by Corin Cain
I tap my temple, trying to think like Ling taught me to.
I need to find a way to use my new strengths to get us out of here.
Just as Ling taught me, I go back over and analyse every clue and detail I might have witnessed – and then I get it. I click my fingers.
Lord Oblog might think he knows everything there is about the Bond – but he didn’t mention my enhanced strength when he spoke about it – and speak about it, he did. I remember how he’d delighted in explaining all about the Bond, and how he knew about my telepathic connection with the three Aurelians.
But if he knew similarly about my enhanced strength, why wouldn’t he have mentioned it? Despite the Sentinel bodyguards, Lord Oblog still treated me as if I was no threat to him – the same weak, human female he’d confronted before.
He’d got close enough for me to try and stab his heart out before – and he acted like he was still as nonchalant about the threat I posed now.
He doesn’t know about my strength!
But how can I use that to my advantage?
I gulp dryly, and face the grim truth of our current situation.
A plan forms – one that terrifies, and revolts, and disgusts me. Nevertheless, I force myself to imagine it happening – of allowing myself to be alone with Gab’nah.
That Bullfrog looks at me with sadistic hatred. He’s eager to claim me, to ruin me, and torture me. His fervid desire and rampant hatred blind him, though – he’s as… impractical as Lord Oblog claimed.
If I allow myself to be alone with Gab’nah, he’ll be expecting me to have the strength of a normal human female – as powerless as a rag doll to a towering, ten-feet-tall creature like him.
But that means he’ll treat me like a fragile toy, as well – remembering Lord Oblog’s warning not to permanently damage me. He’ll have to hold back when he grips me, not wanting to shatter my limbs. He’ll have to restrain himself as he undresses me, not wanting to split me in two when he finally fucks me…
Except that slimy bastard will never get the chance.
Not now that I have the strength of three grown men. The Bond might not have given me strength enough to conquer a beast like Gab’nah – but I can surprise him…
If his arrogance, rage, and sadistic lust leave him vulnerable for even a second, I can take the opportunity. Only, I’ll have just one chance...
But Ling always told me: “One chance is all you need, if you take it.”
Oh, I’ll take it, alright. If I need to, I’ll bite Gab’nah’s fucking cock off. Maybe that’s my plan – to castrate him with my teeth, and then dodge his blows with my enhanced speed and reflexes long enough for the slimy bastard to bleed to death.
It’s not much of a plan – but it’s a plan.
Tessa peels the blankets back further.
“Do… Do you really think I’m going to get out of here?”
I turn to her and nod – reaching out and gently rubbing her foot beneath the covers. She relaxes ever so slightly at my touch.
“I do believe it,” I promise. Then I ask: “Did they hurt you?”
She shakes her head.
“No, they didn’t. I don’t even think Oblog even noticed me. He didn’t care if I watched or not. I was there for your benefit, not his. He just wanted me to be on a leash, at his feet.”
Tessa might be frightened, but she’s smart.
Lord Oblog just wanted the four of us to see how easily he keeps Tessa compliant. She was just a display of his power.
Where did they take you?
The sound of that voice in my head startles me. Tessa looks at me weirdly, as I listen to words she can’t hear.
It’s Lucius speaking this time. His aura is one of burning rage – yet, it’s ever-so muted. He’s thinking clearly, not blinded by the anger I sensed in him before – the one that’s as bright as the sun.
“They took me to… Oh, sorry.”
I realize I’m speaking out loud. I’m still new to my powers.
Tessa looks at me even more weirdly now – her eyebrows scrunching together as she tries to understand who I’m speaking to.
“One second.” I rub her foot to reassure her – then telepath to my triad:
They took me to the same room as Tessa.
I squeeze shut my eyes and visualize the path the Sentinels marched me down. Just as Ling taught me, I visualize each and every distinctive detail along every step of the path to Tessa’s room.
