by Alyx X
The door handle was the same as the one in the room where I’d woken up, and I twisted it, watching as it too slid soundlessly into the wall.
I caught my breath at the room in front of me. It was filled with huge, flat shapes, each of them blinking and moving the same way the boxes had in the room I’d escaped from. I glanced quickly around, skimming my gaze too fast to take in much besides the focus of my hunt. The guy.
The one who’d taken me.
There he was. He was reclined in a chair, his eyes closed, one hand resting on his chest.
I stepped forward, but my foot scuffed against the floor, and his eyes blinked open. He looked straight at me. He was… green? What the hell?
He hissed a low, tense word and leaped from the chair, his eyes round, his mouth hanging open. He looked around like he was assessing his own room, and I noticed one of his shapes held an image of my room. It was empty, the mess I’d left apparent. He made the same low sound, and jumped toward me, his arms outstretched like he hoped to catch me.
As he sprang closer, my eyes struggled to focus, and I saw double. No, more than double. He had five heads and too many arms, and they were all waving and grabbing and reaching. The fog threatened my head again, and I paused, trying to shake it loose.
I shouldn’t have hesitated. He made a grab, so close the air beside me moved as I stepped back just in time. That had been close—way too close. Some hunter I was. He tried again, and I side stepped and ducked in a twisting move that tumbled me to the floor. It was usually a trademark move of mine, but this time my body was still slow to respond, and it ended with the air in my chest being pushed out through my mouth in a loud gasp and my nose flat against the floor.
I turned to look at him in time to see him lunging for me, and finally my roll activated, like my body was picking up instructions late. I flipped onto my back and kicked out, the movement flailing and not at all accurate or coordinated. I cursed as he dodged out of the way, regaining his balance with a quick turn.
I shoved myself backward, barely finding the time to pull myself into a crouch, but I did and I scurried around the desk in the room, using it as an obstacle between me and the green man.
He hurried after me, still reaching for me, still splitting into too many people to focus on. I moved backward as quickly as I could, ducking and weaving in a clunky way pride wouldn’t let me associate with myself. I was a warrior, a leader of my tribe. I could fight off one man. But I didn’t have my weapons, and even I knew that males generally outweighed females and had greater strength. And this particular male was huge. Nearly a foot and a half taller than my five foot nine inches. My arms and legs were still heavy, but I threw them out anyway, attempting to keep him away from me if nothing else.
“Get away from me, you fucker!” I yelled at him as I pushed my tangle of curls back from my face.
He replied, but it wasn’t a language I understood.
“Let me go.” I conveniently ignored the fact I’d sought him out. “I need to get back to my people.”
He replied again, but I shook my head. His volume and tone matched mine, but I couldn’t even start to guess what his words might mean.
I paused, trying to figure out if he was speaking another language or if I was still too drug-addled to understand it, but the pause was too long and he wrapped his hand around my arm before drawing me to him, his touch gentler than I expected. He pressed my back to his chest and hissed against my ear. I would have fought him, but I finally noticed the one thing in the room I hadn’t paid attention to before—the fucking huge window.
Stars raced toward us at a speed I couldn’t even begin to imagine. I knew what stars meant. Father had told me everything he knew about space, everything he’d learned about TerraLink and their program. I knew enough about space to understand I was travelling through it at high tech speeds. I didn’t know where Father was. Hell, I didn’t even know where Earth was. So much for my earlier assumptions about moving the tribe to the heart of SanFrisco.
I relaxed, my fight all gone, and I allowed myself to be walked backward from the room.
But my gaze never wavered from the huge window out to space. Fuck.
6
Lyx
An unwieldy human was as bad as any of the space cowboys I’d ever encountered. Her arms and legs were everywhere. It was like she’d grown a whole new set for the purpose of preventing me from moving her. Occasionally, she reached out like she could grab a handhold on one of the corridor walls, but the smooth metal defeated her attempts every time.
