At some point, Stella managed to fall into a deeper slumber, something that her body needed very badly. Her dream started with warm, pleasurable sensations. There was a wall of warmth against her back, and a warm wet kiss being planted just behind her ear. Then she shivered as that kiss moved to her ear, nibbling along the rim before suckling lightly on her earlobe. There was a hand snugged over her breast, the arm heavy over her hip. Drowsily, she could feel her nipple tighten, and she pressed herself closer to the warm bulk behind her.

Mmm…feels so good, she thought in her dream haze. In this safe, cozy place, there was utterly nothing that could hurt her. She was completely safe.

“Ancestors, but you are lovely...”

The low voice sent a thrill of passion through her, until she identified it. Suddenly, Stella came to the realization of where she was and who she was in bed with, and she remembered what had happened between the two of them earlier. With a soft cry, she struggled away from Zan's strong body, launching herself off the bed and across the room. She was relieved to see that she was still dressed, though Zan's oversized tunic was rumpled and rucked up over her hips. Turning red with embarrassment and anger, Stella shoved the tunic back down over her hips as she glared at him.

His was riveted to her with a gaze that was dark with passion, now being edged out in confusion. Her eyes swept over his gorgeous form, and a mere glance told her that he was naked, still tousled from sleep. There was a traitorous sense in the back of her head that told her to get back into bed with him and to let herself touch all of that gorgeous skin just the way she wanted to. She was here whether she liked it or not, and would there really be such harm in enjoying it?

Stella quelled that thought with a furious rush of anger. If she had nothing else left, she still had her pride. She clung to it.

“What in the holy hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, and he blinked at her in confusion.

“My intent was to pleasure you. Is there something wrong with that?” he growled. “I can smell the desire on you. You wanted it as well. You still want it now.”

“That's biology,” Stella snapped. “All that is is bodies and... and glands and hormones.”

Zan shrugged, unperturbed. “What else is a mating, what else is an upra to an upra-sa?”

Momentarily shocked, Stella simply stared at him. “Are you joking? Please tell me you’re joking. Do your people have no concept of love? The link between people that goes beyond the physical?”

Zan looked at her, a touch of irritation at her words. “Of course we do,” he said. “We are a people of great loves and great passions. What I meant is that for me, it is enough that you serve as a symbol, a necessary in getting my station in my world reinstated. I would not demand your love nor think that I could command it. My hope is that it may come with time.”

Stella stared at him because she could not believe the arrogance of the man.

“You think that after all this, after you have told me that I am going to be some kind of... symbol... for you, that I am going to fall in love with you?”

Zan lounged back against the bed's headboard, a muscled arm draped over his bent knee. The smile on his face was arrogant and supremely confident.

“Why not? Stranger truths have been known to occur. I see in your eyes that you like the look of me, and the way you cried out in my arms...”

She blushed down to her roots. “Once again, that was biology,” she shouted, “and I don't see myself venturing into your bed again unless...”

Stella's eyes opened wide, and her heart started to beat faster. “Oh God,” she whispered, feeling terror course through her. She pressed her back against the wall, and she stared at Zan. “Oh God, you wouldn’t...?"

Zan scowled, getting out of the bed and striding to her. He was magnificently naked, and aroused, but her terror refused to abate, even as he bent towards her.

“What's the matter, Stella?” he asked, his concerned voice a deep rumble. “What is it?”

“What happens if I tell you no?” Stella wanted her voice to ring out steady and strong, but even in her ears, it sounded shaky and afraid. “What happens if I refuse you. Will you...”

Zan realized what she was getting at a moment later, and he rocked back as if she had actively struck him. The look of revulsion and anger on his face should have been comforting, but Stella was locked in her own fears.

“What do you take me for, woman? First you think I will strike you, then you think I will impose myself upon you physically. I am not a monster.” He sounded genuinely offended. “I would not force a female to bed me...”

“Y-You touched me this morning,” she whispered uneasily.

“And you did not refuse. If I remember, you enjoyed my touch so much that you cried out repeatedly. I merely assumed that you would welcome it again. I can see now that I was mistaken.”

“You kidnapped me! You took me away from my home and everything I have ever known.”

“And do you regret it?” he challenged. “I have heard you rail on and on about what I have done, but I have not heard one word about what it might be that you miss, what you might wish to return to.”

Stella went still, because he was right. She had little binding her to Earth. Alix was her closest friendship, but they were from different sides of the tracks and she was under no delusions that life would take them both in entirely different directions soon enough. If Zan had come to her in another way, hell, if he had only asked...

But he hadn't.

