by A. G. Wilde
He also had a straight nose over enticing lips.
That stopped her in her tracks and Piper’s eyes flashed away.
Just what was she thinking? Enticing lips? Why on earth would she think that?
A little voice in her head reminded her that she probably wasn’t on Earth anyway so she could think anything she damn well pleased. Yet...
Daring to look at him again, she swallowed hard. He did have enticing lips. Kissable lips. Surprising kissable lips.
As a matter of fact, if the past events of the abduction had never occurred, she would have thought he was some kind of bodybuilder or something—just a regular human.
He certainly looked like it.
He didn’t look alien at all.
And his voice.
That baritone.
Piper looked away again.
It must be the heat of his body against her naked skin.
Shit, she could feel her cheeks go red. She was naked. She was naked underneath a man with kissable lips.
No, an ALIEN with kissable lips.
She needed to remember that. He was an alien like the others.
And she needed to control her thoughts.
She’d gone from being murderous to thinking an alien was handsome in way too short of a time—way, way too short of a time.
* * *
It had taken a while, but the Piper seemed to be finally asleep. As soon as her breathing had evened out, he had opened his eyes.
He was studying her now, curious.
The Piper had a strange name. The word brought the definition of a being playing a musical instrument. Maybe in her world, beings named themselves after their occupations.
Frowning slightly, Crex considered this possibility.
It must be a confusing place...or a really small place. There would have to be only one piper, one warrior, etc. Otherwise, how would they know who they are referring to?
For instance, he would be called the Fighter. But what about his brothers? Would they be called the Fighter’s Brothers? That didn’t seem fair.
It was confusing. Very confusing.
She was small. Small and soft. He could feel her supple body underneath his and the closeness had been jarring when he’d first regained consciousness.
He didn’t usually allow people to come so close. Yet, when he’d awoken and felt her there, he’d had no urge to move. He was leaning most of his weight to his left but he knew she was still feeling some of it. She’d somehow managed to shuffle most of her small body from underneath his. Glancing down now, he noticed she was hairless apart from a triangle of dark curls between her legs.
It was a curious place to have hair when there was hair nowhere else except for her head.
His eyes flew to her head then and his frown deepened.
Her head had colorful strands but dark roots. Yellow, blue, green, pink, red, purple, and orange locks grew to her shoulders. He had the urge to run his hands through them to investigate them further, but movement on his part would no doubt alert the guards.
At least, with the surveillance system now destroyed, it would buy them some time as the Tasqals had no way of watching them.
Therefore, he could notice her a bit more freely.
She had thin dark brows and long dark lashes over pale skin. He knew her eyes were green. Even in the cell's darkness when she’d first entered, he’d seen her eyes clearly. The way she’d stared at him when she realized she wasn’t alone would always be burned in his mind.
Fear.
It was a look he was used to. It was the look in most being’s eyes when they gazed at him—an emotion they couldn’t hide.
She was small, helpless...just like all the species the Tasqal’s bought. Species they could easily manipulate.
It was just like when they’d abducted women from his planet to fulfill their needs, to force them to breed and bear their young even though doing so would inevitably kill the women. They were still doing it, and it made a wave of anger burn within him from pent up rage and distressing memories.
Looking at the Piper when she’d been thrown in the cell, the anger that had coursed in him on that day long ago came flooding back.
He’d been a boy, but the events were burned into his memory forever.
His mother had been screaming as they took her away, just like all the other women who had been camping by the banks of the Great Sea.
The Tasqals had coordinated their attack when the men had gone hunting, knowing they would stand stood a good chance if the men weren’t around. Unlike the males of his kind, Ceqtaq women were strong but passive. They were no fighters.
His mother had told him to run and hide, but he’d tried to fight. He’d tried to rescue her. But he’d been too little. Too weak.
He couldn’t stop it.
They had taken her—the last sound being her scream as the ship flew away. Two years later, her body had been dumped back on the planet. She’d been diseased and half dead, bleeding to death after the babe she’d borne for the Tasqals had been ripped from within her.
His father had never been the same again.
And neither had he.
Seeing the Piper being thrown into the cell had brought back the memory so swiftly he’d almost forgotten about his mission in that moment and had almost slaughtered the Tasqal by the cell bars.
It was only Yce’s reassurance in his head that had helped him. But Yce, his fellow infiltrator and brother fighting for the Restitution, was silent now. He had been silent for a while.
Yce. He called in his head. But there was no reply.
He must be busy. It occurred to him then that Yce must have also had another of the Piper’s species thrown in the cell with him.
The Piper shuddered in her sleep and brought his attention back to her.
A soft sound was coming from her small nose as she slept and her pouty pink lips were slightly open.
He stared at them for longer than he’d have done usually.
They looked soft, delicate.
As his eyes traveled down her body, the word delicate kept echoing in his mind.
She was so soft; so incredibly soft.
He wanted to touch her. But he wouldn’t.
