by Roxie Ray
I paused as I caught Gallix staring at me strangely. The red was fading from his eyes now. Slowly, his purple irises were shifting slightly blue.
I had no idea what that meant, but I hoped that he believed me. After all, it was all at least a little bit true.
“Your family will surely miss you, though.” Gallix blinked, and the blue color faded away as well. “Lunarian time runs a lot like Earth’s does. Three pregnancies, plus recovery and travel time…it’ll be five or six years before you’ll be able to return to them.”
“I don’t have a family.” Not that I wanted to talk about it. Every time I opened my mouth, I was in danger of saying the wrong thing—or just saying too much in general. “What do you mean, about Lunarian time?”
“Aw. It’s boring. Forget that I said it.” Gallix waved my question away.
“Please?” I asked. Boring was good. Boring meant that I wasn’t at risk of talking myself into a trap—or crying again. I wasn’t sure which was worse right now.
“Well…it’s like this, see? Imagine two clocks. One the size of that one there.” He pointed to the small clock on my desk. “And one that’s…big. Real big. Big enough to fill this room.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “Two clocks.”
“So, the little one—that’s Earth. It ticks along at the exact same pace as that one on your desk does. Lunaria’s clock is just about the same size, but a little bigger—so it ticks a little slower, too, but not by much. But the really big clock…” Gallix made a wide circle with his hands. “It ticks so slowly that by the time the hour hand on the Earth clock has gone all the way around, the hour hand on the big clock has barely moved at all. That make sense?”
“Oh.” I nodded, a little surprised at myself. Gallix had done a good job of explaining himself, but actually…I already knew this. Kind of, anyway. “That’s…gravitational time relation?”
“Dilation. But yeah. Exactly.” Gallix narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Exactly that. The bigger the mass of an object, the bigger the gravity…the slower time moves there. What were you back on Earth, anyway? Some kind of…physicist, maybe? You look a little young for that, though.”
“I am,” I admitted. “I’m only eighteen. But my father—”
“Thought you said you didn’t have family?”
“I don’t. He’s dead. Has been for a long time.” I forced a smile, but it was tense. I knew it didn’t meet my eyes. “He worked in the physics department of a university before I was born. Before he died, he tried to teach me some of it, but I was pretty young. Too young to understand a lot of it. I think most of it went over my head.”
“Apparently not.” Gallix returned my smile. His was less tense, gentler. “My condolences, Eve. But I think he’d be proud of you right now, though.”
“I…I hope so.” On one hand, I was having a conversation with an actual alien, on an actual spaceship, in actual outer space. From what little I remembered of my father…yeah, I imagined he’d be thrilled about that. On the other hand, though…
On the other hand, I was being taken to an alien planet to be bred by their nobility so I could give them the children they needed to save their race. He would have thought that was noble of me too, I supposed—
At least, until he realized that I wasn’t doing it out of altruism.
I was doing this because there was no chance for anything better. No other way out of Sector Five.
And because, in a lot of ways, I suspected that even if I’d tried to say no, I would have been beaten until that no turned into a yes.
“You excited then? About becoming a mother?” Gallix furrowed his brow, then corrected himself. “A surrogate, I mean.”
“A breeding slave.”
“Call it what you like.” Gallix shrugged, like it didn’t matter, but I didn’t miss the way he was staring at me. Like he was carefully assessing every word that came out of my mouth.
I needed to be careful too, then.
Bearing children for the Lunarians was my only opportunity for a better life. A life that had already been stolen away from Lily.
Now that I was here, I couldn’t let them take it away from me, too.
I’d never been a very good liar, though. The important thing right now was that I stuck to the truth.
As much as I could.
