by A. G. Wilde
Kyro?
She couldn’t see if it was him or not. She couldn’t see the eyes clearly. The animal was too far away.
The urge to call the skunkat to her was strong as she slipped down the alleyway toward it.
Along the walls were various types of aliens, some in deep sleep (she assumed. She hoped they weren’t dead.) and others looking woozy. They were obviously drunk on some alien booze.
“Hey, kitty,” she called the little animal, but it kept walking, its bushy tail in the air as it headed deeper down the alley.
She was a little far from the main road now and Evren paused, feeling for the cutting instrument at her back. It was still secured there.
“Hey, kitty,” she called again, and the animal stopped and turned to look at her. Dark eyes looked back at her and Evren stopped walking, disappointment flooding her system.
It wasn’t Kyro.
Turning back toward the road, she walked, her footsteps heavy, straight back to the main street. Retrieving her datapad, she looked at it.
No messages.
At the risk of coming off as desperate, she sent Kyro another message.
“Hey. Where are you?”
She was a bit desperate. She’d admit.
Back in the throng, she wondered where he was. He couldn’t have just disappeared.
And when a reply didn’t come in after a few minutes, she slipped the datapad back into her pocket.
Had he really blocked her?
She was at her apartment door as the question repeated in her mind and as she opened her door and went in, it was the only thing on her mind.
She was just turning as the door hissed closed when a boot pushed into her entryway, stopping the door from closing.
A chill immediately ran down her spine.
Before she could even scream, a hulk of an alien pushed himself inside, one that looked like the grumpy yeti she’d bumped into on the street that time.
“I think you’re in the wrong apartment, buddy.” She immediately reached behind her and gripped the cutting instrument.
She was mildly aware that someone else entered behind the yeti before her door closed but she couldn’t see because the beast’s frame was too large.
The beast didn’t respond. Instead, it smirked and lunged at her, moving too fast for how large it was, and grabbed her by the arm.
“Let go of me!”
Fear spiked within her but before she could pull out her weapon, she felt a sharp pain in her arm. A glance there showed a syringe sticking out.
Her body immediately lost all energy as she went limp in the yeti’s grasp.
“Whattt arrr yooo doooin tooo meee?”
The beast didn’t answer; instead, it grunted and headed toward her bedroom.
No.
She wished she could scream.
No!
There was a low, rumble of a laugh coming from behind the yeti.
Whoever it was, they were in charge and she dreaded to think of what they planned to do to her.
The next thing she knew, the world began to get blurry as her mind went dim, just before she was thrown on her bed, her body hitting the soft material before the yeti leaned over her.
No, not this.
Anything but this.
34
Evren woke up with a deep inhale. Air rushed into her lungs as if she’d been underwater and starved of fresh breaths.
It was dark.
Mild confusion had her looking around to find that she couldn’t move much.
She was wrapped in something—something soft, but she was restricted nonetheless, as if there were bands securing the soft material around her body.
Her memory clicked suddenly.
She’d entered her apartment.
A thick boot.
She’d turned around. The yeti alien was there. He’d injected her with something. Thrown her on her bed.
A laugh.
A sinister laugh as the yeti had leaned over her.
And then...nothing.
Had he...a lump formed in her throat. Had he raped her?
Fear gripped her heart as her chest rose and fell with harsh breaths. Doing a mental check of her body, nothing seemed out of sorts.
Still, her panic was mounting.
Where was she?
The fear coursing through her veins kept her still as she listened for any sound. She doubted she was still in her apartment. Unless they’d tied her up and left her there.
She was still hyperventilating, unable to keep the panic from rising within her as she tried to listen for the intruders.
Had they left her alone?
It took a few moments for her to hear the low hum of an engine. She was in a car...no, not a car. She wasn’t on Earth anymore. She was in some sort of vessel.
A shuttle?
When she’d been cleaning them, she’d had to turn some on to ensure the vents were clean and the sound she was hearing now sounded exactly like when those shuttles’ engines had been left to idle.
If she was on a shuttle, where were they taking her?
Apart from the sound of the engine, she didn’t hear anything else. It was either that she was alone or whoever was close by her was keeping quiet.
Well, she had to take the chance to free herself.
Shifting, she began to struggle in her strange prison, trying to free herself from whatever bound her.
The material that was wrapped around her wouldn’t give and it was wound so tightly that she wasn’t sure how it was that she wasn’t suffocating.
As she struggled to free herself, she must have shifted her balance off wherever she was placed because the next thing she felt was the sensation of falling before she hit the floor.
The fall didn’t hurt, the material cushioned the brunt of the force, but she was still restrained.
She still couldn’t see a thing.
Whatever they’d wrapped her in was holding well.
Releasing a breath, panic still flooding through her, she tried to shuffle her arms at her side.
