by C. R. Jane
“Want a repeat of last time, pet?” he warned, and I recoiled back against Derrial.
“That’s what I thought,” Thane said.
“Three miles,” Corran added, scrolling through another screen that showed an incoming convoy of trucks going down a road.
“It’s time to go to sleep now,” Derrial said to me as he stroked the side of my face almost lovingly. I stared up at him, trying to read his eyes until I spotted Corran approaching with a silver device in his hands. It was one that I knew would make me pass out.
“No,” I begged as I began to thrash. Derrial just made a shhhing sound and held me tight. Only a second passed before I felt the small sting on the side of my neck signalling that Corran’s device has arrived.
“I hate you,” I whispered as my eyes immediately started to droop.
The last thing I saw were Derrial’s piercing blue eyes, full of what looked strangely like regret.
Chapter 2
I woke with a scream on my lips and I jolted upright. Squinting against the bright yellow light, a strange room with four barren walls came into view. No furniture, no windows, no door. Panic clawed at my chest as I shoved off the floor and recoiled until I hit a wall. I didn’t recognize this room. Breaths didn’t come quick enough. Left and right, I scanned for a way out, for anything that looked familiar, for lines in the walls for a door.
The last thing I remembered was being carried into the black spacecraft, enemies closing in, and Corran jabbing me with something, then I passed out. So where was I now?
My stomach tightened, and all I could think was that the Vepar had played me, and I foolishly believed them after everyone had warned me about catching their attention. Well, I’d done that royally. And now look at me? I was stuck in hell.
“Hello!” My voice seemed to echo, but it went nowhere. “Thane, Corran, Derrial, where am I? Can I come out now?”
The scream in my lungs rushed past my lips, a desperate call for them to hear me, to come for me.
Still nothing.
You're special, Ella. Thane’s earlier words circled in my mind. They hounded me.
Being special in the eyes of the Vepar came with consequences, and I could see them now, clearer than I had before. They were monsters who tricked me.
I frantically checked the walls, running my hands over their smooth surface for a way out. But I knew the truth. They’d covered all potential escape routes, perfected the art of capture and like before, they had no plans on letting me escape. The reality crashed through me… I was trapped. Locked somewhere.
Under their control.
And I hated them for it…
Stumbling away, dread ripped across my chest. My knees hit the ground, and I dropped my face into my hands. A heady blackness swallowed me, and fear choked me. I cried, letting the despair rip through me. I cried for losing my home, for being lied to, for the past I could never take back.
I couldn’t remember how long I wept or waited in that room, but when a mechanical beep chimed, I tilted my head up and wiped my eyes.
The wall in front of me shimmered, and with a small popping sound, two doors slid open in the middle of the wall with a swooshing sound.
Corran strode inside, dressed in black pants and a matching long-sleeve top.
My gaze swept to my escape, to the dark room behind him which vanished in seconds as the doors shut. How long had I been closed up for?
“Is this your spaceship?” I asked, hating the pleading in my voice. Dread spiked in my chest, and I fought against every instinct to run to him and beg him to release me.
The lead scientist studied me, his eyes always reminding me of warm caramel. His thick hair, the color of mahogany, was tucked behind his ears. The black-framed glasses he wore gave him a sexy teacher look, and I shouldn’t have admired him, but I had already stepped forward like his very presence controlled me.
I tried to shake those feelings away because I couldn’t… wouldn’t keep falling for them while they had just stolen my life from me. So I stood my ground and tilted my head up to meet his deep, captivating gaze.
“Tell me where I am,” I demanded, my voice stronger this time.
“You’re safe,” he murmured, stepping closer, studying me like he always did... Me as the experiment that intrigued him.
“I doubt that. Since you three came into my life, I’ve been anything but safe. The Khonsu never would have tortured me or put me on their radar if it wasn’t for you. I would still have my new job at--”
“They would have found you eventually. We saved you.” He moved closer, and I recoiled from his reach.
“Huh, you call it saving, I call it kidnapping.”
“On our planet, Veon, you’d be honored to have us claim you because there are many females who’d kill to take your place.” He said arrogantly, his voice darkened like I should be thanking him… On Earth, Corran would be runway-model material, the hunk on the cover of magazines, and the man every woman fantasized about. Except, many people said their beauty came from the disguises they used to conceal their real appearances, and it intrigued me what they hid behind their masks.
“Well, we’re not on your planet, we’re on Earth,” I snapped. “Without your interference, I could have had a normal, simple, safe life.”
He closed the distance between us in three long steps, shadows dancing under his eyes, the wrinkle across his nose having nothing to do with an oncoming sneeze.
I moved backward, and my spine pressed against the wall.
“You don’t listen,” he growled, hard muscles flexing with his every move.
I should have been terrified, screamed for help, except my body was alive and on fire around him.
“I’m special, I get it. The Khonsu aliens want me so they can continue draining me for themselves, rather than you and your friends doing it, right?” I held my chin high, trying to show him I wouldn’t be pushed around, finding confidence I never knew I had.
