by Tempest Luna
She could barely move. How long ago had she last eaten? Fuck. Her head pounded. Her stomach felt hollow. Everything hurt. For all she knew, she could have been unconscious and bound to that medical lab table for hours. But at least half a day had passed in this hell hole.
Grabbing the bars, she pulled herself closer to the side of the cage, straining to see the purple alien. Dizzy, she couldn’t do more than lean against the cold metal and pray he might have some way of freeing her.
The man returned with a small bowl cupped in his hands. He moved carefully, silently, his feet bare. When he reached her, he slid his fingers under her chin, holding her head still. Tessa wanted to pull away, but then caught sight of the liquid in the bowl.
“Water?” she whispered, and he nodded as he helped her drink. She’d never tasted anything so good. “Thank you. Do you have any food?”
His shoulders slumped, and he uttered a few words she couldn’t understand, touching his own stomach. He was hungry too. As he stood, Tessa tried to reach for his ankle through the bars, grazing the warm, purple skin. “Is there any way out of here?”
His gaze was filled with so much sadness Tessa could feel his pain in the stunning silver irises, and he shook his head. “Kuu.”
Tessa swiped away a tear, watching the broken slave trudge back through the tunnel. Every part of her wanted to scream, to rail against the bars, the chains, and the horrors of her current existence. But she didn’t have the strength.
She’d just learned her first word in the alien language. Kuu meant no.
* * *
Tessa tried to sleep, but freezing, hungry, and with the sounds of angry and restless livestock all around her, she only drifted off for a few minutes at a time. Total darkness surrounded her, and her wrists and ankles sent stinging pain across her skin every time she tried to move.
She should have asked the kind alien his name. Not that she had much hope of seeing him again. Her heart thudded so rapidly, she was afraid she’d pass out, and as she tried to force deep breaths, a bright, white light illuminated the darkness. The world around her went fuzzy, and a great roar filled her ears.
“No,” she moaned as she ground the heels of her hands against her eyes. Not another vision. Not here. Not now. Oh God. Her chip. Without her chip, they’d get so much stronger.
Flames crackled over metal. Part of her ship. The back half. Maren. The science officer’s arm stuck out at an odd angle, and patches of her skin turned black as the fire consumed her. “Maren! No!”
But her friend couldn’t hear her. Tessa’s visions played out like the movies her grandmother used to talk about. The scene shifted, now a desolate landscape painted in blues and purples. Explosions deafened her, and she tried to put her hands over her ears, but the chains prevented her. The scaly men had guns—though they didn’t look like any of the guns she’d seen in pictures. Bigger, with fiery projectiles streaming from the barrels. Men, women, and children—all purple-skinned, broad, and strong—went down in great conflagrations. Screams echoed in rough-hewn wooden homes. Whole cities were decimated as great airships patrolled the skies, strafing the buildings with rockets that obliterated everything they touched.
“No, no, no. No more…” Tessa rocked back and forth, her arms around her knees. As the destruction rained down around her, she tried to pull herself out of the vision. Digging her fingers into the wounds from the big green guy’s fangs, she screamed as the pain overwhelmed her. But it worked. Back in the dark and the cold, she sobbed, eventually falling into an exhausted, fitful sleep.
Chapter Four
Ro
He dozed, but did not let himself sleep. As one of Balrov’s two moons rose, he pulled on his britches, boots, and chest harness. Half a dozen sheaths lay flat along his ribs and held small knives he’d sharpened himself. He never left his home without his weapons, though if the Supreme Ruler’s soldiers wanted him dead, no number of knives would save him. Blasters were illegal now, and all free homes were regularly searched.
At this time in the revolution of the planets around the twin suns, darkness brought freezing temperatures, but once the suns rose, the air was still quite warm. To protect himself from the biting winds, he shrugged into an old hill beast hide tunic his mother had made for him.
