by Jaide Fox
He uncovered the third dish, revealing another plate of the palatable food for him.
“You’re sick. I hope you know that. Demented.”
He just grinned at her.
Chapter Six
The morning came too early. The sun had barely broken through the clouds when Adrienne roused from the sounds of Dezec readying himself to leave.
“Where are you going?” she asked, watching him with appreciative eyes as he got dressed. The man had a damn fine backside.
He didn’t turn around as he pulled his pants on and then his shirt. Adrienne didn’t dare move. The infuriating man had screwed her so many times the insides of her thighs felt bruised, and her vagina was raw. She congratulated herself on how well she’d done in fooling him into believing she wanted his body.
He came back into the room to put on his shoes. “I have to go to work. We’re running drills today and I need to oversee the new recruits, make sure no one has screwed themselves to death with their new bride.” He winked at her and slipped his shoes on, then tightened his belt around his narrow waist when he stood.
“What am I supposed to do with myself all day? I’ll go crazy with boredom.”
He thought it over a moment then picked up the tablet. It was heavy, as she’d discovered earlier, and composed mainly of metal. He touched the glass screen and scrolled a moment, then handed it to her. “You can attempt to learn our language with this. Though I doubt you’ll succeed. No Earth women has mastered it so far. I’ll have to see if I can transfer some of your planet’s books to my tablet for you to read.”
“That sounds better. But all of y’all know our language? How is that possible?”
A pleased look crossed his face. “We pride ourselves on gaining knowledge of interplanetary philosophies, anthropology, and languages in our spare time. It’s why we were capable of communicating with the Nexus Lamians and securing a trade route with them. We do not travel through space ourselves. We have no need to leave our planet.”
She reckoned not, since they had their own delivery boys bringing them whatever they might need. She wondered what they did to pay for everything. The planet must have a wealth of natural resources that kept them fluid with other planets. Maybe that’s why they’d adopted such a minimalist policy regarding their environment. She couldn’t imagine a civilized race that didn’t rape their planet for everything it could give it—like they had Earth.
The knowledge that there were no space ships didn’t bode well for her, Ebony, and the others. She felt her hopes dwindling. She hugged the heavy tablet against her chest as she watched him with sinking despair. She glanced at it and saw the same gobblety gook Greek looking letters as before.
“How long did it take you to learn English?” she asked, feeling a headache coming on from looking at the screen.
“Hmm. A month in your time. Perhaps a little more. I’ve only completed language studies, however, none of the other.”
If he could do that, she could learn his language, she determined. She wasn’t an idiot.
Now, I will be gone all day. We have to fly around the borders and check for rebel activity in the outlands. It’s very boring. I’m surprised you’re interested in any of this.”
“Oh, I’m just trying to get used to how things are here in my new home.”
That statement seemed to make him happy. And the idea of flying did interest her. Maybe there was still some hope… It could be her chance to get out of this place. “I hadn’t seen any ships passing yesterday or today.”
He laughed. “And you wouldn’t. We don’t possess aircraft.”
Confusion furrowed her brow. “What do you fly then?”
He walked to the door, and Adrienne followed him, pretending to give him a hug. He closed her in a warm embrace and kissed her forehead. Then she watched him punch at the pad, hoping she’d discover some of the characters to gain her access to the outside. She managed to catch three of them without him noticing the direction of her gaze.
Dezec stopped a moment, considering her question before he left the room. The entryway was unbarred. Beyond it she could see a hallway that stretched in two different directions, but not much else. If she knew she could outrun him and find her way out, it would’ve been a perfect opportunity to escape, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen. She’d just keep up with the charade until her plans fell into the right place.
“We rely on our planet’s natural resources instead of artificial means. Our only transport vehicles are used for the military and transportation of wares and goods. In everyday life, we all walk. We fly with….Let me see. In your world, you would think of them as dragons. Now, be good while I am gone. Someone will bring you breakfast and lunch. I will return later today.”
With that stunning statement, he was gone. The door barring her slid back into place, locking her inside.
Adrienne plopped on the edge of the bed. Every possible chance of escaping off the planet had just been dashed. She still wanted to find her sister, but now if she did, she didn’t know how much further they’d get. From what he’d just shared, there was basically no chance to go anywhere. Outside the city, some rebels kept them busy enough they had a standing army in and out of the city. And dragons?
If he was to be believed, she wasn’t going anywhere near that shit. She’d never been into animals like her sister, and just the thought of something so fantastical was enough to give her the willies.
Adrienne set the tablet down and walked to the door. She’d seen him press the pad five times. She had three of them. The pad glowed blue, and she pressed the first three characters, attempting repeatedly to figure out the last two. After twenty minutes or so, the intercom rasped to life.
“Mistress, I’ve brought your breakfast. I can let myself in.”
“Okay,” she said into it, stepping back as the door opened.
