by Draven, Zoey
He stood, effectively cutting off her next line of questioning. She’d always been too curious for her own good.
“Come,” he said, his voice deepening, gesturing towards the elevator. “I will show you your quarters.” His gaze raked over her cloak. “You may wash. I will get you a clean tunic.”
Cara’s heart sped up. “Really?”
He simply inclined his head, frowning, and that was enough to boost her into action. She reentered the elevator and it shot both of them down one level, opening into another curved hallway.
“I haven’t seen any other…crew,” she finally decided on. “Is there anyone else on board?”
“Plotting your escape?” he rasped.
Cara’s eyes narrowed. “Always,” she hissed back, all feelings of gratefulness at the promise of a bath and clean clothes gone.
His gaze slid down to her and she fought a shiver that made her body heat. Though his face was grim, his strange, beautiful eyes were bright with…something.
“Good,” he grunted. “You should be.”
That surprised her, but she didn’t let it show on her face. Confusing, maddening alien.
“You wouldn’t punish me for trying to escape?” she asked. They were steadily making their way down the hallway, passing closed doors along the way.
“Nix,” he said. She watched as he raked a hand over one of his black horns and she inhaled a breath, feeling her nipples peak underneath her cloak. “I would not encourage it, however. You are safer with me.”
“I’ll decide that for myself,” she shot back.
She swore his lips quirked up, but she blinked and it was gone.
“There is no other crew,” he said, frowning over the word. “There is only you and me.”
Her newest captor halted suddenly in front of a black metal door. He palmed a code in on the panel just outside and the door swooshed open, revealing a small bedroom just beyond. He entered the room and she followed hesitantly, keeping her eye on him.
From a drawer, he procured a neatly pressed and folded cloth, which she realized was a shirt, similar to the one he wore. It was a light gray with no stains and it looked impossibly soft.
He set it on the small, clean bed and told her, “I have no leg coverings that would fit you. This will suffice.”
“Thank you,” she said softly, still eyeing the shirt. The moment she was bathed and freshly dressed, she wanted to burn the cloak she wore, wanted to erase every trace of what happened before that moment.
Next, he showed her the small bathroom that led off the bedroom. A glass tube, similar to the elevator but smaller, was situated in one corner. To her delight, the alien showed her how to work it with a swipe of her palm and she discovered it was a shower. With warm water.
“Do you have soap?” she asked, hating that her voice sounded hopeful. She didn’t want to rely on him for anything, but she would probably sell her soul for soap at that point.
He frowned at the word, but swiped his palm in the other direction on the shower screen. Her brow furrowed when she saw black particles fall from the water spout. When she reached out her hand into the stream and rubbed it between her fingertips, the particles lathered.
Nothing else mattered at that moment. She almost forgot that the alien still remained in the room when she began to undo her cloak, too eager to properly wash. With a hiss, he turned and left the room, just as her cloak hit the bathroom floor.
* * *
Hot lust swarmed his veins as Devix stumbled into the hallway. Images of his female’s bared back assaulted his mind, thickening his cock in his leg coverings that he felt the material rip slightly.
His Instinct demanded that he return to her. Its wicked desires battered at his chest, its fantasies fueling his own. He imagined returning to her, joining her in the washing stall, her skin slick and wet against his own. He imagined going to his knees before her and tonguing her between her thighs. He wondered what she looked like there, what she felt like, tasted like.
The purring growl rose in his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut. It had been eight rotations since he’d last mated a female. His desires had been long dead, only to reawaken in full force when he found his fated mate. Sarkon had given him six spans to deliver the human to Azatia. Devix wondered if he would last six spans without going mad.
And what would become of him after six spans? Would he be able to return to his life on Rozun, knowing that he willingly traded over his destined female to another male, in exchange for his own peace?
Devix’s fist crashed into the side of the hallway, denting the hardened metal. He rammed his fists in it a second time until he felt the ache of it reverberate to his shoulder. The lust cooled slightly and he strode down the hallway, his legs eating up the distance quickly, before returning to the command center on the third level, anger burning in his veins.
Devix took a moment to compose himself and then he patched an image connection to Sarkon.
His employer’s face appeared on the control panel screen. Azatians were similar in appearance to Baquarians, with the same tilted eyes and slitted nostrils. Except Azatians were covered in hardened scales that acted like armor. It was why they were so difficult to kill.
“Devix,” Sarkon greeted in his language. “I was beginning to worry that the transaction did not go as planned.”
“I have the female,” Devix grunted, his fists clenching at his sides. “We have left Petrika.”
“Excellent,” Sarkon praised, his thin lips cracking into a smile that revealed grey, sharp teeth. His scales shifted back from around his mouth, only to return when Sarkon’s smile dropped. “What is she like?”
It took everything in Devix, every ounce of restraint and training that he’d endured on his home planet of Luxiria, not to punch the screen into shards.
“I have not noticed what she is like,” Devix responded, his voice sterile, controlled.
Sarkon made a sound in the back of his throat. “You have become predictable, Devix. You have not fucked a female in so long that I fear your cock has shriveled.”
