He held her until Tabor had recovered enough to recall the proper way to subdue a woman.

Drak had some doubts about the effectiveness of the mating kiss after emptying one’s guts on the ground, but either it was effective or his threat was. The woman settled down and allowed Tabor to herd her up the gangplank.

Shaking his head, Drak strode briskly away from the ship. He paused when he had surveyed the progress of his men in rounding up women and supplies for their trip back and turned to search for any sign of the dark female that had been with his woman.

Chapter Four

Monica spent the first half of her trip back to the colony focused completely on the possibility of pursuit. She wasn’t able to maintain a full run, but she did her best to keep her pace between a jog, a sprint, and a fast walk. The end result was that she was able to see the walls of the colony come into view before dusk.

Her emotions flipped at that point from terror to relief—and fury that the bastards sitting safely behind the walls hadn’t made any attempt to launch a rescue mission.

She had to stand outside the gate for a good fifteen minutes while the security robots surveyed the entire perimeter to make sure she wasn’t a lure the barbarian’s had used to fool them into opening the gates. Finally, the gates were opened a narrow crack to allow her to squeeze through and then they were sealed once more.

Monica was surrounded at once by security bots and escorted to a quarantine area where she was to be observed, poked, prodded, questioned and monitored for a solid month while they waited to be sure she wasn’t carrying any alien contagions before she was allowed to mingle with the colonists again.

Noelle was still basking in the heated, liquid pleasure that had suffused her the moment the huge, brawny and beautiful, but terrifying barbarian had pressed his hard mouth against hers. She thought she’d been more stunned to stillness, at first, than anything else.

She’d been too terrified to spare a lot of time for thought—like why the barbarians were attacking and what their objective was. The women of the village were fierce in her book, and if the flying barbarians frightened them, then they must have something really horrible in mind.

Not that she’d actually formed those thoughts into anything coherent, but they’d been whipping around her mind while she’d been running and screaming her head off.

Then, instead of ripping her in half, he’d snatched her against a rock hard male body and kissed her—sapping every ounce of energy from her body and completely scrambling her wits.

It had almost seemed as if she was floating away when he’d carried her back to his ship and inside, as if she floated downward to land on the bed like a feather.

Only limp.

Heated desire had ramped up the stoked furnace inside of her when he’d peeled her dress off and tossed it aside.

And then … nothing!

Confusion pierced her ardor as she watched him leave.

She stared at the door for a time, willing him to return, hoping he would come back and put out the fire he’d started.

When he didn’t, the heated bubble began to deflate of its own accord. Slowly, her focus shifted from the throbbing of unrequited passions to utter puzzlement and then a healthy mixture of confusion and fear as the strange paralysis wore off completely.

What the hell had just happened?

And where was the barbarian taking her?

The surveyors hadn’t discovered any cities advanced enough to account for the flying machine these ‘barbarians’ had arrived in.

It hadn’t detected any males, for that matter.

It had been a good raid, Drak thought with satisfaction as he stood by the gangplank and counted heads. They hadn’t lost a single man—as least not yet, although there were a couple that had had to be helped back to the ship—and it appeared that at least half the men had managed to capture a mate.

They’d had strong incentive.

There was not enough time to search out another village. This was a one time, hit or miss sweep and they all knew it. If they failed to capture a mate it would be another full year before they got another chance since they only took women in the winter. The spring trip was for returning them.

That thought brought his mind back to his own captive. In truth, it hadn’t strayed far from the strange female in his cabin since he had taken her onto the ship.

Arousal, never far from the surface since the moment he’d taken her, was almost instantaneous and both gratifying and irritating.

On the one hand, he enjoyed that heat pumping through his blood, the sense of anticipation, the excitement.

The distraction annoyed him, however.

He had a healthy appetite, but there was a time and place for everything and he wasn’t accustomed to being distracted from important matters by pleasures of the flesh—or anticipation of enjoying them. He prided himself on his self-control, on ruling mind and body rather than being ruled by his desires.

He was no spoiled, self-indulgent creature of whim! He was a man of intelligence, education, and reason!

Honor and duty above all!

That was his family’s motto and he had always taken it and his birthright as ruler of Alvarone very seriously.

He was still distracted as the last of his men boarded the ship for home and he followed them up the gang plank. After struggling for some moments to focus on seeing to it that all of the captive women were secured in the hold and that the injured men were attended to by the medicine man and made as secure and comfortable as possible, he finally turned control of the vessel over to his captain and headed to his cabin.

He wasn’t surprised when he entered to see that his captive had recovered from the kiss, dressed herself, and vacated the bed, but he was surprised that she hadn’t found a weapon and she didn’t even attempt to catch him off guard and attack as he entered the cabin. Instead, she was standing by the porthole looking out and apparently completely calm.

She didn’t even verbally assault him when he came in.

He halted abruptly in his tracks and surveyed her curiously. “We are about to take off,” he said finally. “You will need to secure yourself.”

She studied him for a long moment, almost as if she was mentally interpreting what he’d said. But maybe she was only considering if it was some sort of trick? “Where?”

Nodding, he crossed the cabin and pressed the button that opened a pair of chairs concealed behind a panel. Opening them up, he gestured for her to take a seat so that he could secure her harnesses.

“I can do it,” she said stiffly.

Mild! A very mild rebuke considering! Shrugging, he took a seat in the other chair and fastened his own harness, merely looking hers over when she had finished to see if she had done it correctly.

He was surprised to discover she had.

“You have a name?”

She studied him with a bland expression that revealed very little—certainly not the hostility he was accustomed to!

“Noelle. I suppose you must have one, too?”

He was almost tempted to chuckle, but then the question was impertinent and disrespectful! He did not think he should encourage her to behave in a way that would set up the backs of his subjects, to say nothing of his advisors. “Drak, Prince of Alvarone. I am called Drak the Fair.”

She looked like she was struggling not to laugh, which thoroughly pissed him off. She cleared her throat. “Fair as in just? Or … uh … pretty?”

He felt a blush suffuse his cheeks and it did not help his temper. “Of color,” he said tightly. “My sire was Drak the Dark.”

Noelle considered pointing out that she would’ve been more favorably impressed if he’d said it meant just, but she decided against it.

Truthfully, he was fair in the sense that he was a handsome monster, but the keyword was monster. He was a giant beside the average human male, and possibly even beside his own people. She didn’t know. She hadn’t actually seen any males … that she knew of for certain. The savage that had given her the lustful once over may or may not have been male. She’d thought it must be, but he was no taller than the females of the village if that was true, and probably at least a half a head shorter than this specimen.