Venus heard a rustling from the next bed. She dropped the old James Patterson novel she’d found on a used-book rack by the hotel’s gift shop and jumped off her mattress. Almost exactly twenty-four hours after Fevet had worked his healing technology, Conway was stirring.

She sat next to him and held his hand, wanting him to know he wasn’t alone as he woke. Nothing seemed lonelier to her than being attacked and left for dead in a grimy parking lot. Tears came to her eyes as she thought of what would have happened if she hadn’t found him when she did. Fevet had said he’d only had minutes to live. Her blood boiled as she thought of the utter callousness of Hector and Steve’s actions. She never wanted to see them again.

Conway didn’t seem to have gotten the message that he was meant to wake scared and confused. He stretched, his torso lengthening under the covers, then rolled in her direction.

“Hey,” he said, blinking sleepily, a soft smile widening his mouth.

A rush of tenderness distracted her from making a health check. “Hey.”

At her response, he seemed to realize something wasn’t quite right. “Where are we?”

“Zacatecas City.” Her eyes roamed over his face and torso. Every part of him looked deliciously normal.

“I called you,” he said uncertainly.

“Yes. I was already on the road when I got your message. I found you by the mine. You’d been beaten. Do you remember?”

His free hand went to the back of his head. Maybe that’s how her cousin had attacked. Like a coward, from behind. “Pain,” he muttered.

“You were badly hurt.”

He took a deep breath and licked his lower lip. “I feel great now, like I just had a week’s vacation and spent half of it on the beach and the rest in bed with a beautiful woman.” He grinned at her.

She couldn’t smile. “You almost died. If Fevet hadn’t come along you’d have had a heart attack in the parking lot and died in my arms.”

Conway bolted up, his hand pulling away from hers. “Fevet?”

She nodded. “He must have been tracking you, because of that serum.”

Conway swore and glanced around the room, as if afraid the alien was there.

“But he’s not the bad guy right now, okay?” she said. “Look.” She pulled the jansha off the bedside table. “He calibrated it so I could keep you hydrated while you were unconscious.”

“Why was I unconscious?” he demanded.

“It took you a day to fully heal from your injuries. Before that, you had seven minutes. That’s all the time you had left.”

“What happened?”

“I was hoping you knew for sure, but I have every reason to think Hector and Steve did this.”

“The serum? Fevet got it?”

“No. Your boots were gone. Either Hector and Steve took them, or thieves later.”

“Have you spoken to them?”

“No.”

He blinked and passed his hand over his head again. “I wish I could remember. But I was leaving the mine, I think, and something hit me in the back of the head. I vaguely remember being dragged. I must have still had my boots then.”

“You still had your passport when I found you.”

“Wasn’t thieves, then.”

She shook her head.

He gestured toward his chest. “You’ll go with me now, right? Now that we really know what your father is capable of doing. No one not in the know would have taken the serum.”

Frustrated that his logic hadn’t caught up with his healing, she asked, “Can you think further ahead than a vendetta with my father?”

“What do you mean?”

She sat on the edge of the bed, choking up a little at the scent of his skin. “Your mission is over, Conway. We’re done with the Resistance. You don’t have the serum. Fevet saved your life. You can’t kill him, even if you still wanted to.”

He blinked hard, tilting his head.

She put her hand on his thigh. “I know I’m rocking your world and you’ve had too much of that lately, but you have to change directions. I freely admit I disliked Fevet. He scared the crap out of me, to be honest. But he didn’t have to save your life, much less help me care for you.”

He ignored her mention of Fevet. “You think you can talk Hector and Steve out of their plans?”

She growled. “Considering they almost murdered you, I think we can be really sure that they have no respect for our opinions.”

“You don’t want them killing Fevet either.”

Finally, he was on track. “They don’t know him. They just want to attack the entire colony. And Fevet knows that now. We’ve done our bit.”

Conway ran his hands through his hair, fluffing the short black strands around his face. Debris drifted down, bits of the pavement and vegetation.

“You really need a shower. Like, beyond.”

