by Rena Marks
He shrugged. “It wasss an extra.”
“I want to go back. Take me to Cadoc.” She demanded.
“Cadoc? I rescued you from him.”
“What of the others? For us?” One of the aliens hissed.
“Silence, you fool!” Draconis spat.
The room went quiet in the face of his rage.
“I don’t want to be rescued,” she enunciated clearly. “I want Cadoc. I choose Cadoc.”
“Well, little arm-candy, you don’t get to choose. Not anymore. You gave up that right when you left the bride ship.” He leaned in close, so close she could see his strange tongue forking in and out of his mouth to form words. “You see, I bought you, Violet. And my money’s not going to waste.”
“How the hell could you buy me? I’m not for sale.”
“On the contrary, my dear.” A familiar voice came from behind her, and she whirled around to see her ex had approached the open door.
“Joshua? What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? You left me, Violet. Alone and without money. What did you think I was going to do?”
“Get a job like a normal human being?”
“Job? After you pampered me with all that money?” The greedy look in his eyes disgusted her. How could she ever have thought his gentle demeanor was attractive? His blond hair looked like it was thinning compared to Cadoc’s thick, black strands. Joshua’s tall frame that she once considered lanky was so unsexy compared to the musculature that was Cadoc. In fact, now that he was dressed in a uniform designed for active space travel, he looked an awful lot like Mr. Fred Rogers, a children’s program still being played on public television this many centuries later.
“How in the world can an individual sell another?” Her tone was baffled as her eyes swept the room to encompass all of the men on the ship. A few she’d recognized from the dinner.
Draconis looked accusingly at Joshua. “Joshua guaranteed that you would pick me. When you did not, we took matters into our own hands.”
“So does he get paid?”
“Of course. I’m bringing them the others,” Joshua said.
“The other girls don’t get a choice either? This is kidnapping.”
“How will anyone find out?” Draconis smiled, then calmly reached up and removed his teeth. First the upper set of dentures, then the lower. “Ahh, that feelsss so much better.”
His face looked different without the structure of teeth. His lower jaw seemed softer and rounded, his lips appeared shapeless. Her belly rolled. He was suddenly not so handsome at all.
“You see, Vi,” Joshua said. “No one will be the wiser. All the ladies will be with you on their planet, breeding and cooking and cleaning and loving your new lives, and the Docadian ship will be blown up during a civil war with their own planetary species, the Berserkers. They’ll never find the human bodies. No one will ever think to look for you.” He chuckled.
“You’re all crazy.”
Joshua looked at his watch. “I need to get going before I’m missed. Let’s hurry and make our demands for Violet’s ransom again,” he said to Draconis.
Again?
“Lock her up,” Draconis hissed, and his men immediately stepped in to surround her. Her upper arms were gripped in an iron vice, and she was dragged from the room through the door where Joshua had arrived.
The four men snickered as they hauled her down the hall, her struggles futile. They held her as easily as they would a rag doll. In another room the lights were dimmed, and a cage sat in the center of the room. One of the serpent demons unlocked the door to the cage, and the guy on her right pulled her to him, mashing her breasts against his chest. He rubbed her up and down his body, allowing her to feel the bulge of desire he had for her.
The other two watching snickered. “Shall we sample her charms? Draconis won’t mind. She’ll be shared once she produces at least one seed for him anyway. We can keep her from getting fertilized by using that pretty mouth instead of her cunt.”
“Don’t,” the one unlocking the door said, looking back over his shoulder. “Draconis has other plans he’s going to bring up with Joshua.”
“What plansss?” The alien rubbing his erection on her sounded pissed.
“He wants to trick the Docadian into getting locked up with her. We’ll force them to breed, and then he’ll kill her.”
“What? Why would we breed her with him after stealing her from him?”
