She shrank back from them but her confines didn’t allow her to run. They grabbed her, disrobed her, causing tears of humiliation to run down her face. They examined her like she was a horse up for auction, looking over every inch, even in the most secret of places. Scans were done, blood was taken, and after what seemed like hours of torture, they finally had her slip on a white gown that looked as if it had come from the Puritan age.
Then she was led by her Kexian guards to a large holding facility that was nothing short of jail, even though there weren’t bars on the doors. The room they pushed her into had bunk beds jutting from the wall, with a small bathroom that had an opaque partition. A tiny sink in the corner completed the prison cell.
A second later, Logan was pushed into the room and the door closed. She stared at him, tears falling unchecked down her face. He was alive, but how many were not? Leona? Pikon? Willoughbee? Harpo and the others? What about the children she saw kicking around a ball just the other day?
He looked at her with red-rimmed, tortured eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“What?” she said, slightly confused.
But he didn’t say anything else. He simply turned toward the beds, laid on the bottom one, and curled into a fetal position facing the wall. She eyed him, slightly worried, and wondered if the aliens had hurt him.
Except for some dinner brought in several hours later, they were left alone. She wore a path pacing back and forth. She began to count her steps, from the back wall to the cell door, fourteen forward and fourteen back. Eventually, as time progressed, weariness set in even though she couldn’t tell what time it was. She pulled herself up to the top bunk, closed her eyes, and slept.
* * * *
Some time later the door to their confinement opened, shedding light into the room and waking her up. Emmarie blinked and then screamed as a Kexian sentinel grabbed her arm and pulled her from the top bunk.
“Let her go!” Logan yelled, grabbing hold of the guard and pulling fruitlessly on his arm.
The Kexian ignored him and pushed him away. Logan landed with a heap on the ground.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded.
“Medical center,” the Kexian answered in the typical no-nonsense way she’d learned to expect from their race. They were brutish warriors, loving nothing more than a good fight.
She gave a helpless glance at Logan just before she was pulled through the door. The trip back to the medical center seemed shorter than yesterday’s march, but probably because she was familiar with the path. As the door to the room opened, the first person she saw was a dark-skinned Unarian with a long mane of black hair. He stood with shoulders back and hands clasped behind his back, his body a rigid pole of indifference. He gazed down at her with cold, black eyes, so dark she couldn’t see the pupil. Beside him stood the quiet Merloni doctor from yesterday.
The Kexian pushed her and she took a couple of steps forward, coming to stand in front of the Unarian.
“What am I doing here?” she asked. “I’ve already been run though medical tests.”
The Unarian quirked an eyebrow. “My name is Lord Palazio of the First House of Galjani and I am the one who purchased you.”
“And I’m American, born free. I demand that you return me to Sparta.”
Lord Palazio gave a snort. “Sparta is no more.”
Emmarie’s stomach dropped but she refused to let it show. “I will fight you every step of the way,” she whispered. “I will not yield.”
“Not even for the life of your child?” he asked casually.
Confusion rippled through her. “What?”
The Kexian holding her arm forced her to a large device that held several monitors and a large touch screen panel. It was white, cagelike, and he pushed her until she was locked in tight. She couldn’t move her head, her arms, or her legs. All she could do was breathe and glance erratically around. The Merloni doctor pulled a scanner around the cage and clicked it into place. It covered not only her abdomen but the upper part of her chest.
The Merloni doctor turned on the scanner and Emmarie saw a…well, she wasn’t sure what she saw. A crystal clear image of a bean, perhaps, lying on a dark bed.
“That is the child you are carrying,” Lord Palazio stated. “You’re pregnant. And unfortunately, I can not have your pregnancy terminated. Once a human is impregnated by another human, by law the term has to be carried out. So, what does this mean for you? Only that for now you are labeled as a Breeder but after the child is born you’ll be sorted as a Chatelaine, a pleasure slave, and sterilized.”
The words washed over her, barely registering. She hadn’t heard anything past the words you’re pregnant. She wished desperately she could cover her belly with her hands, protect the life that grew within her from the harsh reality that stared at her in the face. Wonderment filled her. Her child, her baby. Pell’s baby. She didn’t know what had happened to him, whether or not he had done what he’d set out to do, but she hopped with everything in her power that he’d come back to her. That he would know they had created life together. That they were now bound by more than words or emotions.
Tears welled up in her eyes as several emotions battled for dominance. Happiness. Fear. Excitement. Apprehension. It was hard to settle on just one.
Palazio gave a grunt of disgust. “You’ll be treated at this medical facility for the remainder of your pregnancy. When the child is delivered, it will be immediately sent to an orphanage on one of the Unarian moons while you will be sent to my house.”
“Don’t you dare touch my child!” she yelled at him.
“I wouldn’t dream of touching a human child. They’re disgusting worms in my opinion.”
