It gave the woman the appearance of willingness/being completely docile though Brandi very much doubted that was the case.
There was a fairly sizeable gathering of almost-human-looking-aliens beyond the platform that was used to display them for the auction.
She heard the creatures calling out, but the language was nothing like anything she’d ever heard. It might even have been several languages. It seemed fairly clear that they were haggling over a price for her, however.
In a few moments, the woman was led off the stage and the alien came for her. Disentangling her chains from the device, he led her center stage and made her turn this way and that. Finally, she was made to put her back to the buyers, spread her legs, and bend down to touch her toes.
Her genitals were thoroughly examined and then the haggling began.
Unfortunately, she had no idea whether her captors were happy with the money they got for her or even if she’d been sold. The calls stopped and she was led off of the stage where she was shoved into what basically looked like a crate—or maybe a coffin.
The urge to run, to escape, gnawed at her mind no matter how hard she worked to banish it with reason—reason being she had nowhere to go and no idea of how to survive on a hostile, alien world, even if she could succeed in escaping.
Trying not to let terror completely steal her wits, Brandi settled to wait, to gather her strength, to try to figure out what she was going to do—could do—to save herself.
Chapter Two
Time passed while Brandi crouched in fear in one corner of her crate. Hunger and thirst began to eat away at the fear, weariness, too. It seemed hours passed while women were paraded across the platform, displayed, bid on, purchased …. Or not. One by one they were brought to the same huge room where Brandi and others had been thrown into crates, locked inside and abandoned.
After what seemed hours had passed, a shadow fell across the crate where Brandi was crouched and she looked up to discover a giant of an alien looming over her, staring down at her through the slats. He was accompanied by one of the frog aliens that had captured her.
This one was more humanoid than the frog people. His skin, although it wasn’t the same color as her own—or the way hers looked under the red sun—seemed to be similar in texture. His hair was long and black, but she couldn’t imagine any circumstance that would encourage anyone to think of him as girly.
He was built like a tank—like someone who spent every waking moment lifting weights. His muscles had muscles.
His face was also more human-like, but still so alien there was no doubt he wasn’t human. He had two eyes, one nose and a mouth—none of which were shaped entirely like the human counterpart.
Oddly enough, for all that, it wasn’t a hideous face or repellent but rather almost attractive in a strangely exotic way.
The frog alien unlocked her cage, grabbed the chain, and gave it a tug that brought her surging to her feet with a gasp of fear and pain.
The ‘tank’ slid a narrow glare at the frog creature and grunted out something Brandi didn’t understand. The frog shrugged and babbled something back.
The ‘tank’ turned to give her an assessing look.
Brandi had a bad feeling the bastard had just told him she’d tried to escape.
Well, she supposed, technically, she had, but could she help it that her flight instincts had kicked in at a very bad moment?
She hadn’t really been trying to escape because she didn’t know that was why everybody was running, damn it!
Wasn’t the damned rings in her nipples and clit and the chain running through them enough punishment for her stupidity?
It wasn’t like she could try again without losing or horribly maiming her privates.
She didn’t see any reason for the bastard to tell him except to excuse himself for pulling her up by the chains.
The tank clamped a hand around one of her arms like a vice and the three of them moved from the warehouse where she’d been left to wait in terror to learn her fate through a door, down a short hallway, and into a small room that had the look of an office.
One of the frog creatures was sitting behind a desk.
Without a word, the Tank pulled a set of manacles from his belt. Fastening one to the wrist of the arm he held, he grasped her other arm and manacled it, as well. Pulling a bag from his belt, he tossed it to Captain frog creature. “Your pay for the female.”
The bag landed on the desk top, jingling. Frog grabbed it up with shaking hands and pulled the tie from it, pouring the contents onto the desk top. What looked like a pile of golden coins spilled out.
She didn’t have to understand what he’d said to comprehend that a transaction had just taken place. Brandi was still staring at him blankly, in complete disbelief despite her suspicion that she was being sold, when the Tank pulled on the chain attached to her manacles and turned toward the door once more. She stumbled as she was hauled across the threshold. Instinctively, she righted herself once more, struggling to keep pace with the man-creature who led her away.
The sun was low on the horizon as they exited the building. A trio of tiny moons had already emerged from the opposite direction and begun what she presumed was their nightly trek across the alien sky.
She was led to some sort of domesticated beast that had been left tied at a post. Beyond having four legs, though, and vaguely familiar tack, it bore no resemblance to the beasts of Earth—any of them, let alone a horse.
But it was clear it was transportation.
Catching her around her waist, the Tank lifted her up onto the beast and climbed up behind her. Holding the prancing creature to a walk, he urged it along the road and through the streets of the village. Some of Brandi’s numbness began to wear off as they rode. A flicker of thought here and there entered her mind.
She had been sold by her captor to another—as a sex slave? Breeder? A sacrifice?
