by Corin Cain
But now we’re just slaves. We’re owned. Everything that made us unique – made us human – has been stripped away.
Now we’re assembled, the towering Aurelian who’d given his coat addresses us.
“My name is Daran. This is Riff and Kreos. If you want to leave, leave.”
I look up at the looming alien and blink. The six girls sitting around me stare up at him similarly slack-jawed. Daran gazes silently down at us, his face like that of a statue, his physical presence towering over us like a God standing among mortals. Riff and Kreos are looming no-less intimidatingly behind him, both silent and drinking in the sight of their recent purchases.
Leave.
That’s what he’d said to us.
But what did he mean? These Aurelians just bought us! What the hell does Daran mean that we can just ‘leave’?
I look left and right. I could make a break for it… We’re not restrained, and Daran and his to battle-brothers aren’t blocking us from running.
But where would I go? I’m naked beneath this heavy coat, and I don’t even know what planet I’m on…
Heat rises in my cheeks. I know it’s stupid to draw attention to myself, but I can’t stop myself. I looked up defiantly, and growl:
“You’re just going to let us walk away? After you spent a fortune on us?”
Riff chuckles. The impossibly-handsome Aurelian’s statue-like face breaks into a smirk, and that cocky grin of his shows off a row of gleaming pearly whites. I feel butterflies churn in my stomach and barely catch myself from blushing.
If this was any other situation, I might find this towering Aurelian stunningly attractive...
…but not when he’d just bought and paid for me.
Now, all I want to do is wipe that smirk off his face with my fist; even knowing how impotent my hardest punch would be against the stone-like hardness of the alien’s flesh.
Riff continues to smirk, as his low voice rumbles: “You can walk away – but you’ll have to leave Daran’s coat behind. That’s not your property.”
Anger flares up in me. This smug bastard would force me to walk outside, into the streets of a planet I don’t even know, completely naked?
“You bastard! You…“
I stop my angry rant mid-sentence. Even before sound had left my voice, Riff had moved like a wraith – crossing the space behind us almost like it wasn’t there.
Suddenly, the towering Aurelian is looming over me, drowning me in his shadow, and staring down at me with those stony, slate-grey eyes that are ubiquitous across his species.
The handsome grin quickly disappears from the Aurelian’s face. “You can leave… But you can’t disrespect me. One more insulting word out of your mouth and I’ll spank that bottom of yours until it’s red.”
My jaw drops open.
I can’t help myself. I suddenly imagine this towering brute throwing me over his lap and bringing that huge palm of his down on my bare bottom. The vision is incredibly vivid in my mind, and my cheeks burn at the humiliation of it…
I bite my lip and look at the towering beast-like alien. I have to stop myself from cursing at him – just in case he goes through with his threat, right here in front of everybody.
My cheeks continue to burn from both the shame, and my powerlessness.
As my fury and frustration subsides, I nervously lick my lips and feign a little more respect as I murmur: “I just mean… I don’t even know what planet we’re on. How can you say we’re free, when some… Some other slaver could just pick us up and sell us again?”
Riff shrugs. “You’re not wrong – but we are granting you freedom, if you choose to take it. I don’t owe you protection on top. If you want that, you’ll have to choose to come with us.”
My eyes narrow. So, he was offering us a ‘choice’ that was really no choice at all.
A blonde woman, maybe twenty-five, has the opposite reaction to my outrage. Instead, she jumps out of her seat and wraps her hands around Riff’s huge forearm, nodding enthusiastically. Her eyes are bright. “I’ll come with you,” she enthuses. “Please, just take me off of this horrible planet!”
Riff grins down at her, and I feel the strangest, most bizarre emotion.
Jealousy.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I hate these fucking Aurelian bastards. They’re arrogant and imperious enough – worse still because they’re Rogue…
…but now?
Why am I feeling jealous?
I’m smart enough to be able to analyze my emotions even as I’m overwhelmed by them. When I was naked and trembling on stage, I’d looked over at these three Aurelians and seen all three of them staring hungrily back at me. Even when they were bidding on other women, they’d all still been staring at me.
Somehow, I’d felt special.
I was disgusted with myself for feeling this way – for yearning for the approval and desire of these slave-trading monsters…
…but if I was smart, I’d use my situation to my advantage.
One thing is clear – I need these men to get me off this planet. Once I’m in space… Somehow, I’ll be able escape them then – and I’ll only have to if they change their mind about being willing to let us go free.
Freedom. It sounds so simple, but as my nakedness on this mysterious planet demonstrates, it’s never as easy as it sounds.
The Aurelians have made us an offer to protect us, and take us off this world…
…but I have a feeling that offer of protection comes with strings attached.
“Okay. I’ll go,” I finally nod, and I feel like I’m sealing my fate with those words.
Tiana instantly nods. “If you’re going, I’m going,” she whispers.
She looks proud of herself – but secretly, I’m thinking:
Great! How did I suddenly pick up responsibility for another woman? This is bad news.
Everything about this was bad news. This was not where I was supposed to be right now – and I don’t mean metaphorically.
