by Maia Starr
But that was why I was here. My whole purpose for facing this monster again was to try and help Emily out of the unfortunate situation I was sure she had gotten herself into. I had a gut instinct that I would find her at the camps. But if I was going to go, I wanted to do it properly and ensure my success.
“Captain Zod,” I said, bowing deeply in greeting.
“Nice to see you again, Ostra’ki.”
Zod didn’t smile at me, but he did look up to study my face. I took it as a good sign.
“I have a request, Captain Zod,” I said quietly. I suddenly felt insecure about my plan. But it was far too late to turn back now.
“Yes, spit it out. I’m a busy man.”
“I understand. I was wondering if there was a chance that, before all the Earth women were spoken for—”
“Women?” Zod asked, his face perplexed.
“Females,” I corrected myself. The temperature of my body was rising with the anxiety I felt. I was sure I would be discovered. Then it would be me sent to fight the wars in the great beyond, not Absle.
“I think I know where you’re going with this,” Zod said, with a sinister smile creasing his face. “You want a girl, don’t you?”
“Um. Yes, sir.”
“Well, you know that the Earth females are highly coveted, don’t you?”
“Of course, sir. That’s why I want one.”
Zod’s smile widened. “Is that right?”
I nodded, doing my best to keep my chin high in the air. If he thought I was second-guessing myself, or perceived me as weak, then he might want to toy with me even though he promised to reward me for turning Absle in to him.
“I would like a companion very much, sir.”
“Wouldn’t we all? Well, I’m afraid that many of the females are already spoken for by high ranking men. But, I will give you clearance to check the camps for yourself. If there are any females who have not been claimed yet, you have my blessing, and, I assume, the blessing of Supreme Leader Aloitus, to choose one.”
My hearts soared at this news, and Captain Zod bent over his desk to stamp a clearance pass and scribble a short message on the card.
“Take this with you to Mount Zennith. I assume this makes us even.”
“Of course, sir. Thank you very much.”
I turned to leave, and Zod cleared his throat. I hesitated before crossing through the doorway.
“I don’t want to see you here again, understood? Even if you aren’t able to receive a female, we will not interact like this again.”
“I understand. Thank you, Captain Zod.”
He grunted in response, and I left the room briskly, still not convinced that he wasn’t going to change his mind.
***
My hands were shaking as I commanded the control panel of the hovercraft, speeding as quickly as I could without breaking the traffic laws. It was difficult for me to do, because I spent most of my time driving in the mountains, where the laws in the sky were much laxer. I was usually the only person around, so I used my craft liberally.
I was able to breathe a sigh of relief once I finally made it over the threshold of the first steep mountain range. I steadily sped up the craft, my eyes searching the horizon until I could see the peak of the tents where the human females were being kept. A surge of nausea pulsed through my body. Traffic was heavy out this way. Visiting hours must have been going on. If any of them already got their hands on Emily, I didn’t know what I was going to do.
“Laike, what are you doing here?”
I sighed. Jennai’k was a Thressl’n female who had been in my maintenance courses. She was a rather unpleasant female when you didn’t know her very well, but once you were on friendly terms with her, she was quite a loyal and kind friend.
“I got clearance for an Earth female,” I said, trying to sound proud about it.
“Oh gods, not you too!”
I frowned. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s as if you men think that human females are better than the females you should be mated with. We are not the ones who fueled the gender disparity. It is not our fault the better jobs are given to men, and that male children were preferred. And yet we are being punished and mocked because we do not hold the qualities of Earth females. Well, I’ll tell you something, Laike. They’re inferior to us in so many ways. We are the females you should be after, not these thin-skinned, water-based disgraces!”
I paused for a moment as it dawned on me that Jennai’k was jealous. And she had every right to be. The worst part was that she was having it rubbed in her face day in and day out that the men on this planet were overlooking Thressl’n women once again in pursuit of a new, exotic specimen from a planet known for its destructive ways.
“I am sorry that you feel that way,” I said, bowing deeply to Jannai’k. “I have never favored humans over Thressl’n, or the other way around either. I am simply searching for the one I feel I am meant to be mated with.”
Jennai’k’s face softened.
“Well…there is one female unspoken for. She had escaped the day the ships came in, and some of the humans recently found her and brought her back. Her name is Dr. Lain Brousseau.”
I almost told her no, because I knew that was not the name of my female. But something stopped me.
“Come, I will take you to her.”
My entire body felt close to bursting as Jennai’k led me through the tent. The human females were lined up in front of their beds, and each of them had a Thressl’n man in front of them. They had brought strange arrays of gifts and were presenting them to the human females proudly.
I scanned the room for Emily but didn’t see her. I felt crushed with defeat until Jennai’k stopped abruptly.
“Excuse me, but this human is spoken for,” she said. “You are expected in Camp 2.”
The Thressl’n man in front of us scowled at Jennai’k. “But I want this one!”
