Deliberately Abducted

Nereidan Compatibility Program #2

by Caitlin Ricci

Deliberately Abducted

Book 2 of the Nereidan Compatibility Program Series

Derek Cross thought the "International Fitness Ambassador Program" invitation was just another brand collaboration opportunity. A chance to showcase optimal human performance to a select audience, probably with some high-end gym equipment and a decent paycheck.

What he didn't expect was to wake up on an alien spaceship face-to-face with Kav'eth, a formal Nereidan diplomat who thinks humans are inefficient, unpredictable, and generally inferior. Unlike the previous accidental abduction, this assessment is deliberate, methodical, and completely by the book.

Meet Kav'eth, Council member and owner of the galaxy's most rigid adherence to protocol. Assigned Derek's assessment as punishment for opposing the human compatibility program, he's determined to prove that this fitness-obsessed human is exactly as shallow and unsuitable as he expects.

Unfortunately for both of them, Derek's optimization-focused lifestyle crashes headfirst into Kav'eth's duty-focused worldview, creating sparks that have nothing to do with their empathic bond and everything to do with two control freaks learning to let go.

But when Derek realizes his entire life has been performance rather than presence, and Kav'eth discovers that there's more to humans than social media metrics, their clinical assessment becomes something much more personal. Because choosing to build a life together is complicated enough without adding interspecies politics, family dynamics, and the fact that Derek's ex-boyfriend is already living happily ever after with Kav'eth's brother.

Some assessments become partnerships. Some opponents become lovers. And some connections are worth changing your entire world for.

A steamy sci-fi romance where diplomatic protocol meets Instagram culture, bioluminescent aliens, empathic bonding, and the revolutionary concept that being present matters more than being perfect. Low angst, high heat, with a guaranteed HEA.

Deliberate abduction • Enemies to lovers • Forced proximity • Size difference • Bioluminescent alien • Empathic bond • Duty vs. desire • Opposites attract • Learning to be present

Genres: M M Romance, Aliens, Science Fiction

210 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 15, 2025

About the author

Caitlin was fortunate growing up to be surrounded by family and teachers that encouraged her love of reading. She has always been a voracious reader and that love of the written word easily morphed into a passion for writing. If she isn't writing, she can usually be found studying as she works toward her counseling degree. She comes from a military family and the men and women of the armed forces are close to her heart. She also enjoys gardening and horseback riding in the Colorado Rockies where she calls home with her wonderful fiance and their dog. Her belief that there is no one true path to happily ever after runs deeply through all of her stories.

Reviews

[⋆｡°✮ Lucy InTheSky ✮°｡⋆ · Rating 3 out of 5]

An improvement.

Even though there’s still some generated text, there’s a lot more of the author’s input in here. If you can make it past the first third of the book, you’re in for quite a good alien love story.

And yes, I did like it. I'll rate it with 3.5⭐, simply because we're starting out again very dull and too impersonal, we don't have enough of the world building and explanation of who Nereidans are, but this story developed beautifully in the second half and I very much liked this couple.

🟣 A Nereidan councilor diplomat / an Instagram fitness influencer
🔵 Both gay (nothing said about Nereidans' sexuality in general)
🟢 A bit of a size difference
🟠 Age gap - human MMC in his late 20's / alien in his late 40's (working 3 decades as a diplomat, so I'll assume he's almost 50)
🟡 Insta love, but good and believable
🟣 Story more developed and emotional than the first installment
🌶️ Good sex scenes; oral, penetrative; a lot of cuddling, holding, physical touch, swimming together but very sensual; kissing; prolonged making love scene; both vers (good dynamic, the alien bottoms more)

This story starts out funny and I very much liked Derek, who's kind of a himbo Instagram fitness influencer that's all about macros and working out. He's Jake's ex, portrayed as completely self-centered and worried about building his career, not being able to have a serious relationship.

That cover's not working for me, so



Derek gets beamed up to Kav'eth's ship, the guy who's a Nereidan high ranking councilor and completely emotionally detached from most of the things he does, which also includes this space compatibility program.

"Focus," he mutters to himself, but his gaze lingers on my chest, my arms, the water streaming down my skin. "Stare at the gorgeous naked alien later."

