by Roxie Ray
“Of course it matters.” Was she even listening to herself? “Even if you’re right—even if there’s something sinister in store for you on Lunaria—it matters to me.”
“Does it? Your people will feed me. Take care of me. So what if I have to…sleep with someone I don’t love. I won’t have to work in the chemical shed, or scrub pots and pans until my fingers bleed, or—”
“Hey.” I shifted forward, so she had no choice but to meet my gaze again. “Shh. None of that, okay? You’re not going to be a sex slave. Whatever happens—it’s not going to be that.”
“The virginity thing though, Gallix…” Eve shook her head. There were tears in her eyes again. This was twice now that she’d cried in front of me. I’d be damned if I let it happen a third time. “That doesn’t sound right to you, does it? Because it doesn’t sound right to me.”
“No,” I admitted. “No, it doesn’t at all. C’mere.”
As I moved my arms around her, I half expected her to fight me about it. After all, here she was, a terrified human who’d been through moons only knew what back on Earth, feeling threatened and pressured and scared witless that she was going to be forced to mate with some wretched old Lunarian lord that she didn’t even know—and here I was, a good-for-nothing Lunarian soldier she must have seen as more captor than friend, clad in only a towel.
But she didn’t fight me. When I pulled her tiny body against mine, she let me hold her and stroke her hair while her tears fell against my chest. Her slender arms wrapped around my waist, hugging me back. And even when the tears stopped, she didn’t let go.
Maybe the way I’d imagined all of this going initially hadn’t been so far off after all.
But this wasn’t any time to be thinking about seducing Eve. Nor was it a time to pop an erection, I reminded my cock—which was stiffening to half-mast anyway, despite my direct orders and better judgment.
“I’m going to figure this all out for you,” I swore to her. “I don’t want you worrying, or feeling threatened, or doing anything but taking care of yourself right now. All right?”
“You’re not going to send me back, though?” She eased her arms off my waist as she straightened to stare deep into my eyes. “You’re not going to force me to leave?”
“No,” I promised. “But I am going to force you to bed.”
“You’re…what?” Her eyes widened, terrified all over again.
“Not like that,” I groaned. “Your bed. You’ve worn yourself out, vringna. Probably drank a little too much baiju a little too quickly on top of it. You need rest, and you’re going to have it. Clear?”
A small, relieved laugh escaped her lips. “Clear. Thank you, Gallix.”
“And enough with all this thanking me,” I told her sternly. “I’m here to protect you. It’s not charity. I’m just doing my job.”
But as I watched her slip away, out of my room and across the hall into her own, I knew that doing my job had just gotten more complicated than any of us had originally thought.
I needed to tell Ronan, and we needed to figure out what in nine hells was going on with this virginity stipulation that Eve had been faced with.
And then, we needed to tell Leonix. Something was rotten back home on Lunaria.
Sometimes, it felt like no matter how hard we tried, something always was.
5
Eve
I was used to waking up early. Back in Sector Five, there was rarely any other choice. Even on the mornings that we weren’t startled awake with alarms and questioned to determine how viable we were for breeding, I’d needed to be awake before everyone else to get to the kitchens. If I didn’t wake up on time, breakfast might run behind—which meant that not everyone would have time to eat before work started.
As I blinked my eyes open in the dark of my new room, I guessed old habits died hard.
My head ached a little, which I’d heard was normal from drinking. Even though the drink I’d shared with Gallix last night had been my first, it was still surprising how little I’d needed to get tipsy.
Either alien liquor was stronger than the stuff the workers made out of old mealy apples and bread behind the chemical sheds, or I really couldn’t hold my booze.
The alcohol wasn’t the only thing that was still lingering in my head from last night, though. As I slipped on the thin, sheer white robe and little slippers that I’d found with my nightgown in the chest beneath my bed, I was still mulling over the things Gallix and I had talked about as well.
When he told me that he didn’t know why the doctors had been so interested in my virginity before they sent me here, he’d sounded honest.
Actually, he’d sounded just as outraged as I was.
It made me feel like I could trust him—but that was just as scary of a feeling as it was a comforting one.
Trust didn’t come easy growing up in Sector Five. Before yesterday, the only people I’d actually counted in my circle of trust were Ora and Lily. Even then, if I was being honest with myself, that was mostly because we’d all needed each other back in the work camp.
They’d needed me to stand up for them, and I’d needed them so I was a little less alone.
Gallix was an entirely different matter, though. He had power over me here, even if he didn’t want to admit it.
The power to deliver me to Lunaria, where, if my fears were correct, there was every chance I’d wind up a sex slave to an alien lord I’d never met.
And if I was wrong to have trusted him, he had the power to send me back to Sector Five as well.
When I thought about it like that, this was worse than being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
This was being stuck between a life of hard labor and a life of sexual slavery, all out here in the vast emptiness of open space.
I crept out into the hall as quietly as I could. I didn’t want to wake Ora…and I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of waking up the other Lunarians, either. But my stomach was growling loud enough that if I didn’t eat something soon, I was in danger of waking up everyone from here in the ship all the way back to Earth.
