by Naomi Lucas
One returns and brings me food. It’s the same plate from earlier. One look at it, and I hack up empty air.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I notice Zaku’s chest quake. He expels a heavy breath, shudders, and goes still again. But soon after, he breathes once more, easier this time.
“Zaku,” I whisper, expelling my fear. Deep-seated fear that’s been drowning me from the inside, thinking he had died...
I clutch the bars, frighteningly relieved and excited. I grip the bars harder.
Safe? This isn’t safe.
I can’t do anything inside a cage. I can’t even help myself!
And then it occurs to me that perhaps putting me in the cage is to keep Zaku safe. From me. It makes sense. Unconscious, I could easily stab him to death like I did Vagan, and he’d not be able to stop me.
I could also run. And right now, with the way I feel, I want to stab Zaku all over again for throwing me in here. My numbness gives way to fury, and for a long time, I glare at him. I glare and tell him if he dies to spite me, I am going to find him in the next plane and kill him myself.
The night comes and goes. I don’t sleep. I can’t. Sticky, cold, and miserable; there’s not enough space for me to lie down without touching blood. Most of it is dry now, but that’s not any better. It’s crusted on my clothes, and I contemplate stripping, eventually deciding against it.
Resting my head on the bars, I begin telling Zaku stories I heard as a kid just to fill the deafening silence. Legends of space pirates, marauder kings, and princesses who fell asleep only to be woken up by a lover’s kiss. He stirs, and I grasp onto the hope that he’s listening, that he hears my voice.
“Live,” I whisper. “I’m not worth dying over.” I tell him if he comes closer to the bars, I’ll kiss him. It’s stupid, but maybe fairy tales have some truth to them. I’m willing to try.
He doesn’t wake, he doesn’t move closer. And before long, I run out of stories. I was never told very many of them when I was a kid. I try making a couple up, stumbling over words, saying silly, ridiculous things. I give up when it doesn’t work.
My fear ramps up again in the silence. I’ve been around silence for far too long. I’ve been alone for longer, and I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to be alone anymore. Tears fall, and I angrily wipe them off my cheeks.
When the picture of the Lurker pokes at my brain, when it finally makes its return, I sit in terror thinking that he’s real… he’s real and he’s watching me.
So I fill the silence and tell Zaku about my horrid life, to keep my tears, the fear, and the silence at bay.
“My dad was a commander,” I begin but then stop, sniffling. “I hate crying. I grew up in the military,” I say, starting over. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters, at least that I know of… My mom was… well, she had a contract with my father to give him a child. She wasn’t in my life after I was born. I might have siblings,” I ramble.
I lie down on the floor despite the blood, pressing up to the bars nearest Zaku where it’s cleaner. “I was forbidden from seeking her out. Even after my dad’s death, I was forbidden. I was my father’s daughter and no one else’s. There are rules. Strict rules where I’m from.”
Why do I keep coming back to my dad?
I start over a third time. “I grew up on a ship called The Prime. A sister ship to the one hiding behind the moon right now, but newer, faster, closer to the front lines of wherever the war is taking place. It was an honor to be born on such a ship. I had access to the best training. I was born privileged, and I was told such every day. Not every child is lucky enough to be born into a high caste…” Pulling my limbs close to me, I curl them into my body, finding I’m able to keep from focusing on the Lurker in my head if I focus on talking. “But I hated it. I hated every single minute of my life on the Prime,” I whisper.
“It was worse when my dad passed. I cried a lot. I missed him. I thought I hated him, but once he was gone, it was different. I was six. I had no idea about the world. No one cared. I had no friends, no family. And crying is a sign of weakness, and someone like me shouldn’t have been weak. Not with who my dad was. Daisy Downer is what the other military kids called me. They tried to beat it out of me. I took up piloting to get away. I could be alone if I was flying a ship. No one would see me cry there, no one could hurt me. I didn’t like being alone, but I learned to live with it.”
I pause, swallowing, hoping Zaku will rouse so I don’t have to go on. When he doesn’t, I rub my eyes, hard.