He braced a hand on the wall over my shoulder, his body pinning me in place, not saying a word but staring at me.
Something about their presence affected me when I stood too close to them. I loathed that their dominance and controlling ways turned me on when it never should.
“I...is t...that all I am to you,” I asked, lowering my voice, remembering the times I’d spent with him and enjoyed, believing he cared for me… truly cared. But I’d been mistaken. “Someone to please you?”
He leaned down and his lips brushed the skin beneath my earlobe. Soft and tender, the opposite of the way he held me in place. “I’ll never hurt you.”
His words left me shaking, a moan pushing on the back of my throat, and all I could focus on was his body against mine, the swell of his chest, the inferno raging inside me.
“You need to trust me,” he murmured and leaned closer, his lips grazing mine. His mouth pressed harder against mine, kissing me with a fever I never imagined. A light pinch pierced my lower lip, and I pulled back.
“Ouch.”
Corran was licking the drop of red blood… the blood he’d drawn from my lips.
His kiss had been electric, and I almost believed him… almost fell for his hypnotizing words… almost let myself feel something other than fear. But he wanted me to lower my defenses.
When darkness curled behind his eyes, alarm bells blared in my head. I pulled away from him, jerking free from his grasp, and recoiled.
He turned on me so fast, I didn’t see him take the syringe from his pocket until it was too late.
A firm hand caught my wrist in a flash, and I was wrenched toward him. I dug my heels as I twisted to pull away. Intensity rippled over my flesh, and I screamed, struggling against him...but it was useless. I shot a leg out to strike him but missed him.
“Corran, please don’t do this. Please,” I cried, fighting to wrench my arm from his grip, but I might as well have been trying to break free from a mountain.
My heart was pounding and dread was closing in. “Don’t
do this. I don’t want to be a baby incubator. Please.” My voice quivered, and I drove my fist into his chest, over and over. Hitting with all my might.
“Ella, please trust me. I don’t want to hurt you,” he kept saying those damn words but I couldn’t think of anything else but escape, my eyes gliding up to the syringe in his left hand.
My breaths grew ragged and rash, and I kicked him again, this time in the shin. His grip softened, and I ripped free before running to the wall where the doors had been earlier.
A cry fell from my lips, and my hands searched for the door, hitting the wall for an escape.
Come on, come on, damn you.
A sudden gush of pain pierced the side of my neck and agony shuddered through me. It hit me so fast, I didn’t remember falling back or landing in Corran’s arms.
“W-what d-did y-you do?” I whimpered.
Heaviness darkened his eyes… but I saw something else behind his gaze… sorrow. “I’m sorry, little bird. We can’t lose you.”
Shadows crowded the corners of my eyes, and the next thing I knew, I was falling into an endless pit of darkness, my world vanishing.
Chapter 3
This seemed to be a habit, waking up in an unfamiliar place. I groggily came out of whatever Corran had done to me, whatever he’d jabbed into me. I stretched, and I was pleasantly surprised I could move freely. They hadn’t chained me up. But instead of the floor, I lay in bed. The only piece of furniture in the room.
I stood up on shaky legs, my head swimming from whatever ran through my body. Looking around the room, I was shocked to see that there was an opening in the wall, unattended.
It felt like a trick. But I was done being stuck in small rooms and needed air and open space to shake this claustrophobic feeling gripping me.
I clung to that thread of hope I’d find a way out of this mess and pressed forward in hurried steps out of the room. Light illuminated my passage along a long hallway, walls made of black like the previous ship I’d been with Corran. But this was different. Loftier and wider, and I had no doubt I was in over my head because this had to be their main vessel they’d used to come to Earth. But why were we hiding in here?
My steps quickened as panic clawed across my chest with the notion that we weren’t hiding in here at all, and I couldn’t… wouldn’t even think about that possibility.
No windows graced the walls, and at the end of the corridor, two doors slid open upon my approach.
I flinched in response, but when my gaze swept inside, I shuddered on the spot, my mouth dropping open.
A long room spread out before me… the room that I had seen when I was first brought on. Now that I was lucid, I could see that it was a Bridge room on a spaceship to be precise. A darkened window stretched over the far wall with two seats facing the window, reminding me of the captain’s chair in science fiction movies. A four seater bench lined the long side of the area, while monitors and numerous controls covered the opposite wall.
Corran stepped out from the shadowy corner, holding some kind of tool that resembled a wrench and looked up to find me. He smiled.
“How are you feeling?” He set the metal tool on a seat and strode toward me. Dressed in black pants and a V-neck shirt with long sleeves, I noted the golden insignia over his heart of two golden circles overlapping… that middle section was black and reminded me of an eclipse.
“What did you inject in me? Where are we?”
A corner of his mouth curled upward as he pushed his glasses to sit on top of his head. His caramel eyes smiled at me with a cheekiness I wasn’t expecting. “A little something to help you breathe outside of The Brig. Our environmental systems are down, and oxygen was only available in the holding room.”
“That’s why you locked me in there?” I raised my voice. “Then why the hell didn’t you just tell me, and why did you jam a needle in my neck?”