He stepped back just as the Merloni began to type something into the scanner. A second later, fire lanced into her chest, right above her heart and she screamed. It seemed to go on and on, white-hot agony that rolled over her until she thought she would pass out. The cage holding her made it impossible to escape whatever it was that they did to her and she screamed anew, a blending of rage, pain, and hatred.
Finally, whatever lance had been applied to her skin was taken away and left her sweating and shaking. The cage was unlocked, opened, and she almost fell into a heap onto the floor. Her Kexian tormentors caught her and she finally looked down at her chest, seeing a symbol had been branded into her skin. Two bars held together by a base. It looked like a half-finished Roman numeral. She was too exhausted to scream again but tears poured down her cheeks.
Palazio stepped forward and she looked from her chest into his dark, sadistically handsome face. “When your status changes, you will receive the last bar.”
“My status?” she managed to ask through a thick voice.
“Your slavery status.”
She stared at him for a moment and then she hawked up what little spit she had and directed it into his face. “I will kill you if you touch me,” she vowed. “I will kill you if you harm my baby.”
He sneered as he wiped the spittle off his cheek. “Right now, with a Breeder station, you’re none of my business. But in ten months’ time you will be my personal Chatelaine and very much my property. So until such time when I can legally discipline you, I’ll have to bid you good-bye, Emmarie Tice. But I will be waiting.”
As he left her behind, she wondered how he knew her name.
Chapter Twenty-One
Logan was waiting for her when she was brought back to the cell. The Kexians pushed her in and she fell into a wounded, painful heap. He helped her up and placed his finger under her chin as he studied her face.
“What’s wrong? Did they hurt you?”
Slowly, she moved the neckline of her dress down to reveal the angry red burn. He stared at the branding in horror.
“Oh my god.”
“You’ll probably get one as well. I guess they denote slavery stations.”
His mouth worked as he tried to formulate something to say. His gaze stayed locked onto the puckered skin u
ntil she self-consciously drew her gown back up to cover the marks. The Merloni doctor had put a clear salve on them that instantly cooled the burns and sealed onto the tender skin.
“I’m guess one bar is labor, two bars are for breeders and three are for the pleasure slaves that Pell had mentioned,” she told him quietly.
“You have two bars,” he stated.
“Because I’m…I’m pregnant already.”
Logan blinked at her as if coming out a foggy dream. “What?”
She put her arms protectively on her belly. “This Unarian man, Lord Palazio, was there and he told me that I was his property but…but he couldn’t claim me until after my baby’s born. So he had me braded with two bars until then.”
“You’re…pregnant?”
“He told me…he told me that they’ll take my baby and then I’ll be sterilized. Become his personal property.”
She barely acknowledged him as he turned away from her.
“I have to get out of here,” she whispered and began inspecting the door. “I can’t let them touch my baby.”
“I can’t believe you’re pregnant,” he said. “When did this happen?”
“Does that really matter? We need to get out of here.”
Logan marched back toward her, shaking his head. “No. No, this does matter. You slept with him? With him?”
“Who I sleep with is none of your business.”
“Of course it is! Don’t you realize I did all this for you?”
Something about that statement made everything inside her body freeze. She turned to look at him cautiously. “What does that mean?”
He hesitated and half turned away. “Nothing.”
“Logan. What did you do for me?”
He ran his hand through his hair, and when he turned to face her, guilt blazed brightly from his eyes. She began to shake her head, suddenly not wanting to hear what he had to say.
“I wanted us to get home,” he said, almost pleadingly. “And staying there, in that…that…mocking city was becoming unbearable. They had me listening for chatter, for god’s sake!”
Her chest constricted and something hard and unyielding settled into the pit of her stomach. “What did you do, Logan?”
He tried to take her hand but she snatched it back.
“I was thinking of us,” he said. “I was thinking of a way for us to see Earth again. You were getting way too close to that…that captain so I had to—”
She slapped him across the face. “You did this out of jealousy?”
He brought his hand up to the hot area on his cheek. “I only wanted to go home,” he whispered.
“There is no more home,” she told him, and couldn’t help a sob that caught in her throat. “You betrayed all of them because I chose Pell over you?”
“Emmarie,” he said, reaching out as if he were going to touch her. She knocked his hand away.
“Get away from me! I had thought of you as a protector, as my friend. And you failed both.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” he said.
“I don’t want you to make it up to me,” she cried.
“Then I’ll make it up to the people of Sparta.”
She turned away from him and slunk down to the door, wrapping her arms around her knees and burying her face in the curve of her arm. Hiding, she let the tears fall, for the people of Sparta and especially, for herself. The loss of Pell hollowed her out. She ached so bad she felt like she wanted to curl up and bury her head.
She’d been sixteen when her parents had died in a car accident coming home from a restaurant celebrating their anniversary. The police had told her that her usually steadfast parents had imbibed.
They never felt the impact with the tree.
At sixteen, Emmarie Tice had become an emancipated minor because there wasn’t anyone else. No siblings, no aunts or uncles, no cousins or grandparents. She’d been alone then just like she was alone now.