“My cock is no concern of yours,” Devix gritted.
Sarkon’s scales peeled back again as he smiled. “I could pick no male better to bring me my human pleasure mate, it seems.”
Devix could see nothing but rage. It choked him. The possession in Sarkon’s eyes infuriated him to the point of breaking. But at the last moment, he remembered his place, remembered not to fuck up everything that he’d been working towards for the past six rotations, ever since Sarkon brought him off of Petrika.
Still, he was silent. He didn’t trust himself to speak and he prayed to the Fates that had abandoned him that the image connection was blurred enough so Sarkon could not see the way his body shook with fury.
“Six spans,” Sarkon reminded him. “Not a moment over.”
“I understand,” Devix forced out.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Sarkon murmured, letting the silence hang in the air briefly before continuing. “I have a gift for you. I have come by information about a Luxirian male you know.”
Devix’s eyes narrowed, his heart speeding in his chest. His blood brother?
“Who?” he bit out.
“A warrior called Pidixa.”
The air from his lungs rushed out at that familiar name. Old feelings of betrayal, of anger, of loss rushed him all at once until they constricted his breathing.
“What of him?” Devix rasped.
“A few of my scouts came across him off planet.” Devix doubted it was a random encounter. “It seems his tongue becomes loose with enough Brew. It becomes even looser with a few beatings as well.”
“What did he say?” Devix asked, his voice darkening. The sick part of him hoped that Sarkon’s scouts had made him bleed.
“You know what he said,” Sarkon’s voice becoming serious. Devix wasn’t surprised that Sarkon knew about his past, knew about the circumstances that led to his exile and not his execution. Sarkon had never asked a
nd Devix had never offered the information. Yet, he knew that his employer had always known, perhaps even before he’d taken him off of Petrika. “He confessed to lying. He confessed that the mating he walked in on between you and his blood sister had been consensual and not forced. He confessed it all.”
Devix squeezed his eyes shut, his hand trembling when he smoothed it over his horn. After all that time…after the tribunal, the look on his blood brother’s face as he was sentenced to exile…Devix had begun to doubt his own innocence. He’d had his own people telling him that he’d raped Arvalla that perhaps a part of him had begun to believe that he had. It had sickened him. He’d become warped and twisted from the thought.
Hearing this now, it released something from him. But in its place, it brought the need for revenge.
“Is he still alive?”
“Of course,” Sarkon answered. His employer leaned forward so that the only thing Devix saw was his face. “And the moment you bring my human to me, he is yours, as is his confession. A parting gift, for all your hard work. A chance at clearing your name so that you may return to Luxiria, if you so wished.”
Devix’s breathing changed rapidly. Luxiria…his home. His home planet that had nourished his strength, made him into a proud warrior…that had turned its back when he’d professed his innocence in a heinous crime he hadn’t committed.
Devix straightened, looking at Sarkon steadily. Never had Devix wanted anything more…except perhaps the human female that resided on his ship at that very moment.
An impossible choice.
“Six spans, Luxirian,” Sarkon said.
And then the image line went dead.
FIVE
Cara decided on two things in the shower.
One: she would do everything in her power to learn. To learn about him, his species, his ship, his skills. And she would try to learn where in the hell he was taking her and to whom.
Two: while learning about her alien captor, she would try to befriend him. In doing so, she would try to persuade him not to take her wherever the hell they were going and to take her back home, or to someone who could get her back home, instead. Far-fetched, perhaps, but certainly worth a try if she played her cards right. She could be charming and nice if she needed to be, right? She literally had nothing to lose anyways.
Cara spent more time washing in that strange shower tube than she’d ever spent on washing before. She washed her hair three times with the black particles that rained down from the ceiling and scrubbed her body down until her skin was tender and raw. When she finally swiped her palm over the shower screen to turn off the water, she squeaked in surprise when a blast of hot air hit her body, whipping her hair. A built-in body blow-dryer it seemed. It evaporated every drop of water from her skin and left her wind-swept hair hanging around her shoulders.
No need for a towel, I guess, she thought, avoiding the cloak on the floor like a plague when she eventually stepped out.
She poked her head through the door that led into the bedroom just in case her alien decided to stick around. Now that she was clean, she was slightly embarrassed that she’d begun to undress in front of him. But when a girl went without a shower for God-only-knows how long, her eagerness wasn’t a surprise.
He was nowhere to be seen and she stepped towards the bed, fully naked, quickly snatching up the clean shirt. She caressed it between her fingertips, feeling the lightness and softness. Carefully, she pulled it over her head and smoothed it into place. It was large on her body, falling to just above her knees, made to fit someone three times her size, like her alien captor. Was this his shirt? she wondered. Was this his room?
There were no undergarments and she felt bare and slightly vulnerable without them. Perhaps she could make some from a shirt, if he gave her another one. And if he trusted her enough with some sort of needle and thread. She’d be on her best behavior for underwear, she decided.
Next, wanting to start on her plans, she stood in front of the door. When it didn’t open, she touched it with her palm, her heart beginning to beat harder in her chest. Then she tapped the screen next to the door, waving her palm in front of it like she’d done with the shower. And still, nothing. Everything she tried…nothing.