“Because you would have panicked.” He remained so calm, still smirking, while I burned up on the inside, tangled in a mix of anger and frustration.
“I did panic! You came at me with a syringe.”
“Oxygen levels were running low and I needed more time to fix up the regulators. Plus it gave me the perfect chance to trial the throat ring.” He studied me like a specimen. “How are you feeling?”
My hand instinctively reached for my neck, half expecting to find a collar. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a small device that looks like a ring and sit in your throat esophagus. The ring gives you oxygen and eliminates other gases you inhale. Now, you can walk around the ship freely.”
I blinked hard, and my brain stuttered for a while. “Y-you operated on me?”
He took a gulp of his coffee before setting it aside like it tasted bad. “It’s a non intrusive quick implant. Either that or you would have died.”
He reached out and took my hand in his, his face softening, but I pulled free from his grasp. I kept swallowing, convinced I felt the ring in my throat now. My lungs seemed to close up and I couldn’t take enough air into them.
“I don’t want your alien technology inside me.”
His lips pursed. “Come with me.” He marched past me and down the short hallway, then turned right through a set of doors that slid open at his approach.
I stood in the doorway, scanning the white room, the long table and chairs located in the middle, and eyed the panel of buttons on the rear wall. Everything looked pristine and almost too clinical.
“Take a seat,” he commanded.
“No thanks. I don’t want another injection.”
“Sit!” he boomed and crossed the room before jabbing the control panel.
Seconds later, the whole wall seemed to vibrate, and I held my breath, unsure what was going on. But in a heartbeat the bottom half jutted out of the wall and a whole kitchen counter with cabinets and appliances appeared.
Corran pressed a button on the coffee machine and reached for the ground beans.
“This is a kitchen? And why do you have human stuff in here?” I stepped into the room and slid into a chair, watching him make two cups of coffee.
When he returned and placed a cup in front of me, he sat across from me. “I ordered them and set up this whole kitchen for you with foods you enjoy.”
“Why would you think I’d ever come into your spaceship?” I picked up my mug and inhaled the nutty aroma before sipping it.
“You ask a lot of questions. And Reaver SC is a space cruiser.”
I didn’t know where to begin because my head spun with everything of late.
“You’re safe now,” he murmured. “That’s what matters.”
“Stop saying that.”
Something behind his eyes shifted. Gone was the smile and patience.
But I’d had enough of being shoved here and there without explanation.
“Our compound on Earth was compromised and the Khonsu found you. They were coming to take you as theirs, so we left in our ship.”
“And where are we now? I want to see my friends.”
He was on his feet, shaking his head. “You know that’s not possible.”
Just hearing the words left me shaking, and my throat thickened, but then I fingered my neck, wondering if I’d choke on the ring inside me.
“Let me show you something that might answer your questions.”
I climbed to my feet and took my cup of coffee with me, cradling it in my hands because each time I inhaled it’s aroma, it reminded me of home.
In the narrow hallway, we passed several doors, and he stopped outside one. He tapped something into the keypad and the door zipped upward, vanishing into the wall.
“This is your cabin.”
I peered inside to find a bed that looked like mine back home along with a bedside table, lamp, and even a bookshelf filled with books.
“The Mess Hall is stocked with all kinds of food for you, but come, I need to show you something in the Bridge.”
I tracked after him into the main c
ontrol room, closer to the enormous black window. Corran pointed to it. “What do you see?”
“Blackness,” I retorted.
“Look again and closer,” he insisted.
So I turned and stared into the eerie darkness, when I caught something blinking in the distance… tiny and far, but I leaned closer, squinting.
“This might help.” Corran suggested and hit a button, the lights in the room fading.
The view outside of me changed, came to life, became so much more than I first thought. Outside the window, a pitch-black curtain draped over the sky all around us. No, not the sky… couldn’t be when the blinking stars around us made shapes against the dark backdrop.
“Are…” Oh, shit. “Are we…” I glanced at him as he nodded, a tight smile pulling at his lips.
I should have known better than to think I could trust them in any way, but this… Fuck. “We’re in space!”
Even before Corran answered, my knees wobbled and I collapsed into one of the seats looking out at the endless world ahead of us.
“It’s beautiful isn't it?”
Words left me, and all I could do was gape at the expanse of the universe, caught up in the breadth of it, the sheer explosion of… space. I couldn’t move my mouth to speak, instead I felt trapped as if I was frozen underwater, my world moving in slow motion.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Space. I’m in freaking space in a spaceship.”
“Cruiser,” he corrected me.
“Reaver SC is small and only has energy shields if we encounter enemy ships, but since we’re on an exploration mission, we don’t have weapons. We’re also lacking entertainment on board such as a biosphere to replicate your botanical gardens, or a bar, but we’re fast.”
“What?” I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying and I rubbed my eyes but it was useless. “Where are we going?”
“Veon. We have to return home.”
I jerked toward him, a shiver slithering down my flesh. “Are you kidding me? You just kidnapped me from Earth and now you are taking me to your home planet?”