As I do so, I realize I can feel Lucius, Marcel, and Quint’s general direction – but not enough to pinpoint their exact location. I focus as hard as I can to overcome that, transmitting my location, at least.
The Aurelians answer back in turn. They transmit their own journey through the bowels of this ship, just as I did. Now, piecing together my mental blueprint, I can narrow down their location to within ten feet or so.
Now, I know where they are.
I know, because I’ve been there before: The throne room.
Knowing their location makes me feel closer to my triad, and that fills me with strength. Then, they transmit an image. I can feel the sights they see – and I realize they’re standing in front of both the Toad Lords gathered on this ship – two of the ten Fingers of the Toad King.
As he sits on his throne, I see the image of Lord Oblog’s lips moving – lazy and slow. No sound emerges from his lips, or gets transmitted through the Bond, and then the image flitters away even as I try to focus in on it - like how a dream slips more quickly from your memory, the more you try to recall the details of it.
The image I’d been sent hadn’t been crystal clear. It was like an old memory from childhood – one that you remember the feeling of, more than seeing the details in your mind.
“Who are you talking to?”
Tessa’s voice snaps me back to the here-and-now.
“The Aurelians,” I tell her. “We can… I don’t know how to explain it. I can send thoughts to them. Images.” Then, I step away from the bed. “I’ll be right back.”
I’m focused now, and the more focused I become, the more I feel the need to wash this Toad scum off my legs. I look around and see a barely-defined doorway across the room – which I instantly sense is the bathroom.
As if sensing my eyes upon it, the door opens – and I see a showerhead hanging from the ceiling beyond.
I step forward – but the moment I release her foot, Tessa sits up, eyes wide.
“Don’t take too long.” She looks nervously toward the doorway. “There’s no one to talk to out here, and…” She squeezes shut her eyes. “My thoughts. They keep...”
Then, her frightened eyes snap open.
“Please – just leave the door open, okay?”
There’s no more of her weak smile, or whispered quips – not like when we were in the Aurelians’s chambers. She’s shivering – traumatized. I know that look. It’s the same one I’d seen in the eyes of the slaves I freed, fighting alongside Ling.
That’s how they all looked - some for just a few hours after we’d liberated them, some for days, and some I knew would be destined to wear that frightened, soulless stare for the reminder of their lives.
Tessa is broken.
And the moment I realize that, I realize something else: I can’t trust Tessa any longer.
A terrified slave would sell out her own mother for the promise of freedom – and it’s not her fault.
It’s nothing to do with courage, or morality. The survival instinct just takes over. The slaves that don’t have that survival instinct? They never lasted long enough for Ling or I to rescue them.
I give Tessa my most reassuring smile and promise: “Of course.”
Then, I turn and walk into the bathroom. I slide the door only half-closed – but the moment I finally have privacy, I rip that limp, dead pleasure dress from my sweaty skin like a Band Aid.
The dress falls to the floor. It’s no longer squirming, or gleaming. It’s just another dead thing. Tearing it off felt like peeling
a layer of dead skin from my body; and I feel reborn as I stand there in my nakedness.
I step beneath the showerhead, and the sickly warm water starts to rain down on me.
I scrub, but I know it can’t cleanse me.
Being clean won’t change anything – like how I’m still trapped on board this ship.
I reach out telepathically:
Do you have a plan?
I asked in desperation, because I know they don’t. I’d have sensed it through the Bond. Instead, I detect that Marcel, Quint, and Lucius are still in the throne room – still being ordered around by Lord Oblog.
Then, I hear a response.
We will make the next shipment.
He might not have much of a plan, but Marcel sounds certain about it.
Good, I respond. Tessa is too terrified to be of any use. We need to get her to safety. She’s scared – too scared. I’ve seen women like this. They aren’t rational.
Marcel’s voice is deep and reassuring, even though I’m feeling it more than hearing it.
We have saved women from worse, he reassures me. We will get you both off this ship. Trust. Trust me, my Mate. We will take you to a place where you will be safe.
