“Gael, may I ask you something?” J hesitated, wondering if it was fine to trust Gael a little.
“Of course, you may ask me anything as long it is in my capacity to answer.” Gael placed down the spare blankets he was holding, and sat beside her on her allocated pod.
“I don’t exactly understand how a mating works.” Her hand crept to her bandaged neck. Remembering Brale and Dyos’s heated mouth on her flesh made her cheeks flush slightly. “Is this mark somehow influencing my … heart and the way I’m feeling?”
J felt ridiculous for asking, but after Farr’s repeated assertions she was reacting this way because of the mark, she needed to know if her feelings for Brale and Dyos were genuine.
“Farr would disapprove of me telling you this, but I detest lying, even if it is needed to turn you against your two pirates.” Gael let out a heavy sigh and finally looked at her, his gaze heavy with an emotion J couldn’t place.
“A successful mating mark can only be made with the full consent of the parties involved. The mind may be influenced and moved by modern drugs, but I like to believe the heart is the stronger muscle.”
Gael ran his hand slowly up her thigh. J wasn’t sure why she suddenly felt wary of Gael. She backed away, but there was nothing to back away against. The pod was meant to fit one.
J could try to fight and run, but she was no match against a well-trained warrior. Besides, even if she got past Gael, where would she run? Nowhere. She was in space and stuck inside a cruiser filled with Hadarian warriors.
“By mating you and placing their mark, they made you untouchable. In our culture and religion, a mating is considered a sharing of hearts and souls. It goes against our precepts to take what already belongs to other men. That is why Farr and the rest of us cannot take you immediately, but there are ways to dissolve that taint.” One large hand fastened across her wrist like a heavy shackle. “If you happen to conveniently forget you are mated in the first place, the ties between you and that filth would slowly disappear. Tell me, J. Is your heart stronger than your mind?”
J squirmed, but Gael easily shoved her small frame against the wall of the pod. “Don’t make this harder for me, J. Since the others couldn’t stomach such a despicable act, it falls to me.”
His free hand disappeared into the pocket of his flight suit, and reappeared with a syringe loaded with a clear and transparent fluid.
“What is that? Why are you doing this, Gael?” J whispered. Her eyes trained on the needle. Old fears resurfaced. J had never liked needles, but they were unavoidable when one was raised in a lab.
“This will not hurt, J. It is only a memory serum, and it will wipe away all your unpleasant memories of twenty-four hours before,” insisted the hard-eyed warrior.
“Don’t do this, Gael. Please,” J pleaded. She clawed and kicked at him, but it was like fighting against a living, breathing wall of muscle.
“Our race is dying. To survive, one must be ready to do even the most evil deeds,” Gael said sadly, as if that was sufficient explanation. Without warning, he slid the needle into the side of the neck.
J only stared at Gael’s sorrowful expression, feeling numb. Time moved sluggishly. Her tense muscles began slacking, and her heartbeats began to slow.
Why had she fought so hard, when it was easier to yield?
The image of her two pirates, once clear and vivid in her mind, began fading away, like a far memory. It seemed important she remember them, but the more she tried grasping at the memory, the more it hurt. J couldn’t even remember their names anymore.
The giant Hadarian warrior, Gael, she remembered fuzzily, helped her lie down on the pod and pulled the covers over her shivering frame.
“The hardest part is over, J. My crew and I will take good care of you. We will treat you like our princess. Now sleep.”
He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead as if she was a child, hand stroking her cheek.
“Okay. Sounds nice,” J agreed, settling herself against the pillows.
Gael was absolutely right. After spending her entire life in a cell, wasn’t this all she wanted, to see the world outside her prison? Wasn’t J living the ultimate dream, being fawned on and revered by an entire Hadarian crew? Why did her insides feel so twisted?
She suddenly felt so tired. Perhaps she’d feel much better after a long nap.
