by A. G. Wilde
It was excitement.
“Can I have one?” she lowered her voice to a whisper.
Cleo glanced at the female and back to the weapons.
She’d only have two wooden shivs and her metal blade. Not nearly enough if she was going to stab her way out of there but having an ally was probably even better.
A glance at the other females still huddled together made her press her lips into a thin line.
If they stood a chance, they’d all have to fight their way out. Each and every one of them.
“Why do you want one? I thought you were all doing this for your people.”
Lee-yunna’s eyes fell. “We are.”
Cleo studied the female and watched her shoulders slump.
“We are, but I don’t want to.” Lee-yunna met her gaze. “You said you were free before…what was that like?”
It was an unexpected question and Cleo studied the female some more.
“I was living in the wilderness doing my own thing. I got up when I wanted to, hunted when I wanted to, ate when I wanted to. I had fresh air. Fresh food. A nice place to lay my head. And someone…” Her voice broke and she took a moment before going back to sharpening the shivs once more.
“Someone what?” Lee-yunna pressed.
Cleo took a moment before answering. Meeting Lee-yunna’s gaze, she spoke. “Someone who loved me.”
Someone who loved her, and she wasn’t ready to let him go.
He was alive. She wouldn’t believe that he’d died that night and as long as she breathed, she was going to fight to be with him.
She wasn’t ready to let him go.
Not yet.
Not ever.
“I don’t know what that feels like,” Lee-yunna finally said.
“What?” Cleo blinked, bringing her thoughts back to the present.
“Love.”
The alien female looked genuinely saddened by this and it tugged at something within her.
“Look,” Cleo said, thrusting one of the wooden shivs toward Lee-yunna. “Take this. I don’t know how or if you’ll use it, but it’s better to have it than not to.”
Lee-yunna blinked at the shiv before she threw herself at Cleo, placing her hand against Cleo’s forehead firmly.
Cleo blinked, wide-eyed and not sure what to make of the gesture.
“Thank you,” Lee-yunna breathed. “Thank you so much.”
As the female released her, Cleo nodded, looking away.
“We have to get ready soon,” Lee-yunna murmured. “For the auction.”
“How do you know?”
“I heard the guards murmuring when they came in to feed us. They will return today to…make us beautiful for the masters.”
The words made Cleo’s stomach turn and, like a bad omen, there was a sound in the terrarium and exclamations from the other women.
Hurriedly stuffing the shiv and blade behind the tree, Cleo stepped from beneath the blossoms.
It was the gator-guards.
She didn’t need Lee-yunna to tell her. She knew it herself.
It was time.
30
Phek.
He was an idiot for doing what he was doing.
It could get him killed.
Sector 89 was reserved only for high-ranking beings on the top class of Hudo III’s society.
The Tasqals.
Taking Wawa off his shoulder, he looked into the slizz’s eyes.
They were in an alley, just before the entrance to the sector.
It had taken him what felt like forever to find intel on the stronghold and he had almost run out of days to do so.
Luckily, with Wawa by his side, threatening disreputable beings was a lot easier than if he was doing so on his own.
Still, no one wanted to cross the Tasqals.
Through extensive measures, he’d gotten enough intel that he was confident he could get into the sector and out of it alive, possibly.
He’d just have to rely on luck for that last part.
Tall, flat walls of gray rose into the air around them, telling him that he was in the right place.
It was rumored that Sector 89 went underground and that the structures on top were only for show.
Well, he was about to find out.
“You have to stay here,” he whispered and Wawa gave him a dirty look. How the animal managed to do that, he didn’t even know. “I can’t take you in with me. You’d give away my cover immediately.”
The animal made a sound in its throat while still giving him a dirty look.
“Oh, Riv is going to love you.” Sohut smiled a little, before letting a huge sigh leave his body.
“This is it,” he said more to himself than to the stinky little animal in his presence.
Stepping out of the alleyway, he pressed the distorter on his arm and felt the little zing as his image was distorted to that of the life form he chose.
A Hedgerud fighter.
Turning, he made to say goodbye to the slizz but realized Wawa was no longer there.
Cursing underneath his breath, he looked around for the little animal, but he couldn’t see where it had gone.
Phek.
But now wasn’t the time to try and find the thing. He might be late enough as it is.
As he headed toward the doors of the sector, he swallowed hard. This better work.
The large gray doors stood before him, dwarfing him in their magnificence.
“Fighter, state your code.”
It was a crackle that came through the wall. He couldn’t even see the speaker that it came from.
Sohut gulped.
He’d beat as much information as he could from the Gori’s and the thought he was placing his confidence in what they’d told him was making him feel sick.
“Code 9808 under His Excellency Tormud.”
All he needed was the right code and the right name.
