by Ella Maven
I threw a stick to Luna, who went ass over teakettle chasing it. I smiled at her antics just as the door to my hut swung open.
The smile dropped off my face as I braced. They’d brought my food already this morning. I wasn’t due for another food delivery until later.
Gaul strode in, thumbs tucked into the waistband of his pants, tail swishing behind him. I scooted as far away from him as I could, tucking myself into the corner. I darted a glance at Luna, but she’d managed to bury herself under my bed furs, like she knew Gaul was a son of a bitch. Animals could sense evil, I reasoned.
Another alien strode in after him, and a smaller wiry one with white hair pulled into a high ponytail like a fucked-up Ariana Grande. I strongly disliked that guy. Barto, I thought his name was. He was Gaul’s sidekick and looked every bit as evil as his leader.
Gaul stood in the center of the room, peering around like he had plans to decorate the place, while I tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Finally, Gaul jerked his chin toward me. “Check her.”
Before I could understand what that meant, Barto was in front of me, pulling me to my feet and yanking my hair into a ponytail with his fist. I screamed just as he thrust me toward Gaul. “It’s there,” he growled before dropping me to the floor like a piece of junk.
My scalp screamed, and I glared at Barto. What was he checking for? I ran my fingers behind my ear and tried to hide my reaction when I realized what they’d found. My translator implant.
I met Gaul’s hard black ones. He crouched down on the balls of his feet and grinned at me, fangs gleaming. “So, you can understand me, huh? I wonder why Ward didn’t tell us about that.” He cocked his head. “Because he’s told us plenty of other useful information. Like how there are more females who the Night Kings plan to keep for themselves.”
He didn’t, did he? But how did Gaul know? I shuddered, lowering my eyes. I refused to speak. I wasn’t sure they could understand me anyway, and I didn’t think anything I said would matter. So, I kept silent as my heart pounded.
Gaul’s fingers wrapped around my chin and squeezed. And squeezed. I whimpered as he drew my face up to his. “What do the Uldani want with you tiny creatures? You’d make terrible guards and slave labor. They have no need for breeders so…” he stopped abruptly, and then the most hideous expression crossed his face. His eyes widened, his lips curled, and his nostrils flared as an evil glee glowed on his blue face. “That’s it, Barto,” he said. “The Uldani do want to use them for breeders. For us.” He hissed the last word with pure delight.
“Us?” Barto said. “Why would the Uldani want more of us?”
“Think about it.” Gaul dropped my chin with a shove and tapped his temple. “They breed us for themselves and they can control us.”
“Yeah, but look at her,” Barto snorted. “I doubt she can take a Drixonian cock let alone push out our offspring.”
Gaul shrugged. “I doubt she can birth our babies and stay alive, but what does it matter? The Raghuls will just steal more humans from their pathetic world. They’ll be our incubators for the next generation of Drixonians.” He rose. “Fuck the Uldani. We’ll keep her. Steal the rest of the Night Kings’s humans and start our own breeding program here.”
I instinctively placed my hand over my stomach. As many times as Ward and I had been together, pregnancy hadn’t crossed my mind. Which was stupid, but I assumed we weren’t genetically compatible to procreate. But that would mean… I could possibly be… oh God.
I gagged as bile rose up my throat. I clapped my hand over my mouth as I willed my gorge to settle. I would not throw up in front of these bastards.
Gaul watched me carefully before turning to go. He stopped suddenly at the door and turned around. “Should I be asking Ward if he could be a father?”
I couldn’t hold back the sob that shook my body.
Gaul threw back his head and laughed. “Hey, don’t you be upset. If you make it through the birth, we’ll keep you alive to raise the chit. Ward though… he’s expendable. The chit’ll have a dad. And it’ll be me.”
He walked out the door, Barto on his heels, and the door slammed shut behind them.
I couldn’t say how long I lay on the dirt floor and cried, my arm cradling my belly. Could I be pregnant? How could I bring a baby into this world? I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
Eventually, I managed to crawl over to the bedding and cover my entire body with the furs. Luna nuzzled at my neck with her wet nose, and I absentmindedly petted her as my mind spun. I didn’t want to think about Ward betraying me. Maybe it was stupid but hope still hung in my heart. He’d told me about his brother, his sister, and all the antics of males in his clavas who he clearly loved. Who he’d do anything for. Could it all really have been an act?