Chapter Six
Dyos leaned his forehead tiredly against the reinforced glass walls of his cell. How long had they been here, days, weeks perhaps? Knowing their impossibly sweet J was in the hands of Farr galled him. It drove him practically insane. Brale had confidently said Farr wouldn’t dare touch her, but Dyos wasn’t very sure.
His mind kept returning to the transport vessel where they’d first encountered Farr. With the serious modern weaponry Farr touted, it had been clear to Dyos that Farr didn’t mind breaking a few ancient traditions.
There was something in the Hadarian commander’s eyes he didn’t like. Beyond the mantle of honor and Hadarian nobility he projected, there was a lean, almost hungry kind of desperation lingering there.
Desperate men were the sort Dyos feared the most, because when pushed to the edge they became dangerous and unpredictable.
In the second cell next to him, Dyos gazed at his mate. Since the glass separating each holding cubicle was transparent, he had a full view of what Brale was doing. Brale was dozing at the opposite end, hands behind his neck. He looked far too relaxed for Dyos’s liking, as if he had all the time in the world.
Dyos punched one battered fist into the glass, wincing at the sting. Still no reaction from Brale for what must be the hundredth time. Just perfect.
“Fuck you, Brale,” he hissed, even though he knew Brale couldn’t hear him. Dyos slumped into the wall, holding onto his hand.
Closing his eyes, Dyos was about to doze off when his ears caught excited voices from the outside corridor leading to cells. Had the crew changed rotation? Farr didn’t leave anything to chance. He always made sure to post two warriors to watch them.
Catching snippets of the conversation at first, Dyos tuned out everything else to listen.
“Indeed,” a deep voice was saying. “His high—I mean the commander is pleased to be returning home after years of being in space.”
“Were you all on a long-term mission?” The sound of J’s curious voice froze Dyos. The last time they saw her, she was being led away by Farr in abject protest.
“I am afraid that is confidential information we cannot share even with you, J. Not until we have mated you,” said a second warrior’s voice.
“I see. Sorry, I’m just excited to see Planet Hadar after all the heroic tales you all told me.” J hesitated. “Gael, what is Farr waiting for? Am I … not good enough?”
There were immediate protests at this.
“Not at all, our lovely J. Farr is very rooted in our traditional ways, you see. He intends to present you to our temple high priests and make our mating official in the eyes of witnesses.”
“Like a marriage?”
Hearing J’s hopeful voice, Dyos’s heart lurched painfully in his chest. So. She did eventually change her mind about being their third.
“I can’t blame her, and I have no right to be angry,” Dyos whispered to himself. “It’s selfish thinking she’d loyally stay by Brale’s and my side when Farr can promise her a sheltered and comfortable life.”
What could two pirates like them offer a treasure like J anyway? A life filled with danger, with no guarantees, and constantly being on the run from the galactic law? Dyos let out a dry laugh. Gods, it unexpectedly hurt, though.
“I’ve never been here, and I’ve been everywhere on the ship,” J was saying.
“J, wait, do not go in there,” a voice warned, but the double doors leading to the prison hissed open.
Hearing her voice was one thing, but seeing her in the flesh felt like he’d taken several blows in the gut. The borrowed flight suit she wore was three, maybe four sizes, too b
ig for her, but it miserably failed to hide her soft curves.
Aside from them, the other two containment cells were empty, so her curious gaze instantly went to them.
“J,” Dyos said hoarsely.
There was no recognition in her face, just confusion.
Her eyes lingered on Brale’s sleeping figure, and then she moved to the front of Dyos’s cell. There was a curse from the two warriors, but they ignored them. J pressed one hand against the glass door, and Dyos struggled to his feet to put his palm against hers.
“I don’t … do I know you?” Her face was pale, as if she was struggling to piece a puzzle.
Intense yearning speared through him. He wanted to reach out and to stroke her cheekbone. Dyos wanted nothing in the world but to comfort her, to pull her to him and inhale the scent of her, but he couldn’t. There was just one thin glass separating them, but it felt like a huge yawning chasm.
Dyos’s gaze dropped past her face and down to her neck to discover with shock that their mating marks were fading. He let out a protesting sound of disbelief. Dyos didn’t know such a thing had been possible.
