Abducted (Blue Barbarian Series Book 1)

by Rena Marks

  Though the entrance to the cave was small, inside it’s full sized, and the seven-foot tall men easily stand upright. The women collapse on the ground, not even caring that we roll in dirt. The ground is blessedly cool compared to the hot, penetrating sun. A few of the barbarians watch us for a minute and some disappear down the cave with Drakar. Soon, Drakar returns.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No.”

  “Humans are this weak?”

  “Weak? We’ve been starved for months.” As soon as I say it, I realize it’s not a good enough excuse. He’s been in captivity longer than us.

  I try again. “Our sandals aren’t the strongest.”

  I sigh when I look at his feet. They have the same temporary footwear.

  “Come, little one.” He bends and picks me up, heading to the back of the cave. “Lucie, bring the others.”

  He walks down the windy, twisting caves. Someone has lit a small fire in a man-made fire pit and it lights up the innards of the cave.

  Pretty soon I smell a stink like eggs and I sit in his arms. Then I hear it, the gurgling of water. “It’s a pool?” I ask, even as he sets me to my feet in front of it.

  It’s beautiful. Natural rocks and…steam. Bubbles. A natural hot spring, that stinks with the delicious smell of sulphur. “Wow, oh, wow,” I say, past exhaustion forgotten. He bends and unties my sandals, and I’m shaking from excitement. The other girls arrive and there is stunned silence. They immediately squat down and start untying their own twines, and it’s like a race to see who can get their homemade shoes off first.

  Drakar grins. “I’ll leave you to it. My men will go hunt some dinner before the dark hits.”

  I nod, and lift my face up for a kiss.

  He looks surprised and then pleased, and leans down to me. I hear snickers as his blue lips touch mine.

  “Gonna break his neck.”

  “She needs her sandals a lot thicker.”

  One snorts. “Like wedge sandals. Two-feet high.”

  As soon as Drakar leaves, a couple of the girls ease into the pool. They both groan.

  “It’s so warm and soothing.”

  At those words, the rest of us scramble in.

  “It’s deep,” I say, surprised. And it feels absolutely heavenly. The heat soothes my sore muscles and washes away the sweaty exhaustion from the day. We dunk under the water, rinsing off our sweaty scalps. We laugh and giggle, and stay in the hot springs all evening, getting out every now and then to sit at the edge when it gets too warm. When we cool, we get back in.

  Now that the girls have accepted the situation a little more, and aren’t in as much shock from being roused from unconsciousness, we can talk a little more. They introduce themselves to reiterate the names. In addition to Lucie, Miranda and Gigi, there’s Monica, Jezebel, Jillian, Tessa, Cammie, and Valencia. Valencia doesn’t speak anything but Spanish and she clings to Lucie, since Lucie can communicate best with her French dialect. The poor thing looks like a lost puppy.

  The men return, and we hear stomping from down the hall. The girls squeal, jumping back into the water. Our thin alien-gowns are completely see-through when wet.

  When the barbarians arrive, they stop and stare.

  “Mate,” Drakar says, puzzled. “Why are you in the pool with your clothing on?”

  “Uh, because then it’d be a pool of naked women otherwise.”

  One of the girls gasps as a tribesman bends to take off his moccasins. There’s utter silence when a loincloth drops. We stare in utter disbelief when more of the blue men strip completely buck-ass naked and enter the pool, including Drakar. My…mate. The entire world has now seen his blue balls.

  “What’s going on here?” Jillian asks, and her voice shakes. I’m pretty sure it’s excitement, not fear.

  “They’re gonna bathe,” Lucie says. “They think it’s weird that we have our dresses on.”

  Drakar nods at me. “Will you all sleep naked then? Because you will have to let your clothing dry now.”

  “To be honest,” I say. “We didn’t really think that far ahead.”

  One of the hunters is gesturing to Valencia, and holding out a patty of some kind. She looks terrified and is practically crawling onto Lucie’s lap to get away.

  “It’s soap,” Drakar says. “To wash with.”

  “What?” Lucie says, and sounds excited as she reaches out beyond Valencia.