“That’s beside the point,” she said coolly. “You had no right to do so. I was not given a choice, no say in the matter. You think you can just come in with your big muscles and brutish ways and bully anyone into doing whatever you say. Take whatever you pleases you. You’re nothing but a big… you’re a big BULLY…”

Zan's dark eyes flickered with fury. “Be very careful how you go on,” he snarled. “I have challenged men to the field of battle for less than what you have said here this morning.”

“But I'm you're upra-sa, aren't I?” she spat. “Doesn't that give me leave to question you? Or does that simply mean that I am some kind of enhanced indentured servant?”

For a moment, Stella was certain that she had gone too far. Zan might not have wanted to duel her, but as he loomed over her, she thought that he might have something terrible in mind.

Then he took a step back, eyes as cold as stone. For a moment he simply watched her, and then he turned away.

“Keep the room. I will not trouble you until we reach Ferex. You are my upra-sa. I have decided upon it, and that will not change. However, if my presence frightens you, disgusts you, or makes you afraid for your safety, I will not intrude upon you any longer.’

He dressed with fast jerky motions, never looking at her, and despite the situation, Stella had a sinking feeling in her stomach. A feeling of loss and regret. Oh shit. What had she just done with her acid tongue.

“Zan...”

“You have made your feelings clear,” he said without looking at her. “Stay. When we get to Ferex, as my upra-sa, you will be provided for handsomely. Stand at my side. Give me the leverage I need to reclaim my honor and my standing, and in return, I will give you whatever you like. I swear to this.”

Stella gazed at him, wondering how in the world she had gotten to this point. How had they? Two beings from different sides of the universe. One would think the odds would be infinitesimal that they would be standing in this very place, having this very conversation, and yet here they were.

“Except my freedom,” she whispered.

He smiled, a touch bitterly. “No such thing, my upra-sa, not for anyone.” And, then he was gone.

* * *

Zan was as good as his word.

Over the next few days, she did not once catch so much as a glimpse of him in the hallways of the Righel, and he never entered the quarters he had vacated. Food arrived promptly three times a day via the same nervous alien she had met early on, who no longer said more than a few courteous words to her. The food was nutritious if strange to her.

She ate, she slept, she wandered the ship. Terani always had a kind word, and she soon realized that the rest of the crew was as civil. She heard their stories, learned about their ways, and though she wanted to know what Zan was doing, she stubbornly refused to ask.

In the evenings she craved him. It was a strange realization, but after having lain with him once, she found the large bed empty without him. If it was just for sex, she could have understood why her body stirred the way it did, but she wanted more than that. She wanted to feel his arms around her as he held her. She wanted to feel his sleepy kisses on her hair, and she wanted to hear his soft voice talking to her.

She knew it wasn't love. It couldn't be. Still, she craved him.

The dichotomy made her brain ache, and it was nothing compared to what was going on in her heart, and lower. Almost in self-defense, she started to patch together a plan. It came slowly at first, and then as she refined it, decided what she wanted to say, she felt a little better. It might have been a cruel thing, but it was something, where before she had nothing.

It was only a short time later, however, that Stella wandered into the main public areas of the ship, and she was shocked by the bustle and commotion. No one had any time to talk with her, and she sought out Terani.

“Terani, what's going on? Why's everyone in such a rush?”

Terani herself looked up from her work, her bandage askew.

“We are making landfall on Ferex in just a few hours,” she said with excitement. “There's word that the Commander is going to hand the ship off and give it to someone else because he is returning home to stay. Everyone wants to know what's going to happen next, who's going to run the show.”

“How very exciting for you,” Stella said, and when she realized that Terani was making her own preparations for the landing, she shook her head and went back to quarters. As she walked, Stella became aware of a distant knot of nervousness in her belly. It was all really happening. She was going to visit another planet. This was real.

As she came around the corner to her quarters, she was halted by the sight of Zan standing just outside the door, staring at it as if he could see through it. In the moment before he turned, she could read doubt and regret in his eyes, but the most surprising was the look of sincere longing. That one cut her right to the heart.

As soon as he noticed her, all emotion was wiped away behind a carefully bland facade.

“Stella. I had thought to find you inside.”

“No, I went to talk to Terani... there's a lot of talk on the ship. Are you truly giving it away?’

Zan nodded.

“I am,” he said. “When next the ship launches, it will do so under the command of another.”

“You are that certain that you are going to become the upra of your clan?”

The Ferexian raider hesitated, and there was something tragic in his gaze. If he had been almost anyone else, she would have run to him, offered comfort, maybe even offered a hug. As it was, she kept her distance, fisting her hands by her side.

“I am certain that I am done being a raider.” His voice held a tone of finality. “I know now that the last thing I want is to walk away from the council of the clans and be... what I am now.”

