Chapter Five
When he strode to the door, next, it was with her hand clasped in his. Her much shorter legs were doing double time as she tried to match his pace.
With each step, her anger and irritation grew. Something she didn’t think possible after he’d threatened to take her over his knee and spank her like a naughty child if she didn’t toe the line. This had to be some horrendous nightmare she couldn’t wake from. Then again, if it were, the heated glare she currently had aimed at his back would have dropped him dead, right there.
If she weren’t so livid, she would have asked him to elaborate on his last cryptic remark or the million and one other questions whirling in her head. She’d pushed him enough, however, testing him deliberately to see how far he’d let her go. It was risky, he could have killed her with a flick of his wrist, rather than try to reason with her as he had, but how could she consider their capture and enslavement anything other than an affront, injustice, and a complete insult to human decency.
Human. That was the key difference. These Primarians weren’t human and evidently didn’t possess respect for humanity and basic rights, let alone women’s rights.
It had rattled her, frankly, and had earned the response he’d been after her compliance. She’d read about male dominant societies in fiction, and Earth’s history was full of it for the first two thousand years. Hell, some of the countries in her world were still trying to evolve hundreds of years after women got the right to vote in the United States. But she hadn’t expected to encounter one in their travels. Although, in deep space exploration she had been told to prepare for anything.
This ship, for example. It was enormous. They’d been walking—in her case almost running to keep up with his long-legged stride—for at least ten minutes, only making a few turns in all that time, and he didn’t appear to be slowing. She was out of breath and out of patience. Her defiance, only momentarily subdued, pushed front and center once more as she dug in her heels.
He halted, frowning as he looked back to determine the latest problem.
“Your legs are a foot longer than mine,” she uttered breathlessly. “I can’t keep up.”
“I have duties that need attending to. Would you prefer I carry you?”
She shook her head so fast, her hair, already half-undone from all she’d been through, came tumbling down the rest of the way to fall around her shoulders. His face gentled as he observed her. One of his hands tugged on her own as he moved her closer, while his other rose to catch a curl between his fingers.
“It’s like a soft cloud threaded with gold,” he murmured in a husky voice, “and quite stunning.” Abruptly he stiffened, the gentleness fading fast, as he dropped his hands. “Try to keep up, little captain,” he warned, “or you’ll be over my shoulder, so I may ensure that you do.”
And he could, easily. At least seven feet tall like the rest of them, he was also as handsome as sin, broad-shouldered, and lean-hipped. Everywhere she looked he was muscle. And she knew firsthand, having been carried like she weighed no more than a feather pillow in his arms once before, they were hard enough to crack walnuts. He was also obstinate, and beyond arrogant, thinking they could take her ship and imprison her crew. And she wasn’t convinced that the translators they inserted without their consent weren’t also some kind of mind-control device.
With a temper and mood abruptly changeable, like quicksilver, her captor could be volatile, which meant she needed to rethink her approach. If she was going to find a way out of this predicament, she had to watch, wait, and let him believe she was resolved to her fate. Docile, like Primarian women, apparently. Why else would they put up with this crap?
Her tone was quiet and decidedly polite as she started in again. “Listen, Captain—”
“It’s Commander,” he corrected, not for the first time, as he slowed. In front of them, an elevator opened. Once inside, he looked down at her and raised a dark brow, waiting for her question.
She swallowed down her unease at being alone with this big alien. “Can you tell me what you plan to do with us?”
“You’ll learn everything you need to know, including our history, which has had a direct impact on your current circumstance, all in due time.”
“Due respect,” she replied, trying to keep the snark from her tone. “All in due time tells me nothing. My people have a right to know their fate.”
“You will be treated well, have no fear,” was his vague response as the lift doors slid open and they were off, down another long corridor.
“Commander. If you don’t have time, maybe you could arrange for an audience with your superior.”
“I have no superior. On this vessel, I am the ultimate authority. On yours, also, since we have taken command of it as well.”
She visibly bristled both at his nerve and his arrogant reply. “You don’t have that right.”