  A few human hands reach out, and the barbarian looks pleased, handing it to Lucie.

  One of the other guys goes to get another bar and we try not to stare at his wet cock as he gets out of the pool to retrieve it.

  “Do you guys shave the hair off?” I whisper to Drakar. “Down there?”

  He looks puzzled for a minute and then realization downs. “Your nest of curls that cover your sex? No, we do not grow nests.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” I explode. “Do you shave at all?”

  He shrugs. “I noticed you did not have the hair when you were first brought to the ship. It grew in much later.”

  I can’t believe we’re sitting with a bunch of naked blue men in a pool discussing my pubes.

  “Fuck this,” Jezebel says. “I have soap. Every guy’s naked, and we girls ain’t really hiding nuthing anyway.” She pulls her wet gown over her head and begins scrubbing it with the bar of soap. Her breasts are bouncing around and she doesn’t seem to care.

  I shrug and take mine off also.

  Drakar’s amused. “I still do not know why you wore your dresses. Were you shy about nakedness? You are all women anyway.”

  I nod. “Our planet doesn’t go around naked.”

  “It is very hot here this time of year. You will see our children naked. The men wear loincloths and little else.”

  Suddenly, a thought occurs to me. “Wait a minute. Is this a bathing pool? You come here to wash?”

  He nods and looks confused. “What do you think it is?”

  I start laughing and both humans and barbarians look over to us. I’m holding myself underwater to avoid my boobs, or what’s left of them with all my weight loss, from bobbing around. “On our planet, it’s a pool. Not to bathe, but to relax in. To swim in. Like a social event. We don’t bathe in public, we bathe in private. So we all thought we were just brought here to relax.”

  Drakar laughs. “I can see there’s going to be quite a bit of confusion with this language barrier.”

  “We’ll work on that. I’ll give you English first. Then I think I’ll try Valencia.” She looks up as she hears her name. “She doesn’t know English, only Spanish so no one can communicate with her. Poor thing is confused as hell.”

  “Teach her first,” Drakar says. “I will wait. Besides, I can communicate with you. She is helpless.”

  Aww, that’s what makes the man a good leader. I wash out my skimpy gown with the soap, wring it, and toss it over a rock to dry. I turn my back to everyone, but I’m sure my ass is exposed as I get out of the pool to throw it. I sit back down quickly.

  “Come, Niki,” Drakar says and pulls me onto his lap. “I will wash your hair.”

  He leans me back to re-wet it, and then takes the bar of soap to rub along my scalp. Then his fingers massage it in.

  The girls watch and then begin washing each other’s hair. A few are washing their gowns and getting brave enough to drape them over rocks. I think the men are aware of their shyness and a couple gesture to the women to hand them their gowns. Then they take the gowns and drape them over the rocks for them.

  “These guys aren’t bad,” Jillian says.

  The man who always seems to sit next to Drakar speaks. “Are you ready to tell us the tale?” he asks.

  The men lean in, eager to listen. The women, aware of something going on, stay silent.

  “Mate,” Drakar says to me. “This is my right arm. He reigns in my absence. My best friend, Rayhaan,” he says proudly.

  “Reigns?”

  “Damn, girl,” Lucie says in English. “You snagg
ed the king.”

  One of the girls snickers. “They’re native Americans. In blue. I think he’s the chief.”

  I nod to Rayhaan, not sure of the greeting traditions of their world. A wide grin splits his harsh face. That’s easy enough.

  “As most of you probably heard,” Drakar continues. “We were out hunting when we saw the strange object in the sky. I dispersed some to the messaging cave to warn others of it, but of course the message was not to be received until nightfall. So a few men I sent to rush to the village as quickly as possible. It was evening, however, and they were pressed for time.”

  “We did not make it back on time.” One of the men says. “We were forced to take shelter in the first level cave before the dark hit.”

  “First level?” I murmur to Drakar.

  “Caves like this one are set up in certain distances from home. They are called first level, second level, and so forth. First level is about an hour’s distance from our home.”

