“Oww! Do you mind?” the stranger snapped. “I’m here to rescue you.”

Michonne—Michi for short—stared at the man rubbing his chest. “Who are you?” Other than ridiculously handsome with dark hair and blue eyes.

“Your fucking knight in shining armor.”

The profanity had her wrinkling her nose. “Is that language necessary?”

“Fucking right it is.” He pointed to his ribs. “You’re not the one who’s going to have a bruise.”

She chewed on her lower lip. She had hit him rather hard. The stool they’d given her to sit on made a lovely weapon. One she aimed too low. The man in her cell was much too tall.

Clasping her hands, she rocked on her tiptoes. “Did my father send you?”

“What do you think? I am not doing this out of the kindness of my heart, sweetheart.”

A term of endearment already? But they’d just met! How forward of him. And intriguing. Father usually kept her away from the rakish sorts.

“Let me gather my things.”

“Things? Why would you bring any of their stuff with you?” The handsome man frowned.

Did he not understand how things worked? “These are my things. I’ve been prepared for my abduction for a long while now.” A bag packed with her necessities so that, when it finally happened, she was ready. She’d learned enough from her sisters to know what to expect. Why, Linnette had been kidnapped before she’d reached twenty EC years. She now had a brood of seven children, three palaces, and a vacation moon to herself. So lucky.

Michi, on the other hand, had been taken by a Kanishqui. Not exactly her ideal. But this new fellow… While he didn’t have sleek, blue skin like her sister’s husband, he was handsome. Even if he scowled.

“We need to move, princess.”

“Rushing leads to mistakes.” She remembered the lessons from her governess and shared her knowledge to make the universe a better place.

“Stalling can kill. Let’s go.” He snared her pink satchel. What a gentleman to carry her things. What she didn’t appreciate as much was his grabbing of her hand.

She pulled it free, or at least attempted to. “Unhand me. This is most unseemly.”

“I don’t have time for manners. We need to move.” He yanked her, and she stumbled before catching her feet.

“Must you drag me?” she gasped as she practically ran down the hall to keep pace. She gripped her skirts in one hand to keep them from tangling in her legs.

“Do you always question your rescuers this much?” he replied. He stopped at the intersection, just before the corner. He eased around to peek on both sides then pulled her left.

“I expected a rescue with a touch more chivalry.”

“I’ll take survival over politeness, princess. If you don’t mind.”

She could see how that might be a better plan.

He stopped abruptly, and she ran into his back. His very broad back.

For a moment, he didn’t move, and she said, “I am glad you made an appearance when you did. The choices given to me by the commander were rather limited. Marriage or dinner.” Neither appealed.

“Fizz wants to marry you?”

“No need to sound so surprised. I’m considered quite the catch.” No need for modesty when the truth sufficed.

“Why did you say no? I hear they can make excellent lovers.” He shot her a look over his shoulder and a wink.

Her cheeks heated. “I am not looking for a lover. And if I were, it wouldn’t be with a Kanishqui.” Saying it aloud seemed so blasphemous. But Michi couldn’t help it. She wanted to at least marry someone who had only two arms and two legs. She could handle even two heads, but one penis was preferred. Although her freak of a sister, Priscilla, enjoyed otherwise.

“You won’t have to sleep with anyone if you can follow instructions long enough for us to get off this ship. Don’t listen to me and maybe you will find out how you feel about having sex with sushi.”

“Sushi?” she said questioningly.

“Raw fish you put in your mouth.”

“That’s disgusting!” she exclaimed. If grossly entertaining.

“Actually, in some places, eating sushi is a delicacy. For the Kanishqui, it’s known as foreplay. I hear they’re kind of rubbery, though.”

Her lips quirked. “Shouldn’t we be escaping rather than discussing the cannibalism of my captors?”

“We are escaping. Which reminds me, according to Matilda, the next part is gonna be tricky. We’re going to enter the hall where the docking tunnels are. It will probably be guarded.”

“Guarded. I see. You need help fighting them given your skill level is subpar.” She caught his dilemma right away.

He frowned. “My skills are fine. I can handle a few of the Kanishquis.”

Could he? She eyed his two arms.

“I’m stronger than you think,” he blustered.

“If you can fight them, then I don’t see the problem.”

“Captain left orders to not kill them.”

“Then knock them out.”

The man turned to look over his shoulder. As if he could see past the bend. “Knock them out, she says. They’re liking hitting gelatine.”

“Doesn’t your weapon have a stun setting?”

“Yeah, but using it, even on stun, will likely set off an alarm.”

“Are you trying to tell me you can’t get us out of here?” She fluttered her lashes at him. “Oh dear. How disappointing. We might as well return to my cell.”

“You’re not going back.”

“And according to you, we can’t go forward because you can’t fight.” An odd choice for a rescuer.