“You speak of rights, female? What rights you have are what we decide to give you. We have claimed your people under the laws of Primaria, which places you under warrior command, like your vessel.”
“We are people, not objects! You can’t do that.”
“I am aware you are sentient beings. Nonetheless, as females, you will obey males in authority, and the sooner you learn that you have no say to the contrary, the better off you will be.”
Maggie sputtered, unable to form words, although her brain had no problem thinking condescending, egotistical jerk. She tugged on her hand for release, but he didn’t slow, didn’t even blink, her resistance no more bothersome than a gnat to an elephant as he flexed his fingers in a stronger grip and took another turn at an intersection with yet another corridor. Maggie didn’t see any signs, numbers, or landmarks and had no idea how he knew where they were going. It all looked the same to her.
“What are we, then, prisoners or spoils of war?” she demanded to know, once again nearly running to keep up. “And to what end? Are we to be slaves? Do you need workers for your fields, test subjects for your experiments, or will you sell us for a quick buck?”
He shot a scowl at her over his shoulder, still not slowing a bit. “You have a flair for the dramatic. I can tell you we don’t have slaves on Primaria. All men are free.”
“What about your women?” she shot back.
“Our females also have freedom, to the extent allowed by the male authority in the family.”
She stopped dead in her tracks. Since he didn’t, she was jerked forward. “What do you mean, allowed?”
“Did I not make that clear? Women answer to men on our planet, whether to a father, or a life mate.”
“Oh, my God, you are barbarians.”
“Hardly,” he scoffed as he rounded a corner into another hall in the labyrinth that made up the corridors of the giant ship. “Our science and technology are far more advanced than yours. We tracked and captured you, didn’t we?”
“I’m not referring to that, but your uncivilized, backward, Victorian-era, narrow-minded society, you oaf.” As soon as she uttered the words, she wanted to erase them or rewind time so she would have guarded her tongue more closely because he halted in front of her so suddenly she bounced off his broad back. He whirled around, his hand clamped around her waist the only thing that kept her from falling flat on the deck.
“Don’t say you weren’t warned,” he murmured in a low, velvety tone, which she strongly suspected boded much worse for her than his previous barks and growls. And sure enough, his next words told Maggie his forbearance was at an end. “You are as brave and beautiful as you are foolish.” As he spoke, he moved forward until she was against the wall, pinned to it by his much-larger body. Her hands, small and ineffectual in contrast to his superior size and strength, came up and pushed at his chest in a futile attempt at resistance.
“I’m sorry!” she apologized out of self-preservation, yet she hated that she had done so.
He caught her wrists, stretching them high over her head, as his fingers locked like manacles holding them flat to the wall. His eyes had intensified to a dark purple, nearly black in his anger. She flashed back on her dream, although the setting was different, much of it was eerily similar.
“No, I lied,” she blurted out stupidly, but she figured she’d already dug her grave. “I’m not sorry at all. And I insist that you release us and return our ship!”
As the repetitive demand noticeably wore on his patience, he leaned in, his body pressing against hers from chest to knee. Her curves molded to his firm body, and his intoxicating scent, as it surrounded her, made her heart race. Despite her anger and frustration, she felt the stirrings of arousal in the long-empty space between her thighs.
Damn it all! What was wrong with her?
As she waged an internal battle for self-control, she struggled unsuccessfully within his hold. Also, tired of her resistance, he leaned harder against her frame, his hips pinning hers. Where everything else had failed to still her, the substantial length of him pressing into her belly did so now. Her eyes flew up, meeting his stern gaze.
“You are scarcely in a position to make demands, little one.”
Not one to run from a fight, she muttered unwisely, further poking the beast, “That’s Captain Vohlmer to you, or are you too obtuse to see these stripes? Three means I’m a captain.”
“No longer,” he said in a near growl. “You no longer have a ship, which means you no longer have a command.”
“What do you want with us?”
“Since you insist, I’ll tell you. Due to a tragedy in our past, males outnumber females on our planet ten to one, and of the few who are of childbearing age, over half are sterile.”
