by Roxie Ray
“Then you’re a virgin, correct?”
“Yes.” Given my rather lusty dreams from last night, that question made me a little uncomfortable, but at least it wasn’t hard to answer. “I stay away from the men’s barracks, and the guards too.”
“Very good.” Dr. Walters tapped my answers into her e-pad then nodded. “You may stay.”
She asked Lily and Ora the same questions. Ora’s answers were nearly the same as mine, but when Dr. Walters got to Lily, she asked her several questions about her weight and how much she ate as well.
“Stay for now,” Dr. Walters told Lily. “We’ll see what they say.”
“Who’s they?” Lily looked a little panicked when Dr. Walters moved on. “What was all of that about?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted, glancing around. Of the six other women who had passed Dr. Walters’ line of questioning, five of them worked with Ora and me in the kitchens. The sixth worked in the laundry with Lily. All of the women who worked in the chemical sheds had been dismissed. “But I bet we’re about to find out.”
When Dr. Walters left, only one additional woman had been asked to say: Marisa. She sat on one of the cots on the far side of the tent, away from the rest of us. As soon as Dr. Walters was gone, Marisa pulled a cigarette and a lighter out of her bra and immediately lit up.
“How did she get to stay?” Ora scowled in Marisa’s direction. “She definitely drinks—and obviously she smokes.”
“She’s no virgin either…” Lily looked more afraid than ever—especially when The Vulture slipped in through the flap of the tent that Dr. Walters had just exited from.
“Eve? I think you and I should have a talk.” He raked his fingers through his dark, thinning hair, then took me by the shoulder. “Come with me.”
“I…I don’t think—” I looked back at Lily and Ora, who were watching me helplessly.
Sorry, Ora mouthed. Lily wrung her hand anxiously. When her gaze met mine, she was quick to look away.
I couldn’t blame them for not doing anything. There wasn’t anything they could do. In our work camp, The Vulture reigned supreme. He did whatever he felt like doing. He took whatever he wanted.
Unfortunately, now of all times, I guessed he’d decided that what he wanted was…me.
The Vulture took me to a side room in the tent. It was separated from the main part of the medical tent by a thin sheet of dirty linen and contained only an examination table. Nothing more.
“Sit. Please.” He straightened to his full height and gestured to the table, then tugged at his jacket like he was trying to make himself look more presentable. Never a good sign.
“I’ll stand, if that’s okay.”
“Sit, Eve.” The Vulture pointed at the exam table once again. “What I’m about to tell you might shock you. Don’t make me ask you again.”
Slowly, I moved to the exam table and sat down. As soon as I did, he moved closer to me and placed his hand on my knee.
Another bad sign.
“You’re eighteen now, Eve. A woman grown. It’s high time you were treated like one.” He squeezed my knee, running his thumb up and down my bony kneecap. “But if I’m being honest…I’ve been watching you for a very long time.”
“It’s your job to watch over us.” I kept my voice low and my eyes on the ground. In my dreams, I was completely happy to be treated like a woman by whatever handsome, strong man my subconscious conjured up. But when it came to The Vulture, I definitely would have preferred to be treated the way I still felt—like a teenager. A girl. Not a woman at all. “You protect us here. I’m grateful for that.”
That was a lie, of course. The only person The Vulture protected was himself. But maybe, if I could remind him of his duty…maybe, just maybe, he’d remember himself and leave me alone.
“That’s what I’m trying to do now, Eve. Protect you.” He moved his hand to my face and took a lock of my hair between his fingers. “So beautiful…and so vulnerable. More vulnerable than you know.”
He tucked my hair behind my ear in a way that was almost loving—or it would have been, if every part of this wasn’t giving me a serious case of the creeps.
“You’re going to be chosen, Eve. But you must have guessed that already. Of all the women here in the camp, you’re the most beautiful, the healthiest… I’m not sure that you can even imagine how much this will change your life.”