She was going to die, she thought abruptly.
She had not even lived yet! She was only twenty-five. She had never even dated anyone with a serious eye toward marriage, let alone been married. She’d never had a baby. Had barely managed to launch a career! Now she wouldn’t get the chance of any kind of future at all.
For a few moments the horrible thoughts ran away with her, controlled her, drove her closer and closer to ‘losing’ it and trying to fight her way free.
She shied away from the thoughts, struggled to push them into a dark corner of her mind.
There had to be something she could do! Some way to save herself!
She wanted to go home! She wanted to be surrounded by things familiar, things she had some hope of dealing with!
Thoughts of home ran rampant through her mind for a while—unchecked—making her feel more and more lost, frightened, hopeless.
She thrust them to the back of her mind after a little while. The memories weren’t helping, weren’t even a comfort. That life was over whether her actual life was or not. She couldn’t get home. She couldn’t even begin to imagine any sort of scenario that would take her home.
But she was still alive and that meant she had some chance of continued existence!
What would she do to live?
What might she be called upon to do?
She had no clue. The frog creatures had stolen her and sold her. She knew what had motivated them—too late and she’d been helpless to stop it, but she knew.
This Tank-like man-creature was another situation entirely. She couldn’t know what to do until she figured out what his intentions were.
If this was about sex and or breeding—well she could endure that in order to survive. It might not be pleasant. It might, in fact, be very unpleasant, but she could endure and the longer she survived the better her chances of continuing to breathe.
He distracted her after they’d left the village behind, shoving something at her.
She looked down to examine the unrecognizable lump he’d placed in her hand.
“Eat.”<
br />
Brandi sent him a startled look. “You speak English?” she gasped.
His eyes narrowed. “You will have difficulty eating if I must place de hood on you.”
Brandi gaped at him, caught between dimming hopefulness, fear, and confusion.
She wasn’t allowed to speak to him?
Apparently not and she was hungry and beyond that weak from lack of food and she needed to eat.
And she didn’t want the hood.
They’d done horrible things to her when they’d put the hood on her.
She had holes in places she’d never wanted holes!
It might not seem like a big deal to people that went around piercing all sorts of places on their bodies, but she wasn’t in to that shit! To her it had been a very big deal!
Her nipples and clit throbbed as if in agreement.
She focused on eating the blob, which turned out to be some sort of bread with what might have been meat and cheese mixed into it. She didn’t know, naturally, but the taste was close enough she was able to convince herself to eat it.
It was either surprisingly good or she was desperately hungry because it not only appeased her gnawing stomach, it gave her pleasure tasting it and the fullness it provided was even more pleasurable.
Except for the part when she began to feel like she might choke to death from lack of liquid.
Thankfully, her captor produced a flask and gave it to her. She was too desperate by that time to consider what might be in the flask—and, unfortunately, it wasn’t water. It was some sort of fermented drink that made her cough and gag, but it did seem to appease her thirst in spite of that.
She was insensibly cheered once he’d fed her, felt more in control—enough so that she began to look around with curiosity at the alien world, thinking she was seeing something no human eyes had seen.
Except, she recalled abruptly, he’d spoken English! How could he without being very familiar with humans?
It seemed to give the lie to the possibility that the ship that had brought her and the other women had been a onetime thing or even a first time thing.
Or was it merely a case of his having memorized certain words, small portions of the language, from something, maybe, that the frogs had provided?
Like learning just enough of any foreign language to get by in another country?
She didn’t know and there didn’t seem much likelihood of simply figuring it out. She had no pieces to the puzzle beyond the one sentence/threat.
Dismissing it after a moment, she focused on appeasing her curiosity about the strange world and enjoying the comfort of a full stomach.
Unfortunately, by that time, it was fairly difficult to appease her curiosity.
It had been almost dusk when they’d left the slave market and then the village behind. Darkness began to settle more and more heavily around them as they rode through alien forest, following a trail barely wider than the beast they rode, and Brandi’s uneasiness rose, keeping pace with the deepening gloom.
She wasn’t accustomed to being in a rural setting after dark—completely exposed to nature—and she certainly had no clue of what might lurk in the darkness of this alien world. The man-creature didn’t seem the least uneasy about it, but she couldn’t imagine that he would have much to fear from anything. He looked like he could crush bones without effort—tear most anything limb from limb without breaking a sweat.
But would he protect her? He’d invested a good bit of money in buying her—at least it had looked that way to her—but did he value her enough to risk injury or death to prevent her injury or death?
She wasn’t as convinced as she would’ve liked to be—particularly since she was apparently too far beneath him to be allowed to speak.
It was with relief that she spotted a very large stone structure in the distance and realized, thought, they must be headed toward it.
And yet the relief faded the closer they came to the structure and doubts and fear crept in.