I knew one thing for sure. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t let a child be born into this. As much as it pained me to say, I’d kill myself and the fetus before I let Gaul get his hands on it.
When I finally drifted to sleep, I dreamt of a little blue body with short horns cradled in Ward’s arms.
Thirteen
Ward
The past six rotations were the longest of my life. At least during the virus that had all but depleted our race and the Uprising that had taken some of our best males, I’d been surrounded by my friends. My leaders. My brother.
Now I was on my own, playing a part I hated, when all I wanted to do was be everything I’d promised Reba.
My time was running out. I’d barely slept as I’d planned my escape, but with Reba locked up and eyes on me at all times, the only solution I could come up with was to escape while en route to the imaginary Uldani hand-off site. As much as it had pained me to wait this long, I didn’t have a choice. Beyond these walls, I was in my element. I had it planned out, so now I could do nothing but bade my time and hope Reba hadn’t given up on me.
Each rotation had been full of a strategy of words with Gaul. I had to be quick with my tongue to evade his questions and not get caught in a lie. So far, I hadn’t given him anything useful, but I wondered how much he had guessed anyway. His mind moved faster, faster than mine. I was confident only Daz could fully match Gaul in wits.
I left my room mid-afternoon, on my way to my daily meeting with Gaul. As I crossed the courtyard of the clavas, I spotted Gaul coming toward me, Barto at his heels.
Gaul was smiling, and it wasn’t the smile I’d grown accustomed to. This one was different. This was… victorious.
I stopped in my tracks, feeling like a cornered salibri. He stood between me and Reba’s hut, and the symbolism of that wasn’t lost on me. Fleck. He knew something. I wasn’t sure how. But he knew.
“Ward!” He stopped a short distance away, and my breath stalled in my lungs as males materialized out of the shadows and barracks to surround me. I held firm and braced. “I was just coming to drag you out of your cozy private room. You seem to like the accommodations here? More than with the Night Kings?”
I swallowed thickly. “They are more than adequate.”
“More than adequate, huh?” he strolled forward, kicking up dust underneath his boots. “Well I’m glad to hear that. I hope you got some beauty sleep, because I think the next few rotations, if you last that long, are going to be a bit rough on you.”
I didn’t run. There was no point. I held my ground and flexed my fists. “And why’s that, Gaul?”
“Because you’ve been keeping things from me. And you’ve been lying to me.” He jabbed a thumb at Reba’s hut. “The little human has a translator implant. You told me she couldn’t understand you.”
“The Rahguls installed it. They didn’t give her access to Drix—”
“She understands me, Ward. Don’t bother with the lies.”
She understood him? That meant he—I held back my reaction. Only just. “You spoke to her?”
“Sure. Just enough to erode the last of her trust in you.”
My gaze darted to her door, as if I could call out to her with my mind.
I told you to trust me, mate!
He waved a hand. “You told me she was the only female, but funny thing about that is, I don’t believe it. And when I told her that you let me know there were other females, she looked positively betrayed. Imagine that.”
I fisted my hands at my sides. “The Uldani—”
“Fleck the Uldani. You think I’m stupid, Ward? They want her to breed more Drixonians. At least, that’s my guess. I’d heard they were collecting humans and it took me a while to work out why. But it makes sense, right?”
My cora stuttered. I hadn’t given much thought to it. My orders were to track down Reba, protect her, and bring her back to safety at the Night King’s camp. Whatever the Uldani wanted with her wasn’t going to be good.
“So, then I thought to myself,” Gaul kept going. “What if Ward sampled the goods? Given himself a delivery bonus. And when I told her you could get her pregnant, wouldn’t you know it? Her hand went right to her stomach, and she looked positively horrified at the idea she was carrying a bastard blue baby.”