“I don’t want to be chosen,” I whispered. Especially not by you.
“We’re in agreement, then.” To my surprise, The Vulture smiled an awful, crooked smile. “I don’t want you to be chosen either.”
“You don’t?” Oh, no. I’d said the wrong thing.
Crap.
“I don’t,” he repeated. “Which is why you need my help.”
“Please—no, I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
“Nonsense.” The Vulture glanced over his shoulder through a slit in the linen. There was movement behind it. I could make out the shapes of huge bodies, probably male—but nothing more. “Listen to me, Eve. As soon as they choose you, you’re going to be taken away from here.”
“To where?” My eyes went wide. I didn’t know why he was telling me this, but if this was my chance to escape this place, I had to know. “Outside of Sector Five?”
“Worse.” The Vulture cupped my cheek with his hand, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to meet his coal-black gaze. Not now. Not ever. “Aliens, Eve. They’re real. They’re here. And they’re going to want you. Take you. Breed you. I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but—”
Slowly, I opened my eyes and blinked at him.
Aliens. He was right in making me sit down. If I’d been standing, or even a little less scared, I would have doubled over laughing.
This wasn’t just ridiculous. This was insane.
“Why me?”
“You’re young. You’re fertile. You’re beautiful.” He stroked my cheekbone with his thumb. “So beautiful. And virginal, too. The perfect female. The perfect candidate.”
“I don’t think—”
“Shh. I know.” The Vulture moved his finger to my lip to silence me. I don’t think you know what you’re talking about, I’d been trying to tell him, but he didn’t seem to care. “That’s why we have to be quick, Eve.”
In the main room, I could hear masculine, almost animalistic growling and snarling, then female gasps.
I felt my chest contract. There was no way that what The Vulture was saying was real, but then again…
If it wasn’t, what was snarling out there in the main section of the tent?
“I’ll save you, Eve,” The Vulture professed as he leaned his lips closer to mine. He was drunk. He had to be drunk. I hoped he was drunk—because the alternative was too impossible to be real. But when I caught a whiff of his breath, I didn’t smell the harsh liquor that the guards had access to here. Just sweet, cloying mint. “I’ll deflower you, so they won’t want you anymore.”
His hands moved to the fastenings of my work pants. When I tried to shove him away, he backhanded me hard enough to make my ears ring.
“Trust me, Eve,” he growled. “This is for your own—”
“Zzhgerdsosk?”
In all my life, there had been three times when I’d seen something I simply hadn’t been able to comprehend. The first was opening the door to that work truck when I was five and seeing my parents’ lifeless bodies, locked in one final embrace. The second had been in the aftermath of an explosion in the mines—so many tiny bodies pulled from the rubble. So many young lives lost so horribly that the parents couldn’t even identify their children’s faces when it was all done.
The third time was three years ago, when I’d gotten my first period. I’d been so sure that working in the chemical sheds had ruined any chance that I would ever be a mother. In a way, it would have been a blessing.
If I never would have started to bleed, all of this could have been avoided.
But now…
Now, th
ere was a fourth instance.
And this time, it made all the others pale in comparison to…to this.
A man pulled back the flap of the exam room. He was tall, broad, built almost entirely of muscle…
But as my mind strained to make sense of what my eyes were seeing, I realized I could hardly call him a man at all.
He had deep orange skin, the color of sunset mixed with smog. His hair was a paler orange color, shaved at the sides and plaited into a thick braid that hung over his shoulder. He had a flattened nose and lips that curled into a snarl as he stared The Vulture down, revealing two long, sharp fangs. His eyes were narrow and catlike—one moment, bright purple. The next, deep red.
Not a man, no.
An alien.
Everything that The Vulture had been telling me was horribly, impossibly…true.
He moved faster than my eyes could track. I blinked once and the alien’s claw-tipped fingers were wrapped around The Vulture’s throat. I blinked again and The Vulture was thrown across the room, clutching at his windpipe and gasping for air.
