by Lula Monk
The alien’s brown eyes drooped somewhat, as if he was pained at her words.
Good. Fuck this guy.
“You are not a sex slave, Earth woman. I did purchase you for mating purposes, so you are my property. But I can assure you that I have no intention of lying with you without the end goal of producing offspring. I have no desire to fuck you for the sake of fucking.”
Hearing such crass terms made Clea’s blood run cold. What made her head spin more was that she actually believed him. But it wasn’t just her head spinning, was it? The room danced around her also, swirling and whirling like the flames the alien had used to protect her from the onslaught of the octopi-looking creatures’ weapons.
“Lie down,” commanded the Quadra.
Happily, Clea did as she was told. Her head ached like a son of a bitch, and the spinning room was making her feel like she wanted to puke everywhere.
To her horror, that is exactly what she did, hot vomit spewing out of her mouth to fill the oxygen mask on her face. She choked on the vomit, gagging as more forced its way up and out.
The Quadra hastily removed the oxygen mask, shoving a long finger from one of its many hands into her mouth to dislodge the vomit. Clea took a grateful breath, gasping.
“Thank you,” she mumbled right before more vomit came surging up her throat.
Why the fuck was she telling this four-armed thing thank you? Good job, Mama, for beating manners into my ass as a child. So glad they are useful.
“You should go,” said the Quadra, removing its finger from Clea’s mouth.
“Gladly,” she said shakily as she tried to ease up onto her elbows. Bad choice. The room swirled around her once more, and she fell back against the pillows, her gut quivering.
“Not you,” the Quadra said as it placed a hand firmly on her chest, pinning her to the bed. Clea almost panicked before she realized it was just cleaning her shirt and placing another oxygen mask over her nose.
The creature strapped the mask in place then said, “Him.”
The man – no, the alien who owned her body, not man – to her left protested. Gentle flames curled around his thick neck. “Why do I have to leave?”
“It is evident you are causing the patient distress. She is wounded, on the inside. Her organs will require–”
“DO NOT TELL ME WHAT MY WOMAN REQUIRES!” roared Ignis, the flames around his neck flaring to life, surging up to engulf his entire head.
Perverse fascination overcame Clea as she marveled at the way the flames licked at his beard and the dark brown hair of his head without singeing them off. But the fascination was briefly lived, quickly replaced by her mortal fear of fire.
“Diminish your flames!” shouted the Quadra as it threw all four hands over the oxygen mask on Clea’s face.
Clea swatted the alien away and pulled the mask down so she could speak. Her grandfather had been an active smoker well into his eighties, even after the doctor prescribed him an oxygen tank full time.
Granddaddy never burnt up. I hope I have his luck.
“Seriously, dude,” she said, easing away from the alien and his flames. “You need to chill or get the fuck out. What good am I to you if you burn me to a crisp right here?”
His flames flickered, and Clea recoiled. Though his face hadn’t changed at all, Clea somehow knew by the pattern of those flames that she had hurt the alien’s feelings. Again.
“Please,” she said softer this time. “You’re scaring me.”
Ignis closed his eyes, and the flames slowly faded back into his body.
When he opened his delicious amber eyes again, they were hard and cold.
Clea hadn’t hurt his feelings, she realized suddenly.
She’d pissed him off.
“I will go,” said Ignis tersely, his eyes narrowed at Clea. “But when I receive word to return and retrieve you, know this: you will fulfill your purpose at my behest. Do you understand?”
Clea gulped. She knew what her purpose was, and though this fire alien scared the shit out of her, she had no intention of doing what he wanted. But she nodded her head anyway.
“Good.”
The brown-haired alien pressed his hand to the smooth metal wall. A green light shone around his palm, and suddenly the wall morphed, a split appearing in the middle and widening until it was large enough for the large creature to step through.
He’d made a door, Clea realized.
The whole time she’d been running down that long hallway, when she’d been trying to escape, she’d been looking for a door. Any door. But she’d never found one. Because they were all hidden.
