She was beautiful.
Her wings unlike any others.
They matched the sky and glowed with veins of silver.
Lise… made me feel that way.
I was no longer a healer. Now I was a criminal, a conman, always pursuing the next bit of coin to stay afloat. For a fleeting moment, the human had offered me, Alder, and Evik something we hadn’t had in a long time.
A home, as her crew.
Though I knew, as my body thrummed with desire to find her as I shot through the thick fluids, that I wanted more than to be her shipmate.
I glanced back, wings continuing to beat. The empress’s soldiers were hot on my trail, but I could see the end of the pool ahead. Light was streaming down from a large archway.
Ten wing beats later, and I pushed to the surface, jointed fingers gripping the edge of the floor that lead away from the private chambers. I yanked myself out, body coated in the mucus-like substance. It dripped off of me, large splats hitting the floor below.
I glanced left, then right, closing my inner lids to dim the brightness. My vision was still messed up, but it was improving fast.
Where would they take a healthy human female? There weren’t many in this sector. She was young, as well.
Breeding age.
I remembered my time here, remembered where they did the tests for viable fertility.
That’s where I’d find her.
9
Tommelise
I woke to an ache deep in my belly—but when I tried to reach down to touch my abdomen, I pulled up against restraints.
My eyes popped open for an instant, long enough to take in the cold, white surroundings. I lay naked, strapped to a gurney of some sort.
Fuck. Where am I?
I searched back through the fog clouding my mind.
The Bufo Alvarius Empress. Right.
I risked another peek. One of the empress’s people stood over me, currently turned away from me, fiddling with the controls of a machine of some sort. Above it hovered a multicolored scan image of my body. The med-tech zoomed in on my reproductive system, leaning in to examine it more closely.
Blue? I subvocalized.
Here, boss, my ship answered, her voice far too cheerful for my situation.
Sitrep?
You are in the medical area of the breeder-slave sales pens being checked for viable fertility.
I fought to keep my expression neutral in case the alien who was checking me had turned back around. Breeder slaves. Yuck.
Your crew members, Blue paused, then continued seconds later, two are in the slave cells. One is on his way to break you out. The tall one. With wings.
My heart squeezed in my chest. I knew I’d chosen well. It would have been easy for them to save themselves and leave me behind, but they hadn’t.
Where are you? I asked.
Still docked in the cargo hold. But I’m ready to leave when you are.
I paused, trying to parse that statement. How? I finally asked.
There was no missing the undercurrent of satisfaction in Blue’s response. I’ve been chatting with the station’s AI. She’s deeply unhappy with the empress and willing to help us get out of here.
Oh, you are brilliant, Blue.
It was all I could do to keep from smiling. That impulse was wiped out seconds later when the medtech’s cold hands landed on my bare abdomen. I had to fight myself not to jump, but I needed to take him by surprise. Once I figured out how to get loose from my restraints, anyway.
I tried to ignore whatever he was doing—massaging my stomach with his slimy, slightly sticky hands, it felt like—and strained to hear any hint that my crewmen were nearby.
Nothing.
Fine. I could get out of here and go find them.
Having finished his manual exam of my abdomen, the medtech lifted my body a little to peer at my back. With a grunt of irritation, he began releasing the restraints on my legs. I remained perfectly still, praying he’d release me entirely. I all but held my breath until he moved up toward my hands.
Where’s Morpheus now? I asked Blue as the alien moved to flip me onto my stomach.
Ninety seconds to arrival, she replied.
An eternity. No telling what the slimy creature could do to me in that time. I couldn’t wait any longer. I’d simply have to hold him off until Morpheus arrived.
As the alien moved to flip me over, I kicked one leg up to catch him in the chin. At the same time, I pushed up with my arms to leverage myself off the table.
I landed on the ground, still holding the metal table—which, I realized, was actually a kind of gurney, complete with wheels.
The medtech let out a grunt and lunged toward a button on the equipment panel. Worried he was going for an alarm, I stomped on what I hoped was the brake release and shoved the table into his midsection. He cried out and stumbled backward. Using the moment to grab one of the sharper instruments off the nearby silver tray, I brandished it at him and took a step forward.
“Make one more move and I’ll gut you like a pig,” I promised.
A set of inner eyelid membranes flickered down over his eyes in a move I read as agitation. “You can’t get out of here,” he croaked.
“Maybe not, but at least you’re not touching me anymore.”
His wide, thin lips curved up in a smile. It was threatening enough to put me on my guard, but I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the long, sticky tongue that flicked out toward me. It wrapped around the wrist of the hand holding the scalpel. Everywhere it touched, it burned. An involuntary scream ripped out of my throat and my hand opened. But I was able to grab the scalpel as it fell, beating the medtech to it with only a microsecond to spare. In one swift motion, I sliced across the tongue that imprisoned my other hand, using enough force to slice the thick muscle almost in half.
I wrenched my hand away, tearing the rest of the tongue off.
Blood poured from the severed end, and the medtech let out a croaking wail. I shook the other end of the tongue off my wrist and it plopped to the floor with a wet splat.