I scrambled backward on the exam table as the alien’s blood-red eyes turned toward me. If he was strong enough to toss The Vulture aside like that, he was more than strong enough to hurt me.
They’re going to want you. Take you. Breed you, The Vulture had told me.
And no matter what I fantasized about when I scrubbed pots in the kitchens or the lusty kisses that I enjoyed in my dreams, I wasn’t ready for that in real life.
Not like this.
Not with someone like him.
But instead of raising his claws to my throat as well, the alien only stretched his hand out to me, palm up. An offering.
“Come,” he said in a deep voice. His lips shaped the word like it was uncomfortable to hold in his mouth. “Safe now. Come with me.”
But even though I placed my small hand in his much bigger one, I knew I’d never been safe a single day in my life.
And given everything The Vulture had just told me…
I didn’t know if I’d ever be safe again.
2
Gallix
“There ya go, Bessie.” I patted the side of my steering panel fondly, keeping my voice gentle a gentle purr. “You and me are gonna go in now, nice and slow. You’re in safe hands with me.”
No matter how good I treated the ship as I guided her in to link up with the slave transport, though, it was hard to shake my nerves. When I took my pulse before I eased her forward, it was faster than usual. Risky thing, that. Once upon a time, they’d called me Gallix Steel-Nerve—or, someone probably had, anyway. And now?
I took a deep breath and extended our connection bridge to the bigger transporter’s entry port. The link-up slipped into place with ease. Normally, I’d turn to Ronan and crack a dirty joke right about now, but I just wasn’t feeling it.
I was anxious. No way around it, nothing to deny.
“Are you nervous, Gallix?” Ronan asked from the navigator’s chair as I bent down to rest my forehead against the wheel.
“No,” I grunted. “I’m fine.”
Okay. A little to deny.
“You are.” Ronan chuckled. “I’ve never seen you so shaky behind the wheel. Something on your mind?”
“No,” I said again—but of course, something was on my mind.
Or, really, someone.
Her.
Small and sweet, with hair the color of a wildfire burning long through the night and skin as pale as the first light of dawn. Her cheeks were speckled like a chickling’s egg and her eyes, greens and browns and golds and blues all mixed together, had haunted my dreams since I first saw her face.
That had been two weeks ago. Just a holo-scan. A flickering image of light. All it had taken was a single glimpse of her face and I’d been bewitched. Transfixed.
Obsessed.
And I hadn’t even met her yet.
“Are we ready?” asked Ronan.
“As we’ll ever be,” I said back to him—but even then, I couldn’t say I was quite sure.
I knew what we were here to do: collect the human females who had entered themselves into contracts as breeding slaves for Lunarian men. Take them back to Lunaria, where they’d be claimed by High Lords seeking heirs. Maybe even by our good-for-nothing king.
But if just the image of her face had wrecked my head and haunted my sleep so completely…
Then how in nine blasted hells was I supposed to see her face in person, only to give her away?
Ronan and I made for the boarding deck, where my soft-headed cousin, Pax, was waiting for us. I clapped him on the back of his head and ruffled his spiked yellow hair, paler than mine but just as thick, as I came up behind him.
“How ya feelin’, Pax? Grateful I brought you along on this big, dumb, highfalutin adventure yet?”
“No.” Pax shoved me away from him and tried to laugh, but he looked about as nervous as I felt. “I do not like this, cousin. If these females are unwilling, as you have said they might be…”
“We’ll bite that bullet when we end up shot with it.” I smiled at the way Pax made his words. His mother, my aunt on my father’s side, had married up in the world—not that she’d had much of a choice—and his accent said it all. High and lofty, closer to Roman’s elegant speech than my slurred-together country folk talk. “That all you’re worried about?”
“Well…” Pax blushed as he glanced at the doors to the connection bridge. “Not exactly.”
