Said aloud, it sounded awful. ‘Keep your head down, okay? If you’re too much trouble they might, you know.’
‘Might what? Get rid of me.’ Her gaze connected with mine. It was angry.
‘Hurt you, yes.’ My heart pounded inside my chest. ‘It’s a lot to throw at you. Sorry. I’m terrified, too. We’ll be fine.’ I was rambling. I paused to refocus. ‘Okay. Do you remember what they told on that self-defence class our first year of university?’
‘Give in if our life was in danger. I remember.’ Eyes misty again, she looked away. She crossed her arms. ‘They told us saying we’re pregnant might startle the attacker into leaving us alone.’
‘These aliens want us for breeding though.’ I dropped my voice, leaned in close. ‘If they think we’re carrying another man’s baby they might try to induce a miscarriage, or, um.’
Words failed me.
‘Kill us,’ she said tone flat.
I jerked a nod.
‘Fine.’ She glanced about. ‘What about everybody else?’ She laughed without humour. ‘I don’t think your suggestion will go over well.’
Chagrined, I took in the hysterical women bouncing off the walls of our cage.
Humans were herd animals. In panic situations, they clustered together. In darkness, they groped for others to cling to. There was strength in numbers. Take humans away from the herd and they got weird. They acted stupid and strived to return to the safety of anonymity. Isolate a human and they lost their minds. All things that were no problem day to day. Except the situation was fucked, and I stood in a room of bleating sheep. Useless except as cannon fodder. I needed to find the wolves amongst the flock.
‘Let’s focus on you and me right now.’
She nodded. ‘We’re not responsible for them.’
‘Not at the moment, no.’
Although, if we got free, it would be a conversation of what we couldn’t live with. If it meant we went free should we sacrifice the other captives?
Cristina inhaled. ‘Indie?’
I gripped her elbow, quick to respond to the desolation in her voice. ‘What is it?’
‘When I was being taken to the ship, I thought I saw…was Babi…he wasn’t moving. He looked….’ Her bottom lip wobbled, eyes red-rimmed and glassy. ‘I know his heart was weak after the bypass.’
I nodded, teeth sinking into my cheek. The sting helped. ‘He’s gone, Cristina.’
‘I’m sorry.’ A choked sob wracked her frame. ‘My parents will come back from Angola and lose their minds.’ The Matthews adored their only child. Her loss would devastate the foreign dignitaries. ‘Sean will barely notice I’m missing.’
I slapped her arm. ‘Don’t.’
‘Ow. It’s time for a reality check. He’s been pulling away for months. I was clinging on.’
‘You never said anything.’
Sean was a manscaped waste of space. Saying so would do nothing but put her back up.
‘I didn’t want to admit I’d wasted the last of my reproductive years on a dud. Embarrassing as it is, I’m the wrong side of thirty. My gynaecologist says my ovaries are prematurely ageing.’ She snuffled a laugh. ‘It’s pathetic. This elder millennial is just old.’
‘You’re thirty one.’
‘See? Ancient. You don’t exist past twenty-five.’
‘Boo hoo. You’re young and hot enough to catch guys like Sean. I know you were trying to make it work.’ I embraced her again. ‘At least you had somebody.’ We broke apart.
She smoothed her palms over her forehead. ‘So, we’re doing as we’re told?’
‘If you think of a better plan, clue me in. I’m floundering here.’
‘Is this happening for real? Or am I on a bad trip?’
I quirked a brow. ‘You’re a drug user now?’
‘No, but get my fine ass back to Earth and I’ll show you drug use. I keep trying to get my head around it. I switch from being certain aliens have abducted me, to being certain I’m hooked to a virtual reality machine. In a bunker. On a drip feeder. Government white-coats taking my stats.’ Her face paled. ‘You looked through a window yet?’
I sucked in a breath.
A window equalled an easy exit. ‘No. Where?’
‘There are slots in the outer corridors covered in material like glass. Indie, I see your face, but when I say window, I should say porthole. Look outside when you find one.’ She shuddered. ‘It’s like nothing I’ve seen before.’