A tall slender man walked inside, set a tray down on the table, and was out of the room almost as quickly as he’d entered. If she’d been better prepared, she could have knocked him out with the wooden chair and made good her escape, but she didn’t relish the idea of hurting someone who was only doing their job. Now Dezec was a different story altogether.
Maybe she’d surprise him when he came home.
Adrienne sat at the table and lifted the cover. She’d been brought eggs, crusty bread covered in indistinguishable seeds, cheese, a bright orangish red juice, and sliced fruit. Their food seemed on par with what she was used to, and tentatively tasting it, it all seemed edible. It didn’t appear that he or they wanted to poison her. That would probably defeat the purpose of taking the women to start with.
If what he’d said was true, genetically, their kinds were similar enough to produce children, which meant their diet would be similar as well. The oxygen seemed the same as what she was used to breathing. If she hadn’t known any better, she’d think she was on Earth.
Adrienne ate until her stomach stopped growling, then she took her juice to the huge window above the bed. A narrow ledge that was just wide enough for her to prop in allowed her to sit in the window and look down at the city below.
She could see no children roaming the streets, though she supposed they would be in school if there were any. The only women she saw were a few elders of the same race, but mostly Earth women. She wondered how long they’d been at this woman abduction business, and why didn’t they have women of their own?
Something strange had happened here, and she wanted to know what. If she was to stay, which was looking likelier by the hour, she wanted to know she didn’t have to fear for her life or her child’s life. Living in fear wasn’t living at all.
Getting tired of watching out the window, Adrienne lay on her belly in the bed and propped up above the tablet. The program he’d opened looked like something for elementary students. Shrugging, she had nothing better to do, she set about learning their strange language, knowing that it
could only help her to understand them better.
***
Dezec found himself distracted during drills, thinking about the temptress that he’d left behind in his room. Had he not had her so many times already, he would have taken her again this morning, but he was concerned about hurting her with so many sessions of his love. He replayed their passionate encounters again and again, thinking of other ways he would take her that he’d never experienced.
So lost was he in his own thoughts, he’d missed the counts repeatedly, to the point where he’d joined in with the rookies’ exercises to get his head right.
The exercise gave him focus, and wore some of his excess energy off, enough so that he could forget sinking between her sexy, dark thighs, feeling her wet sex envelop him in searing heat, stop thinking about her full, pouty lips and how she could use them on him. And those brown eyes that alternated between lust and fiery anger. He wanted to see those hypnotic eyes and thick lashes on his children.
He shook his head, pushing himself off the ground with one arm, the other behind his back. None of them could afford his distraction on the field. It was important to make sure their lands, the mines, and farm fields hadn’t been compromised. Any sign of infiltration could mean destruction for their people. If kept in check, eventually their enemies would move on.
They’d already decimated the Heliodryads with a virus that had taken their women in childbirth, claiming both woman and child.
Dezec lived in fear that the Earth women would also succumb, since the men were the carriers of the disease, but they’d been assured that the women had been properly immunized against everything by the Lamian doctors. He just hoped they hadn’t been duped. He didn’t think they wanted to see their destruction, not when so many of the raw materials they relied upon to build their ships came from Chalcedon.
Rich in ore, with men capable of mining the precious metals, their planet had long been valued by interplanetary missions. The rebels had wanted to take everything, drain the planet of all resources and move on to more fertile lands.
King Anadaru was not about to let something as destructive as that happen to their planet. Too many beings relied upon him, from his men, to the creatures that peopled the land. Respect for their environment had kept them in check, for no race could continue to take and take with no regard to giving back.
Dezec left the training fields to the stables. He called them dragons for Adrienne, after studying Earth histories from a place called England. He hadn’t completed his education, which had been a mistake on his part, else he would have known more about her race and the possibility of others which could be just as well for his people as those that had been taken already. Invigorating their people with the strengths of others could only help his people survive the devastating effects of the virus.
Thinking about it made him shudder, remembering the loss of his own wife and child so many years ago. It angered him, and he saddled Bane with aggression, easing off when the beast, a Zhala in his language, began to huff from his nostrils.
“Easy, Bane,” he said, rubbing the creature’s scales with a soothing hand.
Pain burned in his heart, making it ache anew. He’d thought having a new woman would erase the past, but somehow it only made it hurt more. Fear pervaded his senses, powerlessness, vulnerability. He did not like these sensations invading his mind, making him feel weak.
Had he gotten her with child? They would not know if the women could even carry their babes to term until it happened. They might die in childbirth. None of the Earth women were as big as their own women had been.
The very idea of seeing Adrienne’s face wrinkled in agony made his stomach knot up. He felt sick to his stomach, but their race had to go on. They had no choice if they wanted to survive, and annihilation of their people was not an option. She was strong and wild, as large a woman as he’d seen. Surely she could bear him strong sons? He prayed the virus had been laid to rest with the last of their women.
