by Roxie Ray
But my voice was still tinged with anger just the same. I wondered if she could smell it on me, too.
“Yes,” she spat back at me. “I can understand you. So, I guess, thanks for that.”
Ah. At least I wasn’t the only angry one in the room.
She stared at me for a long moment, the sourness of fear and the spice of her rage shifting and mingling as she took me in. By the time she next spoke, the sourness had finally won out.
“Where am I? Who are you?” Spice flared up off of her suddenly. “Why the hck am I here?”
My lips twitched as I fought back a chuckle. It would have been cruel to laugh at her, in her terrified state, but it was hard not to when I could tell she was cursing at me.
Hck. Bazterd. I tucked those away to inquire about later. If nothing else, Haelian would be amused to be able to add them to his growing compendium of research on humans. But despite her swearing, the human’s chest was still rising and falling in terror. She was still little more than a scared little chickling, fluttering with fear.
“I am General Kloran Dyoval of High House Dyoval. A prince of the Lunarian race,” I explained, doing my best to temper my rage for her sake. Introductions were a fair place to begin. If nothing else, the least I could do was attempt to be polite. Still, it irked me that she was asking me any of this. My name should have been covered during her post-purchase orientation. The answers to all of her questions should have been. “You are on my slave ship, which is currently inbound for Lunaria, my home planet.”
“Slave?” Her voice trembled just as hard as the rest of her.
“You were purchased at auction, yes. Your purpose is breeding.” Or, at least, it was meant to have been. “My intention was to inseminate you with the seed of my species to determine whether or not you would get pregnant.”
“Pregnant?” Sourness flooded the bio-cell as she looked down at her abdomen. She smoothed her hands over it anxiously, as if she was worried that Lunarian seed had already taken in her womb.
I drew in a deep breath, my stomach turning at her sourness, then let it out again.
“It was my intention, ridiculous female. But now, it seems we have more complications between us than just your current physical state.” I shoved the tray at her again. “You must eat. When you have regained your strength, we will discuss what will be done with you.”
“You’re g-going to inseminate me?” Her face was already pale enough to begin with. Now, it whitened even further.
“Perhaps.” It was another cruelty, I knew. I should have told her that I would not put her through the testing procedures if she was unwilling, but as ashamed as I should have been to admit it, I still held onto the hope that she would become agreeable to the idea of staying with us as a breeder once she regained her health. “We Lunarians are kind to our breeding slaves. If you are able to bear our children, you will be kept in the finest luxuries and diligently cared for as you continue to breed for us. If you cannot, you will be returned to your seller…” I paused, remembering Haelian’s warning. Her next buyer may not be so kind. “Or to your family, if you wish.”
My eyes scanned her body as I spoke. Even curled up in the corner as she was, I could see all of the features I had initially chosen her for. Her hips, broad and exquisitely curved up to a waist so tiny, I was certain if I wrapped my hands around it, my fingers would fold over each other at the small of her back. Her breasts, heaving, but plump and enticing. Her hair, disheveled and lusterless with her lack of nutrition, but nonetheless soft-looking. Beautifully thick.
My cock swelled in my breeches with another cruel thought. It was entirely against protocol, but the slave trade agreement had obviously been broken with this female from the start.
Perhaps, if she is agreeable, she need not be bred by our mechanical inseminators.
Perhaps I might use her in the way I would use a Lunarian female. Take her into my arms, spread her thighs and breed her myself.
It was a thought that I knew I had to push away, though. Breeding slaves were approved by the intergalactic slave trade commission. Sex slaves, whatever the intention or end result, were not.
It was a long time before she spoke again. With my every word, her eyes had widened. Additional waves of fear had radiated off of her, drowning out any remaining scent of spice in the bio-cell completely.
“Just send me back.” Her voice was a rasp, barely audible. “Just—just take me back to where you found me and leave me there.”
At that, I had to laugh.
“Ridiculous female. Do you truly want to go back to the people who sold you to me?” I snarled, shaking my head at the thought. Her next buyer may not be so kind. “If your body is able to make children for my people, you would be hailed as all but a goddess to the Lunarian people. You would be worshipped. Cared for. Protected down to the final Lunarian breath! Your offspring would be treasured, educated and trained to become the next leaders of our new, mixed species. Does that mean nothing to you at all?”
Anger rose up in my voice again. How could it not? I was offering her every finery my people had access to, every luxury we could possibly produce. If she had been captured, or worse, sold into the slave trade against her will, how could she even dream of returning to where she had come from?
But my next breath only drew in her spice and heat from across the room.
“Oh, yes, I’m just dying to become a baby factory for your freaky moon-men race. That just sounds lovely, doesn’t it?”
I furrowed my brow. Despite her anger and tone, her words were agreeable—more or less. “Yes. It does. I am glad we are in agreement, then.”
“That was sarcazum, you asshole!”
I blinked. Sarcazum. Another curse. But her final swear, at least, I understood.
She was calling me an anus.
Perhaps not so agreeable after all.