The invisible hatch on the far side of the room materialised and telescoped back.
Silence was instant as the women froze. Almost as one the flock exploded into deafening screams and stampeded.
They fought to put distance between themselves and the giants entering the room.
They jostled Cristina and me. We hugged, and I shouted in her ear. ‘Remember. Don’t fight. I’ll see you again. I will.’
A blue hand landed on her shoulder. Bye, she mouthed as it lifted her up and away.
She remained lax in the giant’s hold, holding my eyes for as long as possible. The seething mass trampling over each other to escape recapture blocked her from my view.
I sank to the floor. I tucked my head down to stop from being kicked and punched in the mayhem.
8
Bhyr
Bhyr strode towards the holding pen where they left the human females for cleansing. His footfalls were faint thuds under the hum rumbling from the deck.
The flagship of the Horde Armada, and his personal vessel, the warship was smaller than a traditional intergalactic battlecruiser. It took a quarter-span to travel from aft to fore at a lope. Its triangular superstructure held three decks and a bridge large enough to seat a single male tucked under the bow. An engine bay sat above the bridge with the cargo hold and terrestrial shuttle bays on the lowest level towards the stern. Mid deck held the warrior’s quarters, bio chamber, isolation cells, female pens and training zones. The upper deck was reserved for warring. They used the ranks of holostations to control the weapons bristling on the ship’s hull.
Since completion of the craft, he’d felt a sense of contentment walking its corridors. It seemed an unconquerable embodiment of Destruction. Vast. Bhyr an inconsequential speck, even whilst seated upon his battle throne. Now the vessel felt unable to contain his body, let alone the sensations within it.
Before liberating his breeder from confinement, Bhyr had monitored her while she sought an escape. Her methodical search devolved into frustration and despair, and a strange sense of unease caused a frisson over his flesh. Humans may be lesser, but they acted superior. The realisation prompted him to change the manner in which he handled her. His original intention had been to let his breeder cleanse herself in his quarters. He would introduce himself as her new master and state the new reality of her existence.
But nothing went to plan.
She’d confounded him, left him conflicted.
His dominance over the human resulted in a scattered response; cowed one moment and defiant the next. Several times he’d broken her of a bad habit. Only to find her engaging in the same behaviour moments later and unaware of his efforts to correct it.
Did the other warriors suffer the same infernal need to rut with their acquisitions? Did they find the human’s despair a hammer blow to the heart?
Was he the only one steeped in disquiet?
Riddled with doubt, he’d abandoned the female to the shared holding pen and paced the confines of his room. The exchange in the isolation cell had unnerved him. He’d needed to allow himself distance before seeing her again and introducing her to his private space.
Gnawing guilt he’d been unable to shake since he first heard his breeder’s voice made his hands shake. A weakness he had not suffered since a youngling. When the time came, he doubted he could retrieve the female and behave in a manner befitting his status.
She needed a strong male to gentle her to his hand, not a fool unable to control his urges.
A span into the separation, th
e fog of pheromones the female emitted during her punishment cleared. He thought with clarity and purpose, not with the craven lump of flesh between his thighs. Next time he issued discipline, there would be no confusing thoughts or yearnings stifling his mastery.
Outside the cleansing pen, pitiful cries bounced off the walls as his warriors collected their property.
He gritted his teeth at the sympathetic tug in his chest.
In fairness, his breeder had not been too difficult.
She acted up only when he refused to answer her questions or endure the weight of her stare. Perhaps he would leave her be even if she spoke out of turn and meet his eyes.
Disciplining her so soon after selection would make his dominion over her seem weak and they were inconsequential things. Not to mention another session so soon after the last might damage her in unknown ways.
‘First.’ Hel Bihter sidestepped into his path.
Bhyr waited.
‘Now that I am unranked, it is not my place, but I urge you to speak with Sah Rahm.’
