He sized me up while I did the same to him. Starn’s face was as thin as his body, with hollow cheeks, a sharp nose, and narrow lips that curved downward, giving him a perpetual scowl. His skin bore a grayish pallor. Not surprising, given the conditions on the asteroid. Burning gases coming from the fissures created a dark cloud hovering over the artificial atmosphere, blocking out most of the light from any solar system the asteroid passed.
Nye said the warden ran a profitable gambling enterprise betting on the lifespans of his prisoners. One look around told me Starn’s greed must be boundless. No amount of money would make me agree to accept a post on this hellhole.
Then it struck me. Maybe greed alone didn’t keep him here. The posting may have been as much a punishment for Starn as it was for his prisoners.
Our eyes met. Despite the stifling heat, a shiver ran up my spine. I revised my theory. Maybe it wasn’t greed or bad conduct that put Starn here. Something in his cold eyes told me he had an appetite for cruelty. One he could satisfy here without fear of repercussion. No one would prosecute him if a prisoner died or was injured. That was expected on Zibaru.
He gave me a slow once-over from head to toe, lingering on my breasts, then on my pussy, as though he could see right through my clothes. His eyes lit up with a lecherous gleam.
I had a feeling the danger I faced from Warden Starn was worse than from any of his prisoners.
He motioned to two of the helmeted guards. “Take her to the medical block. She’s been on an uninhabited, primitive world for months—and then with this filthy savage. Gods know what diseases or parasites she may have picked up. I want her thoroughly cleansed before I get near her. And warn that beast Rigo that he’s not to sample the goods.”
“Yes, sir.” They led me away. Behind us, I heard Starn make a comment that was met with a round of raucous laughter.
The helmets had a reflective plate covering the faces of the guards, making it impossible to establish eye contact or forge any kind of personal connection with them. So as they marched me along, I examined my surroundings.
The complex was built against a sheer cliff several hundred feet high that towered over it on one end. A thick stone wall rimmed the other three sides of the compound, with only the one doorway serving as entrance and exit, as far as I could tell. A warren of shacks backed up to the wall, built of scrap metal and piles of rubble. Some of them were studded with tips from the vicious stone spikes, facing outward so no one could get too close.
At the far end of the compound a row of windowless buildings built of the same gray stone as the wall flanked the lower portion of the cliff. A raised platform stood in front of them. The shacks formed a ragged half-circle around the platform, with a large open area in the center.
The rocky surface of the asteroid served as the floor of the compound. Here and there, more flame-spouting fissures provided an eerie reddish light. Dark figures lurked around the shacks, barely discernable in the perpetual gloom. As I walked by them, I heard grunts and low murmurs.
The farther we went into the compound, the more shadowy figures I saw. They began to form a band behind us, keeping their distance but following. The sounds they were making got louder. Raw, animal sounds. The kind of sounds you hear when a man is fucking you hard and rough. Sounds he makes right before he shoots his cum.
I walked faster, afraid the guards might abandon me to the ragged mob trailing us. When we neared the platform, the noise level rose even higher. I saw a handful of wooden structures atop the platform. Benches, upright posts, a t-shaped cross. All with ropes and manacles attached to them.
The crowd stopped in the clearing in front of the platform. We went on around one side of it to a building at the end of the row. One of the guards used a palm scan to unlock the steel door on the building and we went inside. Once the door closed behind us, the sounds from the crowd faded to a menacing low hum, like a swarm of angry wasps just before they attack.
Ahead of me, flickering torches lit by the same burning gases spouting from the fissures in the ground provided dim light to a long corridor chiseled from solid rock. It looked like the entrance to hell.
My footsteps dragged as they prodded me down the passageway. The guards stopped at a thick wooden door in the side wall. One of them knocked and the door opened. I half expected to see the warden appear dressed in a red cape, sporting horns and a forked tail.
