Jeannie Holmes - The Mammoth Book of Futuristic Romance

The fact that I hadn’t been hurt didn’t mean I couldn’t – or wouldn’t – be.

And it certainly appeared that I’d ceased to amuse him.

“Our world was at war with the Orseggans,” he said. “We were hit by a biological weapon. The bio-

agent enhances sex drive.”

I frowned. Weaponized Viagra? Why not take advantage of that with one another? Why kidnap me?

The blood rushed from my head and I stumbled into the curtained wall. Rage drowned out rational thought. Shoving off the surface at my back, hand clenched, I punched Carrollus in the stomach.

His breath went out in an audible rush. He didn’t quite double over, but I wasn’t looking up into his face anymore and that felt good .

Temper stoked, I cocked back for another blow.

Gasping for air, Carrollus rushed me. His shoulder took me in the ribs, driving me back.

I hit the curtain-shrouded wall. One foot twisted beneath me. Fabric tore and I slid to the floor.

Carrollus followed me down.

When my butt hit the floor, I found I had enough leverage to shove him off of me. It felt like trying to shove a freight train.

“You son of a bitch,” I wheezed. “You’re infected with a sexually transmitted disease and you kidnap people from Earth to assuage the symptoms?”

He crouched in front of me, posture wary, guarded; but curiously, I saw no anger in his face or body.

“Your species cannot be infected,” he said. “Our medical staff made very certain before we began recruiting from your world. We could not ethically sacrifice another species to save our own.”

“Medically necessary sex?” I sneered. The burn behind my eyes spilled over. “That has to be the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard.”

“Finlay.” As if he couldn’t help himself, Carrollus rose to his knees and reached for me. One warm hand on my hip set my nerves alight, the other cupped my damp cheek. “When both sexual partners are infected with the bio-agent, it activates, killing both partners. If an infected person doesn’t have sex often enough, the agent activates.”

I sucked in a horrified breath. “But . . . condoms?”

He shook his head. “Whenever two infected people are intimate, regardless of barriers to sexual fluids, the bio-agent activates. It’s as if their immune systems cancel one another out. It was a genocide weapon.

One that worked. Our population was devastated until we worked out the disease mechanism.”

The waterworks evaporated. I believed him. Awareness of him rippled through me, tempting me to melt into the feel of his skin on mine.

“When you worked out how the disease spread, it ripped families and loved ones apart?” Visions of lovers torn from one another ran through my head. Mothers wouldn’t have been able to nurture their own children. Sympathy made my breath catch.

He blinked at me.

I thought I detected the first inkling of respect in the softening of the lines around his mouth.

“Yes.”

“You don’t look sick.”

He shook his head. “We’re not. Sex with uninfected partners keeps the bio-agent in remission. Our medical people believe there’s something in the human immune system that bolsters ours.”

“So what does that mean? If you don’t have sex what? Every week? Every day? You’ll die?”

“Each of us has to work out our interval,” he replied. “Most find that two or three times a week is sufficient.”

I bit my tongue to keep from asking him his.

“Does this mean that because of the bio-agent, your people can’t reproduce?”

He nodded. “Hybridization is our only option.”

My mind reeled trying to work out how many alien babies might already be walking around on Earth.

“You don’t hit like a girl,” he noted.

“Sorry.” I sounded sullen.

“I earned it,” he said, smoothing tear tracks from my skin. “If it’s of any comfort, Finlay, we mean you no harm.”

I twisted out of his too-soothing grasp and barked a laugh. It sounded vaguely unhinged.

Scrubbing tears from my face, I climbed to my feet.

“You mean me no harm?” I parroted. At least my voice sounded even again. Mostly. “Too damned late for that, isn’t it?”

“Finlay.”

The weight of that single word turned me back to face him.

I noticed the porthole in the wall. It had been revealed when we’d ripped the curtain while we fought.

I don’t remember how I got there, but suddenly, I found my fingers gripping the chilly frame of the porthole hard enough that my knuckles went white.

I stared out into the starry expanse of dark night sky, empty, except for the big, blue, gleaming jewel of a planet hanging in the lower third of the porthole arc.

My breath froze in my chest.

Earth.

I was looking at my planet from such a distance that I could barely make out any of the land mass beneath the cloud cover.

Dizziness swept me. Carrollus gritted out something that sounded like a curse. It wasn’t one I knew. Or in any language I recognized.

He surged upright, took hold of my upper arms, and turned me gently away from the view.

It didn’t matter. The vista had been seared into my memory. I’d heard astronauts say that happened.

That in the instant you look down from space on the world that gave you life, you changed . You were marked in a way that meant you’d never be the same. The only way you’d forget what you’d seen, what you’d experienced, would be to close your eyes in death.

I finally managed to order my eyes shut, but still saw my home hanging miles and miles below my feet.

Disorientation rushed from my feet to my head. Or maybe it had gone the other way, but suddenly, my feet knew they no longer had ground beneath them.

Only the warmth of Carrollus’s body heat merging with my own kept me anchored.

I’d started the day interviewing for a space program and ended it on an actual spaceship. Kidnapped by aliens disguised as humans?

I cracked one eye open. My head and my feet seemed to have agreed that the floor made a fine substitute for ground. Dizziness faded and I risked opening the other eye, too.

I turned back for another look.

“No,” he said, preventing me.

“Let go,” I turned away from him. “Every kid dreams of seeing Earth from space. Now that the shock has worn off, I want a better look. You must get a terrific view of the Northern Lights.”

He chuckled and escorted me to the porthole as if I might still fall over. “One of the many charms of your little blue world. When we first arrived, we thought your civilization was more advanced than it was because of the electrical interference at the poles during a solar event.”

I felt as if the floor had lurched out from under me. I stared at him. When we first arrived? Blowing out a steadying breath, I forced myself to focus on his statement about electrical interference at the poles.

That I could wrap my mind around. “Ship’s sensors can’t punch through the aurora?”

He met my gaze, his own searching. “You’ve seen too many Star Trek episodes.”

“Undoubtedly,” I replied.

The smolder of desire in Carrollus’s hooded gaze rushed heat through my body.

A self-satisfied smile touched his gorgeous lips. He traced his right hand down my arm to claim my hand in his. Bringing it to his lips, he pressed a heated kiss to my palm.

Pleasure zinged through my blood, settling between my legs. I stifled a gasp. Palm unsettlingly connected to genitalia. Who knew?

“You are remarkably resilient. The questions are back in your eyes,” he noted.

Unable to trust my voice, I nodded. Questions in my eyes and a promise of some kind in his. Did I imagine that? Did I dare hope that I could convince him to return me to my home?