“What did they do to you, J?” Dyos asked tersely.
His anger was ignited again, surging to the surface. Fuck. He was right about the bastard Farr. Dyos had heard rumors the Hadrian army had been developing a memory serum to use in their interrogation methods. He just didn’t expect to see the serum used first-hand on an innocent like J.
“How do you know my name?” she pressed.
She must have some flickers of memory left of us. Dyos leaned his head against the glass, and she mimicked the gesture like a mirror. “You know me, little one, and also the lazy Cobrini on the other cell. You belong to us, as much as we belong to you.”
J jerked back, as if she was struck.
Suddenly there was a large angry warrior grabbing her arm. “J, get back from the door. These are violent filthy criminals.”
“Gael, I—” J seemed to struggle for words. She looked like she was about to explain what just transpired, but to Dyos’s relief she closed her mouth. “I ... I’m sorry. I understand.”
J gave one last lingering look at Dyos, before allowing Gael to lead her outside. More words were exchanged, Gale’s terse explanations mingled with J’s soft compliant tone. Gritting his teeth, Dyos slumped back against the wall and found Brale staring back at him from the opposite cell.
“About time you woke up,” Dyos remarked dryly. “Or were you awake all this time?”
“It’s just as I suspected,” Brale answered, not elaborating, but Dyos him well enough to understand the calculating look in his eyes.
Taking deep breaths, Dyos calmed the anger brewing inside him. Losing his temper wasn’t going to help anyone, and he knew the Hadarians were keeping a close watch on them. They didn’t need say another word, because an ocean of understanding was exchanged between them.
Trust me, Brale’s gaze said. Trust me like you always have. Don’t lose faith. Dyos curtly nodded, feeling ashamed he’d doubted his mate, that he’d thought Brale didn’t care about their fate or J’s.
Chapter Seven
It started as a game, but it eventually evolved into a dangerous habit J couldn’t break out of. Certain most of the crew were in deep sleep in the surrounding pods, J quietly climbed out of her own pod and sneaked out of the sleeping quarters.
By now, J had memorized the rotation of the crew. At the last rotation, the equivalent of midnight on Terra, only three warriors remained awake. One stationed at the bridge to keep an eye on the controls, and two more by the holding cells. She still didn’t know why Farr wanted two guards at all times on the prisoners they were transporting, and it was clear he didn’t want to entertain her questions, so J wisely kept her mouth shut.
J walked along the corridor, her bare feet hardly making any sound. Her first stop was the communal kitchen. She fished out a flask of heady Jixas wine, a wine, Gael told her, that was made specially from a sweet violet fruit only found on their home world. Then she headed to the entrance of the holding cells. The two Hadarians on watch looked bored to death, seated on foldable steel chairs and playing cards.
“J, you know you shouldn’t be here.” Killas, being young, reckless, and eager to prove himself, was more susceptible to her charms than the other veteran warriors.
“I couldn’t sleep,” J confessed, shyly holding out the flask to him.
Killas grinned, accepting her offering, his large hand lingering slightly on her wrist. The men were allowed to give her little touches, but Farr forbade them to go any further. Fine with J. She still wasn’t sure what Farr had planned, but she could bend his little rule to her advantage.
Melas raised one scarred eyebrow. “Nightmares again?”
She nodded, biting her lip. Some part of J wondered why she was using her training for this. If Farr found out she made these unsanctioned trips several times a week, he’d cuff her to her pod when she slept. It had taken a while for the hardened and scarred Melas to trust her, but he eventually did, just like the rest.
“May I sit on your lap and watch you two play again?” J asked, pretending not to notice the visible bulge on his flight suit. He grunted, considering her request.
“What’s the harm?” Killas asked. “You can sit on my lap if you want, J.”
Melas let out a snarl and banded his arm around her waist in a possessive matter. Undaunted, J smiled and climbed on his lap. She found the crew observed some matter of cultural hierarchy. Farr was her master, so most decisions regarding her fell to him. Gael made decisions when Farr wasn’t around. In this instance, Melas outranked Killas, so she answered to him.
