by Roxie Ray
“I…I don’t…” Savannah bowed her head and closed her eyes, but I did not miss the way tears gathered on her eyelashes as she did so. “I’m worried about her, Coplan. Please—I’ll give you anything you want. Don’t even worry about me. Just…make sure Atlanta is safe. I…”
“It will be all right.” I reached out to her again and placed my hand on her knee. This time, she did not even flinch. “We will find her. We will protect you both. That, I can promise.”
“Thank you.” Savii sniffed and rubbed the tears from her eyes with the side of her fist. “I…I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, but…I’m not a fighter, not really. There were times when the only way I got by was just…complying. Giving them what they wanted.”
“There is no shame in that.” I tried to keep the growl from my voice, but I could feel rage welling up hot and molten in my chest. I was glad she would not meet my eyes now. If she had, she would have found them to be blood red. “You did what you had to in order to survive. That is what matters.”
“Maybe so. But Atlanta…I know her. She’s a fighter. She wouldn’t have backed down. And if she lashed out at them, or refused them…”
A cold, hard dread settled in my stomach.
I knew what she was implying. Rutharians took what they wanted, when they wanted it. They did not like to be refused.
“We will save her.” I could not take Savii into my arms as I wished to. To do so, I knew, would have been inappropriate, no matter how badly I felt she needed to be held. Instead, I gave her knee a gentle squeeze. “And every other human the Rutharians have claimed as well. Of that, Savii, I give you my word.”
When she raised her eyes to mine, she didn’t startle at the red of my irises. She only nodded. Her dark eyes did not change color as mine did, but if they had been able to, I imagined they would have been red with fury as well.
3
Savannah
His fingers were tipped with claws, the kind that looked sharp enough to pierce skin. When he smiled at me, glancing away and chuckling like I’d said something amusing, I caught a flash of his fangs, long and sharp. He didn’t have the demonic red skin of a Rutharian, or the sinister curved horns, but there was something about him that made me feel like he wasn’t exactly your average doctor—or healer—or whatever he called himself. How many doctors had muscles like that, their size and shape visible even beneath the sleeves of the white lab coat he wore? How many doctors moved the way he did? Like a hunter, barely making a sound despite his massive frame.
I guessed that made me his prey.
Coplan Majari might have saved me, but he still looked like a monster. Maybe that’s why I’d been so afraid of him in the first place.
Maybe I was right to be.
There were little comforts about him, though, small things that put me at ease. When he touched me, his palms hadn’t been icy cold like the Rutharians’ hands had been. His skin was warm, like he’d just been holding them over a space heater. Even with the roughness of his calluses, they felt good against my skin. His blue hair was bright and thick. It made me think of Atlanta’s perma-pink waves, though judging by the way it matched his eyebrows, I suspected it was natural, not dyed. His electric purple eyes were full of kindness, and even when they turned red—something that the influencers back home would have paid good money to be able to emulate—the anger I saw in them was obviously not directed at me. Even his orange skin, more vibrant than even the worst spray tans I’d seen back on Earth, was the same shade as my favorite swimsuit. That was almost…comforting, in a way. It reminded me of the pretty sunsets Atlanta and I would watch together from our balcony back home.
But none of that meant that I could trust him. He was handsome—for an alien I’d been doing my best to keep the heck away from me for the last week, at least—but I knew better than to kid myself based on looks alone.
Gorgeous, vibrantly colored creatures could still be dangerous. And despite his promise that I’d have his entire spaceship to roam once I was better, there was no pretending he still hadn’t locked me in a blindingly bright room for a week before he finally turned off the lights and came to talk.
When Coplan left me, I was only alone for a few moments before the door to the room opened again. This time, the orange-skinned alien that entered was a beautiful female, which was a relief. There hadn’t been any women on the Rutharian base other than the many-tentacled aliens who’d showed up once a day to throw buckets of water on me until I was clean. But at least from that, I’d learned that other women were safer than alien men.
