Pen stood still for so long that Krayter began to question whether or not he’d actually heard her open the door. He hated being blindfolded like this. The child who’d affixed the cloth to his head had done well; even as he tried to move his head to shimmy the dark fabric away, it stayed firmly in place. Given enough time, he might get it off, but he wasn’t going to keep trying when he was almost certain that his most powerful captor stood at his feet.

“I can hear you breathing, Pen,” he taunted. It wasn’t quite true. The shed was too loud with the sounds of the night to hear a single woman breathe. But he sensed her, almost like he could feel the energy that swirled around her.

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped.

“It’s what your sister called you,” he countered, making a bet. Human familial relationships weren’t that different from Detyen, and the sibling social dynamic was one that Krayter could never escape.

Pen finally moved, scraping her feet across the floor, and she settled the fallen stool back into place beside him. “If you value your life, you’ll stop thinking about anyone you’ve met since you crashed.” She spoke with a quiet authority that might have disturbed Krayter in other circumstances.

He must have hurt his head in the crash because that quiet authority should have disturbed him now in these disturbing circumstances. The fact that he wanted to see her more than he wanted to escape was lodged in his mind, and he was beginning to worry for his sanity, if not his life.

He was a Detyen, though, so his life wasn’t worth much to begin with.

“And what if I don’t?” he asked. He turned his head towards her. It felt like the right thing to do.

“Don’t what?”

“Value my life?”

She breathed hard and stared at him with enough intensity for him to feel it. “I guess you don’t, if you were stupid enough to fly here.”

“‘Human murder cult’ wasn’t listed as a place of interest on the map,” Krayter felt the need to point out. “I came to this planet to change my wicked ways, not feed all my dangerous urges.”

That seemed to subdue her. For a moment. But then her voice roughened and Krayter knew that one of the hells was opening up and calling to him.

“Wicked?” The word dragged out of her like she’d wanted to say anything else. Krayter nearly groaned as he imagined just what those lips could look like. What they might feel like.

“All the mothers hid their daughters when I came to town,” he said. Though it wasn’t quite true. Any Detyen mother would have thrown her daughter in his path. That was the way of things.

“What about the girls without mothers?” she asked. She sounded a little closer, as if she were leaning into him. Krayter flexed his fingers and felt the edge of soft cloth. He hoped it was her clothes and that he wasn’t surreptitiously fondling an unfortunate bit of chair.

“They learned why their friends were so mad to be hidden away.” Krayter wasn’t exactly lying, though mothers had only hidden away their adult children from him on one occasion. Still, when a man earned a reputation like that, he was entitled to a bit of a brag. “If your mother was here, and if she’d heard of me, you can bet she’d have you locked up in an attic until I was long gone.”

“I doubt that.” Her voice turned cold and too late, Krayter realized why she might have spoken about girls with no mothers. “I’m going to lay things out simply,” she said, all business. “You’ve crash landed in one of the worst places a person like you can crash land. If they find your speeder, they’ll kill you. If they find you, they’ll kill you. If anyone hints that you’re here, they’ll find you and they’ll kill you. Now, I don’t have anything against you. And I don’t plan to do as my fellow citizens might. But you’re in the heart of our territory and I can’t risk you escaping until we have a plan.”

When Krayter got out of this mess, he needed to have a few words with his cousin’s human denya, Lis. When she’d encouraged them to come to Earth, she’d said nothing about murderous bands of humans who’d kill an alien just for existing. “This conversation would be easier if I could see you,” he said.

“No,” Pen insisted.

“Why not?” If she planned to let him go, she didn’t need to tie him up like some pirate’s hostage.

“Because I don’t want you to be able to describe me or this place to anyone who captures you.” Pen was a woman made of cool practicality and if Krayter hadn’t been trussed up in the middle of a murderous tribe of feral humans he would have taken his time to see her thaw. To watch her burn.

“We both know that it’s a bit late for that,” he replied. “Would you like to hear what I know already?” Krayter waited for her response, but she remained quiet, so he continued. “Three human females, one definitely a child and one significantly older than the other two. All three sisters, or perhaps cousins. The eldest is named Pen.” He angled his body towards her as he spoke. “If I were back in New York City, that might apply to many people. But in your tiny town?” He tried to shrug, but the rope got in the way. “I might die, but I can bring you down with me.”

“Unwise words from an alien whose life came down to a coin toss,” she said. Krayter noted that she’d called him an alien, not a man like she’d done before.

When she leaned over him, he braced for the impact of something hard or sharp, but instead felt the soft pads of her fingers brush against his skin over the abrasive rope. Wherever her fingers brushed, he burned and craved more. She laid her hands against the blindfold and Krayter thought she would remove it, but after a moment, she pulled back, and he realized that she’d merely ensured that his bindings were secure.

“If you make a sound, you’ll die. I’ll see you in the morning.” Her steps faded and the door closed behind her, leaving Krayter alone once more.

He flicked out his claws. It was time to turn his luck around.