“What did you dream about?” Melas held his cards in one hand, while he kept his other arm around her waist.
She didn’t comment when he pressed her hard to him. Clearly, the game was no longer on his mind. His strained breathing and his erection pressed against her belly told her she was testing the limits of his control.
“The same nightmare about being chased,” she answered, lowering her gaze to his member. When she touched the raised bit of cloth, he let out a guttural sound.
“Melas … can I not ease your suffering? If I am to belong to all of you, can I not put my skills to use?” J fluttered her eyelashes and her slightly wet eyes. Melas let out a curse.
“Don’t cry, sweetling. It’s all right. You can please us soon,” Melas coaxed, stroking her hair.
Despicable. If playing to these men’s weaknesses made her feel so terrible, then why couldn’t she stop? These warriors were decent men, if not promisingly excellent lovers. Any Breeder back at the labs would be seething with jealousy at her position.
Why had it been so important to come here practically every night? Did wanting a mere glimpse of the two prisoners make her sick and flawed?
“Okay. May I remain by your side for a while, at least until I feel sleepy?” J pleaded.
He continued stroking her, like she was a small animal that needed comfort, but his touch lacked the edge she was craving. What the hell was wrong with her? Over the course of their journey, J had developed some measure of fondness for Farr and his men, but fondness didn’t translate to raw passion in the bedroom.
She knew she wouldn’t fail in her purpose and bring her new master and his men pleasure, but could they do the same?
What J wanted were men who could play her body like an instrument and who were capable of making her scream with pleasure over and over again. A restless voice inside her told her she already had, which was why she found herself wishing for those phantom hands in her dreams.
“Let her stay,” Killas suggested. “If she falls asleep again, we’ll just carry her back to her pod. Gods, Melas, would you let her sit on my lap the next time she visits?”
“I’m certain if she’s on your lap, you wouldn’t be able to contain yourself,” Mellas said, shifting her slightly so she could lay her head against his shoulder and pretend to show interest in their game.
>
Minutes passed, cards were shuffled and re-shuffled, and the two warriors shared the flask. When J felt Mellas’s grip loosen, she quickly slipped out of his lap. Mellas and Killas’s bodies slumped over the playing table, and Killas began to snore loudly. Confident the men were truly knocked out from the little drug J had slipped into the drink, she stood in front of the double doors leading to the cells.
Her heart painfully thumped against her chest. She stared at the touch pad controls. Spending enough time with Mellas and Killas made it easy to know the number combination, but did she have the courage to go in?
Often, she’d changed her mind, but not today. The doors hissed open, and she slipped through. Some cowardly part of J hoped the prisoners were asleep, but they were awake. They knelt face-to-face, their foreheads pressed to the glass, eyes closed, and their hands pressed again each other despite the glass separating them. Soft words were exchanged, words J was too far to hear.
A lump rose in her throat at the sight, accompanied by unexplainable feelings. So close and yet so far. Were they unlikely lovers? If they were, then it seemed so cruel and unfair to part them.
The healing bites on her neck hidden underneath the medical gauze tingled, and the two prisoners suddenly parted and turned their gazes eerily in unison at her.
“Don’t be afraid. The last thing we’ll do is harm you,” the Hadarian said harshly.
“Come closer, J. Have you not been paying us secret visits? Lingering outside but never coming in?” the Cobrini asked.
Deep-seated curiosity dispelled whatever fears she held. She went over and knelt in front of their cells, just between the thin partitions separating their cells. They crept closer, and J was tempted to keep her distance.
Ridiculous. What can they do to me? They’re still captives, just as much as I am. She frowned, unsure where that stray thought came from.
“How do you know my name?” J asked. More interested in knowing theirs, she continued, “What are your names?”
The Hadarian smiled faintly. “You know our names, J, even if they lie buried deep in your heart. It’s just good to see you.”
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