“Hello, Savii.” Her smile was a friendly one. Despite her long, gray hair, she didn’t look much older than Coplan, though I supposed with aliens, there was probably no way to guess at their actual age. “My name is Leonix. I am here to take you to your new room.”
She held her hand out to me like she expected me to take it. I gave her claws a long, lingering look…then decided I had no choice but to accept it.
Leonix was just as strong as she looked. She hauled me to my feet like I didn’t weigh anything at all. I guessed, in a way, I probably didn’t. I’d been thin before the Rutharians had chained me up in that dark little room where I’d been kept, and they hadn’t exactly fed me well. Once I was on my feet, my stomach roared loudly as a reminder of that.
Leonix chuckled. “Poor thing. Once you’re settled, we’ll get you some food as well.”
When she led me out into the hall, the light was blinding. I had to hold my hand up over my eyes to shield them from the searing white glow. My legs were so weak, moving was difficult. For as thin as I was, my entire body felt like it was impossibly heavy as I tried to hold myself up.
I forced myself forward anyway. Every time Leonix glanced back at me, she looked ready to pick me up and throw me over her shoulder at the slightest indication that I was going to fall over, and I didn’t want to give her—or anyone else—that satisfaction.
I might have been a weak, useless little human, but I wasn’t going to let anyone carry me anywhere. Not ever again.
“This will be your room until you are strong enough to be relocated out of the medical bay.” Leonix waved her hand over a door with no handle, and it slid open to reveal a small space with only a bed, a small shower, something that looked kind of like a toilet, and a sink. There was a curtain, black and opaque, that could be pulled around the bathroom area for privacy, and a strange contraption built into the wall that looked like it might be able to be forced open…but no windows, to my dismay.
Here I was, aboard a spaceship, galaxies away from home, but since I’d been captured, I hadn’t even seen the stars once. They hadn’t really been visible from Earth, either, with all of the pollution in the air…but it would have been nice to see them. Even just a glimpse would have been more than what I’d gotten so far.
“The door does not lock—for the convenience of the healers, mostly—but it means you will be able to come and go as you wish as well. Healer Majari has asked me to remind you not to abuse that privilege, though.” Leonix didn’t seem to notice that I hadn’t spoken to her yet. Maybe she just didn’t care. “You are still weakened from your time with the Rutharians. You must not overexert yourself.”
“Yeah. I get it.” I limped over to the bed and sat down on it. Just from the little walk between the other room and this one, my legs were burning. For the moment, I had a feeling that any walking I was able to do wasn’t going to get me very far. My eyes were aching from continued exposure to light, too. The room wasn’t exactly brightly lit, but after so long in the dark, any amount of light was too much. “Can you turn the lights off? Or show me how to do it? This…it hurts.”
“Of course. Healer Majari mentioned that as well. Forgive me for not thinking of it sooner.” Through my squinted gaze, I could see Leonix nod. She waved her hand over a small panel next to the door, sinking the room back into comfortable darkness once again. “Now. Food. I assume you can feed yourself?”
“I can,” I assured her.
“What’s, um…on the menu?”
“That is up to you, Savii.” Leonix moved to the machine built into the wall, then turned to me. “What would you like?”
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what my stomach might like. Back on Earth, no one had ever asked me what I might like to eat. My diet had been mostly raw vegetables, with the occasional apple or bowl of berries for “dessert”. On the Rutharian base, I’d just been fed slop.
But now…
Well, whatever these aliens might be able to whip up for me, I would be grateful for it.
Not pie, though. I was pretty sure I was never going to be able to eat pie ever again.
“Pizza.” When I opened my mouth, the word leapt out so fast, it surprised even me. I’d posed with so many giant, piping-hot slices of pizza back on Earth, it made my mouth water just to remember the smell. Sometimes, I’d even been filmed taking bites of it…though, more often than not, I’d had to spit it out the second the camera stopped rolling. “A big, greasy pizza piled high with pepperoni and bacon. If, um...” I blushed. “If you can do that.”
