AFRICAN AMERICAN URBAN FICTION: BWWM ROMANCE: Billionaire Baby Daddy (Billionaire Secret Baby Pregnancy Romance) (Multicultural & Interracial Romance Short Stories)

by Carmella Jones

  Chapter Four

  Slowly, Scarlet's eyes fluttered open to an obnoxiously brightly lit room which made her already sore head pound. Beneath her was a cold, sterile, metal table without so much as a sheet to separate her bare flesh from the hard and icy surface. Nor did she have her purple blanket any longer.

  Her skin was just a mass of raised goose flesh at this point, and as soon as she was aware of herself, she began to shiver. She had no memories after being knocked out by the gas, and supposed that this was the first time she regained consciousness since, though she had no real way to gauge the amount of time that had passed since that time. Nor did she honestly have a way to gauge the time that passed since her initial capture and being brought to this foreign place.

  Soon the introspection came to a halt, and her awareness of her surroundings extended beyond the immediate discomfort of her present situation on top of the icy table to the voices that were surrounding her. These voices did not speak in a tongue which was in the least bit discernible to her--rather, this noise was as horrible as the noise she had heard in the room with Nerol when there came a banging on the metal door.

  Scarlet, once used to the obnoxious lighting of the room, looked around to find several creatures that bore a resemblance to Nerol. They were all purple skinned with thick blue stripes, large eyes, elfish ears, and longish hair of frosty colors such as white or green, blue or purple. Their discussion became more animated, and Scarlet realized she was obviously the focus of their talking; she would have paid a very dear price to be able to understand what was being said about her. More about the breeding program, no doubt. But why was she here now? And what had been done with Nerol? Surely not all of these men would be taking her?

  "Excuse me," Scarlet said in a dry and raspy voice. She must have been out for a good amount of time for her throat to protest so much at being put to work.

  One of the men turned his head towards her. His eyes weren't like Nerol's at all. They were a frightening shade of yellow, and their intensity honestly disturbed her. She tried to inch away from him, but then noticed that her hands were strapped down to the metal table she woke up on. She couldn't move. This situation was even more hopeless than the one before. She was totally trapped.

  The alien that turned to her began speaking in the awful guttural voice of his people, making Scarlet shiver. What was going on?

  Before the alien went on for much longer, she heard a voice. "Turn on your translator, Metz," it said, and the one called Metz fumbled around with a black collar, much like the one Nerol wore. The collar around his that honestly looked like adornment more than some sort of tool, but its utility for this sort of situation was invaluable. Once he finished calibrating it, he began speaking again.

  This time, the sounds issued from Metz lips were not those guttural growls, but rather coherent words, though as Scarlet listened to him, she almost wished that she couldn't understand him at all.

  "I don't know what you've come to understand about your position here. I don't care, either. All you need to understand is that you belong to us now, and you'll do as you're told," Metz said gruffly, and he climbed on top of the table.

  Scarlet closed her eyes tightly and tried to struggle against the bonds that held her. As much as she was afraid of Nerol at the beginning, she was significantly more afraid of this scenario placed in front of her.

  "Wait, wait," Scarlet said shakily. "Where is Nerol?" she asked. Maybe when she first met him, she was reticent to do anything with him. Understandably so. To be dropped into a strange bedroom and taken by a foreign creature who just claims compatibility with humans? Anyone would hate that. Anyone would try to escape. However terrible that situation was, at least Scarlet built a rapport with Nerol somewhat. She didn't want to have to go through the same thing with another set of these . . . These things.

  "Dead," Metz replied flatly, and Scarlet gasped.

  "Why?" she demanded.

  "It's not your place to ask, human," Metz responded coolly, and she felt his fingers go between her legs, and just clamped her thighs together as tightly as she could to prevent this creature from having his way with her unimpeded. He was much stronger than she was, however, and seemed to have no issues whatsoever with slipping his fingers between her tightly clamped thighs and getting to her clit.

