She'd been wandering around naked since her ship crashed, and her personal pod had released her from cryogenic freeze. Had anyone else made it out? The ship had held a full crew and one other passenger besides her. It had exploded in a fiery array of reds, yellows, and oranges, but she'd seen no one else from the ship. The roiling smoke had spun through the towering trees and into the afternoon sky in twists of black soot. Since no rescue party had responded to the crash, she assumed she'd landed in an uninhabited area.

“Hellooooo!” Her voice echoed over the frozen landscape.

With each moment that passed, she felt her strength draining, her ability to reason slipping away. She struggled to collect her wandering thoughts, to plan how to save herself. Fading in and out of consciousness, she wondered how much longer she could last without shelter. She had no idea what planet she was on. She should have landed on Aquatilis, where her brother worked as a marine geneticist, but Aquatilis was almost completely covered in water, and she was in the middle of a mountain range. Something had gone seriously wrong. There weren't supposed to be any other inhabitable planets in this solar system, but she could breathe and the gravity was almost normal. Where the hell was she?

Kesuk had seen the fiery explosion in the distance and had come to investigate. His sentries fanned out to surround the clearing. The feud with the Browns had just been settled, but it looked as though they wished to start again. He heaved a weary sigh, his paws crunching through the thick sheet of ice as he drew nearer the inferno. Would they never learn?

Their leaders smiled and bowed to his face while their warriors slaughtered his livestock and stole his women. He slid his tongue over his long fangs, enjoying the idea of catching them breaking the pact. His young daughter might enjoy a Brown slave. A low growl of pleasure rumbled through his chest at the thought. He hadn't started this feud, but he'd finish it.

Relishing the prospect of a good fight, he quickened his pace. Rolling his shoulders, he stretched into a lumbering run, his long strides eating the distance. Pricking his ears, he stayed alert for signs of an ambush.

“Help me.”

The ragged cry sounded to his left, bringing him up short. His breath snorted clouds in the icy air as he waited to hear it again. Padding lightly, he crept between the trees, winding his way toward the origin of the noise.

A woman. A woman unlike any he'd ever seen. Naked, glorious, tiny, her short tufts of brown hair sleek against her skull. Her eyes drew him, greener than the leaves of a Sitka tree. He ran his tongue down a curved canine tooth, eyeing her softly curved form, the thatch of tight dark curls between her slim thighs. Perhaps it was not his daughter who would gain a slave this day. Her sudden appearance and odd coloring demanded he examine her more closely. His men would investigate the explosion and seek him out to report their findings. They knew their duty because he trained them well.

Foolish of her clan to allow her out alone. What was she doing in the borderlands? Her skin was too pale to be a Black or a Brown. He sighed in regret as he drew near. Perhaps she was addled; such birth defects or misfortunes were known to happen. She wandered through the snow, her broken gait and dazed expression making it obvious she would freeze to death. And soon. He raised his nose to the wind, trying to catch her scent. She wasn't of his clan, that much he knew, but she was on his land.

She belonged to him.