by Regine Abel
My heart stopped, torn between hope and fear.
They will kill him if he spares us both, then rape us.
There were no mutterings this time, but a lot of hard stares targeted at Gruuk. The air sizzled with aggression and impending rebellion.
“Commander,” Doruk said, a warning in his voice and concern in his eyes.
For all his cruelty and perversions, Doruk was loyal to a fault to Gruuk.
Our master turned to him, and held his gaze unflinching, while I held my breath.
“All of you, including those who got shot today, stand here unscarred and healthy because of her,” Gruuk said, pointing a finger in my direction. “You want to exact the punishment on her? Go ahead. Once her mind breaks, pray that none of you gets hurt or wounded again. And if she doesn’t break, the next time one of you gets brought in bleeding to death, she will be the one saving you… or failing.”
Even now, he protects us.
The males cast a few uneasy glances my way. Some crewmates rubbed ghost wounds I had healed long ago. Over the years, I often faced moments when I hesitated about fully healing some of those bastards and even allowed one to die. Gruuk was right in his assessment. He knew how to read people well. After all, I hadn’t fooled him when I left his lover barren. Every single one of those who would punish me today would get punished back the next time they sought my services.
“So what then, Commander?” Horlek asked, bitter contempt barely hidden in the way he said Gruuk’s rank. “The slaves attempt to escape and get away with it, no retribution?”
The tension in the room rose, mutiny imminent. The looks exchanged by some of the crewmates convinced me they were gathering support for an attack. They were armed. Whatever his combat skills, Gruuk wouldn’t survive if they all turned on him. My heart pounded into my throat. I feared for him and for us. His next words would seal our fates.
“Oh no,” Gruuk said. “There will be retribution.”
Horlek narrowed his eyes and Doruk shifted uneasily, keeping an eye on the rest of the crew. If they all rebelled, it would be suicidal for him to stand in their way. As Gruuk’s right hand, he could technically demand control of the ship but he would be challenged for it until Gruuk’s son tried to reclaim it.
“How many hours was she missing?” Gruuk asked.
The crew exchanged confused looks at the odd question. Some shrugged, others frowned. I didn’t get it either.
“Four hours,” Doruk said.
“How many crewmates were wounded?”
“Two.”
“That’s six,” Gruuk said. “How many Belevar guards were killed?”
“Two,” Doruk answered again.
“That’s eight.” Gruuk turned to Amalia and me. “And those two betrayed me. That’s ten.”
Ten what?
Amalia’s gazed flicked between Gruuk and me, no doubt as confused as I was.
“Doruk, take ten females from the cages and bring them here.”
Oh Goddess!
Doruk’s eyes widened as understanding dawned on him. The rustle of the crew’s whispers rose as they caught on. Although the tension lessened, they were not yet appeased.
The females started screaming and pleading, saying they had done nothing wrong. Shame, guilt, and sorrow clawed at my heart as the crewmates went to assist Doruk in dragging out his chosen victims.
“Pet, come,” Gruuk ordered, his voice hard as stone.
A violent shudder ran down Amalia’s body. She cast a desperate look at me, seeking help she knew couldn’t come. Weeping and trembling, she took clumsy steps towards him. As soon as she came within range, his large hand wrapped around the nape of her neck, drawing her closer and making her face the crying females in the middle of the room.
“Ten females, one hour,” Gruuk said.
He gestured with his hand for the males to proceed. They descended on the females like a rabid pack of famished beasts. Amalia shut her eyes, her chin trembling as she turned her face away. Gruuk tightened his grip on her nape and forced her to look back at the females.
“No, Pet,” he grounded through his teeth. “You will watch. All of it. Their pain, their suffering, all the abuse they will endure is because of you. You did this. So you don’t get to look away.”
And suffer they did.
At that moment, I hated the crew with a fierceness that scared even me. Yet, to my undying shame, as I watched the level of debauchery the crewmates unleashed on the females, I thanked the Goddess and Gruuk that it wasn’t me. Throughout their abuse of the captives, the crew shouted lurid taunts at my baby. By the time the horrendous hour ended, most of the females had stopped screaming. Amalia’s face, drawn and drenched in tears, stared ahead, even after Gruuk released her neck.
This will scar her for life.
Had they all descended on me instead, it would have broken her.