  Though in her encounter with Nerol, she had been much more responsive to his touch, she was just completely dry, and stimulating her in the least would be well nigh impossible at this point. Regardless of that, Metz didn't seem to bothered by it, and just roughly shove began to have his way with her. Before he could get far, however, there was a sound of alarms, and the whole congregation of aliens in the room ran out to see what the trouble was, leaving Scarlet alone in the cold room on the sterile table, presumably to freeze.

  A few minutes creeped by, and Scarlet's anxiety really started to kick into full gear at that point. Were they not coming back? Or, before they did come back, was there some way she could get out of her confines and sneak out?

  She tried pulling at the cuffs that bound her to the table, but they fit her wrist perfectly. There was no way that she would be able to get off of the table that way, but she could sit up, and so she surveyed her surroundings.

  The room was unadorned with any sort of decoration. Only the necessities were present. That being said, the only two apparent things in the room was the table Scarlet was on, and something that looked akin to a control panel, with levers and buttons of all colors, shapes, and sizes present.

  That control panel may very well have been the answer to her problem, being trapped on the table as she was. Unfortunately, it was at least two yards away, though even if it had been right beside of her, she wouldn't have been able to free herself in all likelihood. There was no way that she would be able to guess the right button to release herself from her bondage.

  She couldn't muse on this for too long, however. The sirens had gone off, and the door opened for the room. She braced herself to see Metz and his gaggle of men, but instead there was a battered and bruised Nerol standing at the door. He was holding his arm as if it were injured as he stumbled inside and went to the control panel, pressed a few buttons, and the cuffs on Scarlet's wrists retracted into the table.

  "Nerol, they said that you were dead," Scarlet said, unable to believe her eyes. Nerol wasn't dead, though he certainly wasn't in the best shape, either.

  "You can't believe a word they say," he replied with a weak smile, and then he went over to Scarlet and handed her a mask. "Follow me, quickly," he ordered and put on a mask himself, then started shuffling with his injured legs towards the door, and then beyond that. They went down several winding halls until they were able to get back to the pod room. There was no hissing this time, or maybe she and Nerol just hopped into the pod too quickly for whomever released the gas last time to be able to do it again.

  Once inside, Scarlet took the backseat while Nerol was in the front. He threw off his mask and quickly began working on the controls. With the practiced ease of a man who had done this a million times before, Nerol got the pod fired up and it was ejected from the craft that they had been on, and Nerol was piloting it into the wide vacuum of space.

  "Nerol . . . What's going on here?" Scarlet asked, confused by all the commotion that she'd recently witnessed.

  "You were . .. You were promised to be the wife of Metz, but instead I took you to be mine. Metz is considered a more ideal and virile specimen, and so you were to be given to him," Nerol replied. "But, I couldn't let him have you. Metz is cruel, and his cruelty would just be passed to the next generation."

  "Oh. So, you just didn't want me to have his children?" Scarlet asked sadly, though she had to criticize herself. This was her rapist that she was talking to. It wasn't like she expected him to be some paragon of virtue and kindness, yet she still wanted to cling to the notion that he wasn't a bad guy. She realized that, having come this far and with no information on how she could possibly get home, she would be st
uck with one of these aliens, and the one that had treated her the kindest was definitely Nerol.

  "I didn't want you to be subjected to his violence either. My people are a warlike race, and so Metz isn't considered extraordinary by any stretch. But just because he is not an extraordinary case does not mean that he is all of the sudden suited for marrying a human woman," Nerol replied. Scarlet could hear the tension in Nerol's voice. His emotions were as easy to read as a human’s, though she didn't know if this was just another similarity that they shared between species, or if the universal translator could translate tone of voice as well as the words being used.

  Scarlet was quiet at that, because she didn't know exactly what to say. This was too much to take in, and there were too many factors to consider. A part of her just wanted to accept Nerol's explanation for what it was and let herself just be content with him, considering he was probably the best she was going to get, but a much larger part of her just wanted to go home.