“Holy shit! I was right. You want us for sex and breeding.”
“Sexual pleasure we can get anywhere; for breeding, we need compatible mates, both healthy and strong. You lack size, but the eight of your species picked up on our hunting planet were positive matches. These females have been mated to eight of our warriors and we will do the same with the rest of you. That you are soft and desirable is a bonus we didn’t expect. One we will be forever grateful to the Maker for.”
“You plan to treat us like whores and breed us like livestock? You are pigs.”
“Don’t be insulting,” he bit out. “Mating and family are very important to us, sacred, in fact. You will be matched to one of our males, and remain with him alone until death. Mate bonding is for life among my people.”
“Please say that I’m dreaming.”
“You are not.” His voice lowered, becoming softer. “What you are is the answer to every Primarian’s prayer. We have been searching for you for twenty years. Once we get you home, you’ll be tested—”
“Tested!” she exclaimed, just short of a shout. “Dear God, for what?”
“For a mate, haven’t you been listening?” he snapped, without doubt, exasperated again. “I don’t have time for this.” He began to ease away.
“Make time, Commander.”
He froze, tilting his head as he studied her thoroughly, so much so she could feel his gaze on her skin like the stroke of a finger. It slid over her face, lingering on her hair before dipping to her mouth. With another abrupt U-turn to his mercurial moods, a grin overtook his features. “Are all of your species so unrelenting in their demands?”
“Yes, when captured by barbarians, who wouldn’t be?”
“That bodes well for a population surge within the year. Our males will consider it a challenge to their authority. Be warned.”
“What does that mean?”
“Our women are more amenable, shall we say.”
“Submissive, you mean. I knew it!”
“No, more like cooperative, respectful, and feminine, something you will also learn to be, in time.”
Appalled, her eyes rolled to the ceiling for a count of three before she asked, “Please answer the question.”
His brow quirked.
“About this testing,” she clarified.
“Ah, yes, you are very distracting, pretty one.”
“And you are very patronizing, big guy.”
He grinned, no longer irritated at all. He pressed closer, and she knew the reason as the hard proof of his arousal nudged into her belly.
“Our physics have developed—”
“Your what?” she interrupted rudely, unfamiliar with the use of the term.
“What you would call doctors,” he explained with what she recognized as a great deal of patience, before continuing, “have identified a foolproof series of measurements that precisely determine which of our males matches with which female best. It will be described in further detail when you arrive on Primaria.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Very much so. In our circumstance, we take everything about breeding seriously. The testing was developed so that males will be matched with the mate with the highest probability of conception. It would be counterproductive to mate for life with a female whom he could not breed with, but another male could.”
“That sounds very clinical and cold.”
“It is our reality.”
“And you plan to do that with us? Even though we don’t consent, you’ll take us anyway? We have a word for that on our planet, you know, and it carries a lengthy prison sentence.”
He frowned down at her. “I have no idea what word you are referring to.”
“I’m talking about your men forcing themselves upon unwilling women.”
His brow smoothed out and his lips tilted up in a grin. “Ah, is that it? Little captain, believe me, when you are matched with the right male, you won’t be unwilling.”
“Oh. My. God! Your arrogance is unbelievable.”
“And your seductive draw is extraordinary.” He dipped his head and breathed her in, his nose running from the curve of her neck to behind her ear. When his hips moved, so did the hard proof of his desire. In response, her breasts swelled, and her chest rose and fell more rapidly. Once more, the hunger he stirred in her made no sense. He was her captor, for God’s sake, and made her angry enough to tear her hair out.
Then she remembered.
“That wasn’t merely a translator,” she theorized in a near whisper. “You are controlling us, arousing us somehow, making it so we will want to submit.” She began to struggle fiercely. “I won’t have it! Take it out, now.”
His chest pressed more firmly down upon her so that his whole body was engaged in containing her. “If you are aroused, which I can tell that you are, it isn’t because of any device. It’s because you are attracted to me. Put thoughts of that from your mind, little captain. I’m not seeking a mate. My command takes precedence, not that I’m not tempted to have a taste.”