Our slow journey gave me plenty of time to chew myself a new one. Only a dumbass would secure a captive and forget to lock her in. Or not check the lock. Or whatever the fuck I hadn’t done. Because, clearly the door hadn’t been locked. Nothing I’d read about humans suggested they could walk through locked doors.
“I left you unlocked and unguarded, huh?” I spoke to her, but her face didn’t register any recognition.
Her face twisted into a snarl, but she seemed to be having the same trouble focusing she’d demonstrated on the bridge. She moved her head backward and forward and blinked a lot, then replied with a stream of hissed syllables.
I shook my head. “Sorry, human. You aren’t making a lot of sense.”
One of her swinging feet knocked against my shin, and I jumped back, trying to stay out of range. The last thing I needed was her aiming higher or accidentally landing a blow on my tail.
“Easy, now. Steady,” I murmured against her ear.
She jerked away like I’d just offered to shoot her with my lasers again, and I sighed.
I pictured the best rooms to keep her secure in, but it really came down to only one. The small cargo hold. It was farther to walk to, but she’d be safe once there.
Talking to her was doing me no good at all. Regardless of the words I spoke or the tone I used, she just grew more agitated, even snapping with her teeth like she was some sort of wild animal. Nothing I’d read suggested humans were shifters, although she was certainly acting like she had a wild streak.
I tightened my grip. Maybe this was why humans were so highly prized. Perhaps it was what Satyan wanted.
The language barrier was definitely a problem I should have predicted. I should have thought things through more. She didn’t have a chip, so of course she didn’t have a translator. She couldn’t understand me—and wouldn’t, even when I could finally understand her.
Mom and Dad kept spare translators on board for back when they picked up their waifs and strays. They’d be old models, so I’d be very unlucky if she was speaking one of the newer languages. I stopped outside one of the supply closets and shifted my grip on my human as I opened the door then checked the shelves over.
I blew the dust off the small box with the translators then slipped it into my pocket. If one of these didn’t work, it would be a long journey back to meet Satyan.
As I resumed pulling her down the corridor behind me, the rumble of the engines familiar beneath my feet as we descended lower in the ship, she resumed her wild animal ways, throwing her arms and legs out and snapping her teeth toward my face. I didn’t envy Satyan his prize at all, though I did worry about how I would present her to him. I wasn’t sure she could be tamed. Maybe this was an issue with humans pulled from the wasteland rather than the domed city. If that was the case, the TerraLink Program truly had the monopoly, and the black-market didn’t exist.
I shook my head and tensed my jaw. I couldn’t believe that. Besides, the human was starting to calm, her fighting coming in spurts and lulls now. The sleeping infusion was still in her system, and it was making her sluggish.
I chuckled, if this was her behavior medicated, I needed to get her secured before she returned to full awareness. I wasn’t sure I could effectively fight her off.
“This would be easier if you’d just stop struggling.” Animals didn’t understand words, but they usually responded to tone of voice, and I didn’t want her to injure herself further in her a
ttempts to fight me, which is why I kept my tone low and calm. I didn’t want to explain to Satyan why his cargo was back in my sick bay.
The box of translators made a lump in my pocket. Anything I said to her now, she couldn’t understand, but I’d grown weary of being the only being on this ship, hurtling through space in my metal coffin, hungry and lonely.
“I’m sorry for what’s about to happen,” I said. I jerked her up to a more comfortable position to hold, out of biting range. “You’re not going to like it, but a man needs to eat.”
She snarled.
“You’re just a job.” I tightened my grip as she wriggled. “Take you, train you, sell you, and I get to live.” Why was I still speaking to her? What was this going to accomplish? Maybe I was just starved for interaction.
She was nothing to me. Nothing but that animal I had watched her hunting. She took them from their home, their territory, without a thought. I needed to do that, too.