Instead, a giant of a man wearing a dull brown one-piece garment barely large enough to cover his massive frame stood inside the doorway. Tattoos covered his bald head, a maze of geometric figures connected here and there by jagged lines. His dark brown eyes were vacant and his arms hung loosely by his sides.
The guard on my right pulled me forward. “The boss wants this one cleansed.”
The giant shuffled forward and looked me up and down. His eyes lit up and he gave the guard a childlike smile, showing gaps where several of his front teeth should have been. His nose was crooked, as though it had been broken and poorly reset. I looked closer at his head and realized some of the jagged lines on his head were actually scars.
“You brought me a fresh one!” He sounded positively gleeful.
“You’re not allowed to do anything except clean her up, Rigo,” the guard warned. He glanced at his partner. “We’ll stay here and supervise—to make sure you follow orders.”
Apparently, I’d have an audience watching whatever this cleansing routine turned out to be. The new guy was a whole lot scarier than the soldiers, so having armed guards to supervise him came as the best news I’d had in a while.
The guards shoved me into the room. I glanced around in surprise. Instead of the dark cavern I expected to see, it looked more like a typical medical facility inside. White walls, white ceiling with pipes and wires running along it, beige floor with a shiny solid surface, metal cabinets lining three walls—after all the gray, it was almost blinding. The only thing I saw that I didn’t like was the metal table sitting in the center of the room, directly over a grate in the floor.
So of course that’s where they led me.
I thought about attacking the guards when they got on either side of me to lift me onto the table, but there was no way I could take down both of them and Rigo too. As soon as they strapped my wrists to the tables, I regretted that I hadn’t even tried. I yanked my leg back to kick one but he laughed and dodged the kick, then pulled my boot off and buckled my ankle into a metal stirrup at the foot of the table. His partner did the same with my other ankle.
The guards took up positions on either side of the table, facing me. I could see myself reflected in the dark shields on their helmets. Pale, dirt-streaked face framed by a straggly mess of long reddish brown hair that hadn’t seen a comb in days. Eyes cold and hard, mouth set in a stubborn line. I was determined to take whatever they had in store for me without showing any sign of weakness.
Rigo had his back to me across the room, pulling items out of the cabinets and placing them on a gleaming metal cart. He pushed the cart over to the table where I was strapped down, picked up a wicked-looking knife, and tested the blade against his thumb. A narrow line of red welled up.
“I love my job,” he declared. Then he slipped the blade of the knife under the sleeve of my shirt. My stomach clenched when the cold metal touched my wrist.
With a practiced flick, he slit the fabric all the way to my shoulder.
I let my breath out in a whoosh.
“Did you think I was going to cut you into pieces?” Rigo sounded amused. The vacant look in his eyes that made him look like a half-wit was gone. “I’ll admit I used to do that to the occasional patient when I worked at the hospital back on Earth.” He shook his head sadly. “That’s how I ended up here. But you’re far too valuable for me to indulge my hobby with you. A beautiful young woman is a rare treat on Zibaru.”
He walked around the table, motioning the guards to step back, and did the same thing to my other sleeve. Leaning over, he sliced away the rest of the fabric until
all that was left of my shirt was the collar and a narrow band over my breasts, held together by three buttons. I fought to keep from trembling every time the blade grazed my skin.
One by one he popped the buttons off with the tip of the knife, prolonging the act. Fear gave way to embarrassment when my breasts were finally exposed. Though I couldn’t see their expressions, I heard one of the guards let out a low grunt when he got his first look at my bare tits.
The locket I wore caught Rigo’s attention. He turned it from side to side, admiring the way the shiny surfaces caught the light and sent it dancing around the room. I bit my tongue, afraid if I let him know how important it was to me, he’d be more likely to take it from me.
He popped it open. Stared at the pictures inside.
“Is this your mama?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice to speak.
“She’s pretty. Like you.” A wistful expression flashed over his face. “I had a mama once. She was pretty too.”
“Get on with it,” snapped one of the guards.