It didn’t actually look like a hotel or a home of any kind. It looked … almost ominous in the deep gloom, like some kind of ancient temple. And as little as she recalled about the history she’d been taught in school, she did remember ancient religions seemed to revolve around sacrifices.
Was she about to discover why she’d been bought?
* * * *
The closer they came to the structure Brandi had spotted, the more certain she was that it was a temple of some sort. And the more convinced she was that it was a religious structure the more certain she was that it couldn’t be their destination.
She was wrong on the latter speculation. The Tank headed straight for it and pulled the beast to a halt when they reached it. Leaving her perched precariously in the saddle, he took the reins and tied the beast at a hitching post and then picked up the stick dangling from a rope beside a huge gong and struck it.
The noise nearly unseated Brandi because the beast tried to rear.
The Tank grasped the bridle, balled one meaty fist up and slammed it against the side of the animal’s bony skull.
The arm looked like a pile driver. Brandi wasn’t surprised the animal stopped bouncing around. She was surprised it didn’t keel over.
When he’d calmed the beast, Tank moved to her and removed her from the saddle, setting her on her feet on the first of the multitude of stone steps that led up into the temple. When Brandi followed the ‘waterfall’ upwards with her gaze, she discovered that there were robed figures at the top—summoned no doubt by the ‘door bell’ the Tank had rung.
Uneasiness slithered through her.
She realized she hadn’t seriously considered the possibility that she might be used as a sacrifice even though that thought had occurred to her as the most frightening scenario—next to being eaten.
Otherwise she would’ve fought the Tank like a tigress.
She doubted she could’ve escaped, but she would’ve made a damned good attempt.
She supposed she’d been lulled into a false sense of security by fact that she’d been taken by an advanced race and the unthreatening manner the Tank had shown toward her. The planet and its inhabitants seemed primitive by Earth standards, but she figured they couldn’t be too primitive if they were accustomed to trading with aliens from other worlds like the frog people.
What did she know, though, she thought abruptly? She was certainly no expert on alien culture—she wasn’t even an expert on human cultures.
She was debating whether she should take her chances in the wilds of the alien world and damn the flesh she would lose in the fight for freedom when she felt the Tank unfasten one manacle, pull her arms behind her and lock the manacle on her wrist again.
Had he read her thoughts in her expression, she wondered, abruptly feeling faint with terror? Or could he read minds?
Or was it just because that bastard that had sold her had told him she was a runaway slave? Maybe that she would have to be beaten into submission?
The cloaked figures, she discovered when Tank moved away, had descended the stairs. They surrounded her. One on either side gripped her upper arms half carrying, half dragging her up the stairs.
Belatedly, Brandi pulled against their hold, but nothing she could do broke their grip or even seemed to loosen it and when she abruptly dropped her weight in the hope that it would catch them off guard and break their hold, they simply dragged her, banging her shins on the sharp edges of the steps.
She would’ve screamed if she’d thought it would do any good—if she’d been able to think straight and find her voice. She was too mindless to even try to think of a way of escape.
But it did occur to her that she might have been better off not to play her hand at the inopportune time she had. She might have been able to catch them off guard if she’d been smart enough to bide her time.
Now they would be more watchful.
Apparently, they grew tired of dragging her by the time they reached the platform at the top. Two other robed figures caug
ht her ankles and lifted her and they carried her inside and down a corridor illuminated with flickering torches. When they reached a wide stair, they began to descend.
By that time it had occurred to Brandi that she might be better off if she simply pitched herself to the bottom and ended ‘it’ as quickly as she could—but she didn’t have that option either.
They carried her to a room that contained a fairly large pool.
Drowning!
That was quite possibly one of the worst ways to go in Brandi’s book.
She fought them like a tigress as they carried her into the water.
They ignored her struggles and bathed her.
She was starting to feel stupid by the time they hauled her out again, but she quickly realized they weren’t simply giving her a bath. This was a part of some sort of ritual. They staked her down spread eagle on the floor, spread some sort of aromatic oils all over her and then took knives and scraped the hair off her entire body, leaving only the hair on her head.
She was too frightened to move during most of the process, but when they reached her genitals, she began trying to jerk her arms loose.
Her tormenter simply sat down on her belly, pinning her hips to the hard stone floor, and continued.
When they were satisfied, they unlocked the manacles and carried her into the pool again.
It occurred to Brandi that she hadn’t seen the Tank since the robed priests had taken her and the priests weren’t half his size or nearly as formidable.
She braced herself when they carried her out of the pool again. The moment her feet touched the stone, she launched herself forward.
Unfortunately, they were ready for her. They let her and when she smacked into the stone hard enough to rattle her brain, they pulled her arms behind her back and manacled them tightly. A hood was placed over her head and secured tightly, blinding her, then they simply picked her up like a log and carried her from the room.
Alien Slavers II: Breaking Brandi Page 2