“When I was thirteen, it was pretty evident that I wasn’t going to live up to my dad’s name. Everything got worse. I had to start paying my keep, so they put me in the field. I was sent on my first mission.” I hate remembering those days and how terrified I was. I was just a kid. “I shot down my first ship on that very mission, killing over a dozen aliens.”
I lift up and look at him, begging him to wake up. Please, wake up.
“And do you know what I did, Zaku? I cried. Fuck, it was the worst thing to ever have happen to me, my dad, and then that. I didn’t want to live. I wasn’t cut out to be a soldier. I had no idea who was on that ship, nor what they had done. I was confused and the ship’s doctors told me that someday it would all be clear to me. It didn’t matter. I had killed them. The guilt was horrible. I vowed to bury that Daisy forever. I didn’t deserve to be sad, not after that. I didn’t cry again for years.
“I buried my emotions, and life became… tolerable. I began to understand why everyone was so cold, so walled. They learned that lesson much sooner than I. I rose in the ranks and became a petty officer, and life was… okay. But the war caught up to me eventually, and I was shipped to the real front lines. My life is pretty boring, isn’t it? Pretty sad. No wonder you won’t wake up,” I say, lying back down.
I stare at Zaku’s tail. “Please wake up.” He stirs briefly at my voice. I wait another minute hoping he’ll stir again. He doesn’t.
“I was sent to join a fleet of ships that were being deployed to help stop the wave of Ketts taking over Colony 4. I was supposed to die there, give my life to the war, just to hold them off another day. Only, I saw children on a rooftop as I was flying by.” I press my hand to my mouth, guilt flooding me. “I’d be dead right now, if I wasn’t so emotional… I should be dead. I’m not worth dying for. I saved them. I couldn’t not save them. They were crying, like me, like when I was a kid. Everyone in the fleet died that day but me and those kids.” Tears bud on my lashes, and I let them fall this time. “So many innocents died. So many lost souls.”
Thinking of those babies, silence surrounds me again like a heavy blanket. “They had clung to me, wanted me to protect them, and I wanted to keep them,” I murmur. So badly, it hurt. I wanted to be their mother from the moment I saw them. I wanted to give them the protection they sought but I never even made an argument for them because I knew it was futile.
No one was going to give me two healthy, land-born children.
I was a disappointment after all. A failed prodigy. I couldn’t provide for them.
“Now I’m here. With you,” I say. “Begging you to survive.”
When the sun lowers and my eyes start to hood, when I’m bracing for another night in misery, for more silence, I hear a moan.
“Zaku?” I say his name almost hesitantly.
His tail twitches and moves, pulling into his body. I sit up.
He moans again, and his eyelids peel open. For a moment, he stares at the ceiling.
“Zaku?” I gasp, excited.
His tongue leaves his mouth to swipe his lips. His eyes slide from the ceiling to mine.
“Daisy?” he groans, tilting his head in my direction.
“You’re awake,” I breathe, unable to believe it myself. “You’re seriously hurt, Zaku.” I grasp the bars.
Zaku slowly lifts his hand from where it rests on the floor and presses it to his wound. He winces and then raises his hand to his eyes. It glistens with fresh blood. “Nothing I w
on’t recover from,” he rasps.
I guffaw. “You should’ve died. You bled—a lot.”
He places his hand back on his chest. His gaze narrows as it slips from it to me, and over my form, checking me over. “Are you hurt?” He tries to coil his tail under him. More blood leaks from his chest.
“Don’t move!”
He doesn’t listen, pushing up, opening his wound even more, and coming to me.
“Zaku, you’re going to make it worse.”
“Are you hurt?” he asks again, his voice gaining strength.
“I’m…” I trail off, having no idea. “I’m hurt, all right! I’m furious!” Everything in the last day and a half expels from me. “How dare you,” I growl, sitting up on my knees. “How dare you put me in this cage where I have no choice but to watch you bleed out! How fucking dare you.”
He stares at me like I’ve lost my mind.
I’ve lost it, all right.
