Alien Penetration

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  “You are. I witnessed the implantation.”

  Simone’s jaw dropped. “You watched!” she growled, abruptly furious. “How dare you …!”

  He closed the distance between them so fast she didn’t even have time to call him a son-of-a-bitch, thrusting his face threateningly toward hers. “I am prince heir of the House of Jakaar!” he growled. “You question my right to witness the implantation of my

  heir?”

  Unnerved as she was, Simone knew she would’ve backed down if she’d had any sense at all. Instead, she narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t give a fuck who you are in your world!” she growled, punching a finger against his chest. “This body is mine! No one—not you, not the President of the United States of America, not your king or emperor or whatever the fuck he calls himself—not even God has the right to examine me or touch me—or implant their damned seed in me!—without my permission!”

  He looked absolutely stunned for a split second. “You are a breeder …!”

  Simone stamped her foot. “I am not! I’m Simone Beauchamp! I’m an American citizen! I have rights, by damn! I’m a free woman and you can’t make me a slave! I won’t let you! I’ll fight you with my last breath if I have to!”

  He studied her through narrowed eyes for several moments and finally lifted his head to look over hers. Feeling the hairs on the back of her neck prickle, Simone turned her head to look.

  He hadn’t just been faking her off. There were two more draks behind her. If she wasn’t mistaken, the same two who’d accompanied him on that never to be sufficiently regretted night she’d gone to the bar.

  “You were right. She does have spirit, Camyrn,” Kael murmured sardonically.

  Camryn glared at him. “Do not encourage her defiance, Kael!” he growled.

  Kael shrugged. “She cannot understand me.”

  “She may well understand your demeanor, however.”

  Kael scowled ferociously. “Is this better?”

  Ean cleared his throat, whirled on his heel, and left abruptly.

  “Coward!” Kael called after him. “Come back and watch Camryn deal with our

  defiant little breeder.”

  “Fuck you!” Camryn growled. “You deal with her, then, if you think you have

  some notion of how to go about it! I cannot beat her! She is clearly not easily intimidated when she is as well aware that I cannot punish her as I am.”

  Kael fixed her with a hard look and switched to her language. “You have not eaten in two days. You carry my son as well as his. To deprive yourself is to deprive him and I will not allow it. Will you eat? Or shall I help you to eat?” he asked grimly.

  Simone studied him uneasily. “I wasn’t trying to hurt the baby—babies—whatever either of think.”

  “Why did you refuse to eat then?” Kael asked tightly.

  “To make you understand that I’m a person the same as you are. You wouldn’t have chosen us to carry your babies if you hadn’t known we were intelligent beings.

  How could you think it’s right to take us against our will?”

  Kael’s lips thinned. “We are warriors of Macedon. In conquest, might is always right.”

  Simone narrowed her eyes at him, but she’d had enough time to calm down and consider her precarious situation. It seemed pointless to try to argue with him anyway when he was clearly a damned barbarian, with a caveman mentality, regardless of how advanced they were technologically. When he stepped back and gestured for her to precede him, she merely stalked past him wordlessly. She discovered the other drak had retreated into a dining area. There was a dish of food sitting on the small table.

  Since it was obviously meant for her, she sat down and picked up the eating utensil. They watched her suspiciously for several moments, making it difficult to swallow, but finally dismissed her and began to talk to one another. She flicked a surreptitious glance at them each time she heard a different speaker. Their voices were all very deep and very similar, but she discovered she could tell the difference, particularly in the way they spoke. One, the mean one, had a precise clipped way of speaking. The bastard who’d threatened to shove the food down her throat had almost a drawl to his voice. The last, who seemed to be the youngest of the three, tended to put a good deal of animation in the way he spoke and she frequently noticed almost a vibration in his voice of amusement, although she never managed to catch a smile.

  The mean one was Camryn, she finally decided after listening to them several minutes, the beast Kael, and the youngest Ean.

  They were talking about her, she realized. She had no idea what, exactly, they were discussing, but the very fact that they deliberately refused to look in her direction and yet seemed completely aware of her, suggested it even if not for the confrontation they’d just had.

  It made her stomach knot since she couldn’t help but wonder if they were discussing what to do in retaliation for her defiance. Clearly, Camryn wasn’t accustomed to anyone defying him, let alone a female!

  “It’s so bizarre to think I’m carrying your babies when we never … uh … met or anything,” she murmured after a moment. “I mean really met. Of course, I did sign up for a donor, but I wouldn’t ever have met him.”

  She discovered when she picked up her glass to drink that all three men were staring at her as if she’d grown another head. She shrugged. “I’m just saying, it’s weird.

  We don’t do it like that. We either do ‘it’ or we get a donor and don’t know who they are, usually the other way.”

  Camryn frowned, staring at her in exasperation. “For an intelligent species, you appear to have a great deal of difficulty understanding. A breeder may not speak to a warrior unless she is invited to do so.”

  Simone looked down at her plate, but she couldn’t prevent a smile from curling her lips. “I’m just talking to myself. Warriors shouldn’t hear breeders talking, should they?”

