by daisy harris
His stomach rumbled, reminding David that he’d skipped breakfast. A branch off the main hallways led to the small kitchen and dining area that Friedson had shown him the day before. The route passed those double doors leading to the tanks, and David strained to hear through the door, wanting some contact with the beings inside.
Loud screams carried through, followed by a burst of dolphin call. David’s hand rushed to feed his card through the reader, and he pushed through the door. The merman knocked against the sides of his tank. A heavy barbed wire covering fastened to the top of his tank, and trails of blood floated from his hands.
David’s eyes followed the creature’s gaze to one of the smaller labs. Another screech cracked through the air. It sounded female and young. He swung open the door to the small room, expecting to find some lab assistant in trouble, but instead his eyes met a little girl, maybe five years old, with brown skin and spiky black hair tied prone to an exam table.
Without thinking, he reached to release her restraints, but a hand grabbed his wrist.
“What are you doing? I have five more samples to take.”
David scanned Friedson’s face. The older doctor looked bored, maybe mildly irritated, but didn’t not seem at all uncomfortable that there was a little girl, shaking as she cried, fastened with broad straps to a metal gurney.
“The younger specimens can hold human form for longer, so we use them for all bone marrow sampling.” He plunged a wide needle into the little girl’s hip.
She screamed, “Mommy! Mommy!”
David’s stomach lurched into his throat. He swallowed against the small amount of vomit that filled his mouth. Sweat, thick and cloying coated his body under his clothes. His hands clenched to wrestle his boss to the floor, but no, he couldn’t do that. He’d worked his whole life for this job.
Maybe if he could improve how the animals were treated, he could stomach this. Trying to hide the shaking in his voice, he asked, “Why is the subject not sedated?”
Friedson plunged another needle into the same hip again. He shouted over the subject’s renewed cries, “It’s not cost or time effective to sedate them for most of what we do. Anyhow, they recover quickly enough.”
He yanked the sample from the girl’s hip, and though the wound healed almost instantly, the girl continued to sob and shake. David watched as her vertebrae became more pronounced and her skin started to pucker in spots.
“Gosh darn it, she’s dehydrating already! Weber, give me a hand here. I need three more samples before I toss her back in the tank.”
* * * * Sophia watched out the small porthole as best she could. The tiny window was at the other end of the hold, and so scuffed that it looked white during the day and black during the night. Like her jailer, she slept at odd intervals. They had been alone for five days now. A rough-looking female arrived each day to empty her chamber pot and serve her and the jailor a tray of cold food. She’d learned that a toilet existed through one of the doors off the hold, and the same woman gave her use of that room once a day.
Her guard was asleep. She watched his body rise and fall on the stack of cardboard that served as his bed. He’d re-shackled himself to the wall since he’d been to the kitchens, and he didn’t move much from his position. It was as if he’d been there so long he didn’t bother. Every morning at dawn he did 120 push-ups. That was the highlight of each day.
The shark shifter leader descended the railing. He jumped the last four rungs, landing with a deafening thump in the bare fiberglass floor. The sound didn’t even wake her jailor.
“Looks like your parents didn’t send the money like we asked, little dragon.” He didn’t look as put out as she would have imagined. “Sometimes the ’rents need a little more encouragement.” His cronies descended right after him, clomping around the room. The leader kicked her jailor hard in the gut. “Wake up, you lazy shit!”
He didn’t even grunt but rolled to sitting.
The captain wandered to the side of her cage to get a better look. Sophia struggled not to crawl away from him, instead met his eyes, head-on.
“Oh, you’re going to be a fun one, little girl. I can tell. Too bad, none of these other shits know how to use this thing.” He held up a small digital video recorder.
She could tell her face betrayed fear, because a broad, cruel smile stretched his weathered features. His nostrils flared, as if scenting her terror, and his eyes blacked. “We’re going to make a little homemade porn for moms and pops, cherry. We’ll show ‘em how well their little girl’s bein’ treated.”
