by Maia Starr
"Take your hands off me, you pig!” a feisty female shouted at my lieutenant. I was surprised by her appearance. I had never seen a human female with her color of hair. It was the color of fire. Her eyes were a piercing green and she was small and delicate even for a human. I stepped to her and pulled the band off of her tightly wrapped hair. It fell down her back.
"How dare you touch me!” she sneered at me. She was strong. She was brave.
She was stupid.
"Do not speak unless I allow it!” I shouted at her. I loomed tall over her. She was breathing hard and her mouth shut. Her lips were quivering with fear, but she was not going to show it. She was stubborn.
"That is better. If you want to stay alive, you will do as I say,” I shouted at her.
I stepped to the other female. This one had yellow hair and brown eyes. She was taller and thinner than her companion. She was quiet, and she was shedding tears from her eyes. She did not look up at me. This one was docile and obedient; she would be good for our leader. The other one looked as if she would kill him in his sleep. Best to keep an eye on her.
"Lock them up in holding on our ship!” I shouted to my warriors.
"No! No!” The fire-headed female shouted and struggled as she was carried away. She was a fighter. I admired that in anyone, but I had never seen it in a human female.
"Commander Duron Spaunok, we have discovered that a few of the escape pods have been jettisoned. Should we go after these humans?” my lieutenant reported.
I was quiet as I thought about priorities. Then I ordered, “No. We must get Baradur Spaunok his mate as soon as possible. That is our priority.”
"Yes, Commander. And what about the human males aboard?"
"Lock them up on their vessel."
Minutes later, I was back aboard the Retriever. The fiery female was causing a lot of problems, screaming and kicking my warriors—not that they couldn't handle it. But I wasn't going to have her causing a lot of problems and distractions on my ship.
"I demand to know where you are taking us!” she said, stomping toward me.
"You demand nothing of me,” I said back to her. “You will do exactly as I command; is that clear?” I snarled at her.
"No! It is not clear! You do not have the right to do this! You can't simply take us! We are not property! We are human beings!” she shouted at me. Her lips were trembling and her face was flushed red. She was in such a rage that she was practically trembling all over her entire body. My eyes went directly to her perky breasts as they jiggled.
"How dare you look at me that way! I am not yours to look at! When will you learn that? All of you!” she shouted. “You cannot simply come to Earth and take what is not yours! You cannot steal humans anymore. It is wrong!”
We all laughed a hearty laugh at her. She did not like this one bit. She reached up and slapped me across the face. I’d had enough. I turned my head back to her with a snarling growl. She took a step back in fear. I wrapped my hand around her arm and squeezed as I pulled her over to the window.
"Just for that, you have caused this! Fire!” I shouted. Just then the Retriever shot several laser cannons straight into the space station. Boom! Bam! Boom! It exploded into one million pieces.
"No! No! How could you?!” she cried, and then fell into a ball on the floor.
"You did that. Defy me again and we will kill your human female companion," I said to her in a threatening way. Of course, the threat was a lie; we needed both of these females alive. But she did not need to know that. As soon as I said it, she looked over to her female companion and became quiet and docile. She picked herself up off the floor and walked directly to her companion and stood there in obedience. Had I known those were the magic words to get her to be under my control, I would've said it first thing. Now I knew.
"Lock them up,” I said to my warriors.
Then I left them. I moved to the flight deck, ready to take command of the ship. We had a mission, and we were halfway finished with it.
"Chart a course for Altid. Inform Baradur that we have two, healthy human females aboard and we are bringing them to him on Altid,” I said to my lieutenant.
"Yes sir, Commander Duron Spaunok,” the lieutenant responded.
Altid was a barren moon just outside the asteroid belt. It was a solid rock that had the perfect flat terrain to build a base. Of course, it was not as good as Earth, but it did well. It was on the outskirts of the asteroid belt, almost a million miles away from the nearest Corillion civilization. It was the first line of defense and the first landing port before going into the asteroid belt where the rest of the Corillion civilization lived. Altid was where I lived and trained. It was where the leader of the Spaunok tribe, Baradur, lived and ruled. Now we were heading there, bringing gifts.
The journey there would take a couple of days, even with our super speed battleship of the best technology. During that time, I went about my duties as commander, but I found myself doing something that I had never done before: I was spying on the human females. I was watching them when they did not know it. We had surveillance monitors and I was one of two warriors that had access to them. I sat in my commander’s quarters of the ship watching the two young women interact with each other on my monitor. The redheaded female was obviously the stronger of the two. She was often consoling the other woman. She was brave.
But I found myself watching them as they slept, and on the day we allowed them to bathe. I could not take my eyes off of the redhead. Her soft, pale skin and rosy-pink nipples made me very aroused. I found myself completely turned on and hard. This was a good thing. If they had this effect on me, then they would definitely have this effect on Baradur. That is what we needed.