  She slid a glance at them under her lashes to see how they were taking that. Ean was chewing his lower lip. Kael was looking at her as if he wondered if she was completely off her rocker and Camryn looked like he was going to explode. After a moment, the three of them vacated the dining area.

  Simone’s shoulders slumped. A tremor of weakness went through her in the aftermath of their confrontation. It occurred to her that Kael might be right. She might’ve gone off the deep end. She had no idea what she was dealing with, but she did know that they were absolutely ruthless and that they considered her less than nothing—considered their own women less than nothing—almost to the point of extinction.

  What had made her fly into a rage and tell Camyrn what she thought of him?

  Temporary insanity? Or was it ongoing?

  She’d felt threatened, she realized. It had brought out her fight or flight instincts and, unfortunately, instead of retreating as she should have, she’d exploded. She was lucky he hadn’t slain her on the spot. She thought he might have if he hadn’t been so taken by surprise.

  She didn’t know that he would’ve, but why hesitate when he was clearly born and bred to kill and to consider women of no importance?

  She wasn’t worth the time it would take to choke the life out of her?

  It was beneath him?

  None of the above, she realized. She was carrying his son and nothing was more important to him than his heir. Did that mean he actually felt something for the baby? Or was it merely the fundamental need every creature seemed to have to procreate?

  They were damned cold blooded, as far as she could see, which should bring her survival instincts to the fore and keep them there. It would be dangerous, she was sure, to become complacent that they wouldn’t do anything to her because of the babies.

  They’d made it clear that she was replaceable. It might be inconvenient to them to have to find another breeder, but that was all it would be to them.

  Having had time to consider her folly, she wasn’t in any great hurry to finish and leave the table. Since it also occurred to her tha
t they hadn’t given her ‘permission’ and she’d already pushed their buttons more than she should’ve, she decided to stay where she was. Her ass and her legs grew numb from sitting. She shifted around a few times, trying to get the feeling back, but it didn’t particularly help.

  Worse, she began to feel the need to empty her bladder.

  After a very few minutes, she began to regret that she’d drank all of the water.

  She’d begun to think she was going to be forced to behave ‘defiantly’ again when Camryn appeared around the partition. “Come.”

  Relieved, she got up and followed him a little stiffly. “The facilities are there,” he said, pointing. “And you will sleep there.”

  Simone followed the direction he’d pointed out and shifted uneasily when she saw he was pointing to the only bed she’d seen since she’d come in. She’d already opened her mouth to ask him where he was planning on sleeping when she met his gaze.

  She closed her mouth and headed into the facilities.

  It was like the one in the cell—except much nicer—and not particularly complicated—which was a relief. The men, she discovered when she left the bathroom, had sprawled in the chairs in the living area of the cabin. Wondering if she was going to have company in the bed, she climbed in, settled with her back to them and resolutely closed her eyes. She lay awake for a long while, listening intently to the murmur of their voices until it finally faded to a drone and then nothingness.

  Chapter Six

  “I am not certain this was the wisest thing to do,” Kael murmured, studying Simone’s form beneath the coverlet. “Allowing a breeder to sleep in your bed?”

  “I do not expect she will taint it,” Camryn said tartly.

  Kael’s lips tightened with anger. “I was not suggesting she would. It deviates so drastically from what is ever allowed, however, that it is … disquieting. She will not learn the ways of our people if she is allowed such a thing—to sleep in the bed of a prince of the Empire?”

  Camryn found it disquieting himself, although he had no intention of admitting it.

  Even Lielani had never slept in his bed. He visited her apartment when he felt the need.

  She had never set foot in his private quarters. No female had. Not that that was any fucking surprise, he thought with disgust, when it was impossible to find an unclaimed female on Macedon. “If you have a better suggestion for preventing them from destroying themselves and our future with them, I am anxious to hear it,” he growled.

  “Would you prefer to return to Macedon empty-handed?”

  “She said she had not meant to harm our sons,” Ean said quietly. “I believe her.”

  “You think it is better that she gave them no thought at all?” Kael demanded.

  “They are nothing to her. We cannot expect them to be. The gods damned scientists!

  You would have thought that they would have taken the time to consider whether these beings were truly suited to us beyond the gods damned science!”

  “We do not know that they are not suited to us!” Camryn snapped angrily.

  Kael and Ean both gaped at him.

  “Did my ears deceive me? Did I not hear the woman have the audacity to inform you that you had no right to her? I would almost think she was deranged to challenge a warrior of Macedon—you in particular—if not for the fact that I suspect you were right.

  She knows we are in no position to punish her for her treason!” Kael growled.

  Camryn shook his head and rose to stretch. “In her mind, it is not treason, because she has not accepted that she is no longer an American—that she belongs to us.”

  “The question is, can she accept?”

  Camryn glanced at Kael. “You doubt it?”

  Kael glanced at Ean. “What do you think?”