“The K tech didn’t leave me sweet smelling,” he teased, smiling a little.

“You still have blood in places I couldn’t reach,” she admitted. “But I bet you feel great. Better than I do.” Even if his brain was only slowly coming on line.

“I feel like I could run a marathon,” he agreed, then his face fell. “I’ve been shined.”

“The Ks were awfully good at finding you, even without nanocytes in your system,” she pointed out.

He shook his head. “No. I was on the run for weeks and they didn’t get me. I’m sure it was going through border security with my passport that gave them what they needed to track me down. Damn your father,” he exclaimed. “He promised me fake papers.”

“In this case, I’m afraid the Krinar have been far more honorable than humans.”

He pulled his hand away from his hair, dislodging a crackly brown leaf, and cupped her face. “This fine specimen of humanity did everything to save me.”

“No more suicide missions,” she begged. “Be my hero in a much quieter way, please.”

“I’m your hero?”

“I want the Ks gone as much as the next Resistance member. I come from a military family. I’m bred to fight. I didn’t disagree with your surgical approach, or your desire to avenge your mother. But the serum had too many problems to be a good tool.” She paused. “Where are these guns you said you acquired?”

“Locked up on my bike.”

“We need to find it.”

He stroked her cheek. “You ready to throw your fate in with mine?”

“What are you asking?” Her pulse sped up when she realized how serious he looked.

“Forever. You and me, old man, old lady.”

“In the scheme of things, that seems like a really long time. What kind of life are you offering? Sweet and short? Long and normal?”

“We’ve got enemies, desert flower. I want to take control back.” He moved his hand to her shoulder, then to her bicep, then poked at the lump just above the elbow.

She remembered then. “We need to dump the trackers.”

He nodded.

“This sounds terrible, but let’s cut yours out first. We can heal you with the jansha.”

‘What about you?”

“It will suck,” she admitted. “But there’s a hospital right near the mine. Take me there for stitches after you get it out.”

“Why don’t we drive there first? I can cut it out in the parking lot.”

She thought about that. “Where do we want the Resistance to lose us? I kind of like this hotel.”

He smiled. “Me too. Fabulous massages.”

She snapped her fingers. “I know. How about the parking lot where your bike is? They know you’ve been there, and we can check your bike, plus it’s only a block or so to the ER from there.”

“Perfect.” He leaned close. That jansha worked wonders. His breath was sweet, despite being unconscious for a day.

Their lips met.

“You know that was a proposal, right?” he asked softly, after he pulled back an inch.

She nodded.

“Take your time.”

She giggled, her laughter triggering his. “Let’s get out of this mess first, okay?”

He sobered instantly. “You don’t want me?”

“You know I do.” She leaned her forehead against his. “I just want that to be separate from this. I want the day you propose to be all happy and sweet and soft.”

“You’ve had a rough few days, worrying about me,” he said. “I get it. You need to do anything before we go?”

“Just grab my bag.” She jumped off the bed and began to gather their things while he showered. She winced at the sight of his clothes. His leathers were stained and stinky and his T-shirt was in shreds. The man had no socks or shoes.

“They have clothes in the gift shop,” she shouted into the bathroom. “I’m going to grab you a T-shirt and whatever else I can find. Back in a minute.”

***

An hour later, Conway stared at his sound arm, shocked despite his knowledge that these Krinar devices really did work as advertised. They had done their best to sterilize Venus’s multi-tool and eyebrow tweezers, then she had messily cut open his arm and extracted his tracker. Evidence of the bloody, painful mess disappeared in less than five minutes.

“Do we just throw the trackers out of the window or run them over with the car, too?”

“I say we leave them here. I wish you’d cut it out while I was unconscious yesterday.”

“I’d still have mine, but I suppose they wouldn’t have known we were together.”

“I think we’d better do yours at the hospital parking lot. I need to get my bike out of this lot and you’re going to need stitches. Are we absolutely sure this thing won’t work?” He waved the alien device.

“Yep. It only vibrates when I put it over you. But I’m a big girl and hopefully you can do a better job than I did.”

