sharp teeth.
Her stomach lurched, and she doubled over retching.
And then he was picking her up and carrying her back to the bed. “Breathe, it will be fine,” he said.
But she couldn’t be consoled that easily now, not with those pieces of memory starting to fit back together. She’d been so stupid. “He—he was so good looking, and I was flattered that he was interested. I knew I shouldn’t go off alone with him, but a walk in the park under the moonlight—what could be more romantic, right?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. She was angry, mostly at herself.
“You didn’t know what he was. The Guaran are experts at stalking. He’d probably been hunting you for a while so he would have known what would work to make you trust him,” he said.
“I knew better than to go off with strange men,” she snapped, because of course, she did. But then on the heels of that came a rush of fear. “He had so many teeth. Was he going to eat me? Do aliens eat people?” She stared up at him with wide eyes, and trembled when she remembered he was also an alien.
“You are not people to him. The universe is a vast place, little human, and to some, you would make a good meal. But no, I don’t believe he was going to eat you.”
He brushed her dark hair off her forehead gently and caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. The unexpectedly kind gesture brought tears to her eyes. “Then … what did he want?” She could see him visibly working out how to explain this and prepared herself for the worst.
“Your planet is off-limits, and visitors are strictly regulated. The penalties for breaking the rules are high and could affect his entire planet, so I don’t believe he’d go so far just for food. However, some of the Guaran are traders of exotic pets. The right human …could be very valuable.”
The right human? Her? She couldn’t imagine why she was so special that anyone would bother. She was a part-time librarian with dreams of acting, but if she was valuable, would he have given her up so easily to this other guy? That didn’t seem likely. “What If he comes back for me?”
“He won’t.” There was no hint of doubt in his words.
“But how do you know? If he thinks I’m worth something, then he might—”
He interrupted her, shaking his head. “He’s dead so you have nothing to worry about.” He said it so matter-of-factly that she was speechless for a second.
“I still have you to worry about,” she mumbled. She heard him laugh, but her eyes were starting to slide shut and she was having trouble forming words. Fear of all those claws and teeth coming for her again had helped her stay awake, but now it was a struggle and even though she didn’t want to trust this stranger—she did.
Chapter 3
When she woke later, she could tell it had been a long sleep by how sluggish she felt and because her stomach was growling with hunger. There was a feeling of disorientation as she tried to figure out where she was. But that was the normal result of waking in a strange place, and this time, there were no issues with her memories.
They returned almost immediately and sent her heart racing. Her situation was one of two things: either she’d been kidnapped by an alien and was being held on a spaceship, or she’d been kidnapped by a crazy person who had built up an elaborate scenario to fool her. Either way she was in trouble and had no way to get out of it.
If she’d had her bag then maybe she’d have been able to fashion a weapon, at least, but it was gone along with her shoes. Her knee-length skirt was pretty, but it was designed for fashion, which meant it had no pockets to ruin the lines. She wore a camisole under her plain, button-down blouse which meant she couldn’t even cannibalize a bra for wire.
The room was so bare and plain that she knew she wouldn’t find anything, but she was locked in with nothing to do, so she got up and began to explore anyway. Now that she knew there were hidden panels, that gave her a starting point but no matter where she poked and prodded, nothing opened. She’d just gotten down on her knees and was searching under the bed, when the door