Of all the books I’ve written… Captured is the closest to my heart.

Captured is my favorite. It won a lovely award - Booksellers Best First Book, 2011. You can purchase it here and here.

Maybe it’s hard to believe, but I did indeed dream Mari and Ekkatt’s story from start to finish. The book ends where the dream ended. Still waiting for that second dream to continue their intergalactic love story.

Your non-Wicked Wednesday excerpt:

Mari studied Ekkatt and learned to read his expressions, his moods. She knew when to sit in her cage and shut up. She began to sense when he felt reasonable. Mari didn’t believe she suffered from Stockholm Syndrome as many kidnap victims did when they began to identify with their captors. She hoped that if Ekkatt could begin to see her as a sentient being he’d think twice about who she was sold to…if he had that kind of influence over his superiors. She couldn’t allow herself to wonder about the fate of the other women. She harbored no illusions about her limitations in that regard. Ekkat and Pana and the above decks crew had no intention of returning a single one of them to their homes. Nothing she said or did would change that.

There were periods of times when the two of them were alone in the cargo hold. Ekkatt seemed a bit more open then. He’d converse with her in his stilted English. She’d listened hard to his conversations with Pana and struggled to pick out individual words. Their language sounded Semitic. It reminded her of the time she’d attended a wedding at an Ethiopian Coptic Church. She’d understood quite a bit of the service. Listening to the men talk to each other was like having a word right on the edge of her tongue, a word she couldn’t quite get out. Given enough time, she could learn their language.

Ekkatt humored her, as one would humor a child, as if she amused him. He taught her a few words in his own tongue like come, stay, sit, hungry, food, drink, and move your ass. She began to learn the difference between his tolerant laugh and his grunt that meant – get the hell out of my sight you filthy animal. He even brought her a tunic without her asking for it.

He’d seen her shivering and commented, “If you sleep, you will not feel the cold of space.”

Mari shook her head. But, she had fallen asleep for just a brief period of time. When she awakened a threadbare tunic had been thrown over her. Mari had been so grateful that she’d cried. She’d huddled in a corner of her cage and kept her back to the men so they wouldn’t see her tears and realize how close she verged on breaking down every single moment.

Pana had actually growled when he’d seen her approach wearing the oversized garment. He’d had words with Ekkatt over it. Finally he’d stormed off and shoved her out of the way, saying, “You stink, beast. You’re stench follows me above decks.”

Mari rose to her feet cautiously, eyes fixed on Ekkatt. “If you allow me to bathe properly,” she said, “I will not stink.”

“You will be cleaned…you will all be cleaned, when we reach our destination. We haven’t the facilities to bathe an animal.”

“If you came to my home,” said Mari, speaking clearly, “I would treat you with respect and dignity. I would not call you an animal simply because you are not human.”

Ekkatt shot her a hard look. “This ship is not my home, and on this ship you are nothing to me but cargo, valuable, but very filthy, cargo.”

“Then why have you learned my language? Why have you bothered if I’m nothing but filthy cargo? You and Pana?”

Ekkatt motioned to the sleeping women. “When they wake they will need direction. There will be fewer problems if they hear their own tongue. Even your Earth cattle need to be herded, do they not?”

“Not all of them speak English,” said Mari. “You have women here from all over my planet and some from other places, not only from earth. Do you speak their languages too?”

“Yes, puppy, I do.”

Mari addressed Ekkatt in Japanese and he replied. She tried French, and again, he responded to her question. He didn’t know Latin or Greek, but he knew Spanish, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, Hindi and some Arabic.

“What does she speak?” Mari pointed to a woman who was definitely not human.

“Ciri,” replied Ekkatt.

“How do you know so many languages?”

“How do you?” he retorted.

“I…I lived many places growing up and I studied. My father was…my father was in the military. Do you understand?”

“Your father was a warrior?”

Mari latched onto this. From the tone in his voice, Mari guessed that Ekkatt’s species respected warriors. “Yes, he was a warrior.”

Ekkatt grunted. A grunt Mari had come to recognize as an acknowledgement of sorts.

“Where was he when I took you?”

“What?”

“If your father is a warrior then where was he when I took you from that house of eggs? A warrior does not leave his females unprotected.”

Mari didn’t answer. She gazed around at all the women in cages. “My father is dead,” she replied. “He was killed in battle.”

“He should have given you to another, one who could protect you.” Ekkatt’s voice was terse.

“It’s not our custom. Women on my planet try to protect themselves.”

“You did not stand a chance,” he snorted.

“How do you know so many languages?” Mari repeated her question.

Ekkatt sighed. “If I tell you, will you go to your cage and sit quietly?”

“Yes.”

“An implant in my brain.”

“You mean like a computer chip?”

Ekkatt appeared to think for a moment. “You have this sort of thing in your world?”

“Not exactly. We have computer chips. They can be used for many things, but not this, not yet.”

“Go. Sit.” Ekkatt dismissed her in his own language.

Mari obeyed.