The Exodus (Darkest Skies, #4)

by Farrar, Marissa

  They dragged me out of the room and into the corridor beyond. The corridor was pentagonal in shape, and the walls were made up of the same silver panels that had been in the room they’d kept me in, but so far, I hadn’t seen any sign of the windows that allowed me my glimpses into space. The same blue light that had been present in the previous room was also here, running between the seams of the pentagonal shape and casting everything in a cool, blue glow.

  I finally found my voice. “Where are you taking me?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  I bucked and wriggled, trying to get free of them, but the tail around my waist was so strong, it almost lifted me off the floor, so my toes skirted the surface, not allowing me to get any purchase. But like Dean had pointed out—even if I could get free, where would I run to?

  I noticed how even in such close proximity to these Trads, I wasn’t having the same physical reaction that I had when I was near Dean Lambert. No part of me felt anything but anger, fear, and revulsion toward them. I could see that they were physically attractive—if tails and horns were your thing—but there was no inner pulse of desire or jolt of instant attraction.

  Was it something they could turn on and off when needed? Or was it simply that there needed to be a connection, just like when humans fell for each other?

  I preferred the idea of them turning the pheromones on and off. The possibility that I had a connection with Dean Lambert left me sickened to my stomach. He wasn’t what I wanted. His comparison of what the Trads did to how humans mated had me wondering, however. Maybe we did use false pretenses to lure in a mate, but we didn’t then kidnap them and force them to stay with us.

  The place they took me to was a hive of activity. I was on the bridge—a huge hexagonal-shaped room. At one end, windows ran from one side to the other, giving a view similar to the one I’d had in the first room, only far wider. There was no sign of a dashboard or control panel, something that was running the ship. In the center was a glass column which rose right from the floor up to the ceiling, and was filled with the same blue light I’d seen emitted from behind all of the panels I’d come across in the ship so far, and had illuminated the corridors we’d walked down. It was as though it was the skeleton of the ship, or perhaps even the muscle—giving the spacecraft the ability to function.

  There were other Trads around, but though I sensed them shooting me interested glances, none of them looked directly at me. Dean clearly held a high position among the Trads, and no one else was going to step on his territory. Instead, they all seemed to do their best to remain interested in their work, busying themselves with some kind of touch screens, though I was unable to make out what was on them. Just like the two who’d come to move me from the room, they were all in their Trad form and not even pretending to be human.

  Dean spun in his seat as we approached—more like a stool, but with a simple curved cup on the top to sit on—I guessed having chairs with backs wasn’t so practical when you had a huge appendage protruding from your tailbone—and got to his feet. Just like all the others, he was no longer in his human form and was very much a Trad. He’d somehow grown in size, and twin horns jutted from the top of his head. The most alarming change in him was the huge, muscular tail now hanging from the back of his pants.

  “Hello again, Camille. Have you been causing problems for me?”

  I wrenched my shoulders back and forward, trying to dislodge the hold of the other two Trads.

  “No,” I said sullenly. “I haven’t done anything.”

  “That’s not what my colleagues reported.”

  I scowled at the two Trads I was still caught between, but my attention kept getting pulled toward the tower of blue light in the center of the bridge.

  An idea started to form in my mind. I had no idea how I’d pull it off, or even if it would work—there was a good chance there would be a backup source of power somewhere on board, but it was a start.

  “Thank you, Urych and Narkiz. You can release her now. I’ll make sure I keep a closer eye on her.”

  The strong hands released my shoulders, and Urych’s tail unwrapped from around my waist. Both Trads stepped back.

  “What’s your real name?” I demanded, trying to act less frightened than I really was. “Don’t tell me you’re call Dean on Tradrych.”

  “No, my real name is Denik Lazarz. We alter our Tradrych names to make them more palatable to wherever we have landed on Earth.”

  Denik. That name suited him better, that was for sure.

  “You’re going to be here,” Dean continued, “right at my side, from now on. You’re mine, Camille Harran, and the sooner you give in to that and stop fighting it, the sooner we can all move on.”

  “That’s never going to happen.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  He must have released a pulse of pheromones, as I felt it right down in my core, my nipples tightening, lips tingling, and my skin instantly becoming more sensitized. But though my body might respond to him, my heart remained resolute that I would never let him have what he wanted.

  Me.

  I took a step back, wanting to increase the space between us. He noticed, and a smile played on his perfect lips. His tail swept out and wound around my thighs and tugged me back over again. I let out a shriek.

  “You shouldn’t be afraid of the tail,” he said with a smirk. “It’s merely one of the advantages we have over your human men.”

  “Why?” I bluffed. “Because it’s strong?”

  His smirk increased in size. “I’m not talking about it being an advantage during a fight, Camille.”

  To my horror, the tip of his tail curved in between my thighs and pressed against the seam of my pants and my pussy beneath. A pleasurable pulse throbbed through me, my core flooding with arousal.