I was supposed to be on Kinata 5A by now – a lush, rich planet in the outer rims. There, I’d be enjoying a cushy job as a live-in sculptor for a trillionaire who already has six statues of himself in his manor – but apparently wants so many more he’s willing to hire me to live with him to create them.
I snort humorlessly. He’ll probably be wondering where his new artist is. I wonder how long he’ll wait before he shrugs and hires someone else.
I could have been living in luxury, spending each and day pursuing my passion and talent.
Instead, I’m going to be following three Rogue Aurelians wherever they take me.
Rogue Aurelians.
The fearsome species was already bad enough as they were. Whether they like to or not, most human worlds in the universe have to follow the rules of the Aurelian Empire – a star-spanning regime run by the haughty, overly-authoritarian alien warriors. While it’s oppressive to be under their yolk, the Aurelian Empire offers some advantages. They protect us from Scorp incursions and bring wealth and industry to our worlds with the palaces and manors they occupy. More so than that, they enforce their strict and stringent laws – including the rule against slavery.
That is one of the foundations of Aurelian law – an irony given that the original empire of this towering species was built on the sale and subjugation of human slaves.
But today, slavery is absolutely forbidden – punishable by death if caught by Aurelian Law Enforcement, and if these three Aurelians are willing to risk death by breaking their people’s most sacred law, it means they’re involved in some seriously illicit shit.
Mind you, they look like they would be. The Aurelian with the scar on his throat grunts, and I wonder if he can even speak. I’d just thought he was silent and surly – but maybe that scar cut his vocal cords so deep that the towering brute has been rendered completely mute.
The warrior’s black shirt is open just enough to show the top of a skull tattoo, inked across his slab-
like chest. All Aurelians look deadly, but this specimen has an especially vivid aura of danger to him.
Ironically, that aura of danger somehow makes me feel safer. Perhaps knowing that he’s clearly the most dangerous man in the room makes me think that he’d use all of strength and brutality to protect his property.
I am that property.
To consider myself that – like livestock – is humiliating… But to feel the protectiveness of this deadly Rogue Aurelian is delicious.
I shudder, ashamed of myself for thinking in those terms.
The next Aurelian in the triad is the one called Riff, and he’s is looking at me like I’m a piece of meat. The way his eyes stare at me – like they’re melting the heavy black jacket from my shoulders – is making me shift uncomfortably in my seat.
Once again, I’m ashamed when my imagination goes where it shouldn’t – and I suddenly try to imagine what it would be like to have all seven-deadly-feet of that towering alien taking me in bed.
One thing’s for sure – nobody is going to mess with these three Aurelians. That’s the reason all seven of us newly-purchased women nod and take the trio up on the choice-that-isn’t-really-a-choice. We’re all alone, either naked or nearly naked, and the only thing that awaits us if we accept the ‘freedom’ they offered us is the inevitability that such freedom will be short-lived.
At least when we’re with these towering Rogue Aurelians, no one is going to mess with us.
Once we all accept the offer, Daran beckons us all to stand. “You’ve chosen to come with us. That is wise. However, there are rules. First, you do exactly as we say.”
We all nod in agreement, although doing so leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
Do exactly as we say.
And what will that entail?
The one named Kreos beckons us forward. We follow.
5
Kreos
I beckon all our new purchases forward, but I position myself to study just one of them.
I stand and stare at that gorgeous little wench with the round, ripe ass. It undulates perfectly as she walks past, and even under the heavy coat dropped over her shoulders, I can see the sensual sway of her fertile hips.
I feel my cock swell in my pants. This beauty’s ample bottom will feel so perfect beneath my palm, as I spank her hard.
I feel something almost like guilt… These six other women are all beauties in their own right, and yet somehow, they’re nothing compared to that one particular girl. I don’t know what it is about her – but she just smells right.
“I’ll train her to be mine,” I telepath to my triad. Riff and Daran nod in ascent, turning their own slate-grey eyes to study her.
Oh, she’s a feisty one – and she needs to be taught some respect.
She’s not the only one. I didn’t like it when Riff joked that this beauty could leave our protection – but only if she’d return that jacket and walk naked out of the building.
He might have been trying to make a point, but I felt anger well inside of me. No man other than my battle-brothers will ever see her naked body again. It will be mine – ours – for the rest of her life.
My fist clenches. Part of me wants to truly own her – to take her, no matter what.
It’s an evil part of me, one I constantly struggle to push down inside.
We’ve done many terrible things, my triad, in the service of Daran Misrani. The leader of our triad brought me up from nothing – from my roots as a scrappy street racer and thug, until I’d become part of his triad and become one of the most feared and respected men on Taton.
I owe Daran much – my life, on more than one occasion, and my loyalty – unquestioningly. The three of us have done horrific things – but we’ve done them all together.
Drugs. Loans. Gambling.