  Chapter Five

  Though Scarlet couldn't tell the passage of time at all, she and Nerol eventually landed on a planet which seemed to be straight out of a fantastical drawing of a Dr. Seuss book. The colors of the planet primarily focused around greens, blues and violet. At first, these cold and frosty, yet vibrant colors hurt her eyes to look at, but she had to acclimate herself. Either that or walk around blind.

  Once they had landed, Nerol helped Scarlet out of the pod and took her into a large house made of some pale lavender stone. The architecture was hard to describe. It seemed like some miniature version of a Norman castle from days of yore, yet with an entirely different perspective on it. Though it was large and clunky in some regards, at least compared to the chic and streamlined style popular in modern architecture on Earth, there was an air of sophistication despite any clunky overarching themes.

  Inside of the house, it was very arid and slightly warm. The outside of the house was not so much as ten feet off of the ground, and at that it was extremely small, as if there were only a few rooms in the entire abode. However, upon entering, there was a stone staircase which lead them underground.

  Having no other options, Scarlet followed Nerol hesitantly, just wrapping her arms around herself to try and keep herself warm. She still didn't have a shred of clothing, which had long ago ceased to be embarrassing and now was just inconvenient for the sake of warmth.

  Nerol didn't pay her much heed, and just led her down the staircase and then into an adjacent room. There was a chest there which he opened and took out a long fur coat, and then took it to Scarlet, wrapping it around her. She instantly put her arms through the sleeves and the coat fastened itself around her with a series of magnets.

  Scarlet hadn't been warm since she woke up on that metal table, and so her gratitude for having this coat was boundless. She just sat on the floor, making sure the blanket folded under her, and cuddling up with it without paying Nerol the slightest amount of heed.

  Nerol sat next to her, letting her have a moment to get warm. He knew that she had been very cold for far too long, but there was nothing that he could have done until he got to his house. However, the time for enjoying herself would have to be short.

  "Human. I have to ask you this. Will you marry me?" Nerol asked rather stoically. Scarlet didn't even know what to say, so she just stared at him with a mix of bewilderment and shock in her eyes. "Before you answer, please know that if you say no, you will in all likelihood marry Metz," Nerol added.

  Scarlet shivered when she remembered Metz' crude voice, his domineering attitude, his awful yellow eyes, and most of all the threat of his violent nature that Nerol had told her about. "I don't have much choice now, do I?" Scarlet grumbled, pulling her blankets closer, curling up into the fetal position, and closing her eyes.

  "I'm sorry," Nerol said softly, petting the fur coat where he assumed Scarlet would be. The coat was so oversized for Scarlet that it just swallowed her up.

  "I won't say no," Scarlet said quietly, mainly because she felt like she would have no other real option. It certainly wasn't because she wanted to, but in this situation, it felt as though she had no choice.

  "I won't make you regret that," Nerol replied, and he got up and walked out of the room, leaving Scarlet to her own devices for the time being.

  Chapter Six

  While Nerol was off making his arrangement, Scarlet just leaned against the wall and slept in her over sized fur coat. For once, she was let to sleep until her body woke her up, and she was in the same place as she fell asleep when her eyes opened again.

  She carefully got up, her legs a bit sore and stiff from the awkward position she had slept in, and she looked for anyone who might be able to give her information on what was going on.

  The house, though it wasn't very large, was like a maze at first. However, Scarlet was able to acclimate herself after a short while and at least somewhat navigate through the twisting hallways that seemed to lead her to an endless procession of rooms, which all had the exact same doors.

  Eventually, rather than her finding someone, Nerol found her, grabbing her by the shoulder as he walked up behind her. "Scarlet. I need you to come now. We are to have our ceremony now," Nerol said, his voice seemingly higher pitched than usual, as if he were nervous.

