Mated Against Her Will (Captives of Pra'Kir Book 2) Read online

  Binnix wasn’t sure what he was to make of the alien woman that stood in front of him. She was so…tiny. She was perhaps two feet smaller than him, yet more delicate than a child’s plaything. He worried that he might break one of her fragile, alien bones if he looked at her for too long.

  Not that she had any such reservations. Not only was she staring at him openly, but she was doing it with a scowl on her face, teeth bared. Was that meant to frighten him, he wondered? She looked to him like an animal that thinks itself bigger and capable of more than it really was. He would have voiced these opinions aloud, only he didn’t want to insult her.

  “Hello. I am Binnix. You will be coming to live with me as my guest. I am told that you have been given the treatment so that we might communicate.”

  “Yes,” she spat, her eyes narrowed. Was it his imagination, or were they blue, like the sky? How very strange—yet, they looked lovely in her fragile, pale face. “Did you not know that it is illegal to inject people with…with god-knows-what without their consent?”

  He smiled. He couldn’t help it. Though she clearly was very outraged at her current situation, in his mind’s eye he saw her as that same house pet trying to look tough when it was truly ready to relieve itself on the floor.

  “This isn’t funny!” she shrieked.

  He winced. Tiny she might be, but her voice certainly was not. “Quiet,” he ordered.

  The sheer authority in his voice made her mouth drop open, which only furthered his comparison with a house pet. Then, her cheeks began to color until they looked like the red poppy fruit children picked and ate every summer. He watched in fascination. Did every creature from this one’s home planet change color?

  “I am not sure you understand what sort of situation you’re in,” she continued, searching for something, anything to tell him that might convince him to release her.

  Binnix noted that despite the sharpness of her words, she had indeed lowered her voice.

  “When my government finds out you’ve kidnapped us, they’ll…” Her voice was shaking because she knew that their absence from where they were supposed to be wouldn’t be noticed for years.

  “Please, forgive me, it was my understanding that you had, in fact, landed on our planet. Is that not correct?”

  Her brow furrowed. “Well, yes, but…”

  “Without permission—without any contact whatsoever beforehand—and destroying property and killing our people in the process. Is that not also correct?”

  The red in her cheeks was spreading to cover the entire surface of her face. How very odd. Perhaps when she calmed down a bit he would ask her what caused this. He did love a good science lesson.

  “Yes, I guess that’s true, but it wasn’t on purpose.”

  His brow furrowed. “Do your intentions matter? It is your actions you must pay for.”

  “But…but…we crashed here! We didn’t set out to do it! It just happened!”

  “You’re yelling again,” he informed her, a razor edge to his own soft, commanding voice.

  “Well, of course I am!” she shrieked. “You’re being unreasonable! You, and—and everyone on this whole godforsaken planet!”

  Binnix reached over and clapped his hand over her mouth. The girl’s eyes widened and she immediately reached up to push his hand away. When she found that she could not—indeed, he barely felt her frail attempts, her grasping fingers felt like no more than the buzzing of an insect—her eyes went rounder still. She was quite nice to look at, even if being in her presence required stopping up ones’ ears.

  “You are going to stop shrieking,” he informed her, his voice deadly soft. “You are going to stop, or I will punish you. My ears, I think, must either be much more sensitive than yours, or else I’m highly affected by the quality of your voice. Regardless, consider my hand just now. Think of how it feels against your mouth when I am being as gentle as I possibly can. My hand is near as wide as your face. Consider then how it might feel against your backside.”

  As he spoke, the color drained from her face until she looked paler than she had when he’d seen her for the first time. Truly fascinating. Her breath had quickened, and her nostrils had flared, telling him all that he needed to know: she feared him. And that knowledge surged through him, making his blood hum inside his veins. The only thing that seemed to calm the anger he felt pulsing just beneath surface of his being was this feeling, knowing that he was dreaded.

  His cock was rising against his clothing while he considered her. “Is that quite understood?”

  She bobbed her head up and down again and again, which he supposed must have been assent.

  Binnix removed his hand and then patted her on top of the head. “Good. Good girl.”

  ***

  Sarai had never seen a more perfect looking man. Not that she was altogether sure he was a man. She was on a different planet, which meant that she wasn’t sure what the specimen in front of her would be called, except for exceptional. At least, that was the word that she would use and she couldn’t imagine any other earthen woman doing otherwise. He was tall—Shaquille O’Neal kind of tall. His skin was a perfect shade of tan which made his sharp green eyes stand out all the more. His hair was blond, nearly platinum looking, though she knew innately that he did not dye it. It must be a natural shade on this strange planet she’d managed to land on. Nor did he wear it close-cropped like men that she knew back home would have. It was long, but yet it did not seem to grow in length, as hers did. Instead, it grew by volume and stood several good inches thick on top of his head. The top was wavy, making it that much more appealing. But the most appealing of all was his perfectly white, even teeth. It gave him a dazzling—though elusive—smile. She’d only seen it once, however, and she’d prefer to see it a few more times to be sure.