  “So close,” I say, and he nods.

  “But necessary in case one is stuck outside and darkness approaches too quickly to reach our home.”

  I take the momentary silence to relay the story to the girls in English. “Drakar says they were hunting when the spaceship was first spotted. He dispatched some men to a message cave, where they have a system of displaying messages once nighttime hits. Bones reflect on water or something, and cast a warning to glow in the sky once dark hits. He also sent men to race home to warn the people, but they couldn’t make it in time before dark hit. They were forced to seek shelter in caves like this one. Each cave is called a level and the levels are based upon the distance away from home.”

  Lucie nods, letting me know my interpretation was spot on.

  Drakar continues. “The rest of you, including Rayhaan, was commanded to hide. The ship was already hovering over me. Suddenly I fly up through the sky and the air was forced from my lungs. I could not breathe and my body shut down. I awaken caged like an animal. The ship is unlike anything we have ever seen. I cannot understand the creatures who speak, but they look atrocious. Their arms are too long for their bodies, and end somewhere around their knees.” A couple of the men gasp. “Their skin is gray, as our skies turn the month before the seasons change. They have huge eyes that take up most of their face, and they are completely black to where you can see your own reflection in them. A tiny little mouth is only an inch long and has no lips. Then, just when you think you can see no more ugliness, they turn and they have a massive, raw brain that bulges out from the back of their head. I cannot imagine what the delicate hu-maan females thought upon wakening and seeing them. But, at that point I did not know these women existed.” He pauses and looks to me to translate to the ladies.

  I repeat what he says and a few shiver. I think they finally realize how lucky they were to have slept through the abduction.

  “They feed me barely. A tasteless dried something that tastes like a dirty sea. I toss it aside. After a couple of days, it becomes apparent I must eat those to survive, so I gather my pile and begin to slowly chew them. But this is when the action begins. Two of the aliens who guard me have a magic viewing screen in the room and the night is unlike our own. Lights twinkle in the skies, breaking up the dark. From the viewing screen, I watch. We approach a huge, round ball that I now know is Earth, where the hu-maans live. The first female I see is out asleep on the ground. I am amazed that they sleep in the dark without fear of predators. The aliens do the same thing to her as they did to me, float her body aboard until the air is forced from her lungs and she passes out. Then they start clapping each other on the shoulders and look for another female. There are males on this strange planet, but they do not abduct them. By the time we get to Niki, she is in a red space-craft that hovers on the strange ground—“

  “—it’s a car,” I say. “We travel in them.”

  “A car,” he corrects. “It is their rain season and their spacecraft turns off her car, leaving her spinning circles in the rain. She crashes into a tree and is still. This time when she is floated into the ship, they bring her to the table in our room. The chief of the aliens enters as the other two are slapping each other and laughing at her injuries and I guess they have made bets on her survival. The chief alien yells at them and they become more like workers. They strip her of her clothing and begin mopping her blood. One has a device that seals her wounds shut, but she is swollen and bruised. One pops the bone of her leg back into the skin and they glue her wound closed. Then, they take her somewhere else for storage.”

  My eyes are large as I listen to his tale about me. I had no idea my leg was broken. I just knew I hurt. He slips his arm around me, hugging me to him.

  “After the chief alien yells, they take care not to injure the other hu-maans who are stolen, one by one.”

  He stops and I relay the story to the girls in English.

  “When the abducted females number one dozen, the ship takes to the skies again. Now the aliens decide to rouse the hu-maans to see what happens. The first revival is the female who slept outside on a bedroll of material under the stars. They bring her onto a table in the room and awaken her. She screams when she sees the ugliness of the aliens. The aliens clasp their hands over their ears. I figure the pitch of the human shrieks hurts their ears. As punishment, one holds his strange, two-fingered hand over her mouth and the other forces her to mate with him. It is vicious and eventually the female quiets and stares straight ahead. The aliens speak to her in her own language, but she no longer responds. They leave her alone that night and I try to speak to her, but she has retreated somewhere in her mind and does not understand my language. The next morning, they come to experiment on her. They spread her legs apart and test to see if the breeding has taken with instruments inserted into her. They poke her with long, sharp objects. Finally, they stand over her and insert strange lights into her eyes. She screams from the pain and they shove something into her mouth that she chokes on. Soon there is a smell of roasted meat and blackened smoke comes from her ears. The aliens are upset as they cart her body away, especially as the chief alien is yelling again.”