It was reckless for an unranked male to suggest he question the Second without good cause. However, Bihter had once been Third and not one to make trouble for trouble’s sake. Surely that much had not changed in the male’s sojourn away from the Horde?
‘Speak,’ Bhyr invited at last.
Bihter relaxed a fraction. He matched his stride to Bhyr’s. ‘Rahm took a human.’
There was no reason for Sah Rahm to take a human male. He need not take a female because he’d already mated with an Aztekan female. The deformed breeder had perished along with the spawn.
Regrettable, but the will of Destruction, and therefore to be accepted.
This needs my attention.
Bhyr looked towards the cleansing pen, where his breeder awaited his return.
No harm will befall her.
A longer separation could only do good. He meant to turn away but gestured for Bihter to follow. He located his female crouched against a wall, arms around her head.
‘Come,’ he said.
Expression defiant, she stared at him.
Meeting those dark eyes, Bhyr fell under her spell. He imagined her crawling to him and sliding her slender hands up his thighs. Mouthing his daulm as they thickened….
He made an impatient noise. ‘If I must ask again, it will anger me.’
The female stood and walked around him, giving him a wide birth.
He didn’t care.
As long as she did as he told her, he wouldn’t have to bother himself with her.
The breeding season would be easier to endure.
Bhyr turned and headed towards Rahm’s living quarters. ‘Follow, human.’ He did not wait for whatever annoying sound was to come from her lips.
Bihter stalked beside him.
The human trailed behind as was proper for her gender.
Considering the perverted behaviour he’d seen from the human Ambassador of Zython’s Avatar and the human Queen of Vayhalun, it satisfied him his breeder knew her place.
A gasp echoed along the walls.
Bhyr looked behind to find her rooted in place in front of a viewing port.
The fiery glow of a star they orbited and the orange-green flush of a distant nebula reflected in her staring eyes.
‘Follow!’
She hurried after him.
Wails and screams filled the corridor the closer they drew to Rahm’s quarters.
Those of the Horde closest to the older male in temperament had taken the rooms nearest to him.
The noise didn’t disturb them overmuch.
It disturbed him.
Made him aggravated, though he kept his face neutral.
Bihter was as composed, but the closer they came to the screams, the more fear he sensed from his female. Her teeth chattered. Her laboured breathing coarsened.
Bhyr pounded the side of his fist on the door.
It opened to reveal Rahm’s dour mien. He was a handsome male. His features were sharp and symmetrical, his exoskeleton smooth and bright. ‘First?’
‘You were not to take a human breeder.’ He forbid Horde warriors to take more than one female in a life cycle. It ensured that males did not lose their way and become obsessed with carnal pleasures. ‘Unless you collected it for study?’
Bihter stiffened. ‘Since when are fertile female subjects for experimentation? They are breeders. Not toys.’
Ram snorted. ‘They are not much of anything.’
‘You are unfit.’ Rahm had Challenged and succeeded against the previous Second, Erd Organ, during the outbound voyage to raid Earth. Bihter hated him and made no secret of his contempt. His skull ridges whitened. ‘We do not torture otherworlders for sport.’ He looked at Bhyr. His back straightened with his indignation. ‘First?’
Mouth setting in a thin line, Bhyr turned to the older warrior. ‘You chose a breeder last season. It died. Why have you taken a female of Earth?’
‘You did not say I may not.’ Rahm’s gaze shifted to the side, not able to meet the First’s eye.
He shrugged, acceding it might not have been stated but understood.
‘Many generations waited before choosing human breeders,’ Bhyr said. ‘Generations Sah and Erd were unanimous in choosing breeders from the last of our species’ females.’
‘Their blood was pure, but solars of inbreeding broke their bodies. How is it fair?’ Sah Rahm’s narrow face tightened. ‘Your generation has taken breeders that will give you sons. My generation has nothing.’
Of the Hel generation, only Bhyr and Bihter survived to adulthood. They were of the last strong young to be born to the Horde, Bihter the youngest.