His face tightened. His lips flattened. Then he sighed. “We’re getting out of here.”

“What of the guards?”

“I’ll handle them. Let’s go.”

Stepping around the bend, she heard the liquid words of her captors, but only barely over the racing of her heart. This was all so very frightening—and exciting.

Michi had led a very sheltered life to this point. Closely guarded by her father, a treasure for the stealing because of her worth. Unlike her older sisters, Michi had reached a ripe old age of twenty-three EC years and still remained unfettered. Not for lack of trying. Many attempts to abduct had been made. An alliance with Papa was worth the trouble. But up until now, those attempts were foiled.

Which was why the success of the Kanishqui shocked. Of all the potential captors, couldn’t she have gotten a handsome one? Someone like the man still holding her hand? He had a callused grip, unlike that of her tutors. Scholars tended to have soft skin. Father had tough hands. He didn’t start out rich and powerful. He worked hard to get where he was. They learned his story early in the schoolroom.

As predicted, a pair of floating Kanishquis guarded a door. The one closest to them gargled something.

“Who’s the girl?” Her rescuer didn’t even look back at her. “I picked her up on the lower level. Cute, ain’t she? We were going to visit my crib for some action, if you know what I mean.”

Warble. Swirl.

“Share?” He tossed an amused grin back at her. “No, I don’t think she’s into that kind of thing. But I could be wrong. Let me ask.”

“No.” Heat flooded her skin once again. The very idea.

“You heard the lady, so if you’ll kindly move to the side.”

The Kanishqui guards held their ground. Or, given they floated, was the correct term air?

“Really, guys, you gonna cock block a man who’s been in space for way too long?” That was the only warning they got before the gun sitting in his holster ended up aimed at the guards.

He fired. Bright yellow flashes that stunned the Kanishqui—but didn’t kill. They floated in the air, tentacles adrift.

“You left them alive.” Definitely not a true mercenary.

“Duh. I promised the captain.” He tucked away the gun and held out his hand. “Come on. Ship’s just over there.” Over there being through a flexible tunnel that hadn’t seen the factory of its birth for a long time.

“That doesn’t look safe.”

“Safer than staying here. Let’s go.”

She took a step, and a tentacle wrapped around her ankle. She wobbled and yelped.

He pulled his gun and fired again. The tentacle went limp, but the other guard, also still awake, managed to sound an alarm.

Her rescuer shot him again, too, but not before a klaxon roared to life. The door to the connecting tube slammed shut. The entire section they stood in sealed itself off with a clang.

Her rescuer groaned. “Fuck me. They’ve trapped us.”

“What does this mean?” she asked. Because, if he was perturbed, it probably didn’t bode well.

“It means either the commander of this vessel has to declare an all clear to unlock the doors or we need the Gypsy Moth to punch a hole in the hull, without killing us, that we can use to escape.”

“But we have no space suits.”

“Yeah, we might get some space bite. Maybe lose a few extremities, depending on how long we’re exposed.”

“Is there a third choice?” Because the first was improbable and the second most definitely hazardous to their health—and limbs.

“No other choices, princess. And given number two is the Hail Mary of space, we need to work on the first option. Find a way to convince the commander to let us go.” He paced, avoiding the floating tentacles of the unconscious guards.

“You’re a visitor to his ship. Perhaps you could demand safe passage.”

“I won’t be able to demand a pot to piss in once Fizz sees you.”

“Who is Fizz?”

“The commander. And he’s gonna have a hissy fit when he sees I’m stealing you.”

“It’s not stealing but rescuing because I am a person, not a thing,” she announced, straightening to her full height, which didn’t quite make his chin.

“If you were a thing, I wouldn’t have listened to you and I’d have found a way to draw off the guards rather than shoot them.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re blaming me for your ineptitude in planning my rescue? Perhaps, were you better equipped or trained, we wouldn’t be in this dilemma.”

His jaw dropped as he recognized the obvious weakness of his attempt thus far.

“Are you for fucking real?” he said, trying to shock with his profanity.

“Very real.” She’d come out of the womb perfect. “I will admit to being surprised by your lack of skills. Father usually hires more competent people.” Her sister Navinda got saved from her marriage to an Ymp—who were notorious womanizers—before he’d even had a chance to expose himself to her in the getaway ship. She then turned around to marry her mercenary, who turned out to be a notorious pirate king.

Michi’s rescuer didn’t wear an eye patch or look half as dangerous as Navinda’s husband. But he was much handsomer, if annoying.

“Maybe your father doesn’t like you as much as his other daughters,” he muttered.

She blinked. “Are you implying my father dislikes me and is intentionally botching my rescue?”

“Are you calling me shitty at my job?” He raised a brow in her direction.

She clamped her lips tight.