“Brave girl.” He cupped her head and pulled her forehead to his lips so he could kiss her. “This will all be over soon. We’ll head north, as soon as you are up for it.”

“Then what?”

He shrugged. “I’ll call my boss in Baltimore. It’s been less than two weeks. I’ll get my job back so we have an income and we’ll regroup. Plan a wedding.”

She leaned in for a longer kiss.

“I’m so glad I didn’t lose you,” he whispered.

“Yeah?”

“I’m positively euphoric.”

“Death wish gone?”

“Yeah.” He nuzzled her neck. “But I still wish I knew what happened to Mom.”

When they reached the hospital parking garage, Conway pulled apart the remains of his shredded T-shirt so he had something to wrap around Venus’s arm.

“I’m going to look away, but don’t you dare,” she warned.

“I won’t. I’m going to try to do it differently. You cut right over the tracker. I’m going to make a smaller cut at one end and try to pull it out.”

“Smaller wound is good.” She looked away and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Go into a meditative state if you can,” he suggested. “Think about the massive ring I’m going to buy you.”

She smiled. He hoped she was feeling those endorphins as he poured tequila that they’d taken from the hotel room’s mini-bar over her inner arm, then quickly sliced. She moaned, a strangled sound. He pushed hard on one end of the capsule-sized device, and tried to grab for it with the tweezers. Her arm began to shake. He held her tight and tried again, keeping the wound under the overhead car light he’d turned on.

“Got it.” It was harder to pull out than he’d expected. Scar tissue had locked it in. But it came out. He let the bloody mess drop onto the remains of the T-shirt and pressed hard on her wound with the cleanest part of the cloth, then wrapped strips around her arm.

“Keep it above your heart,” he ordered, then flipped off the light and pushed open the door.

He helped her out of the car. They’d parked as close as they could, sharing a parking spot, and she didn’t have to walk far. He could carry her if she fainted.

“You’re so tough,” he told her, as she steadied and stood. “You’ll be all better soon.”

“Stomp on it,” she said. “We don’t want them to know where we are.”

Before he could grind the flip-flops she’d bought for him over the device, another shoe came down on it, hard-soled and thick, like a construction worker’s protective gear. He glanced up, and felt as sick as Venus was surely feeling right now.

“Fevet.” The word came out like an open wound.

“Jansha.” The alien put out his hand as he made the order, like a surgeon asking for a scalpel.

Conway gritted his teeth, but he couldn’t do anything with a wounded fiancée to protect. He reached into his pocket and handed over the small tube.

Fevet messed with it for a moment, then said, “Remove the bandages.”

Conway helped Venus unravel everything. The wound still bled freely, but he watched as the medical device slowly reknit her skin. She didn’t even look pale from blood loss.

“Wow,” she said, bending her arm at the elbow. “That’s so powerful.”

“Leave your vehicles,” the Krinar said. “You’re coming with me.”

“Why?” Venus demanded.

“Because I said so.”

“We’re not children. We’re going to leave you Ks alone and get on with our lives.”

“I don’t trust that.”

“Thanks for the help and all, but Conway is practically your stepson. Why shouldn’t you save his life?”

The Krinar’s eyes narrowed. He took another device out of his pocket. In front of their very eyes, the impossible happened. A small, sleek vehicle of some kind formed from nothing, blocking her car. Fevet opened the hatch. “Don’t make me throw you in.”

Conway wrapped his arm around Venus. “I’m so sorry I got you into this, love.”

“Do you have any idea how close to being done I am?” she asked him.

His stomach turned over. “With me?”

“With regret,” she said, bumping her head against his shoulder. “It’s you and me, ride or die. Doesn’t matter who did what. Let’s get in and straighten this situation out.”

***

“So this is Lenkarda,” Venus said, staring at the jungle through a window in Fevet’s house a few hours later. A bird flew by, brilliant plumage flashing. How she wished she was outside with it. Fevet’s airship had moved so fast through the atmosphere to Costa Rica that the scenery had been little more than a blur, then he’d landed right next to this structure and herded them to this room.

