The Commander's Mate (2 page)

At that word, everything clicked into place. It also explained his strangely old-fashioned way of speaking. She’d heard that the Ramelian speech was very formal. Izzy remembered the notice being posted on all the news stations about an agreement with the planet Ramel about providing security for the earth in exchange for brides for their warriors. It was expected any single woman chosen by the warriors would go as a willing sacrifice for their world. Izzy hadn’t paid much attention because it never occurred to her she would be chosen. She stared up at him in shock. No way could she pair with this man, big as he was. If everything was to scale, he would kill her trying to mate with her.

“No way, José!” she said, backing slowly away. “I’m not going to be some brood mare for you! Go away! Besides, I’m way too old to be a mate! My childbearing years are long past!”

“You will be able to bear children for many years to come, this I know. Do not make the mistake of running from me a second time, little fire, my patience with you is wearing thin,” he said firmly.

“I won’t be some alien breeder! I won’t! I have feelings and life plans that don’t include you or any of your buddies. And it would never work, you’d kill me if you tried to… to… well, that,” Izzy finished lamely, suddenly feeling like she might pass out. She would be able to bear children for many years to come? She’d just had her fortieth birthday; there was no way his words were possible.

“Of course you won’t be a breeder. You will be my mate, my wife. A position of great honor in my society. I am Grayson Treenan, the high commander of the Ramelian fleet.”

“I don’t care who you are! I have a life and I learned a long time ago I don’t need a man to complete me. I have a job I love and have no intention of quitting. I won’t be mated to some barbarian who doesn’t care anything about me and expects me to spit out babies for the rest of my life!”

“It isn’t at all the way you are portraying things. Mates are very precious to us. Not everyone gets the opportunity to have one. The women in our culture have died out and without women, our society will end. I will care for you, we will be a bonded pair and while I expect obedience, I would never harm you. I will protect you always. Your other fear will be shown for nothing soon enough; you will know nothing but pleasure in my bed,” he explained earnestly. “I will need your ID card. This is what we agreed to turn in to your government to keep track of the women we’ve taken to mate.”

“No!” Izzy yelled defiantly. “I won’t be your mate!” She couldn’t believe this was happening to her of all people. Men didn’t find her attractive; in fact she generally felt invisible to attractive males. Unless of course they came to the library and needed her help to research something.

The man sighed before simply tossing her over his shoulder once again. “You have been my mate since the moment I saw you alone and unprotected. If the men of your culture are so foolish as to send their daughters out alone without escort, they leave them open to being claimed.”

Izzy struggled over his shoulder, only to be stilled by two sharp swats to her upturned bottom. She could hardly believe he’d swatted her bottom again like she was a naughty child! “I hate you!”

“You may think it now, but it will not always be thus,” the commander said matter-of-factly before bending to retrieve her purse from the car. It took only a moment to remove her license from her wallet. “Isabella Marie Benton. You have a lovely name, Isabella.”

“My name is Izzy!” she shrieked.

He jostled her gently on his shoulder as he would a fractious child. “Shhh, little fire. Everything will be fine. Your fears are ungrounded. You will see this soon.”

Since nothing she said made any difference, Izzy decided she wouldn’t speak to the odious man anymore. She suddenly realized that when the alien took her to his planet, there wouldn’t be anyone left on earth to miss her, except maybe her friend Madge. Her parents had been gone for years and she’d just lost her aunt last week.

If she hadn’t needed to check her aunt’s house and secure it until a realtor could look at it, Izzy wouldn’t have been on this dark country road to begin with and she wouldn’t have been captured by a giant alien determined to turn her into his little alien wifey.

“Where is your father that he would allow his unmarried daughter to travel alone?”

Izzy ignored the question, still unwilling to speak to the monster.

“Isabella?” The warning tone was accompanied by the palm of his hand being placed threateningly on her bottom.

“He’s dead!” she yelled, not willing to risk another of those stinging swats.

Suddenly she was brought down from his shoulder and cradled in his arms so he could look down into her face. “The rest of your family?”