Throwing his leg over the seat of his speedster, he stared out over the desolate landscape. Despite the lack of livestock and trees under the Supreme Ruler’s reign, the land was still beautiful. If not a bit haunting. The trek to the Citadel would take him half a cycle, and the suns would be high in the sky when he arrived. But any later, and the wares would be picked over.
If all went well today, maybe he would be able to speak to his brothers. It had been so long since he’d seen Zaden, he feared the male was dead. If he was…Ro did not know if he wanted to go on.
* * *
Shoving through the throngs of dirty, desperate, and starving people, Ro scanned the crowd for some sign of his brothers. Perhaps three hundred males gathered in the Citadel’s central square, queued up in various lines, waiting to spend their hard-earned credits for food, equipment, or medical supplies.
His haul of Foxfire crystals had pleased the Sypian running the exchange, and Ro clutched nearly two hundred credits in the pouch he wore strapped to his chest. Any male stupid enough to try to challenge him would get a knife to the gut. Fights were not common in the Citadel—the Supreme Ruler’s soldiers kept the peace with their electric hill beast prods and blasters, but Ro knew of three who’d lost their lives at the trades in the six revolutions since the Sypian invasion.
Ro trudged over to the koa fruit stand. Behind thick, steel bars, a Balrovian slave wearing a control collar took credits and sent messages to the loading dock many stories below, where more slaves loaded trailers for transport.
“Sarl.” Ro sucked in a harsh breath as he recognized the male. They’d grown up together—only a short distance apart. Where once Sarl had been a proud miner, his shoulders now slumped, his torso was covered in thick scars, and half his ear was missing.
With a shake of his head, Sarl averted his eyes. “How many boxes?”
“Five for trailer seven-six-two.”
Once Ro handed over the credits, Sarl pressed a button on the communications device affixed to the table in front of him and relayed Ro’s order. He stared straight ahead, not meeting Ro’s gaze.
After several tense breaths, and an angry word from the male behind him, Ro leaned forward. “I am sorry.”
Sarl’s eyes shone in the suns’ light. “Go now. Before—”
From behind the slave, a Sypian monitor swung a baton, hitting Sarl in the shoulder. He grunted, but his face barely registered the pain.
“No unauthorized conversations,” the monitor snapped. Ro turned on his heel and strode away as quickly as he could without attracting undue attention.
He hated this place. Hated the Supreme Ruler. Hated what he had to do to survive. Who he’d become.
A coward.
He did as the monitors commanded. Never caused problems. He made his way to the other booths, replenishing his medical supplies, buying equipment for his water filtration unit, and stocking up on preserving salts, anu root starts, and dried vegetables.
“Ro!” Vrax shouted from across the square. At well over seven-feet-tall, Ro and his brother towered over most of the other Balrovians crowding the trade. Vrax’s indigo hair fell in waves just past his ears, and his golden eyes—inherited from their mother—darkened as he approached.
“Thank the ancient gods,” Ro muttered as he shouldered through a group of males haggling with one of the slaves over the credits needed for a water collection system.
The brothers clasped fists, leaned towards one another, and touched foreheads. “Your message array has gone dark,” Vrax whispered in Ro’s ear. “I feared you had run afoul of the patrols. Done something foolish enough to end up collared in the mines.”
“I cannot keep coming to the trade every time,” Ro said as he urged hi
s brother off to a shadowy corner of the courtyard. “Seeing our people enslaved. Fuck, we lived close to the male working the koa fruit exchange when we were young. His name is Sarl.”
“Not anymore.” Vrax glanced over at the booth, but quickly averted his gaze. Two dozen slaves worked the various exchanges, all collared, most wearing only tatters. “We are ‘free’ because we are useful,” Vrax said. “If you disappear from the trades, the Supreme Ruler will not find you worth your freedom. Do not upset him, brother. Please. We have lost too much.”
Vrax’s firm grip on Ro’s arm brought a lump to his throat. Ja’la had been so beautiful. Mated to a strong male, a protector, a provider. Until the war.