“There will be no gunfight here, Pax. This hand-off will be peaceful,” Ronan assured him. “Once we have parted ways, we will determine whether the females are entering into this willingly or not.”
“No. No, it is not that.” Pax rubbed the back of his neck as he flushed all the way down to the collar of his white Lunarian uniform. “It is only…these humans themselves, I suppose. I have heard that they are, well…”
“Spit it out, kid.” I nudged him with my elbow. “We don’t got all day.”
“They are meant to be very beautiful, are they not? Very, er…” Pax made the shape of the human female body in the air with his hands. Full breasts, small waist, wide hips. Nothing like Lunarian females in the least, who were all tall and curveless, though not quite so bulky with muscles as us males. “Very…intense.”
“That’s one word for it.” I thought of the auburn-haired female once more. I hadn’t seen her body yet, only the delicate features of her face. But in my dreams…yes, I imagined the shape that Pax had made in the air was just about right.
“Just wait.” Ronan chuckled as he moved to the doors and waved his hand across them, bidding them to slide open. “In my experience, if there is one thing that human females are more than capable of…it is surprising you.”
As the sound of approaching footsteps echoed down the connection bridge, I held my breath. I felt a little better knowing that I wasn’t the only one on edge here—
A little better.
But still not much.
A human was the first to appear from behind the doors of the connection bridge—male, not female. He wore a uniform much like ours, except that his was cut from black cloth, not white. He had silvery blond hair, a sharp jawline, and dark eyes.
I didn’t like him at first sight, though it was hard to say why. Something about how he held himself, maybe. Something about the way he stared me down as he held out his hand for me to shake.
“Commander Greenwood of the newly minted Sectarian Space Force.” He introduced himself like any of that meant anything to me—or even mattered. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, boys.”
I bristled at that. Boys. I’d killed tougher dipshits than this joker with both hands tied behind my back. If anyone was a cub here, it was Greenwood himself.
“First time here in space, Greenwood?” Lunarians didn’t shake hands, but I’d been briefed that it was Earthan custom. I gripped his palm a little more firmly than I needed to and smirked as I saw him wince.
“It is, yes. H
ell of a thing, being out here in the stars like this. These ships your people have supplied us with are, ah…pretty fancy, huh?” Greenwood shook his hand slightly after I’d let go and didn’t make the mistake of offering Ronan or Pax the same opportunity. “Shall we get this show on the road, then?”
“We would be happy to proceed, Commander,” Ronan said with a small nod. As he came to my side, he gave me a sharp nudge with his elbow. Stop poking the gnarl-beast.
Greenwood nodded in return and turned around as the doors on his side of the bridge opened again. This time, five bodies emerged. Two Lunarians up front, three human females following behind.
The Lunarians I recognized immediately. Kien was just as tall as I was with deep orange skin and bright orange hair. As he approached, I gave him a grin. We’d served together a few years back, protecting Jeorkania from the Rutharian fleet. He was a fair warrior, fierce and true.
The other Lunarian was a bit of a different story, though. Jaix had stark white hair and the black eyes of a specter, one of Lunaria’s intelligence operatives. My smile faded as I set eyes on him.
“Didn’t realize we were putting traitors on such high-stakes missions,” I grumbled to Ronan beneath my breath. “We sure it’s safe to have a specter like him around innocent females?”
“Jaix has served his punishment for his crimes,” Ronan said simply, though I wasn’t so sure about that.
Rumor had it that Jaix had committed one of the gravest offenses against our people—stealing the mate of another. The high lord whose wife he’d run off with had made sure that Jaix was sent on missions far away from Lunaria once the pair was apprehended. I’d heard the wife had died in childbirth a few years later.
I didn’t trust him. But like most things about this mission, it wasn’t my place to complain.
“The women have all been tested for fertility, washed and fitted with wardrobes that I understand are, ah…customary for your people,” Greenwood explained. “The tiny one will need feeding before she’s ready, but the other two should be fine.”
