by Naomi Lucas
It’s nothing like Zaku’s scent…
Pulling my limbs close, staring at the closed door and the wooden chair I leaned up against it after he left, I lather the conditioner between my hands and scrub it into my hair.
I don’t know if he’ll change his mind and barge in. There are no weapons in the bathroom, at least nothing that could be used against a beast like Zaku. I searched thoroughly under his gaze—as he filled the tub. He did not seem to care.
Which is concerning. I suck my lips into my mouth. How have I gone from shivering and naked in an alien forest to this? I scrub my hair feverishly.
This shouldn’t be possible. This bathroom shouldn’t be possible. It’s one thing to encounter sentient alien life, another that they could already speak the common tongue without a translator, but this? I glance around the bathroom. This is something else.
I don’t know how to handle it.
Once upon a time, did humans live this extravagantly? I almost giggle. I have no idea. I’m in one of the lowest castes in society. I haven’t been near such finery since I was a babe and under the control of my father’s authority.
Zaku, King of the Mountain, has everything and more. This bathroom alone has more wealth than I’ll ever make in my entire life. Captain Peter and Collins would give their souls to be where I am right now. Most people would.
If I bring Peter and Collins here, perhaps they’ll let me return to The Dreadnaut.
My mood sours at the thought.
I’d sooner shoot them than help them ever again. I don’t like what’s happening with the Ketts anymore than anyone else, but I’m not going to give a prize to the men who practically sold me into slavery.
Or matehood.
Or sexual matehood slavery. I haven’t figured it out.
“What is taking you so long?” he rumbles, his voice muffled behind the door.
Tensing, I stop washing.
I might not be as afraid of him as I was earlier, but I still don’t trust him. Though, if he were going to hurt me, he would have done it by now. I saw what he did with the table…
He’s strong. Really, really strong.
The fact that there’s a door between us means nothing—he can come in whenever he pleases.
I’m going to have to answer him or he’ll come in here. Just as I think this, the lock on the door clicks.
“Wait!” I shout, covering myself. “My hair takes a long time to wash.” Bracing for his entry, I stare at the door.
I hear a low, raspy hiss, and the door closes without ever opening. “I will wait,” he grates.
Bending my knees, I hug them to my chest.
Maybe not all these aliens are bad.
A tremble shoots through me, and I reach between my legs to feel my sex again. The other male hadn’t penetrated me, except the pressure of his cock is still there, present as a ghost. Every time he comes to mind, I feel it. I hope it vanishes soon.
I yank my hand away.
I clean my wounds in record time, and afterward, when I’m drying and watching my dirty bath water drain away, I snag the tube of moisturizer on the bathroom counter. It smells of something clean, something sweet. I could never afford something like this on The Dreadnaut.
Stepping up to the floor-to-ceiling mirror across from the bath, I wince. My sides are mottled purple from where the Python gripped while swinging through the trees. There are smaller bruises on my legs. My knees are scraped up, and my legs are pinkening with sun damage.
You’re alive.
I quickly go to my clothes, lifting my ruined pants and jacket off the floor. They’re dirty and destroyed. Grabbing the towel I dried with, I wrap it around me instead.
Reassuring myself that I’m going to be okay until I almost believe it, I head for the door and stop before it. “Zaku—” I’m hoping I say his name right “—do you have something I can wear?” I hear shifting on the other side, and I curl my arms tighter around my body.
“Wear...” I hear him murmur. He doesn’t say anything more.
Shifting anxiously, I peek out. The room on the other side is empty. Exhaling, I wait for him to return.
Soon, Zaku comes back with his arms full of various cloth products, ones vibrant with more colors and patterns than I’ve seen in my life. He sees me in the doorway and stops.
“Female,” he purrs, his golden-glinted eyes searching my face.
“Daisy,” I correct with a far steadier voice than I thought I had in me. “My name is Daisy, not female. If you know it, use it.”
“Like the flower,” he says.
My head tilts.
“Flower?” I ask hesitantly. “I’m not named after a flower.” My father named me after my great-grandmother.
“Daisies are a common flower in my forest. They are beautiful and delicate, like you.”
I’m named after an Earth flower? I furrow my brow.
Now, I long to see this flower. Flowers are rare. Swallowing, I eye the cloth Zaku is holding as the strangeness of our conversation makes me increasingly uneasy.
“Can you put those clothes on the bed?” I whisper.
He straightens and dumps the clothes without taking his eyes from me. My gaze goes to his tail. I haven’t given it much attention, though I’ve noticed it… How could I not? Long, coiled, and scaled across a furnished room—it’s so out of place. It threatens to fill the space entirely.
His tail is different from the rest of him, shifting from beige, brown, and black stripes upon his upper chest, becoming straight black as his scales reach his tailtip. There are still stripes at his tailtip, but they’re thin. Even his tailtip is thick.
I’m suddenly grateful he doesn’t eat humans like the Ketts. I could fit inside his tail several times over. He’d need to eat a lot of humans to sustain a body like his.
Zaku’s chest swells when he notices me staring. He lifts slightly and straightens even more.
Is he trying to impress me?
“Why do you hide behind the door?” he asks.