  And when he stood…wow. She literally lost all the words she’d ever known, because none of them were even close to adequate to describing his body. Seeing it was the first thing that began to convince her that this was a different species, because no man she’d ever laid eyes on, including those in magazines and on television, had come close to looking this good. Even though he was clothed—a fact that she regretted with all of her being—she could tell that he easily had twelve-pack abs. Though she’d prefer a closer, more in-depth study which would hopefully include tequila shots and the feeling of her tongue sliding across his gorgeous skin. The mere thought made her flush—she wasn’t normally so inclined toward such carnal thoughts. She’d always thought of herself as being more evolved than that, but perhaps that didn’t have anything to do with it. Maybe it was simply because she’d never seen such a superb looking specimen before—one that, with a glance, made her panties dampen.

  She was still salivating over him when he’d begun to speak. And as he did, it became apparent that he had no doubts that they were from different planets. Not only that, but he clearly considered himself the superior one between the two of them. Which was more than a little offensive. Heck, on her home planet she was considered something a genius. But here, she could swear he thought she was little more than an animal who could be taught to obey. Which definitely detracted slightly from what she thought of his physical appearance.

  Sarai tried to explain that there had been a misunderstanding. He seemed under the impression that she and her fellow crew-members had landed here intentionally, which simply wasn’t the case. But he’d only insulted her! Her opinion of him was falling by the minute. Of course, she supposed that’s what the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” was invented for—guys like this.

  She had to get away. There was no question. He’d claimed that he would be “fostering” her and that she would be coming to live with him. Ha! Over her dead body. What had minutes ago felt like a winning lottery ticket now felt like a death sentence. There was no way she could take seeing his emotionless face—however Adonis-like it might be—and hearing his patronizing voice day in and day out.

  “I need to use the facilities.”

  “Use?” he echoed. “For what purpose?”

  Sarai couldn’t help but wonder if he was just victim to the language barrier, or if he truly were stupid. Only time would tell, and as she began to plan an escape she couldn’t help but hope for the latter. The prettier ones were usually stupid, weren’t they? “I need to relieve myself.”

  He assessed her, his gaze not warming one iota. “Very well. When we return to my house, I shall show you your living quarters.”

  She nodded, bowing her head in a sign of deference that he seemed to like, all the while watching him from lowered lashes, trying to get his measure. He was tall, but was he fast? She wished she knew. If they’d planned to land on an inhabited planet—not that they’d had any knowledge of such a thing—then she would have hoped to have research to aid her. Unfortunately, she had no such thing and would have to be learning as she went. Suddenly, she thought again of Brinley—alive! What a shock it had been, a shock that had quickly turned to palpable relief—and wondered how she was faring. The man who’d claimed he would be caring for her was nothing shy of a nightmare. She shuddered just thinking about him. He’d walked into a room of four terrified women and done all that he could to reduce them to piddling terriers. And he’d succeeded nicely in that goal, as loathe as she was to admit it. The thought of her friend with him…it made her nauseous.

  And the other girls? What about them? Were they finding themselves with similar “men” who seemed to feel themselves superior? Did they have a man like Brinley, one that had no qualm of threatening and carrying out violence?

  She tried not to think about it. Such musings would not bring a smidgen of relief—in fact, it was quite the opposite. She wanted nothing more than to bend at the waist and hurl the contents of her stomach. To do so, however, would be to show her fear and she didn’t want this creature seeing anything of the sort. Not if she could help it.

  “Come, our shuttle is waiting.”

  Sarai should have felt relief to be getting out of that prison, but she had a strange feeling that she would only be trading one cell for another. Which was precisely why she must escape, and the sooner, the better.

  But knowing that she could not let him even suspect such a thought, she nodded and stood. He began to walk away, his head held high, his shoulders thrown back. Though she’d come to resent him during this exchange, she still couldn’t help but admire his masculine beauty.

  Get with it, Sarai, she lectured herself. You can either drool over the alien eye-candy, or you can escape. Which is it going to be?

  Right. She needed to focus. Casually, she began to look around, waiting for her opportunity. She only half-listened as her captor spoke to people as they were leaving. All they spoke of was mundane things—the weather, wishing him luck as a foster-home, some festival that was coming up. Nothing that interested her in the least, although she did roll her eyes every time she heard him holding her against her will being referred to as “fostering”. These people really were backward, weren’t they?

  She didn’t see an opportunity until they got outside. For one thing, it would have been foolish to try to escape him while still inside a prison, but also because it wasn’t until then that his attention diverted from her. On the inside, even as he spoke with others she could still feel his eyes on her. But nearly as soon as they came outside he was approached by a loud, wailing woman who was wringing her hands. And she felt Binnix’s attention shift. She paused, waiting a few seconds, and when he still did not turn back to her, she began to slip away.

  Even though these creatures, whatever they were called, tended to speak at lower volumes than she was accustomed to she could still make out some of what the woman was saying.

  “My son, my precious son. Gone, in an instant. He was so young…so beautiful…”

  Much to her surprise, Binnix had a hand on the woman’s shoulder and was actually reassuring her. Sarai’s guessed it went to show that he could be something other than an ass…to his own kind, at least. She was steadily moving away and Binnix was speaking in a soft, soothing tone, so she could not make out his reply. It surprised her to realize that she was disappointed. She would have liked to hear how he would reassure the woman.

