by Emma Vance
“Okay, if you need to find this guy before we can escape, then I have to help look for him. I won’t be able to just sit still and do nothing. I can ask the other humans to help too. Trust me, we all want to get out of here as fast as we can.”
I bowed my head. “I don’t wish to do anything that would put you in greater danger, Beatrice.”
“Look, from what I’ve heard, nothing is worse for me than if I try to escape and get caught. So, we are already doing something pretty dangerous. If we can put our heads together to get it done faster, then I am all for that.”
She had gotten so animated that she leaned forward and the cover containing her breasts slipped down. Those delicious, brown nipples were pebbled, and the peaks were tempting in the firelight.
I swallowed, a lump forming in my throat as I stared at her chest. She looked down and hastily recovered the sheet, covering up her generous breasts.
“Your words are very strong, Beatrice. You should captain your own ship.”
She returned my smile, albeit tentatively. “Well, I do project management on Earth. I am used to working my butt off to get what I want.”
I frowned at her phrasing. “I do not want your butt to be worked off. I enjoy it very much the way it is.”
Inexplicably, her face stained red again. “Are you headed back to your ship?”
“In the morning. My men will be sleeping and if it is all right with you, I would like to stay.”
She gathered the cover to her chin. For a moment, I thought she would say no, but she patted the space next to her, indicating I join her. “Please.”
I sat down beside her and watched her dark, unusual colored eyes. She cleared her throat. “Why don’t you tell me about your planet?”
The sun rose, and gentle light filled the tent slowly. Beatrice’s body was outlined in the golden light, the brown color of her skin illuminating like a dark, precious metal. She stirred a little as I slipped from the bed and readied myself to leave.
“Get some sleep. No one shall bother you. I will make sure of it.”
I left the tent and headed towards my ship, counting the guards as I went. There were many, and it seemed they were more concentrated around the larger tents and garden area which housed the women. There must be a way to get the humans away from here.
I got to the docking bay and stepped onto my ship. I was greeted by my first mate, Mal.
“Captain.” He nodded, giving me a strange look.
I greeted him in return and spied the rest of my crew watching me from behind him.
“What is the problem?” I demanded. Better they tell me now if something has gone awry. They exchanged a glance.
“Nothing is out of sorts here, Captain. We are simply curious about your night with your new mate.” Mal had a note of eagerness in his voice.
I exhaled my relief. Of course, they would want to know about the mating connection. This was new for my people. I’d never heard of a Dragorian mating outside our species before.
“We wanted to tell the Council of Elders about the cross-species mating, but we waited in case Bardoa is intercepting any messages from us,” Mal said.
I nodded. “Good thinking. I’m sure he is.”
My crew mates still stared at me, waiting for me to speak.
“She experienced the Rushing as well,” I said finally, not wanting to divulge too much information about our night together. Tsanel and Mal looked at one another. Mal visibly relaxed.
“This could change everything,” Mal pronounced. The others nodded.
I agreed with them, the fact I had mated with a human could mean my people finally had a future.
But I didn’t want to think about anyone else. I only wanted to think about Beatrice.
And how I had left her, even though it had physically hurt me to do so. My mission was warring with my innate allegiance to my mate and desire to protect her.
She was on Stryxx, of all places. A pleasure planet.
I needed to work on a plan that would save her and the other humans as well as allow us time to find the scientist, even though I was dangerously close to leaving the bastard here and taking my mate to safety.
“It will change everything,” I said. “But for now, I only care about getting her off this planet and finding what we came here for. We can deal with the larger implications later.”
“This could mean that we could mate with humans as well,” Mal pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest. It was clear he was not done with this subject.
“I’m aware of that, Mal.” I mirrored his stance. “Which is why I have also agreed to help my mate get the other human women out of here.”
There was a rumble of unease in the group, though most of the males nodded in agreement.
“So, we could all have mates then?” Darun, our navigator, called from the back.
“I have no idea if others will experience the Rushing as Beatrice and I did. But it doesn’t matter. It is important to help these humans.” I stood tall. “I want to make it clear that we are not helping these females because they may be our mates. We are helping them because they are females who need our help. Our assistance should not be dependent on whether or not they might be your mate.” I saw several more nods.
“I know we already have a dangerous mission here. I am still committed to finishing that mission to help our people defeat the Wolgons. But we must help the humans too.” I looked around at the group of Dragorian males, some of whom had been my crew for many seasons. Some were with me when I had failed in our last battle with the Wolgons. My breath was tight in my chest knowing they were still loyal to me, even though I had failed them.
“I need everyone on board with this new plan,” I said, my words echoing off the sleek metal walls of the Jewel. The males around me were silent. “If you are not in favor of rescuing the humans, I need to hear your voice now.”
I waited, the silence from the crew deafening.
“Then it is decided,” I said. My shoulders eased and my arms drifted to my sides. “Once we have the scientist, we rescue the humans and get ourselves off this pleasure planet for good.”
