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Chapter One

The alien invasion force had five ships. That wasn’t many at all.

Cat Moore stood by a large window in the big room behind the bridge of the alien flagship and studied humanity’s opponents. She refused to even think of them as humanity’s masters. They might have won a battle by capturing a remote base and enslaving all its personnel, but the war hadn’t even started.

Heaven, or whatever gods they worshiped, help them because they thought by sectioning off human women, it would make them docile.

They would learn.

Hand on the cool metal by the window, she glanced over her shoulder. A group of alien warriors clustered around a large table in the middle of the room. They were all big, with more muscles than any man had a right to, and outfitted in leather.

A week ago, she’d have said she’d walked smack bang into the middle of one of her greatest fantasies… ripped, leather-clad aliens were
so
her thing. You’d only have to check her reader to know that. The virtual shelves almost burst with alien romance. But that was all it was. A fantasy. The reality of being claimed by an alien warrior, correction, an alien warrior
lord
, was sexy, but if she had anything to do with it, short-lived.

“So you’re saying they should never have left their own system, never mind made it this far?” Tarrick, her captor and would be “Master,” asked, his hands resting on the holographic display table in front of him.

She paused for a moment, her attention caught as his muscles pulled at the leather of his uniform jacket. A uniform she knew he wore nothing under. Heat uncoiled to loop through her veins, her intake of breath more a shiver. As a species, the Lathar were big and muscled, but there was that little something extra about Tarrick that hit her on a primitive, female level. If she’d met him in other circumstances, he’d have caught her interest for sure.

Down girl
, she reminded herself and folded her arms.
We’re making plans to bring about their downfall, not to climb their leader like a tree
.

Infiltration, that’s what it was all about. And what better place to do that than from their leader’s bed? She flitted a little closer, her steps silent in the delicate sandals she wore.

“I’m surprised they even made it out of orbit,” another warrior, Jassyn, replied as he looked over the schematics displayed on the table—records pulled from the Sentinel Five computer that the base commander ordered deleted, but reconstructed by the alien ship’s AI. She knew the Sentinel commander issued the order because she’d been the one to wipe them. Right before one of their combat-bots captured her.

Computer wipe was standard operating procedure to ensure all records and star charts remained out of enemy hands. They just hadn’t counted on facing a far technologically superior enemy. From what she could work out, the Lathar had ruled the galaxies for generations. One primitive little species like humanity trying to pull a fast one would never work. Not unless they got inventive.

“But somehow, they got out of orbit and seem to have spread like fucking wildfire.” Jassyn’s hands moved over the console in front of them, flicking documents out of the way to show star charts called from the reconstructed records. Swift movements of his fingers drew lines over the charts and highlighted the edges of what looked like human-held space. She moved closer until she could feel the hum of the holographic field over the table. “They have quite a sophisticated network here. From what I can work out, they also have a subspace communications array with relay points here, here, and here.”

Crap, crap, crap
…how had they figured that out? Far from being the beefcake grunts she’d assumed, Tarrick’s warriors were scarily intelligent.
Don’t judge a book by its cover
. Her grandmother had been fond of saying that.

Tarrick looked up, his gaze focused on the men around him and not noticing her by the edge of the table. “I thought they just had conventional communications? Subspace is a different matter. Does that mean their central command knows of our presence?”

With any luck, yeah…
If command knew about the attack, they’d already have mobilized destroyers to head out to the base. Five ships shouldn’t stand a chance against the joint might of the Terran fleet.

“No, I don’t believe so.” Jassyn shook his head, his long hair dancing on his shoulders. This close she could hear the faint creak of leather when he moved. “Our suppression fields knocked out any outgoing messages as we attacked. Overwhelmed the signal, and before it came back online we had control so nothing’s gone out. We’ve been getting regular pings on the relay since though.”

He pushed the star charts to one side and brought up what looked like a communications log. The rest leaned forward to study it, cutting off her view of the table.

“They’re assuming technological malfunction? And what's this stuff that looks like dots and dashes?”

“That I don’t know yet. It seems to be a layer below the primary communication. Perhaps an echo or some kind of repeater pattern?” Jassyn shrugged, his expression saying he had no clue.

She blinked, hiding her surprise. They hadn’t picked up the morse code. She was stunned aliens with such a high level of technology hadn’t worked out the simple system. Why hadn’t their super-duper computer picked it up? Either way, it was an advantage she’d take, even if she didn’t know how to use it at the moment.

“But yes, they seemed to assume malfunction so far,” Jassyn continued.

“They haven’t encountered an advanced species yet so they weren’t expecting us. Without information, they seem to think malfunction rather than attack. But they will want to find out what happened. Given their level of technology, I would expect a ship or two to come and investigate soon. From the records we pulled…” He moved the star chart back to the center of the table. “They have ships here and here. Either of these could make it here within twelve hours.”