Gruuk, standing by her side, turned to face her while she stared into nothingness.
“The next time you try to escape,” Gruuk said, inches from her face, “the crew will start punishing the females from the moment your disappearance is noticed. Once you are found, they will continue for twice the time you were missing. Except this time, they will get to enjoy you, too.”
Amalia didn’t respond. She shook, hugging herself.
Gruuk cast a glance at the females curled on the floor weeping.
“Maheva, see to them.”
I swallowed hard and approached them, feeling their pain, and withering under their hateful, accusing stares.
“As for you, Pet,” Gruuk said to Amalia, “go fetch both your belongings and bring them here. This is your new home. This is where slaves belong.”
He turned around and left without another word.
* * *
And thus began the worst years of our lives aboard The Revenant. Gruuk didn’t put us in the cages with the other females. They probably would have killed us. The crew installed our cots in the front left corner of the hold near the doors, as well as a fresher with a particle shower for Amalia and me.
The first few weeks were excruciating, sharing our quarters with females who had suffered so much because of us. For a while, I feared Amalia wouldn’t recover, but I had underestimated her strength. By the time all the females who had witnessed—or been victims of—our escape attempt left the ship, having been sold to their new masters, Amalia was back to her old self. Well, at least in appearance.
Many things died within her that day, including whatever love she had felt for Gruuk.
She didn’t understand the dangerous gamble he had taken to save us. I didn’t set the record straight. As her love died, her hatred festered, and I nurtured it. Gruuk stepped up the difficulty and immorality of the missions he sent her on, fueling her resentment further. With it, her desire to get us out of this life of despair and pain also grew.
I didn’t allow her to become bitter. We made the hold our home. Scrubbed it free of rust and kept it clean. For each new ‘cargo’ of captives, we tried to make their stay as comfortable as circumstances allowed. Although Amalia enjoyed too much learning new swear words and expressions from the various species we encountered, it benefitted her to have some contact with females her own age, and through them, with the world out there. She developed a particular fondness for Terrans and their odd expressions and exotic customs.
It wasn’t all peace and love though. Some of the slaves begrudged us our apparent preferred treatment: no cage, free reign of the ship, and the right to fetch our own food in the mess hall.
Amalia suffered a great deal from our new living arrangements. Some of her missions helped capture a number of those females. Most of them had no idea of her involvement, although that didn’t lessen her guilt. But on the rare occasions they discovered it, sharing the hold with them for the duration of their stay was a living nightmare. I couldn’t blame them for hating Amalia for it and riling up the others against her and, in the same token, against me.
Worse still, watchin
g those she helped capture get violated by the crew crushed her. She blamed herself for their pain. Nothing I could say ever dimmed her shame and self-hatred. I wished I could shield her from those horrors, but there was no hiding from it anymore. We couldn’t cower in our former cozy room and pretend nothing horrible was happening here.
It took for us to move into the hold for me to understand, at long last, the stark reality of slavery. I’d always known that Gruuk was sheltering us from some of the ugliness, but I’d never realized to what extent. Yet, despite our fall from grace, he still protected us from rape and abuse.
Yes, we were still off limits to the crew.
To make sure it remained so, I started Amalia on Rehmannia tea as of her twenty-first birthday to nullify any chance she would go into heat. The crew would be too eager to help her with that problem.
As her twenty-second birthday approached, with still no opportunity to attempt another escape, my fear grew for her. Gruuk would send her to the breeding fortress soon. Although I tried to prepare her for it, I didn’t know how she would fare.
Her first season came and went without even a hint of going to a fortress. According to the rumors circulating aboard the ship, Gruuk was searching for the right Korlethean for her. I could only assume that, like for my Sevina, he wanted a male she could attune to.
I didn’t tell Amalia that and let her assume he was simply failing to capture one.
As her second season of the year approached, I noticed our Rehmannia reserves were running low. At sixty-one, I still went into heat. Technically, I would remain fertile for another fourteen years or so, although my chances of conceiving diminished every year.
Not like I’ll ever mate with a male again.
Not wanting to take chances, I made my way to the med bay to make sure Bradok would order more with his next batch of medical supplies. To my shock, rather than the Chief Medical Officer, Gruuk’s broad frame greeted me. He stood by Bradok’s desk, poring over a datapad.
