“W-What is that?” she asked, tearing her eyes away from the blades, watching as he dipped one long, sticky finger into the jar.
He made a sound at the back of his throat. Coating his finger to the second knuckle with a white, shimmery powder. “Open.”
Scowling, she shook her head. “Not until you tell me what—”
It wasn’t a negotiation, apparently. With little more than a flick of his wrist, Kallp pried her jaws apart, plunging his first finger down her throat, and past the parasite cuddled up with her voice box. When the digit came back clean, he turned with a satisfied rumble deep in his chest. There was no need to swallow. No taste lingering on her tongue, for the viscous slime on his finger had left numbness on her palate once more.
She gagged anyway. A psychological rejection of the callous invasion, but not the worst she’d experienced since waking in this place of night terrors. Not by any measure. Lifting trembling fingers, she traced the outline of the parasite. Traced the warm thing perched atop her skin and found it smooth. Like a stone spider with tentacles and barbs wrapped around her nervous system—
Stomach heaving, she coughed up a bit of slime. And yet, her heart rate had begun to slow. Her vision cleared. With quivering lucidity, she knew it was either endorphins flooding her system, or... the white powder was doing something to calm her. Doing something to ward off the shock.
Swiping at her lips with trembling hand, she inspected her captor’s back and flung a gooey tendril of slime off her fingers. Slime that coated every visible inch of Kallp’s colorful skin. Secreting it. Like a massive, toothy salamander. Like his mother had been a crocodile, and his father had been a baggie of crack dipped in nuclear waste. A whole collage of species jammed into one sticky, oversized Chimera.
Wrong. Something was definitely wrong with her.
She giggled, listing dangerously to the side as her bones began to melt, threatening to slide out the soles of her feet. Inspecting the cart filled with shiny sharp things, she licked her lips, the edges of a plan shimmering in her twisted, altered mind.
“Enough of that, now,” Kallp said, righting her before she had even managed to lift one of her noodle arms off the gurney.
Grinning, she booped him between his four flapping nostrils. “Do you like gardening? I was thinking of planting a few seeds of destruction. You can help.”
Kallp reared back, though his grip tightened on her shoulders. Supporting her rubbery legs. “What—oh, no. How is that possible? My calculations couldn’t be so wrong...”
“Maybe my heart will pop, too. Like a zit. Pop!” She mouthed the sound effect, twice, three times. Four. Smacking her lips together to make just the right sound. “Maybe you’ll hear it. Maybe—”
Cursing in a language she couldn’t understand—even with her parasitic spider translating for her—Kallp pulled her off the gurney, leaving her standing beside the tool cart as he whirled away. Muttering, he picked up a thin sheet of clear glass and tapped it, watching symbols zip across the screen. “No... It can’t possibly be... It was a mild dose to ward off shock! How could it affect her so strongly?”
“Allergic reaction?” she proposed, buckling over as her abdomen cramped anew, heat fighting delirium for dominance over her overworked system.
“It seems that way,” he returned, still flicking through her charts. Attention firmly diverted, which was helpful as her fingers were positively itching to know how he’d like it if she started with the slashing and stabbing. Maybe she could plant a talking spider in his throat and dress it in gems that set fire to his nerves?
Humming drunkenly to herself, she selected two scalpels at her leisure. One for each hand, of course, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. Hop. Enjoying the odd little tingle as her breasts followed a beat behind. Hop! Dancing with her. Just she and the girls, dancing the night away until it was time to do some gardening of her own.
She knew where to plant her blades, for surely most organisms—Earth natives, or not—couldn’t survive with a scalpel embedded in their eye socket. As long as it pierced his big, radioactive lizard brain. It would be easy, too. There was a fancy medical degree pinned to a wall somewhere, all but guaranteeing she could whisk his cortex into egg soup without so much as a queasy blink or a tremble in her hands.
No matter that she couldn’t remember the name listed on said expensive, schmancy paper.
Sticky fingers snapped in front of her eyes, making her squeak and tuck the blades flat between her hips and her palms. Out of sight. “Human?”
“Chimera?”