  Ean grimaced. “I do not think I am suited to the challenge of training her. I thought I would laugh at the look on Camryn’s face when she flew into a rage because he had witnessed the implantation. I do not think I will tell her that I did, also.”

  Camryn’s expression lightened. He allowed a faint smile to flicker across his lips before he thought better of it. “I confess, I had not considered that I might be the recipient of her spirit. I was thinking only that I would have a stronger son for having sprung from her loins. I do not know what to do with these women—Simone in particular. They are not at all like our own.”

  “Our women know their place and they have been taught our ways since birth,” Kael said pointedly. “That is exactly my concern. I do not think they lack the intelligence to learn, but they may well be impossible to train when they have clearly been allowed to believe they are equals.”

  Camryn frowned, feeling a wave of uneasiness. He might have thought Simone’s defiance almost as amusing as it was shocking and infuriating, but the elders wouldn’t.

  “Akule must put forth a greater effort to make them understand that their behavior will not be tolerated, regardless of their status as breeders. The High Council will not be amused. They will see them punished until they have broken their defiance, regardless of the cost to us—and the others who are now hopeful that they, too, will have sons.”

  * * * *

  “That was … disturbing,” Liz muttered when she met up with Simone in the cell a week later.

  Simone managed a sound of agreement, but she was shakier after spending the week in the same cabin with her donors than she had been when she’d arrived—mostly because she’d had an entire week to contemplate what she’d done and the possible consequences. She had to have been suffering from temporary insanity, she decided.

  She’d behaved as if they were human, treated them as she would’ve anybody on Earth who’d overstepped their bounds.

  It had occurred to her that she could’ve found herself in any number of situations on Earth, with men from Earth where that sort of thing could’ve gotten her killed or, at the very least beat half to death.

  Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

  “What did your donors do to you to get you to eat?”

  Simone shifted uncomfortably and finally sighed. “Reminded me that hurting myself could hurt the babies,” she muttered finally. “And threatened to force feed me.

  Actually, it wasn’t the threat so much as the reminder. I caved like the wimp I am deep down, but, honestly, I just hadn’t considered it. I don’t feel pregnant. It’s not like I forgot I had the procedure, you know, but it just isn’t real to me yet. I don’t honestly think they would be affected so early in the pregnancy, but it did occur to me that it might

  be enough to make me lose them.”

  “Ah—the old guilt trip!” Liz released an irritated huff. “I guess I got pretty much the same. I was too unnerved to meet up with all five donors to even consider balking. I mean—talk about being ganged up on!”

  Simone grimaced. “United we stand, divided we fall. I doubt anybody else did any better.”

  “I still think we made our point. Of course, I think Sheila and Diane made an even stronger point when they offed themselves.”

  Simone glanced at her in surprise. “I didn’t even know their names,” she said guiltily.

  “I didn’t either—I still don’t know if that was actually their names, but everybody felt so guilty about not being more supportive that they went round and round until they finally found somebody who thought she remembered that that was their names. Some of the women want to get together and offer up prayers for them—you know, a wake.”

  “Oh, I am so not in to religion! Besides, we didn’t even know them. How are we going to offer up anything?”

  Liz looked at her in surprise and disapproval. “You don’t believe in Jesus?”

  “I don’t like anybody trying to shove their own beliefs and opinions off on me—case in point,” she said, nodding toward the guards along the wall. “What happened to god anyway? Nobody ever mentions him anymore—just Jesus.”

  She could see Liz working up a spiel to convert her.

  “Ne
ver mind! That was just rhetorical. I’ve heard it all over and over. I grew up in the Bible belt! Let’s join the others and try to think of something positive we can say.”

  They gathered in a circle as far from their alien watchers as they could. The woman that she supposed had organized the wake got up, introduced herself, made a short speech and then led everyone in a prayer. Simone’s mind wandered while several others took turns praying out loud.

  Not surprisingly, the guards were curious but she thought it was more from suspicion that they were up to something other than what it appeared. Then again, maybe they had no religion and they couldn’t figure out what was going on. It was disturbing that they looked so human. Actually, it was inconvenient. If they’d looked completely different it might have scared her shitless, but there would’ve been no way for her mind to play tricks on her. She wouldn’t have to continually remind herself that they weren’t and that she was dealing with dangerous, completely unknown entities.

  She wouldn’t have screwed up so badly and cussed Camryn out.

  Quite aside from the fact that she’d taken a risk she should’ve known better than to try, she wasn’t sure letting them know just how ingrained their sense of freedom was was the best of ideas. When you were weaker than your opponent, and knew it, or outnumbered—and they were both—it was never a good idea to lay all of your cards on the table up front.

  There’d never been any hope of escape for them. If these men had been slavers on Earth, they probably wouldn’t have had a chance in hell of escaping. Very few women did, and their situation was even less hopeful. They were being hauled off to an entirely different world.

  She considered that and wondered if there was any possibility that they could at least escape captivity once there. They weren’t going to get to go home. She didn’t see any possibility of that, but, maybe, they could escape being slaves. They could call it any damned thing they wanted to, but that was what they had in mind.