by Viki Storm
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
About the Author
© Viki Storm 2018. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior written consent of the author, except in the case of brief quotations for critical reviews and certain noncommercial uses permitted by law.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, locations, and events portrayed in this work are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
Sign up for my monthly newsletter and download a FREE Bonus Chapter to Sold to the Alien Prince
Sign Up Here!
I didn’t realize that outer space would be so cold.
Then again, I don’t have any clothes on.
Even though I always knew this would be my fate, I somehow pictured everything… different.
The ship is cold. Like, freezing. My little house back on Earth was drafty and I spent many winter nights curled up asleep inches away from the fire. But this alien ship is beyond cold. It’s like these damn Zalaryns don’t get cold. Probably they don’t.
I am waiting in a line with the other girls, all of them from tiny nothing villages on Earth. It’s remarkable. None of us have weeping sores or bleeding ulcers. Every single one of us has all her teeth. A full head of hair. We are all untouched by the sickness and blight that the war brought to our people. But that’s not the only thing we have in common.
All of us, today is our twentieth birthday.
All of us, we’ve been Marked.
The room is cold, but I think I already mentioned that. It is stark white, no furniture, no decorations.
A holding tank.
There are two Zalaryn guards standing at the door. At least I think they’re guards. They’re each holding a stick or something. I know it’s not a stick. It’s definitely much more advanced.
And deadly, I’m sure.
It’s just that despite this spaceship capable of interstellar travel, despite the lights that turn on with the touch of a button, despite the big control panels with buttons and boops and beeps and colors and lights… despite the fact that there’s more technology in their alien toilets than in my entire village—the Zalaryns seem so primitive. Like the feral bands of harriers that raid Earth villages, desperately searching for food or furs or girls.
I know that the Zalaryns aren’t armed with something as barbaric as a stick. It just seems like they should be.
The guards are big. The two Zalaryn guards are easily the biggest men I’ve ever seen. (Men? Are they actually men? I guess they are.) They’re at least six-and-a-half feet tall. Their broad shoulders are corded with thick muscles. They can probably eat more nutritious foods than we can back on Earth.
On Earth, not much grows. Not much survives.
And what does is because of the Zalaryns and their protection.
If you want to call it that.
The guards leer at the girls. They’re talking to each other, not bothering to lower their voices. Why should they? None of us girls understand what they’re saying.
Except, all of us know what they’re saying.
Their hand gestures, their hungry, vulpine smiles. These two hulking monsters, they’d tear us apart. Ravish and plunder our tiny human bodies.
But they don’t. They can’t.
We are property. And if there’s one thing the Zalaryns understand it’s the rules of hierarchy.
Of power.
See what I mean, they should be carrying sticks.
The door bursts open with a loud smacking sound. I jump a little and the two guards laugh. The way they’re looking at me, I want to cover up, hide my nakedness, but it would do no good.
Because now, I’m property.
That’s not entirely true. I’ve always been property.
I knew the day my blood came when I was thirteen. The curse. My grandmother said that before the war, all women got their blood, every single month. All women were fit to bear children. Then again, she used to ramble a lot when she got old, always about how it was Before The War. It’s hard to know what was real and what was an old woman’s fantasy.
When my blood came, my parents had to submit my DNA for testing. I still don’t know what DNA is, but I had to spit into a cup and they sent it away with a Zalaryn soldier. I had almost forgotten about it when we got the news.
My DNA was compatible.
After that, my life was no longer my own. There was a ticking clock. My twentieth birthday. And I’d be sent away.
The man who walks in, I think of him as the doctor. I sort of think of him as a man too, even though one look and he’s definitely not human. The Zalaryns are an odd shade of reddish-orangish, almost rust-colored. Their skin looks like ours from afar, but it is not anything like ours. When the guards brought me on the ship, I felt their arms brush against mine. Their skin is warm. Like, really warm. Which is probably why they don’t get cold. And it has an odd texture, like an old leather boot, flexible yet tough. They’re huge, hulking, muscled in a way that no Earth man could ever be. Especially not after the war poisoned the land. Their faces look like ours, which is why I keep thinking of them as men.
They have no hair. Their heads have raised bumps, about the size of a coin. They don’t protrude that much, giving their heads a sleek look. The guards are decorated with jewelry on their arms, cuffs and bangles that look suspiciously like they were carved out of bone. Their teeth look human, except they have two sets of canine teeth instead of one, four fangs on top and four on the bottom. The guards do not wear anything above the waist, only worn leather breeches which end above their ankles. The boots they wear are made of some other material I am not familiar with. Apparently leather is good enough for their pants and their arm-baubles, but their foot ware looks solid, like it’s been crafted of a lightweight metal or polymer.
