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  But Char’noth was shaking his head.

  “The equipment is set to receive a subject—not send. There is no time to recalibrate for the two of you. What is needed is a distraction. Watch.”

  He worked some of the glowing controls and we heard high, tinny notes echoing in our chosen female’s domicile.

  On the lightscreen, we saw the male who had been menacing our female with his weapon frown and cock his head to one side.

  “What’s that?” he demanded. “You got somebody in here?”

  “What? No! I don’t know.” The female—whose name was either “Ry-lee” or “babe” (it was hard to tell since the male had called her both)—shook her head distractedly.

  Char’noth played the notes again—he was trying to lure them to the large, flat surface he’d called a mirror which was located in another room of the domicile.

  “There it is again—it’s coming from the bathroom.” The puny, scruffy-looking Earth male, who had skin which was an unhealthy dirty-tan color, several shades paler than our female’s warm brown tones, glared at her. “You do have somebody in there. Is it another man?”

  “What—you think I have a hidden lover who plays the trumpet on the toilet for the hell of it?” she demanded. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “You’re lying. Go.” He motioned with his weapon for her to head towards the source of the noise. I clenched my hands into fists as I saw the muzzle of the primitive but effective-looking firearm sweep towards her face. If he hurt her…

  An answering surge of rage and anxiety came from Lucian. Glancing briefly at my temporary partner, I saw the fear we both felt for our female on his face. It almost made me like him better. Almost.

  Char’noth played the notes a third time and the two Earthlings finally entered the area the male had called “the bathroom.” It looked like a fresher to me with an area to collect and dispose of waste and a booth with a nozzle mounted on the wall which might have been a personal cleansing unit. But none of that mattered—what caught my eyes was the large, flat glass mirror hanging on the wall. When the two humans stared into it, it was almost as though they were looking through a window right at us—although they couldn’t see us.

  Or could they? I saw both their eyes widen as they leaned forward and the female breathed,

  “What the hell? Blue…green…what?”

  I figured she must be talking about our skin color. I have dark blue skin tones with green eyes like most of the males in my clan and Lucian has light green coloring with blue eyes which is usual for the Fang Clan. Neither of us would be remarkable on our home world of Denaris but to Earthlings who were only used tan and brown skin, it probably looked fucking strange.

  I don’t know why Char’noth decided to show us to our chosen female and her attacker—maybe as another distraction. But it only made the situation worse.

  “I knew it!” the male shouted, waving his weapon wildly. “You’ve got other men in here. You’re cheating on me!”

  “I don’t know who they are or what they’re doing in my mirror!” the female protested.

  “Yes, you do—you lying bitch!” The male leveled his weapon at her head. “If I can’t have you, they sure as hell can’t!”

  “Bring her through!” Lucian shouted at the same time I growled,

  “Now, Char’noth! Now.”

  “Transporting,” the high, ridiculous voice of the Commercian informed us.

  There was a shimmer of light and both our chosen female and the male who was menacing her disappeared from the lightscreen…and reappeared at our feet.

  Chapter Five

  Rylee

  For a moment I didn’t know where I was. I felt dizzy and light-headed, as though I’d just been spun around really fast by one of those carnival rides that uses centrifugal force to pin you to the wall while the floor drops away under you.

  I blinked to clear my vision, took a deep breath, and looked around.

  I realized I still didn’t know where I was.

  All I knew was that I was sitting on a hard, cold metal floor with the two guys I’d seen staring at me through the mirror looking down at me.

  They were both incredibly, ridiculously tall—like professional basketball player tall—but they weren’t lean or skinny. Both of them had broad chests and plenty of muscles to spare bulging under their blue and green hides. At five foot nine I’m no delicate flower but next to them, I felt like I was surrounded by giants.

  “Who…who are you?” I breathed, looking up at them. “And where am I?”

  “You’re aboard a station orbiting your planet,” a high, thin voice answered me. It wasn’t coming from either of the huge guys though. Looking around I saw a dark blue worm-looking thing about three feet high with googly eyes on stalks and multiple arms scuttling towards me.

  “Ugh!” I gasped, scooting away from it. It looked like some kind of an insect with all those arms and legs and I do not do insects. I get enough of them living in Tampa, thank you very much. Especially roaches—I hate roaches—but I’m not really fond of any creature that skitters around and has more legs than I do. At second glance, I thought the thing looked more like a centipede than a worm.

  My sudden motion put me right up against the legs of one of the two huge men—if they were men. When I looked up again, I saw it was the green one.

  “What’s wrong, little female?” His voice was deep and smooth and he leaned down to look at me anxiously. He was wearing black trousers and a gray jacket of some expensive, shimmery material with an elegant rounded collar that looked like it had been tailored to fit him. He looked like he belonged in a board room or a court room—someplace urbane and professional. If they admitted seven foot tall green people, that was.

  “She’s frightened—you’re frightening her, Lucian.”

  The one with the blue skin glared at the green one and then bent over to look at me. He was also wearing black trousers but his were much tighter and he also had on a kind of leather vest that showed his muscular arms and chest. There was a leather band with some kind of sharp, jagged red things threaded onto it tied around his right bicep. In contrast to green guy, he looked like he belonged in a jungle or an Indiana Jones movie. Or maybe one of those extreme survival reality shows. He struck me as some kind of rugged explorer or someone who worked with his hands.

  “It’s all right, babe—you’re safe here with us,” he rumbled in a voice which was just as deep but considerably rougher than the green guy’s.

  “What?” I stared up at both of them, almost forgetting about the talking worm-insect thing. “What did you call me?”

  “Babe.” The blue guy frowned. “Isn’t that your name?”

  “No, Drace, her name is Ri-lee,” the green one corrected him, pronouncing my name like it was a foreign word. “’Babe’ is clearly a derogatory term.”

  “Actually, it’s a term of affection—when it’s used by the right person. It’s a form of ‘baby.’” I said and then thought, did I really just say that? Am I really having a discussion on semantics with two huge blue and green guys in the middle of what looks like a space ship on a cheesy science fiction movie? Are they aliens? Have I been somehow abducted, right through my bathroom mirror?

  Apparently so.

  “Oh God…oh, God, I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I swear I won’t do nothing bad ever again—just let me go home!”

  I looked over and saw Phillip was beside me on the metal floor, completely freaking out. His gun, I saw with some relief, was gone. But so were his clothes.

  Come to think of it—so were mine.

  Looking down at myself, I realized that I was completely nude—what my old friend Zoe would have called, “butt-nekked.”

  “Crap!” I wrapped my arms around my chest and squeezed my thighs together tightly. What the hell was going on here? Now that the first shock was wearing off I was beginning to panic. Where was I? Who were these people? What was going to happen to me?

  “Please,” Phillip moaned b