Her head reared back, smacking into the wall. Thoroughly outraged by his conceit, she ignored the pain. “You think I want to mate with you? You are insane.”
He stared down at her and ground his shaft into her soft belly, one sinewy thigh moving between her own. “Despite your protests, your scent, the flaring of your nostrils, and the dilation of your eyes say otherwise. Your nipples poking into me through your clothing also give you away.”
She didn’t have to look down for proof of his claim because she could feel how tight and achy they were and in need of the kind of relief that she knew he could give. Maggie would not consider the notion as any sort of possibility and shrieked with raw frustration. “That isn’t desire, you big baboon. It’s from the chill of revulsion.”
“Let your brain deny your arousal all you like, for your body betrays the truth. Shall I give you more proof?” Shifting her wrists into one hand, he brought the other one down her arm in a slow caress. He paused at the side of her breast, his thumb extending inward so that he cupped the fullness on the edge of his hand. As he did this, his gaze held her captive with an almost-hypnotic intensity. She thought, or if she were completely honest with herself, hoped, his fingers or at least a thumb would move to give ease to her painfully hard nipple. But he stopped there, his eyes flashing knowingly, as well as with some other indefinable emotion.
“I feel the pull of longing, too, lovely earthling; regrettably, it isn’t meant to be for me.” He stepped back, remaining close though no longer touching her. The hand at her breast also moved, though not far, picking up a lock of her hair instead. He rubbed it between his fingers, as though determining its texture, brought it to his nose where he sniffed lightly, and then dropped it.
“A word of warning: not all Primarian males will be as tolerant of such brazenness from the fairer sex as I. And while I’m unsure what a baboon refers to, I’m certain it isn’t complimentary. That behavior with another, particularly with the male selected as your mate, will see your saucy round bottom bared for punishment.”
She glared up at him, saying between clenched teeth, “I’m an adult, not a child to be chastised.”
“I don’t plan to do so myself unless you push me, and your male, trust me, will find everything else irrelevant. You’ll learn soon enough that we are the masters of our households. Keep that in mind, and you’ll sit more comfortably.” He turned to lead her on to their destination.
“Masters,” she scoffed under her breath. “Overbearing, misogynistic cretins, you mean.”
“Don’t say I didn’t give you this piece of valuable advice. And I know the word misogyny, but you misunderstand. We love our females deeply, and we do all that we can to protect them. It’s only that the role of male and female differs widely between our two societies. Not that one is right or wrong, only different. Our ways work for us. You’ll find life is not so very awful for you on Primaria, as long as you learn to fit in with our customs and follow our rules.” He angled his chin down to her, his eyes caressing her face, as a sad smile of regret softened his features. “If it was another time and my responsibilities different, pretty captain, I might try for a match myself.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I’ll have none of you.”
“That’s not for you to say. With your spirit and beauty, I envy the warrior who gets to tame you. He might not realize it at first, yet in the end, I think he’ll say he is a fortunate man.” He didn’t say another word after that, pulling her down the hall to a large gathering room filled with many from her crew.
He bowed formally and left, the portal shutting with finality behind him.
***
Upon her arrival, Maggie found herself engulfed by a crowd of at least three dozen. With them all speaking at once, she couldn’t make out a single word. She was about to put a lid on it, when someone else stepped into the fray.
“Silence, females,” a golden-eyed alien barked. “The evening meal is prepared. Take your seats and eat while it is hot. You can chatter about all you have experienced while you do so.”
Several narrow-eyed angry glares were aimed his way, but the handsome man merely grinned and extended his arm to the long tables set with plates and goblets.
Realizing she couldn’t remember her last meal, Maggie motioned them forward. “He’s right; we should eat.”
As they took their seats, other men, smaller than the commander and the guard, wearing different types of uniforms, came around with platters of food and pitchers of drink.