Kav'eth starts out with the same dry scientific explanations, but then their developing connection just overrides everything and it's really well described, you can clearly distinguish the author's own dialogues and explanations from the rest, so, the story is definitely much, much better than in the first installment.

"I brace one hand against the wall beside his head and lean down until our faces are inches apart. "Lesson one," I say quietly. "You belong to me now. Completely.""

You get a believable, deep connection, two very likeable main characters and a lot of great sex. They're getting to know each other on a more committed level and they're experiencing intimacy to the fullest, I definitely could believe they've managed to establish all that in just 3 days.

"Perfect," Kav'eth whispers, his hands coming up to frame my face. "You're perfect."
"Not perfect," I correct gently, moving slowly inside him. "Just yours."

Count in everything else they're doing is interesting, good, readable and likeable and I can say I'm a happy reader at the end of this journey.

I really like this world and I like these aliens, but there are so many aspects to these guys that just aren't addressed. Like the lifelong bonds, like they're in danger of extinction, but they're searching out male humans and no one is getting any babies? Like their complex social system, their emotional detachment, I mean so many things that aren't really explained here.

But I'd still recommend this book. If you're an alien romance enthusiast and are willing to close one eye to the generated text here and there, do read it.

I also appreciate Jake and Derek meeting at the end of the book

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I manage to ask.
"Currently? Serving as the official human integration coordinator and welcome committee," Jake says cheerfully. "So far the committee is just me, but hey, now there's you too. We'll help the others integrate when they arrive, and you're going to be in charge of nutritional needs and meal planning for incoming humans. Congratulations, by the way— you got the job you didn't know you were applying for."

I don't know, I like it! 😄 Hopefully the next book will also be good. I have no problem with authors using AI to correct grammar, I'll sometimes use it to generate images when I’m reading something highly fictional and can’t find that visual anywhere, it's for my own use and sometimes I'll include it in my reviews, I mean I’m just a reader, so who really cares about that, but what I don’t enjoy is reading dull, obviously generated stories like that disastrous first installment, so I'm really glad this one had a more personal touch to it.

[Elise H · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was as bad as the first one… don’t even know why I read it

[Danis ❤️ MM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite as intriguing as the first. but still very readable. Derek is a self absorbed fitness influencer who meets his match in an equally uptight alien when he is purposely kidnapped for "study purposes." This is low/no angst fluffy reading for the holiday season.

[...]

DNF @30% ... sigh. I tried, because I wanted more alien fluff, but just... no. The characterization is incredibly inconsistent with how these two were presented in book 1, when they were side characters, and also from the beginning of this book to the 30% mark where I'm calling it quits. There's more of that super repetitive writing style - both in specific phrasing that's repeated and in repeating the same ideas over and over - that smacks of giving AI its head and letting it run a little too long without any editorial effort 🤣 and most importantly in the DNF equation: I am one hundred thousand percent not invested in these guys, so... lesson learned, and moving on!

[Sunny Groves · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was fine!

-I was interested after the first book to see how they would get us to come around to Kav'eth since he was a big ol dickhead in the first one and like yes I came around but I really wanted him to apologize to Zeph for his bs and they just like....nodded at each other lmao
-I appreciated Derek's character development but if you're gonna read this be aware that there is a whole bunch of talk about macros and calories and stuff like that bc Derek is a literal fitness influencer. it's like FINE but he is lowkey insufferable about it in the beginning
-these books need a lot more editing!!!! for this one in particular it was very repetitive. a lot of the same wording and phrasing is used repeatedly which doesn't sound like a big deal but it's noticeable. also, there were multiple occasions where it was clear that the author was testing different sentences in different parts of the paragraph but didn't end up deleting it accordingly -- could've been resolved with better proofreading.
-characterization was good but a little wobbly at times (ex: you're telling me a fitness influencer from earth who uses words like "epic" in his ig posts is going to also say things like "that pleases you"? I just don't see it babe)
-I do not understand why these books need to be so insta-love!!! like why are they telling each other they love each other after 3 days!!!! it's just not necessary!!!! even a week would be better!! plus it really undermines the ways their relationship changes. like when you're saying things like "the bond's never been this strong before" it falls flat when y'all just met 36 hours ago.
-also i understand why the title is what it is because the first one was "accidentally abducted" but "deliberately abducted" is CRAZY dude

