“My name is Darla,” she said. “The Elth plan to force us to breed. They want to get their hands on children with our mixed, um…blood. They think it will make a child easier to train if half of it is human. One of the women taken from the shuttle is a doctor on Defcon Red. She told them you can only breed with a mate. At first, they planned to make all of us have sex with you to get pregnant.”
Outrage filled Gnaw, and he turned his full attention on her.
She flinched. “Is what the doctor said true? You can only produce babies with a mate?”
It wasn’t exactly true, but he wasn’t about to admit it. They were capable of breeding without being mated; they simply didn’t. His people had purposely fed incomplete information when humans had demanded answers about their breeding habits, worried their grouping might impregnate human females on their fleet vessel by accident.
Most races weren’t nosey enough to ask. Veslors had never mated with other races or created a child with females other than their own. At least…they hadn’t, until one of their trading males had mated to a human female after rescuing her. They had been the first. “Veslors mate to have young. Go on.”
“We are supposed to, um, breed, and see if I’m your mate. Otherwise, they’ll kill me and bring in my sister to see if she’s a better choice for you.” Her voice lowered. “I took her from Radison to prevent her from being forced to have sex.”
He held her gaze, curious.
She glanced at his wrist, at him, back at his wrist, and then at him again. Her eyebrows rose. “Is there hope that it could happen?”
The female was smart, and it caused him to smile. She remembered what they’d discussed on the shuttle. She wanted to know if his grouping could still locate them.
He’d already tested his mental link from the implant in his head. The Elth would have assumed it was just his translator if they’d run scans. It was more. The connection was faint but active. Whatever had blocked it before wasn’t present anymore. His males would find him. He just didn’t know how long that would take. “We have hope.”
She smiled back at him, revealing her smooth, tiny teeth. “I’m glad to hear that.”
He heard a low hum, and then a voice spoke into the cell. “Begin breeding and mate the human, Veslor. We want your young.” The hum died.
He stifled a snarl, glancing around for the source. He also spotted what appeared to be cameras in two locations. They were flat disks along the tops of two walls.
All the Elth on the ship would die painfully for taking him and the humans. They thought they could force him to claim a mate, then steal his cub? He shook with rage. He’d personally tear them apart with his claws.
Darla stood and slowly approached. Her eyes were a light blue, her hair white. She was a pale creature, delicate with her small bones and thin body. The brown outfit only made her paleness more stark.
She stopped directly in front of him, inches between their bodies, and lifted her chin. Her face was oval-shaped and her skin looked soft. Her features were strange but attractive.
“We need to, um…have sex.” Pink surfaced on her cheeks, and she licked her lips, appearing nervous. “I know this is going to be difficult and embarrassing—but I’ll do anything to protect my sister. It’s my job to look out for her. I’m older than Becky.” She lifted her arms and he noticed that her hands trembled. “I’ve done this many times before, and while it’s awkward, we’ll survive.”
He felt stunned at her description. “Awkward?”
“Uncomfortable. It’s difficult to have sex when you don’t want to.” Her features tensed. “Just, um, turn your back and give me a few minutes to prepare. Then we can get this over with.”
“You’re confusing me.”
Parts of her face turned even pinker and she dropped her gaze, staring at his chest. “It hurts more if I’m not ready. I need to prepare my body a little, and then it should be fine. I mean, I hope so. You’re a big…man.” She lifted her chin and held his gaze. “We’re going to do this, Gnaw. We need to do this. It’s not my first time, as I said. I survived all those other times. We’ll do what we need to, for as long as it takes, if it protects my sister.”
He cocked his head, trying to make sense of what she was trying to say. Then a suspicion hit. “You’ve been forced to breed before?”
Tears filled her eyes but she rapidly blinked. “Not forced, exactly. It depends on how you see it.”
Rage filled him yet again. She was a female. Who would do something like that her? “Explain.”
She turned away, took a few steps, and seemed interested in staring at the opposite wall. “I told you that I needed to get my sister off Radison, and why. Didn’t you hear anything I said while you were lying on the floor?”
“No.”
“Shat. Okay. I’ll explain again. The colonists started out as a religious cult. Then we got a lot of visitors coming to our planet, like the fleet taking leave there. It became a vacation spot…but there were a few complaints.”
She turned and faced him, anger in her eyes now. “Do you know what men want when they’re on vacation? Attractive women to have sex with. But Radison didn’t have