Rigo snapped the locket closed and the hint of humanity I’d seen disappeared.
He examined the scratches I’d gotten when they marched me through the jungle to the transport ship, some of them streaked with dried blood. “Such a pity,” he murmured. I shivered when he traced one that ran from my ribcage to my right nipple with the tip of his finger. “This may leave a scar.”
I tried to hide my revulsion when he cupped my breasts in his huge hands to inspect them.
“Healthy, full, and firm,” he announced, as though the guards were taking notes. He squeezed a nipple between two fingers, rolling it. To my shame, my body responded. He nodded in approval when it tightened into a peak. “Stimulation reaction normal.”
When he took a bottle of clear liquid from the tray and began pouring it on my chest, I couldn’t hold back a hiss. Every scratch felt like he’d set me on fire.
“Disinfectant,” he said. “We have to kill whatever contamination you may have brought here. Warden’s orders. He wouldn’t want to pick up any nasty disease. Though you’re far more likely to get one from him.” Chuckling at his own wit, he picked up a cloth, folded it into a small square and poured more of the liquid onto it. Then he started dabbing away at my face and neck.
He was surprisingly gentle, but every swipe seemed to find a new cut or scrape to set on fire. I gritted my teeth and stared at the ceiling, concentrating on taking slow breaths in and out.
Next, he worked his way up both of my arms. I had deeper scratches there. Lucky for him, my wrists were restrained. Otherwise I’d probably have clawed jagged scars on his face to go with the ones on his head. Anything to make him stop finding new places to spread the fiery sting.
When he’d cleaned those wounds to his satisfaction, he picked up the knife again. I heard the guard make another grunt when Rigo stepped to the end of the table and slid the tip of the knife under the hem of my pants. Fucking perv.
Rigo removed my pants the same way he removed my shirt. But slower. First he sliced the legs along the inner seams, then he ran his hands up my legs and cut the fabric away, raising a trail of goosebumps on the inside of my thighs. He left a scrap no wider than a scarf around my hips to hide my crotch while he thoroughly cleaned all the cuts and scratches on my legs. Playing a fucking mind game with the guards while he tormented me. Prolonging my humiliation. I glared at him, running through every cuss word I could think of in my mind. In my vulnerable position I didn’t dare say them out loud.
He gave me a lewd grin. His next remark made me doubt my earlier estimation of his intelligence.
“I’ve enjoyed stripping you. The warden may not allow me to fuck you, but I can take my time with the... cleansing.” He gestured to the guards. “Having them watch makes it even better. They’re the ones in charge here—but I’m the one who gets to touch you.” His voice dropped to an intimate whisper that made me shudder. “Fondle you.”
Rigo moved to the end of the table and manipulated a lever underneath it. The portion of the table under my lower half split, spreading my legs wide apart. He reached for a pair of cables hanging from the ceiling, pulled them down, and clipped one to each of the stirrups strapped around my ankles. I heard the whine of a motor and the cables retracted, pulling the stirrups up high enough to lift my legs and then my hips off the table.
He brought his face close to mine and his grin became a leer. “And now comes my favorite part of the cleansing. I’m the one in charge from here on. You’re naked in front of all of us, tied down and helpless.” He gestured to the guards. “And they have to stand here and watch while I get to shove my fingers in your pussy—and up your tight little ass.”
Chapter Ten
Ree
I did fight then. Bucking and twisting, yanking on the restraints around my wrists, pulling my knees back as far as I could and trying to kick him. Cursing all the while.
Rigo beamed. “I like a fiery lass! So often the ones I played with laid there like they were dead.” He winked at the guard on my left. “Of course, by the time I got to this part, sometimes they were dead.” Laughing uproariously, he stepped between my thighs, knife outstretched.
The laughter stopped. His voice hardened. “Time to behave yourself. You wouldn’t want to make me slip.”