Aside from their generation, there were others who made the difficult decision to wait for a solution. Better than rushing to mate with the decrepit Aztekan females from the breeding farms.
Bhyr was not unwise in his youth. He understood why the elder warriors had felt they had no choice but to further their bloodlines.
Erd generation was amongst the oldest of Horde followed by Sah. Delaying their rut grew painful. Their biological urge was to fill their chosen mate with seed and plant many young. It took tremendous willpower to repress this urge. To redirect the frustration into prayer and war arts, but rut the Erd and Sah had. Time to accept the consequences.
Bhyr did not move, nor soften his stance. He stared until the irate warrior took a step back, shamefaced, and lowered his gaze.
Bhyr considered the unrest that would result from an unclaimed, fertile breeder taken to languish at a farm. A proud warrior again denied the chance of spawn. He would never hear the end of it. If a single Sah disregarded the Law, the rest would demand a return to Earth long before Bhyr planned to go.
‘You will cull the human.’
Flinching, Bihter extended a rough-knuckled hand, as if the motion might stay the human’s fate. ‘First, please–’
‘You can not do that.’ His breeder stepped into his path and blocked it, her expression lit with horror. ‘You can’t murder a woman you stole.’ Her voice was loud in the stunned quiet. ‘She has done nothing to deserve this. Do what’s right and send her home.’ Her fisted hands shook with the force of her passion. ‘You should send all of us home while you’re at it.’
Bhyr schooled his exasperation. Still reluctant to punish her after the last round of discipline, he ignored her tirade, embarrassed, but expecting his warriors to overlook her behaviour.
Instead, he studied the grieved expression Bihter tried to hide. The male had changed so much. Bhyr hardly recognised him as the brother he once favoured above the others.
A thwack split the air.
Bhyr turned to see his female sprawled on the floor. He stiffened. Her face swelled from the force of the blow that took her from her feet.
Rahm towered over her. ‘It must learn its place.’
Bhyr snarled and grabbed the male by the throat. He hefted him up, dropped a knee, and slammed his flabbergasted Second onto the flo
or.
Rahm strained against the hold crushing his airway.
Bhyr infused his grip with his divine grace until his palm burned with energy.
Eyes bulging, bellowing, the male convulsed, fighting the spasms wracking his body.
Bihter shifted to ease his bulk in front of the breeder. He bowed his head and stilled when Bhyr’s wrathful gaze twitched in his direction.
Rahm writhed, trying to worm free.
Bhyr tightened his grip.
Eyes greying from lack of air, the warrior forced himself to lie submissive. ‘F–First.’ He choked. ‘I beg. Forgive.’
‘Touch my female again, and I will tear the limbs from your body. I will beat you to death with them.’ Bhyr flexed his fingers, underling the threat. ‘Do you understand?’
‘Y–Yes.’ Rahm clawed in a breath, body trembling. ‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ Bhyr shoved Rahm so the crown of his head slammed into the wall and rendered him unconscious.
‘Dooon’t.’ His breeder slurred. ‘Don’t hhhurt her.’
The whimpers of a human crying for help drifted from Sah Rahm’s quarters.
Uncoiling from his crouch, Bhyr sliced a hand towards it. ‘Handle it as you deem fitting.’
Bihter nodded as he stepped past the threshold.
Bhyr bent to haul his semi-conscious breeder to her feet. When she lost her footing, he swept her weight into his arms. ‘Already this human causes problems.’
He left Rahm where he lay for all to witness.
Warriors of the Horde stood in the doorways of their rooms and stared. Older faces bore disgruntlement, others acceptance, but approval was plain on most.
They expected a Horde leader to show no weakness.
Bhyr had reaffirmed no one touched what belonged to him without his express permission. He kept his gaze forward and projected an aura of disinterest.
Inside, he winced at the consequences of his actions.
By using a show of force in defence of a human, chosen to be the most exalted and debased breeder or not, he’d made a powerful enemy.
He kept a firm grip on his female and he didn’t slow when she roused from her daze and turned rigid in his hold.
Bhyr Page 7