  Sarai stuffed down her regret, however, and began to move away with more speed and decision. She was careful to glance over her shoulder every few yards, her heart beating with a wild mixture of fear and relief when she saw him still speaking to the crying woman. Relief that his attention was still diverted, and fear that came with the knowledge that any moment that could change. Her mind was drawn back to the threats the other one—the magistrate, was it?—had made while they were all sharing a cell. He’d thought nothing of hitting them to get what he wanted. What would Binnix do if he caught her after an escape attempt?

  Just as quickly as the thought crossed her mind, she pushed it away. After all, it was a little too late to worry about it now. She walked as quickly as she dared, trying to keep to the sides of buildings and thus hide in their shadows. If anyone thought it strange that she was walking their streets alone, no one said anything.

  She turned her head to look behind her just in time to see that Binnix was now alone. Oh, crap! Any minute he’d realize that she wasn’t there, if he hadn’t already! Sarai broke into a panic-induced sweat as she darted inside the nearest building she could find.

  In the few seconds that it took for her to assess the situation and realize the peril she was in, she formulated a plan. It was tenuous and fragile at best, but it was also the best that she could do under the circumstances. She had to hide out and after serval minutes had passed—perhaps she better make it an hour—then she would go back outside and keep walking along the city until a better opportunity presented itself. Clearly these creatures just thought her a miniaturized version of themselves, which she would happily use to her advantage for as long as she could.

  Sarai jumped when she realized that a pair of eyes was on her. Before she could remember that she was supposed to be hiding out and that she needed to be as quiet as possible, she uttered a little scream.

  The creature who’d merited such a reaction merely stared at her, blinking its large, owlish eyes. Sarai hadn’t seen one of its kind since she’d arrived on this planet. She had, however, seen one in The Lord of the Rings. It very closely resembled her least favorite character, Gollum. It had a frail, bony body that was bending in on itself, pale, grayish skin and wisps of hairs attached to its head. Then there were parts of it that were unlike anything she’d ever seen before—the two giant claws she saw on its hands, for example. That was different—terrifyingly so.

  Sarai couldn’t help it that a shudder ran through her. Some people were afraid of clowns, but unlike them, she’d never expected to see the object of her fear in real life.

  “Can I help you?” the creature wheezed in a thin, reedy voice as though it was used to hearing a scream in the way of a greeting.

  “I…I…” Oh, God. What was she going to do? She had to hide, but right now she was damned if she did, damned if she didn’t. If she went back outside, Binnix would get her for sure! But if she stayed in here with Gollum, who knew what sort of things awaited her? Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she was sure she was going to be sick. All over the floor.

  “Are you all right? Perhaps you’d care for a glass of water? My apologies if I startled you. I know that you don’t see many Mekron working these days.”

  “Mekron?” she repeated, her breath coming in quick, shallow gasps.

  “Yes. I am a Mekron. I am being fostered by Judge DuBai,” it said, seeming almost proud. “I humbly requested that he allow me some work to keep myself occupied a few days a week, which he graciously granted. I am even allowed to keep the earnings for my time spent in the shop.”

  “You mean he actually pays you for working,” Sarai said drily. “What a novel concept.”

  “I do not take your meaning.”

  She opened her mouth to explain but then it occurred to her that her time would be better spent actually hiding. “Look, is there somewhere in here that I could hide away for a while?”

  “Hide away?” he echoed, his brow furrowing. “I do not—”

  “Take my meaning,” she finished, feeling her frustration rise. Was this entire planet inhabited by simpletons? “What I mean is, I am trying to hide from someone who means me harm. Can you show me a place that I could lay low for a little while?”

  The creature’s gray brow cleared. “Ah. Yes, there is a large desk there—” he pointed a bony finger. “—that would be good for ducking behind. However, if you are in danger the best thing to do would be to notify our chief of police.”

  Yeah, because your people seem so willing to help me and mine, she thought. “Thank you.” She scurried in the direction he’d pointed and hid behind a rather large, sturdy desk. She couldn’t help but note the craftsmanship. Hmm. At least they seemed adept at woodworking, even if communications wasn’t their chief skill.

  Though Sarai was relieved to have found a temporary hiding place for the moment, it was just that—momentary. And if she was being honest, she had to acknowledge that she didn’t have a clue what to do from here. She could slink around the city, hoping to go unnoticed, but how long would that last? And in the meantime, what would she do for food? For shelter? Perhaps she could get in touch with one of the other girls and maybe together they could formulate a plan. Maybe one of them might have managed to escape, too?

  She buried her face in her hands and let out a silent scream. It was all so frustrating. She couldn’t believe she was here, on a planet where not only was she not wanted, but she was being treated like a criminal! This differed so much from the welcome she’d expected to receive when they landed on Zeta-12. She’d been looking forward to a warm reception from the previous settlers who were sure to be looking for reinforcements as well as news of Earth.

  But instead, for all intents and purposes, they were trapped here and she didn’t have the faintest idea of what she could do to change that. She would—she had to—she just didn’t know how.

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