“I can’t believe I’m back here under these circumstances,” Conway muttered. He put his arm around her and pulled her close.

Venus stroked Conway’s arm, not surprised at his glumness. He’d meant to go in and tear this place apart. Instead, he’d become a prisoner, not even able to die for his cause. “Maybe we’re not ready yet as a species to bring the fight in a realistic manner.”

He nodded. “Until we have the tech to stay off the K’s grid it’s probably hopeless. Now we’ve both been shined. We’re worthless to the Resistance.”

At this moment, she didn’t particularly care. “What do you think Fevet’s plan is?”

He didn’t seem particularly tuned into her concerns. “I'm sorry. I couldn't save my mother and now I've doomed you, too.”

She frowned. “You can’t blame yourself for your mom. She worked at an x-club.”

“I can blame myself,” he said emphatically.

“Why?”

He shifted on the long platform where they sat. It had somehow formed perfectly to their bodies. They looked out on a tropical jungle on three sides, though they were locked inside a room. “Fevet met her because of me. She was outside the club to meet me. I’d told her I would drive by. I was heading down to DC to party with friends who were in college there. So she wouldn’t normally have been in the parking lot when Fevet arrived.” He swallowed. “She was in her uniform, a tight black mini-dress, and she’d taken off her apron because she wasn’t supposed to wear it outside. For her age, she was a beautiful woman, but I’m sure he wouldn’t have noticed her if she’d just been serving drinks, instead of laughing and talking to me. She had the best laugh.”

“That’s a coincidence. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Still,” he protested.

“No, not still,” she snapped. “You can’t take responsibility for that. I’m sorry, you just can’t. It happened. It was a train wreck that she met him, and then, after five years of happiness, she died. That sucks, but none of it is your fault. We’ve lost so much control because of the Ks, but you and I have to be good with each other, and with ourselves.”

His gaze went to hers. “I’ve never been able to find peace.”

“It’s only been a few months.” She stroked his arm. “It’s going to take time to go through the five stages of grief. Now I’ve got to grieve my own family, too. I have to stay away from them, for their sake and ours.”

“We may not have a choice.”

“I’m going to be optimistic about our chances.”

He kissed her shoulder. “Do you feel exposed like this?”

“Fevet said no one could see in.”

“I really want to make love to you. It feels like forever since we’ve been together.” He kissed her neck again, sending tingles down her spine.

She sighed happily. Not too long ago she hadn’t seen this ever happening again with him, and now they were making plans to be together forever. “It’s been quite a while.”

He nuzzled her collarbone. “Yeah. Want to fix that?”

She wriggled into a kneeling position. “I’m not sure what it’s going to be like on a semi-invisible alien platform, but I’m game.”

He laughed. “Thank you. I appreciate all of it, the pep talk and the good sense.”

She put her hands on his shoulders. “Less talking. I need you to use that mouth in other ways.”

“Amen, desert flower. Let’s get you out of that alien romper.”

Fevet had taken their clothing away and replaced it with soft, unstructured garments. Venus had accepted it, given the condition their clothes had been. As it was, with this garment all she had to do was drop the straps off her shoulders and the entire little one-piece dropped to her ankles.

“You don’t look any worse for wear.”

“No, sir,” she said softly. Letting her hips sway, she went to the bigger platform in the room and crawled onto it, sure to work her ass from side to side.

“So that’s where your other tattoo is. I like the moon on your ass.”

He chuckled as she rolled over, but when she had him in view again, she realized he’d lost his clothes too. His sex jutted forward aggressively, ready to reconnect with her. To think he’d almost died a couple of days ago.

“I’m not sure I can fight the Ks anymore,” she admitted, coming up on her elbows.

“Why?”

She smiled at him. “You’re alive, Conway. I’m so grateful for that. A K fixed what a human did to you.”

He knelt on the platform between her knees. Grabbing her hips with both hands, he pulled her to the edge of the bed, almost equal to her feet.

“You’ve lost your calluses.”