As his eyes fell to her naked breasts, they widened slightly. Pink rosebuds pointed up at him. He’d never seen such things before. Women from his planet didn’t have such pronounced breasts and he wondered if the Piper’s worked the same as all breasts did. What were the pink buds for?
Blinking away the thoughts, Crex sighed and closed his eyes.
He needed to keep focused on his mission. That was what he was there for.
Not for pouty pink lips and generous pink buds.
Chapter Six
Her body felt cramped and, when her eyes fluttered open, reality came crashing down on her. That’s right, how could she have even fallen asleep under such circumstances? She felt cramped because a heavy alien was collapsed on top of her.
“Shit,” she murmured.
“You’re awake, the Piper.” A deep baritone floated in her ear, causing her heart to lurch.
Eyes flying to his, Piper gulped. His gaze was fixed on hers…deep, unreadable, unwavering.
She opened her mouth to answer but, as if on cue, the sound of the cell bars opening came to her ear. She could feel Crex tense beside her. Suddenly, and she didn’t know how to describe it, his eyes changed and only then did she realize his gaze had not been hostile while he was staring at her. His eyes weren’t emotionless, as she’d thought before, for the change in them now was jarring.
Before, his eyes were unreadable. Now he looked as if he was ready to kill.
She felt just a little reassurance at the thought that his anger was not directed at her but at the guards entering the room. Nevertheless, the sudden coldness in his gaze made her uneasy.
“We’ve wasted enough time,” she heard the Tasqal speak.
“Yes, my pleasure,” the female who was no doubt by his side crooned. “
My night lost its flavor because there was no entertainment.”
There she was with that ‘my pleasure’ business again. There must be something wrong with the translator they’d implanted behind her ear because there was no way anything in the galaxy spoke like that. It made her want to roll her eyes into the back of her head.
“Ceqtaq, you will mate with the female for us to see. If we like your performance,” the High Tasqal paused, “we will reward you.”
Crex didn’t respond. If possible, his body became even tenser.
The High Tasqal seemed to wait for a moment before stating, “Very well. You are my property. You will obey me. I will show you what it means not to.”
She could feel the anxiety grow within her almost immediately.
Just exactly what did it mean by that? Still staring now wide-eyed at Crex, she didn’t see an ounce of fear on his face.
“Shock him,” the Tasqal ordered, and the guards approached.
The shock rod hit Crex in the back and almost immediately she felt the current surge through her own body.
The pain was indescribable, causing her body to stiffen and shake as if she was having a seizure.
But as the pain subsided, she was mildly aware that he was rising above her.
He was being shocked by all seven guards this time, all crowding around the slab, standing at the length the shock rods would allow them. Even though he was chained, they obviously weren’t taking any chances
As he rose above her, the skin on his face stretched and his entire body tensed in pain. The thought that he was rising to fulfill the deed crossed her mind. And, despite the aftershock of the current that had coursed through her body, terror rose within her.
The Tasqal’s bubbly laugh echoed in the room.
“Good. Pain is your language. You obey when I make you feel,” it said.
But as Piper stared at him in terror, she realized that Crex wasn’t doing what she thought he was. Instead, he was raising himself above her on hands and knees so that he wasn’t touching her.
He was doing it so the current didn’t transfer to her body and the realization made her speechless.
Bewildered, she screamed at the guards, unable to tear her eyes away from the torture in front of her.
She screamed for them to stop. Screamed for them to have mercy. Screamed at them for what felt like far too long.
They were going to kill him.
They were going to kill him right in front of her.
But when she thought the shocking wouldn’t end, the Tasqal ordered the guards to stop.
Crex wavered for a bit, the torture having sucked all his strength.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” She almost didn’t recognize the growl that came from her own mouth. “You despicable pieces of shit. I swear—”
“Quiet!” A guard spoke up. “How dare you speak directly to a High Tasqal!”
This again.
Piper sneered at them, her gaze locked on the male High Tasqal. As she glared at it, it was as if she could see the wheels turning in its head.
It was hatching another plan and her fears were confirmed when its mouth twisted into a smile.
“Perhaps he will do as we bid if we hurt you,” it said.
“My pleasure, don’t be silly. Why would the Ceqtaq care for such a puny thing?” The female crooned.
There was a pause before the male answered. “I have an inkling the Ceqtaq will surprise us,” he mused.
From somewhere beneath its robe, a remote-like device appeared.
She’d seen that thing before with the slug-like creatures, but she had no idea what it did. However, as soon as she saw the Tasqal’s mouth twitch into a wider smile, she knew it wasn’t anything good.
Pointing the device directly at her, it pressed a button on the panel and what happened next was immediate.
It was a pain she hadn’t felt before, as if all the blood in her veins was on fire. It was a pain so deep that she couldn’t cry, she couldn’t scream, she couldn’t even breathe. It made her body arch against the Ceqtaq’s as she stiffened from the pain.