She knew the Ceph who had carried her form the transport vessel to the small, cramped room to meet with Samantha had been able to open and close the wall. To create a portal through which it could drag Clea and the other women through to meet with the red-eyed pregnant woman. But Clea had yet to see how the portals were made.
And now she had.
“Lie down,” commanded the Quadra.
Happily, she did as she was told. Her head did in fact hurt like hell, and the spinning room was making her guts twist again.
The four-armed alien placed a pill against her lips. “Consume,” it commanded.
Clea shook her head, terrified of what the pill might do. “What is it?”
“You will not be familiar with the chemical properties of this medication, I can assure you. Now consume.” It tapped Clea’s lips with the pill, prompting her to open her mouth.
Again, she refused. She swatted the Quadra’s hand away with one of her own. “Fine. So, I might not understand what’s in it… but can you at least tell me what it does?”
As she’d spoken, she had attempted to sit up in the bed. The room twisted around her, and her head began to throb, her brain feeling as if it had disconnected from her spinal cord and was spinning around in her skull. She felt like she was on a large boat being tossed about in the waves of a vast sea. She giggled, for the thought was almost intolerably hilarious.
Her giggling persisted as she continued thinking of the absurdity of such a notion. To imagine, being tossed about at sea on a spaceship!
She barked out another laugh and gagged as the Quadra tossed the pill in her mouth, using all four of its hands to clamp her mouth shut.
Her eyes opened wide, and she struggled beneath the creature’s grip.
“Swallow,” it commanded. “Swallow, and I will release you.”
Clea’s mouth felt dry as cotton, puckered up by fear and the acid that lingered in her mouth from vomiting. It was a hardship, but she did as she was told and swallowed the medicine.
Moments after the pill slid down her throat, her head began to steady. For the first time since waking, the room ceased its endless movement.
She laughed again. “The ship has crashed, hasn’t it?”
“Lie down,” commanded the Quadra.
“Lost at sea!” shouted Clea as the alien secured the oxygen mask over her nose and mouth once more.
“You are delirious,” said the Quadra. “Dehydration, a lack of oxygen, and a caloric deficit are working in tandem to wreak havoc on your body and mind. You must rest.”
“There ain’t no rest for the wicked!” giggled Clea. “Money don’t grow on trees!”
She squinted her eyes tightly, her chest racking with half-laughs, half-sobs, each breath pulling the oxygen from the mask down into her lungs and making her feel heady.
Something sharp stung her forearm. She winced, her open eyes peering down as the Quadra installed an i.v. into her forearm.
“What’s that for?” she asked, her giggled turning into gentle weeping.
“I will give you something to make you sleep,” said the Quadra softly. Almost sadly.
The alien depressed a syringe into the tube that ran into Clea’s arm, and her awareness began to dim at the edges.
“Strong stuff,” she said, her eyelids already dropping.
“Indeed.”
“How long will
I sleep?” asked Clea, panicking for a moment as the thought of death entered her mind.
“Hopefully long enough,” said the Quadra, as if from very far away.
As Clea closed her eyes, part of her longed for death. At least in death, there were no creatures such as these to torment her.
Chapter 4
Ignis
He made his way to the Breeding Sector, hoping to have a moment or two to lie down and rest before having to go back to the medical bay and retrieve the Earth woman. He was feeling a variety of things, none of which he was permitted to feel.
Gylenda.
He pushed the thought of his dead wife down deep, her name almost enough to bring him to his knees.
He crossed the core near the pavilion just as the last bid was accepted for the final Earth woman. She wept openly on the edge of the stage, thick strings of snot slipping down the cleft of her lip and dripping onto her bare breasts and belly.
Ignis looked away, repulsed. Such weakness. The mate he’d chosen was strong, of that he was certain. He had felt the power in her limbs as he’d subdued her in the corridor, right before he’d cast his flames wide to create a barrier around them both. And the woman was cunning too, slipping through the crowd of aliens undetected, running as if her life depended on it.