Hell, I had done that. I’d done the hard part. I’d claimed the prize. I’d won, she’d lost. It was all survival of the fittest as soon as we were born. I was trying to make myself feel better about the darkness surrounding this job, the guilt I was feeling.
Our planets died, and where did that leave us? Apparently, struggling down a corridor in my own ship with my fucking payday struggling in my arms.
She grabbed hold of the door frame as I tried to force her through the doorway of the smallest cargo hold on the ship. I didn’t want to take her to the room with my new cage and tractor beam. If she thrashed in there, the equipment would cost too much to replace.
I wrinkled my nose against the mildew smell. Even when Mom and Dad were alive, we hadn’t used this hold much. We were rarely successful enough to need it, and the neglect showed in the slime that ran down the walls in globs, and the rust that ate at a portion of the interior wall. Broken lights hung off that wall, and they blinked and flashed when I turned them on.
Long straps lined the walls, the kind I would usually use to strap junk down, but now I used them to restrain the human. She’d tired herself with all the struggling, and she only made a token effort to yank away.
“I really am sorry. It comes down to you or me, and in this instance I have to choose me.” I continued my rambling apology, but it was meaningless. I wasn’t sorry enough to take her back or give her up. Her value was too great.
I strapped her feet wide apart, and her hands out to either side. The sheet she’d wrapped around herself had come undone, and it was now covered in ship grime and dust from the corridor leading here. It hung loosely over one shoulder, exposing one breast.
Like she’d just woke up again, she jerked away from the wall, the restraints pulling taut and snapping her back. She yelled at me, ugly, coarse-sounding words in her own tongue, and her eyes blazed with ferocity and fury.
I rolled my eyes, enraging her further, and the syllables became furious shrieks and she fought against the restraints again and again. Nobody had written in my research that humans were simply fucking stupid. I’d played nice. I'd whispered the apologies I couldn’t allow myself to mean. It was time to get the upper hand, to show her who was in charge.
I wandered out of spitting distance—because who knew what she’d try?—and I emptied one of the translators into my palm.
“That’s enough.” I walked back toward her and grabbed her chin, forcing her right cheek to the wall behind her. I just had to get this little fucker into her ear, and she’d be able to understand every word I said. I hoped.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to be able to understand her, but it was a necessary pain.
I flicked it on and pressed it into her ear canal, deep enough she couldn’t dislodge it. I needed her to hear me and to be certain she understood what I required from her.
She shook her head as I stepped back, but that translator wouldn’t fall out now. It was as good as part of her, that was how they worked. I tapped the back of my neck, making my translator speak to hers.
“Say something, I growled.” She needed to speak for my translator to work out the language.
She shouted at me, and I tapped my chip again. Finally, the translator in my ear buzzed with the name of some language I’d never heard of.
“You fucking bastard!” she yelled. “You fucking bastard, let me go!”
I grinned. Being cursed at had never been sweeter.
“I’ll strip your ugly green skin from your fucking body and roast you alive,” she shouted as she continued to thrash against the restraints. “Take me home right now. Take me back to my people!”
I chuckled, part of me enjoying her powerless display.
“I’ll eat your heart,” she continued. “I’ll suck your blood out and feast on your organs. And…and…” she looked wildly from side to side like she was thinking of the worst thing she could say. “I’ll feed your cock and balls to the chidders.”
I chuckled again and stepped closer, squatting down slightly to bring us to eye level. “You know, I’d like to see that.” I threw the words out casually, even adding an airy gesture with my hand. “Considering you’re now mine.” My stomach revolted at the words. I’d never aspired to own another being, but I kept my voice low and gravelly, like I’d been taught when taking control of a hostile negotiation.
I needed to retain the power here. I would. It mattered to my survival.
The human paused, her voice fading to little more than a growl, her eyes widening. That was right. She’d just worked out she could understand me.
“That metal in your ear—” I gestured to her ear. “It’s a translator so you can understand me. My chip has paired them so we can understand each other.” It was slightly more technical than that, but she didn’t look like she much cared, so I wasn’t going to go in-depth.