He pulled his hands from underneath her and stared at them. “Huh, you’re right. Not gonna be fun to start working out again, much less playing the guitar.”

“You play?”

“Yeah, at least I used to. Lots of time to fill when you’re a firefighter.”

She winked. “That’s a good thing.”

He nodded. “What do you think of this bed?”

She shifted her hand from side to side. “If it absorbs all your thrusting, it’s going to be irritating.”

“There’s always the floor, or other positions.”

“Yeah.”

He stroked up her shins. “I’m gonna bet it works with us, though, because the Ks love sex.”

“Ri—” She couldn’t finish the word, because his soft fingers had reached her inner thighs. The desire to pull them together warred with the desire to be stroked, aroused, sent over the edge. Her head fell back. “Conway, you’re torturing me.”

Her eyes closed. She heard shifting noises, then felt a soft kiss between her legs. Fingers stretched her labia apart. His tongue swept up, from her most private recesses to her clit. She moaned, her hands going to his head. If he didn’t make her come she was going to kill him herself. Lifting her hips, she drove herself against his mouth. Her gyrations weren’t softened by the bed at all.

“Yes, yes,” she moaned. “Oh God, yes!” She came on long, pulsing waves.

“I don’t have any condoms,” he muttered, pulling up her legs so that her knees pointed to the ceiling.

“What?” she asked, still in a haze.

“No condoms.”

“I’m sure you’re free of STDs, after that jansha treatment,” she said.

“I always was.”

“There you go. Don’t worry about it.”

“You could get pregnant.”

“I want your baby.” Her eyes met his.

“Oh.” A manic grin erupted across his face. “Oh, really?”

His weight came down on her. She laughed as he tickled her sides, then pulled her on top of him, already in a straddle. “Show me how it’s done, baby mama.”

She leaned over him, kissed his lips, her hair brushing his chest, perfectly muscled, free of blemishes. Rotating her hips, she slid over him. “That’s how you do it, baby daddy.”

His fingers squeezed her hips, his mouth brushing first one nipple, then the other, as she rode him, staring at the lush greenery outside. Something so primal linked those enormous trees outside, the man underneath her. She couldn’t quite grasp what it all meant before her body seized with another crazy-intense orgasm.

***

Conway thought it was the next day. At the very least, they’d woken from a perfect night’s sleep. Somehow the wall had a table added to it, and it held a selection of fresh fruit with a yogurt made from coconut milk. They figured out how to use the sanitation devices in the bathroom, and new unstructured clothing waited for them on the bed when they came out.

“Now what?” Venus asked.

He admired the way her hips filled out the short, pale peach dress she wore, and illuminated her tan. “We have some sex to catch up with still.”

She laughed. “I don’t think so. We managed five times yesterday before we finally fell asleep.”

“Yes, but I’m in perfect health right now. I feel like I could pull off at least another couple rounds in a twenty-four hour period.”

“Wow, stud.”

He winked. A space opened in the wall. He moved to protect his woman with his body as Fevet stepped through, looking like a predator in sand-colored clothing that hugged his lean body, unlike the loose garb he’d had the house deliver for his male guest. “What do you want?” Conway asked, injecting hostility in to his voice. They were captives, after all, and even if Venus was grateful, he wasn’t about to stop being wary, and aware of any chance they might have to escape.

“I have a ship ready,” the K announced over a speaker. “We’re going to Las Cruces.”

Venus clapped her hands behind Conway, then threw her arms around his waist. “We’re going home?”

Fevet pointed to the open space. “Come.”

Conway wished he could read the K’s intentions, but getting out of Lenkarda was a good thing. Fevet ushered them into a ship that might or might not have been the same one as the one they’d taken from Zacatecas City the day before.

“Thank you,” Venus said, after they’d settled into their superspeed ride. “You’ll be happy to have us out of your way, I’m sure. In fact, we’ve decided to make our home in Baltimore. That’s in Maryland, on the East Coast, so if you just want to take us there?”