  “If you think a man’s cock feels good inside you, just wait until you feel my tail pushing deep, stretching your inner walls. It can move in a way a human cock can’t. You haven’t experienced an orgasm until you’ve had the tip of a Tradrych’s tail stroking your G-spot.”

  I let out a groan as the tail rubbed me again. I couldn’t help myself, and I ground down on it, my mind swimming with pleasure. I wanted to feel it, wanted to know how that thick length would feel pumping inside me. How deep could it go? An image of myself lying on the floor, my legs spread, and hips lifted while Denik’s tail speared me jumped into my head. It was as though I was seeing it for real on a television screen, my head thrown back, my lips parted, back arched, my hands massaging my naked breasts. The image was both erotic and horrifying.

  “No, stop it!” I yelled, grabbing the tail and wrenching it away from my body. “I don’t want this. I never will.”

  Infuriatingly, he only chuckled. “We’ll see about that, Camille. You’re weakening with every passing hour. It won’t be long now until you’re stripping off your clothes yourself and climbing me and begging for me to penetrate you.”

  I hated that a part of me knew he was right, and I was filled with guilt about how Mike, and Casey, and Aleandro would feel if they thought for one moment that I was even considering having sex with the enemy.

  Hadn’t the human race always fantasized about having sex with monsters? Going back to our fairy tales and Greek myths—from the Beast and Beauty, to young virgins being given to the Minotaur in the Labyrinth, there had always been something that fascinated us about fucking something abhorrent. Perhaps this had happened to the human species before. Maybe this wasn’t the first time we’d been taken by an alien race and used as breeders, only the time before we’d had no knowledge of other alien races and so had put down what had happened to the existence of monsters, until eventually so much time passed that we thought of the recollections only as myths and fairy tales.

  A different Trad approached with an air of authority. “Captain, I need to speak with you.”

  Denik released me and turned his attention to the new arrival. “Of course, Olek. What is it?”
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br />   Olek touched the air in front of him, and a multitude of numbers and figures appeared, suspended like a projection, though I couldn’t see where it might have come from. The numbers and figures were joined with lines—some in pairs, others in threes and fours. I had no idea what any of it meant, but it was clearly important.

  “We only have another twenty-four hours before we need to depart. Do you think you can have her ready by then?”

  I knew what he was talking about when he’d said, ‘have her ready.’ He was talking about me being pregnant so he could prepare for me to go to Tradrych.

  “I’ll die first,” I spat.

  Dean—or Denik—shot me a sideways glance. “No, you won’t.”

  It was the one hold I had over him. He wanted my womb, and my threats to harm myself and render it useless worried him. Something else worried me, though, and it was only the Trad’s warped sense of right and wrong that stopped him from rendering me unconscious and raping me. He could probably even keep me unconscious while his spawn developed in my womb. Why would he even bother to wake me up again, unless they needed us to be awake to give birth?

  The idea of waking from unconsciousness only to find myself about to give birth to an alien baby horrified me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Aleandro

  “WE NEED TO FIND A WAY onto the Trad ship,” Mike announced.

  We were standing together with the Athions, trying to figure out a way to get Camille back. Though our defeat by the Trads was important, everyone was more focused on her right now. This wasn’t like when the other women had been taken by the Trad ships and we had no way of getting them back. We knew exactly which ship had taken her and its location.

  “But how?” Casey asked. “They’ll see us approaching and bring us down like last time.”

  Mike pressed his lips together, thinking. “There must be a way we can disguise the ship. We can use shielding, like they’ve done previously.”

  I studied the faces of my two colleagues, automatically drawn to blond, studious Casey. I’d never even looked at another guy that way before. Fuck. If you’d have told me a year ago that I’d have willingly sucked another guy’s dick, I’d have probably punched someone in the face for even suggesting it. Casey had always just been a co-worker before. It was Camille’s presence that seemed to spark something between us. I couldn’t even explain it properly. It just felt right when she was there, like she was a catalyst for the sudden surge of lust that had exploded between us. And it turned Camille on to see us together, too. We never did anything when she wasn’t around, and while I felt more protective over Casey than I did Mike, I didn’t think I treated him any differently on a friendship front.

  Casey wasn’t the only one I felt protective of. I hated to think how close we were to losing Camille forever. What would happen to us all if she didn’t make it back? She was the glue that held us all together, and while I knew my relationship with Casey and Mike was solid, it wouldn’t be the same without her.

  Irus nodded. “Yes, we can use shielding to hide us from the Trads, but we won’t be able to board the Trad ship while it’s up.”

  I frowned at Irus. “How will we board the ship?”

  “We have a device that can be worn that can transport a person from one ship to another,” Leif said. “If we can get close enough, we can get people on board. The shielding needs to be removed for that to happen, however, and when we remove the shielding, we’ll leave ourselves open for attack.”

  “Then that’s what we do,” I said.

  He regarded me seriously. “If our ship is taken down, whoever we beam on board won’t have anywhere to beam back to, and that will mean that neither will Camille.”

  I straightened my shoulders. “I’m willing to take that risk.”

  “Me, too,” Casey said.