I needed food, and probably a shower. Then…I guessed I needed to figure out what was true about what I’d been told in regard to this contract. I needed to determine whether I could actually trust Gallix, or if this was all just part of whatever game I’d become a pawn in.
And most importantly, depending on how all of that went, I needed find some way to get myself out of this mess.
The ship wasn’t all that big. The first door I tried ended up being the cockpit. The lights were low inside it. The controls were lit up in blues and greens with no one behind them.
The second door I opened was the showers. It looked a lot like the ones that we used back at the work camp—three showerheads side by side over a black tile floor.
That was going to be awkward. There were three of us, and three Lunarians… but I didn’t see a separate door to a shower for the women.
But I guessed that was a problem for another time.
The only door left to try must have been the canteen. When I waved my hand over it, the sound of angry male voices poured through it.
I froze.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who woke up early here on the ship.
“Maybe the humans simply misunderstood what they were being asked for.” The purple-haired, four-armed Lunarian sat at the table in the canteen with his back to me. “Perhaps this is all simply a misunderstanding. Nothing more.”
“The commission would have explained it to them, Ronan.” Gallix’s voice was dripping with rage. He pounded his fist against the metal panel of the wall he was leaning up against. “They knew what they were doing when they started rounding up virgins. Mark my words.”
“They wouldn’t have done that of their own accord, though.” Pax, the one that Ora was currently crushing on, was pacing along the side of the room opposite Gallix. “Which means…”
“Which means Lunaria asked for virgins,” Gallix
grunted. He banged his fist against the wall again, a little harder this time. “All this time, we were so busy worrying about whether or not Earth was trying to do us dirty, enslaving people against their will. Meanwhile, our damned king and the High Council were planning treachery right beneath our noses.”
“We need to figure out what to do with them, then.” Pax raked his fingers through his pale-yellow hair and shook his head. “If the high lords want these females on Lunaria so they can mate with them, we can hardly deliver the humans right into their clutches.”
I let out a breath, then tried to hold my next in my lungs for as long as I could. I knew what they were arguing about. Me. Ora. All three of us.
But it didn’t seem like they’d noticed me standing there yet.
I needed to stay quiet.
If they weren’t going to take us to Lunaria, I needed to know what they were planning on doing with us instead.
“We have to send them home, then.” Ronan sighed and hung his head. “I see no other option.”
“Absolutely not,” Gallix snarled. “You’ve seen them yourself, Ronan. Eve, Ora, the little female they replaced with Marisa—bone thin. Looks like they were half-starved before the humans handed them off. And I spoke to Eve last night—”
“Did you now?” Ronan didn’t sound impressed.
“Oh, don’t go looking at me like that. It was innocent—but she’s scared, Ronan. Babbling on about chemical sheds, being worked until her fingers bled…”
I pulled my robe a little tighter around me. If Gallix thought all of that was bad, I was just lucky he hadn’t noticed the scars across my back yet.
“What do you suggest we do then, Gallix?” Ronan asked. “If you have a better solution, I would love to hear it.”
“Well…I’m still thinking on that. But whatever that solution may be, sending them back to Earth isn’t it.”
I let out a slow sigh of relief.
My instincts had been right, then.
If there was only one Lunarian I could trust here, it was him.
“I am sure.” Ronan gripped the edge of the table with two of his hands and placed his face in the other two. “We must take them back, Gallix! At least until we determine what the High Council communicated to Earth’s government about this treaty. But if we cannot in good conscience deliver these females to Lunaria—”
“No,” I said softly. Pax, Ronan and Gallix all turned to stare at me. “Please, don’t take us back there. Please.”
“You are not afraid of what awaits you on Lunaria?” Ronan stood and looked at me like I’d just grown two new arms myself. “You brought these concerns to Gallix yourself. It is our duty to address them.”
“I shouldn’t have said anything.” It was embarrassing to admit it, but now that I was being faced with actually having to go back to Sector Five, things felt a lot clearer to me. If I had to choose between whatever was awaiting me on Lunaria and going back to a work camp controlled by The Vulture… “Take me to Lunaria. Please. I’ll do whatever your…your High Council wants. But I can’t go back. I won’t go back.”
Ronan opened his mouth, probably to argue with me, but Gallix placed his hand on Ronan’s shoulder and spoke first.
“Why don’t the two of you go shower up before the other humans wake.” Gallix locked eyes on me. His gaze was comforting. Trust. It was still a little scary, putting my faith in him like this, but it was all I had right now. I’d have to take it. “Eve and I will get some breakfast on in the meantime. It’ll be ready by the time you get back.”
Ronan and Pax filed out of the canteen. Pax gave me a look of sympathy. Ronan still looked wary about all of this, though.
I guessed I couldn’t blame him.
Nothing about this trip was turning out the way any of us had thought.
“You sleep okay?” Gallix asked once the others were gone.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Honestly? In spite of everything…it was probably the best sleep of my life.”
“Things back on Earth must have been pretty bad, then.” Gallix pointed at the table. “Sit. I’ll cook. You talk.”
“Talk about…what?” I slipped into a chair as Gallix began opening cabinets and banging around pots and pans.
“Whatever you want, really. After last night…” Gallix turned and smirked at me. “I got the idea maybe you haven’t had anyone to talk to in a while.”