“That’s what I thought.” He turned around to look at the door to the docking tube. “The alarm’s already going. Guess it won’t matter if I use this.” He fiddled with his pistol before he raised it.

While not an engineer, she saw a problem with his plan. “Won’t that compromise the seal?”

“Probably. Got a better plan?”

Surely there was a way out of this situation that didn’t involve dying from a hull breach or marrying the Kanishqui commander.

The siren went silent, which seemed more ominous than the wailing.

“We are out of time, princess.” He steadied his weapon, and she threw herself on his arm before he could fire it.

“Wait. I have an idea.” One brewing since the moment she saw him.

“Does it have a working transporter in it? Because ours is on the fritz.”

She shook her head, the heavy loops of her braided hair threatening to spill. “If it works, then the Kanishqui will let us go.”

“Just like that?” He didn’t attempt to hide a skeptical note. “I highly doubt that.”

“It will work. Trust me.”

“The last woman who said that took out lube and a ridged vegetable. Didn’t work for her, won’t work for you.”

“I’m not making a salad.”

“And we’re out of time.” A hum farther down the hall indicated the door had opened. He squinted at the portal. “When you hear the hiss, grab hold of me. Once the door pops open, we’ll have to run through the tube and hope we make it to the other side.”

“I told you, we don’t have to fight. What’s your name?”

“I don’t see—”

She cut him off. “Name.”

“First mate, Damon Faulkner.”

Not a captain. Pity. But he’d have to do. “Lovely to meet you, Damon Faulkner. Now, please repeat after me. I indubitably, without a doubt, say I do.”

“What?”

“Say it. I indubitably, without a doubt, say I do.”

“I indubitably, without a doubt, say I do?”

Said as a query and yet that was all she needed. The code phrase to make it work. Michi pressed her lips to Damon’s, an impromptu kiss that caught him off guard.

Caught her off guard, too, because it jolted her with an electric zing that tickled her all the way to her toes, and especially between the thighs.

He sucked in a breath. Opened his mouth. Deepened the kiss. Set her senses aflame. But she couldn’t forget why she embraced him. She grabbed hold of his bottom lip with her teeth, a firm grip, then bit down. Hard enough to break skin. She needed blood to activate it.

Damon yelled and pulled away. “What the fuck, princess?” He wiped his hand over his lip, taking with it the bead of blood.

Too late to erase what she’d done. She ran her tongue along the smooth enamel of her tooth, the insignia that used to sit there gone. Just in time. The tentacles of her former fiancé appeared before his bulbous body.

She stood beside her rescuer, hands folded primly in front of her.

A human accompanied the Kanishqui commander, a man in a black uniform much like her rescuer. The pants a supple leather tucked into high matte polished boots. The shirt, a silky fabric, billowy all over, tapered at the waist and wide at the shoulders.

Spit. Spray. Jiggle. *What’s going on here? How dare you attack my people.

Damon held out his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I understand this might seem a little unorthodox. But I can explain—”

This was her cue. Michi stepped in front of him and interrupted. “There you are. About time you appeared so I could make my excuses.”

*You aren’t going anywhere.

“Yes I am. Remember how I told you we couldn’t marry?” She turned sideways and pointed to her rescuer. “This is why. Meet my husband.”

“Husband?” Damon squeaked. Which made her wonder what kind of modifications he’d undergone. She’d emerged perfect from the womb, her genetic sequence fine-tuned ahead of time to ensure she was everything her parents wanted. A perfect daughter. A tool for making alliances and enriching the family. Father might take issue with her choice in husband, given Damon was not only common but not even the highest-ranking person on board his ship.

Gurgle, splash? Fizz quivered with question.

She rolled a shoulder. “Yes, I know he’s a borderline pirate.” She whirled and gazed at Damon. “But who cares about that? He’s got the dreamiest eyes. And the nicest voice. And… Sigh…” The gushing was for the Kanishqui’s benefit. Would Damon have the wits to grasp the drama she enacted?

For a second, he stared dumbly then caught on. “When I heard my darling spouse was taken, I thought it must be a mistake. I mean, who steals another man’s wife?”

“Which is why,” the captain said, taking over, “we didn’t mention it when we contacted you. Especially since I’m sure your taking of my first mate’s spouse was completely accidental on your part.”

Water over pebbles.

“No, we haven’t been married long,” Damon replied. “Still practically honeymooners, which is why I acted rashly.” Reaching out, he grasped her around the waist and lifted her, just the right height for the kiss he planted on her lips.

He’s kissing me. And without permission, but she couldn’t exactly protest—he is my husband. Nor did she want to since it proved as electric as before. For her at least. She could have kissed him all day. He, though, wanted to talk. “Quick thinking,” he murmured quietly amidst moans. Hers, she should add.

“Mmmm.”