They’d wrapped her like how a mummy would be wrapped, her hands at her sides, the thick material wound around her, and try as she might, the material still wouldn’t budge. Not that she had any leeway within it. It was wound so tight she couldn’t even lift her arms, and her worm wiggle had only gotten her thrown on the floor; it hadn’t even torn the material.
She couldn’t see outside of this unnatural cocoon. She couldn’t feel around her surroundings.
She couldn’t even smell anything but the strange musty scent of the material itself.
The sensory deprivation was only adding to her panic.
A sound came from her right and she stiffened, hardly even breathing as she listened.
It sounded like the door of the shuttle opening. That meant they weren’t traveling yet. She was in a parked shuttle, the engine on, possibly waiting for the pilot or other passenger before takeoff.
“Qrak, the jekin rolled off the seat. His excellence will not like it if we harm this fool.”
It was a voice she was sure she’d heard before and something lifted her from the floor, she began to struggle some more. Even through the material, she could feel the large hands that lifted her.
It felt like the same hand that had grabbed her before she’d gone unconscious. Yeti man.
“What do you want?! Let me go!” she screamed, not stopping her struggle. If she could only move her arms she could get the cutting instrument she’d tucked into the waist of her pants at the back.
“Be quiet. You are enough trouble without your mouth open.” Whoever was lifting her jerked her spitefully before throwing her onto what she assumed was a seat. The fall wasn’t bad. It felt as if she landed on cushions.
“What do you want from me?!” She hoped the answer to that question wasn’t what she thought it was. She still wasn’t sure if she’d been violated but there was no pain between her legs so that was a good sign.
Still, it was clear
humans didn’t have the advantage over most aliens and that most other lifeforms only saw humans as good for one thing. She’d escaped that once before; she wasn’t about to fall back into the same predicament.
Whatever this was, she had to find a way out.
“The boss is coming soon,” another voice said and the one closest to her grunted.
“He better hurry. I am not about to get punished for taking this jekin late. Keep a lookout for anyone suspicious.”
Evren breathed hard as she listened to them. They obviously didn’t care to speak to her. If that was the case, she would listen and gather as much information as she could.
There was a moment of silence before the yeti that had invaded her home dropped into a seat beside her. She knew because the seat she was on jerked and creaked a little as if some large weight had fallen on it.
“What do you think his excellence wants with this frail thing? It could hardly fight when we entered its quarters.” A hand ran down her body, and she could feel it through the material. It caused her to wriggle and kick against the intrusion, all the while her heart pumping in her ears.
“It is frail but enjoyable in bed, I hear. It is no wonder why so many of Reku5 have mated with these jekins.”
They knew Kyro’s team. Knew she’d been saved by his team. Knew the other females were partnered with Kyro’s brothers.
Had they also targeted them too? Was she not the only one abducted?
The other alien grunted.
“Enjoyable,” it said. “It is hard to believe something so weak has a good cunt. I like my females strong and sturdy. A good, hard mating is what females need. This jekin would break.”
The other alien grunted in response.
Thoughts were whirling in her head as she tried to put what they were saying into sensible streams of thought.
Sex.
This was about sex.
She was being abducted to become someone’s sex slave?
The thought made her shiver and with renewed purpose, she began struggling within the material, trying her best to reach the cutting instrument. If she could reach it, she could cut herself out and then...then she’d figure out what to do next. She doubted the instrument could do much damage to a yeti-man but maybe the damage would be enough for her to escape the shuttle.
It sounded like they hadn’t left the base yet. She still had a chance to free herself.
“Keep still, jekin.” A hand pressed down hard on her chest and made it difficult for her to breathe. That word, jekin, and the way he said it made it sound as if he wasn’t calling her anything good.
“I’d break your legs if that kept you steady, but we hadn’t been following you for so long to blow the mission now.”
“Following me?” She stilled as she listened for an answer. She’d been followed?
“It has no idea. I told you walking in plain light would be less suspicious. I thought it spotted you in that alley once. We would have been in trouble if the boss found out we hadn’t been more careful.”
Following her. The alleyway.
A chill ran down her spine.
Shive.
This was all Shive’s doing.
He’d been following her from the start, and she’d seen him so many times. But she hadn’t thought he’d have resorted to this and to think he hadn’t been working alone all along...
A sick feeling developed in her belly and she fought to keep the contents of her last meal from churning in her stomach.
“Let me go. I don’t know how much he paid you but...” Would her credits even be enough to pay them for her release? She doubted it. “...I could pay you more.” She’d work three jobs if she had to.
There was a moment of silence before sounds like wheezing reached her ear.
They were laughing at her.
Anger panic and frustration rose within her.
“Please.” She hated to beg but if it was what she needed to do so they would release her. She would. “I’ll give you all the credits I have now. Just—”
The wheezing sounds continued. “Foolish jekin,” one said.