The first alien turned around, holding the cage door open. He rolled his eyes at the one speaking. “Do you never look at the whole picture? Did you not see how he can sneak weapons anywhere by having the ability to imprint them on his skin? Imagine what we can do with that technology. We can’t kidnap a full grown Docadian without causing war, but we can breed one to study and experiment on. The humans are going to blame Joshua for blowing up the Docadian ship anyway.” He snickered.
The alien holding her threw her into the cage, laughing when she fell to the floor and banged her cheek. Pain erupted, flaring across her entire face. It immediately swelled.
“Get used to that. I have a feeling you’ll be a mouthy one, and will need to be broken when we’re home.”
The four of them turned and shut off the light, leaving her in the dark.
As the adrenaline left her limbs, she realized her cheek throbbed. It wasn’t as dark in the room as she originally thought, there was a soft glow coming from an area near the wall. A nightlight, maybe.
Just like Jilly had said, Joshua was working with Draconis. They wanted a DNA experiment using her baby, hers and Cadoc’s.
A baby. A real, live baby. They’d keep her imprisoned until she gave birth. Surely Cadoc wouldn’t allow himself to get locked up. No, he was a warrior. He knew better than that. Of course, love did strange things to people. Did he love her? Like…the realization hit her like a ton of bricks. Like she loved him. Good goddess, it was never just great sex. She loved him from the first moment she looked into those tiger-eyes.
He’d made her choke earlier, spewing her drink. She tried to pass it off as being shocked at being asked how she felt about offspring—and that alone was shocking, no doubt—but it was what else he’d said. He’d called her my love. He’d said it so casually, as if he knew something she didn’t. Was it his way of priming her? To let her know that he did love her?
For a second, she forgot where she was, locked inside a cage with a throbbing face. A giddy, schoolgirl feeling fluttered in her stomach.
Was Cadoc going to confess his love soon?
Then the delightful feeling smashed as she realized she may never hear those words from him. Just as she’d never told him how much he meant to her.
* * * * *
Before Cadoc left his own galaxy, Talpin interrupted his dark musings.
“Cadoc. We’re being hailed.”
“What? Open frequency.”
“Wait.” The voice of Jilly interrupted. “Let me put a trace on their transmission first.”
Cadoc clenched his fists while he waited a few seconds.
“Okay, Tally. Open up.” Talpin gritted his teeth at the nickname before pushing a button.
An image flared across the screen. What the hell? It was the human aboard the bride ship, the one Violet had called her ex. But the metadata scrolling across the image, clearly the compliments of Jilly’s trace, specifically pointed out it was a Leanthrilian vessel. Damned serpent demons. Not much was known about them, except that they were sneaky as hell. They banded together as a race, and were loyal to one another. It was nearly impossible to break that loyalty. That little tidbit was in the manual.
“Greetings, Docadians.” The slick face of Violet’s lover turned Cadoc’s stomach. “I am Joshua Seatra working with Sergeant Durant in retrieving our humans.”
Talpin turned from the screen to look confusedly at Cadoc. Apparently, Joshua Seatra—the backstabbing human—didn’t realize they could tell he was transmitting from the serpent vessel.
“What can we do for you?” Cadoc’s voice mocked in a polite tone.
“As I stated, we’d like the return of the fifteen human females you have aboard.”
“Minus one, since you have taken Violet Knight.”
Joshua widened his eyes and gasped. “What? Violet is not on board your vessel?”
“Cut the shit, human. You know good and well you have stolen her.”
All pretense gone, Joshua showed his true colors. “She is not stolen, caveman. She is safe. We want the others.”
“I want Violet,” Cadoc snarled. “Or I’ll rip you limb from limb.”
Joshua tsked. “That comment just earned her a slap across the face.”
“Don’t you touch her!”
“Silence! The mouthier you are, the more I can hear her cries from here.”
A few seconds ticked by.
Cadoc forced himself to calm. “I want to see her to make sure she’s safe.”
“Very tricky. But we know about those crazy little tattoos you all have. I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you the coordinates for the cage she’s being kept in. You can check in on her yourself—from inside the cage. Then, as long as your ship stays away from ours, we’ll make a trade. Your freedom…for the rest of the humans.”