I would want to draw one of these aliens. My fingers itch to hold my charcoal pencil. It would be a challenge to get the shading on their heads correct, but the real challenge of my artistic talent would be to capture the raw sense of un-restraint that I feel coming off of the aliens. What they possess is not an animal, feral, unthinking brutality. They are civilized, though their civilization is steeped in violence. They are clever. Their eyes are sharp with cunning and intelligence that most of the villagers on Earth don’t have. To draw both of those dueling and contradictory qualities—brute force and a quick mind—would be a challenge indeed.
The doctor claps his hands to bring us all to attention. He reminds me of a doctor because he wears a tunic in addition to his breeches. He doesn’t carry a weapon-stick but instead carries a white polymer case that’s filled with different instruments and tools. I imagine that his case is filled with many little jars filled with herbs and powders, like the healers’ cases back home.
Except I know better. It’s filled with cold metal instruments.
He also reminds me of a doctor because he was the one who inspected me.
When I entered the spaceship, the guards scanned the barcode tattoo Marking on my shoulder and then put me in a small room where I waited alone. I waited and waited until the doctor cam
e in. He told me to take off my clothes. I expected him to leer and fondle me. My hands shook as I removed my clothing. The tales we tell on earth about these Zalaryns involve their insatiable lust and barbaric violence.
Instead of leering, the doctor merely swept his gaze up and down by body, dispassionately as a farmer inspecting his dog for ticks. Somehow, his disinterest was worse. I was nothing to him. Just another good to be inspected and imported into his home planet of Zalaryx.
He made me lie down on an examination table and spread my legs. He peered at me, poking and peeling back my folds.
Confirming my virginity, I know. As if any of the village boys wanted anything to do with a girl who was Marked.
Once I was inspected, the doctor put me into the room with the other girls, where we’ve been waiting. They haven’t bothered to give us clothes. Haven’t bothered to tell us what is going to happen, where we are going to go.
And why should they bother? To them, this room full of trembling girls, we’re like cows in the barn.
The doctor approaches one of the girls, a skinny blond girl who came from a village I never heard of. He grabs her wrists and says something to the guards. They come to his side immediately, one of them positioning himself behind her, pinning her arms behind her back. This guard has an intricate tattoo winding around his arm. I don’t understand why he would take the time, endure the pain, just to permanently color his skin, but then again, there’s a lot I don’t understand.
The other guard laughs and runs his hand along her torso, his wandering red fingers looking so thick and weird against her pale skin. He’s even bigger, towering above everyone. His nose is pushed flat against his face like a piece of bread dough. He pauses for a second to cup one breast and she screams out. The doctor spits out something that must be a curse. The guard with the smashed nose says something in his defense—the expression on his face is all too human. Indignation, cocksure defiance. I can imagine his words are something like, ‘lighten up’ or ‘what’s the big deal.’
Apparently it was a big deal, because the doctor delivers a sharp, efficient blow to the guard’s face. Maybe it will improve the quality of his nose. The guard clenches his teeth and says nothing, even when a small trickle of blood snakes its way out of his nostril. I get the idea he has a habit of making people mad enough to punch him in the nose.
This can’t be a good planet that we’re going to. Even the doctors are ass-kickers. Not a good sign. On Earth, our healers are usually women, caring and kind. I can’t imagine one of our healers backhanding an unruly assistant. I shudder to think of the ceaseless violence and turmoil that they must have on their planet.
But it makes sense. Their race is about 90% male. The females they do have are mostly corrupted by The Sickness. It’s the same type of blight that came after our war and turned the Earth sour.
A planet filled with all those men, no women to counter-balance their brutish strength and aggression.
No wonder the doctors are violent.
The guard with the smashed nose, thoroughly chastened, holds the girl’s head. His powerful hands are bigger than her skull and he easily holds her still. She is screaming, her shrill cries of fear echoing through the room like a siren. The doctor pulls out a long metal tube from his instrument case. The girl starts kicking her feet, but the guards have anticipated this. The one with the tattoo hooks his leg over her right leg and Mr. Bloody Nose hooks his leg over her left leg.
I can see her parted pink flesh between her legs, and it embarrasses me, though I can’t say why. What are they going to do with her? What are they going to do with the rest of us?
The doctor takes the metal tube and puts it against the side of her head.
Then he takes out the needle.
He slides the needle into the tube and I can tell when it hits her skin, because the girl jumps. The doctor rummages in his instrument case and finds a small hammer.
Oh mercy, I think, this is too much. But I can’t look away. Of course not.
Because I know this is going to happen to me very soon.
The metal tube is just a stabilizer to keep the needle straight and in the right position. Holding the metal tube steady, he gives the needle three taps. He removes the tube and leaves the needle sticking out of the side of her head.
She is still now, but I can see that a thin trickle of urine is going down her leg. I don’t blame her. Not a bit.