“Perhaps your translator chip is malfunctioning. You are under my protection until we can find something suitable to do with you. It would be unwise to continue to berate me, human. I am in control here, not you.” My voice was rising back up into a roar. I strode across the bio-cell, eliciting another shriek and a cower from her as I slammed her tray down on the mattress next to her. “Until you are no longer my charge, you will do as you are told. So. Eat!”
“What, so you can drug me again?” She was trying to summon up her anger again, but she was failing. Despite her attempts, her voice was meek.
Feeling confident that I had put her in her place, this time I did laugh.
“The food is not drugged, ridiculous female. It is our best approximation of the diet of your ridiculous race.” I curled my lip at the perfectly good slab of steak the ship’s food articulator had been forced to grind and char to a crisp based on Haelian’s human research. A hamburghur, he had called it. Perhaps he had gotten it wrong, though. Personally, I could not imagine a species so paranoid and barbaric to require burned meat. “If it is not to your liking, do not be afraid to speak freely. We will do our best to accommodate your needs.”
Do not be afraid. Given the sourness that had poured through the room after the last time I had raised my voice, I could understand why that was a difficult thing to ask of her.
I wanted her to be obedient and grateful. I did not want her to be afraid—especially not so afraid that she could not take care of herself.
As I moved back toward the exit, I let out another deep breath and paused. Turning back to her, I made my voice as soft as I could without sacrificing the seriousness of my command.
“You must care for yourself if you do not wish to die here, human. If you do not eat, we will be forced to take additional measures to preserve your heath.” I held her gaze, catching a wavering glint of defiance in the strange, pale brown of her eyes. “For as long as you are under my protection, you will be cared for. There is no reason to starve or be miserable while you are mine. That choice is yours.”
I returned to the surveillance room in a huff. That had not gone t
he way I had wanted it to. The female’s fear had left a bad taste in my mouth, and as fascinating as it was to watch her cower before me, I did not imagine it would remain interesting for long.
I did not need to make females cringe and tremble to feel powerful. I had earned enough confidence in my strength in the fighting pits of Lunaria as a cub. My power had been well-proven long before I had come of age three years ago.
But as I surveyed the screens relaying video recordings from our six holding cells, in which our six newest breeding slaves resided, I could at least rest assured that my intervention had worked.
A smile formed on my lips as the human picked up her hamburghur and took a bite of it.
She might not have had a single drop of sense in her head, but at least she had heeded my words.
At least now she would be safe from any further harm.
4
Bria
The meals that the little claw delivered me were weird, but I guess no one came back from the Sector Five work camps bragging about the food.
Actually, no one came back from Sector Five work camps at all, but hey—all I could really do in my shiny new prison cell was tell myself stupid jokes and eat.
The bread was burnt. The meat, even more burnt. The soup was…edible. It tasted like a savory jelly, like something out of one of the antique cookbooks that Michael had kept in the library. Jiggly molds of fruit-flavored gelatin with olives and chunks of ham floating around inside it. That kind of thing. The nuclear Brussels sprouts were actually good—like, really good. Like, now I’d eat them even if a large orange man with big sharp teeth hadn’t roared at me until I agreed to. When I bit into them, they hissed, but contained inside each was a thick, rich, deliciously salty gravy that tasted of garlic and herbs. Out of all the things on offer for me, they were by far my favorite.
I used each meal to help keep track of my days. Three per day, like clockwork, then the lights would dim and I’d try to sleep.
But on the fourth day, it seemed like General Orange and Angry felt like shaking things up a little. When breakfast arrived, it was a thick, goopy black shake. I sniffed at it, hoping for chocolate, but it had no scent. The texture and taste were bad—gritty, like sand and charcoal—and the after taste was even worse. Weirdly green and bitter, like something the Sector One women force-fed themselves from a juice bar when they were on a detox.
I drank it anyway. What choice did I have? No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make the shimmer on the wall that my captor had come in through reappear. And unless I did want him to reappear, I knew I had to slurp down whatever I was given.
I just didn’t have to like it. Sometimes, feeling sorry for yourself was the only kind of freedom you had left.
I’d mulled over what he told me a hundred times ever since his visit. I was on a spaceship for slaves, headed to some other planet to be an incubator for alien babies—or so he said.
I didn’t want to believe it. I shouldn’t have believed it. But given the fact that he looked pretty alien himself, unless Norma-Jean had dumped some long-lasting hallucinogens into that apple pie as well…what other choice did I have?
None of this was normal. None of it made even a little sense.
But it was the only answer for any of this I had right now. I’d been a slave in my marriage. Now, I’d be a slave in divorce too.
My body shuddered involuntarily as I recalled exactly how sharp his teeth had looked while he snarled at me. Each of his fingers had been tipped with sharp silver claws as he’d gripped my tray.
He said I’d be cared for on his planet. That I’d be kept safe. But if he put a baby in me—another shudder trickled up and down my spine.
If that was my fate, I could only hope that babies of the luna-whatever race didn’t develop those claws until they were older. Much older. And the fact that I was even thinking about babies right now…
My shoulders slumped forward as my sinuses began to burn. I didn’t want to have a baby. Any baby. I wanted to scream and cry, pound my fists against the wall or shut down completely.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t let myself. I’d promised myself that when I left Michael, I wouldn’t be that woman anymore.