I froze. He ran the back of the knife blade along the inside of my thigh. Then, with another flick of his wrist, he sliced through the narrow band covering my pussy. The fabric fell away, taking with it the last shreds of my dignity.
Though it hadn’t provided much cover, without that last scrap of cloth I felt horribly vulnerable. In all the time I’d been a fugitive, at least I was free. And with the alien, being tied up triggered wild sexual urges that overrode any fear I had of him. Now, naked and helpless, I came face to face with the truth.
I was a prisoner. A captive in a world far more savage than any jungle, where humans were the predators—and I was now the prey.
I screwed my eyes shut when Rigo spread the lips of my pussy apart under the merciless white lights. Touching me with his rough hands, pulling back the hood over my clit to inspect it. I clenched my muscles but couldn’t stop him from shoving a finger inside me.
He shook his head. “Dry. Needs more stimulation.”
He reached up and squeezed my nipple again, pinching it hard. A jolt ran from there down to my belly, and my pussy clenched around his invading finger.
“Yes, that’s better,” he crooned, moving his other hand from my breast to my clit. He began stroking it between finger and thumb and I shuddered as it swelled and started throbbing. “Now you’re getting nice and wet for me.” He slid his finger in and out. I tried to shut down but he knew how to draw a response from a female body.
Still massaging my clit, he took his finger out of my pussy and moved it lower. Spreading the slick juices of my arousal around the tight rim of my anus. I gasped when he shoved the finger in.
“Oooh, she’s tight,” he squealed, his voice rising an octave. He sounded exactly like a teenage girl.
A chill ran through me. One minute I had a medical technician examining me, the next minute a serial killer spilling his secrets. Rigo wasn’t just a murderer. His personality changes screamed insanity.
“Let’s see how many she can take,” he said, this time in a low growl.
He worked a second finger into my rear passage. I gritted my teeth to keep from crying out. On either side of me, the guards were breathing heavily. Rigo closed his eyes and started grunting, rocking his pelvis against the metal table while he fingered me. Finally one of the guards spoke up.
“All right, that’s enough, you cretin. Get on with the cleansing.”
Get on with the cleansing? Oh, gods, what else was there?
I found out a moment later.
“Yes, sir,” Rigo snapped. He pulled his fingers out, reached for a hose among the tubes and pipes crisscrossing the ceiling and twisted the nozzle. A stream of water poured onto my stomach and over
the table. I heard it trickling down, gurgling as it disappeared into a drain in the floor. He moved it over my body, hosing me down with as much emotion as if he was washing a transport vehicle. Like someone had flipped a switch in his brain. Still, the water was warm and it took away the awful burning sting of the disinfectant.
Despite the circumstances, when he moved to the head of the table and ran the stream of water over my hair, I almost swooned. Water was scarce in the cave where we’d hidden, too precious to waste. I hadn’t had a real bath in months, let alone warm water to wash my hair.
Rigo must have read the expression on my face because his mood changed again. He became a gentle giant, like he’d been when he saw the picture in the locket. “You have pretty hair,” he crooned. He poured more water over my head, then shut off the nozzle.
I bit off a protest.
“Shhh,” Rigo whispered. “You’ll like this.”
He reached for a bottle on the tray, poured some liquid in the palm of his hand. Then he rubbed his hands together and started running his fingers through my hair. Massaging my scalp, working the liquid all the way to the tip of every strand.
It smelled metallic, like a chemical, but as far as I was concerned, it could have been the most expensive brand from the best salon on Earth. I’d never had anyone shampoo my hair so thoroughly, so sensuously.
The man may have been insane but at that moment he was kinder to me than anyone had been in a long time. I opened my eyes. “Thank you, Rigo,” I whispered back.
“I like touching your hair,” he murmured. “It’s been a long time since I felt something so soft.”
“Enough,” snapped the guard on my left. “Finish the cleansing.”
He pressed a button on a black wand clipped to his belt. Rigo jerked, and the spark of humanity I’d seen in his eyes vanished.
Prisoner Page 5