A bell tolled high in the bazaar. Ro held his brother’s gaze. “This is no life, Vrax. Constantly on alert. Killing ourselves for his gain. So he can breed our females to preserve his race, strip our males of their dignity and their freedom…”
“It is a life,” Vrax whispered. “Turn your communications array on when you arrive back home. I am worried about Zaden. We must find some way to check on him.” The bell rang once more, and Vrax glanced over his shoulder. “I do not have enough credits for the auction. If I leave now, I will reach my home before dark. Take care, Ro. Do not let yourself be captured—or killed.”
“Stay safe.” The brothers clasped fists one final time, and Vrax disappeared into the crowds.
Ro turned, and with one last glance at Sarl, trudged towards the auction, running a hand through his long, black hair.
Just outside the doors, a Sypian male shouldered past Ro, nearly knocking him off balance before crashing to the floor.
“My deepest apology,” Ro said as he fixed his gaze on his boots and offered the Sypian his hand to help him up. “I was not watching where I was going.”
“Stay until the end of the auction,” the Sypian hissed. “Make sure you leave with something…valuable.” By the time Ro looked up, the male had gone.
* * *
Only the most expensive items were sold at the auction. With his hundred credits, Ro hoped to purchase a hill beast and a new dehydration system for oola meat and his vegetables. His old one broke down every dozen cycles and he was tired of fixing the damn thing.
Fewer than a hundred free Balrovians gathered in the small, windowless room. Under the Supreme Ruler’s regime, you earned credits one of three ways. Salvage and harvesting, manual labor, or information. Ro and his brothers were harvesters and scavengers. Their father had taught them how to read the land, and they never found themselves caught in the ice or sandstorms that frequently ravaged the hills where the crystals were plentiful.
Ro stared straight ahead at the stage, waiting for the auctioneer. Small talk only brought trouble. Those who dealt in the business of information would sell him out for a single credit. Even the brief conversation he’d had with Vrax had been dangerous.
Silence descended upon the room as the Sypian auctioneer stepped to the podium. “First item up for bid: an eighty-cycle-old hill beast. Opening bid is five credits.”
* * *
As the auction approached its end, the hill beast’s chit in his hand, Ro started to weave through the remaining males on his way to the door.
“We have one last item up for bid today,” the auctioneer barked.
Stay until the end of the auction.
Ro turned, just in time to hear a feminine voice screaming obscenities Ro’s neural chip translated from a language he’d never heard before. He turned, and his heart stopped.
The cage another Sypian rolled onto the platform contained the most beautiful creature Ro had ever seen. Long blond hair cascaded over narrow shoulders. Her creamy skin, mottled with bruises, on full display, she tried to cover herself, but the shackles around her wrists foiled her efforts.
Two deep puncture wounds marred the delicate skin above her collar bone, and Ro clenched his fists so hard, his knuckles popped. Those were the Supreme Ruler’s marks. The last time he’d seen Ja’la…she’d carried those same wounds, and hadn’t been able to look Ro in the eyes.
By the ancient gods, what had this beautiful creature been through?
As the auctioneer jabbed a button to activate the female’s collar, she crumpled to the ground, whimpering as the electric shocks wracked her tiny, delicate body.
“As you can see,” the auctioneer said as he kicked the bars of the cage, “she is quite spirited. And strong. She will make an excellent laborer, though her owner will need to make use of her control collar often until she breaks. Bidding begins at twenty-five credits.”
Immediately, six males waved their credits in the air as they pressed towards the cage, and the female’s eyes widened. She tried to stand, but her legs would not hold her. Crawling to the back of her cell, she flattened herself against the bars, but glared at the males with hatred and fear burning in her eyes.
“We have forty-three credits. Is anyone willing to bid more?” Another Sypian—the one Ro thought might have been the male who bumped into him earlier—rushed out from behind the curtain to whisper something to the auctioneer. “The Supreme Ruler has set a minimum bid of fifty-five credits. Any lower than that and the human will be sent to the mines. Going once…”
Ro couldn’t look away from the female. She curled inward, shrinking into the corner of her tiny prison. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks, even as she glowered at the auctioneer.