When he stepped out of the way, my hearts nearly jumped out of my chest. Emily was holding her arms tightly, fear on every crevice of her face. She refused to look up at any of us until I stepped forward and offered my hand out to her.
“Is it all right if I care for you?” I asked.
Emily’s golden eyes widened, and she looked from me to the other Thressl’n man and nodded.
“Great!” Jennai’k exclaimed. “Let the courtship begin!”
***
Emily and I stood facing each other, quiet as the rest of the Thressl’n men and Earth females jabbered amongst themselves. She was more beautiful than I remembered her being, and all I wanted to do was reach out to touch her.
But she had left my hand dangling in the air. I had no idea what she was thinking or feeling, and I had a feeling there was no way she was going to let me in on it.
“How have you been?” I finally asked. I was burning to just pick her up and take her out of this place. But there were rules in the camps. And we had to act as if we had just met.
“Does it matter?” Emily said darkly, her supple lips drawing into a frown.
“Of course it matters!”
I had forgotten how aggravating her defiance could be. But we were in a public space. I couldn’t let my temper get the best of me.
“I don’t know how you managed this,” Emily said quietly. “But thank you. I didn’t like that man.”
My anger melted away. She was just afraid. I could hardly blame her. The camps were criminally efficient, and once she was assigned to a Thressl’n, that was going to be the end of it.
At least if she was assigned to me, I could see to it that no harm came to her. Most of the men I knew would not tolerate such defiance from a female. I knew it took me everything I had not to put her in her place at times. The others weren’t like me though. They would not see the reason behind her actions. And they certainly would not empathize.
“You owe me nothing. I just want you to know that I have a plan,” I said. I lowered my voice to a whisper. “While you were
gone, I had a chance to do some thinking. I think there is a solution that we can come to that will benefit us both. But I am going to need your help. You must become my mate.”
Emily’s face fell. “Is that all you think about?”
The pitch of her voice raised desperately, and I frowned. She looked sexy when she was angry, but it made me feel as if someone had punched me right in the stomach after a morning meal.
“No,” I said. “All I seem to think about is you.”
Emily’s amber eyes widened in surprise, and she fell silent.
“Please, just trust me.”
Emily didn’t speak again, and before I knew it, a bell was sounding. Visiting hours were over.
I bent down close to her face, and I could feel the charge between us. If I could have taken her right then, I would have. But right now I had to play by the rules. Luckily I had been trained all of my life for that.
“I am going to come back here for you every day,” I whispered. Her eyes stared into mine intently, and I could feel her unbridled longing. But she was too angry to give in to it. Too angry at me, and the Thressl’n in general. And perhaps that was the way it was always going to be. “I am going to come here until you are ready to visit my home again. When you do, I will have a surprise ready for you.”
Emily pursed her lips, and it became impossible for me to read her expression. She wanted nothing to do with me, or with any of us. And that is why I had to do the right thing.
The final bell rang. If I didn’t leave now, I would be banished from the camps.
“Just be advised,” I warned before I turned to leave, “that you should return before Zod locates you in this camp. You are not safe. Not anywhere. Only with me.”
And with that, I left.
***
The next week was busy and tedious. I had to wait until the next visiting hours for the females, and in that time, Jennai’k took the liberty of signing me up for courses on breeding with humans. We were put in an auditorium with the most absurdly simple contraption I had ever seen, as images of humans played from the projector and onto a white screen.
Every movie ended in a successful mating, and a discussion was held with Jenal’k’s own love doctor at the end. We were meant to ask questions and discover more about humans. However, the more I sat in on these “lessons,” the more laughable they seemed. It was clear that none of them had ever lived with a human female before.
And I knew, for certain, how to answer questions about sex with a female that the rest of the Thressl’n had no idea about. It often left me with an overpowering longing to have Emily back in my bed, her warm body draped over me or sighing in pleasure against me.
I went back to my empty home every night, with Emily’s face dancing in my thoughts. I would wake up in the middle of the night craving her body, and the only thing that could get me back to sleep was getting up in the middle of the night and taking a walk to my secret underground workroom. I built it as soon as I was granted permission to build my house in the mountains, just a day after the initial home was complete.
Nobody else knew that it was there because it would have been prohibited by the Thressl’n elders. But I had always been a nonconformist, and the only way I could accept my lot in life was to express myself in other ways, whether they were conventionally accepted or not.
But it was becoming more and more clear to me that I couldn’t stay on this planet. I had nothing left for me here anymore. Nobody had ever understood me. Even Absle had mocked my mind as opposed to celebrating it or showing me compassion when I was being unfairly treated by others who were greedy for the credit for my inventions. I had longed to escape for years, and now I had no reason not to.
My plan was more clear to me now than it had ever been before. I would finish a ship. The best and most advanced ship the solar system had ever seen. And I wouldn’t give it to the Thressl’n government. No, it was far too corrupt. I would keep it for myself. And when it was finished, I would do what I should have done many yeas ago.