He’d locked her in there.
Another cage, another captor. Had she truly thought that he’d be any different?
Panic clogged her throat. She told herself to breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. Just like always. One moment to the next.
She didn’t know how long she stood in front of the door, repeating her mantra over and over in her head, but eventually, he came to let her out.
Cara looked at him steadily. He didn’t seem startled to see her just on the other side, but he made no move away from the threshold and neither did she.
“I don’t like being locked away,” she said calmly, evenly, not matching the swarm of emotion inside her chest that settled only slightly at the sight of him. “I’ve been in a cage for too long. Will this be another one?”
The alien regarded her for a long time. She studied his face, trying to read his strange expressions, but it wasn’t like she understood his body language in a way she would immediately recognize a human’s.
Cara saw the corner of his mouth twitch down, a slight furrowing of his prominent brow bone that made him appear almost angry. He raked a hand over his horn, something she’d seen him do before. Did it mean he was frustrated? Annoyed? Uncomfortable? She didn’t know.
Besides all this, his voice was the softest she’d ever heard it when he said, “There are dangerous areas on the vessel. I did not want you wandering, only to harm yourself.”
“No, you’re afraid I’ll find a way to escape. Or mess up something on your ship that would delay us.”
His expression flattened. “We do not trust each other, female. For good reason.”
“I’m an honest person,” she told him, deciding to lay it all out for him. “I don’t like bullshit. I like it when someone tells me straight up what’s going on.” He frowned at her words, as if trying to understand her meaning. But she knew he understood perfectly well. “I’ll be honest with you if you’re honest with me.”
“There are some things I cannot tell you.”
“Then be honest with me about the things you can,” she said. “I don’t like being locked away. I don’t…do well. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I promise that I will not sabotage your ship in any way. Why would I when I’m on board myself?”
“You will try to escape?” he asked, tilting his head to the side. His impossibly high cheekbones caught the light, casting a deep shadow in the hollows of his cheeks.
“Not off the ship, no. I already know I wouldn’t survive. Where would I go?” she shrugged her shoulders. Her gaze sharpened on him. “It doesn’t mean I won’t try to figure out where you’re taking me, even if you cannot tell me. It doesn’t mean I won’t watch you every time you fiddle with something on your control panel upstairs. And it doesn’t mean that I won’t try to convince you to take me home instead.”
They stared at each other from across the threshold. His gaze flickered over her, catching on her legs, where the shirt end hit her thigh, before returning to her eyes. Sizing her up, no doubt. Trying to read her, to decide if she was telling the truth.
The scar that ran down the side of his face pulled slightly as he turned to the screen on the door, tapping something in with his long fingers.
When he looked back at her, he said, “The fuel quarters are restricted—the two doors at the end of this hallway.” Cara’s heart leapt in her chest. “You may go wherever else you please.”
Cara swallowed, trying not to sound too relieved. “Thank you.”
He stepped back from the door, allowing her the chance to exit. “Do not make me regret it, female.”
She stepped out, close enough that she could feel his heat. Again, she suppressed a shiver of awareness at their proximity and then stepped past.
“My name is Cara, not
‘female,’” she said. She watched his gaze flicker, his eyes flashing in the light. Fascinating. “What’s your name?”
That expression grew darker. “Do not concern yourself with what I am called. I am no one”
Cara didn’t want to dwell on the disappointment that swamped her at his answer. Why did she want to know his name so much anyways?
“I can’t just keep referring to you as ‘the alien’ in my head, now can I?” she returned, lightening her tone. “How about Captor then, with a capital ‘C’? Would you like me to call you that?”
He grunted, the surly male. And then turned to walk down the hallway, in the opposite direction of the elevator. “Call me what you wish.”
“How about Scar?” she asked, following behind him. She planned to stick to him like white on rice. “That would be a pretty bad ass name, right?”
He cast her a sideways look when she struggled to keep up with his long strides. “You speak too much, female.”
“Can you blame me? I’ve had no one to talk to,” she murmured. Then she shut off her mind from going back there. “How did you get it anyways? Your scar?”
Again, he took his sweet time answering. The hallway was longer than she’d expected, curving around, following the shape of the oval ship.
“It was a gift from my blood brother,” he finally said.
Surprise that he’d actually answered and about what he’d revealed rocked her. “Your brother? Why would he do—”
He cut her off, flipping around towards her, so suddenly that she bumped into his rock-hard chest before stepping back.
“Any reason for this interrogation?” he asked, his neck craned down, his eyes dark enough that they looked black. Cara was reminded that he might be her best option at the moment, but that he could still be unpredictable and violent. She needed to remember that before she poked him too much.
But she wouldn’t let him intimidate her. Her spine straightened and she never broke his gaze. “I want to learn more about you.”
“Part of your plan?” he said, voice deep but just mocking enough that it made her bristle. “Then you do not know who you are dealing with. I have been interrogated by much more fearsome creatures than you, female. I have been beaten and tortured during them and I have not broken once. What makes you believe you can get me to break?”