Chapter One

“I’m what?” Jessminda Patel looked across the desk at the golden-skinned alien doctor who’d just uttered the most ridiculous words ever. “I can’t be.”

Dr. Wy looked regretful, but insistent. “There can be no mistake, Ms. Patel.” He looked down at her file contained on something that looked similar to a tablet, though semitransparent. “I did check everything three times, though I worked quickly when I was informed you were one of the women who refused to stay at this facility for the next few days while we sort out this mess.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the doctor. “You’re darn right I refused to stay. I was kidnapped and taken from my home, and I’ve been out of touch for two weeks. I want to get out of this place now, and there’s absolutely no way you’re going to hold me.”

The alien doctor arched his brow ridge, his golden-brown eyes shining, though it was difficult to tell with sympathy or frustration at her recalcitrance. “I understand, Ms. Patel, but I’m not trying to hold you here. I have no reason to do so.”

She snorted. “That’s not what I’ve heard or overheard, as the case may be. Since my DNA is highly valued by your people, don’t expect me to trust anything you say.”

The doctor sighed, and then nodded. “If you would allow me to show you then?”

She nodded, though her insides were a twisted mass of nerves. She knew part of her defiance and overall lack of cooperation was simply a front to disguise how distraught she was. That, and she was clinging to the belief the doctor was lying to her for some nefarious purpose because she needed that. What he claimed was unthinkable, and she couldn’t face it on top of everything else she had been through the last couple of weeks.

The doctor used his tablet to call up whatever he was looking for, and a moment later, a 3-D image popped up from the screen, filling her field of vision. “This is from the full-body scan we performed less than an hour ago, trying to ascertain if there was any damage from Dr. Ha’s experiments.” He moved his fingers on the tablet, and the picture went from showing all of her skeletal, muscular, and vascular system in layered slices to just her abdominal quadrant.

She reared back slightly when the image of her own ovaries and reproductive system loomed in front of her face far larger than life. Literally. As a retired nurse, she knew exactly what she was looking at, and her heart sank as her eyes focused on three little dots that shouldn’t be there. Not that they were small dots at this magnification. They were almost as large as they would be in real life in a few months.

A wave of nausea swept through her, and she shook her head as she wanted to stubbornly cling to her rejection of the truth. “It makes no sense. I heard Ryland…Inquisitor Breese…say Jorvak Ha hadn’t even gotten to making blastocysts yet.”

“That’s partially true, but the inquisitor hadn’t had the opportunity to fully explore the facility. There was another, smaller room farther from the main lab. That’s where we found remnants of his experiments with fusing human eggs and Dazon sperm to form blastocysts. Some of those beings are still stored in frozen tanks, but the ones he tried to grow in exo-wombs didn’t thrive.”

She let out a little moan of denial.

“According to Ha’s notes, he couldn’t quite adapt the exo-womb to the same environment as the human womb without his full laboratory facility back on Dazonia Major.” The doctor looked disgusted when he said, “He decided to bypass the exo-womb and go straight to the source. Unfortunately, you aren’t the only woman in this position, Ms. Patel. Of the twenty-one fertilization and implantations Ha undertook, fourteen were successful, resulting in a pregnancy.”

Jess refused to cry, but it was tenuous for a moment. “I’m surprised he only did fourteen,” she said scathingly.

“I have no doubt he would have succeeded on a far larger scale if Inquisitor Breese and his human mate hadn’t managed to stop this operation and call in Commander Darvig and the armada.”

Jess slumped in her chair, no longer able to pretend like the alien was lying to her. Her gaze focused sharply on the three little embryos displayed so prominently by alien technology. They were growing inside her at the moment, and it was a bewildering and terrifying prospect. “They’re so much farther along developmentally than they should be. I was his prisoner for roughly two weeks, but these appear to be somewhere around six to eight weeks in development.”

The doctor looked impressed. “I concur. During our genetic manipulations undertaken the past few generations in an attempt to keep our species alive after the biological weapon destroyed most of our women’s ability to reproduce, our geneticists have increased the rate of fetal development by a factor of five. What used to be a fifteen-month gestational period for Dazon women has been safely reduced to three months.”

She shook her head again as another wave of nausea swept through her. Abruptly, she realized she’d felt nauseated off and on for at least the last four days, but had attributed it to her captivity and perhaps whatever drugs they used to keep her compliant when she was taken to the lab for testing—testing she could never recall afterward, and now had a better picture of what it involved.

“How long do you think I have until…” She trailed off, barely able to say the words. They felt strange in her mouth, as though her lips and tongue wanted to reject them as much as she did. “…the birth?”

The doctor lifted a shoulder. “If it accelerates similarly to a Dazon pregnancy, I would estimate three months. Of course, that’s if you choose to continue. Termination is certainly a viable option, especially in your situation.” The doctor looked pained to offer her the choice, and his body language seemed to be imploring her to reject that option.

Jess refused to do so just to placate him. She understood, at least intellectually, how valuable viable offspring were to the Dazon Empire, but she had been given no choice in the matter, and she wasn’t an incubator for an alien species.

