused himself closer to consciousness, he was starting to come back to himself. His ankle burned like a pyrnar fire on Jaaxis and his teeth wanted to chatter from the cold. The crash into the river had seen him soaked, and he hadn’t been out of the water long enough to completely dry off.

One set of footsteps got further away and wood banged against wood as the door shut. Krayter could hear Pen’s labored breathing and he winced as she dragged something heavy across the floor and ended up next to him. He held himself as still as he could, as if he could trigger some sort of invisibility instinct. His claws were retracted deeply into their sheathes on his knuckles and he kept his hands relaxed to make sure they didn’t accidentally spring out.

No need to give away the secret weapon just yet.

“Are you injured?” Pen asked. She was closer than the other girl had been and he got the vague sense of her presence directly next to him. His wrists were tied down too and he couldn’t reach up to undo the blindfold and get a look at her.

How long had he been unconscious?

“Who are you?” he asked. He needed to get untied and then get out of here.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” she responded coolly. “Since I can understand you, I’ll assume you have a proficient translator. By now you must have realized that you’re not in a good situation. At present, I have no reason to kill you. Don’t make me change my mind.”

“Do you practice that speech?” The words popped out of Krayter’s mouth before he could even think to hold himself in check. He was sure that Kayleb was flinching somewhere back in the city, just knowing that his reckless brother was getting himself into trouble. Again.

“I don’t need to practice,” she said with complete sincerity. Krayter wondered if humor was a rare trait in humans. His friend Max had it, but so many of the creatures on this planet seemed to take everything so seriously.

“Do you ever give the speech when your audience isn’t tied up?” He was poking her, trying to rouse whatever beast lived inside. And he knew that he shouldn’t. But there was something in Krayter that wanted to see how far he could take it. At what point would this woman snap and…

He swallowed hard as his thoughts took a turn he wasn’t expecting. One second he imagined ripping himself free, fighting his way out, and reuniting with his friends and family like nothing had ever happened. And then he imagined this woman, Pen, leaning over him too close, her scent invading his senses as she raked sharp nails down his chest, strong enough to hurt.

Krayter clamped down on that thought and tossed it out the airlock. A few months in space away from his fun and willing partners on Jaaxis was doing a number on his brain. He wasn’t here to fool around, he reminded himself. As soon as he could disentangle himself from this mess, he had to get back to New York and search in earnest for his mate. And for Kayleb’s. And for every other damn Detyen out there. Earth was their best hope.

No one else needed to end up like his sister, Karwan. Not after they’d found Lis, Dorsey, Reina, and Max. Humans all and compatible Detyen mates.

“I’m uninjured,” he said with deliberate calm. “My name is Krayter NaMoren. I ran into difficulty with my speeder and crashed in a body of water. That girl you were talking to earlier must have rescued me.” He spoke quickly, imparting as much information as possible in the hopes of making this woman let him go. Or, at least, take the blindfold off.

The legs of the stool she was sitting on dragged against the floor and clattered back as she stood. “Your speeder?” she asked, half-panicked. “Where is it? Is it still near the river?” She spoke with the urgency that invited thoughts of pacing and nervous movements, but her feet remained planted on the floor.

“I’m not sure,” Krayter responded. “I was unconscious. I only just woke up.”

“Damn it,” she spat. And now her feet did move, stomping in the direction of the door before pausing. “Just… just be calm. We won’t—I’ll be back. I promise.” The door slammed behind her and Krayter was alone once again.

Wind howled through a broken window somewhere near him and he got the sinking suspicion that things were about to get worse. She’d promised she’d be back, but she hadn’t promised that he wouldn’t be hurt.

Shit!

***

Penny let the door slam shut behind her and found her two sisters sitting close on an old bench beside the outer door. Nicole had an arm flung around Resa’s shoulders and both of them looked as pathetic as soaking wet puppy dogs.

At sixteen, Nicole already bore a striking resemblance to their long gone mother and had caught the eye of most of the boys in her school. She had the innocent brown eyes of an angel and gently wavy brown hair falling around a glowing golden face. But inside, Penny knew that she was as much of a devil as any of the White girls.

The door was thin, so she kept her voice down as she spoke, trying desperately to banish the disturbing thoughts of the teal alien from of her mind. He was trouble, tall and muscular, and as blue as the ocean in the Caribbean. Even when he was tied up, she could read the danger in him clear as day. Dark patches of skin in triangles and squares had peeked out of his ripped collar and she’d had the strongest desire to reach out and trace them. And then taste them.

Get a fucking grip, she told herself.

“Did anyone hear or see you when you brought him here?” she asked. Her sisters knew the guard schedules just as well as she did and they knew it was easier to avoid a squad than get caught and answer prying questions.

Both of her sisters shook their heads, eyes downcast.

If anger wasn’t steaming off of her in waves, Penny might have actually felt sorry for them. But her stomach was a mass of knots and she felt bile rise in the back of her throat. “Where’s his speeder?” The river was far enough into the territory that guard rotations only passed it every few hours, but her sisters could have found that alien—Krayter, her mind unhelpfully reminded her—any time after dusk. The interloper call hadn’t been sounded, but they were on borrowed time.