“This means we have two major problems, Captain,” said Mal, a smirk on his face. “Figuring out how we rescue the humans and finding wherever this scientist is.”
“We’ve had worse odds, Mal,” Tsanel said as he clapped him on the back.
I smiled in return, though I was still worried about Beatrice. “We have indeed. But Mal raises a good point. I will need most of you out searching the planet for the scientist. He is here and we must find him. But the humans give us an excellent way to do this.” I shifted my weight from foot to foot. I wasn’t sure how my crew were going to take this. “Bardoa will think it strange if you don’t choose females to bed. But if you choose human females, then we can use them to travel around the planet and search for the Dragorian scientist.”
There was a collective rumbling among the group.
“You want us to take the human females to mate?” Darun asked, his mouth agape.
“No. I want you to pretend to bed them. They will be agreeable if they want to escape. Ask them to keep their eyes open, to look for other males like us.”
“Isn’t it dangerous for the females if we get them to spy for us?” asked Tsanel.
“Not more dangerous than it will be for them to escape Bardoa,” interjected Mal.
“Hamuk and Lomke, you will stay on the ship. The rest of you will choose women tonight, humans if you can.”
“Are there humans enough for us then?” Vairokan looked as if he’d been given a gift for our major holiday, Salytun, early.
“And more besides. It will be tight fitting them in the ship, but we will not leave one behind if we can help it.” I had promised my mate, and I would not let her down. It was bad enough that I was not with her now.
Not a single crew member spoke against the new plans.
Good. We would still save the humans even if someone dissented, but it wo
uld weigh heavily on me if all of us didn’t feel similarly. For now, I was going to concentrate on fulfilling my mission and protecting my mate. Once I did that, we could leave this awful place.
Chapter Twelve
Beatrice
Last night was unbelievable. I woke up in a haze. It was the first time since being here that I’d actually felt safe and protected.
The first time I felt hope.
It was strange. I didn’t believe all Mekvar’s talk of being my mate, but for some reason, I believed he was going to help me escape. Help all the other humans escape. There was something about him—he really seemed genuine. I didn’t know what he was talking about with regards to his mission, but if it helped get me out of here, then I’d support him in any way I could.
The bed was luxurious, bouncy, covered in fluffy purple pillows and silky blankets. It was more lavish than the beds we were given in the group tents for the women. I got out of bed and laced my dress back up. My stomach growled, but I still felt renewed. There was something about having multiple orgasms that perked you right up.
I walked back to the tent with the other women.
Most of them were there, gathered around Nisha as she talked. Nisha was the unappointed leader of sorts of the group of human women. Or at least the one who calmed us down the best. Well, Nisha would have nothing on me when I told them all I had a ship taking us out of here.
A hush rippled through the women as I entered the tent, all eyes on me. Even Mei, Nisha, and Kat seemed interested to know what had happened. For a second, I thought of how different it could have gone, if Mekvar hadn’t chosen me, and some other alien guy had. I shuddered, realizing how lucky I was.
“Well,” asked Pippa, her tone cutting through the stark silence. “Did you regret not taking the sex poison?”
I hadn’t wanted to be drugged and not be in my right mind, especially while I was trying to escape. But as it happened, it was basically like I’d been drugged anyway with the Rushing, or whatever Mekvar was talking about.
“I didn’t need the sex poison,” I confirmed, with a slight smile.
Pippa’s face fell. I wondered if she had drunk some of the tea while I’d been gone.
“You seem remarkably well rested,” said Hazel, her quiet voice containing a question.
“That’s because I am.”
“Dragorians must be very considerate,” commented Nisha, looking thoughtful. I cast my glance around the tent before saying anything more. There were no guards in the tent, and the nearest ones were down the path to the entrance. These women needed to know that a plan was happening.
“More than you might think,” I said, lowering my voice. “In fact, they are going to help us get out of here. All of us.” I crossed my arms triumphantly.
Nisha and Kat exchanged a wary glance between them. They did not look happy.
“He promised you he’d take you out of here? I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. If he did get you out, and that’s a big if, he’d likely sell you again on the black market. Humans are very expensive—and everyone wants one. But more likely he would get caught and then you’d both be dead.”
The women who were captured with me looked deflated, the hopeful gleam in their eyes gone.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think it’s like that at all. Look.” I leaned in towards the group, “I’m new here too, and I know you can’t trust people, er, aliens, around here, but this guy seems different. For one, he says his people never visit sex planets, and they don’t believe in them.”
“That is true,” admitted Kat. “One of my regulars can’t believe they are here. Says they are very outspoken with the banning of pleasure planet and fight passionately for the females who live on them when the Alliance is in session.” She looked at Nisha. “If anyone would be up for helping women get out of here, it would be aliens like that.”
“There’s something else,” I interrupted, and all eyes turned to me again. “Something happened between us. Mekvar—that’s his name—says that he and I are something called ‘mates’. He says that his people, the Dragorians, have connections to females that are like breeding matches. It dictates their ability to make babies. He says it’s strange he has one with a human. I don’t know about all that, but that could be why he’s willing to help us.” I looked around at the wide-eyed women around me. “Apparently their people are low on women.”