I grip my towel tighter. “I’m not dressed.”
Heat floods his gaze.
“I wish to see you,” he says.
My fear returns. “N-Not yet. Can you please step—uh, slip out so I can dress?”
His eyes narrow and his mouth twists, like my request is ridiculous.
He thinks I’m beautiful and called me a… queen? An idea forms, and I add before he can tell me no, “I want to look my best. For you. I… wish to hide my bruises.”
He pauses.
“Please? For me?”
For a moment, I don’t think he’s buying it. He looks like he wants to argue. His hands open and close, and my eyes narrow in on his small claws.
“I wish to lick your bruises, so dresssss, and do it quickly,” he hisses, his eyes glinting, his cowl expanding. “I will not wait much longer,” he threatens as he leaves the room.
I scurry from the bathroom and fumble through the clothes on the bed, not needing to be threatened twice. They’re all women’s clothes, and it makes me wonder if another woman lives here. Then I remember where I am and who I’m with. If there was another woman, why barter for me and Gemma?
I hope she’s okay. I frown. I hope I’ll be okay.
Finding a pair of soft white slacks, a white shirt, and a loose, drapey sweater, I drop my towel and dress. I’m tugging the sweater on when the bedroom door flies open.
I jerk and face the door.
Zaku fills the entire frame and then some.
Piercing eyes trail over my body. He licks his lips, his gaze more feverish than before.
“Little human,” he rasps thickly, coming straight for me. “It’s time to nest.”
Eight
The Room
Daisy
“Let me down!” I snap, pushing at his chest. Zaku doesn’t budge. He carries me out of the room and down the hallway, toward the red door at the end.
“You will sleep in my nest and only in my nest,” he hisses, his hold o
n me tightening.
I kick my legs and arch my back. It makes no difference. The doors flash by until we’re passing the threshold of the red one and crossing the empty hall with walls covered in pictures. “I will not!”
“You have walked enough for today,” he says, ignoring me. “I’ve allowed you your bath in privacy. I allowed you to dress. I have fed you and given you all you have asked, and now you will obey me. You will sleep in my nest, or you will not sleep at all,” he warns, stopping and catching my wide eyes. I pause my thrashing. “What will it be?”
And then I feel it.
Pressing up, hard and probing to my backside, between where he cradles me to his chest. Staring into his shadow-gold eyes, stunned, it takes me a moment to comprehend what’s rubbing and pushing up against my ass.
His prick. His straight, hard, cock.
Hell—I writhe upward—how is that possible?
Zaku clutches me to his chest as I thrash even harder. Where did his cock come from?
Where did he hide that? It’s like a dagger to my back. No, more like a club. And it’s hot, it nearly burns.
“Calm down!” he orders, his thick voice reverberating. “Or I will spill all over your backside!”
I cower, and he tucks me back into the cradle of his arms. When he begins moving again, the pressure of his cock is gone.
“I’ll sleep in your nest,” I utter, still coming to terms with what I just felt. “Just keep it—that thing,” I stammer, “hidden.”
Without responding, he takes me down a spiral staircase. My belly jumps trying to imagine how big his cock is. It’s big enough to ram into my back as he moves. I thought the other male’s cock was large…
A tremble shoots through me, the ghost of pressure between my legs returning. I stabbed him. He’s gone. He can’t hurt me again.
Zaku looks down at me, and I avert my eyes.
The spiral staircase comes to an end, and I realize that there are no glass walls or windows in this new room. It would be pitch black if it weren’t for the small white lights above.
Another realization hits as I turn to watch the door shut behind us.
I’m never going to be able to escape this place.
He moves deeper, and I turn to see where he’s taking me now. We’re in a large seating room that's shaped exactly like the one above. Except this one has no view over a lush, alien landscape. There are no windows at all. Where the one above was bright, white, and airy—even at night—this one is the opposite in every way.
The furniture is black, the tiles and walls are a dark metal grey, and instead of a kitchen, there’s a pool, lit up in a midnight purple glow. He takes me across the room and toward the only door.
“My nest,” he announces, his deep voice teasing my ears as he opens it, and a dim, soft golden glow reveals the room beyond.
My chest constricts when he brings me to the center. Staring at the view before me, I can’t look away. The entire back wall is a window, like above, but instead of darkness, I see Earth’s moon in its glory and a sky filled with stars. I untangle from Zaku’s arms, and he lets me down. I walk to the window, seeing my reflection in it as I press up against it.
A forest and a mountain range cast in silvery moonlight greet me. They span for countless miles in every direction.
But it’s the abrupt drop outside the window that has my throat constricting. I try to peer downward, to see how steep it is, finding nothing except impenetrable shadows. I step back from the abyss as my stomach churns.
I turn, taking in the rest of the room, trying my best to ignore the giant male—a male who fills every room to capacity—watching me.
My eyes fall on the bed. It’s huge, covered in a mess of spilled blankets and large pillows. It’s near the ground, situated on a pedestal that only slightly rises from the floor. The blankets pour off it like inky black liquid, making it look overly full. Like its master.
Something glints in the corner of my eye, and I turn toward it. My brow furrows.