Twelve hours. She smothered her intake of breath. That wasn’t a lot of time for her to find a security lapse to exploit. Not when she was with Tarrick or he had those monster remote piloted robots watching her. She flicked a glance sideways to the door. The metallic arms of the two guards outside were clear to see through the glass. They were always on watch.

“Okay, monitor the communication relays for movement from those ships. I want to know the instant anything changes. Even if they go dark… Especially if they go dark,” Tarrick ordered, flicking a glance at her.

“Moore Cat?” he called out, still mangling her name even though he knew its real format. It seemed to amuse him.
Asshole alien
.

Blanking her expression, she looked at him, her face a porcelain mask. Irritation flashed in his golden cat-like eyes and she suppressed her smirk. He didn’t like her poker face. Good.

“You belonged to your species military.” He motioned her forward so she took another step, her stomach brushing the edge of the table and looked at the documents laid out. “What should we expect, by way of response?”

Her eyebrow lifted into a delicate arch and it was a moment before she spoke. “Well, it’s rather hard to say, to be honest. Our great leaders would have to consult the oracles before plotting a course of action.”

“I recall no mention of oracles or prophets.” Jassyn’s brows snapped together and he rifled through the documents again, looking for further evidence. “In fact, humanity didn’t appear to be religious.”

“Depends on the situation.” She shrugged. “When in doubt, you can always refer to one of our standard religious signals. I’ll show you if you like?”

All eyes in the room turned to her as she lifted a hand, fingers curled into a fist facing away from them. Then she extended her middle finger and smiled.

“And that means ‘screw you.’ You really think I will help you?”

There were two snorts and Tarrick’s expression set. She’d insulted him in front of his senior warriors. That had to bite. No, that had to burn.

The healer standing next to Tarrick snorted with amusement and his face split into a broad grin. “Ha! I like her.”

“Humans,” Tarrick growled, his hard expression promising retribution. She refused to acknowledge the shiver of need that wormed its way up her spine and smiled back. What would he do if she stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry at him?

“Tell me about it.” The growled complaint came from the big warrior at the end of the table.

His expression hovered somewhere between anger and frustration. “The males were easy to deal with. We worked over a few, showed the others the error of their ways, and they’ve been quiet as a
gethal
since. The women…
argh!
Half are refusing to eat, at least five keep trying to escape, and all of them refuse to acknowledge any warrior’s existence.”

The healer nodded, leaning forward. His smile disappeared, replaced by concern. “He’s right. I’ve had to sedate a couple and I’m a little concerned if the fasting continues. None of them will say why they’re not eating, so I’m not sure if it’s a cultural thing with them. I’m reluctant to let it continue…so perhaps we should force feed them?”

“You do, and they’ll make themselves vomit,” Cat broke in.

Tarrick looked up, meeting her eyes. “Oh?”

“It’s called a hunger strike.” She moved away from the table, her movements graceful. Her own clothing was gone when she woke this morning, replaced instead with a thin dress that looked more like a silk nightie. Far from feeling half-naked though, the inner layer of fabric molded to her figure, giving nothing away as the outer layers swirled around her, bunching around her ankles. The effect made her feel like a fairytale princess and she had to resist the urge to twirl just to swish the skirts.

Small pleasures, she reminded herself, don’t fall prey to the bigger concerns. Deal with them, don’t panic.

“Humans aren’t stupid, and we have a pathological allergy to being enslaved. We’d rather starve to death than be slaves. Force feed them and they’ll expel whatever you make them eat.”

The warriors exchanged startled looks around the table, but it was the big guy who spoke, his lips curled back to display his disgust. “They’d rather die than accept the shelter we offer. How twisted and barbaric is that?”

“It’s called free will and choice.” She shrugged again. “And you’re a fine lot to talk about barbarism. Not a benevolent superior race, are you? Rather than helping a less able race to defend itself. Rather than guide and aid…you storm in and enslave. Humans, for all our primitive and barbaric ways, outlawed slavery centuries ago.”

The warrior snorted and she rounded on him, anger surging through her. “What if it were the other way around and
you
were the slave. Would you find it so acceptable then?”

Anger flashed in his eyes and he stood to his full height, glaring down at her. “You go too far, human!”

“Go on then, hit me.” Her lips curled back into a snarl, but she refused to back down even though he was larger. Just one punch and that would be it. She didn’t care though. Let him try, she’d go down fighting. Maybe quickly but it would be fighting. “Do whatever you want. I’m a slave, remember? No choice, no opinion. Nothing other than a soft body to fuck. Not like we’ve got brains to use, now is it?”

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