  “There’s no way I’m not going,” Mike added.

  But Irus shook his head. “That’s not possible. Only one, or at the most two people can be transported onto the Trad ship.”

  I frowned. “Surely the more of us who go on board, the better.”

  “It takes a lot of power to move a being from one craft to another,” he said. “If we need the device to transport two people or more, and for us to carry one for Camille as well, we’re going to have to limit the numbers who can travel.”

  “I want to help.”

  We all turned at the female voice. It wasn’t one we heard often—especially not in these circumstances.

  I frowned at the sight of Camille’s sister standing in the doorway behind us. “Molly? You can’t be involved in this.”

  Her eyebrows lifted, her expression so similar to Camille’s it made my heart ache. “I can’t be involved in rescuing my own sister?”

  “You’re a civilian. We can’t expect you to put yourself at risk.”

  “She’d do it for me,” she said, placing her hands on her hips. “You know she would. She wouldn’t even hesitate.”

  “Maybe not, but she wouldn’t want you to put yourself at risk either. What would happen to Elodie if you got hurt?”

  “Elodie would still have all of you here to take care of her. Don’t make out like because you’re male that you’re incapable of taking care of a child.”

  “No, that wasn’t what I was saying.”

  “Really? ’Cause it sure sounded that way to me.”

  “Jesus, you really sound like your sister at times.”

  A smile spread across her face at that. “Good.”

  Mike interrupted. “If we can only have two people transported onto the Trad ship, we need to be sensible about who goes. I think one of them needs to be an Athion, since they understand the technology to get us on and off the ship better than any of us humans, and I want to volunteer myself as the second person. It was partly my own pig-headedness that got her into this position, and I want to be the one to get her back home safely again.”

  “I want to help, too,” Irus said. “I know the technology.”

  “It’ll be dangerous,” Mike warned. “You’ll be risking your own life. The moment the Trads see us, there’s a good chance they’ll just kill us.”

  The Athion’s jaw locked. “But if they don’t, and they’re not expecting us, we can take them by surprise. Even if it means we only manage to find Camille and let her know that we haven’t given up on her, it would be something.”

  Mike studied Irus’s face. “You really care about her, don’t you?”

  Irus met Mike’s eyes. “I’m in love with her. I’ll die for her, if that’s what it takes. I’d do so in a heartbeat.”

  Something changed in Mike’s expression—a softening around his eyes—and his tone grew wistful. “I guess the more people Camille has who love her, the better, right?”

  Irus nodded. “Right,” he said, looking between us. “So, when do we leave?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Denik seemed to have forgotten about me for the moment.

  An hour or more had passed where I’d remained sitting on the floor of the bridge, trying to figure out my next move.

  Denik was busy with other Trads, working with the projected numbers and figures that appeared in glowing blue digits in the air. I knew he wouldn’t ignore me for long, however. The clock was ticking down to their departure time, and the Trads wouldn’t be able to take me to Tradrych without me being pregnant. Either Denik would try to impregnant me so he could take me, or I’d die. At least if he went for the first option, I’d get to see Tara again. Or I hoped I would. I couldn’t see many good things coming from what was happening, but that would be one of them. I’d missed my friend horribly and had tortured myself over what might be happening to her, wishing I could do more. But if they took me to Tradrych, I wouldn’t be able to help her. I wouldn’t be able to rescue her. I’d be their captive, just like she was. A breeder who was only there to help repopulate the planet.

  Though I sat quietly, hoping they would just forget about me, my gaze was repeatedly drawn to the
column of blue light in the center of the bridge. It didn’t miss my attention that the projected digits apparently floating in the air were an identical blue to both the column and the light that appeared to run through all the other parts of the ship. If I could take out the column, could I bring down the ship?

  It would mean putting my own life in jeopardy, but it would be worth it. I’d have achieved what we’d wanted when we’d launched to attack and shown the Trads that we wouldn’t go down quietly.

  The problem was, I had no way of destroying it. I was unarmed and surrounded by Trads. They were big, and strong, and fast, and I couldn’t fool myself that I might be able to overpower one of them. I’d been watching them closely, and it didn’t seem they had weapons carried about their persons. Their form-fitting, silver-gray outfits left nothing to the imagination, and I couldn’t see any kind of laser gun or anything else hidden beneath. If there was, I’d have tried to come up with a way of stealing one, but that wasn’t even a possibility. I guessed the Trads felt utterly safe inside their own spacecraft and among their own kind. There was no way they considered me to be any kind of a threat either.

  Denik’s attention was still focused on the other Trads, so I slowly shuffled backward on my bottom, hoping my slight movements would go unnoticed. I glanced over my shoulder, toward the way I’d been brought in, and then twisted my head slightly to look at the next exit. There were six in total—each leading to a different branch of the ship. I knew what lay down the branch I’d been brought through, but what about the others? Denik had been right when he’d said that I had nowhere to run, but perhaps one of the branches led to a weapons store or something else that might help my cause.

  Either way, I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit there and wait for Denik to decide he was ready for me.