  Scarlet nodded at that, and let Nerol lead her back to the room that she had slept in, and he gave her a leather skin dress that was of a fawn color, and boots to match. Wedding garb, she supposed. Odd though it seemed to her, she went into another room, changed, and presented herself to Nerol. The clothes were much to big for her, especially insofar as the length went, but Nerol didn't seem bothered by this. He took Scarlet's hand and half dragged her to another room, where a man wearing the mask of some sort of tusked beast and a fur coat stood holding an old tome.

  "Turn on your translator if you would, master," Nerol said as he entered with his soon to be bride. At first the man growled and hissed in protest, but he did turn on his translator, considering its necessity was obvious.

  "Very well. Do you, woman, understand that you are about to enter a life long commitment with Nerol, and you will be his from this moment on, forever and ever, and anon?" the old shaman like figure before Scarlet asked in a gruff tone, as if trying to coerce her to say yes.

  Scarlet just swallowed hard, and nodded at the question. She would rather be Nerol's than Metz, after all. "Yes," she said quietly, though she was a bit concerned with being labeled someone's property.

  To her surprise, however, the old and gruff man repeated to Nerol the same line for him to accept, which he readily did. Scarlet expected to be kissed then, but after the ceremony, Nerol just hoisted Scarlet up and carried her to his room, then set her down on the bed. She assumed that the next order of business would be to consummate the union which they just formed, but instead Nerol seemed as though he wasn't in the least bit concerned with that.

  "Now no one will be able to contest that you are mine," Nerol explained, and smiled slightly. Scarlet just didn't respond, because she didn't really know what to say at first. The rush job on them tying the knot along with the fact that she barely knew Nerol made the whole thing seem strange. Yet, she still felt a connection to him none the less, so it was difficult for her to decide one way or another whether she liked or detested her choices.

  "Not even Metz?" Scarlet ventured to ask after a moment of silence.

  "No. Certainly not Metz," Nerol replied, though he tensed up at the question, and Scarlet felt that it would be better not to bring him up again.

  "So, what now?" Scarlet asked hesitantly. She truly had no idea what she had gotten herself into, but Nerol was happy to show her what he expected out of their life from this point forward. Nerol showed her how to cook dinner with the materials that he had on hand, and then they ate together and put the dishes in an automatic cleaner.

  With that done, nothing more pressing seemed to need to be discussed, and Nerol spent his time with the shaman that had come in earlier, while Scarlet herself wand
ered around aimlessly until it was time to go to sleep.

  By the next week, it was a little noisier. Granted, the week that passed with Nerol was akin to bliss for Scarlet. She had nearly no responsibilities, and Nerol treated her like a princess. However, such joy could not last. The ship that they had escaped from landed on the planet, and one of the gaggle that had been with Metz came to Nerol's house, and had a heated discussion with Nerol. Scarlet couldn't understand a word that went between the two, but she could tell that none of what they were saying was positive, so she tried her best to keep her nose out of it until it was just herself and Nerol again.

  When the other character left, Nerol found Scarlet, and sat her down for a conversation. "Metz wishes to challenge me," Nerol said quietly. "For the right to call you mine, I mean."

  "I thought that you said--" Scarlet began, but Nerol cut her off.

  "I was wrong. I will go to the Colosseum tomorrow to fight him. If I lose, I don't know what will happen to you," Nerol said quietly. "But, I do not think that I will lose."

  Scarlet was concerned hearing that, and she just wrapped her arms around Nerol, holding him close for the time being. She wanted to make the most of the time that she had left with him, but she didn't know how she could do that. It was such short notice.

  For the remainder of the day, Scarlet didn't leave Nerol's side. When they finally laid down to sleep, though, she couldn't so much as keep her eyes closed for a minute due to the anxiety, but she stayed in bed with her arms wrapped around him to keep him close to her heart. This may be the last chance that she ever got, after all.

  Chapter Seven

  At the Colosseum, Scarlet was given a seat that was perhaps just a bit too close to the action. A mere ten yards away, her husband would be jousting on a ferocious, over-sized ostrich like creature, which stood at about seven feet high, and had razor sharp beaks and talons. They were frightening to say the least.