The tenderness in his eyes brought tears she thought long cried out to the surface. “Gone. They’re all gone,” she whispered softly.

Grayson cuddled her tightly to him, kissing her softly on the forehead as if she were already precious to him. “You are no longer alone, Isabella. You never will be again.”

It frightened Isabella how comforted she felt by his arms and words. She suddenly felt blanketed in safety and well-being. This man was dangerous.

“Place your face to my chest, little fire. We are about to transport and it will be less disorienting if you close your eyes.”

That was all the warning she had before the world started spinning. With a squeal she flung her arms about his neck and pressed her face tight to his chest.

* * *

“We are here, little fire. You’re safe.” Grayson smiled down in amusement at the way she clung to him. She might not be ready to accept he was her mate, but she knew instinctively he was her safety.

Izzy looked around curiously. Everything was so white it almost hurt her eyes. “Where are we?”

“My ship. I need to check in on deck and register our bonding with the human-Ramelian board, but first I will drop you by the infirmary so Dr. Pimel can run the standard tests.”

“Tests? I don’t want to!” Izzy suddenly clung to him once again in a panic.

Grayson didn’t understand her fear and simply continued on to the infirmary.

Dr. Pimel was waiting inside the infirmary expectantly. “Commander, congratulations on your marriage. Place her here on the table. My, but she’s a feisty one, isn’t she? A lovely bride indeed.”

The doctor was tall and powerfully built, though he appeared to be quite a bit older than the commander. His hair was all silver and his eyes a piercing blue. Izzy cringed back against Grayson as the doctor peered at her like a specimen under his microscope.

The doctor continued to chatter as Grayson attempted to place Izzy on the table. She clung to him like a monkey, arms and legs wrapped tightly around him to keep from being set down.

“Isabella! Cooperate and lie down on the table,” he instructed firmly.

“No! I won’t! I am not having some alien probe stuck up anywhere! I’ve seen all the documentaries on Area 51 and alien abductions!”

“Alien probe?” Dr. Pimel asked in confusion.

Grayson nodded his head toward the door, dismissing the doctor from the room. The man moved quickly into his office and shut the door.

“Isabella, your behavior is unwarranted and unacceptable. You will cease this at once and submit to your examination.”

“When pigs fly!”

At the end of his rope, Grayson unwound her arms from his neck and grasped her wrists firmly in one hand, then used the other to unwind her legs before sitting himself on the doctor’s stool and dropping her face down across his lap.

“What are you… no-o-o… you can’t!” Izzy wailed as his fingers hooked in the back of her sweatpants and then jerked both them and her panties to her knees.

“I’ve had enough, Isabella. I’ve tried to be lenient and understanding, but you will obey me. Perhaps after a sample of what your defiance will earn, you will behave more appropriately.”

Finished with his lecture, Grayson began to apply the palm of his hand vigorously to the full inviting globes of her upturned backside.

“Owww! Please… don’t… stop… please!” Izzy cried as she wriggled over his lap, trying to avoid his paddle-like hand.

He brought his hard hand down across her upturned cheeks again and again. His little fire reacted to correction exactly as a Ramelian woman would, wriggling her round bottom in a desperate attempt to escape the fire he was rapidly building in her posterior. Knowing the spanking he was delivering to be a relatively mild one, Grayson ignored the pleading cries coming from his now frantically wriggling little mate.

He enjoyed watching her round bottom flatten and spring back with each spank and the way his little mate’s flesh bloomed with increasing color with each well-placed swat.

Grayson took her white bottom from pink to red to crimson before he was satisfied he’d taught the lesson he intended.

He pulled her pants back up and then stood the sobbing Isabella back before him. “Now, do you think you can be a good girl?”

“Yes, sir,” she said with a loud sniffle.

Grayson smiled and cuddled her close, kissing away her tears as he rubbed her back. “There… there… it’s all over. You took your punishment well, little fire. You’re forgiven.”

When her crying turned to miserable little sniffles, Grayson placed her up on the table and called the doctor back to the room.