Fevet glanced at her, an expression of amused disdain on his face. “I know Baltimore. I’m not here to make your life convenient.”

“No, of c-course not,” she stuttered. “I just figured that it wouldn’t matter much to you, since this thing flies so fast.”

“We aren’t going to Las Cruces because you want to take us home,” Conway guessed.

The K’s head slowly swiveled in his direction, his sneer even more visible. “You have Natalie’s intelligence, I see, as well as her sex appeal.”

Venus’s jaw dropped. She quickly schooled her face when Conway squinted at her. He didn’t know what was going on, but it was clear he didn’t like it much. Neither of them had been well rested or very clear mentally during their previous interactions with Fevet. He now realized they were far from out of danger where the Ks were concerned.

He also had a feeling the K had just hit on him.

***

“What are we doing here?” Venus asked when the flyer came down on the dumpster side of Cloud Bar. “You know this is where I work, not where I live, right?”

“Get out,” Fevet said, doing something to open a hatch on his flyer.

All three of them stepped out. Fevet took one of his little devices out of a pocket. Venus studied him, wishing she could determine how many of these small tools he had hidden in the pockets of his loose, sand-colored trousers.

She glanced at the sky. It was about noon, and the air felt heavy and dense. Without sunscreen, she could feel the sun overheating her skin. She wouldn’t last long out in the open without burning.

Fevet said something in a foreign tongue.

“What?” Conway asked.

“No one is in the building,” he said.

“It’s not open at this time of day, but usually someone is doing the books, making deliveries,” she said.

“No one is in the building,” he repeated, and before she could so much as take another breath, he pulled out another of his devices and pressed something on it.

A light flashed, blinding her for a moment. When she blinked, black and yellow and blue spots filled almost all of her vision.

She heard Conway swear and blinked harder. He grabbed her arm, pulling her toward him. She closed her left eye and focused hard with her right. Nothing but pavement was between them and the street. Had he turned her around when he grabbed her?

“It’s gone.” Conway squeezed her arm. “He evaporated the effing bar.”

She squeezed her eyes shut again, her body shaking. “What? Why?”

“Nanocytes on the scanner,” Fevet said in the calmest voice imaginable. “I’ve destroyed the serum now.”

“They were already here? With the serum?” she shrieked.

“It’s been three days since the attack,” Fevet said. “It is not uncommon to lose track of time when you are under stress.”

She lost it.

“Monster!” she shrieked, pointing a quivering finger at him. “You just destroyed the livelihood of several people.”

“The serum is gone.” She could hear the sneer, even if she couldn’t see his face yet. “My problem is solved.”

“You didn’t need to destroy the entire building.” She put her hands over her eyes. “The dumpster isn’t even there anymore, is it?”

“No,” Conway said. “I think he took out some cars as well.”

Fevet chuckled. "You don't understand me. See, I didn't kill anyone. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t going to apply a little punishment."

“You have no idea if those vehicles belonged to anyone involved in the theft,” Conway said. “You’ve made your point clear. Take us to Zacatecas City now. We’ll get Venus’s car and my bike and be out of your hair. Problem solved.”

“What about Natalie?” Fevet asked. Venus thought his upper lip was quivering.

"What about my mother?” Conway demanded.

Venus grabbed his arm, afraid he would attempt to strike the alien. In perfect health or not, he hadn’t had the immortality serum. He wasn’t super strong or anything like that.

“Well,” Fevet said, forming his thumbs and index fingers into a triangle over his chin. “Zices, my former lover, killed her.”

“You knew?” Conway growled. Venus exerted more effort to hold him back.

“We are not a lawless society,” Fevet said. “Zices has been tried by the Council and returned to Krinar for reprogramming.”

“That’s good news,” she said brightly.

“Why did you choose my mother over Zices?” Conway asked, shaking his head as if to rattle his thoughts around.

Venus kept her hand on him, hoping she could prevent him from doing anything stupid with this most dangerous of predators. Humans were no longer at the top of the food chain on Earth.

“I prefer humans.” His words were simple, yet sent a chill through them.

