Chapter 3

The crowd continued to growl as he ushered me down the aisle. I stumbled beside him, head down, and he gripped my elbow for the barest moment until I regained my footing.

The purple alien had been clinical in her interactions with me, but this blue one pressed close to me, almost touching, hovering. His eyes rarely left me, making me tremble. What did he want from me?

No noise broke the silence as we rode the elevator. I couldn’t even peek at him. He stepped out first, then motioned for me to follow. I did, not fighting. This hallway was much like the other one I’d seen with doors on both sides. He pressed his palm against a lighted panel near a door.

A living room, not shockingly different from the ones on Earth, with a long padded bench, a shelf full of books, a low table surrounded by woven mats, and two closed doors was on the other side.

It was an apartment.

I did not like where this was going.

Without hesitation, the man strode into the room, and he scrubbed a hand through his long hair. The action was oddly human, or at least, one I attributed to humanity. I stepped inside, and the door closed behind me.

“I want to leave.” I tried to project confidence by standing up straight, but nausea coiled in my stomach, making me hunch. Being in a strange apartment wasn’t a comfortable situation at the best of times, which this was not. I didn’t do well with new people. Or places. Or situations. Or anything new really if I was being honest, not that I had to be honest in my own head.

The man made the same circling motion the woman had. I crossed my arms and raised my chin, clamping my lips together. His amethyst-colored gaze remained focused on me, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of talking. He took a couple of steps toward me. My back tightened, and I gripped my biceps.

He released a garbled growl.

“What?”

“Cal fox ten coal,” he repeated slowly with a fist on his chest.

What the fuck did that mean?

He patted his chest. “Calfoxtencoal.”

His name. Maybe? If that long word could be a name. I was having a Tarzan-Jane moment. Joy.

“Seth Harris.”

“Calfoxtencoal,” he said with a hand on his chest, then held out his hand toward me. “Seth Harris.”

My name sounded closer to a car engine coughing with its last breath, but it was understandable. “Calfoxtencoal,” I said, which made his lips quirk.

“Kal Vox Ren Col,” he repeated.

“Kalvoxtencoal.”

“Kalvox Rencol.”

I caught the R for the first time. “Kalvoxrencol.”

He smiled again.

My jaw clenched. “What do you want?”

Kalvoxrencol cocked his head to the side, hair tumbling over his broad shoulder, as his tail flicked. Long earrings brushed his neck, making my eyes travel down the length. I ripped my gaze away. He made the same motion the purple woman had—the damn circle.

“What do you want? Where am I? I want to go home.”

He made the same gesture.

“Are you fucking serious? What do you want?” I shouted. I felt myself edging closer to the brink. My mind was fractured and stress wound me tight. One more blow and I would snap like a twig.

He made the circle motion again, and I shook my head. Sweat dripped down my spine, soaking my shirt. Pressure built in my chest, growing, until it became a physical weight suffocating me, ripping me apart.

Everything was too much.

I gripped the front of my shirt, the soft fabric squishing under my fingers. I tried to suck in air, but my lungs refused to cooperate. My thoughts spun, and my knees trembled moments before they gave out.

Panic attack. I was having a panic attack. It had been almost a year since the last one. Well, besides the one I had when I first arrived.

The pressure grew until I felt like I was dying, even though I knew I wasn’t. My heart thrashed so powerfully, I feared it would rip to shreds. I bent my head to the floor to ground myself, but I couldn’t. The world was spinning, and I was along for the ride.

Kalvoxrencol was shouting in the background, his voice rough. I didn’t think he was yelling at me, but it didn’t matter. The raucous noise made me tense.

I tried to tune him out and focus on the musky flooring beneath me. It was damp, as if alive. I clung to the feeling, but the swirling panic didn’t abate.

Lucy. I needed Lucy.

Whenever I had an attack at home, she would sit beside me, purring. I needed her. I hadn’t known how much until I adopted her. Thoughts of her comforting presence began to calm me. As I took shuddering breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth, my pulse slowed to a normal rhythm and my vision cleared.

When I felt almost normal, I pressed my sweat-drenched back against the chilled wall. Kalvoxrencol crouched in front of me, his tail slashing. His voice steadily calmed, though he continued to speak into a round stone, and his eyes scoured me.

I took in his wide eyes, long nose, and full lips. His scales were steel-blue, but much like the woman, he had crescent-shaped colors peeking around them. Most were dark purple, but I spotted a few electrical blues.

What exactly was he? Where was he from?

He said something. The only thing I understood was my name, both first and last.

I sagged, legs stretching out.

Kalvoxrencol said my name again.

“Will you let me go home?” I asked. “I just want to go home. Lucy needs me.”

“Say…” Kalvoxvrencol”s voice trailed off into a jumble.

“What did you say?”

He made the circular motion again.