He turned at the sound of the door opening then closing behind me.
“Maheva?”
“Forgive me, Master. I was looking for Bradok.”
“Something wrong?” Gruuk asked.
I shook my head, suddenly feeling shy. It had been years since we’d found ourselves alone together in a room. Seven years to be exact; the day he had confronted me about Amalia’s escape attempt. As I had predicted nearly two decades ago, a touch of gray in his hair suited Gruuk and made his beautiful black horns stand out even more amidst his dark hair.
Too much had happened for me to still be in love with him, but a part of me still and would always love him. For many years, he had been in love with me. I didn’t know what, if anything, remained of that today. All I knew was that, in spite of everything, he continued to give us a degree of protection. For this, he had my eternal gratitude. He now fully embraced his role of Master to my Slave. Whatever we’d had died the same night Sevina did.
Part of me missed him and the naïve girl I had been all those years ago, convinced she could accomplish the impossible. It wasn’t about sex, although that had been great, too. It was the comfort and strength I had found in his arms, the tenderness and respect in his eyes, and knowing that, despite his beliefs, he pushed their boundaries to their breaking point to make me happy, simply because he cared.
He told you it wouldn’t end well…
That he had.
Gruuk raised a questioning eyebrow when I didn’t explain further. My face heated.
“No, Master. Amalia’s season approaches and we’re low on Rehmannia leaves.”
He nodded slowly and I kicked myself for bringing up her fertility.
“She’s not due for another seven weeks,” he said, surprising me once again with how little escaped his notice.
I nodded.
He sighed and a strange look crossed his face. His eyes bore into mine and I blinked.
“No problem,” he said. “We will be landing on the planet Xelix Prime in two weeks to deliver the last of the slaves. It will be a short stop. On our way back to the compound, we’ll stop by the suppliers. You’ll get them with plenty of time left.”
What an oddly detailed answer.
“Thank you.” The intensity of his stare unnerved me. “Sorry for disturbing you.”
He nodded and I turned to leave, then froze.
“We will be ‘landing’ on the ‘planet’ Xelix Prime…”
“…the ‘last’ of the slaves.”
I gasped in sudden understanding, my eyes widening. My head jerked back towards him. He gave me a sad smile, a soft, almost tender expression in his eyes. My throat tightened.
Oh Goddess!
Bradok’s office door opened and the doctor walked into the room, startled by my presence.
“Something wrong, Maheva?” Bradok asked.
“N-no… Nothing’s wrong.” I cleared my throat. “I… I just needed to ask you to please add more Rehmannia leaves when you next restock our supplies.”
“Ah yes,” Bradok said, noting it down. “I will see to it. Is there anything else?”
“No. No, thank you.”
I glanced back at Gruuk who no longer paid me any attention. The cold master had returned. With a nod at no one in particular, I turned around and left.
Walking down the hallway, I felt dizzy, elated, and scared all at the same time.
How had I not seen it sooner? How had I never understood what Gruuk had been doing? All these years, he had been preparing her, toughening her for the challenges ahead. The clues had been there, but I had been too blind to see them. The stealth training, avoiding and disabling cameras, finding escape routes, rerouting and disarming security systems, infiltration and disguise. She had been too young to fend for herself back then. But now, as a full grown adult, aware of the cruelties of the world, she was better armed to survive.
And Xelix Prime… of all the planets Gruuk could have chosen, he picked the one whose people were reputed for being fiercely anti-slavery and the most rabid in their protectiveness toward females.
In two weeks, we would actually land on a planet rather than stay in orbit as we usually did. A planet, not a space station. And there would be no more captives aboard to be punished if we ran.
Gruuk, the Goddess bless him, was giving us a second chance. He had counted on me to protect our little girl, and I had failed.
But not this time.
This time, we would be ready. This time, we would succeed.
THE END
Thank you for reading!
If you enjoyed my work, please rate it, and keep your eyes peeled for my upcoming novels.
THE VEREDIAN CHRONICLES SERIES
Escaping Fate
Losing Amalia
Blind Fate
Raising Amalia
Twist of Fate
DARK TALES
Bluebeard’s Curse
Anton’s Grace
THE SHADOW REALMS
Dark Swan
VALOS OF SONHADRA
Unfrozen
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