Sophia’s legs flew outward, propelling her to the opposite side of the cage from where the shark-shifter stood, but his lackeys took position at either end of her enclosure. She huddled in the middle of the cage, directly under the bulb, and curled into a tiny ball. The manacles at her wrist seemed to tighten. Perhaps losing her claws in a shift would be preferable to what these males had planned. Her hands wouldn’t grow back like a shark’s but…
A key clanked in the lock on her door, and a shark-shifter built like a rock wall entered. Sheered black hair peppered his greasy head. A large gut overhung his filthy pants. She retched at the smell coming off him. He undid his belt and she yelped and started pleading. “Please…I’m sure they’ll… You could just film me begging…That would…” Her whispers came out weak and faint. She knew it wouldn’t do any good.
The thug turned away from her, back to the door of her cage, key poised to lock them both in. Her heart leapt when she saw her jailor right behind him.
The lightning-bolt shark grabbed the thug by his neck, casually swung him back, and shouldered into the cell. “I never get to fuck the prisoners and I’ve been staring at her tits all week.”
Chapter 4
Sophia’s mouth fell open as her jailor locked the door behind him. Her lungs crushed in her chest, air neither entered nor left. Waves of panic shook her.
The other sharks argued about his having taken the place of the first one, but apparently the leader approved. Perhaps her jailor had turned on her to earn the respect of the others.
His dirty brown hands hooked under her shoulders to haul her to her feet. She looked up at his merciless face, slashed across with white. He was a head taller than her and his shoulders were twice as broad as her own. His arms reached around to grasp her back and her ass, and he ground her against him. The room erupted with male laughter, and a long hardness pressed into her from between his narrow hips. Wetness rolled down her cheeks. She tried to stop it, to put on a brave face, but it was all she could do not to dissolve into more pleading.
He lowered his head into her hair and began nuzzling her neck. Her tears dripped onto his cheek. Every muscle in her body clenched, spasms from her calves to her shoulders, even as the softest of whispers reached her sensitive ears. “Not going to hurt you. Pretend. Cry.”
Her knees buckled in combined fear and relief. She stammered, trying to stay quiet. “But you…you’ll... I’ve never…” Her tears wouldn’t stop falling, and she realized that even if the other sharks heard, they’d think it more begging.
He gripped her hair and slanted his mouth over hers. His tongue plunged in.
Scared as she was, Sophia sucked it like a lifeline.
His mouth roamed to her neck, then her ear, he whispered,
“Pretend, okay? Someone’s coming. Can hear it.” Sophia dipped her head in a tiny nod, and chose to trust in his superior hearing. Her jailor quickly turned her around and shoved her to the ground. She noticed he aimed her right for the softest part of her pallet, and she threw her arms out in front of her to break the fall.
His big body covered hers a moment later, but he kept on his poncho like a curtain between them and the others. He settled his legs on either side of hers and pressed up her dress.
With his position and the loose grayish covering, she knew the others couldn’t see her nudity, but still she felt his eyes caress her behind.
He leaned forward and nipped where her neck met h
er shoulder. “Press your legs together.”
She sobbed again, as if he’d threatened her with the vilest torture, hoping he would keep true to his word.
He reared back and lowered his jeans to his thighs. It took everything she had not to turn around. He heard him spit and smack something, and then he fell forward across her. A thick searing heat poised at the tee of her thighs and rear end. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t cry. It was too much…the cruel faces leering in the dark beyond her bars, the warm bare thighs behind her own, the hot, wet pressure poking between her legs.
He fed himself forward, just skimming the folds of her human entryway. His shout filled the air, as if he’d penetrated the most delicious depths. She screamed like she was in pain, and tried not to erupt in nervous giggles as she often did when she tried to lie.
The shark shifter plunged into the crease between her clenched thighs, pretending to pillage her sheath. She winced and cried her most convincing at his every thrust, even though that space he caressed slowly filled with warmth and released slick moisture onto his member.