“It washed down the river,” said Resa. She was brave enough to tilt her head up and meet Penny’s eyes, if only for a second. One day she’d be formidable. But tonight she was just a kid. “We barely got him out before it got free of the rocks.”

They’d been near the rocks at night, saving an alien from his downed vehicle. Penny bit her tongue before she started demanding if either one of them had a death wish. It was obvious they both did and she didn’t have the time or energy to save them from themselves at the moment.

“Was it whole?” she asked. “Or is one of the patrols going to start finding parts over the next few days?” Because if that happened, the alien in the other room was a dead man. There’d be no way to save him.

“It was whole, we probably could’ve fixed it up if it wasn’t submerged.” Nicole found her courage to speak. She sat up straighter, but looked at Penny’s nose, not quite able to reach her eyes. “I think he ran into the Field.”

An invisible force field ran around the perimeter of Highland Settlement. Under normal circumstances, it tagged any vehicle that veered too close to their air space. But if someone unauthorized crossed the boundary, the Field could wreak havoc on electrical systems.

The rocky portion of the river was several miles from any border. If the alien had managed to pilot himself that far with faulty machinery, he was either an amazing pilot, or he’d been flying an amazing vehicle.

“At sunrise, the two of you are going to Lookout Point and scanning for alien tech. If Dad…” No, Penny couldn’t think of what her dad would do if he found the speeder. There’d be a Hunt for sure. “Right now, I want you two to go back to the cabin and get cleaned up. Keep the lights off and if anyone comes looking for me, you tell them I’ve got one of my headaches and will call them in the morning. Got it?”

Both girls nodded, sullen. They knew that they’d done enough damage for the night and weren’t about to start anything else. Penny watched them leave, walking into the woods with one weak flashlight shared between them. Like her, they could make it back to the cabin blindfolded with their hands bound. With all hands free and a source of light, they’d make it home faster than she’d made it to the shed.

Penny locked the door and looked back towards where the alien guest was tied up.

Options flashed through her mind, each one worse than the last. His presence in Highland Settlement put them all in danger. If word got out that there was an alien in the territory, anyone suspected of rendering aid would be punished, possibly expelled or executed. The river flowed swift and hard, and it was completely possible that every shred of the alien’s speeder would have disappeared from the territory by morning.

But it wasn’t likely.

Rocks bumped along the bottom of the river, sharp enough to tear up large boats and unsuspecting rafts. There would be evidence of the speeder’s presence and from that, evidence of the alien. Every second he breathed, he put her sisters in danger.

Penny bent down and picked up the plank of wood that Resa had wielded earlier. She held it on both ends and bent inward, testing the strength. It didn’t give.

She wondered what color the alien bled. Was it red like her? Or something else, something obviously otherworldly? If he was warm blooded, she wouldn’t need to find out. She could just douse him in cold water and leave him, letting nature do the job for her.

Could she really do it?

Penny tightened her grip on the wooden plank and took a step towards the door, but only one. Her mind conjured up Resa’s face, full of determination and ready to protect the alien. Her sisters had put so much work into saving him that they’d never forgive her for what she was thinking of doing.

Eventually, she knew that she’d be able to forgive herself. But that was a small comfort.

The alien was barely injured, and the girls had been smart enough to blindfold him.

Penny put down the plank. She couldn’t do this to an unarmed, tied up man. This wouldn’t be a mercy and this time she’d have no excuse to hide behind to help her sleep at night. It would be murder, plain and simple.

She opened the door and found Krayter laying just where she’d left him. His body looked relaxed, like he’d fallen asleep, but she doubted it. She’d only been gone a matter of minutes. The light was dim, only faint flickers from the gas lamp illuminating the narrow path between the door and the slab of a table that he’d been laid out on. Her sisters had tied him down tight with rope around his torso and his feet. Even more rope bound each of his hands and was anchored to the table legs. She made a mental note to ask where the girls had learned to tie up a man so efficiently.

And then she turned her eyes to Krayter. Tension hung above him like a coiled snake and she knew not to get to close, lest he strike. For a moment, she could imagine it. The ropes would fall away and then he’d be on her, towering over her and backing her up against the wall, all rage and power and might directed at her until she was breathless and wet with want.

No.

No, not going to happen.

Penny shook her head, trying to dislodge that crazy thought. She was not the girl to fantasize about aliens and what they could do with all of their alien… parts. Sensible down to her toes, that was her. No fantasies about being overpowered and lusted at by—

No!

She glared at the still form of the alien. Did he have mind powers? Could he manipulate her? Read this, asshole. She thought straight at him as she imagined climbing on top of him and dragging her imaginary sharp nails down his pecs and over his abs, scoring him. Marking him. She could even imagine his hard—

Fuck!

“Are you just going to stare at me?” Krayter asked. “Because it would only be sporting if I could see you as well.”