Except, she wasn’t exactly alone. She was going to be a mother. The scars on her body were nothing compared to the idea that life grew within her, that Pell’s baby nestled in her womb. This changed everything and she made a silent vow to protect her baby, no matter what.
Chapter Twenty-Two
For the next two days, or what she could determine was forty-eight hours passing, she and Logan did not talk. She knew he wanted to, could feel it every time he turned her way, but she simply could not comprehend how he could be so callous and petty. He’d betrayed everyone…for her. How could she look them in the eye?
Providing she ever saw them again. Again and again she examined the room, looking for some type of inspiration on how to escape. Were others in cells next to her, waiting for rescue, just like she was?
It disheartened her and threatened to overwhelm her with depression. She hadn’t been given a choice to come to this section of the universe, so far from the planet she’d been born on. She’d never see dogwood trees again, never see the blue sky littered with wispy clouds, or birds soaring high. She’d never see the town of Claring or work with Sam Burnowski again.
Emmarie spent a good long while mourning what she’d never before mourned when she first found herself in the Amarante System. She hadn’t let herself properly cry for the loss of…of everything. But even through her sadness, she recognized that Earth was no longer her home.
All her life she’d waited for someone to rescue her, someone to help her find a place to belong. It took being abducted by aliens, enslaved by psychotic monsters, branded like cattle, and betrayed by a friend to realize she’d only needed to rely on herself. She loved Pell, nestled his baby in her womb, but she was ultimately responsible not only for her own life but that of her child.
She’d found purpose in Sparta, singing her songs and telling her stories to the people who seemed confused, scared, and without purpose. Sometimes the authorities in charge of a rebellion were blind to the needs of those who didn’t understand or couldn’t grasp the concept of fighting for freedom. People who were slaves only wanted to treasure being free, frightened of going back to the place that had beaten them down.
Emmarie liked to think that her stories and songs had given them hope, let them know they weren’t alone in their dark struggles.
Only now, sitting in her cell, did she realize they must think she betrayed them, relating happy endings when none could be had for themselves. It was enough to cripple her, and so she spent the third day lying in bed, pretending sleep. She didn’t want to face the man who had brought her so low.
Instead, she let her mind wander to Pell. How his kisses were addicting. How it felt when his body covered hers. Lips to lips, chest to chest, like a key sliding into a lock and fitting perfectly. She could almost feel his hard cock thrust into her, filling her and making her complete.
He would possess her, moving his body with a rhythm so old it predated time. She would wrap her legs around his waist as he plunged deep within her, over and over in a cadence so fine it had been woven from silken threads.
Pell knew the places that made her come undone. She yearned to touch herself now, rub her clit until the crest broke over her and swept her away upon the crashing waves. But she couldn’t, not with Logan there.
She didn’t even look at him as she began to hear odd, muted sounds. She was lost in her fantasy of Pell, her arousal sharp and almost pungent on her tongue. But when he let out a low curse, curiosity got the better of her and she turned over. That’s when she saw a whole panel had been removed from the wall next to the door, all the wires lay exposed and Logan sat in the middle of the mess.
“What are you doing?” she asked, shocked.
“I’m getting us out of here,” he replied, not looking at her. He was rooting around for something in the pile of electronics around him.
“What? How? You’re not an electrician.”
He shot her a dark look. “No, but I can read their language. Much of this seems to be just like wiring a house, with basic words designating what is wha
t.”
She sat up, excitement gripping her. “And you understand how to wire a house?”
“No, of course not, but I once watched this video on how a man had set up a security system where all he had to do was text a command to unlock his door. Genius really, working off a mini web server, an Ethernet cable and power, of course. It made me begin to think about how I could rig something similar with a backwash of—”
“You lost me at web server,” she interrupted, holding up a hand. “You can get us out?”
“I can do more than that,” he said and pointed to the panel. “I found a motherboard in the wall that opens all the cell doors and I’m hoping to give anyone else who’s in here a fighting chance to escape.”
For the first time in days, elation soared through her. But then reality came crashing through.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Aren’t we on a spaceship? How do we get off?”
“I know where the escape pods are,” he answered. “I saw them when I was brought on board.”
“We’ll go back to Sparta?”
“We’ll go where you’ll be safe,” he told her quietly. “Where you and your baby will be safe.”
Her hand rested on her belly.
“I messed up,” he continued. “I made a horrible mistake, Emmarie. But I promise that I will take care of you and your baby.”
“And the people of Sparta?”
A pained expression crossed his face. “I’m no better than Benedict Arnold. He felt slighted and cheated so decided to change sides during the American Revolution with a plot to turn over West Point to the British. He escaped capture by fleeing to the enemy. I refuse to be known like that.”
“But you did exactly that,” she reminded him.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I know. I didn’t think things through. All I was concerned about was getting home.”
“This is our home!”
“I had hope!” he yelled back. “Yes, I was selfish and spoiled and stupid! And I will make it up to you, to them! I promise, Emmarie.”
Star Mates (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 11