  He pauses and I relay the sickening story, watching the expressions on the girls’ faces become somber instead of curious.

  I turn to Drakar so he can continue.

  “The second female is much luckier. She screams like the first one had and this time when a hand is clamped over her mouth, she bites. The alien who forces females was excited to do his thing, and I realize he must have permission to punish the hu-maans when they scream. But the alien she bit is angry and he strikes her. His strength is too much, and the bone of her neck breaks. Her head twists and she stares sightlessly into my cage, and again, the chief screams at the other two. For many days, I think they have decided to stop rousing the hu-maans until they bring in a third. This one is Niki, and the one they had damaged in the red…car. The first thing they do is bring the light into her eyes and I roar and bang against the bars of the cage. They know this fries the brain from what happened to the first girl. They stop and use the same frying method on the bars of the cage, so I can no longer beat against them. Every time I touch the bars, they zap my fingers. I sit, knowing this small human that they have already broken once will die soon enough. To everyone’s amazement, she does not die, but she does not awaken either. They leave her and tend to the rest of the ship, checking on her daily. She still does not awaken and the chief is angered again. I talk to her whenever they are gone, and she mumbles, but still sleeps. Eventually though, after many, many days, and nearly a full moon, Niki awakens.

  “Unfortunately, she wakes while the most evil of aliens is alone with her in the room. Later, Niki names him Lech. I do not understand why, but he is happy to force females to breed. The chief she calls Bossy, and the third alien that follows commands she calls Flunky. Anyway, Niki awakens and nearly screams at the sight of Lech. I whisper, mostly to myself, not to scream. I’ve seen what happens when they scream. To my surpr
ise, she follows direction and I realize she can understand me. I don’t know how, but for the first time in many weeks, I have hope by a small, broken and brave female. Lech is about to force her when the chief enters the room and stops him. Niki tells me later he was upset that so many valuable hu-maans have died. They decide to stop wasting experiments on them and just sell them as food. The experiments are to teach them to speak in other languages so they can be used as sex slaves instead. The original plan was to breed the women with me and sell the offspring males as a continual supply of work slaves and the female offspring as sex slaves. If they can communicate with other languages, they will fetch a higher price.

  “Niki hides that she can understand the languages they put into her brain, and they throw her into the cage, upset with her. They crush her small, broken body against the wall and she falls unconscious again. The nights are cold in the room, the aliens do not want to expend a lot of energy for us. The hu-maans cannot change their body temperature along with the environment, so I warm her with my body to keep her alive. Eventually she awakens and we make a plan to escape.”

  It’s fascinating to hear the tale from his perspective, and I relay it quickly to the girls. Apparently I forget a small detail, because Lucie adds, “The barbarians are able to change their body temperature, cooling themselves or making their bodies warmer. That’s how he kept her warm in the cage.”

  Drakar continues. “The next time they return for her, they have decided to try one last experiment and hope it works. They will revive female number four—Lucie. They gesture to Niki how to transfer languages to another. They are afraid if they give Lucie languages directly, she will fry like the first experiment. They assume it was not successful on humans because Niki pretends not to understand, but they wonder if it can be transferred even though she cannot speak it. Niki tries to transfer to Lucie, and it works. The creatures are ecstatic and Niki is excited because we can warn Lucie of the dangers now. So Lucie awakens and without letting the creatures know she can communicate, Niki hushes her into not screaming. Lucie passes out and is safe from the screaming that allows her to be force mated. Then we have a break because the ship begins to crash and the creatures run from the room. The next time Lucie awakens, Niki explains to her that she cannot scream, that she must pretend Niki does not understand the aliens. But when they crash-land the ship, they come and take Lucie away from us.”