Stella stared out of the window, her entire body frozen in shock and horror. She felt as if her mind were a foot over her head and a foot in front of her body. Nothing was real, and for one horrid moment, she wondered if she was going to be sick.

Earth had disappeared, swallowed by the blackness, gone as if it had never been, and Stella felt a sob choke her chest. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering, and to her shock, Zan wrapped her up in his arms. He was as comforting as a warm blanket, and for a moment, before she remembered that he was the cause of her distress, she simply let herself relax into his embrace. Then realization flooded through her mind with the sizzling burn of acid and she sprang away. There was no Earth to look for anymore, so she glared at Zan.

“Why? You have kidnapped me. Abducted me from my home,” she snarled. “Why? What do you plane to do with me? Probe? Prod? Experiment on me?”

Zan stared at her, and though it seemed there was perhaps a touch of confusion marring his features, there was also an unsettling blaze of triumph.

“I shall not experiment on you,” he said. “Welcome aboard the Righel. It’s here you shall stay with me until we reach Ferex.”

She shook her head because surely he couldn't be serious.

“So you’re... are you kidnapping me?” It seemed too ludicrous to be real, too strange and foreign to even consider. On Earth, women got kidnapped by creepy men in windowless vans, it didn't happen because of handsome spacemen with large spaceships. Not in the books anyway… “Wait a second. You’re abducting me to serve as a sex slave! Once you reach your home planet, you’re going to auction me off to the highest bidder, aren’t you? I’ll have you know, I am not a virgin. So there.”

Zan straightened slightly, his face darkening. “This is not a kidnapping,” he said, his words even. “Not that. Not any of that.”

“Then what?” Stella’s voice was becoming hoarse.

Zan started to answer her, but then there was a discreet beep. Stella couldn't see exactly where it came. It sounded like it came from his shirt. Sure enough, Zan pressed a tiny gleaming black button pinned to his collar. She had thought it was a decoration at first but now she realized that it was a communicator of some sort.

“What?” Zan snarled, his voice a harsh command, and whatever he heard in response made him swear with such vitriol that her translator couldn't handle it.

He spared her a look that was just short of dire, making her flinch a little bit, and then nodded at the ladder.

“Get down.” And because she was apparently on a ship run by a scary madman, she obeyed, her teeth chattering.

The moment her feet hit the ground, Zan leaped down beside her, disdaining the ladder entirely. He took her by the elbow, giving her the choice to either be dragged or walk. Stella walked.

“Will you tell me what's going on?” she demanded, and he spared her a swift look back.

“Business.”

She started to ask what kind of business he meant, but then she thought of the gunner's deck they had been on. All of that thick glass that offered such a stunning view of the stars were designed to allow the use of the massive guns that were mounted there. Stella went pale, and Zan nodded. There was a slight smile on his face, a little fierce.

“I see you understand my meaning.”

They came to a door that he opened by slapping his hand on a reader mounted beside it. When it slid open, he pushed her in.

“Wait,” she exclaimed, and then she fell silent. What in the world could she say? There was so much going on that she felt as if she were going to be sick with it, and from the words he had exchanged on the communication device, he had better things to do than to comfort her.

Zan looked at her for a moment, and to her surprise, his face softened. He looked almost kind, if she didn’t already know he was a kidnapper. He drew her to him. His grip was implacable, but he was gentle as he did it.

“Do not worry,” he said. “Clan Mordra wins its battles.”

The kiss laid on her lips was no less potent than the last, but it was designed to comfort. Like the last, it took her breath away, but this time only lasted seconds before he was pushing her back into the dimly lit room, the door sliding shut between them.

“No, don't lock me…in.” But, of course, it was too late. The door slid shut, and when she pressed her hand against the reader on this side, it had no effect. She’d read enough sci-fis to surmise that the locking mechanism was keyed to Zan rather than herself, and the door was sturdy enough that it did not even shudder when she pounded on it.

For several long moments, it was all that Stella could do not to slide down to the floor, curled into a small ball of nerves and terror.

The facts assailed her. She had been kidnapped, no matter what Zan might call it. She could have cursed her own stupidity. One of the first things that people taught their children was not to get into cars with strangers, and she had done that on a much larger scale. Where the hell was she going? Why in the world had Zan taken her on the ship in the first place?

She could hear running feet outside in the corridor, some loud voices giving orders. She told herself that at least it sounded orderly for the moment, no chaos and nothing that sounded like weapons, but how the hell was she to know?

Stella knew that if she let herself, she could become quite hysterical. Or, she might simply sit and sob, or she might freeze, unable to do a single thing to help herself. She refused all the above. Instead, on legs that began shaky and then steadied slowly, Stella forced herself to stand up and look around. If she stayed upright and curious, she might learn something that could help her. At any rate, it was better than simply assuming that she was helpless.

