Noelle wasn’t certain, at first, what Monica had been trying to convey with that look, but the more she thought about it, the more closely she studied the guard herself. By the time they were nearing the village again she’d arrived at a shocking and thoroughly confusing conclusion.

The ‘female’ guard wasn’t a female!

All sorts of questions instantly crowded her mind, foremost the puzzle of why, if they had two distinct sexes, they would go so far to hide that fact.

She didn’t actually get the chance to discuss her conclusion with Monica, however. They’d barely reached the edge of the village when they heard a sound above them that drew everyone’s attention.

The sight that met their gazes froze everyone in their tracks.

Noelle was so shocked she couldn’t even think for several moments.

There was an airship descending from the clouds, heading directly for the village!

A spacecraft!

Bedlam abruptly erupted all around them. A hundred women screamed seemingly at once and began to charge off in every direction like a flock of birds startled by a predator. “The barbarians! It’s the Flaxens! Run!”

The two guards escorting Noelle and Monica gave them a shove that knocked both of them off their feet, screamed at them, and took off at a run in two different directions. “It’s the Flaxens! Run!”

That was almost as shocking as all the rest—to suddenly discover they’d not only been freed. They’d been abandoned.

Who the hell were the Flaxens? And why were the giant alien/Amazon warrior women so terrified of them?

Particularly when they hadn’t seemed the least bit impressed or intimidated by Earth technology!

Monica grabbed her with hands curled into claws that dug into her flesh hard enough to break through her shock, jerking at her to urge her to her feet. “Move!”

Almost as if they were one person, of a single mind, they scrambled up, whipped a look around to get their bearings, and then headed toward the colony like the hounds of hell were on their heels.

A bizarre sense of unreality settled over Noelle as she and Monica, tethered together by their hands as if they’d been permanently joined and as mindless in their shock and terror as the villagers apparently were, struggled to fight their way through the madness to the other side of the village. Noelle didn’t think ‘home’ ever actually entered her mind. She simply headed toward the safety of the colony because her primitive mind was totally in control of her actions.

In this particular circumstance, their wits would have been better weapons than their survival instincts, however.

They were on the far side of the village from their colony when they first spotted the spacecraft coming in for a landing. The village itself was laid out haphazardly, with no regard for the movement of traffic and there was no straight shot through in any direction. Which meant they would’ve been far better off, despite the fact that the stream they’d so lately visited lay at the foot of a steep cliff they couldn’t hope to climb, if they’d simply whirled around and headed back that way.

Their wits had scattered like leaves in the wind, however, with the panicked scattering of the barbarians who’d been holding them prisoner.

For if the ‘barbarians’ arriving by airship were capable of striking that much terror into the hearts of the savages they’d been dealing with ….

Well, it didn’t bear thinking on!

Not that either woman was actually capable of doing a lot of thinking at the moment.

They charged through the village, hands linked, knocking down or being knocked down by anyone who tried to run between them, first one then the other slamming into immovable objects. Rather than release their death grip on one another, however, they finally simply plowed through the melee single file—Noelle in the lead part of the time and Monica switching places with her when she’d caught her breath enough to outrun Noelle.

They’d lost sight of the ship as it dropped to land, but they managed to get a very good view of it as they managed to leave the village at last, for they were the only ones who actually ran toward the landing ship rather than away from it.

Not that they had mistaken the alien craft for one of their own even momentarily! The ‘alien’ look to its designed was unmistakably not human. Besides that, the thing looked ancient, so rusted with time that it flickered through Noelle’s mind to wonder if it was actually capable of space travel at all!

That was pretty much all that flickered through her mind for some time, however. Because just as she and Monica cleared the village at last, passing the few huts along the outer fringe, the gangplank was lowered and a horde of bellowing barbarians waving swords fully as long as she and Monica were tall poured out of the ship.

Her eyes felt as if they would pop from her head as she stared in horror at the thundering horde.

Monica tore loose from her frantic grip and poured on more speed as one of the barbarians—the one in the lead who seemed taller than all the rest—looked straight at them, bellowed something barbaric and completely unintelligible and headed straight for them. Screaming, Noelle tried to pour on more speed herself, tripped over the fucking hem of the oversized gown, and plowed several yards of dirt and gravel on her belly. She thought for several moments she might actually make her escape by surfing down the hill on her belly, but despite the fact that she managed to outstrip Monica in her race down the hill, something heavy landed on top of her and halted her forward progress, knocking the wind from her lungs at the same time.

Too stunned to do anything beyond grunt when the wind was knocked out of her, Noel focused on trying to breathe past the choking dirt she’d plowed up and the weight that seemed to be crushing her chest.

Monica screamed and raced toward the barbarian that had pancaked her on the ground and began pounding on his head and shoulders. He bellowed an obscenity, planted a hand on her belly and gave her a shove. She flew backwards, hit the ground and slid down the hill on her ass.

By the time the barbarian had gotten off of her and gained his feet, Noelle had recovered enough to be furious that he’d shoved Monica down the hill.

Granted Monica had been trying to beat him senseless, but that was because he’d provoked the attack to start with by tackling her!

“You bastard!” she snarled in his language the minute he jerked her to her feet.

She saw a look of amazement cross his features—either because she’d insulted him in his native language or because she swung at him and tried to punch him in the face—then he snatched her off her feet and absolutely stunned her by planting his mouth firmly over hers.

She wasn’t certain what her reaction might have been under less stressful circumstances, but the natural mating chemicals he injected into her with his kiss felt like liquid fire pouring through her, scalding her lungs and scouring her veins like acid. At the same time, it sapped every ounce of willpower and fight from her, liquefying bone and flesh. Within five seconds, she was perfectly limp and barely conscious, as if he’d tried to smother her rather than kissed her completely senseless.

He tossed her across one shoulder, retrieved his sword where he’d dropped it in the dirt, threw a triumphant glance in Monica’s direction, and turned back toward his ship.

Despite his reservations about the trip, Drak felt his pulse rate shoot upward as they cleared the cloud cover and spotted the village below them.

Part of this, naturally enough, was relief that the ship had held together for the duration of the trip and anxiety about whether or not their pilot would be able to set the damned tooth rattling thing down on the ground in one piece.