by Renee Rose
Daneth began explaining them all to Zander, who watched her face as she absorbed it. She tried to keep it blank, but probably didn’t succeed. Her ears burned. Her bottom, which had stopped throbbing, tingled. A loud rushing sound in her ears made their voices sound far away.
“Slave, come here,” Daneth said.
Zander spoke. “Lamira.” It sounded like a correction—to Daneth—and it made something in her chest flutter. Not slave. Lamira.
She rewarded the consideration with obedience, stepping forward, even though she knew what would happen. The doctor, or scientist, or whatever he was, pushed her down over the bench, snapping her wrists and ankles to the legs. She lay naked, with her ass lifted and spread, offered up for punishment.
“It can also be used for the breeding, you see,” Daneth explained, tapping her sex with two fingers.
She wriggled away.
“Oh, this should also be useful during penetration. It may prevent tearing from your larger size.” Daneth roughly smeared something cold and liquid across her folds.
She tightened both holes, straining against her bonds.
“Leave us.” Zander’s voice sounded even deeper than usual.
“Yes, my lord.” She imagined Daneth bowing and backing toward the door.
Her legs trembled on the bench. This was it. He was going to shove his enormous Zandian cock in her virgin hole now. Her hands turned cold and clammy. She gripped the legs of the padded bench so hard her knuckles turned white.
It occurred to her to beg—to plead with the prince, who might not be such a terrible being, to postpone their copulation. But her lips wouldn’t work, tongue didn’t move. She remained silent in the horrible position, offered up to him like the slave she was.
Zander probed her entrance with his finger, rubbing the slick substance around her entrance. He pushed his finger inside.
Her foot jerked, and she sucked in her breath across bared teeth.
“Does that hurt?”
She didn’t answer him. No. It didn’t hurt, but she didn’t want to tell him that. She wanted him to stop, to put her back in the odious cage and leave her alone.
He slapped the back of her thigh, and she yelped. “I asked you a question.”
“I don’t like it,” she said sullenly.
A long silence stretched while he screwed his huge finger inside her. It met her virginal resistance and he paused, going slowly, investigating her interior walls. Her belly fluttered. Heat flooded her sex, flushed out across her skin. Her pussy swelled under his touch, the lubricant spreading with a more pleasing sensation now.
“Your genes, of all those recorded in the Ocreatic galaxy, are predicted to mesh best with mine. I don’t know why—it doesn’t make sense to me how a human could bear the best offspring for me, but that’s what the program says. So neither of us has to like it...but we are going to do it.” There was a steely dominance to the dictate.
It made something pulse deep inside her. She experienced an opening, a yawning of her sexual organs, as if they accepted his words at face value and wanted to oblige.
She didn’t want to oblige, however. This shouldn’t be happening to her. She wasn’t meant for breeding.
“I know you’re small and I’m large. I will do my best not to hurt you.”
“No.” It sounded stronger than she felt. In her mind, it was a whimper. She knew the inevitability of her fate, here.
He slapped one cheek, hard. “You don’t tell me no.” He shifted behind her, the rustle of clothing signaling his disrobing. He rubbed the head of his cock against her entrance.
She twisted to catch a glimpse of it, but, from her position, saw nothing but the chiseled muscles of his bare torso, his strength and power almost shocking. No, it was his sex that shocked her. He pushed it in, wedging the huge organ into her tight channel.
“Oh, oh! No, no no,” she moaned, her teeth clenched.
“Hush, human.”
“Lamira. My name is Lamira, you overgrown alien ape. You think you can—uhn—” she broke off as he bumped her ass with his loins, driving deeper, right up against her resistance. “You think you’re so superior, you can afford to buy any slave you want—oh, oh veck!” He broke her hymen. A brief pain flashed when it tore and then he was deep, filling her with his enormous cock. “No, no, no more.”
He reached around and covered her mouth with his hand, moving in and out of her. His breath rasped behind her, rough and labored.
She bit his finger as hard as she could—hard enough to draw blood.
“Veck!” He yanked out of her.
She thought she’d feel relief, but her body experienced his loss as a disappointment, even though it had been far too much.
He cursed again and then she had a split second of warning from the whistle through the air before something hard and thin struck her across the ass—across both cheeks.
She screamed and looked over her shoulder. He held a wooden stick of some kind, about a half-meter long and five centimeters wide. The whapping sound it made when striking her flesh sounded nearly as loud as her screams. He beat her with it—ten times in rapid succession.
She wailed as if he were killing her. Veck, he might kill her. There was anger and force behind his strokes. Not that she blamed him. She’d certainly inflicted her own damage.
Fortunately, the wooden implement wasn’t that thick. It didn’t pack a wallop like a heavy wooden paddle. She’d been beaten with one of those once at the agrifarm and didn’t want to repeat the experience.
He went still behind her.
She continued to wail, with no semblance of pride now.
“Stop the noise.”
She tensed, waiting to see what happened next. Her ass throbbed, the welts he’d laid stinging like a million pinpricks. Her bottom twitched of its own accord. Her sex pulsed, hot and swollen. Moisture seeped from her slit. It must be his fluids—had he finished?