The room where she had been placed was obviously not some empty and personality-less guest room. It was divided into two sections by a low wall. The side she was on had a beautifully made couch taking up one wall and what looked like a fire pit in front of it. The couch was enormous, made of a fabric that resembled gray velvet. The thing was large enough to hold all of Zan’s ample frame should he want to stretch out on it. The mental picture of Zan stretched out it, the gray accenting the lavender of his skin to an almost opalescent shine, made her blush. To her surprise, there was a stack of books on a small chest next to the couch, and instinctively, she reached for them. A quick flip made her realize that the chip in her head was useless for written translations though. The script printed in the books was rolling and elegant, something akin to Cyrillic and Arabic. It was lovely and utterly unintelligible to her eyes. She would have put it back, but then her aimless flipping came across an illustration. She opened the book again, looking for the picture she had seen before.

When Stella realized what the picture depicted, she blushed, nearly dropping the book again. The drawings were stylized rather than naturalistic, all hard angles and dark lines as opposed to curves, but the subject was clear.

It was a man on his back and a woman mounted on his hips. The man held the woman by the hips, as if steadying her while she rode him. Both were naked, and their heads were thrown back in apparent ecstasy. Stella had seen porn before, of course, and mostly she had been unmoved. However, looking at this simple drawing in an alien book made her eyes widen and her heart beat faster. There was something primal about what they were doing, and with fingers trembling slightly, she flipped the page, looking for more.

There were several illustrations throughout the book, growing progressively more athletic and improbable, but all depicting the same act. So apparently Zan's people weren't as different from her own as she might have thought, and she was honestly not sure what to make of that idea.

The truth was, however, that there were some parts of her that knew absolutely what she thought of that, and she put the book down reluctantly. Stella eyed the rest of the pile, wondering if they contained more of the same, but she turned away abruptly. What the hell was she doing looking at dirty pics in her captor’s alien ship? Wow, life was bizarre.

She walked past the low wall from the living area to what she realized must be the sleeping area. Besides a wardrobe set in the corner, the entire space was taken up by an enormous bed. It rose past her waist, and was covered with a black pelt of—who knew what kind of animal. The dark fur was so dense and soft that she stroked her hand along it before she could stop herself. There was a soft scent of wood smoke and spice in the air, an odor that left her feeling languorous but not tired. It was a sensual smell, one that was perfect for the commander of the Righel.

Another door led to a small bathroom with sink, shower and toilet. Stella found herself at a loss. She realized with a start that she had no idea how much time had passed since Zan had placed her here. Feeling a bit foolish, she tentatively asked for the time out loud, like they did on Star Trek, and she got no answer for her query. Trying the door again led to nothing, and finally, she huddled on one edge of the couch, feeling unaccountably tired and frail.

Where the hell am I? How am I going to get back home?

Much later, she heard shouts, and once, alarmingly, what sounded like gunshots. She shuddered at the idea of a bullet penetrating the walls of the ship, breaching the hull to let the vacuum in. Was that how it worked? She had read so little science fiction...

The sounds subsided to silence, and Stella couldn't figure out if that was more comforting or less. Despite all the stress and questions that were racing through her mind, she fell asleep, curled up into a tight ball in the corner of the large couch.

* * *

Stella came to a drowsy wakefulness when she heard steps in the hallway. She had just enough time to take stock of her surroundings and sit up in wonderment before the door slid open and what looked like a crowd of people spilled through. She recognized Terani in the mix, riding on top of a figure that seemed to be carved from sandstone, and at the head of it all was Zan himself.

He was laughing at something someone else had said, and somewhere along the way, he had lost his shirt. The only thing he wore on his upper half was a bandage wound around his right shoulder and the right half of his chest, over his ribs. The bandage was shockingly white against his skin, and then he turned to face his crew, straightening up to his full, impressive height.

“Get out of here! All of you, out!” His voice sounded amused and his words slightly slurred. “We've all had bites taken out of us. It's time to lie the hell down and lick our wounds.”

“Or perhaps have them licked for us,” came a voice from somewhere in the crowd.

The crew cheered at his words, and Stella could have sworn that Terani winked at her. The crush reversed its motion and streamed out the door, Zan following to herd the stragglers out before he locked the door with another press of his palm. From his stiff motions, it was clear to Stella that he was not altogether in control of himself, and she watched him with careful eyes.

After the last of his crew had departed, Zan remained very still, still facing the door, one hand raised against it to hold himself up. Stella wondered if she should stay quiet, allowing him to simply forget about her and stumble to bed. She wondered if, in retrospect, she could have slithered her way out of the room with the rest without his notice. But then what? Look for an escape pod? She couldn’t even drive a stick shift.

“Stella.”

Instead of being loud and boisterous, there was something soft and hesitant about the way he said her name.