Something small and ferocious started fluttering heavy wings inside Stella's chest, and she stared at the man who had brought her so far from home. It made no sense that she her feelings should run so deeply for him. It made no sense that his declaration should cut her as it did, but it did.

“What are you talking about?” she asked uncertainly. “It sounds as though you... like you expect to win or die.”

“That's exactly what I mean to do,” he said, and from the calm nature of his tone, it was obvious that he was utterly serious about this, had planned it from perhaps before he met her.

When she opened her mouth to argue with him, he shook his head.

“I can think of few worse places to have this conversation than in the Righel's passageway. Come into the room with me.”

She followed him into the quarters mutely, and once the door closed after them, she turned to him again.

“I thought that having me by your side would make this all okay, and now you’re saying you might die?"

Zan smiled faintly at her.

“The legitimacy to argue for my place is one thing. The usurper also must be dealt with, and that typically means real battle.” He hesitated. “You will be provided for should anything happen to me. I have made provisions for you to be cared for, so you need not worry. There is a great deal we must speak about, but that can wait. Will you help me put on my armor?”

Need not worry? Need not worry? He might die in a battle to the death in a few days and I need not worry? Stella almost wanted to say no and tell him to put on his own damned armor. It no longer had anything to do with the kidnapping. This time, she was pissed that he was willingly going into a situation that he could not walk away from. She didn't want to think about him being in a battle that he could lose. He could die.

She knew enough this time to bite her tongue. This was something that meant a great deal to him. Reclaiming what had be so cruelly and brutally taken from him. He couldn’t get his parents back, or the years he grew into adulthood on his own, without a family. She remembered what Terani had said to her. The commander was a good man. Her heart was in her throat when she nodded.

Zan drew out a chest from under the bed that she had never seen before. There was a delicate lock in the front that opened with the turning of an old-fashioned key, and when it was opened, she gasped. Inside was lightweight armor that reminded her of medieval armor she’d seen in exhibits at museums. This, however, was almost insectile in appearance, gleaming a deep violet streaked with deepest black, and a lime greenish glow when it hit the light right. There were a dozen pieces or more, each meant to be strapped to Zan's body and then clasped to surrounding pieces. As she marveled at the armor, Zan stripped before putting on a clean black shirt made of very thin and fine material, and a pair of trousers that seemed to be made of a very flexible leather.

“Armor was once traditionally worn by the upra whenever he was leaving his clan holdings,” Zan said with a faint smile. “It would not have saved my father, of course, because we were attacked in our own home. Most only wear it at the councils, where it serves as a reminder of our might and our power. This armor was my father's. That family friend I told you about before, had it smuggled out for me.”

Stella ran a palm along the sleek lines of the armor, marveling at how gorgeous it was. She could almost feel its tensile strength, and imagine how it would turn back a blade that was swung in battler. Just because it was so thin did not mean that it wasn’t mighty.

“Will you assist me?” he asked, and she looked up at him. In his voice she detected that there was more to the question than was asked.

“Is this something that an upra-sa does for her upra?”

Zan nodded tightly, as if he were too afraid to say more.

“Then yes, I will.”

As the words left her mouth, Stella was aware that she was committing to something that meant a very great deal to Zan. She didn't know how to do what he needed her to do, or even if she could, but she knew she wanted to do this for him. It felt big. The whole thing felt big.

She listened as he explained how to put each piece on his body, where to start, how to make sure it was secure. Her small fingers skillfully found the small latches that would hold it together. It occurred to her that this might be like a sacred trust, an upra-sa preparing her husband for the dangers he might encounter as he protected them and their people. In some essential way, his safety lay not just in his own hands, but in both their hands combined.

Stella fastened the final piece into place, carefully ensuring that every clasp was secure. When she sat back on her heels to look up at him, she gasped.

Zan stood straight and tall like a knight out of legend. Sir Lancelot. Encased in the light purple armor, he looked incredibly deadly to any that might be his foe. The armor fit him as though it had been made for him rather than for his father.

Zan examined himself before nodding. He reached down with an armor clad hand to help her up. For some reason, she felt a flush creep over her cheeks at the courtly gesture. She would have thought she was long over that kind of butterflies in the stomach thing, but apparently not.

“Thank you, Stella,” he said. “I... thank you…” It seemed as though he intended to say more, but he was abruptly called to the bridge for business, and she found herself left alone again.

In the solitude of the quarters, Stella stretched out on the bed. What in the world came next? The time was nearing to implement her scheme. While it was in the planning stages, she’d wondered if she would have the guts to go through with it. Now, she wondered if she would have the heart.