Vaguely, she was disappointed.
No, flesh slapped audibly behind her, but he wasn’t touching her. Was he...servicing himself?
~.~
It couldn’t have gone worse. He was going to ream Daneth for this idiotic plan. He pumped his cock in his fist, but he’d lost all interest in copulation after the human’s ridiculous wails. Daneth must have made a mistake—Zandians and humans were not sexually compatible. He may have been initially aroused at the sight of her bound and presented for his taking, but not anymore.
He closed his eyes and willed himself to a finish. He would reach the point of climax then enter her one more time to deposit his seed. He didn’t want to endure any more of her cries than necessary to get this finished.
There. Almost there. He gripped her hips and pushed back inside. She grew even wetter than before, more welcoming. Her muscles gripped his cock.
Stars...yes. He shot his load, finishing deep inside her. As soon as it was over, he pulled out and released her from the bonds. The wailing had quieted down to a mewling, panting cacophony.
“Get in your cage.” He was utterly disgusted with her. With himself, too. He should have researched this himself, instead of relying on Daneth’s knowledge. Perhaps there was something he could have done to prepare the delicate human for a Zandian intrusion.
He turned his back on her, listening as she pushed herself to her feet and crawled into the elevated cage.
“Lock cage,” he murmured. “Lights off.” With a sigh, he climbed onto his sleep disk and lay on his back with his fingers interlaced behind his head.
Her breathing still sounded ragged, long terraced inhales she held and then let out with a burst. The scent of her tears hit him. Were they fresh? Or from the spanking he’d given her?
He didn’t think he’d paddled her too hard. The slender wooden implement had packed more of a wallop than his hand, but it was too light to have left anything more than surface bruising.
She sniffed. Yes, she was crying.
He hated the way her tears made him feel—agitated. Cranky.
Veck, he hated all the feelings the foolish little human invoked. He preferred not to feel, in general. Zandians weren’t emotional like humans. He couldn’t have her disrupting his life so much.
Another sniff.
Veckety veck veck.
He climbed out of bed and padded over the hand-woven Ostrion rug to her cage. “Unlock cage.” She flinched when he touched her ankle, but he laid his hands on her anyway, pulling her out of the enclosure and carrying her to his sleep disk.
“Lights on.” He stared down at her.
She blinked, her large green eyes wide and wary. He grasped her wrists and attached the ring on the cuffs over her head to a fastener Daneth had installed.
“No,” she wailed, fresh tears starting up again.
“Hush. I’m checking you for injuries. What hurts?” He parted her legs and peered at her sex.
Most of his seed had spilled out of her, coating her inner thighs with the rainbow-hued semen.
That wasn’t right. Another sign they were incompatible.
“Call Daneth.” He spoke to his processor on the wall.
A hologram of Daneth’s face illuminated, hovering before him. Daneth blinked in his dark room. “My lord?”
“I think I inflicted internal damage. She won’t stop crying.”
Daneth flew out of his sleeping platform. “I’ll be right there.” A few moments later, he knocked and entered.
Lamira shrank from his physician.
“Why is she afraid of you?” he snapped, his agitation not diminishing.
Daneth arched his brows. It wasn’t like Zander to be out of sorts. “I imagine she’s tired of being poked and prodded.”
The scientist clipped her ankles wide and examined her.
Zander gritted his teeth when Daneth probed her sex, although he wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t like it, or her obvious displeasure. “All your seed spilled out of her.”
“I saw that,” he snapped.
Daneth tapped his lips with a forefinger. “I will research it.”
“You’d better. If things don’t improve drastically—” he broke off, not wanting to speak about Lamira’s future in front of her. She might try to thwart his attempts to breed her if she knew how close he was to writing off the whole project.
Daneth completed the exam and flashed images of her vital statistics and internal organs up for him to see the holograms himself. “There’s nothing seriously wrong with her. She shows signs of stress and likely is experiencing some discomfort from punishment and copulation. Nothing serious.”
“Then why is she still crying?”
Daneth shrugged. “It could be emotional pain.”
“Emotional?”
“Yes. Human females are quite sensitive.”
Veck. “So what do we do about that? Nothing?”
He couldn’t read Daneth’s expression. It had better not be amusement. “I will research now, my lord. I will bring you my recommendations in the morning.”
He blew out his breath. “Fine.” He knew he sounded peevish. He was often curt, but not usually so irritable. He was becoming as prickly as his little slave.
“Do you wish me to give her an analgesic for pain?”
He hesitated. If her only pain was from punishment, she deserved to feel that. On the other hand, if it was from losing her human maidenhead, he ought to soothe that wound. “Yes.”
Daneth produced a needle gun and filled it.
“No.” The terror in her voice struck straight through his chest. She rolled against him, cowering.
It shouldn’t anger him to see her afraid of Daneth. He hadn’t hurt her, at least Zander didn’t believe he had. She was foolish—the needle wouldn’t hurt, and the drug was only meant to ease her pain. But she didn’t trust Daneth. Didn’t trust him, either.
“Never mind. She doesn’t want it. You may go, Daneth.”
“I can take her to sleep in the clinic so the crying doesn’t bother you.”