Dezec mounted Bane, feeling a rush as the Zhala took to the skies and removed troubling thoughts from his brain as warm wind ripped through his hair. He had enough to worry about without adding possibilities he had no control over to the mix.
Chapter Seven
Adrienne’s eyes felt crossed. She was drowsy from studying all day, but she’d learned a few simple words in the Heliodryad language by the time dusk began settling through the land. The sun was on a downward turn when the door to the room suddenly opened and Dezec walked inside.
“Ang azhou,” good evening, she said, watching pleased surprise etch across his face as the door slid shut behind him.
“You have been studying, I see,” he said, smiling with a stretch.
“A little. It’s not as hard as I thought it would be,” she said. “Amarou ez onkou?” How was your day?
That seemed to make him even happier—that she’d learned multiple sentences. “Tiring. I’ll have to watch out for you and that brain of yours.”
He looked exhausted but when seeing her lying in the bed, he immediately removed his shirt, kicked off his boots, and jumped in the bed beside her. Her body bounced several inches off the mattress from the impact of his landing.
“Oh,” she yelped, laughing when he grinned at her. “You’re as bad as a child. Jumping on the bed.”
“You bring it out in me. Now, I have waited all day to get my hands on you….” He rolled on top of her, pulling her purple shirt aside to nibble the tops of her breasts and the cleavage.
She lay beneath him, wondering how long his insatiable need of her sex was going to last. At some point, she was going to have to put a stop to this and get a reign on his needs. They couldn’t go on like this forever.
Then again…it did feel really good….
Before she knew it, he had her top peeled off. Her skin pebbled in the air, her nipples growing hard as he brushed his mouth over them. Instant arousal flooded her sex, and when his hand cupped her, his grunt of approval only worsened her condition.
He tugged his pants off, revealing his long thick erection that filled her so completely, and she barely had time to catch her breath before he’d pulled her pants down and was inside her.
Full, so full and tight and right. She whimpered beneath him, and the small throat sounds only spurred his aggression on.
“You feel so good,” he groaned in her ear, making her squirm with his hot breath on her sensitive skin. She took his every inch, writhing when he withdrew, sighing when he entered fully again.
Her senses were so heightened by repeated love-making that it did not take long for the familiar feeling of impending climax to take hold of her
She came with a gush, arching back, her thighs tight against his hips as he drove into her pussy with abandon. He came, moaning, throwing his head back, his chest heaving, his biceps tense as if for battle.
Watching him in the throes of passion turned her on immensely, and she nearly forgot her intentions of leaving this place, though she knew it couldn’t last. They didn’t have anything in common. It made her sad to think that as he tired of her, he would probably move on. Baby or not. That’s just what men did. It wasn’t as if he loved her.
Dezec rolled off of her, giving her a quick kiss before he went to the shower. He called from the glass encasement. “Did you make any more progress on learning our language?”
Adrienne got up, put her clothes back on, and stood in the door. “A little more, but I have a ways to go before I’d be fluent enough to speak it on a regular basis. When do you think I can go and see my sister?”
He turned around, soap bubbles streaming down his neck and chest. “Perhaps in a few more days you can. I need to seek permission from the king before we can do anything. She is his now, and I dare not go against his highness’ wishes.”
The very idea of her sister belonging to someone made her angry. She wanted to check on her and make sure she was okay. Just becau
se Dezec was good to her and didn’t routinely beat her didn’t mean that the king would be good to her sister. He could’ve raped her repeatedly for all she knew.
Dezec stepped out of the shower, steam rising around his wet skin. His hair clung to his forehead and cheeks, making him look very desirable.
Adrienne ignored the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. “Can we go out to eat? I don’t like being stuck inside all the time. If you thought I was bad before, you should wait a few more hours. I’m gonna go bat-shit crazy if I look at these walls a few more hours.”
He laughed, putting his clothes on. “I suppose we could join the other men in the main hall for dinner. That is what I usually do, and they have missed my presence.”
“That sounds better. Let me check my hair and I’ll be ready to go. Oh, I need shoes! Can I wear this down there?” She rushed around, trying to get ready.
Dezec chuckled, shaking his head at the woman’s antics. “Maybe we’ll go shopping to get some things for you.”
Her face brightened. “Even better! I was beginning to think the only thing you had to do on this planet was sex!”
***
Dezec looked at her. “I do not think you will find the experience similar to your own.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’m sure I’ll have fun.” She waved his argument away. Just getting out of that god-forsaken room would be entertaining enough. She’d begun bouncing off the walls.
“We’ll go after we’ve eaten. A few shops will still be open. I know of one, at least.”
“I’m ready to go down when you are.”
Dezec took her hand and led her to the door, quickly entering the exit code. She managed to catch one more letter, and they seemed familiar to her. She would have to try and locate them specifically on his tablet to see if the sequence made any sense or if it was just random groupings.