I didn’t want to keep them in the dark about anything. If they wanted to come with me and take the chance to escape this, then they needed to know everything that had happened.
Priya, a tiny Indian girl with huge boobs, who hadn’t stopped crying since we arrived, let out a small wail. “We basically would trade one prison for another. They only want us so they can have sex with us and make babies.”
I shook my head again, “I don’t know if the same thing will happen to any of you because it seems to be pretty specifically between us. And Mekvar told me that if I didn’t want to be his mate, I didn’t have to.”
“What if he’s just saying that to you?” Pippa asked, her voice a higher pitch than it had been earlier.
“Well . . . I didn’t take the sex poison, but whatever their mating is must have a similar effect, because it was pretty full on.”
“So you had sex with the alien?” asked Eve, sounding more intrigued than anything.
“Of course she did! He picked her for the night, didn’t he?” Pippa sounded was close to becoming hysterical.
“I really don’t want to have sex with an alien,” wept Priya, her hands coming over her face in despair.
“Er, I didn’t, actually. Have sex I mean.”
Silence. All heads swiveled back to me.
“You didn’t?” Molly cocked her head at me, curious.
“She’s lying,” Pippa insisted.
“Nope. I swear.” I raised my hands in the air. “He kept his pants on the whole time. We did, um, other stuff though.”
“I also don’t want to do other stuff with an alien!” wailed Priya.
“If this mating was anything like sex poison, there’s no way you didn’t have sex,” said Pippa.
“Pippa, did you drink the sex poison?” I asked, rounding on her.
She went scarlet. “I wanted to make the fact that I had to have sex with an alien a little easier to deal with!”
“I said I was working on a plan!” I shot back. She was sweating, her skin was flushed and her eyes had a faint glassy sheen. She looked ill. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not exactly feeling the best place right now. I don’t recommend it.”
“We’ll find a cure,” I promised, gripping her hands. “As soon as we get off this planet.”
“So you think these guys are for real? Can they do it?” asked Mei. She seemed like the only one out of her, Nisha and Kat who was genuinely excited about the possibility we might be getting out of here.
“I think if anyone can, they can. There’s just one catch.”
“Oh, here we go. I knew it would be something.” Pippa rolled her eyes.
“No, it’s not what you are thinking. They need our help before we can leave. They are looking for some dude on this planet. Another guy like them. Once they have him, they can go. If we helped them try to find him, it might go a little faster.”
Nisha frowned. “I don’t know about these Dragorians. I want to find out a bit more about them before any of you decide on anything. Do you really want to land in the pits because of this male?”
“I think I trust him.” I said, realising as I said it that it was true. I didn’t know how, maybe it was this Rushing bullshit, but in my gut, I knew Mekvar was telling the truth about helping us.
“Okay well, let’s find this alien guy they are looking for!” Pippa stood up so fast the girl to her left spilled whatever purple drink was in her cup. “What do they look like? I didn’t see him. Eve said he was a seven-foot-tall lizard man?”
“I assume you’ll see them soon enough, but that’s exac
tly what they look like.” I wanted to correct her, to explain how hot Dragorians were, how muscular and sexy they looked. But even I knew that would sound super weird.
“You won’t be looking for anything,” Nisha warned Pippa. “Not with the amount of lansian root tea you drank. If you don’t get picked tonight, then you’ll have to visit one of the houses. I told you to wait until you were picked,” Nisha admonished her.
“I thought I would get high and forget all about where I was. Not that I would feel like this,” whined Pippa.
“Well there’s only one way you can feel better, and you know what it is.” Nisha wagged a finger at her.
Pippa swallowed, clenched her jaw and crossed her legs with a wince. It must really be awful.
Chapter Thirteen
Beatrice
The rest of the day passed by in a blur. Surprisingly, I couldn’t wait to see Mekvar again. Not to mention I really, really wanted his tongue between my legs again.
The satisfied euphoria of this morning was replaced by an ebbing need the more the day went on. I felt drained, sexually frustrated, and irksome. Seeing Mekvar felt like an actual physical need.
We were gathered in the main dining tent, speaking excitedly of the rescue, when two guards appeared.
“We have to go to the choosing tent now. Maybe it will be your lucky day,” said Nisha, gesturing at Pippa.
Pippa muttered something that sounded like ‘know it all bitch’. We all filed through the tent entrance and walked along the sunset stained pathways until we came to the choosing tent. I tried to follow, but was stopped by a guard at the doorway.
“Not you,” came a rusty voice. “You were already chosen.”
I was in a momentary panic. Of course, I hoped it was Mekvar. But what if someone else managed to choose me? What if he had no power over it?
It was maddening. I had no control over what happened to me and I hated it. I had repeated the same mantra to myself since I was a teenager and was spit out of foster care without adoption and left to fend for myself. I was responsible for my own fate. If I worked hard, I could change my fortunes. I could do anything if I put the time and work into it.