As we grew closer and closer to Altid, I found myself reluctant to hand the females over, but I had to. It was my duty. My responsibility was to ensure the survival of the Corillion species, and the first to need that attention was our tribal leader.
"We will be arriving in a few hours. You must put these on,” I said as I walked into the prison living quarters of the human females. I normally was not the one to do such an errand as this, but I wanted to. I carried two fine gowns for the females to wear.
"Why? Why must we change?” the fiery redhead said as she stood up and stepped toward me.
"You will not ask questions. You will change because I am ordering you to. Or do I need to renew my threat of what I will do to your friend if you continue to disobey?” I said to her.
Her green eyes narrowed at me in anger. Her breathing grew hard and her chest was pumping up and down vigorously. She was so angry, I thought that she might explode at any second. She grabbed the dresses from my hand and yanked them. All I could do was laugh at her.
"Make sure that you are fresh, bathed, and put together by the time we land. You are to look your best for him," I said, walking out of the room and locking it behind me.
"For who?” I heard the redhead shout after me.
Chapter 3
SHIA HETON
I could not believe what had happened! I felt like this had to be a dream. That insufferable jerk, Commander Spaunok, was a cold-blooded killer! He had no empathy at all for humankind. He made me watch while they destroyed over ten humans on a priceless space station. I didn't know how many had escaped in escape pods, but I hoped it was many more than I originally thought. It was true what they said: the Corillions were ruthless animals. I hated every single one of them, but I especially hated their leader, Duron Spaunok.
Now Alexis and I were the only survivors on this doomed voyage that was supposed to be a peaceful scientific research mission. But the Corillion did not see it that way. They were like pirates in space, conquering and taking whatever they could, and right now, that was Alexis and me.
This could not end well. We were locked up as captives, and it was a heavy reality to live.
“What are we going to do? No one will come for us. It is too risky,” Alexis cried on the bed.
Alexis was not able
to control her anguish like I was. She cried constantly, and I constantly had to console her. But I completely understood. I was also frightened.
“Let’s just take this day by day, Alexis. We have to. Who knows, maybe this ship is on its way to Earth to collect more females and then we will have a chance to escape then,” I lied to her.
“Really? You really think so?” she asked.
“Sure, anything is possible when you have no facts at all. We can’t think that whatever is happening might not be in our favor; maybe it’s a hundred percent in our favor,” I said to her, trying to give her some light at the end of the tunnel. But I knew better than this. From what I saw, Commander Duron Spaunok was ruthless and brutal. He was unlike anything I had ever met or seen. It wasn't just his alien physical features; it was something else. It was the way he stared at me, as though he could see right through me. I tried to be brave in his presence, but the way he looked at me made me feel like I was just a trembling little girl.
He was dark on the inside; that much was obvious through his cruel actions. His attractive form on the outside could not hide that part of him. A part of me thought that Alexis and I were being taken to be his mates. He had captured us and he was taking us somewhere.
Obviously, we all knew that the Corillion aliens captured women from Earth to mate with them, but we didn’t understand why. Why did they not mate with their own Corillion females? I assumed this was going to be our destiny as well. So I was surprised when he ventured into our locked cell to tell us to get dressed and freshen up because we were being taken to someone. When I asked who this person was, he simply ignored me as he had been since he’d first laid eyes on me.
Now I was feeling extreme anxiety at not knowing where we were being taken and to whom.
"Where are they taking us, Shia?” Alexis asked me, trembling.
"I do not know, Alexis. But for now, it is best that we do as they say. Here, I will help you put the dress on,” I said, handing her one of the dresses.
"I am scared,” she said to me.
"I am too, but it is important that we stick together and stay focused. Let's gather as much information as we can. Do not forget we are scientists. Do not forget that we can find a way out of here. All we need is information. We need to learn their ways and then we can escape. For now, let us not make them angry. They seem to be very brutal,” I said to her as I pulled the blue dress over her head. It was made of some material I had never encountered before, but it was similar to silk. It tied around her back and then flowed all the way down to the floor.
Then I put on the green dress and Alexis tied it behind my back. We looked at each other and realized just how ridiculous this was; we started to laugh a little. It felt good to laugh.
"I never thought I would end up here when I agreed to join the space station mission,” she said to me.
"Nope. Nor did I. Yet here we are. Let us think of it as our own experiment. We are merely spectators in a science experiment, watching the ways of the Corillion in order to report back,” I laughed.
"Yes, I suppose that is how we must think of it,” she said with a little more confidence than I had heard from her since we had been captured. It was helping.
A couple of hours later, we found ourselves being escorted by Commander Duron Spaunok off the ship and into a massive base. I could barely see outside through small, circular windows as we passed down the long and narrow hallway. The terrain outside looked like a desolate moon. I did not see any trees or water. No wonder they wanted Earth. Then we were led into a massive room. There, sitting on what I could only describe as a throne, was a young Corillion warrior.