In an attempt to distract herself from his imploring gaze, she forced herself to ask the question that had been hovering at the back of her mind since she had started to reluctantly accept the alien doctor who had arrived with the rescue party a few hours ago was telling her the truth. “So who is the father? Was it that mad scientist, Ha?” The idea chilled her, and she was certain she would lose the battle against the surging nausea creeping up the back of her esophagus for a moment.

“No, it wasn’t him. Dr. Ha was methodical in his pairings, selecting the optimal genetic match for each of the women whom he experimented on from the Dazon DNA database.” The doctor tapped on his tablet again, and the picture of a golden-brown alien appeared before her.

She caught her breath at the handsome male specimen before her. The skin color was a little strange, as was the fact he had no eyebrows or hair on the sides of his head, but his features were pleasing, if a bit roughhewn, and he had an impressive physique from what she could tell from the image that showed him from mid-chest upward. He wore the same silky black jumpsuit as the others, and she knew that allowed him to transition to the Mr. Bland disguise, as her friend Jada called it.

It was an apt descriptor. In his current form, there was nothing bland about him, and she was startled to realize she found him attractive. She grimaced at the thought. “He’s the rapist, huh?”

Dr. Wy frowned at her. “Valkor Tosh had nothing to do with violating you, Ms. Patel. That was all on Ha and his team. Valkor is a distinguished warrior, and he had no knowledge of his DNA being used for such a purpose.”

She arched a brow. “And how does that work? Someone jerked him off and didn’t tell him?” She took a small bit of pleasure in the doctor’s flinch at her crudity, though she wasn’t entirely certain why she was being so blunt about it, other than it distracted her from the reality of the situation. Or perhaps it was because lashing out exercised her verbal control, which felt like the only kind of control she had over this crazy situation at the moment.

The doctor looked slightly offended as he touched his tablet yet again, removing the image of Valkor Tosh to bring up a picture of a laboratory that appeared to be a hybrid of alien and human technology. “Ha wasn’t able to transport his full laboratory and technology with him on his supposed hiatus when he sneaked here to Earth, because it would have been too suspicious.

“What he did manage to bring easily allowed him to manipulate Dazon DNA. All he needed was Tosh’s genetic profile, and he was able to manufacture cloned sperm. Valkor Tosh was nowhere near Earth or you when your eggs were stimulated to overproduce, and then you were implanted with the three most viable blastocysts a few days later. He was as shocked as you to learn about the existence of the offspring.”

Her eyes widened with shock at the news, and then a second wave of shock hit her. “You told him? What about my patient privacy?”

Wy looked confused. “He is the male contributing genetic partner and has as much at stake as you do, Ms. Patel.”

She shook her head. “Oh no he doesn’t. He’s not the one who was forcibly impregnated with an alien kid. Three kids,” she corrected as her eyes scanned the embryos forming in her womb when Wy brought up the image again. Damn his manipulations. It didn’t matter if she was staring right at them. She wouldn’t be forced to continue this experiment unless she chose to do so. “I want to go home now. My friend Jada and Inquisitor Breese are waiting for me, and I’m leaving.”

Dr. Wy inclined his head. “Of course, but I hope you will permit me to monitor your progress, should you decide to continue with the pregnancy.”

She was surprised that he offered no attempt to dissuade her from leaving, and she was moderately grateful for that. She got to her feet with a nod in his direction without promising anything. And then she walked quickly from the makeshift office they had set up to speak with and examine each of the four hundred women being held in this facility before they were released.

It felt amazing to walk again after spending three years in a wheelchair, and at least one good thing had come out of all this. As soon as she exited the room, she saw Jada pacing in the antechamber, while her apparently alien mate—that was the strangest concept ever, considering her friend had barely known Ryland for little more than a couple of days, but had already seemed to form a deep attachment to him—stood slightly off to the side, watching Jada’s curvy form tear up the same path as she paced back and forth, her kinky curls bouncing with each step. As soon as Jada saw her, she paused midstride before turning and detouring to hug her again.

Jada hugged her in return, realizing they had exchanged quite a few in the last few hours, but it seemed to be providing a healing touch for both of them. Like her, Jada had been ravaged by Kaiser’s syndrome and confined to a wheelchair until Ryland had given her the dose of nanotechnology that kept the effects of Kaiser’s syndrome in check.

Jess had also taken that injection when Jada and Ryland had freed her and the other women from captivity. Had it only been a few hours ago? It seemed impossible, considering everything that had happened.

Her mind was awash with conflicting facts and confusing feelings, and she vowed to push it all out of her head for the time being. “Will you please take me home now, Jada? I can’t stay here any longer.”

She didn’t share her bombshell news with her friend just yet. She would soon enough, but for the moment, she couldn’t even bring herself to mentally phrase the idea that she was pregnant, let alone speak it aloud. Verbally acknowledging it gave the idea credence, and though she didn’t really believe they were lying to her any longer, she still wanted to confirm it with more conventional, human methods before she spoke of it or tried to decide what to do about the situation in which she found herself.