“You bled out all over the floor! You left me here to rot, all the while soaked in your blood, and for what? Safety? I’m not safe in here, nor are you out there! You stupid, stupid male!”
He doesn’t say anything as I do, and only when tears burst from my eyes and I sink to the floor, does he reach through the bars. He catches a tear with his claw.
I hate him so much for it; I hate that the simple gesture comforts me.
“I could not lose you. I am sorry I’ve been asleep for so long… Do not cry.”
“Fuck you! I’ll cry if I want. A day and a half, almost two,” I whimper. “Two days where I’ve been drenched in your blood, no idea if I was going to die alongside you.” More damning tears fall.
“Vagan must have pierced my heart. I did not think it would be so long.”
“Well, you should have thought about that before you passed out.” I wipe my cheeks. “Please let me out. I promise I won’t run.”
He draws his hand out from the cage and presses it back to his wound. “I can’t, not until I’ve gained my strength.”
“What? I can’t stay in here!”
Zaku rests his shoulder on the bars. “You are safe in there. My den has been compromised, and if something catches the blood in the air before the robots finish repairing it, that something will follow the blood trail here. Nothing can get to you behind these bars. They will have to go through me.”
I’m still not sure I’m hearing him correctly. “You can’t possibly leave me in here like this,” I whisper.
His head rolls, his chin lowers to his chest. I sit up straighter.
“If I lose you...” his words slur, softening. “I will never let that happen—” He slumps.
“Zaku?” I say his name, getting no response. “Zaku?” I say louder.
I reach through the bars and shake his shoulder. His cowl shifts and his eyes are closed, and I notice the blood steadily trickling between his fingers.
“Zaku!” I shout. “Don’t leave me in here!”
But I already know he’s gone, and I’m once again alone, left to wait. Something snaps, and I scream and scream. I scream until sleep finally takes me away.
Twenty
No Longer Human
Daisy
Hearing a strange sound, I peel my eyes open. They’re crusted, raw, and my face is dry. I rub my eyes hard and groan, pulling my aching body up from the ground to look around. I’ve gotten weak, being unable to eat and getting no rest. No good rest, at least.
My nose twitches. The air smells fresher.
Rubbing my face even harder, I wonder how long I’ve been asleep.
The first thing I see is a hot plate of food outside the bars, and a little further away, a large lump of fresh meat on the ground beside it. My brow furrows.
The kitchen is fixed? Why that comes to my mind first, I have no idea. But it no longer smells like blood. It smells like food. My stomach knots, and I’m suddenly starving. Hearing the robot leaving the room, I fixate on the food.
There’s a large shape moving out of the corner of my eyes. I know what’s happening—the sounds I’m hearing indicated as such—but haven’t mustered the courage to look at Zaku head-on.
Wet groaning, rasping, growling, and hissing fill my ears. The sounds of a wild animal feasting on a kill.
Slowly, my gaze moves from the plate.
Zaku’s hunched over, his hands clutching a red, dripping husk, and he’s tearing into it. Chewing and ripping, ravenous hunger shudders his giant form, and I go still, awed by the sight of an apex predator. He sinks his teeth—his fangs—into the husk and yanks a huge piece from it. He doesn’t even swallow it before he’s ripping off another chunk.
And there’s more blood. It’s back upon his hands and all over his face. Forcing my eyes from his mouth, I notice hunks of meat surrounding him. As I stare, the wall opens up, and another robot enters carrying more. I press my hands to my mouth as the bloody leg of some animal is dragged across the floor.
I think about saying something but don’t, lowering my hands. My stomach growls.
Zaku drops the husk he’s holding and snatches the leg.
I flinch when the bones snap, as he devours the entire limb, including those bones. His throat bobs and expands, his belly growing bigger, pushing out his abs, and as it swells, the color returns to his scales.
His wound is closed.
His cock’s out.
I swallow thickly, heat blooming my cheeks. My stomach growls again despite the gorefest. Staring at his turgid member, I appreciate it and the primitive nature of him. For a moment, I wish Zaku had been with me that day on Colony 4. If he had, those children would be mine because no one would deign to stand up to a male like him.