She would die in the mines. Very quickly. The few stories that escaped from those deep, dark pits told of males made so savage by the Sypians’ torture that they would tear weaklings apart their first day. And Ro had fifty-seven credits in his hand.
Pushing the others out of the way, Ro approached the cage.
“Help me,” the female said quietly, her deep blue eyes beseeching. Whatever she saw in him frightened her less than the other bidders. And there was something about her that made his heart ache and stirred a vague memory in the back of his mind.
His vision went red as she tried to turn, exposing the deep bruises across her back and the dried blood on her neck. She would not be hurt again. Not if he could stop it.
“Fifty-six,” Ro said, his deep voice carrying over the cursing and muttering of the other males in the room. What was he doing? He’d have to feed her. Clothe her. And he wanted no part of breaking a female. But she needed him. And perhaps…if he could save her, it would ease a small part of his guilt, his shame over being such a coward. For her, he could be stronger.
“Fifty-six,” the auctioneer repeated. “Final call for bids.”
His female never looked away as the gavel came down. Not even when a Sypian guard wheeled her cage away. As the heavy metal door to the elevator clanged shut, Ro’s control snapped. He thrust the credits at the auctioneer.
“Have her ready for transport by the time I reach the loading dock,” he barked. “If she is not there when I arrive, there will be blood.”
Chapter Five
Tessa
The cage jerked as the elevator carried her back down to the trade pens. Tessa curled against one corner, wrapping her arms around her knees. She hadn’t understood anything said at the auction, but she knew she’d been sold. To a towering giant with purple skin, straight black locks that brushed his shoulders, and a look of pure venom in his silver eyes. But the way he moved…the set of his shoulders…there had been something familiar about him, and she’d begged him to help her.
At least forty other purple guys—varying heights and skin tones—had clamored to buy her, but only her alien hadn’t looked like he wanted to fuck the life out of her. Still…his quiet rage terrified her.
Frigid wind howled through the silo as one of the green-skinned aliens in dark pants and a dark tunic shoved her cage across the floor. He hissed at her, his tongue flicking over his thin lips.
“Leave me alone,” she sobbed through chattering teeth. He unlocked the cage door, a remote for her collar in his hand. Tessa tried to wrap her hands around the bars, hoping if she closed her eyes, maybe
he’d just leave her alone. But he stalked over to her, jabbed the button on the remote, and sent what felt like pure, liquid fire coursing through her entire body. She flopped helplessly, falling onto her side.
The alien grabbed the chain between her hands and dragged her across the room, towards the big roll-up door that led to the outside. She’d stared at the light streaming in all day, aching to find a way to open the cage and run, but now…
Anything has to be better than this.
Except, every time she used to say that back at home, Maren would reprimand her. “It can always get worse, Tessa.”
A dull roar filled her ears, and her vision went white, then exploded in a thousand different colors, the whirls and streaks so bright they burned the backs of her eyeballs. For a split second, intense pleasure shot through her, and the sensation of warm, rough hands cradling her close made her sigh. But with her next breath, she was back on the cold, stone floor, and then the green alien was hauling her up over his shoulder and tossing her into…another cage.
She had to curl into a ball to fit, and the cage bars were like ice on her already chilled skin. Tessa screamed as the alien locked her in, and tears burned her eyes.
And then…her alien was there. The big purple guy with murder in his silver eyes. He spat something at the green one, who handed over a small box, gesturing to her collar. A set of keys followed. Angry words passed between the two, but her alien backed down when the other male growled and raised a cattle prod-like stick at him threateningly.
The purple giant climbed into the trailer and knelt next to her cage. His voice softened, almost a whisper, but she couldn’t understand anything he said. And then he stood up, spat something angrily at her, and gave the corner of the cage a swift kick with his boot. Tessa yelped and tried to shrink back, but there was nowhere to go.