Stolen by the Zandian (Zandian Brides 7)

I rub her ass, soothing away the sting I inflicted. “Good girl.”

She squirms on my lap. I pull her up to a sitting position and check her lovely face. “I’m the only thing between you and that.” I point to the starship window, where the blackness of space is immense. One of my arms curls around her back, my hand strokes the place where hip meets thigh. “Look, there aren’t even any stars in sight here. You can’t survive right now without me. I don’t care how smart you are—you can’t operate this starship by yourself. You have nowhere to go. Attacking me would be death for both of us. Understand?”

She nods then breaks our gaze. “I understand.” She sags against me, and my body revels in the sensation of her soft skin against mine. “Just, for a second there, I thought maybe…” she shakes her head. “Never mind.”

“You thought what?”

“I thought maybe I had a chance to get away. That maybe my life could be different from what it was.” I can barely hear the words.

Guilt burrows into my chest. Humans lead such difficult lives in this galaxy. On my planet, it’s far better than anywhere else, but she couldn’t possibly know or believe that.

“It will be different.” I touch her chin. “Kailani.” Her name feels good on my lips. “I’m not going to do to you what your previous masters did.” I look into her eyes, so she can see my sincerity. “That I swear to you. I won’t withhold your medicine. No harm will come to you.”

She stares at me for a long minute. “Why did you take me?” Her voice is skeptical. “At such great personal risk.” She looks around the craft. “And with such priceless tech. Your planet must find me valuable in some way.”

Veck. She’s right, of course. And I don’t want to lie. But I also want her to trust me and my species more before I ask for her willingness to help.

I pause to find the right words to convince her. “Our planet needs humans.” I eye her carefully, gauging her response. “Our species is nearly extinct. Only a handful of females remain alive. But we’ve found human females to be the next closest match for mating.”

She stiffens. “I am not a breeding slave.”

“No, no, no. That came out wrong. Humans aren’t slaves on Zandia. Zandians on our planet take humans as mates.”

Her blue eyes grow round. She swallows. “You want me as your mate?”

I don’t know why I hesitate. I should have answered no immediately. But I don’t. Maybe it’s the way she’s looking at me—like the idea is not repulsive to her. Maybe it’s because the idea has been appealing to me since the moment I first saw her image in the advertisement for the auction.

But I can’t. She’s for Zandia not for me.

“No.” I drop my gaze. “Not mine. On Zandia, humans have some choices about their existence. Yes, they require a Zandian guardian or mate, but they are not slaves.”

“Oh.” She’s silent. “You could be lying.”

I nod. “I could. I’m not. I can show you holos of humans on Zandia.”

“Those could be phony.”

I shrug. “Listen, Kailani. You and I both know I could put you into a cage and resell you like that.” I snap my fingers.

When she winces, I feel like an asshole. “But I’m not going to. I’m taking you to my planet where you will be welcomed and treated far better than you would be by any other species.”

She studies me.

“Every human on Zandia requires a sponsor. Someone who takes responsibility for seeing that they fit into Zandian society. I’m your master for now, and I need you to understand two things. One, I have superior power over you. Second, I won’t use it to hurt you.”

“You just spanked me.” Her voice is reproachful, and she shifts on my lap.

I stroke the top of her buttocks and the side of her thigh to soothe her. “You attacked me,” I remind her. “There are consequences.” I bring my other hand to lightly cup her bare breast, brushing my thumb across it.

She swallows. “That wasn’t very generous.”

“No?” My lips quirk.

She rolls her hips on my lap, her breath quickening. “Y-you could have just asked me nicely to not attack you again.”

I laugh. “That isn’t in the warrior handbook.”

I like her sense of humor because it brings out my own. This, too, is a new development for me: As Zandians, we are stiff and duty-minded. But the presence of human females on our planet has allowed even the bachelors, like me, to develop previously untapped regions of our personality.