“I never thought that I’d have a chance to be a mother back on Earth,” I admitted a little awkwardly, but it would do. The women who got pregnant in Sector Five were mostly put in that position unwillingly by greedy guards who didn’t care who they hurt. In the work camp, pregnancy had been a kind of curse. I’d often wondered about my own parents—if they hadn’t accidentally brought me into the world, would they have waited so long to end it all? “But…the doctors that assessed me before I was chosen for this explained that pregnancy can be…really nice, in some ways. They said your people would be kind to me. Take care of me. Give me everything I needed. I…I liked the idea of that. A lot.”
“No mate back on Earth, then? No husband?”
“I’m only eighteen. Not really old enough to be getting married.” Now it was my turn to narrow my eyes at Gallix. If he wanted to interrogate me, two could play at that game. “Are you asking for your people, or for yourself?”
“Just making conversation.” Gallix was trying to act like he was being casual, but I saw him tense slightly and clench his jaw. I’d gotten to him. That made me glow a little with pride. Good. If I was uncomfortable, he should be too. “Eighteen is pretty young to be giving up on love, though.”
“And where’s your wife?” Now that I had him on the defensive, I wasn’t going to let him take the upper hand again. “You’re hardly eighteen.”
“You’re right. I’m twenty-seven.” Gallix stepped into my room slowly, coming closer. Every cell in my body should have been screaming at me to back away, but when I took another look at his biceps…I found I didn’t really want to. “But if you already know about Lunaria’s birthrate problem, I imagine you already know the answer to that question, too.”
“Oh.” I frowned as I realized he was right. If there weren’t enough women on Lunaria to have enough babies to sustain their population, there probably weren’t enough women for every Lunarian man to have a wife, either. Crap. “Sorry. That was really insensitive of me.”
“Don’t worry about it. Shouldn’t have questioned you like that anyway.” Gallix smirked as he raised the side of his knuckles to my chin and turned my face up towards his. He was close enough now that I could smell him, just faintly. No cologne. Just the scent of his skin, gentle and earthy. Not bad. Not bad at all. “If I did have one, though, I’d want her to be able to keep me on my toes. Like you’re doing.”
Like you. It was left unspoken, and maybe I was crazy for even thinking that he was suggesting it—but the blue was back in his eyes again, and his touch made my heart pound like I’d just run a mile at a dead sprint.
“I said I was sorry,” I whispered.
“And I said don’t mention it.” Gallix backed away, still smirking. “Whatever high lord ends up with you as his surrogate is a lucky lord indeed.”
He turned to go, but suddenly I found myself wishing that he wouldn’t.
Which was crazy. If he left, I wouldn’t be at risk of outing myself anymore.
But if he left, I’d also be alone.
“You’ll get a breeding slave too though, won’t you?” I called after him. “A surrogate, I mean.”
“Me?” Gallix turned in the doorway, chuckled, and shook his head. “You weren’t listening when I introduced myself, were you?”
“I was,” I assured him. “But—”
“Then you’ll know I’m no lord. Still…” He winked at me. Winked. At me. My suspicions had been right—he was flirting with me. And I…wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that. “S’pose a soldier can dream.”
At that, he left. The door slid closed behind him and I took a deep breath. The air felt so good in my lungs, I wondered how long I�
�d been holding my last one in for.
I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath at all.
I smoothed down my curls and patted my clothing like I was trying to fix the wrinkles—but of course, there weren’t any there. Whatever fabric the tight white, midriff-baring top and harem pants we’d all been dressed in were made of, it didn’t wrinkle. It hugged my body perfectly and fit me better than any of the grubby work clothes I’d worn back in Sector Five ever had.
No, the only thing that was a mess around here was me. Between my nerves about being found out and my sadness at Lily’s departure and whatever Gallix had done to me when he touched beneath my chin… my clothes were fine. My hair was fine. I was the one who was out of sorts.
I needed to get my head on straight and my story even straighter. The sooner, the better.
I waved my hand across the door and watched as it parted, then headed out into the hall to find Ora. Hopefully, she was faring a little better with all of this than me.
In the hall, Gallix was nowhere to be seen. He must have gone to the cockpit, or maybe back into his room. But at the door next to mine, I saw Ora lingering and looking a little flushed.