I would escape. And I would take Emily with me.
Chapter 9
Emily Hart (Director of Engineering)
It had been shocking to see Laike standing behind the burly Thressl’n man who had immediately declared that I was going to breed him a child, preferably a male child. Laike’s gentle voice had sent a thrill of ecstasy through me, as intense as it had been the first time I had felt him push inside of me.
It had left me frazzled and confused during our conversation. It had been tempting to just take his hand and let him lead me back to his comfortable little house, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Everybody just wanted to abduct and mate with me. Who could I trust?
And to be honest, I wasn’t sure whether or not I want to be away from the camp of women. There was something so familiar about being in a room full of other women. I had never liked being around other people much before; my intelligence was apparently intimidating to them. Besides that, it wasn’t particularly easy to relate to others. I don’t know how Laike and I had managed to get on such friendly terms. Most of my relationships were one-sided and never led anywhere.
“Lain, when’s your hottie coming again? He missed the last visitor’s day!”
The tall woman who had led me to the camps had taken quite a liking to me, and since then I’d found out that her name was Heather. She was very jealous of my pairing with Laike, and I couldn’t blame her. The Thressl’n man assigned to her was barbaric.
“I don’t know,” I said, though I was wondering myself. I couldn’t keep my mind from wandering back to Laike, and the overpowering electricity that was sparked between us when he had visited the first time. I guess I had gotten comfortable with the idea that he would always come for me, but so far it seemed as if he had completely forgotten I’d existed. I hoped that he was all right.
“Well, he better get back soon. The mating dance is scheduled for next week.”
“The what?” I asked, unable to stifle a laugh.
Heather raised an eyebrow at me with a thin smile creasing her face.
“They seem to think that we need to be danced with before we will be ready to breed. Everything is guesswork with them right now. They want to ensure our fertility before actually engaging in anything sexual with us. They say it’s more efficient, but I get the feeling they’re just scared shitless of us.”
I grinned and shook my head, and Heather was summoned back to her bed by Jennai’k, who had been administering shots to us every week a few hours before the Thressl’n men came into the tents. That was a pretty good indication that it was a visitor’s day.
Sure enough, the Thressl’n men lined up one by one about three hours later, each of them standing in front of the woman he had been assigned to. Once again, I was disappointed by Laike’s absence. What could he possibly have been doing? He had asked me to trust him, but how could I when he wasn’t even there?
***
“Hey!”
I was startled from sleep by an urgent whisper. I opened my eyes and was surprised to find a group of three women crowded around my bed.
“What’s going on?” I asked, my heart racing in panic.
“We had a question,” the first woman said. She was stout and surly looking, with dark brown hair and dark eyes.
“Couldn’t it wait?” I wasn’t known for being a pleasant morning person; let alone being woken up in the middle of the night.
“No. We were talking about it, and we had to know.”
“Know what?”
“How’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“You know. Escape and get you some low-ranking sugar daddy who leaves you the hell alone?”
I sighed. They still thought I was some woman named Lain who was supposed to have been an escape artist. I wondered what had happened to the real Lain, and if they were going to keep bothering me about it, I was half tempted to come clean to them.
“Could you just leave me alone? I’m
trying to sleep.”
“This ain’t something that can wait,” a gritty woman’s voice said. She was tall and skinny, and her face was gaunt and angry. Her hair was thin and blonde, and I wondered what kind of tasteless Thressl’n jerk had chosen these women to abduct. They wouldn’t make good mothers of human children, let alone Thressl’n hybrids.
“Tell us what you know or you’re going to get it!” the third woman added.
I sighed and sat up, glaring at each of them.
“I got lucky, okay? Now just go to sleep!”
“So that’s how you wanna play it,” the stout leader of the group said, sneering and nodding at me. “We can play too. Come on, girls.”
They turned from my bed and walked away.
“Watch your back,” the third woman hissed.
I laid back down with my heart thudding hard in my chest. I had been stupid to think I might be safe in a camp full of women, even if they were my own kind. I wasn’t safe anywhere on this planet.
I closed my eyes and sighed. All I wanted was Laike. Where was he?
***
Another week passed without any sign of Laike. My whole body was burning with the desire to see him again. When it came time for the second visitor’s day of the week, I stayed seated glumly on my bed.
“Is that any way to greet your mate?”
Laike’s beautiful voice reached my ears, and my heart leaped in my chest. He smiled brightly at me as if nothing had ever happened.
“Where have you been?” I demanded, standing up to greet him.
“I have been very busy,” Laike said. “I had a lot of work to finish.”
“I’m sure it was much more important than me,” I sighed. The truth was that I had taken the fact that Laike was interested in me for granted all this time. Now that I saw it was possible he had lost interest, the weight of despair it made me feel was crushing.