BROOKE

When I slowly wake up from my sleep, I find that I’m curled around a large, impossibly warm, blue body. One big hand cups my ass and the other possessively hugs my shoulders. I’m sprawled against a massive chest, and my mouth looks dangerously close to one hard barbarian nipple.

Oh, this is going to get awkward fast.

I sit up, squinting at the lights overhead. I wish I had a hangover, or fuzzy memories of last night. Something I could blame impairment on and say that it wasn’t me who called Taushen nasty and demanded that he pull my hair.

Nope. I remember it crystal clearly. That was all me. A very aroused, not-my-normal-self me, but still me. Hoo boy.

Taushen reaches out to cup my cheek. “Sleep well?”

I dodge his touch as best I can, faking a yawn. Of course, stretching my arms makes me aware that I’m still naked. And sore from last night. And Taushen’s naked, too. And parts of him are real happy to see me awake.

Oh boy.

I scrub my hands down my face. “I kind of wish I was still asleep.”

“I, too, wish this was a bad dream.” He glances at the door, a worried look on his handsome face. Then he gazes back at me, and his expression softens. “Not all of it, though.”

“Taushen,” I say gently. Oh dear. This is going to be difficult. I hesitate, trying to think of the best way to phrase this.

He sits up, and I notice—totally against my will! Totally!—that he’s erect and just as large and ribbed as I remember. “I have been waiting a long time for you to wake up. I hunger to kiss you again.”

And there it is. I shrivel a little inside, knowing that this is going to come across really badly. “About last night…we should just forget it ever happened.” I glance at the door. “Unless the aliens come back again, then we need to pretend we’re mates still.”

Taushen stiffens, his glowing eyes narrowing. “Pretend?”

“Yep.”

“What do you mean, pretend?”

“You’re going to make me clarify, aren’t you?” I wrinkle my nose, but I suppose I expected that. “Okay. I thought we were on the same page with the roofie thing.”

“You mentioned this word last night. You did not say what it was.”

Did he…did he not grasp that part? “You guys know English, though! How can you not know what a roofie is? Better yet, how can you not freaking ask when I say ‘Oh, I’ve been roofied’?”

His jaw clenches slightly. “If I asked every time a human spat a word I did not understand, I would be asking all day long—”

“Oh, dickface!”

“—such as now,” he continues. “So no, I did not ask. What is this roo-fee?”

This is not happening to me. I press my hands to my forehead. “I can’t believe you never questioned this. Dude, a roofie is when someone gives you something that makes you want to have sex when you don’t want to.”

He recoils like I’ve just told him his dick turned into a snake. “You did not wish to mate?”

“Not really? I mean, it wasn’t high on my to-do list.”

The big lunk just stares at me, shocked. “But you said you wished to mate with me to ensure that our captors thought we were resonance mates.”

“I did say that.” I twist my hands, feeling awkward and horrible. Did any chick ever have to explain to her one-night stand that this wasn’t a forever thing? Gah. It’d be so much easier if I could just grab my shoes and run for the nearest elevator. Unfortunately, there’s no getting away. “I also said ‘pull my hair’ and ‘fuck me, you nasty thing’ and stuff like that. What I’m trying to say is that I wasn’t exactly myself. And we probably could have pretended to be mates just by, you know, holding hands and stuff.” I drop my voice to a whisper and glance at the door again, as if expecting orange aliens to be peeping at us even now.

“You put your hand on my cock and bit me.” He looks indignant.

“I didn’t say I was a good girl! I said I was roofied. There’s a difference. It takes away any inhibitions.”

“You…did not wish to mate?”

He’s finally getting it. “No. I’m sorry.”

The look on his face becomes slowly horrified. “Because you were not thinking clear. Because they made you take something that made you want to mate.”

“Bingo.”

Taushen’s nostrils flare, and he jerks to his feet, stalking the four corners of the room. He paces back and forth, silent, but his tail twitches madly, and I can tell he’s really upset. As for me, I’m not sure how I feel. I don’t feel violated like I thought I would. I don’t think the roofie was strong enough or mentally impairing enough. I do remember everything. But I do feel weird about things. Like I drank too much at the bar and took someone home I didn’t intend to, and now he won’t leave. Yeah, that’s the best way to describe this. As plans go, it wasn’t a bad plan. Shack up, have some dirty sex to make our captors think we’re together, and then let the chips fall where they may.