Okay. So maybe she wasn’t doing much better after all.
“You all right?” I asked. “You look…sunburned.”
“Oh, no. Am I blushing?” Ora touched her cheek and glanced nervously down the hall. “I’m blushing. Crap.”
“Something wrong?” I touched the back of my hand to her forehead. She was burning up. “You don’t have a fever or something, do you?”
“Definitely not. It’s just…” She let out a tiny laugh. “Pax is pretty cute, isn’t he? For an alien, I mean. Those muscles, and… oh, Eve, did you get a look at their eyes?”
“He is,” I agreed. “And I did. But…you know that’s not why we’re here, right?”
“Of course I do.” Ora hugged herself tight as her smile faded. “I just… I don’t think I’ve ever had a man talk to me like that since I got sent to Sector Five. He was so…so polite, Eve. He asked me how I was feeling, if I needed anything…”
“I think that’s just how men are. Even alien men.” I shook my head. “Lunarians, I mean. When I was younger, my father treated my mother like that all the time. We’re just not used to socializing with men who aren’t holding cattle prods and whips, is all.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Eve rubbed her arms like she was trying to warm them up to match the burning skin on her face. “I was so young when I got taken, but… Gosh, Eve. It was just like in the movies.”
Or in my romance novel, I wanted to add—but I didn’t. Eve was obviously even more moonstruck by these Lunarian men than I was.
And we both needed to put a stop to that. Sooner, rather than later.
“We can’t let ourselves get emotionally attached, Ora.” I took her by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “Just because they’re kind to us and the guards at the camp weren’t doesn’t mean anything. We deserve kindness right now. We always did.”
“Yeah, but…” Ora sighed. The blue of her eyes might as well have been heart-shaped. “None of the guards at the camp ever looked like him, Eve.”
“I know,” I said softly. I hadn’t exactly missed that fact myself. Pax definitely seemed like Ora’s type—young, innocent, handsome and non-threatening.
But Pax wasn’t the only handsome Lunarian in our midst right now.
“Gallix seems to like you.” Ora’s lips twitched into a teasing smile. “He’s not bad-looking either, you know.”
“I’m not worried about Gallix right now,” I said, eager to change the subject. “I’m worried about Lily, and about how we’re going to convince these Lunarians that we weren’t at all coerced into signing up for this.”
“Pax was asking me some kind of…intense questions,” Ora admitted as her smile faded. “And it wasn’t right, what they did to Lily. She signed her contract. She wanted this, as much as either of us did. They shouldn’t have brought her all the way here just to pull the rug out from under her just so—”
“So what?” Marisa called out from behind us. She slipped out of her room and leaned against the wall across from Ora and me. Her white clothing was the same as ours, but her curves meant that her top was almost bursting with bosom. The waistband of her harem pants clung to her broad hips like a second skin. “Wait. Let me guess. So that awful bitch Marisa could steal her place at the last second. Am I right?”
“Go away, Marisa,” I warned her. “I wasn’t kidding when I told you to keep your distance before. I don’t know how you managed it, but you did steal Lily’s place here. It was a terrible thing to do, and I think you know it, too.”
“I did what I had to.” Marisa shrugged like it didn’t bother her at all. I supposed, knowing what I did of Marisa, she probably hadn’t even given a second thought to who she might have hurt. “None of us were making it out of Sector Five without this opportunity. If it was terrible of me to sleep with whoever I had to so I could be on this trip, then I’m terrible. So be it.”
“And now Lily’s being sent back there in your place.” I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head. “You don’t deserve to be here. If you did, you would have been chosen the right way, same as Ora and me.”
“Gracious, Eve. I never thought you’d be the one to get so high and mighty just because you discovered you have functional ovaries.” Marisa laughed cruelly. “But I suppose you’ve always thought you were a little better than the rest of us.”