Heat licked her body, and she flushed in embarrassment. It seemed impossible that she could experience any enjoyment in this act, especially with the threat of actual rape eyeing her from outside her cage. But for the moment she trusted this male atop her back. His body shielded hers from danger.
His sex felt impossibly hot and big as it stroked the tender skin at the tops of her legs and the lips of her vagina. She wanted to reach down and touch it where it emerged from her vee. At his each retreat, a ridge nipped the front of her mound, causing a sensation Sophia had never known to billow through her womb. A hand reached under her body to clutch her breast.
She’d started wondering if he could meet his release in this way when loud calls sounded from the deck above, distracting the shifters beyond the bars. She heard the leader growl. “What the fuck is going on up there?” Another shark started up the stairs, but a moment later the old shark muttered. “Fuck it. We’ve got enough to send to her parents.” He followed his lackey up the narrow staircase and shut the hatch.
Sophia felt her jailor rise up behind her, but she pressed back against him, still clamping his hardness between her thighs. He gripped her shoulders. “You did well, you can let go now.” The sharkshifter pressed backward and raised his pants while pulling her skirt down. She almost reached to drag him down atop her, make him finish what he started, but the noises above grew louder. Gunshots fired.
“Time for you to get out of here.” Her jailor grabbed her hand and unlocked the door, dragging her out of her cage.
* * * * Grappling hooks clanged against the hull, and Raider held his hand up to silence the dragoness.
“What’s going on? Who is that? What…”
He covered her mouth with his hand. Her breath feathered his palm, and his teeth clenched at the blue aching of his balls. Crap, a couple more pulls and he would have shot it. She’d even gotten wet. He had to not think about it and especially not explore why he didn’t just pound into her like any other member of the crew would. He’d worried about being too rough on her thigh, much less what he would have done to the inside of her.
Her muffled, “Who is that?” carried through his hand.
He sniffed deeply, trying to separate the smells of salt water, mildew, and the shark-shifter crew from the newcomers’. “Mere and dragons.”
Raider knew he’d get skinned alive for leaving the hold, but he wasn’t sure the dragons would find the girl otherwise. So his hand gripped a rung of the ladder, and he climbed to the latch. He hadn’t been outside in the sunshine in ages. As the hatch flipped back, light blinded him. He squinted, getting used to the conditions and taking in the scene.
Two males who smelled of dragon, one huge and charcoalskinned, and the other long and pale like a greyhound, shot and stabbed sharks that healed almost as fast as they were injured. Mere streamed over the edge of the boat, hands reaching over the grappling hooks. A tall mere female with waist-length hair fought in the center of the deck.
Sophia pushed up on his ass, trying to get out. She heaved him upward with a strong push, and he scrambled up from the hole. The huge, black, human-form dragon bore down on them with a sword raised over his head. Raider snatched Sophia more firmly behind him.
The male growled. “Give her to me.”
Raider held his muscles loose but didn’t move. “What do you plan to do with her?”
The darker dragon swung a fist like a battering ram at Raider’s nose. His head snapped back.
“I’m here to rescue her, you scavenger.”
Sophia pushed around to the front of him, walking right up to the dark dragon. The male’s eyes widened in recognition.
Her hips swayed, drawing Raider’s eye, and it dawned on him that she really would be rescued and go back to live among her dragon peers. The thought made him feel oddly empty.
“You’re General Kai Nasu,” Sophia said to him in a soft voice. She batted her eyelashes. “I recognize you from pictures.”
A slow burn of anger welled up in Raider’s chest.
The dragon appeared to shrink before the dragoness. His shoulders hunched. “Yes, and I imagine you are…Sophia?”
* * * * Sophia’s eyes travelled from the fierce-looking male in front of her to the tall, blond mere female who approached. The mere’s broad shoulders were thrown back, and her countenance was every bit as aggressive as the enormous dragon’s. When the female neared, she punched Kai Nasu in the arm. “I’m going to head out, dragon. Oh, and you’re sleeping on the couch tonight.” She turned to leave, and Kai’s face split into a smile and he smacked her on the butt. “We’ll see about that.”