The doctor puts away the tube and the hammer and takes out something I don’t even know how to describe. It’s a little box with a string hanging from it; on the other end of the string is a small metal clip. Another piece of their alien technology I have no idea about.
He puts the clip onto the needle and then pushes some buttons on the little box. There is humming, low at first, then high and whiny, like a mosquito in your ear. It gets higher and higher and I feel like I can’t take it anymore. There is a small flash of light and then silence.
Complete silence.
The room stinks all of a sudden, like when the farmers cook cow hides in the spring time to make leather. The girl is limp in the guards’ arms. The doctor unclips the metal piece and pulls the needle out of the girl’s head.
He taps her shoulder, saying something to her. Their language is so rough; it sounds like he’s gargling jagged rocks. She opens her eyes and he nods.
I try to reassure myself.
We are valuable.
We are virgin females with compatible DNA.
As breeders, we are the future of the Zalaryn race. We are more valuable to them than the minerals that fuel their spaceship, more valuable than their livestock and water wells.
We are prized above all else, the most sacred possession a Zalaryn male could hope to own.
They will not damage us. They will not hurt us.
But maybe, they could do something to our brains, a sinister voice inside me speaks up. To make us more docile and obedient. Do something to erase our personality and intelligence. Make us compliant, nothing but a hollow vessel for alien seed.
The doctor growls something at the girl and to everyone’s surprise, she growls back. Her voice is rough, full of jagged rocks. The doctor says something to her and she nods.
She understands him?
The guards let her free, but she puts one hand on the tattooed one’s shoulder to steady herself. She looks at us. She opens her mouth and a mish-mash of sounds escape. The doctor puts a hand on her shoulder which I suppose is meant to reassure her but she looks so frail between the three giant aliens, the gesture does not reassure me.
“It’s okay,” she finally says so we can all understand her. “He did something so I can understand their language.”
There is a murmur from the girls. I can hear some of them are calling it a sinister magic, others calling it a heresy. I don’t know what to think, except my grandmother said that fiddling around with too much technology is what led to The War on Earth.
The doctor says something to her and she translates for our benefit. “He says that if you hold still, it doesn’t hurt as bad. He says it’s not any different than putting a needle through your earlobe.” I look around the room and see quite a few girls do have pierced ears.
But I don’t.
The girls start a panicky echo of questions. Where are we going? What are they going to do with us? How long until we get there?
We know very little about our voyage. All we know is that we are compatible. All of us, ever since we were young and the test results came and our shoulders were Marked with the identifying barcode, we knew that our lives were not our own. There would be no boyfriends or apprenticeships. No families, no babies.
Well, there would definitely be babies. But not the sort most girls dream of having. We would give birth to aliens. We would nurse the new generation of the race that both saved and enslaved humankind.
At home, the villagers pretended we didn’t exist. Ghost girls, floating around until their twentieth birthday.
Even though
it is us—the Marked ones—who keeps the rest of them all safe.
It’s all one big daisy-chain of protection.
The Zalaryns, they saved Earth’s ass during The War. Kept us from being enslaved by the Kraxx. Which is good, because the Kraxx are a ruthless lot. The Kraxx destroyed our planet, bombed and raided and plundered.
The Zalaryns, though, love a good fight. Lucky Earthlings, because when the first Kraxx fighter ship hovered in the sky, we had no idea what it was, let alone how to fight it.
The Zalaryns came to our rescue and defeated the Kraxx. All the Zalaryns asked in return was a continuous tribute of compatible girls.
Zalaryn females are barren. Many Earth girls are barren, but about half of us get monthly blood. Of those, however, very few are compatible with Zalaryn DNA and can breed with the aliens.
It will have a negligible effect on rebuilding your human population, they told us.
So few you won’t even miss them.
The doctor shouts something to the crowd. The blond girl looks at him and he speaks again, slower, each word of his sounding like a sharp piece of metal that’s stuck underneath your fingernail.
“He says I have to translate exactly,” the girl says. She looks at him again, nervously, and he nods.
“He says to shut up. He says that we are all lucky. He says that his planet is a paradise compared to that shit-smear called Earth.”
We are all too scared to murmur amongst ourselves. Lucky? People have a way of using that word when you’re definitely not lucky. The doctor speaks again and the blond girl nods.
“He says that we will be treated fairly and—?” she looks at him for clarification. He speaks a word and I can’t even begin to understand the sounds. It just sounds like gargh to me.
“I don’t know the word,” she says. “But I think it’s close to humanely.”
Of course Zalaryns don’t have that word, but surely their society understands the concept. At least that’s what I hope. Who knows if these brutes understand things like mercy and compassion.
“He says that you all will have the procedure so you can understand their language. It has to be fast because we’re about to land.”