The offer was tempting. She’d already taken up so much of his day, and now she threatened to ruin his sleep, too. But she’d tensed beside him as if the idea frightened her.
“No. I believe she’s finished. If she continues, I will call you.” He gave her a warning glance and swore he saw answering submission in the lowering of her chin.
Daneth left.
“Lights off.” Zander rolled on his side to face the human.
“Thank you,” she whispered in the dark.
Her human eyes couldn’t see him—she blinked in his general direction, but with an unfocused gaze. His eyes worked fine in the dark. It gave him a chance to study her. She looked sweet. Not like the kind of rebellious human who would take a hunk out of his thumb with her teeth.
“Release my wrists...please, my lord?”
He liked her begging. More than he ought to. His horns roughened. “No.”
She’d be likely to attempt murder during the night.
She must have expected that answer because she didn’t protest. “I need to relieve myself,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
Embarrassment colored her skin. “Empty my bladder.”
It might be a trick to get her hands free. But then again, she had eaten and drunk not long ago. He commanded her wrists cuffs to release and turned on the light. “The washroom is there, the door in the corner. You have thirty seconds.”
She scrambled out of bed and ran to the bathroom door, throwing it open. She didn’t bother turning on the light or shutting the door. He heard the sound of her relieving herself and the flush of the waste. She washed and returned, surprising him by holding her wrists back out. He reattached her cuffs to the head of his bed and brushed a lock of her copper hair from her eyes.
She drew in a ragged breath.
Emotional hurt. What in the galactic kingdom did that mean?
“Was the life I took you from so preferable to this one?” His words sounded bitter to his own ears, as if he’d expected her to thank him for buying her and forcing sex until she bore his offspring.
Her green eyes blinked. She had beautiful, long lashes—black as night. “You took me from my mother—the only person in this galaxy who loves me. The only person I love.”
Love. The word grated on him. Love was a foolish human construct. Or, if it existed, it mattered far less than humans believed. Had he ever loved? He cast his mind back to his parents. He didn’t remember loving them or being loved. All he remembered was the pain of losing them, and the majority of his species, on that horrible day the Finn invaded. He had grieved for them for solar cycles. Was that love?
He fingered one of her curls. It was impossibly soft and silky. He wanted to smell it but not while she watched him with those big green eyes.
Had he given her the same grief he’d felt when he escaped the genocide of the Finn and ended up in Ocretia alone? Not alone—he had the whole pod of devoted Zandians, but no family.
His chest tightened in sympathy for her pain. “Do you want me to return you there?” He didn’t know if he would—he couldn’t, really, not until he’d bred her. Still, he held his breath for her answer.
She gazed up at him with those lovely eyes, caught in indecision. Her hesitation was enough. He relaxed.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Why?” he asked, thumbing up the tear that leaked from the corner of her eye and licking it. He loved the taste of her tears almost as much as he disliked her crying. It was a strange paradox.
She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“No, you don’t want me to return you there, or, no, you won’t tell me why you cry?”
“I...I don’t know,” she rasped.
He shook his head. Humans. If he was smart, he’d get rid of this girl as quickly as possible, before she disrupted his entire pod. He sighed. “How long do humans sleep at one time?”
“They only allowed us five hours at the agrifarm. How long do you sleep? My lord?” She tacked the my lord on
to the end. The question was still disrespectful, but at least she was starting to learn to speak with deference.
“I sleep four hours. You may rest as long as you like here.” The longer, the better—she interrupted too much of his work time as it was.
The corners of her lips lifted in a faint smile. “Thank you, my lord.” Her eyes were already drifting closed. He watched her breathing deepen and her muscles relax. She tugged at her wrists in her sleep, her brow furrowing when they didn’t move. She rolled into him, tossing one leg across his hips and making a little cooing sound, like a faint hum.
He smelled his scent on her, her warmth and softness more luxurious than his fine sheets and blankets. His cock hardened again from the contact with her flesh. He ran his fingertip from her bound wrists down her arm and around her small but perky breasts. He traced her nipple. It stiffened and stood up, much like his horns’ reaction to her closeness. He had to rub his horns on her. Careful not to disturb her rest, he leaned up on one elbow and dragged one horn down the length of her torso.
She hummed again, her expression blissful. He loved that tiny smile on her. She was far more pleasant when asleep. He rubbed the other horn around her breast, shuddering at the pleasure of it. He wanted to veck her again. The first time should have been like this—with her lying face up so he could explore her body and watch her expression.
No, she probably still would’ve yelled and bitten him. Hopefully, she’d get used to it soon. When she wasn’t testing his temper with her constant sass, he found her intriguing. Far more fascinating than he’d imagined a human female might be. Complex, yes, and deceitful, not unappealing.
He thought about taking her again. It was his right, after all. She was his slave, chained to his bed. But, no, she’d had enough for one day. He didn’t want to make her cry again. He’d probably have to do plenty of that again in the next planet rotation.
3
She woke alone on Zander’s sleeping platform. She opened her eyes without moving, not wanting to call attention to herself. The fabrics touching her skin were silky soft, finely woven with incredibly intricate patterns in beautiful colors—some she’d never seen before.