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story, few issues (story-wise, and grammatically)

This was a fun read. It was a good follow up to the first book, though I found myself wondering when Kav'eth was going to tell Derrick about Jake through the whole story. I’m not sure if the story’s premise would work without the empathic bond element. Being kidnapped and falling head over heals in love with your kidnapper in the span of three days is a bit of a stretch for me. There’s also the matter of changing your whole personality in the same span of time that’s hard to swallow. Of course, as with all these types of romance/sci-fi you need a significant suspension of disbelief.

There are some annoying aspects to the way the story is written (IMHO), and there’s a couple of paragraphs that are duplicates, but, all-in-all, I did enjoy the book. I appreciated that the story was not just about the sexual aspect of romance (though, there certainly was plenty of it), there was an actual attempt at conveying a real connection between two characters. I will be reading the next book in the series.

[Mere · Rating 1 out of 5]

Great concept and interesting world- for the parts that make sense. The details are *extremely * inconsistent. Time descriptions in the first book kept contradicting themselves. In this book the character personalities keep contradicting. The alien physical descriptions contradict: they have bioluminescense but also blush exactly like humans? They have a wildly different worlds and food and culture but suddenly think and prioritize things exactly like humans... but then suddenly don't? It's inconsistent and doesn't make sense. The writing is very repetitive, like the author got distracted dozens of times and just rewrote the same paragraph and had no editor or beta readers invested enough to check. Feels very much like Ai writing that got touched up a little after but not well. I hoped these weaknesses from the first book would be addressed in the second but unfortunately they got worse.

[369Pages · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5⭐️
This book has much the same premise as book 1–human is abducted from his home unknowingly being made to participate in a ‘compatibility program’ to see if humans and aliens could make good romantic partners. The difference being that both parties are much more hesitant and disapproving at the beginning of the story.

While I found book one to be fun and kind of campy, this one just didn’t hit for me the same way. The characters changed personality every 50 pages, and felt really inconsistent. There were some editing errors, and repeated phrases that drove me crazy. Like the amount of times ‘natural lubricant’ was mentioned on just a few pages had me reeling 😂

I still definitely recommend book one, but this one was wasn’t for me.

[Missy~ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book 2 in this series is the brother of one of the characters in book one. Ka’veth is Zeph’s brother and Derek is Jake’s ex boyfriend from the Accidental Abduction.
There were things I liked, I like the premise, I love big blue aliens. The bioluminescent skin was fun.
However, if I had to read the phrase “ empathetic Bond”, another time!! Repeated way too many times.
There seem to be a few catchphrases that were repeated from book one.
Once again, some holes in the world building .
But the author did a good job of bringing empathy to two characters that were mentioned with Negative personalities previously.
Will I read the next book, probably if it pops up in my recommendations .

[Kat · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. Too repetitive. As in conversations are repeated over and over, sometimes saying a new answer to the same prompt, in the same conversation (making me think other reviewers are correct and this is AI writing).
The premise is the same as the last book, which would not be awful if the writer(??) committed to putting two entirely different personalities through the same process but both MCs in this book almost immediately deteriorate into the same characterizations as the first two MCs, flirty and constantly blushing.
Not worth the time. It’s a shame, it would have been a fun concept with some heart and effort applied.

[DeeNeez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This takes place after the first book. Must read series in order. First book, ex boyfriend was accidentally abducted when the original target was Derek. And now, Derek is correctly selected and beamed aboard the alien ship for assessment by Ka’veth. Overall, this time around it’s about character growth between two egoistic beings. No wonder the two became fated. Yet, I have to say the first half of the book, felt a lot like a repeat of the first book. But the last half of the book was the story I was expecting. And the ending was perfect, with the shock on both their faces, when the full circle of the first book meets the second. It will be interesting to see how the third book ties in.

[Silkeeeeeereads · Rating 4 out of 5]

These last two books were cute and entertaining reads. The next one sounds like it will be a hoot. Can’t wait.

[Rme · Rating 2 out of 5]

meh