I shook my head, irritated but too tired to do anything more than sigh. “It’s rather annoying to keep repeating myself.”

“I understood that.”

“What?”

“Keep talking. The (garbled sound) is learning.”

“Why am I here?”

“The Crystal sent me to you.”

While I’d understood each word, they didn’t make any sense. Apparently, I’d gotten abducted by a crazy alien. That was great, just great, but perfectly in line with my crappy luck.

“When can I go home?” I asked.

His tail twitched. “Home?”

“Yes, home. Earth. I need to go home.”

“I understand.”

Relief shot through me. “Thank fucking god.”

His eyes widened, and his tail moved faster.

“Now, can you send me home or is there a pod, ship, thing I can take?”

“You are not returning to your planet. You are staying with me.”

“What?”

“You are remaining here with me. We’re going home to my planet.”

“No.” I stood, then staggered as my knees buckled. “I need to go home. Why would I stay here? Why can’t you let me go?”

“Because you’re my mate,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, remaining crouched.

“What?” I asked, even as my thoughts returned to the room with the people. The ceremony. Suddenly, it all made sense. “No, no, no, no.” I shook my head. “No.”

He straightened, hands raised like he intended to grab me, but he didn’t. “I know this is surprising, but the Crystal led me to you.”

“You’re insane. I want to leave.”

“You can’t.”

“Let me go,” I yelled, my voice turning higher pitched than I liked. I slapped the glowing panel next to the door, but nothing happened.

Kalvoxrencol stepped closer, and I jerked away. “I cannot,” he said. “The light you touched during our bonding, remember?”

“Of course.”

“It forged a genetic link between us. We cannot separate. You could wander your planet if my ship remained in orbit, which we cannot do, but I could go no further without hurting both of us. You and I are bound together until we reach my home planet, (untranslated word).” I didn’t catch the word, but it seemed far too long to be a name. He continued before I could remark, “The Crystal tied us together, and it is the only thing that can separate us.”

“What?”

“The Crystal powered the light we touched. When we get home, we can reaffirm our bond, continuing the genetic link, or you can choose to leave me, and I will take you home.”

My breath started to speed up. “How long will that take?”

“Six months, one way.”

“Six—” I could not even finish. Mr. Kidnapper thought I could be away from my life and job for six months. Yeah. He was crazy. “That doesn’t work for me. I have a life I need to get back to.”

“This,” he motioned between us, “is not how it usually works.”

“So you don’t abduct people?”

“Normally, the Crystal reveals our intended, and we court them. But you”re in a,” his words broke off into a garble.

“I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Blackout. Do you understand that?”

“The word, not the context.”

He paused again before saying, “Primitive.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re from a primitive planet. Pre-space travel. The Coalition of Planets doesn’t allow contact with planets such as yours. People, plants, or soil samples can be taken for research, but no contact. I can take you as my mate, but I cannot set foot on your planet.”

“So you’re allowed to abduct me, but you can’t come to my planet?”

“We’re not allowed to issue contact. I could not court you previously. Normally, we would spend time together, and when you accepted me, we would bond and make the journey home. I didn’t have that luxury.”

“Luxury,” I repeated. Before he could respond, I asked, “How can we understand each other?”

Kalvoxrencol gestured to monitor. “Our computer. It downloaded all of your world’s history and is learning your language. The more you speak, the more it learns.”

“I want to go home.”

“It’s not possible.”

“Make it possible.”

“I cannot. We’ll be leaving soon.”

I was going somewhere new. Completely new. And I had no choice. Lucy, I thought. I would be gone for a year. Once I was reported missing, however long that took, she would go to a shelter.

“Please. Lucy needs me.”

“Lucy?” he asked, tail whipping.

“My cat.”

“I don’t understand.”

I shoved a hand in my hair, gripping the strands in a tight fist. What in the actual hell was happening to my life? Fighting the growing panic, I tried to explain. “Lucy. She’s a small black animal. Please, she relies on me.”

He formed an approximate size for Lucy. “The thing that slept on top of you was Lucy?”

“Yes,” I said, ignoring the terror of how he’d known about her sleeping on me. “I need to get back to her. She could go to a shelter. Black cats have very low adoption rates, and some people aren’t nice to them. She could die. I have to get her.” The black spots were coming back, and the pressure in my chest started to build again.

“I didn’t understand most of your words, but you’re responsible for her?”

“Yes.”

“Since you are mine, through you she is mine.”

“I don’t care,” I said, though part of me rankled at some random guy claiming me. “I need Lucy. Please. You’ve kidnapped me. Wrecked my life. The least you can do is get my cat.”

He stepped closer, less than an arm’s length. “I will get your Lucy. It will all be fine, Seth Harris.”

My jaw clenched. I refused to thank the person who’d abducted me and tricked me into mating him, but I did nod. He didn’t react, so who knew what it meant to him?