“I can’t, but the food articulator can.” Again, Leonix chuckled. She turned to the machine on the wall and spoke directly at it. “Earth food. Peetz-za. Pepper-oh-knees and bake-on. Extra greeze.”
I almost smiled at the way she pronounced the words. It wasn’t until I thought about it that I realized how crazy it was that she was even able to understand anything I said—or vice versa, for that matter.
“How did you learn English?” I asked as the machine on the wall whirred to life. “I can’t believe you aliens even know what pizza is.”
“I do not know this Ing-lish. I merely have a translator chip implanted. As do you.” Leonix tapped behind her ear and I mirrored her movement. Sure enough, just behind my ear, there was tiny spot that still felt a little tender to the touch. That was…new. “You were implanted with it when you were brought aboard the ship, I imagine. Rutharians rarely feel the need to be able to communicate with their slaves.”
I stiffened at that word—slave. I supposed that’s exactly what I’d been to them. Something they owned. An object they could use however they saw fit. I could still remember the sound of their snarled, chilling language, even though I wished that I couldn’t.
“Oh,” I said softly. In the grand scheme of things, maybe it was for the best that I hadn’t been able to understand what anyone was saying to me until just this moment right now. When it came to Rutharians, I didn’t imagine anything they’d said would have helped me at all anyhow.
“As for your peetz-za, it was only programmed into the food articulator recently, along with many other Earthan favorites. My friend Bria, the wife of General Kloran, says it is quite enjoyable, though…” Leonix curled her lips in disdain as the food articulator’s compartment opened up, revealing a small, misshapen flatbread topped with sauce, cheese and some sort of scorched-looking meat toppings. “I personally prefer my protein uncooked.”
“You eat…raw meat?” Okay. I was back on the monster train. These aliens might have been kind and polite, but there was still something savage about them.
“It is more palatable to Lunarians, yes. But I understand that humans like Bria and yourself prefer your meat charred, though I do not understand why.” Leonix took the plate from the articulator and handed it to me. “If you wish for anything else, you merely need to speak it to the articulator, and it will create it for you. Though, I must warn you not to gorge yourself. Eating too much, after you have gone so long without proper sustenance, will not do well for your intestines.”
“Thank you. I’ll…keep that in mind.”
I took the pizza from her and closed my eyes again to breathe in its scent. It wasn’t exactly like the ones on Earth, but whatever they were using instead of pepperoni smelled pleasantly spicy and the food articulator definitely hadn’t skimped on the grease.
It was the best thing I’d smelled in a long, long time.
“So, there are…other humans among you? You’ve rescued more women like me?” The pizza was still a little hot to eat, especially since I hadn’t been provided with a fork or a knife, and I was too curious not to ask.
“Not here on the ship, no. But yes, we have rescued others. Kloran’s wife, Bria, as I said, and Haelian’s wife as well. Even some of our warriors have taken wives from the humans we have saved. Others, though…” Leonix’s face fell slightly. “Not everyone comes out of the clutches of the Rutharians with their minds quite so intact. For a while, we feared that you were much the same. They become violent, or suicidal. It is…understandable.”
“That’s not me.” Again, the sound of my own voice surprised me. How many times had I daydreamed about killing every single Rutharian who came to visit me in my dark little cell? How many times had I hoped for death myself? “I…I know that what I went through was…terrible. But I’m not going to fight anyone.” I glanced at Leonix’s claws again. “At least, not unless someone else decides to pick a fight first.”
Leonix only laughed. “Coplan said you were spirited. I am glad to learn that he was correct. Your mind was not broken by what you endured. You should be proud of that. It is a sign of great strength.”
“I’m not sure about that,” I said quietly. But it wasn’t worth arguing over—not when I still had questions about the other things Leonix had told me, at least. “All these humans who are married to your people, though… I’m not going to be forced to marry anyone, am I?”