Stella was tempted to keep her distance from him, to stay out of reach of his imposing muscular form, but there was something about his single utterance of her name that made that impossible. Instead, she rose from the couch, coming to stand beside him.

“Zan? What is it?” She almost called him commander again, but after all, he wasn't her commander, dammit.

“I got chewed on by a big Larenian bastard tonight,” Zan said. “I would be grateful if you would be so kind as to lend me your assistance. Help me to bed?”

Without arguing, Stella came to stand next to him, pressing her shoulder against his good side so that she could support him. Zan had come into the apartment with a swagger, but now his steps dragged and she had a real idea of how very tired and pained he must be. Of course, she realized, as a commander, he had been putting on a show of strength in front of his crew. He wouldn’t let them see the extent of his injuries, or what they took out of him.

She staggered a little under his weight, but managed to support him until he could slump on the bed. He sat up long enough to tear off his boots and socks, and then wearing only a bandage and his trousers, he sprawled on the dark pelt covering the mattress. Injured or not, he looked delicious half naked against the dark fur. She stared for too long before she tore her mind away with a blush.

“Are you all right?” she asked, before biting her tongue a little. Of course he wasn't okay.

“Ha, I will be,” Zan said, some trace of a commander's confident swagger in his tone. “Ferexians, we heal fast and completely if we're given enough time to rest.”

Stella was relieved to hear that, and a bit surprised to realize that she truly didn’t want anything to happen to him. That realization, however, brought a whole new dread. He had promised her that nothing bad would happen to her under his command, but what if something happened to him? What of he was no longer in command of the ship? She watched Zan's eyes flutter shut before she started to back away into the living area.

“Stop.”

She turned to see him eyeing her from under half-closed lids. He patted the mattress by his side.

“Come to bed with me,” he said simply.

“Oh, hell no. In your dreams, buddy.”

A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “Where I come from, sleeping with another person skin to skin is meant to help the healing process.”

“Okay, well, we—you and me—are definitely not going to sleep ‘skin to skin’,” she said tartly.

However, when he didn’t argue, she didn't have it in her heart to deny him, not when he truly looked too injured and exhausted to be of harm. She hesitated for a moment, and then forced herself to strip off her jeans, folding them carefully to throw over the half-wall. She was left in her t-shirt, bra and panties, and though she disliked the idea of sleeping in her stiff bra, she sure as hell wasn't going to take it off.

She approached the bed, scrambling up with only a minimum of difficulty. The dark pelt was slippery but sensual against her bare skin. For a moment, she knelt at the edge, looking down at the commander of the Righel. His eyes were still open, but barely, and she bit her lip a little, wondering what in the world he saw when he looked at her.

“You are thinking too much. There will be time enough for that tomorrow," he said. “Come here.”

He gestured to his uninjured side, and she went where he bid, coming to rest in the curve of his arm, her head pillowed on his shoulder. He smelled fresh, as if he had showered before coming back to the room, and without thinking, she nuzzled his bare skin. If she closed her eyes and couldn't see the color, she would have thought he was a human man, though one taller and better built than she had ever been this close to.

What the hell was she doing? Cuddling with her kidnapper? Holy Stockholm syndrome, Batman. As much as she wanted to take a stand and hop off the bed, go back over to the couch and sit with her arms crossed over her chest glowering at him all night, she felt much too comfortable tucked next to him.

Zan chuckled, a deep rumble she could feel as well as see. “You feel wonderful,” he murmured, his hand coming up to stroke her cheek a little.

“You sound drunk,” she retorted. “I should know, I spent enough time wrangling them.”

“Not drunk at all,” Zan protested with something that seemed shockingly like a pout. “That damned medic shot me up before I could stop him. I've withstood ten times this without needing to stop and rest.”

“All that and humility, too,” she teased. She caught herself with a frown. This man was her captor, had kidnapped her. Why the hell was she teasing him?

“There is no room for humility when others are placing their very lives under your leadership. I suppose that's something you are going to have to learn to put up with. I'm not so bad, I swear.”

“Why?” Stella asked. “Why am I going to have to learn to put up with it? What are you planning to do with me? Why the hell did you kidnap me from Earth? What are your plans with me? Personal slave, indentured servant, interstellar whorehouse?

Later, she would think that she would never have gotten the answer that she did if he were fully in control of faculties. Whatever that medic had given him, it had taken away Zan's ability to be in any way diplomatic or tactful.

Stella had no warning for what came next. Her head hit the mattress with a soft bump as he pulled his arm from underneath her. In nearly the same movement, he rolled on top of her, his weight held up on the elbow of his left arm. His weight pressed her into the mattress, her round breasts flattened against his chest with only a thin layer of lace between them.