If she’d been able to access a ship, Ignis had no doubt she would have attempted to fly the thing.
Halfway down the corridor for the Breeding Sector, he encountered a tall alien who’s skin glimmered with thousands of points of light. A smile cracked across his face, and he extended his hand.
“Bright One!” Ignis exclaimed, clasping forearms with the Glim. It had been many annums since he had seen Dredge. Many years since he had attended any Intergalactic Council meeting, in truth. And though the Glim’s current form was very different than usual, Ignis would know the current ruler of Brillar anywhere.
Dredge pulled Ignis in for a firm embrace. Ignis closed his eyes and channeled his thoughts, pulling his flames back into his body.
“It brings me both pleasure and distress to see you in this place, Commander,” said Dredge as he stepped away from Ignis. “I have heard the Adrasta galaxy is at war with itself. If you have need of Galactic Continuity’s services, I take it the war is not going in the Ardans’ favor. You have my condolences.”
Ignis’s flames crackled around him once more, erupting in response to the heated rage he felt at the Glim’s words. But he calmed himself. Dredge spoke nothing big the truth, after all. The Ardans were losing the war. If Galactic Continuity’s invitation had not arrived when it had and had the subsequent ceasefire not been issued, the Ardan race might very well have already been exterminated.
“Aye,” said Ignis crossing his arms before him. “The Smolds are a fearsome lot, and underhanded too. Their king is training up his bastard to sit the throne, allowing him to lead the fight on foreign planets while the old heap of lava sits idle in his ancestral holdings. Baca.”
Dredge’s brow furrowed. “I did not think Cyndar to be so young as that.”
“He’s an ember still, his heat barely hot enough to scorch. And underhanded, too.” Ignis spat on the stone floor. “Damn Smolds. They think being born of lava makes them the superior beings, as we Ardans must summon our flames while theirs burn eternal beneath the surface of their flesh. But it is a misconception, and one which that insolent child with learn when my offspring comes of an age to lead.”
“Have the wars been called off for that long, then?” asked Dredge.
“That was the tacit agreement we all came to, yes. The cessation of the war for two generations. Long enough to replenish our numbers and train our offspring to fight.”
“I imagined the Smolds numbers to have dwindled as well.”
Ignis’s flames flickered. “And why would you be thinking that?”
Dredge shifted awkwardly on his feet. “I take it you don’t know, then?”
His flames spit out sparks around him, swirling around his head like a halo. Like a fearsome and furious crown. “Know what?”
“I am surprised Chief Officer Slep did not notify you, given the nature of your relations with–”
“Dredge!” called out a feminine voice from behind them.
The Glim’s face changed, morphing from its neutral expression to one of love and joy.
The look cut Ignis to his core as sharply as if it had been a knife in his gut. Gylenda used to give him the same look.
The light in the corridor changed as Ignis willed his flames to return to his body.
“Silence!” commanded a Ceph guard.
Dredge’s face changed again, this time looking feral and cold. Calculating.
Ignis turned to see the Cephalopod guard hauling a woman down the corridor. She tripped along beneath the rough tug of the guard’s tentacle, her crimson eyes aglow. A soft red light shone from her abdomen as well.
Ignis was taken aback. He knew Galactic Continuity has instituted an orientation process for the new Earthlings, but he’d had no idea another human was leading them. Especially not a pregnant human.
And then it hit him.
This wasn’t just some pregnant human. This was the Glim’s pregnant human. What a callous fool he’d been, too hot-headed and consumed with his own grief and rage at the Smold heir to put two and two together.
If the Glim was here on the Hub, he must have need of Galactic Continuity’s services as well. And if he had need of Galactic Continuity’s services, the abstract rumors that had made their way to Incenda about the virulent disease running rampant on Brillar must have been true.
The Ceph slung the red-eyed woman into Dredge’s arms.
“This will be the last day you touch my woman. Mark my words, Ceph.”