My hand was useless, whatever venom the alien had touched me with turning it bright red.
The room wavered around me.
“Shut up,” I told the screeching medtech. He pulled his mangled tongue back into his mouth and covered it with his long, wet, padded fingers. He crouched down, and for a moment I believed he was cowering from me—until he launched himself into the air, his long legs trailing out behind him as he sailed over my head toward the exit.
I spun to follow him, but the world kept spinning around me. I took two stumbling steps behind him, hoping to catch up.
But he was already at the door, sliding a panel to open it.
Ten seconds, Blue said.
Right. Morpheus.
For a moment there, I had totally forgotten why I needed to distract this guy.
“Yo, frog-face!” I tried to shout—but it came out as a croaking sound, not unlike the one these aliens made. “Look at me, motherfucker.”
I don’t know how what I said translated to him, but it definitely caught his attention. He turned toward me, blood drooling out of his wide, flat mouth, and tried to say something.
Five seconds, Blue said.
I took another wobbling step in his direction. “You try to leave this room and I promise you will die a bloody, painful death.”
The medtech spat a mouthful of blood in my direction, and I cringed away from it, afraid it contained more of the venom he’d used on my arm.
With a disdainful noise, he crouched down to make another leap, this time out the door.
Just as the medtech jumped, Morpheus burst through the hallway floor, an odd, viscous fluid streaming down his body as soft tiles flew in all directions.
With a single, assessing glance, he took in the situation. Those metal wings of his spread out behind him and he met the frogman mid-jump, using the edge of a wing to slice through the other alien’s throat.
“Told you so,” I said to the alien, but my voice barely made a sound.
Arterial blood spewed out of the medtech, who dropped like a ship in a gravity well, landing beside the hole Morpheus had created in the floor. I glanced between the tiny scalpel I held and the sharp, bloody edge of Morpheus’s wing.
“Yours is bigger,” I managed to whisper.
“Come on.” Morpheus scowled and held out one hand toward me. “We need to get the hell out of here before that bitch empress comes looking for us.”
“Definitely,” I agreed, trying to move toward him and failing miserably.
I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Morpheus’s scowl deepened. “What’s wrong with you?”
“He hit me with his tongue.” I tried to lift up my arm to show him, but it wouldn’t obey my commands, so I simply nodded toward it.
Morpheus let out a string of curses so low and swift that my translator wasn’t able to give me more than a general sense of them. Something about flying death from above while mating. Whatever that meant.
Dark sparkles clouded my vision and I wavered on my feet.
“Also,” I added, glancing down at myself, “I think I might be naked.”
With a growl, Morpheus moved into the room and scooped me into his arms.
“Where are you taking me now?” I murmured, reaching up to wrap my arms around his neck.
“Back to your ship.” His voice was gruffer than I remembered it. “Are you in touch with your AI?”
I listened for a moment as my ship spoke to me, then repeated what she said. “She says we have a clear path. Take the next left.”
Whatever questions Morpheus might have had about how Blue knew that, he didn’t bother to stop and ask them before following her directions.
“Your hair is all full of goop,” I observed, running my hands up the back of his neck and threading my fingers into said goopy hair.
“We need to get you into the medical bay. Soon.” Morpheus picked up the pace, practically running.
“I feel good,” I announced, leaning my head back over his cradling arm. “It hurt at first, but now it’s nice.”
“Fuck. Blue, if you can hear me, open the medbay. We’re coming in hot.” Morpheus’s voice faded in and out.
Or is that me? I wondered.
The last thing I heard was Morpheus whispering what sounded like a prayer.
10
Alder
Alarms were sounding, shrilly and continuously, throughout the slave pens. Auction storage units, I corrected myself. Slavery was barbaric and had been outlawed by my great-grandparents, well before my grandparents and my parents ruled. I’d been birthed into a world where all fae, regardless of clan and creed, were treated with respect.
Down to the smallest of us, who lived on the tips of flora stamen and stigma, right up to the largest of us who towered even over the castle my family occupied.
It would not take much for the largeus fae to overthrow our monarchy. But they chose not to, for my family had ruled with kind, firm magicks over generations now. And the smallus fae were content to keep our world bright, cheerful, and fragrant.
So being in these ‘slave pens’, seeing all these men on the auction chopping block, rankled my nerves. Though I loathed the idea of marrying into the Duprasi Kingdom, at least they ran their planet with an even hand. If only the second-born daughter wasn’t so… difficult to look at. And forget breeding, though the Duprasi and my parents had ensured we could, in fact, breed if our planets joined.
What are you thinking, my egg sac and chitin sharing warrior as one? Evik clicked and emitted a light spray of pheromones as he watched me closely.
I laughed lightly, following my train of thought so I could give him a complete answer. “I was thinking that if I had a way to contact the Duprasi, they’d probably bust us out of here no problem. If only I’d say yes to marrying the second-born Norisa-ma.” I moved a few steps back and leaned against the rounded cavernous wall. I kicked at the ground, creating a cloud of airborne dirt that obscured my feet.
“Hey, Evik?”