“I hoped to find in Terra an upra-sa to serve my purpose, but in finding you, my little star, I have discovered so much more than that.” His voice was thick and almost slurring. “So much more. You are not here simply to serve a purpose, you are here because I want you. No, I need you. Because, the minute I saw you, I knew you were the one for me. And you are. Mine. Of all the prizes that I have taken, of all the riches from all the raids, there are none more precious than you. None more precious, nor more lovely...”

Okay, that was way better than an alien whorehouse.

She opened her mouth to argue with him, but then he dipped his head down to hers. His mouth slanted over her own, his tongue sliding past her lips with the calm assurance of welcome.

Stella knew that she would never be able to beat him in a fair fight, but as drugged as he was, it would be no fair fight. She could roll up, punch him in his wounded side, leave him bleeding and groaning for touching her, for taking her from her home against her will.

She did none of that.

Instead, she gave herself up to the kiss and the sincere sweetness of it. It was as if she had telegraphed her desire to him, and his body molded to hers. One thickly muscled thigh pressed its way between hers, and she slid one foot along his leather-clad calf.

The kiss started out as sweet, and she could feel the way the pressure of it intensified. His tongue dipped in and out of her mouth in imitation of what was on both of their minds, and his had slid lightly up her body from hip to belly to breast.

Stella had never been the most confident about her body under the best of times, but right now, none of it mattered. What mattered more was the way her nerves seemed to wake up at his reverent touch, the way her entire body arched towards him, wanting more, just short of begging for it.

“Ancestors, but you are beautiful,” Zan murmured. “I had thought Terran women would be special, but I must admit, I wasn’t prepared for your beauty. So soft and dainty and sweet.”

Stella could have laughed. With her large breasts and curvy hips, and extra forty or so pounds, no one had ever called her small or dainty before, but she supposed to Zan, who towered over her, she must have been. Instead she gasped as his mouth moved to the crook of her neck, licking and biting greedily until he found the pulse that beat there. He kissed the spot as if it were sacred, as if he was privileged to have touched it.

“You're so strong,” she found herself murmuring, and Zan laughed.

“With you by my side, I shall be,” he said cryptically.

Before she could ask him to explain himself, he resumed kissing her shoulder and neck as one hand slid along her face. She trembled when she felt the pad of his thumb brush over her lower lip. Somehow, even that light touch sent a shiver of thrills through her body. Then, he pressed his thumb against her lips, and when she opened her mouth, he slipped inside. She was startled at the pleasure drawing lightly on his flesh with her teeth and her tongue. The motion awakened a deep need inside her, and for an instant, she thought of the solar heart, pulsing with contained heat and potential.

“Never seen any as lovely as you,” Zan murmured, and his mouth moved down to her breasts. Instead of removing the bra or pulling it down, he mouthed her nipples through the t-shirt and coarse lace, the warm wetness of his mouth eliciting a moan from her lips. She was shocked at her own response. She had never thought that she was a woman who was all that aroused by her breasts.

Now though, as he suckled on her scarcely covered nipples, she could feel herself finding the sensuality of it all unbearable. It had never been her own body that was insensible or frigid, she realized in a rush. It was all about the partner she had chosen. Matthew hadn’t been very giving in the sexual department. He hadn’t been very giving in any department. Yet, she wasn't sure she had chosen Zan, not really, but right now, she sure as hell didn’t want him to stop.

He lifted his mouth from her breast and smiled when she made a noise of protest.

“Beautiful little star. Don't worry, I shall give you what you like. I consider it an honor to please you.”

He nuzzled close to her again, this time lifting her t-shirt so he could lap and lick his way down her belly, his motions slow and completely sensual. He nuzzled her soft skin, making her groan, and her hands found their way into his thick hair. The locks there were sleeker and more silky than she would have thought, and as he kissed the curves of her hips and thighs, she whimpered, threading her fingers deeply through his dark purple hair.

She noticed his motions slowing and slowing even more. There was more and more time spaced between the tender kisses, and then, as she looked down in surprise, they stopped entirely.

“Zan?” Stella asked in confusion, and she got no response. “Zan!”

In a panic, wondering if the medic had missed something that might have killed the commander after the battle, she squirmed and struggled and rolled him onto his back. A loud snore followed by deep, heavy breathing caused her to throw her head back on the pillow and chuckle.

She stared at the ceiling as her body came down from its aroused state. It was several minutes before she could even think straight. When she did, the incredible, frustrating, amazing, shocking, unbelievable events of the day ran through her head. The most shocking of all was that her heart felt as if it were a battleground, and at the center of it all was the man who slept by her side.

“What the hell am I doing here, Zan?” she asked quietly, but the sleeping man had already given her her answer, she realized. He had said he needed her, but what did that mean?

Shaking her head, she curled against him. Right now, she decided, she was not in any state to pull back from comfort or pleasure.

She drifted off into a fitful sleep, curled against the Ferexian commander, and the last thing she thought before slipping into unconsciousness was that he smelled amazingly good.