I waited for her to calm down, but she yanked at her restraints again. “I don’t care what the fuck you think you’ve done. Turn this fucking heap of space junk around and take me back. You are in violation of so many intergalactical laws right now.” But her voice wavered on the last words like she didn’t know if that was true. “You know what?” She gathered her courage back up from somewhere. “I’ll eat your heart anyway and take myself back home.” She made her hand into a claw and reached for me, springing out far enough that I jumped back in case the restraints gave her too much slack.
I didn’t doubt what she’d said. I didn’t know much about this female, but she was obviously a warrior. She was lean and strong, like the warriors I remembered from my planet, and for a moment I missed my childhood and the life that would never be mine.
I laughed, making it harsh and unfeeling and shook my head. “No. You’re not going back. I hunted you,” I tried to sound intimidating, “Then I caught you, and now you’re mine. I’m going to train you before I take you to your new master, and then you’ll belong to him.”
She sneered right back, appearing to gain height even though that was impossible with the way I had her restrained. “I am no one’s possession.” Her voice was almost regal, like she was used to being listened to. “No one is my master. Especially not you.”
I scoffed and leaned closer, getting right in her face as she struggled to pull away, stamping my dominance all over our situation. I lowered my voice to a whisper. “That is where you’re wrong,” I hissed. I reached out, grasping her breast and taking her nipple between my fingers, pinching it. What the fuck am I doing? I ignored my apprehension at appearing like I knew what I was doing. I had no experience pleasuring females in this way, much less intimidating them. I worked a little more hardness into my face before continuing, “You are mine. See? I have you. You. Are. Mine.” I tightened my grip until she winced then I eased off. “I’m going to train you and prepare you for the life you’ll have with your new master. That is my job, and you are my cargo.” I drew away slightly, maintaining our eye contact. “You’re going to make me rich and feed me for years to come.”
Releasing her, I dropped my hand and stepped back to l
eave the tiny room that smelled of neglect and emptiness.
“I won’t let you do this!” she shouted like I wasn’t right in front of her with perfect hearing. “You won’t own me. I’ll die before I give in.”
I turned away and stepped through the door, letting it slide shut behind me and leaving her to yell her displeasure to an empty room where no one would listen.
That was the beauty of space. Her cries wouldn’t even make it past the walls of my ship.
Regret pinched in my chest, but I pushed it down, swallowing my self-revulsion and hiding it from the images of my parents as they filled my mind.
Just this one. After this female, I’d have the money I needed to go back to scrapping indefinitely.
I relaxed my fingers from the tight fists they’d curled into. Just one female.
I could debase myself just this once.
7
Piper
The nights and days all looked the same under the endlessly flashing light. I slept, I woke, I struggled…and I could only count the blobs of slime on the wall so many times. If he’s kidnapped me to torture me, he’s pretty much doing everything right.
He came into the room sometimes, but not often, and he’d adjusted my restraints so I could kneel. He’d also made the straps holding my arms looser so I could reach the food he brought me.
I laughed, the sound echoing around my stinking chamber. I didn’t know what the hell he called food, but this was certainly never anything I’d seen before. In addition to the ‘food’ he had brought, he’d left me some water, though it was again not enticing. The water contained some nasty-ass, fat, smooth creatures swimming in it. Who knows what would happen to me if I were to consume that poison.
I wouldn’t eat or drink it. Not because it was gross—and it was truly disgusting—but because I wouldn’t put anything he brought me in my mouth. Not food, not water, not cock. Refusing to accept his offerings was just one way I could show my defiance. If he wasn’t going to bring me home, if he truly meant to sell me to some other alien, then the least I could do was die before he was able to. I had grown up with plenty of hungry and thirsty nights, I was accustomed to a little discomfort. This fucker had no idea who he was dealing with.