It was lax security…but who was mad enough to do what he was doing?
No one.
No one dared to get in the way of the Tasqals.
It was a death sentence, quite literally.
There was a pause on the other side of the doors and for a second, he wondered if his plan was blown but the door began to slide open.
They were huge, yet they made no sound and soon, right in front of him was a long, brightly lit corridor.
Pristine white walls were on either side, and the lights themselves looked as if they were shining through crystals.
Sohut’s life organ skipped a beat.
This was definitely Tasqal territory.
They had a strange obsession with white and crystals…an obsession with purity even though they were so filled with impurity themselves.
As he walked through the open doors, he glanced up at the Hedgerud fighter on a platform above him.
The fighter jerked his head in greeting and Sohut mimicked the movement before continuing to walk forward.
A discreet glance behind him told him the doors were closing again.
As he walked, he kept his head slightly down and his gaze forward as two more guards came up the corridor.
They were mumbling to themselves and he hoped they wouldn’t speak to him. But apart from jerking their heads in his direction in greeting, they said nothing.
So far, so good.
The corridor was leading downward and he realized the rumors must be true.
Sector 89 was a stronghold built underground.
It didn’t take long before the ground leveled out and Sohut found himself in front of another set of doors.
These ones opened without needing a code and as Sohut stepped through them, he shuddered.
There were Tasqals and Hedgerud fighters everywhere.
His mortal enemies.
It was a—Sohut stopped moving, not believing what he was seeing—a sort of pleasure center.
There were chained soephrims playing stringed instruments in different parts of the room and lounging on raised platform
s were Tasqals, male and female alike, getting…pleasured.
His stomach turned at the sight and with that feeling followed a fear he never knew he could feel.
His eyes darted across the space, looking at the beings pleasuring the Tasqals…looking but not wanting to see a female with hair like zimsu flowers.
Clee-yo.
As his life organ beat in his throat, he didn’t realize a Hedgerud fighter had approached him.
“You look ill, comrade. Did you eat the klee shells too?”
Sohut blinked.
Phek.
“Klee shells?”
The Hedgerud’s yellow eyes narrowed, and for a second Sohut wondered if he’d just blown his cover with that simple question.
“You must be new,” the Hedgerud said. “Hired for the auction later today?”
The auction.
So, he wasn’t late then.
Sohut’s shoulders slumped a little with relief.
“The auction,” he answered. “Yes.”
“That way,” the Hedgerud motioned in the direction off to the side and Sohut saw a dark corridor leading from the room. “Your master will be looking for you.”
Without another word, the fighter walked away and Sohut made his way in the direction that was pointed out to him.
It couldn’t be this easy.
Something was bound to go terribly wrong.
Unlike the pleasure room, this corridor was dark and led even farther down into the stronghold.
It opened into a dimly lit room, so dim it took his gaze a few moments to adjust.
There were Tasqals everywhere, though these ones were clothed. They were moving around, looking at displays set into the walls and at first, he couldn’t see what was inside the displays.
It was not till one of the Tasqals moved that his eyes caught sight of a creature he’d never seen before. It was Merssi-like, except it had four arms and what looked like wings.
The auction.
These were the beings being auctioned.
Clee-yo.
Her name sounded so loud in his head, he worried that he’d said it out loud.
Moving swiftly but carefully so as not to draw attention to himself, he moved toward the displays, his eyes searching desperately for a hint of his female.
And he found her.
At least, he thought he did.
It was a display with a garden and on the other side were females that looked Merssi except for their skin coloring and heads.
There were about six of them…but no Clee-yo.
His life organ fell.
He was about to move away when his eyes caught movement underneath a large tree off to the side of the display.
Moving closer, he peered in just as a female stepped from underneath the blossoms.
She was…gorgeous.
Pale skin. Long legs. Hair like zimsu flowers.
This time his life organ leaped inside him.
Clee-yo.
But she looked different.
Her hair shone as if it had recently been washed with softening products and she was wearing a see-through shimmering gown that stopped mid-thigh.
His life organ crashed then beamed.
His gnora.
She was alive and well.
Beside him, he could hear the excited grunts of the Tasqals gathered in front of the display.
The sound of them almost had his claws protracting right there to rip their throats out.
Their attention was on his gnora. Clee-yo.
It was no wonder she’d been hiding under the tree.
She was obviously sought after by the brutes.
As she moved toward the transparent barrier, she was frowning at the Tasqals gathered at the display when her gaze fell on him.
Without realizing what he was doing, he reached out and placed his hand, now claw, against the transparent surface.
For a moment, she just stared at him before her frown became confused and she knelt before him.
She stared at him for a few moments and even though he knew that to her, he looked like the enemy, he hoped something in his eyes could let her know she was not alone.