“Lock myself on your ship? Without proof that she’s even alive?”
“You want proof?” Joshua snarled. “Look at this.”
The screen with his image switched, showing Violet huddled in a cage. The room was dark and a dim light showed her pale face, bruising on the side of her cheek.
“I’ll send the coordinates and give you a half hour to decide if you want to visit her. You can make the decision together about who you want to save, yourselves or the rest of the human mongrels that no one will miss.”
With a blink, the screen turned black.
“Transmission ended,” Talpin said.
“Jilly, did you record that?” Cadoc asked.
“I did, sir.”
“Good. Lock onto the coordinates.”
“You can’t mean to go?” Talpin’s voice was aghast. “It’s a trick. They’ll keep you both.”
“Yes. But in the meantime, I’m going to record a message for the Berserkers, telling them how they’ve been tricked by an outside source. Contact Roxian, the head of the Calabrians, and bring him aboard for Josie. We’ll show him this transmission of the human Joshua, and the metadata that shows he’s on board the same ship as the Leanthrils. They may have Earth’s ear, but we’ll have everyone else.”
“Whew, slick move, Cad-cock. Now I know why you stir Violet’s loins so.” The breathy voice of Jilly said.
Cadoc sighed. “Would you mind just getting all the humans in here so we can explain what’s happening?”
“If I can draw that Honeysuckle one out of her room. She’s sobbing that you made her look butch.”
“I do not even know what that means.”
“It’s an old Earth saying for a female who prefers females.”
“Does she?”
“I do not believe so. Otherwise she would not be willing to join a mail order bride ship.”
One of his men let out a long, relieved exhale. “Whew.”
Cadoc turned his head to him. “You are interested in Suckle?”
“Yes.” The nautical engineer’s muscles bulged as he shook his head vigorously. “She suckles very well.”
“Fine. You go cajole her out of her room. I do not think she will take kindly to Jilly calling her butch.”
“I just suggested she cut it into a slightly different style to keep from looking that way. Not that there’s anything wrong with the look, but I know she’s looking for a man. My databases have a lot of Earth history…”
Cadoc held up a hand. “Please. Just go round everyone up.”
* * * * *
One second she was curled into a ball with a tattered old blanket, wondering if this was how she felt when she was kidnapped at three, and the next second a magnificent form that she never thought to see again materialized.
“Cadoc,” she whispered in a horrified tone. “No! Get back to your ship. It’s a trick.”
He hauled her up from the cold floor, pressing her against his warm body. He felt so good, she couldn’t help but curl up against his intense body heat. “Hush. I cannot. They disabled my frequency as soon as I materialized here.”
“No, Cadoc,” she moaned. “They’re never going to let us free. They plan to breed us and experiment on the baby. They want the tattoo technology so they can travel with their own secret weapons.”
He breathed against her hair. “You still smell like flowers,” he murmured. “Shh, my love. It’ll be fine. We’ll get out of this.”
Her stomach flipped. He did it again, calling her my love. But before she could respond, he tipped her face up with a finger at her chin.
“Who struck you?”
“One of the guards threw me into the cage and laughed when I hit myself.”
“He won’t laugh long. He will learn never to touch you.”
Violet shivered, remembering the feel of the alien rubbing up against her body.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly. She didn’t want him to get riled up when they were at a huge disadvantage here. Being caged wasn’t exactly the best scenario to hope for.
“How are the other girls?” Violet asked, running her hands over his chest to make sure he was healthy.
“Honeysuckle was complaining that I lopped off her hair. Dahlia undraped herself from Talpin long enough to snap at her that the purple hair was breaking with color damage and needed a haircut anyway. Surprisingly, Honeysuckle agreed.”
Violet smiled. “Honeysuckle’s real name is Jacey. She’s a bit of a tomboy. Probably wore extensions to snag a man on the bride ship.”
“We cannot keep straight which names are real and which were the nicknames.”