Except Taushen’s chip has fallen firmly in the “mated” category and I can tell he’s having a hard time realizing that I’m not going to be his little woman. He keeps glancing over at me, and there’s agony in his eyes.

And shit, I feel bad. I shouldn’t, because I’m the victim here, but I should have stopped to make sure he knew what a roofie was. I should have said it was just for fun when he was all calling me his “mate” and stuff instead of demanding that he fuck me harder. We’re both to blame for assuming things.

He looks over at me and then snatches up his leathers from the floor and hands me mine. “You should dress.”

“Oh. Right.” I grab my tunic, and for some reason, his reaction makes me feel dirty. “Look, Taushen, I’m sorry things turned out the way they did—”

“Sorry?” He bites out the word, again both shocked and angry at my reaction. “You should not be sorry. They gave you something that made you want me.” His hands clench. “I want to rip their throats out.”

My eyes widen. “Um, okay. Me too.”

He clenches and unclenches his hands again. “To think they would do such a thing to a female.” He shakes his head slowly, and I watch his jaw clench. I can practically hear his teeth gritting together.

“They don’t care,” I tell him quietly. “To them, we’re little more than livestock. They’re going to breed us and sell us. At least like this, we’re together and not sold separately.” At least until they figure out that he can’t make me pregnant without resonance, but I hope that won’t come up anytime soon. I pull the tunic over my head.

When I emerge from my clothes, Taushen moves to sit next to me. “Are you all right? Did I hurt you?” His gaze roams over me, and the look on his face is worried. “I was not gentle.”

“I’m okay. Maybe in a few days it’ll all hit me and I’ll freak out, but right now I’m okay.” I give him a brave smile. “Until then, we need to figure out what we’re going to do.”

“You and I are going to—” He pauses and jumps to his feet again.

The door opens and the aliens enter. They’re holding the long, strange-looking rods that serve as their guns, and one makes that weird wheezing sound I know is a laugh when he looks over at me.

Taushen just snarls and lunges for the nearest alien, a murderous look on his face. Hands outstretched, he manages to grab the clothing of the first one before the shock collar lights up and he slumps to the ground.

I bite back the scream rising in my throat and watch, horrified, as he twitches on the floor, unable to move. The aliens just laugh again. I crawl to his side and put his head in my lap, because that seems like something a mate would do. Plus, it’s kind of sweet of him to defend my honor.

Maybe he’s not such an awful guy after all. He sure wasn’t an awful lay.

Not that I’m thinking about that sort of thing.

One of the aliens squats on the floor next to me. He tilts his head and gives me a toothy smile. “Yoooouuuu will not trrrryy saaaame, no?”

I shake my head, stroking one of Taushen’s horns. “No,” I say quietly.

“Tellllll ussss…howwww mannny moooorrrr?”

How many more? Is he asking about Warrek and Summer? Nervous, I force myself to focus on Taushen’s face. His eyes are closed, and his horns seem impossibly big from this angle, his hair thick and falling over my lap like a waterfall. Do I tell the truth? Do I lie? What’s the right thing to do here? “No others,” I say after a moment. “Just us.”

“Howwww…youuuu…arriiiiive heeere?”

How did we get here? How did we arrive? “We are slaves,” I tell him, deciding that half-truth is all I’ve got. I try to think of a story that covers everyone, including pregnant Harlow and the other women, and how sa-khui and human got mixed. “We…had an old master and he set us free here when he died.” Er, sure. Seems legit.

The alien studies me and then tangles one of his lobster-claw fingers in my pink hair. “Iffff…youuuu lieee…”

The threat is unspoken. I swallow hard. “Not lying.” Totally lying.

As I watch, Taushen—who I thought was unconscious—raises a hand slowly and reaches for the throat of the alien leering at me.

This time, I feel the sizzle they send through his body thanks to our shared contact, and we both go unconscious.