A splash carried a moment later, followed by several more as the mere departed.
Sophia’s noted the look on Kai’s face as he watched the female leave. His features betrayed total focus and adoration. Mercy, she never stood a chance!
Her jailor sauntered to where the rest of her crew kneeled at gunpoint and lowered himself to the deck’s battered floorboards alongside them. He trained his face straight ahead. Her gaze darted to him, and she wondered if maybe she should argue in his defense. However, he shook his head slightly and she remembered his order that she never reveal to his crew that she didn’t fear him.
Next to the enormous dragon male, Sophia felt miniature. Her kinky black hair was filled with dust and grime. Gray dirt smattered her features. “Are you going to take me back?” His eyes were solemn as he nodded yes. Her heart sank further. “You’re not going to mate me, though.”
The dragon had been frowning before, but the look deepened, saddened. “I refused your parents bid because I’d found another mate.”
Sophia wanted to be angry, or argue, but the truth was etched in every line of his noble face. Tears filled her eyes. “Dear gods, I get tired of this!”
The dark-skinned male stuttered, his voice low and rumbling. “Miss Aleahar, I assure you…I truly regret…”
Sophia cut him off. “Just don’t. I am cold, hungry, and in need of a shower, and I don’t have the energy. Just let me get my belongings.”
She pushed past him, eyes scouring the ground until she found the captain’s video recorder. Stowing it in the pocket of her dress, she lifted the hatch to the storage hold to gather her things for the long ride back.
* * * * Nereus studied the young scientist through the blurry plastic walls of his tank. The human sat at a small rolling desk in the corner. Every few minutes he raised his eyebrows and used his pointer finger to push his glasses up his slightly over-long nose. At one point he took them off to read a thick packet of papers, but that digit speared to his forehead again and again, an unconscious habit.
His tail kicked hard and Nereus circled his tank several times, trying to burn off the simmering anger of captivity. His tail and shoulders bumped against the cool plastic at the corners. He wondered when the new doctor would look his way again under lowered lashes. If he had a dollar for eve
ry human who looked at him like that…
The green tinge of the human’s face and the sheen of sweat on his skin when he left the exam room earlier suggested that the new guy saw it. He wasn’t like the hardened worker bees who did Friedman’s bidding or like the other doctors, with their faded hair and empty eyes. This one seemed almost an innocent, like he’d arrived unaware of the horrors.
And that’s why Nereus took a chance. He lifted his head out of the water, careful to keep it below the razor wire cover. “Hey.”
The human’s head swung around, and he gaped open-mouthed. Then he looked behind him before returning his thick, black-rimmed glasses to their perch. “Are you talking to me?”
Nereus nodded. “Yeah.” He refused to meet the eyes of the various sharks in tanks all around who emitted growls too low for the human to hear. “What’s your name?”
The man looked back down at his papers and muttered, “I am never going to get used to that.”
“I can hear you, y’know.” In a place like this, mere hearing proved a curse. His picked up every murmured judgment, sadistic giggle, sometimes even the speeding up of the researchers’ hearts.
The new scientist’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Yeah, I forgot about that. Um…how can I help you?”
Let us the fuck out of here? “What’s your name?”
The human rubbed the back of his neck.
Yeah buddy, torturing shape shifters must be real tough work.
“David. David Weber.”
Nereus curled his lip, in a way he knew dropped males—both human and mere—to their knees. “Come here, David.” The scientist walked toward the tank, wide eyed. He felt a bit like an asshole using his looks against the guy, but he knew beyond a doubt that the easiest way to a man’s brain was through his cock.
David stopped three feet from the tank.
“Closer.” Nereus bent his arm up over his head and leaned against the walls of the tank. The pose displayed his torso to great effect.