“I know,” she soothed. “It doesn’t matter, as long as they’re fine.”
“I need to know that you are.” Without waiting for a response, he dropped his face to hers. The touch of his lips were soft at first, but then they pressed more insistently. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him back with everything she had.
Breathing hard, he pulled away. “Violet, what you do to me,” he whispered.
“Getting a head start?” The door opened with barely a buzz, and Draconis stepped into the room. Behind him followed four of the men from earlier, the ones who had locked her up.
“You’re awfully brave from the other side of that cage,” Cadoc snarled.
“And you’re about as dumb as Joshua said,” Draconis sneered. “Throwing away your freedom for a girl.”
“What?” Cadoc’s voice sounded mocking. “You’re not going to set me free?”
“No. But we will give you a choice. You can do what we request, which is knock up your little girlfriend there. Or, we’ll allow you to watch as we rape her and see who impregnates her first. You see, our planet needs women. Our DNA is different than most in that males take after their fathers, while females will take after the mother. So if she has a girl, it’ll be human, and only good for breeding. But a boy, a son to take over…that is every man’s dream, isn’t it?”
“So why do you want my son? You shooting blanks?” Cadoc winked conspiratorially.
“Of coursssse not, you idiot! I want your ssson to study how the DNA works with the weaponry. Once we extract that portion of the DNA, we’ll add it to her male embryos once they’re fertilized. Our next generation will be a built-in army.”
“Not even an army will save you from me.” Cadoc’s voice sent a shiver up her spine.
“Yet you’re helpless and caged, while I have your girl at my mercy. Let me share with you a little something. When you’re long dead and buried, and she’s useless, all the child-bearing years wrung from her, when she’s too tired to be an effective slave, then…she won’t even be buried next to you. Because after al
l that, she’ll be food.”
The way he said it was curious, and as Violet watched, Draconis leaned back his head and allowed his jaw to separate. The top half of his head swung open, creating a huge mouth that would fit…her. Terror filled her, and she gasped.
Then he closed his ample mouth, locked his jaws with a pop, and smiled.
“Is that all you got?” Cadoc asked, bored. “I can understand you avoiding hand to hand combat with me. I’d rip that head off your body.”
“How dare you ssspeak that way to me?” Draconis hissed. He turned to his men. “Release her. He can watch the action as we warm her up for him.”
Violet’s heart was racing a mile a minute. Cadoc didn’t seem to be worried, and she did wish he’d stop egging them on.
“You,” the alien who’d thrown her into the cage earlier sneered to Cadoc, “get up against the back wall, or she’ll be shot.” He aimed his laser directly at her.
Cadoc moved back.
“Now you,” the alien said to Violet. “Step forward to the gate.”
She did as he requested, barely breathing, afraid he’d pull the trigger on the gun.
Chapter Ten
“Cadoc.”
Cadoc heard her frightened whisper and his insides seethed. She was close enough he could touch her, but he refrained, for now. Outwardly he remained the epitome of calm. All he needed was one second of distraction. At the right exact moment. Cadoc was a master of timing. He was a warrior after all.
Draconis had his gaze centered onto Cadoc, until Violet whimpered as the snake with the laser stepped forward to unlock the cage. A small black device was inserted into the key hole. A click followed. Cadoc could smell the tension in the air.
“Stop,” Cadoc said. No one moved. “Tell me, Violet, who put the mark on your cheek?”
“That one.” She indicated the one holding the weapon poised at her.
Cadoc centered his gaze onto the snake. “I’ll hear you scream.”
The snake in question paled, then went red.
“Put your hands where I can sssee them,” Draconis snapped to Cadoc.
“Certainly.”
Cadoc placed his hands onto Violet’s shoulders and cocked a grin at Draconis who fumed. Draconis raged at him to drop his hands and he knew damned well what was expected. Cadoc refrained from lifting his lips into a large smile as he splayed his hands before him. Violet gazed back at him. Her fear almost made him take action, but he waited.