“Poor dear. She’s overwhelmed, commander. Nothing to worry about. These little earth women appear to be high-strung. First we’ll run a quick scan.”

The scan only took seconds. “All of her organs are in good shape. I’d say she’s about forty earth years and should be able to have a long healthy life with you and produce good offspring. Of course I will need to give her supplement shots for a few weeks until her body becomes used to healthy air and good nutrition. Once those take effect, her organs will renew themselves, including her reproductive system.”

“She said she was unable to have children,” Grayson told the doctor with a frown.

“I’m sure she believed it to be so; the poor air quality and nutrition cause the reproductive organs of the earth females to shut down at an early age. Though their bodies are still functioning, I believe many women on earth choose not to have children after a certain age because of the risk of birth defects. Which are of course another result of poor air quality and nutrition.” The doctor smiled at the commander. “Now, young lady, if you’ll remove your clothing, we can finish your exam.”

Grayson held Isabella in place when she would have jumped from the table. “What kind of examination?” she asked suspiciously.

The doctor patted her lightly on the shoulder before turning away to get gloves and pull something from a drawer. “A pelvic examination so I can look inside and ensure everything is as it should be.”

“No!” Isabella yelled and began to fight Grayson to get off the table.

Grayson easily held his disobedient little mate in place and leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Isabella, if I need to spank you again so soon, I will do it in front of the doctor and I won’t stop until you are begging to be examined.”

* * *

Izzy looked up at the giant barbarian in horror; her bottom hurt from the last spanking! She dropped her shoulders in defeat and closed her eyes when she felt Grayson begin to tug off her clothing. She lay completely still, no longer fighting him but not helping either.

When she was laid out completely naked on the table, Izzy squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could in an effort to ignore the two men staring down at her nude body.

Izzy wouldn’t have thought she could blush any deeper, but then she felt the doctor grab a nipple in between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, tweaking them sharply.

Her eyes sprang open, mortified to find Dr. Pimel studying her breasts closely as he continued to twist her nipples gently. She wanted to cry as they tightened responding to his clinical examination.

“Good. Very responsive breasts. Full; she’ll definitely be able to nurse a child,” the doctor said before giving each full breast a squeeze then moving on to pull her feet into stirrups.

Izzy wanted to pull her legs back together, but Dr. Pimel quickly strapped her legs into the stirrups and spread them wide until the table locked into place with a loud click.

Knowing she was spread completely open to both men was beyond humiliating. Grayson made a humming sound and leaned down to whisper in her ear again, “You’re doing very well, little fire. Such a beautiful little mate I have. I see how pink and wet you are, naughty girl.”

She gasped as he pinched one of her nipples lightly; feeling the wetness between her thighs added another layer of embarrassment to the situation.

“Her body is very responsive,” Dr. Pimel said as he slid a gloved finger through the slick lips of her labia and skated it across her clit.

Izzy bit back a groan as her hips canted forward in response to the caress, then cried out when two thick fingers sank deep inside her. “Stop! Please!”

“Shhhh… little mate, it will be over in but a moment,” Grayson murmured softly.

The doctor pressed down on her abdomen as he moved the fingers inside of her, pressing deep enough to wring another gasp from her lips. Then it was over and the doctor smiled down at her as he removed his gloves.

“She’s a virgin, a rare find indeed, commander. Everything is in order, she should have no problem breeding healthy babies. No problem at all.”

Izzy sprang from the table as soon as the doctor unclamped her from the straps; thankfully Grayson let go of her shoulders. She wanted to clamp her fingers in her ears to keep from hearing what the doctor had to say. They talked about her like she wasn’t even there!

“Where are my clothes?” she asked, not making eye contact with either man.

Grayson wrapped a blanket around her before scooping her back up in his arms. “The garments you were wearing have been disposed of. I will supply all you need.”

“So I will no longer have anything of my own?” Izzy asked, defeat filling her voice and showing in her posture. She couldn’t see anything positive about the situation. Her thoughts and feelings would obviously mean nothing and she would have nothing; basically she would be nothing.