His lids schlicked. “I believe you are correct. It appears to be an allergic reaction. Which means I... uh... may have killed you.”
She shrugged, tracing the edge of her blades with the pads of her thumbs, making sure the Chimera’s eyes stayed on hers as she said, “You set my brain on fire and filled me with Felidae hormones. What’s a little murder between friends?”
Schlick. “You’re strange.”
She grinned, trying to decide if she could jump as high as his face, or if she was, in fact, a boneless puddle on the floor. The latter option would really hamstring the whole ‘sowing of deadly, razor-sharp oats’ part of her plan. But with her perception shifting and stretching as it was, she wasn’t sure if she’d actually picked up a set of scalpels or if she was still strapped to the gurney with a talking spider nesting in her throat. Best wait it out, a little. Unless, of course, she really was about to die... in which case...
She eyed Kallp’s throat, squinting at the vibrant colors popping all around his head. Could humans taste sounds? Could they... could they smell colors? “I... I think my brain is melting.”
“It might be,” Kallp allowed, then stooped, bringing his face to her level. “Listen... there may be something I can do. But if you speak one word of this to anyone, I will pull your spinal cord out through your nostrils and—”
“Can’t,” she said. “My spine starts just about here.” She eyed the muddy purple flapping tissue and traced the back of her skull. “Does yours start behind your... gills? Asking for a friend. Don’t mind me.”
Schlick. “I...” Shaking his massive, toothy head, Kallp seized the back of her neck—high at the base of her skull where her spinal cord started—and wrenched her head to the side.
“Wait—”
Something sharp lanced through the skin beneath his palm. “My venom has a paralytic affect, but I only gave you a tiny drop. Should be enough to slow your heart before it—”
“Pops,” she whispered, watching as he withdrew his three-fingered hand. Watching as a thin, clear barb retracted back into the flesh at his wrist.
“Yes, well. It’ll also likely overcome the Felidae hormones, so you’ll need a second dose,” he said, drawing another syringe full of the vibrant orange fluid.
She flinched. In spite of the numbness spilling over her skin as it spread from the wound site toward her hands—and the blades of freedom clenched in a white-knuckled grip—she flinched. “No. Please... No more hormones.”
Kallp scoffed, dragging a stumbling human to the door. “Filvtra!” he bellowed upon exiting his lab, reptilian features twisted.
“Please don’t do this. I... I could be your assistant,” the girl whispered, sagging against her captor, for everything below the injection site had gone numb. Shockingly so. Shockingly fast. “I’m a doctor and a mammal. I can... advise on other mammals.”
He turned big, lidless lizard eyes down, gills flapping. “An interesting proposition. But your value lies elsewhere, for the time being.” Rumbling low in his chest, Kallp shrugged. “Succeed in producing offspring of mixed blood, and I’m willing to negotiate. But if you can’t survive the next twenty minutes, you’ll never survive a mating with a Felidae anyway.”
“Moot point,” she agreed, and for a single, wild moment, Kallp wasn’t totally horrible. A monster, yes. But if escape proved impossible, he might well be her only chance of existing in this place in any capacity beyond ‘breeder.�
�� Which meant his brain couldn’t be turned into egg soup and the blades of freedom needed to be hidden until she could feel her hands again.
“Filvtra!” he bellowed, stepping away as the girl’s legs buckled and she sank to the floor. With an irate huff, Kallp abandoned her there, against the wall, his skin flashing red and orange as he tracked down his mate.
“Perfect,” she whispered, squinting bleary eyes at the matching set of razors in her hands. “I’ll just wait here. Totally harmless. Don’t mind me...” When he was out of sight, the girl twisted her hair into a messy bun, securing it with the hilt of a single blade. It was terribly obvious, as hiding places went. Almost guaranteed to get her killed, if she were honest, but she was naked and there was nowhere she was willing to tuck a couple of scalpels for safekeeping.
Fingers numb and fumbling, she couldn’t get the second scalpel hidden before the sounds of Kallp and Filvtra arguing preceded their return. Instead, she tucked it behind her forearm, pinning her life on being underestimated and little else.