The Cephalopod threw an arm lazily in the air in acknowledgement as it shuffle-stomped away.
“Are you hurt?” Dredge asked the Earth woman, his hands tenderly cupping her face.
Ignis looked away, ignoring the Earth woman’s response.
This is not my moment to observe, he told himself. Though the truth was seeing such attentive care and love between two people caused him great pain. Because it reminded him of the way he and Gylenda had been around one another, all those annums ago.
His flames burned at his back, sizzling the lining of his leather coat in the intensity of their heat. He closed his eyes, breathing in and out slowly.
Being cooped up in this ship was doing him no good at all.
When he opened his eyes, the Earth woman was smiling up at him brightly.
“I’m Samantha,” she said, extending her hand.
Ignis returned the gesture, careful not to squeeze the woman’s hand with his usual amount of force. She was such a small thing. Fragile. He had no doubt he could crack her bones under his hand if he had the mind to.
Gods, he needed a good fight. The desire to cause carnage and mayhem was almost overpowering.
As if sensing Ignis’s building agitation, Dredge wrapped his arm around the Earth woman, pulling her close to his side. “Samantha has agreed to conduct orientations for new product arriving at the Hub, as per the request of Chief Officer Slep.”
Ignis nodded curtly. Then, he chastised himself for not being more diplomatic sooner. “I am sorry to learn that the rumors were true, old friend. Are your species numbers so badly depleted?”
Dredge’s jaw became rigid. “The remaining Glim on Brillar number in the lower one hundreds.”
Ignis’s eyes widened. The Arda numbered three times as many. To the Glim, that might seem like a hefty figure, but to a war planet that needed troops for the battlefield, the numbers were pitiful indeed.
The crimson-bellied woman reached her hand down to squeeze Dredge’s. The Glim’s jaw relaxed, almost as if the Earth woman’s presence brought him peace and comfort.
Ignis could not quell the jealousy that bubbled up in him.
“Thank you for your condolences,” said Dredge.
Ignis cleared his throat
and gestured at the Earth woman. “But it seems I also have occasion to issue you my congratulations as well, Bright One! I am pleased to see that your repopulation efforts are thus far productive.”
Dredge inclined his regal head. “May the outcome of your mating be just as fortuitous.”
The Earth woman turned her tired eyes from Dredge to Ignis, the glow in them somewhat brightening. “Oh? Have you already purchased a breeder? Who is she?”
Ignis opened his mouth to answer, but then faltered. It had only occurred to him in this moment that he had forgotten to get the Earth woman’s name.
“I…. I don’t rightly know.”
Samantha’s eyebrows drew together. “She didn’t introduce herself?”
Ignis shifted on his feet. “No.”
“Well, did you purchase her today?”
The Ardan leader nodded.
“Can you describe her? Perhaps I can fill in some blanks for you,” offered Samantha serenely. Dredge had chosen his mate well, it would seem. While the red-eyed female before him looked fragile and small, it was evident that she was shrewd and cunning. A natural leader.
Ignis considered how best to describe the woman he’d left in the medical bay at the hands of the Quadra. “She’s… strong. Determined. Her muscles are toned, powerful.”
Samantha looked as if she was thinking back to all the tall the women she’d met during orientation. “I’m drawing a blank, honestly. Any other details?”
“She’s fast. She outran eight guards the full length of the Transportation and Administration Sector corridor. Almost made it to the Rim,” he said with a flare of pride.
Samantha sucked in a sharp breath. “Eight Ceph guards?”
“Well ten,” said Ignis correcting himself, “if you count the two who were guarding the entrance to the Rim.”
Samantha’s eyes widened. “Is she okay? Did they harm her?”
Here Ignis had the good grace to be look embarrassed, though he hated the blush that rose to his cheeks. He felt his flames curling out of his neck, creeping up to tangle at his brow. “She is presently in the medical bay, he admitted. Though it was my own doing, it would seem.”