“That was probably the alcohol talking.” I pressed a hand to my temple. “I think I might have a hangover, actually. What was that stuff?”
“Jeorkanian baiju. Like I said. It’s, ah…pretty strong stuff.” Gallix chuckled, then pushed a mug my way across the table and splashed something dark and steamy into it.
The smell of coffee filled my nose—but it wasn’t bitter like the coffee they served in the work camp. This was deep and rich and… enticing.
I took a sip and felt my entire brain light up.
“Wow,” I breathed. It didn’t taste anything like the coffee I knew. It tasted lightly sweet, like it had been flavored with something that I’d never experienced before. “That’s…really, really good.”
“Lunarian mocha. If you like that, then you’ll love my sausage.”
His…sausage?
“Um…” I gave Gallix a tentative glance.
“Oh, come on! I’m cooking breakfast! That’s not even fair!” Gallix shook his head, grumbling as he cut a knob of bright orange butter into a skillet. Once it was bubbling, he started cracking in large, speckled eggs. “You know, for a female who’s more afraid of going home than she is of, er…whatever the situation on Lunaria might be, you sure are touchy about wordplay.”
“You haven’t been to Earth.” I stared down at my coffee mug and bit my lip. It was hard not to be in good spirits around Gallix. He had a calm, charismatic energy around him that made it almost feel impossible that I’d already cried in front of him. Twice. But my situation right now was a little too serious to ignore. “I was born into a work camp there. Ora and Marisa were taken from there, too. Sector Five. It’s the most horrible place I could possibly imagine…but then again, aside from this ship, it’s the only place I’ve ever known.”
“And whatever you’re facing back there…it’s worse than the thought of being forced to mate with some Lunarian lord?”
“I think so,” I told him. “I don’t…well, I told you last night, I’ve never been with a man. I’ve never had sex before.”
“Actually, let’s not talk about mating right now,” Gallix grunted. His shoulders looked a little more tense than they had a second earlier.
“Okay,” I agreed. “But whatever…mating is like for Lunarians, it can’t be as bad as what we were facing in Sector Five. We were starving back on Earth, Gallix. We were overworked and mistreated…” I thought of Lily’s sister, her body stiff and blue as the guards took her out of the laundry shack. “And worse.”
Gallix pulled a length of fat, bright green sausages from the chilly depths of another drawer. They were not exactly appetizing to look at, but when he threw three down on another hot skillet, the smell they left in the air was mouth-watering. The other three, to my confusion, he sat aside.
“We Lunarians are omnivores,” Gallix explained as he threw a length of flat, rectangular bread down across two more of the stove’s burners. “But we eat our meat raw.”
“Gross.” It was bad enough that the sausages were green—although, I wasn’t about to turn down food, no matter the color.
“Yeah, well, I think it’s groze that you eat yours cooked. So there.” Gallix nodded at his cooking setup, then turned to stare at me again. “We’re in agreement that you’re not going back to Earth. All right? You don’t have to keep worrying about that.”
“Ronan doesn’t seem to be in agreement,” I pointed out.
“Ronan can go stick his head up his ass and search for farts, for all I care.” Gallix gestured at me with his spatula, then turned back to the eggs. “But once he pulls his head back out o
f his ass, he’s going to see reason. It’s not sending you back to Earth that he’s set on, really. It’s what we should do with you instead that’s got him puzzled. Puzzling all of us, really.”
“Whatever they want from me on Lunaria, I’ll do it.”
My cheeks flushed a little pink at the thought of what that might actually entail, though.
I tried to summon up the image of one of the characters from the romance novel I’d left hidden beneath my mattress in the work camp…but I had a bad feeling that my imaginary hero looked less like the Lunarian lord who was waiting for me, and more like…well…
Gallix.
I watched the way Gallix’s body moved as he managed the stove. He was wearing the same kind of white pants he’d been wearing the day before, but he hadn’t put on his military jacket yet. Instead, he wore a tight white shirt that clung gorgeously to his biceps and showed off exactly how broad his shoulders were. He was twice as wide as I was—but I doubted there was any more fat on his body than there was on mine.
All muscle. All man—or, well, all Lunarian man, anyway.
And thanks to our little towel-clad conversation last night, I knew what he looked like without the shirt on, too. It’d been hard to concentrate on even making words as I sat next to him, me in my nightgown, him wearing almost nothing at all.
And that was before the alien liquor came into play.
But Gallix wasn’t the Lunarian I’d be assigned to when we reached his planet. I’d be given to some nobleman. Maybe, just to play surrogate for him.
Maybe for more.
Could I kiss a man, if he wanted me to? Could I undress for him, touch him…please his body?
My romance novel had talked a lot about tender embraces, stolen kisses, even throbbing manhoods and delicate, tender petals beneath the moonlight, but those love scenes didn’t feel like a very good how-to guide. I didn’t even know the book’s name, thanks to the fact that it was missing its cover.
No. I was everything short of in the dark when it came to mating, or fucking, or making love. I didn’t even have a firm understanding of how my own body worked in that way, let alone a man’s. Or an alien’s, for that matter.