Her blood was on fire and all her muscles were cramping at the same time. Her vision blurred and she was sure she was going to pass out. If she didn’t pass out, she was going to die. There was only so much pain the human body could tolerate.
But, as if the Tasqal knew this, it stopped pressing the button and her body fell back unto the slab, breathless, gasping for air.
The Ceqtaq was still bracing himself up above her, but he was staring at her, his gaze vicious, filled with anger...and something else. There was pain there. Deep pain.
She knew that look.
She knew what it meant.
She’d felt the same when she’d seen her sister’s lifeless body and a freakin’ T-Rex standing above it.
It was anger fed by grief and hatred.
“The human is infused with biological microorganisms that react to a frequency from this remote,” the Tasqal explained. Oh, so that was what they had been pumping into the back of her neck.
“I can make it feel indescribable pain with the touch of a button.” The Tasqal paused. “I could kill it...if I want to.”
Crex’s nostrils flared and the High Tasqal’s bubbly laughter echoed from its throat.
“Mate with her,” the Tasqal ordered and Crex turned his head to direct his murderous gaze in the Tasqal’s direction. The guards surrounding the slab took a step back as soon as he moved.
“No?” The Tasqal cocked its head, the crooked smile still on its face.
As Piper coughed, she could feel blood in her throat. This was a game to the Tasqals, she realized. It wasn’t just fighting and sex that they found entertaining. The torture was entertaining to them too.
“Maybe we need to do it again,” the Tasqal said, causing Piper to swallow hard.
Her head was woozy from whatever it had just done to her; she wasn’t sure she could handle more.
It was like slow motion, watching the somehow bony finger of the Tasqal land on the button again.
The pain hit her immediately, causing her limbs to shudder and her body to arch again.
Fucking kill her now; anything was better than this.
It felt as if her eyes were going to pop from their sockets because of the pressure of the pain and she was sure her heart would fail. She couldn’t breathe, so if it didn’t stop, her brain would be starved of oxygen anyway, which meant death. And she couldn’t do anything. The pain was too great.
But as suddenly as it came, it left, and she realized the Tasqal had lowered the remote-like device.
It seemed annoyed.
“Perhaps because you cannot see the result of the pain, we do not move you to act,” it said.
She was breathless now, her head dizzy, but she was aware enough to see the Tasqal nod at one of the guards.
“Flip it over,” it ordered.
Immediately, the other six guards began shocking the Ceqtaq again and the free guard strode over, grasped her, and flipped her on her belly, causing her arms and legs to twist in the chains so harshly she was sure the metal cut into her wrists and ankles.
There was a pause and she turned her head to see that they’d stopped shocking the Ceqtaq. He was breathing heavily, but still alive. How? She didn’t know. The current that had run through him and gone through her was more pain than she could have handled for long and it had been secondary, having passed through his body first. Not to mention, that had been only when one rod had been shocking him.
What was it like with six or seven?
“Whip it.”
What?
She had no time to react before she saw it. It looked like a leather whip descending from the air, to fall on her back.
The pain made her scream as the whip bit into her skin.
Again, the guard raised the whip and down it came to land on her back again, causing her to scream once more.
Tears fell from her eyes as her back ached. She�
��d been whipped before. She’d had a foster father who had lived by the phrase “spare the rod and spoil the child” and that had meant that she’d gotten whipped for the smallest of things.
But this, this was different.
This was indescribable.
It was a different sort of pain than the one she’d felt just moments before.
The pain from the torture remote made her feel as if her entire body was being broken into pieces. This pain, on the other hand, was localized and it stung, stung like a million bees biting into her skin each time the whip descended.
She was sure she was bleeding, but she wasn’t going to beg. Let them do what they wanted, but she wasn’t going to give in. She wasn’t going to let them win.
If it was the last thing she did, she would have her revenge. One way or the other.
But as she braced herself as the whip descended once more, she was left waiting for the pain to course across her back as the whip connected with her skin.
But that pain never came.
Glancing upward through vision that was now blurred, she saw the whip fall, but it didn’t fall on her. It landed on him. Crex. He was covering her, shielding her body to prevent her from hurting any longer.
It took her a second to understand what he was doing, but as their eyes locked, his meaning was clear. He was doing it to spare her.
He was taking her pain so she didn’t have to feel it.
She couldn’t respond...didn’t know how to respond. Even the guard who was whipping her paused in mid-motion, glancing in the High Tasqals’ direction. When the Tasqal grunted, the whipping continued. This time, harder, more maliciously, the guard let the whip crack over and over, letting it descend with force onto the Ceqtaq’s back.
Piper gulped as she turned to look at him.
He was almost passed out from the shock rods; she wasn’t sure just how much longer he could keep his body braced up.
As he swayed with each whip, three other guards joined in with whips of their own, relishing in the torture.
The whips cracked loudly in the air, but the bubbly sound of both the Tasqals laughing was underneath it all.