Gold prison bars fill my vision. They climb from the floor, stopping just before the ceiling where they begin tapering, curving to come together at a point in the center. They make a large, cylindrical shape, and inside is a swing. There’s a barred door, left wide open to let someone inside it.
I notice the lock. “What is that?”
“A cage,” he responds.
“Like for a pet?”
“For a human, I believe.”
“Why do you have it?” I whisper, hugging my body.
“It was here when I found this place.”
“What is this place?”
He moves to the cage and wraps his fingers around one of the gold bars as if testing it. “Do you not listen? A bedroom. My nest.”
That’s not what I mean but I don’t say this. “And behind those other doors?”
His eyes return to me as his tail slips circles behind my back. “One is a bathroom, one is a closet, and the other, I believe the house told me, is called a playroom. I do not understand why.”
I don’t know what’s going on anymore and it scares me. I don’t want to know what constitutes “play” for someone who has a human cage. This isn’t just a house and a bedroom…
There’s something really unsettling about this place.
“I want to sleep upstairs.”
“No.”
“I’m not sleeping here.”
“You are.”
“If you think that, you—”
“My mate will sleep in my nest!” he snaps, making me fall back. He reaches for me, and I scurry away. “You will not fight me on this!” He shoots forward until he’s directly in front of me, catching me. He clasps my chin and forces me to meet his eyes. “Here, female, I am king. Here, you will bow down to me and submit. I have hunted you, caught you, chosen you for my queen.” He bares his fangs. “And now you will be one.”
Gone is the male who lulled me into safety, who carried me, and gave me a false sense of exhausted comfort. His tail slides up the back of my body, trapping me in his limbs.
“I’m not your mate,” I wheeze. “I’ll never be your queen.”
Fury flashes in his eyes, and I brace for him to strike me.
His mouth slams on mine.
Zaku’s rough, velvety lips move against mine in a frenzy—sucking, plucking, and nipping at my parted ones. Shocked, I can’t respond. I feel like I’m suffocating by what’s happening. Vaguely aware I’m pushing at his chest, it’s the only resistance I give.
He groans and it’s thick and animalistic, making my flesh prickle. He’s a predator, and I’m his prey. His growls fill my mouth and slip into my throat. They puncture my soul and vibrates it from within. It’s not fair. He leans into me, pushing me against his tail. I strain my back. He’s too large, too overwhelming. With his hard, muscled chest flushed to mine, he’s devouring me.
I stir.
His lips move on me faster when I do, completely covering my mouth and then some, far larger than mine. Clawed fingers tangle into my air, tickling my scalp. They move downward.
His scales are hot, warming my skin where they’re pressed to my skin.
He pushes my legs apart, sliding between them, and the club of his alien cock falls out. He undulates and his tail rubs over my sex. A spike of sensation rips through me, consuming my mind.
A forked tongue invades my mouth, and I gasp, finally responding.
“No!” I tear from his hold, from fingers whispering across my body, from the coiled tailtip tangled in my hair. “No,” I whimper, feeling my eyes burdened with tears. I hate that they do. I reach for a pillow and grip it, using it as a shield.
I try not to cry, but my tears fall anyway.
Sobbing, everything hits me all at once, and it’s like the floodgates opening. I was almost raped, I almost died. I murdered someone. Glimpsing Zaku’s horrified expression as he backs away, makes it worse.
I was betrayed by my own people. Again.
I’m lost.
<
br /> I’m alone. Again.
I’m alone when I finally fall asleep.
Nine
A Bloody Trail of Vengeance
Zaku
I claw my way out of my room and to the other side of my den, putting distance between me and my… Daisy before I do something I’ll regret.
Why won’t her tears leave my head? I head for the exit of my home.
She scrambled to the other side of the room, acting like if she didn’t get away, I would hurt her, or worse. Tension radiates from me. It wafts in the air and my nostrils flare, scenting the new smell my body has begun creating.
She is mine! My body knows this—does hers not?
Then I remembered the Python. I remember the fear I incite in others as I near them. I’d forgotten in the excitement of seeing Daisy dressed in clothes I provided, of carrying her down to my nest for the first time that I am a male to be feared.
My member is swollen past the point of pain. All I wanted to do was grab her and shake her into her senses.
Jutting out of me now, my cock swells. I yank the wretched thing, squeezing the giant bulge expanding in the middle. All day, its pressure has tortured me. I wanted to jump my Daisy and mount her; I wanted to invade her bath and plant her onto my stem until it was she who bathed me, until she was even dirtier than before, a mess from my spill.
After, I would clean her at my leisure, satiated. I would lick her wounds and convince her to let the medical pod heal the blemishes on her skin.
Instead of heading for the exit, I turn for the bathroom Daisy had bathed in.
Waiting outside her bath, knowing she was full of the meat I hunted for her, knowing she was naked and her sex would be easy to see, easy to mount, was hellish. It had driven all rational thought from my mind. Staring at the room now, being cleaned by robots, I grip my shaft and force my seed out.
Spilling it all over the tiles, I yank my member until I’m able to tuck it back into my tail comfortably. The pressure will return, but for this moment, my mind is clearer. Shame hits, staring down at my seed.