I’d avoided pregnancy during my entire marriage. I’d find some way to avoid it now.
Back in Sector One, that had meant buying birth control pills off the black market or begging the doctors that I worked with to write me pharmacy scripts in secret. It had felt dirty at first. I’d known it was a violation of my marriage contract. Michael wanted a baby more than anything. When we were first married, I’d even kind of liked the idea.
But then he’d hit me the first time. When he hit me the second time, I knew it was going to be far from the last. So when I felt bad about getting on the pill without his knowledge, all I had to do was remind myself that he’d violated the marriage contract first. Love and protect, my big round ass.
At lunch, I received another shake, just as gritty and nasty as the last. But for dinner, I didn’t receive any food at all.
Instead, the tiles that General What’s-his-nuts had entered through began to shimmer again. I scrambled back onto the bed immediately, already bracing myself for impact.
I’d done what he’d asked. I’d eaten every meal the claw had given me. It wasn’t my fault that I hadn’t eaten dinner—how was I supposed to eat something that hadn’t even arrived yet? But Michael had taught me that sometimes you got screamed at for things that weren’t your fault.
Sometimes, things were your fault just because you existed. At least this time when the general came in to bellow at me, I was prepared for the worst.
But this time, the general didn’t make an appearance at all. A woman—if I could call her that—in all white entered through the shimmer instead. She had the same color of skin as the general, that eerie burnt orange, but her hair was elegantly gray. There was a belt around her waist that held what looked like a taser and several sets of handcuffs, which made my throat tighten up on sight. In her claw-tipped fingers, she held a folded black square of cloth.
“Shower thoroughly and dry yourself.” She offered me the black cloth, producing another gown like the one I was already wearing from beneath it. “Put this on when you’re done.”
Ohhh-kay. If these people really were aliens, bedside manner was apparently not part of the culture.
My eyes fell on the taser-looking thing as I considered telling her no. No didn’t really seem to be an option with these people either. I didn’t want to get tased. Plus, when I gave myself a sniff…
Yeah. Okay. I was a little ripe. And if a shower was all she wanted from me…it couldn’t hurt.
But as I rose and fumbled with the laces at the back of my gown, the woman didn’t leave.
“Um.” I looked up at her hopefully. “Could I have a little privacy? Please?”
The woman only stared, though.
“Okay, okay.” I held my hands up in surrender, then went back to untying my gown. “I get it. You like to watch.”
It was uncomfortable, being naked in front of the woman. I was used to that, though. I hadn’t liked being naked around the women in Sector One, either. In the showers at the hospital between double-shifts, I’d always washed myself as quickly as possible to avoid being looked at. They’d all had perfect svelte, slender bodies there. Even the blue- and green-class women had looked like gold-class supermodels compared to my soft, homely hips and tits.
I elected to shower in just the same way here. In and out, as quickly as I could. As soon as I turned the shower on, my speed even doubled. The water was deep, oceany blue and searingly hot. I yelped and leapt back as it came into contact with my skin. When I ran my tongue across the droplets that had splashed onto my lips, trying to strengthen my resolve, I tasted salt.
By the time I finally finished scrubbing myself with the black stuff from the soap tray—which actually smelled nice, like jasmine and lemons—my skin was bright pink. I felt like a half-boiled lobster. I proba
bly looked like one, too. But at least as I tipped my head upside down and wrapped the black cloth, which was some kind of super-absorbent towel, around my dripping hair, I could enjoy the small luxury of being clean now. Something about the water had even made my bad shoulder, the one that Michael had burned, feel a little less stiff than normal beneath the cloth of my fresh gown.
“Okay. I’m all scrubbed up. Even washed behind my ears. See?” I turned my head, hoping that she’d be satisfied. That she’d finally leave.
Instead, with lightning-fast reflexes so quick I couldn’t even move away, she grabbed the cuffs from her belt and slapped them on my wrists. She didn’t even need to open them up. One moment, my hands were free. The next, they were encapsulated by glowing blue circles that shimmered and shrank down snugly to fit my wrists.
“Please,” I begged immediately. Just like that, I was in panic mode all over again. “I did what you asked! I did everything I was asked. Please—”
“It is for everyone’s safety that your wrists are bound right now.” The woman’s voice was cold and toneless.
“But I’m not a threat! You people kidnapped me,” I pointed out. “Or have you forgotten that already?”
“That’s what makes you dangerous.” The woman’s glowing purple eyes didn’t even blink.
Oh, that was rich. So I’d been drugged, kidnapped, yelled at, forced to eat weird alien food and steam cleaned by a shower that had obviously been built to wash machinery, not humans, and somehow I was the dangerous one? My frustration welled up in me so fast, I couldn’t even think about how best to act on it.
What I wanted to do was hit this woman so hard, she couldn’t get back up. What I wanted to do was attack.
“Don’t,” the woman said, looking bored. I hadn’t even moved, but the tone of her voice, it was like she’d read my mind.
And if she could tell that I only wanted to hurt her just by looking at her, I didn’t want to know how fast she grabbed for her taser if I decided to try.
