A thin line of warm light appeared at the edge of my vision, growing broader and brighter. Until a demon leaned over the edge of the pod, flickering light dancing over his red scaled features, dark horns jutting up through his short black hair. This time, I was the one who screamed. The sound of my voice in my ears shocked me back to reality. It wasn’t a nightmare, it wasn’t some hell or some devil. It was just another alien, like the dozens of species we’d met on the Dream. I sat up, coughing, pulling my sweater tight around me. “Thank you.” My throat was clogged from disuse. How long had I been asleep? “Where’s this? Where’re the others?” The demon guy stepped back from the sides of the pod, a blank look of incomprehension across his face. Oh no. That couldn’t be right. “Do you understand me?” Nothing. Right then. There hadn’t been much in the manual about this. Statistically, it wasn’t totally impossible that the pod could end up on a world that could sustain intelligent life, yet hadn’t been contacted by the Galactic Alliance. Heck, that’d describe Earth for most of its history. No Alliance, no translator. Uh oh. Reaver's Claim is book two of the Thaxian Warrior Mates steamy science fiction romance series.