He set her down—pity—and tucked her behind him. “Captain, now that I’ve found my wife, I demand satisfaction. The commander of this vessel unlawfully stole my woman.”

“The evidence is pretty damning. Care to explain?” The captain didn’t bat an eye as he queried the giant blob.

*She wasn’t married when I took her.

“Even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t marry you.” She lifted her chin.

A warm urine stream on a piling mound of…

Her mouth rounded. “Oh, that was foul.”

“Take that insult back.” Damon stood tall and offended. “You can’t talk about my wife like that.”

Warm squirt on a favorite blanket.

Damon huffed. “You hear how he insults me, Captain?”

“My man is right. You are insulting us all.” The captain held up a hand as the Kanishqui gurgled a stream. “Nope. You can forget that case of chocolate I was going to give you. And definitely no alliance with your family. Really. I thought better of you than stealing a man’s wife.”

Drip. Drip.

“I do understand their marriage wasn’t common knowledge, but you are aware of it now and still refuse to let my man leave with his wife. Unacceptable. You can consider our trading deal off.”

Gurgle, siphon?

“Talk? We will only talk once you let me and my man off this ship.”

Water down a drain. *You may leave as a measure of my respect for the captain.

The door to the docking tube suddenly opened, yet Damon did not smile or relax. He laced his fingers through Michi’s. “Shall we, wife?”

She held her head high as she entered the tube. This wasn’t one of the more elegant ones with a moving walkway and music. It was opaque, yet blurry, giving the outside silhouettes of the ships a sinister shape. The stars were fuzzy distant balls. She gripped Damon’s hand tight, willing him to go faster.

They might have fast-talked the Kanishqui into letting them go, but it would be best if they got out of there in case they changed their minds.

Only once they exited the tube and the door to the ship sealed shut behind them did her rescuer laugh.

“Damn, princess, that was the perfect ploy to get him to release us.”

She pursed her lips. Now for the possibly unpleasant part. “It wasn’t a ploy. We are married.”

He snickered. “Sure, we are.”

“We are married. Have been since that first kiss.”

“Hate to break it to you, my naïve princess, but it takes more than a smooch to make it so.”

“I know it takes more than a kiss, which is why you also have to repeat the trigger phrase.”

He stopped laughing. “Hold on, are you serious?”

A bob of her head and she explained. “I knew that I had to make it real in case the Kanishqui commander demanded proof. Which is why you wear my mark.”

“Mark?” he repeated slowly while his captain, who had more manners and would have probably made a better rescuer, ignored them to bark out orders to his crew to get them moving, sooner rather than later.

“Yes, mark. On the inside of your lip.” She tapped her bottom one. “You’ll find my crest tattooed on your flesh. It identifies you as my lawful husband.”

“You marked me?” He again squeaked, bringing into question his gene quality.

“It is how we marry in my religion.” Dkar—a relatively young religion—was only two centuries old and discovered by humans during their explorations, adopted and adapted and gaining ground among the wealthy.

“But I never agreed to marry you,” Damon sputtered.

“You said the ritual words.”

“I didn’t know what I was saying. I certainly never meant it.”

“Nonetheless”—she shrugged—“it’s binding.”

Although she really wished it weren’t when he uttered, “I don’t fucking believe this,” and left.

It was an intriguing change of pace from the males who’d been trying to maneuver her into choosing them for years. Males who either tried to woo her into marking them or, like the Kanishqui, coerced her into doing it.

Doesn’t this Damon Faulkner realize the honor I paid him by choosing him?

Apparently not, since he left her to fend for herself on a strange ship.

She glared at the door he’d left through while the captain cleared his throat.

“Despite knowing your father, I don’t think we’ve ever met. I’m Captain Jameson of the Gypsy Moth.”

Casting a glance at him, she spent a brief moment admiring his dark skin, his vivid green eyes, and engaging smile.

“I meet very few of my father’s allies and friends.” He kept his daughters sequestered lest the wrong person be tempted. “Why is it you sent your first mate to save me rather than do it yourself?” He would have been a perfect choice for a husband.

“I couldn’t.” The captain turned over his arm and raised his sleeve, displaying a tattoo.

Already taken. Figured.

“Thank you for providing assistance.” She remembered her manners.

“I have to admit I was surprised when your father contacted me. It’s been awhile since we did business.”

“Father never forgets who his allies are.”

“You are unharmed?”

“Physically, yes.” But her irritation was rather elevated given her abandonment by her husband.

“And you truly did marry Damon?”

“As per the ways of the Dkar. Your first mate doesn’t seem pleased.”

“You took him by surprise.” The gravelly tone didn’t match his smooth looks.

“He’d better get used to it.” Because the marriage, while unplanned, was binding. For him at least.

He’d better stop aggravating me, or this wouldn’t go well for him.