That he was there to save her.
That he would get her out of this.
She must have seen something, because the confusion grew in her eyes before she stood again, her gaze still on him.
In the next moment, her head snapped to the side, her eyes widening before she stood and darted back under the tree.
Confused as well, it took him a moment to realize Hedgerud fighters had entered the terrarium.
They were pulling the other females not so gently toward the door they’d entered through while, on his side of the barrier, the Tasqals and their guards were moving.
Showtime.
Yet, he couldn’t leave the spot till he saw that Clee-yo was okay.
In the next second, she came from underneath the blossoms, her arms folded across her chest and a glimmer in her eyes.
He knew that look.
She was planning something.
His claw pressed against the transparent barrier as she walked bravely toward the guard, not even flinching when the beast took her roughly by the shoulder.
He was going to snap that guard’s arm and pull it from his body as soon as he had the chance.
Stepping into the shadows, Sohut activated the distorter on his arm once more, changing forms. Before his eyes, his arms changed to those of a Tasqal and he knew the distortion of the rest of his image was complete.
To everybody else, he would look like one of the awful elite.
This was it.
Clee-yo was ready to fight, and so was he.
31
Cleo gripped her lucky piece of metal and the shiv underneath each arm as she was led from the terrarium.
Her entire survival depended on what she did in the next few moments.
And she was going to survive.
She had to keep telling herself that.
Swallowing hard, she glanced back at the fairy garden before her gaze fell on the gator-guard who was still at the transparent barrier.
He was still watching her, and her heart lurched again like the first time she’d noticed him.
She didn’t know what it was and she couldn’t explain it, but he made her feel strange. She’d almost put her hand against his claw as it had pressed against the glass.
Apparently, she was starting to go crazy after all the many days spent in captivity.
That’s why she had to keep repeating to herself that she was going to survive.
She could do it.
She had to.
It was either that, or lose her mind.
As the gator-guard pulled her roughly along, she didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her fear, even though it was crawling all over her spine.
It also came to her that she was alone with the guard.
The other females were nowhere to be seen and soon she was pushed into a small dark room that was flooded with a red light. To her back were dark walls and to her front was another transparent wall of glass.
The room wasn’t much larger than a small bathroom and she immediately began to feel claustrophobic.
To boot, the thing around her neck felt like it was squeezing her tight whenever she had any intense emotions like this.
Gulping, she turned her gaze to the front of the room and what she saw on the other side chilled her completely.
Five or maybe six of the toad-men, the Tasqals she’d come to learn they were called, were sitting there.
They all looked similar, all dressed in white robes, but the one thing that was most creepy about them was the sleazy smiles they all had on their faces.
All except one.
He was sitting at the back, and for some reason, her gaze gravitated toward him.
He wasn’t smiling like the others and even though he was focused on her like all the others were, his gaze seemed different.
She was
n’t sure if that was a good or bad thing yet. For all she knew, he could be the crudest of them all.
Behind her, the door to the room closed and she was left alone.
“Specimen: human,” a robotic voice boomed.
Wait.
Panic flooded her.
It was starting already?
“Age: estimated at twenty and a half orbits,” it continued. “Warranty: none. Estimated life cycle: thirty rotations with hard usage.”
Cleo swallowed hard as the horror of the last words reached her bones.
Was it saying that if they treated her roughly, she’d only last a month?
As her gaze focused back on the beasts in front of her, it took everything within her not to take a step backward.
“Let the auction begin,” the robotic voice announced.
As the beasts in front of her began raising glowing blue cards, one by one, she did take a step back.
Her breath deafened her ears with every inhale and exhale as she watched the cards move.
Bidding.
They were bidding on her life.
And she had no control over it. Gripping the weapons she still held underneath her arms, Cleo focused on controlling her breathing.
Focus.
Restraint.
She couldn’t let her emotions, her fear, mess up any opportunity she had to escape this.
As she stared across the room through the transparent wall in front of her, she saw that the group of aliens bidding was becoming more frenzied.
She couldn’t read the currency they were using on the cards but it was obvious tensions were getting heated as the cards were being lifted at an increasing pace, almost as if the bidding war was getting tense.
Off to the corner, that same toad-man she’d noticed before was still staring at her with the serious expression he’d had when she’d walked in…only now, his seriousness seemed to be slowly transforming into utter rage.
He must be losing then.
That made her gaze drift over the others, trying to determine which one was winning the bid.
Her gaze landed on one in the center—a huge male with a curious scar over one eye. Its other dark eye focused on hers, unblinking.
As soon as it realized she was looking at it, a slow smile spread its lips and Cleo resisted the urge to puke.
It lifted its hand slowly. There was a blue card between its fingers that suddenly turned red as he held it in the air.