Neither she nor Conway said anything. What could they do? She glanced around the scene. Her vision had cleared. She had clothing at her father’s house, money in a bank that had a branch a couple of miles away. They could rent a car, or catch a plane to Baltimore, abandon their vehicles. Wait. Fevet had taken their identification. Argh. They couldn’t rent a car or fly. Not for weeks, not until they replaced theirs or had new, fake ones made. They’d be at her father’s mercy.

They were going to go through a lot of irritating paperwork before they found a new equilibrium.

These ordinary thoughts stopped cold when Fevet spoke again. “I would like to join you in your bed. You plan to marry, yes? There are humans in Lenkarda who are not specifically bonded to us. You will live with me. We will share sex.”

“We will not,” Venus barked, exactly at the same time as Conway said, “Hell, no.”

Fevet’s eyebrows rose lazily. “I watched the two of you yesterday after I sent an inhibition-blocker mist into the room. I can offer you both a great deal of additional pleasure. I have five hundred years of experience pleasuring both men and women.”

He had drugged them? Venus’s voice rose in outrage. "We aren't animals in a zoo!"

Conway yanked her out of Fevet’s path. “We will never agree to that. Have you no sense of human taboos? You were my mother’s husband, basically.”

Venus added, calling over Conway’s shoulder, “You are old enough to be an ancestor we’d never even heard of, you’d have died so long ago. Horrifying.”

“I am not human.”

“We are not going to do what you want,” Conway said.

“I can make you,” he suggested, a glint in his eyes. “Think about how easily you fell into each other’s arms, despite the strange environment. I can make it easy for you again.”

“You can rape us,” Venus said. “Even if your vampire-thing makes us enjoy it, it’s still rape. It’s still wrong by human standards, and we will always be human.”

“We say no,” Conway said. He clutched her hand as she stepped to his side.

The alien smirked. “I am going to destroy your father’s house next.”

“Then you’ll be the one standing in front of your Council next,” Venus said. “You’ve got no right.”

“I have every right. He’s part of the Resistance.”

“You destroyed any proof of that.”

“Oh?” Fevet said in a tone she recognized as snark.

“Yeah. I know what’s where, and nothing is in my father’s house. You destroyed everything with your little display of temper.” Where was all this coming from? But at some level, she wasn’t afraid. She had nothing left to lose. This creature could steal her entire life. She could do nothing about that but battle with words.

The K pointed one of his devices at the empty space where Cloud Bar had stood until a few moments ago. Slowly, a low building took shape, blending into the landscape.

“Why are you building one of your houses here?” she asked.

“A good place for us to form our trio,” Fevet said. “On the place where I destroyed your dreams of ever removing my people from your planet.”

Next to Venus, Conway’s arm twitched. She couldn’t let this alien hurt Conway anymore. He’d already cost her lover his mother.

“Take me,” Venus said. “I don’t hate you. You saved my lover’s life. I’ll even be your charl, whatever that means. But you have to let Conway go.”

His body went stiff next to hers. “No!” Conway shouted.

She turned to him. “Let me go, my love. You don’t deserve this.”

Fevet’s lip curled, as if he disdained their emotion. "We'll have to have sex first. I want to taste your blood, little girl." He licked his lips and in a sudden move, grabbed her arm and thrust her into the building he’d created.

Conway shouted and ran in behind the K. The opening disappeared behind him. Inside, the square space was nothing but one of those enormous platform beds. And a set of manacles.

“I won’t do it unless you let him go,” Venus warned. “You’ll have to kill me if you don’t. Otherwise, I’ll do it willingly.”

“A Krinar does not enjoy sex with just any human,” the K said in a singsong voice. “I have to try you, taste you. Your lover can watch.”

She’d felt cold, but now the blood began to boil in her veins. She had so little to bargain with, but she had to use what she could. “No. Let him go.”

The K smirked and pulled off his shirt. It fell away from his body.

“You’re making me hate you,” Venus shouted. Desperation was infecting her reason with despair. “Conway! Get out of here. Save yourself.”