When Kallp and Filvtra appeared, they were not alone, but flanked by two blue mountains of muscle. Her escorts to the next round of nightmares, presumably. Humanoid-ish... barring their size, color, and the dozens of bony spikes growing from their arms. But they were probably kitten-soft with sunny dispositions and not dangerous at all.
“Just had to stop at the mess hall, didn’t you?” Kallp asked, herding his mate back to the lab as she gnawed on a hank of greenish meat. “Don’t care how important this project is to me.”
“‘M coming, aren’t I? Couldn’t help it. Her scent made me hungry.” Strings of gray flesh dangling from her maw, Filvtra jerked her drumstick at the human. “What’s happened to her? Wasn’t that color when I left.”
“I don’t feel so good...” the girl whispered, tilting her head back to both meet Kallp’s unblinking gaze, and hide the flash of silver tucked into her bun.
Kallp cursed, hauled the human to unsteady feet, then peered into her eyes. “Just get her out of here,” he snarled a moment later, and shoved her toward the escort. “If she’s about to expire, I can’t have it happen in my labs. Not now. I have too many other important projects on the go. Better if it appears to be a natural byproduct of a mating gone wrong.” He cursed again, slamming a fist into the wall.
“Ooo,” Filvtra purred. “Love it when you get all rough.”
“Take her to cell block 540-6z,” Kallp snapped, and tossed the second of the two mountains the syringe of Felidae hormones. “If she’s still breathing by the time you get there, inject her in the hip. The whole vial.”
“And if she expires,” Filvtra said, wormy gray tongue passing over her lips, “bring her to me.”
Chapter Four
When they had gone, a burly blue arm wrapped around her ribs with a sigh. “Why do we always get stuck with the transport jobs? We’re warriors.” He hefted his cargo off the floor and slung her over his forearm, hip to hip. “It’s demeaning.”
“Doesn’t want to tarnish that perfect reputation, does he?” the second said, falling into step. “Long as she dies in someone else’s care, Kallp can remain Lord Naja’s favorite. And who’s to take the blame if this silly little scrap of flesh doesn’t make it, huh?”
With a grunt, the first hiked his cargo higher, jostling her and stepping into what might pass for an elevator in this bizarre land of monsters and madness. “Always knew we’d die for nothing. Least we got a good meal in before it happens. Don’t get fresh meat often. Not with Filvtra and her lot around.”
Forcing bleary eyes to remain open, she clenched her remaining scalpel in a deadened fist. They were descending, if the drop in her stomach was any sort of accurate. To where, she didn’t know for could see nothing but the filth-spattered iron wall of the elevator before her. Could barely lift her head to search for a means of escape, let alone make use of the weapons she’d stolen.
“Got something a little fresher than mess hall slop, don’t we?” the second said, bending to meet her wide, bleary gaze.
She blinked, squinting into foreign eyes. The left was run through with streaks of yellow and orange, familiar circular pupil. But the right? All black. As if the pupil was permanently dilated. Damaged.
A blind spot.
Grinning, Blindspot pressed his square blue face into her hair. Inhaling. “Ripe, this one. You game for a little sport?”
The elevator dinged. “Eat her?”
“No, stupid. We could rut her before that little Felidae shit gets at her.”
“We can’t. Kallp told us to—”
“What he don’t know is our fair pickins’. ‘Specially if she’s going to expire anyway. Might as well, right?”
“Hmm...”
Empty hand braced on a blue forearm, she grunted, fighting Kallp’s venom as they stepped off the elevator. A hall lined by windowless doors, walls speckled with layers of grime all but unidentifiable in the poor, flicking yellow light. A hall made of nightmares. Feeling the dull ache of bruised tissue in her throat might have been alarming to another—should have been to her, all things considered. But she welcomed it. Welcomed the pain as the venom faded and the nerves in cold fingertips woke.
“Well?” Blindspot asked, coming to a halt beside a door that read ‘540-6z’ in peeling black letters.
“Okay,” the first said, then shifted, pinning the human against a cold steel wall. “You go subdue the prisoner and I’ll take my turn here.”
“It was my idea,” Blindspot snapped, wrapping a meaty fist around a human bicep. “I’m taking the first shot, and,” he added, “I owe him for last week, remember? My right eye is still blurry. Kallp said the vision might never fully return.”