“Of course not.” Leonix looked at me like she thought maybe my brain had been broken after all. “We will not force you to do anything, Savii. The humans who have chosen to mate with Lunarian men have done so willingly. They have even been able to conceive children with them. Given the population issues my people have faced, it is truly a great blessing that they are able to. Though…” Leonix glanced away. “Some might disagree about that.”
“Population issues?” It probably wasn’t polite to bombard Leonix with questions like this. But there was so much to take in right now, I couldn’t help myself.
“Lunarian females only ever have two offspring, at most; if they are able to have offspring at all.” Leonix frowned, and for a moment, I was worried that I’d accidentally hit a nerve. “Of the cubs that are born, most are males. For hundreds of years now, our population has been slowly dying off as a result. For a time, we thought perhaps locating viable breeding slaves was an option—”
“Breeding slaves?” Speaking of hitting a nerve. Maybe these Lunarians were no better than the Rutharians after all.
“It’s not what you think,” Leonix told me with a stern look. “We do not keep slaves against their wills. I believe your people would use the words indentured servants. Surrogate mothers, perhaps, would be a better parallel to draw. The slave trade commission carefully manages all contractual agreements to ensure that all breeding slaves and buyers are operating willingly and legally. Though…perhaps not as carefully as they should be. Humans are not legally allowed to enter the slave trade. Earth has never had a part in the commission’s dealings. It is how we discovered that human females were being abducted from your planet in the first place.”
“Maybe it’s for the best that Earth isn’t allowed to throw their hat in the ring.” I could still remember the angry, gaunt faces of the gray-class protesters I’d seen before I was kidnapped. If the sectors knew that they could sell off humans to be surrogate mothers for aliens, I was sure they’d do it in a heartbeat. “I doubt my government would care if what they were doing was legal or not if they knew they could make money out of it.”
“Adhering to the commission’s bylaws requires more than the throwing of a hat…” Leonix said, looking puzzled. “But not everyone agrees with you in that regard, I am afraid. Even as we speak, the High Council on Lunaria is discussing how to approach Earth’s governments in order to broker a deal with your fellow humans.”
“Why humans? If there are other…breeding slaves out there who’ll have children
willingly, why even bother with us?”
“For the same reason you were abducted in the first place, I imagine.” Leonix’s gaze was steely and grim. “You humans have shorter breeding cycles than most other beings in the galaxies and are able to bear greater numbers of offspring. For Lunarians—and Rutharians too, who have similar populations issues to our own—you are the only known lifeforms viable for mating with at all. Beyond that…” Leonix shrugged. “You are seen as attractive. Desirable. Exotic. Lunarian men are not so different from human men, or so I understand. They like pretty things and they want to own them for themselves.”
“No one owns me.” I didn’t mean for my words to come out so sharply, but they did. “Not ever again.”
Leonix smirked. “A good attitude to have, Savii. I have befriended many of the human females we have rescued so far. If you mean that, I am sure you and I will get along as well.”
With a nod, Leonix left me to my pizza—if you could even call it that. Now that it was cool enough to be edible, I could admit that the Lunarians had tried their best with it, but the food articulator didn’t seem to know the difference between cooking something and firing it to a crisp. The crust was hard and burned on the bottom, but it looked edible enough. Grease dripped from my lips down my chin as I took a bite. But even though the meat toppings were so overcooked that they crumbled into nothing on my tongue…
I felt my every brain cell light up as my body registered the fact that I was eating something that actually tasted like food. If I could have seen my own pupils, I bet they would have been dilated to the size of dinner plates.
Food. Real, actual sustenance. I devoured the entire slice so fast I was sucking my fingers clean before I realized that I could ask the articulator to make me another. I scarfed that one down too, then another. I was contemplating a fourth when it occurred to me that even though I was still hungry, my stomach was unfortunately full.