I lost it then. My vision went red and I lunged at Gaul, machets out, tail lashing. And maybe, maybe if it had been just us two, I would have beaten him, but instead I was brought down before I ever got close. A tail swept my feet out from under me. I went down hard on my back and a bladed forearm pressed down on my neck. Hands held my legs. My arms. I thrashed and hollered, but there were too many warriors who were just as strong and skilled as me. Hell, I might have fought alongside some of them in the Uprising.
But none of that compared to the yawning hole in my gut, the one that told me I lost everything—Reba and possibly our chit. I’d blown it.
A shadow loomed over me. Gaul. I snarled and spat. “If you lay a hand on her, I’ll kill you. Slowly.”
“I don’t plan to hurt her. I want that chit for myself. And then I’m going to raid the Night Kings, and I’m going to take all their females to breed.”
“She is all!” I roared. “Have you forgotten all we stood for?”
He bent over me, lips pulled back into a grimace. “I haven’t forgotten. But she’s not a Drixonian. She’s a human with a womb that’ll take my seed. If she births a female chit, then I’ll honor the creed.”
“You’re a bastard,” I said. “She’s a sentient being. Emotions, thoughts, dreams—”
“She’s a human!” he hollered, spit flying in my face. “And we are Drixonians! We have a chance to carry on our race, and you want to coddle her and support her dreams. Fleck dreams! We are a dying race. You and Daz will place these females on pedestals until they die untouched and worthless.”
“Maybe,” I said, “If we share our ways with them, they will come to respect us and choose to mate with us. That precious human that you have locked in a hut welcomed me into her body because I cared for her. Fed her. Listened to her talk of her fears and hopes and—”
Gaul’s booted foot slammed into my stomach, cutting off my voice and forcing the air from my lungs in a painful crunch of my ribs. “Enough. We don’t have time for that. The only purpose you serve now is as an example. To my men. To that human. Cross me and we’ll tear you apart and leave you to die.”
My mouth went dry as he stepped back. “Have at it, Red Hands.”
The first kick slammed into my already damaged ribs. A thump of a tail slammed into my wrist. As blows rained down on me, I vaguely thought I heard screaming from somewhere in the distance, but that didn’t make sense. Reba wouldn’t care anymore. I’d betrayed her, after all. The last thought I had was that I’d never get to tell her the truth, right before a fist slammed into my temple and everything went black.
Ward
When I came to, I was upright. I tried to open my eyes, but my lids didn’t split very far apart. I prodded my teeth with a swollen tongue, happy that my fangs were still intact but there seemed to be a gaping wound where a back tooth had once been. Seeing as I wasn’t sure I’d ever eat again, it didn’t really matter.
I tried to get my bearings, but my vision was limited and blurry. The sun was just about to dip out of sight below the wall. My head spun with pain, hunger, and dehydration.
I finally surmised I was tied to a pole at the front of the Red Hands compound, near the gate. No one was guarding me, and that was probably because I was too beaten to do a thing. Added to that, I was locked in Drixonor. If I tried to raise my machets, I’d impale my own torso.
I willed myself to stay calm. In addition to the uncomfortable position, it was considered dishonorable, meant for the lowliest Drix who broke our laws or betrayed our race. I’d done none of that, and yet Gaul had not only beaten me and left me here to die, but he’d made sure everyone who saw me knew I was dishonorable. If I had any liquid in my parched mouth, I would have spat on the ground.
My elbows were bent, and a metal brace held them in that position and locked behind my back while also keeping me upright on the pole. The outside of my forearms, where my machets rested, were held tight to the sides of my stomach. If I lifted them, they’d slice me nearly in two.
I drifted in and out of consciousness until I opened my eyes to see night swiftly approaching. The sun was no longer visible, but its orange hue lit up the sky as one last hurrah before it disappeared for the night.
I closed my eyes. Reba. Her face swam in front of me, all big eyes and lush lips. I’d promised her I’d never let her be a victim again, and I failed. What would Gaul do with her once I was gone? I had to do something. I had to get out of Drixonor and regain my strength. I had to rescue her… But even lifting my finger hurt. I wondered if I could even walk let alone run.