“It is not money that makes us work for the boss,” the other said. “No amount of credits will set you free.”
What?
Another sound reached her ear and the wheezing stopped.
“We leave now.” Someone else was boarding the shuttle and the voice sounded familiar.
No.
It couldn’t be.
As the shuttle moved, she felt as if her insides fell to the back of her body.
They were airborne.
“Remove the material,” said that oh so familiar voice.
The yeti promptly did as he was told, and she heard a rip before the front of the material peeled away.
Warm light flooded her eyes, causing her to squint as her vision adjusted.
A wide, bejeweled grin was the first thing she saw, plastered on the face of the alien sitting across from her. Only this time, it didn’t seem like a friendly grin. This grin was completely sinister.
It wasn’t Shive that was sitting in front of her.
She didn’t understand.
“M’Agunt?”
35
Kyro walked behind the living quarters to sit in a quiet alcove amidst the fawni trees that grew there.
Every synapse in his brain was trying to tell him to move his legs and head to one specific place...Evren’s home.
He wanted to see her.
It was an urge unlike any other.
But he shouldn’t. They had already said goodbye.
It had broken his heart into pieces, standing there while she’d closed that door, even though it had been his choice for her to do so.
Even though he had been the one to push her away.
It hadn’t made it any easier.
Still, he’d held his part of the bargain. He hadn’t contacted her. He’d even deactivated his datapad.
He’d stayed away.
Until now.
He found himself standing and heading in the direction of her quarters, his feet moving on their own accord.
He had to see her again, just to check that she was all right.
He was walking up to her door in the next few minutes, trying to find something to say to her as reason for his visit when he paused in his tracks.
The door to her apartment was slightly open, the inside dark.
Why had she left it open like that?
Something about it didn’t look right at all.
Creeping up to the door, every muscle in his being primed for attack, he slid the door open with his boot.
Darkness and silence greeted him and Kyro frowned.
It didn’t seem as if she was home. But her door had been left open. He doubted she had been that careless.
Stepping into the apartment, he slid back the door to the slightly closed position, his ears perked for sound.
There was none.
It was eerily quiet.
Flipping out his datapad, he activated it. The device lit up immediately.
There were no alerts from her security system. No forced entry. There were only some messages he’d have to check later.
Lifting his head, he surveyed the area once more.
The living space looked so dead without her in it that he felt his heart wring. It was like a view of what his life will be like in the next few months. Empty.
Had she left for the Hub already?
Moving through the room, he headed to the sleeping area, his steps quiet in the silent room.
As he looked around the room, his heart clenched further.
There was nothing in there. A look in the chest revealed that all her clothes were removed as well.
It confirmed his fears.
He’d missed her.
She’d left for the Hub.
A strange pain pulsed inside him and he didn’t know where it was coming from. It seemed to form behind his life-organ and spread through his chest.
He knew she’d planned to leave, so why did her physical absence hurt so much?
He was just about to turn and leave the room when he heard a sound.
Kyro’s head snapped to the direction of the bathing room. The sound had been slight, but he was sure he wasn’t mistaken. His ears perked as he approached the room, his arms hanging by his sides, ready to go into action as he drew close.
Stopping just outside the room, Kyro sniffed.
There was someone in there and it wasn’t Evren.
An intruder.
Suddenly, the weirdly open door made sense, but a feeling of dread came with that realization. Maybe her absence was not her own doing.
Retreating from the entryway to the shower room, Kyro backtracked through the bedroom.
Turning the corner, he pressed himself against the wall as he waited for the intruder to show himself.
Hopefully, whoever it was would have thought he’d left and try to exit the quarters, giving Kyro the upper hand.
He didn’t have to wait long.
A few minutes passed by and there was pure silence. But soon after, he heard a shuffle as the intruder exited the sleeping area.
Kyro moved quickly.
Moving off his position by the wall, he gripped the intruder, placing his hands around the intruder’s neck in one movement as he slammed their body against the same wall he’d just been pressed against.
It took him a second to recognize who it was, and a snarl left his lips.
“Shive.” He could feel the remnants of his chets tingling with the need to slice the male’s head off.
He should have known.
“What have you done with her?” The voice that spoke didn’t sound like his own. He shook the alien in his grasp. “Speak! If you have hurt one cell on her body you will pay with your life.”
“Stop!” Shive’s arms grasped at the hands at his neck. “It’s not what you think, Kyro. I am on your side.”
“And which side is that?” Kyro squeezed tighter, lifting the male higher against the wall. The sound of Shive gasping for breath and the scraping of his chitin against the wall were the only things that penetrated the dead silence.
“I didn’t take her. In Polvrak’s name, I tell the truth.”
Kyro narrowed his eyes. “I know you have been following her. Qrak the rules. I should have taken you out when I had the chance.”