Scratching at the back of his head, the first frowned. “What’s that got to do with this? If you want even, go in there and break something off him. Or in him.”
Nodding, the girl tried to wriggle free. “Good idea. Go do that. Together. I’ll just wait here—”
“Sorry, honey.” Blindspot grinned, elbowing his partner out of the way and pulling her to his side. “Can’t. Wouldn’t be punishment, would it? Felidae are warriors by nature. I’ve heard they like pain more’n they like fuckin’. So if that’s true,” he continued, withdrawing the orange syringe, “there’s no better way to get even with the little shit than to make you reek of us, inside and out.”
“Wait!” She wasn’t ready! Her arms were still flubbery noodles, lacking the coordination needed to give her blade wings. “Just wait a second.”
“I don’t get it,” the first said, brows drawn together.
“Please—”
“It’s simple.” Blindspot gathered the human’s fragile wrists, flicked the cap on the syringe, and plunged it into her hip. “She’s not Felidae, but she reeks of one in heat.” He shrugged, letting the syringe clatter to the floor, spent. “He won’t be able to help himself. Might even rut her to death. And he’ll hate himself for it.”
Though her stomach heaved, she did not flinch as her escorts glared at each other above her head—she simply passed her blade to her left hand. With a double dose of hormones pumping through her blood, she had, what? Minutes before she was a filthy puddle on the floor? Or worse, a filthy puddle on the floor of cell 540-6z.
“Fine.” With a huff, the first submitted, and, lifting a panel to the left of the door, busied himself with the security mechanism keeping it locked. “But hurry up. The instant he’s out of the restraints he’ll do his best to tear my head off.”
Blindspot grinned, palming her breast. Tweaking the nipple. “Nothing like a warm quim when the blood is hot with battle, is there?”
“Just don’t kill her before I get back.”
“Never bothered you before,” Blindspot returned as his partner was swallowed by darkness, blue lips twisted in a toothy grin.
“You know... I think I prefer the idea of being eaten,” she rasped, tone conversational even as the hated, familiar twinges of Felidae heat began to pluck at her c
ore. “Aren’t you concerned about getting a virus? Kallp didn’t appear to know much about my species. What if I have a disease that could kill you?”
For a moment, Blindspot merely blinked. And then, “We’re low-ranking warriors in Lord Naja’s army. We’re destined to die young.”
“Might as well enjoy it while you can,” she said, nodding her understanding. “Enjoy it and hope your penis doesn’t rot off when you catch what I have. You do have a penis, right?”
“Probably not like you’re used to, little thing that you are. But it’ll do the trick. Least for me.”
Before she could react, something from the dark bellowed, words indistinguishable though the message was broadcast clearly. Rage. Primordial fury.
“None of that now, princeling,” the first said, disembodied voice tight with tension. “Got a present for you. And you can have her just as soon as we’ve had our fill. That’s it.” The thwack of a fist striking flesh reverberated in the girl’s chest, rattling her ribs. “Nice and easy. Come on out. That’s a good boy.”
Another wordless snarl echoed from the cell, this one cut short by the pitiful yelp of air forced from lungs and the sound of cracking bone.
She shivered, eyes straining to see into the dark. Straining to twist her head all the way to the right so she might pair the voice of her intended Felidae mate with a face—preferably one that wouldn’t match the horde of demons dancing naked in primordial flames through her imagination.
“Frightened of him, are you?” Blindspot asked, stuffing a fist down the front of his pants. “Don’t worry. He’s harmless, long as he’s wearing the suppressors.” He chuckled. “Though I guess that doesn’t apply to you, as he’s not going to be wearing them while you’re with him. No matter. You’ve got something a little more... pressing to worry about.”
Counting her breaths to keep the panicked screams—and the rising tide of heat—contained, she forced a smile, at once relishing the return of sensation below her jawline, and cursing it. Rough hands had begun to wander. Ghosting over her chest, creeping lower. Exploring.
Alien Alphas: Twenty-Three Naughty Sci-Fi Romance Novellas Page 110