I was delirious, probably from lack of qua and every pained breath through my cracked ribs. I swore I felt her fingers caress my jaw and heard her voice say my name. Was she crying? I opened my eyes as I felt the brush of her hair on my parched lips.
It took a moment for me to spot a retreating form. I blinked, because that couldn’t be Reba, could it? But it was her—her short legs and her tail-less body racing to the gate and throwing the panel cover up before slamming the lever down. The gate opened with a jolt. Metal scraped against metal, and I winced at the sound just as a male shout broke the silence. How had she gotten free?
Reba turned, her hair swirling around her shoulders, and Luna’s head peeking out of the fur back on her back. She met my eyes, and I nodded. “Go,” I murmured, even though I didn’t think she could hear me. “Get away. Save yourself.” I didn’t tell her I never lied to her. What was the point? I’d die here, and it wouldn’t be in vain if she could just get away. Her, Luna, and the possible life in her belly. I hoped she lived a happy life with the Night Kings and raised my chit with love.
Her jaw clenched, and she nodded before ducking under the gate and taking off into the darkness. The pain of the beating was nothing at the loss I felt when her form was no longer visible. Then it hit me… how would she get to the safety of the Night Kings? She didn’t know the way. I struggled, suddenly panicked that something terrible would get her, or worst that Gaul would capture her again. Despite the flames of pain consuming my limbs, I rocked and strained. Maybe I could weaken the bolt behind my back that locked me into Drixonor. If only I could get free, nothing would keep me from Reba, not even a whole clavas of Red Hands.
Several more shouts echoed through the camp as they realized there’d been an unauthorized opening of the gate. A few guards halted in front of me as they spotted the opened gate. They called for Gaul, and the whole clavas seemed to come alive in the near darkness.
He strode into the clearing at the front of the camp. “Who left?” He whipped his head to me, and I stared back at him through my swollen eyes. He marched over to me and gripped my chin. “Who opened this gate?”
“Does it look like I can see a flecking thing?” I spat at him.
He snarled and dug his claws into my cheek until the smell of my blood filled the air. With another sharp rake of his claws down my neck, he let me go. I didn’t even feel the pain.
“How?” he roared as he whirled on his heel. “She’s guarded!”
Silence greeted his question, and I almost smiled to myself.
“Uh, maybe at shift change,” came the feeble answer.
Gaul roared in the sky. “Get the bikes!” He circled his hand over his head. “We’re going human hunting.”
My cora dropped into my feet and I felt my machets lift, unbidden, because my anger was too great to stop them. I fought against it, but I was losing control of my body, my mind. The tips of my machets pressed against my flesh and I waited for the moment they’d slice into me when I heard a dull buzz.
I glanced over at the garage, but no Red Hands had started the bikes yet. The buzz grew louder, less a vibration and more a constant barrage of sound that increased until my shoulders twitched, desperate to rid my ears of the irritant.
“Where is that coming from?” Gaul shouted.
Barto raised a hand slowly and pointed outside the gate. “It’s coming from that direction, drexel.”
Then, materializing out of the darkness like a body back from the dead came Reba, sprinting right toward us. Right toward the gate.
“What the fleck?” Even Gaul was stunned.
“No, Reba,” I shouted. What was she doing? “Go! Turn around and run!”
But she kept coming, her feet slapping the dirt and kicking up a cloud behind her as the buzzing grew deafening. I saw it then. A hunner horde, baring down on her like a cloud of death. “Reeebaaaa!” I roared in a surge of anger so white-hot that my cora pounded like a drum, sending new blood to every extremity. My machets sliced into my sides just as the metal brace gave way with a crack and I fell forward onto the ground on all fours. I scrambled toward her, reaching her first, before a stunned Gaul.
“Stay down!” she screeched just as she launched herself at me. My arms came around her just as a net of Numa settled over our shoulders. The swarm sailed overhead and converged on every unlucky Red Hand. Shouts, cries, and shrieks filled the air as the hunners attacked. For a moment, I didn’t move, stunned to see an entire clavas rendered immobile and shocked Reba was here. In my arms.