He had light-brown hair down to his shoulders, with light-brown eyes. The blues scales ran down his right side and were easy to see since he did not wear a shirt. He was wearing the same leather like trousers as the rest of the Corillion warriors, with various weapons draped on his belt. His face was very attractive with a strong square jaw. If I weren’t so afraid of him, I would have thought of him as attractive. But it was hard to find the outside attractive when you knew the inside was ugly.
"Commander Duron Spaunok, you have done well. You are just in time," he said as he stood up from the throne. He stared at Alexis first, letting his gaze go up and down her body. I felt the need to protect her. I wanted to jump in front of her and tell him to go to hell. But I stayed in place, listening to every word they said.
"It is an honor to serve you, my leader, Baradur Spaunok. I am honored to bring you these human female gifts," Commander Duron Spaunok said in return. It made me angry that he called us gifts, as though we had no control over our own lives. I wanted to scream and shout, but I knew that I could not. It did not escape my attention that they were both called Spaunok. They must be related in some way. Perhaps they were brothers, or cousins. It was obvious that this Baradur Spaunok was the leader here, as he was addressed as that way, but also sat on a throne.
The warrior stood still, staring at us as his eyes shifted from Alexis over to me. I tensed my entire body. I narrowed my eyes at him in hate. He sort of grinned, and then he looked at my hair. His eyes grew wide and I assumed they didn’t get many redheads around here. He then stepped down from the platform and onto the floor. He walked around us, examining us. I was so very angry. How dare he treat us like livestock! He stopped beside me and put his fingers through my hair. I restrained myself to not slap his hand away; the last time I slapped a Corillion, people died. I bit my tongue and clenched my fists.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Commander Duron Spaunok lean in and whisper something in the leader’s ear. This warrior leader, which Duron called Baradur, looked directly at me. Oh no; what had he told him? I clenched my fists tighter and I tried to hold my tongue. I turned my head directly at them and narrowed my eyes at Baradur and Duron, and I could not hold back any longer.
"Don't stare at me like that! I'll slap that stare off your face if I have to,” I said in restrained anger.
Baradur looked at Duron and then he laughed and said, “I believe you are right about that one. I will take the other as my mate. Lock up this one until I decide what is to be done with her. I trust you, Commander Duron Spaunok, to take her into your quarters as a captive. I do not trust to leave her in the presence of the rest of the Corillion warriors. She is under your care. Be cautious with her, as she seems like she might try to kill you, like you said. But be warned that this is not permission to take her as a mate. Is that understood?”
"Understood, my leader,” Duron said as he saluted him. Then he wrapped his hand tightly around my arm and pulled me away from Alexis.
"No! Where are you taking her?! I demand that you release me! I demand that you release her!” I shouted.
"Shia?” Alexis said with fear in her voice as she stood there shaking.
"Do not be afraid, my delicate female. You will not be harmed. You will be treated like a queen,” I heard Baradur telling her as Duron pulled me away.
He yanked me through the halls of the base. It was a maze of hallways and there was no way that I would ever understand how to get back to Alexis. The base was a sprawling complex, and in my rage and adrenaline, I could not make sense of anything. Then he stopped at the deadend of a hallway.
“Get your hands off of me! Where is Alexis?” I shouted.
“Shut your mouth, human!” he roared at me. He pressed his hand against a screen on the wall and a door opened. He pushed me in and I fell to the ground inside another room.
"You don't have to be so rough! Where would I run off to?” I said to him, giving him a dirty look. I looked around at the surroundings. I was in an apartment of sorts. “What is to be done with her? What is to be done with Alexis? You cannot do this to us! It is wrong!”
"You should worry about what's to be done with yourself,” he said in a stern voice as he moved over to a table and poured some liquid into a glass. He shot it back quickly. I got up from the floor and moved toward him putting only a foot between us.
"What?! Why do you say that? What the hell is going on here?” I asked.
I was so angry that I could barely catch my breath. I was standing there in this slinky green dress and it only made me feel that much vulnerable. He pulled the glass from his lips. He was tall, looming over me. His hair fell over his face a little. His blue eyes were glassy, a shade of blue that reminded me of Earth when you looked at it from space. They matched the color of the scales down the right side of his body. But I tried not to let my eyes waver from his. I did not want him to know that my curiosity in this race was making me want to look over every inch of his body. But my curiosity was specifically scientific, and nothing more, I hoped.
He tilted his head and let his eyes roam over my hair and down my face. I was breathing hard. I could not help it. His eyes caressed my bare shoulders. I felt like I was naked, because Duron looked at me up and down, taking his time. I suddenly felt my body responding to his stare; I felt desirable. It felt wrong! It felt very wrong! I knew I should not be feeling excited and aroused. He was a cold-blooded killer of humans! Yet there was something about the danger of the moment. There was something about not knowing what was going on. There was something about being in this male-dominated world. It was intoxicating. I felt more feminine than I ever had. Soldiers of Earth were also ruthless killers, so how as this any different? But as soon as I felt that way, I forced myself to stop. It was wrong!