“I don’t think I’m better than anyone.” I stared her down. “Except maybe better than you.”
“You really believe that, don’t you? At first, I thought maybe it was just some act—but no. You’re actually as deluded as you look. Ora got picked up for her silly religion—” Marisa shot Ora a dirty look. “I got arrested for prostitution…but you were born into Sector Five, weren’t you, Eve? The queen of the work camp.”
“I don’t know what you’re implying, Marisa.”
“No? Because I think you do.” Marisa moved closer to me, drawing herself up to her full height. “Just say it. You think you never deserved to be in Sector Five to begin with, so you think you somehow earned the right to be here.”
“Eve doesn’t think that.” It was sweet of Ora to come to my defense, but I wished she’d let me fight my own battles. “We were chosen because we passed the fertility tests—and because we’re virgins. That’s all.”
“And neither of you ever wondered why your virginity was so important to our new Lunarian overlords?” Marisa snorted. “You’re both deluded, then. Tell me—why do you think they care about your virginity if you’re just supposed to be surrogates?”
Ora and I exchanged a glance. The color was draining from her face fast, and I wasn’t so sure I was looking all that bright and cheerful myself.
I hated to admit it, but Marisa might have actually had a point.
“And why do you think we were chosen, then?” I asked. I wasn’t just arguing with Marisa anymore. I wasn’t baiting her, either.
Marisa had obviously thought this through—something that Ora and I hadn’t even bothered to do.
“Because, dumbass, we’re not being taken to Lunaria to become surrogates at all. They want breeding slaves—and I imagine, with how few women are on that stupid planet of theirs, they’re not planning on missing out on a chance to do the breeding themselves.” Marisa backed away from us, smiling. “Two virgins for the lords who want to bed a woman who doesn’t know what she’s doing, one whore for the ones who want a woman who does.”
“You don’t know anything, Marisa,” I said—but my voice was suddenly shaky.
What if she did? What if she was right?
“I know that I’ll be fucking all three of our dashing alien captors before we make land on Lunaria.” Marisa shrugged as she walked away. “If you two don’t want to lose your virginities to some fat, ugly lord, I’d suggest you do the same. We’re already en route. No turning
back now. This is probably the last chance you’ll get.”
4
Gallix
As I shifted Bessie into her top speed and put her on autopilot, I had the worst feeling that I’d already managed to screw things up.
Not Bessie, or the piloting. Steering ships safely from port to port was in my blood. I’d landed my first cruiser while sitting on my father’s lap back when I was just a cub. Warox the Warrior, they’d called him. Bravest man I’d ever known and a legend throughout the galaxies still to this day.
No, I’d screwed things up with Eve. Almost certainly. But then again, I wasn’t sure how I’d been expecting that little exchange to go.
Er, well, actually, that was a lie. I had a pretty good idea of how I’d wanted it to go. Oh, Gallix, she should have said. I’ve been brought here against my will! Please—I don’t want to be a surrogate! I need a real warrior to breed me and love me and keep me safe, not some terrible cowardly lord!
Now, Eve, I would have said. You barely know me. But of course, I’ll keep you safe.
Cue two weeks of stolen glances and tender touches while Ronan and I decided what the hell to do with the tragic yet advantageous position we’d been put in, until one night, Eve slipped into my room with need in her eyes, wearing nothing but a smile…
“Dammit,” I swore beneath my breath as I made my way out of the cockpit.
There was something suspicious going on with these females we’d been entrusted with. We’d reckoned that from the start, of course, but that last-minute switch between Lily and Marisa had all but confirmed it for me. But whatever it was, Eve wasn’t saying. Either she didn’t know, she didn’t want to say… or maybe, she really did want to be here.
Maybe she just didn’t care.
The ship was quiet now that it was night here. Silent and still. The humans would have eaten before the hand-off, as had the rest of us, so the canteen was empty. I pressed an ear to the door of the communal showers to make sure it was empty as well, then stepped inside to wash before bed.