Then, Marcel telepaths an image in my mind.
Atlantis.
It’s as if blueprints of a dream are downloaded instantly into my mind. I suddenly learn what they’ve been working on all these years – what’s driven them to this desperate place and time.
I learn about the safe haven the three of them are building - Atlantis.
It’s a safe haven; the promise of it led to this arrangement with the Toads. It was the reward they were willing to risk so much for.
I sense that this haven is incomplete. Atlantis is an alien-made world the size of a large moon, contrasted with a false atmosphere rich in oxygen, and nitrogen. Trees are growing abundantly on the planet’s surface. They’re just tiny saplings right now, but they’re growing fast.
Then, the image zooms out. I see Atlantis as if from the viewport of a starship. It’s a little, green gem hanging in space, hidden and safe.
I crave it.
Back in the moment, the shower deluges me with warm water – but it still doesn’t make me feel any cleaner. Inside my mind, negative thoughts and pervasive doubts niggle and gnaw at my resolve, eroding my strength. Only the auras of Marcel, Quint, and Lucius – ever present in my mind - keep me from breaking the same way Tessa has.
I sense that the woman I used to be – the old me - is coming back. Ling’s wisdom and teachings have aligned with my new-found strength and speed.
Yet, just like the tiny saplings on Atlantis, this reborn version of the old me needs to grow. The winds beating at her are shaping her and strengthening her, but she’s not ready to face the storm.
And the storm will come – not caring if I’m ready for it, or not.
The shower finally switches off, and then hot air blasts me from the showerhead.
Dried, and more-or-less clean, I step out of the bathroom and find that Tessa hasn’t moved. She’s still sitting on the bed, half-covered with that blanket, and her eyes remain glazed and sightless.
She only snaps out of it when I make eye contact – like coming out of a trance. She shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts, and then points to another barely-visible doorway.
The closet.
“There’s clothes in there,” she tells me. “Normal stuff.”
Normal stuff – as in, no more pleasure dresses.
I root through the clothes there. They’re mismatched and assorted, because the Toads have no understanding of fashion, or style.
Nevertheless, I still find a pair of flowing pants and a loose shirt. I fail to find underwear, though. You’d think that would be the one thing Toads did know about – since their species waddle around in loincloths most of the time.
When I’m dressed, I turn back to Tessa.
“You’re going to sit tight, okay?” I tell her. “The Aurelians are going to do what Oblog tells them to. They’re going to make the shipment, and when they come back, he’s agreed to let you go free.”
Tessa pulls herself up in bed. There’s suddenly a glimmer of hope in her eyes.
It’s like sunlight after a dark and rainy evening. Tessa is naturally slim, but she’s only gotten thinner during these last few days; too scared and anxious to think of eating.
In her current state, she looks waif-like. Those eyes of hers are as wide and questioning as those of a child. I can’t help but feel responsible for her – I know the old me would.
Tessa stammers: “D-Do you really think they’ll let me free?”
She’s only a couple of years younger than me, but at this moment, the gap might as well be decades.
“I do,” I reassure her. “I believe it.” I walk to the replicator and press a button. A bowl appears, upward from the bottom slot. From a nozzle at the top, grey gruel pours into it.
After the delicious meat the Aurelians had served us, my stomach rolls at the sight – but I take it to Tessa nevertheless.
“Here. You need to eat.”
Tessa pushes the bowl aside.
“I can’t… I’ll just throw it up.”
“Eat it,” I repeat, more firmly this time, and she reluctantly takes the bowl in her hands – which shake so badly that the foul-tasting gruel drips over the edge.
Girding her stomach, Tessa tilts the bowl and takes a sip. Not much, but it’s a start.
The moment food touches her stomach, I see Tessa strengthen her resolve. That’s when she stops acting like a frightened animal long enough to think of others – of me.
“What about you, Jamie? You’ve got to get out of here, too!”