He’d protect them like I would have… Glancing at the bars around me, I see them differently. Maybe his methods are mad, but he still managed to protect me.
When the leg is gone, there are two more body parts already waiting for him. Where the robots are getting these limbs, I have no idea, and I’m not sure I want to know. I’m just happy they look like animal parts.
Zaku reaches for one, and I absently reach for my food. I eat my cooked meat as he works his way through the new offerings.
His eyes shift to me when the meat runs out. His eyes twinkle gold and then darken. I stiffen. His tongue swipes out to taste the air in my direction. He rises onto his tail, and his cowl flares outward, laying his large shadow over me. I straighten as he nears, as he does something with the lock, and opens the door.
He yanks me into his arms. I let him, even knowing he just ate my body weight in meat, possibly twice over. Even knowing he might still be hungry for more… I press my nose to his chest, and breathe him in.
And there it is. His musky, soothing smell. It’s weak, but it’s enough.
I moan, nuzzling him.
“Daisssy,” he hisses.
“You’re alive,” I whisper, my voice dry. “Did you get enough to eat?”
He doesn’t answer me, carrying me to the bathroom instead, and turning on the water. He slips us both under it and lowers me to stand. Keeping my hand on his chest so I don’t fall, he tears my dirty clothes off with his claws.
Weak, I brace my other hand on the rocky wall, dropping my head to my chest, and simply enjoying the sensation of water and warmth, the heat building inside me, and his scent.
Zaku washes me thoroughly, reverently. His hands scrub my hair clean, tugging and pulling and gripping it. They move to my breasts, my arms, my belly, giving every inch of my flesh attention. I spread my feet when he moves to my sex, lathering it with slick soap. When that’s done, he lowers and lifts one of my feet to wash it, massaging it as he does. Holding onto his shoulders, I moan when his thumb pushes into my arch. Then he moves to the other foot.
As warmth returns to my body, I lift my face to the shower and open my mouth, letting the spray fill it. I drink, lick my lips, and drink some more.
“My little queen is a killer,” he says thickly, running his hands up and down my legs like it excites
him. “I will have to watch you more carefully.”
I hum, too tired to respond. I am a killer. In his world and others. I’m glad one of us likes it. I’m glad he’s a killer too. If I’m going to be a killer like him, I hope it’s only ever in self-defense.
His fingers sneak between my thighs. Turning my face away from the water, I peer down to see what he’s doing. His giant tail is partially coiled around me, up against the walls, and the rest of it outside of the shower, filling the bathroom. Water sprays over Zaku’s cowl and face, rinsing the blood off of him. His fingers swipe back and forth over my slit, teasing me, coercing me to open for him.
“Zaku,” I breathe, leaning into the wall.
And then he finally answers me.
“I hunger,” he groans.
“I know.”
He pushes a finger into me, and I sigh happily.
Twenty-One
Coaxing Daisy
Zaku
Slipping my finger into Daisy’s sheath, I shudder with need.
Every second I grow stronger, and it’s because of her.
She chose me. She chose to save my life, and remain by my side. She will forgive me for the cage. I had not planned to kill Vagan, only maim him—he has many secrets I long to know, and we have history—but Daisy chose to protect us. How can her mistake anger me? When it was done to protect her mate?
Over and over I see her stabbing him on our behalf. I see his body slump.
No one has ever killed for me before. It is an exciting thing.
What a delicious gift she has given her king.
My member engorges with fresh, hot spill.
I heard her words, her story. I heard everything. Daisy is a killer, and I now know why she stole my attention on the plateau. She’s a survivor. She’s kept herself alive. She saved children.
She will make a great mother to our many litters.
And she made it across the vast skies to me.
My eyes fall to her collar, thick and banded, still around her neck. It’s dirty. Even in the shower, she leaves it on. It’s the only thing she wears. I did not have a tiara to give her—or a crown—but that collar and its diamonds are part of the treasures stored in my home, and I want them to be hers. I have kept them safe all these years. For her.