Served family style, in large bowls and on serving plates, set in the center of the table so that everyone could help themselves, Maggie looked from the bowl in front of her to the others, thoroughly perplexed. The contents, in every color of the rainbow, were of items unlike anything she’d ever seen. In the bowl nearest her bright-orange wedges topped with a thick white sauce. Next to it was a bowl mounded high with what resembled mashed potatoes, except they were bright chartreuse. And, in the center of the table was a large platter with what she thought might be meat, cut into thick slabs, some in eggplant purple, and others green.
She glanced up into the equally shocked faces of her crew.
“What is this crap?” Rebecca demanded to know.
Beside her, Teagan lifted the plate with the orange wedges to her nose and sniffed curiously. Still uncertain, she stabbed one with her fork and took a tentative lick. Smacking her lips as her brows drew together, she shook her head. Still unsure, she took a small bite.
“Well…” one of the others demanded. “What does it taste like?”
She answered, “Like chicken,” before taking a hearty second bite and chewing enthusiastically.
The ripple of soft laughter from the others caused Teagan to look up amid shoving a whole piece in her mouth. “I’m serious,” she said after she swallowed. “It tastes like fried chicken with country gravy, as good as my Nana used to make for Sunday dinner, maybe better. The rest of you will be lucky to get a bite.”
A clatter arose as the others grabbed their utensils and stabbed at the plate in front of Teagan. In a second, it was picked clean. A chorus of delighted groans followed a few moments later and prompted Maggie to try it. The taste was so divine that her stomach growled in demand for more…now.
She also gave the bright-yellow stuff a chance and decided it was a type of mashed beans. It had a buttery flavor, so she dug right in. The purple slices weren’t so far afield from eggplant and had the same texture—she hated eggplant. The Primarian version she found much more palatable. They ate in silence for several more minutes before Rebecca started a round of questions.
“One of the guards stood at attention when that alien brought you in. Do you know who he is?”
Suddenly, her desire for food left her. Wiping her mouth with a linen napkin, she nodded. “He says he is their fleet commander.”
“Did he say what they are going to do to us?”
“I—” she began, but didn’t get far as they all started to talk at once.
“One told me he was going to try to match with me.”
“I had one tell me that, too, though I think he said mate, not match. It weirded me out, and I didn’t hear more after that.”
“Mine tried to hold my hand.”
“My alien tried to kiss me and seemed quite eager about being paired.”
This went on for a while before Maggie set down her fork. “As luck would have it, I got the commander, who didn’t take kindly to being called a big baboon, threatened to take me over his knee for punishment then decided to leave it to the man who ultimately got to tame me.” This exploding grenade of information was met quite naturally by looks of shock from the group at her table. Another flurry of questions ensued.
“What did he mean, tame you?” This came from Jilly, one of the cooks, and the word tame seemed to slice through all the other hubbub because they all went quiet at once.
“He meant to dominate, Jilly,” Kara suddenly hissed, “don’t be dense.”
“When he said over his knee for punishment, he meant an actual spanking? Oh, my goodness.” With her blue eyes as wide as moons, Jilly also set her fork aside, apparently, like many of the others, no longer hungry.
“I’d like to see someone try that with me,” Rebecca snapped.
“You’re six feet tall and quite fit, yet I saw one pick you up and flip you over his shoulder like you were a feather,” Maggie retorted. “His hand was very close to your backside; how would you have stopped him?”
“She couldn’t,” Kara whispered, drawing a glare from their first lieutenant. “Look at them,” Kara went on. “The shortest one towers over even you, Rebecca, and you’re what, six feet one? Their muscles have muscles. None of us stand a chance against their size and strength.”
“We’ll need weapons,” Rebecca countered. “And a really good plan.”
“As well as luck, magic, a mystical talisman, and a healthy dose of divine intervention.” A silent pause followed this statement by Jilly because their odds of beating these giants were slim to none and everyone knew it.
As the discussion continued to swirl around her, Maggie debated telling them about the Primarian compatibility testing and breeding plan. She couldn’t do it. They needed to know what they were facing, but this seemed too extreme and utterly unreal to her, so she took the time to think. Maybe if she could pull Rebecca aside, she’d explain. Other than her, she didn’t want to start a mass panic, just yet.