“I’m going to be okay,” I reassure her, and I try to smile.
But I’m not going to be okay.
I’m not going to be okay, and there’s nothing Tessa can do about it. Unless I can find a way off this ship, I’m never going to be okay again.
Time stretches out in front of me.
Time. The great, endless equalizer. The one thing that delivers both peasants and princes to the same final destination.
If what the rumors say about the Bond are true, then death’s hand has weakened.
The first of this era’s Bonded females – Queen Jasmine, of the Aurelian Empire – still looks as if she’s in her mid-twenties – when, in fact, she’s been ruling for centuries.
The Bond enhances the human lifespan to match those of her Fated Mates – which means my former ambition to grow old on X12, sowing crops, seems like a distantly-remembered dream.
In the chaos of the Bullfrog attack, and after being dragged in front of the Toad Lord Oblog, I hadn’t even had time to think about it.
Thousands of years of extended life should be a liberation – but, instead, it means the torment that awaits me will be prolonged to what might as well be eternity.
If I don’t break free, Lord Oblog will control us forever – all four of us.
Now, I’m firmly in his grasp – and with my extended lifespan, perhaps I’ll be passed down to Lord Oblog’s ruling offspring when he dies - like a precious heirloom, with the power to control the three Bonded Aurelians whose fate is now inextricably linked to mine.
Suddenly, the doors behind us open.
I spin around. Water comes slushing in, pooling on the stone floor.
There’d been no knock or warning, and Tessa whimpers in terror. The bowl of oatmeal clatters to the ground.
I can see her nerves are shot – and surprises like this aren’t helping matters.
Turning back to the doorway, I watch two Toads guards march in, planting their huge, webbed feet on the wet stone as they loom over us.
They each brandish an electro-prod, aimed in my direction. They begin gurgling in their guttural native language – but while the sounds are unfamiliar and foreign to me, I suddenly feel as if some new part of me actually understands what they’re saying.
D
id they tell me to come with them? Or did I only imagine I could understand the words?
I telepath it to my triad.
They’re taking me somewhere.
Perhaps I only understood from the context of their gurgles and snorts – because why else would they be in my room? Beckoning me with the threat of a weapon? It was sure as hell obvious they didn’t want me to remain with Tessa.
They’re taking me somewhere…
…if I let them.
I stiffen, as the plan I’d come up with earlier begins to solidify.
I’m facing two Toads, each with a weapon. I’m alone – with nothing to use except my bare hands.
Under any normal circumstances – even with the teachings of Ling - I wouldn’t have considered trying anything. Yet I feel the Bond has me eager to test out my new body. I feel so strong, and fast – like the Toads are moving in slow motion…
…like I could dart around their clumsy jabs and snatch one of those electro-prods from their slimy hands.
Like I could shove it down their throats.
Keep us updated.
The message comes from Quint, loud and clear inside my mind.
I soften my shoulders. Any move I make must consider Tessa – and she’s not strong like me, mentally or physically.
Tessa’s weak and terrified, and if I don’t take care of her, she’s not making it off this ship alive.
If I made my move now, it wouldn’t just be my own life at stake – it would be the life of the cowering girl still hiding beneath the blankets.
I turn and make eye contact with her.
“I’ll be back,” I promise – before following the Toads into the hallway without resistance.
As I wade through the filthy water, I hike my pants up. I’m still barefoot, which at least makes washing easier.
As I’m led down the corridors, my mind maps them as it did before – remembering each twist and turn, and overlaying this new memory map across the ones I’d created earlier.
At the same time, I can sense the direction of Quint, Marcel, and Lucius – and I realize the Toad guards are marching me towards the Aurelians.
Their auras strengthen as I get closer to them – their location pinpointed in my mind. I look down at the mental map I’ve created in my mind’s eye, and map out their location in relation to mine. Lord Oblog has them kept in a cell near the throne room. He must like to keep a close eye on his prized possessions.