Yes?
“Think you can kick up a ton of dirt to shield us?” I eyed his hard exoskeleton. He rarely revealed his underwings, as they were too delicate.
I sighed in relief as the alarms finally quieted. I wondered what they’d been for—had something happened in the empress’s realm to warrant such a warning? We needed to get to Lise and Morph. We couldn’t wait until tomorrow.
If it is safe to use my wings. He hesitated, responding slowly, his scent glands going slightly rancid in his worry.
“Won’t let anything happen to you, buddy.” I clapped him on the jointed shoulder and his pincers opened and closed nervously.
The keys to the breeder pens were kept across the room, hanging on a wall next to where the four guards sat playing an unusual game with a pile of carved stones. I’d not seen it before, and I wondered briefly if it would come to the trading post casinos at some point. If I watched and learned now, we’d have a new con to run.
What are we doing exactly, my egg sac and chitin sharing warrior as one?
“Evik, that’s foul.” I covered my nose and raised an eyebrow. “Just trust me, okay? Have I ever led you wrong?”
My partner in crime gnashed his mandibles together, passionately beginning to click and bug spray all of the times that I had, in fact, led him wrong. He got so animated, that he started to draw attention to us.
“Okay, okay. I got it. So maybe I don’t have the best track record.” I took a deep breath, waving at the other captives, who seemed to be every species imaginable from everywhere possible. They eventually lost interest as Evik and I stood huddled together.
He still smelled terrible.
“Look, you kick up a good dust cloud, and I’m going to go all ooey-gooey and slide my way through the bars. I’ll knock out the guards with a little lightning magick, grab the keys, and we’re out of here.”
Your lightning magick fried our last ship, Evik grumbled, stepping back from me and looking like no convincing in the world could make him go along with the plan to get us out of here.
“If we can escape this place and find somewhere to hole up near the auction house, then it’ll be easier to save Lise. More the better if we can get Morpheus out of prison first. He’s the one we want in a fight. You know that.”
Evik gave a little dip of his head, his scent finally calming down to be a light odor of bog swamp instead of a full-blown dung heap.
Crouching down on the ground, I began to draw into the dirt with my index. “Now, here we are.” I made an ‘x’, then drew a line and several left and right turns, then a second ‘x’. “One of the groups I talked to said the prison for people who have really pissed off Empress Frog Bitch is right below her main chambers. She likes to have access to them through a viscous tunnel system. I won’t be able to dive through it, that shit’s laced with their venom, but I think you’ll be fine with your exoskeleton. Not sure about Morph, so getting him out might be a pain.”
My companion stood stoically, watching what I was doing with narrowed eyes.
I do not like your half-conceived plans.
“Well too bad, buddy. My half-cocked plans are all we got right now.”
We should wait here until we are taken to the auction house.
“And what if they sell the breeder stock first, Evik? Lise will be gone before we’re even led into the building.”
That may present… an issue, Evik conceded, his scent shifting again to something nauseatingly awful.
“We’ve got to get Morph first. You and I are good at what we do, but he’s the best tactical fighter.”
Our egg sac and chitin sharing warrior as one is quite impressive in a fight.
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t say it in front of him. He’s got a big enough ego.” I glanced up, seeing the guards beginning to stand and dumping the game stones into a big leather sack. “It’s almost time. Are you good?”
Evik
nodded slowly. Do not let this be another time that you have led me astray.
“No promises,” I smirked, winking at him and then moving casually to the bars.
It didn’t take much to get my juices flowing. Thinking about Lise, her pert body tucked into the fitted flight suit, was more than enough. I visualized her in double braids, long hair swinging down her back. Perfect for tugging and pulling and getting leverage during an intense coupling session. Now, that would be magick. Forget nature powers. Lightning shocks wouldn’t hold a candle to a night with Lise, of that I was sure.
Save Morph.
Save the girl.
Be a hero.
No woman could resist a hero. She’d be lapping me up in no time.
The aphrodisiac chemical I held inside my body rose like lava, pushing through my pores to cling warmly to my skin. Oily, damp. Just enough lube to help me force my way through the narrow bars.
I turned around and nodded at Evik, who clicked a sigh before raising his exterior wing shields and revealing the lace-like extensions underneath. He beat them fast, and furiously, until not only our cell was filled with the dirt storm, but so were the adjacent cells. The flurry pushed past me, reaching out into the areas beyond, burying the guards in a brown fog.
Pressing between two bars, I worked my way out. My limbs screamed at me, the pressure more than I expected. But, then again, I was twelve inches of pure meat and muscle trying to fit through an eight-inch gap.
But we fae are… flexible.
My joints cracked and protested, but they relented, popping out of place only to pop back into place once they were past the barrier. I blinked furiously, as blinded by Evik’s efforts as anyone else. Yet, I was fairly sure where the guards’ table was, oriented to where I’d started. I worked my way slowly, lubrication-damp hands in front of me.
“Hey, who the hell is that?” A voice croaked, and webbed, rubbery hands slammed out to catch me in the chest.
Tiny and Fierce Page 5