We’ve sold or run them all. Our big hands are bloody, metaphorically speaking…
But only comparatively so. In our own twisted way, we have a moral code we never venture from. For all our sins, we’ve never been involved in human trafficking, or prostitution – and we’ve brutally punished anyone found guilty of those crimes on our turf…
And our punishment is not to be sniffed at.
I’m the judge, jury, and executioner.
We buy slaves – but only to rescue them from ending up with a different ‘master’. The women we purchase are always given the opportunity to willingly leave us – and they only stay because they choose to.
But this one? With her full bosom and round bottom?
She makes me question everything I’d thought I believed. If this woman tries to leave…
Oh, Gods. I don’t know if I’d be able to resist pulling her back.
Daran turns and looks back at me, giving me a subtle nod. “One last week of peace. If none of these women are mated to us, then we prepare for war.”
Riff shrugs. Even in the face of danger, there’s never a hint of stress in his body language. He was a hustler before Daran took him into his circle. I didn’t like him at first, but the Bond quickly pulled us together. Most Aurelians find their Bonded triad in the heat of battle and combat; in the hundred years of service all Aurelians are obligated to give their Empire.
We formed our Bond in a different – though no less deadly – form of war.
Riff asks: “What if one of these sweet little things is Bonded to us?”
I hear gasps from the seven women surrounding us. Riff could have chosen to telegraph that question, like Daran might, be he wanted the wenches to hear it.
He wanted to implant the notion that they might be Bonded to us in their minds.
That blonde women – the overly-eager one – smiles up at Riff. She’s practically begging for it – for the act of mating, and the hope-beyond-hope that she might be our fated mate.
Yes, impossibly, I can almost feel that she isn’t already; even before my hands touch her bare skin, and my cock feels the tightness of her cunt.
My eyes turn to the one woman in our ‘collection’ that none of us seem to be able to ignore.
When she hears Riff’s question, she tenses up. I can’t see her face from where I’m standing – I strategically positioned myself to stare at her ample ass – but I don’t need to. I already know her eyes are narrow and her jaw is set.
I can tell this woman has a hatred for us. If might be the hatred which many humans have for Aurelians – a resentment at a species which treats humanity like a badly-behaved race of children…
Or she might hate us – Daran, and Riff and I specifically. She might be angry that we’d purchased her… Suspicious of our status as Rogue Aurelians…
It matters not. Hate, I can deal with. I’ve done enough things in my lifetime to earn the hate of thousands; and also earned the fortitude not to care what such people think.
This beauty might hate us for buying slaves – but she doesn’t know the truth. Slave trading? That, we are not guilty of. Why would we need to buy slaves? There are so many human women who would willingly sleep with us on Taton. In fact, it’s not fair to let them!
That’s the nature of our lives. Any interaction, business or romantic, puts both parties in jeopardy.
If the Toads found out a woman had laid with us, for example… They’d try and use her as leverage against us. That’s why we purchase our woman and offer them the security of living in our manor, as part of our harem. That way we can protect them.
Every female in our harem was bought at one auction or another, and each one had been given the same choice: She could be released from her indenture, and even given safe passage to a nearby planet to embrace her freedom…
…or she could willingly join our harem.
So, if this woman – this beautiful, curvaceous woman with the round bottom and ample bosom… Well, if she hates us for buying slaves, she’s mistaken.
If she hates us for another reason… Well, I’ve done terrible things in my life. Perhaps I deserve her hatred.
6
Petr
a
Bonded.
That one with the sly grin, Riff, tossed the word around as if it meant nothing…
But it means everything.
Every one of the seven women gasped when we heard that word, including me.
Being Bonded to a triad of Aurelians is not for the faint of heart. I’ve heard all of the terrifying rumors. Their species can only reproduce naturally through a rare, almost incalculably-unlikely coupling with a so-called ‘fated mate’ who shares a Bond with them.
Bonded females are the only women who had DNA compatible with a specific triad – but because of the sheer scale of the universe, the chances of those three Aurelians ever finding that one, particular woman out of the billions out there is literally astronomical.
Not that they don’t try – almost as if it’s the driving purpose of their species. Almost all Aurelians use their incredible lifespans to grow vast harems of human women – collecting more and more of them, always searching for their ‘fated mate.’
I snort bitterly.
At least, that’s the excuse!
Truth be told, I sometimes suspect that most Aurelians just enjoy having a hundred women at their beck and call at all times. They’re sex-crazed, those looming alien bastards. Their so-called ‘mating frenzies’ are the stuff of legend, and their prodigious sexual appetites are well-documented. Not finding their ‘fated mate’ hasn’t stopped most Aurelians fucking their way across the universe.
That blonde woman – the overly-eager one who was throwing herself at Riff earlier – has a vacant, blissful look on her face.
I snort at her. She’s imagining being Bonded to these three, huge warriors – being the one female who can bear them young; and being used as a veritable breeding sow for the rest of her days.
Ha! Such a fate doesn’t appeal to me!
No, I like having my mind all to myself, thank you very much. I don’t want to feel the presence of three strangers inside of my head – especially not for the rest of my life.
Well… Okay, it is tempting…