“What are you talking about?”
“Come now, there are so many things here that could go wrong. The young adult fiction bookshelves could be knocked over. The adult warnings could be taken off the romance novels. Someone could accidentally put an ‘O’ into the accounting spreadsheet again instead of a zero. Surely nothing that would permanently damage the library, but they certainly would make your day much more shit than it need be.”
“Language, Tilde.”
“Apologies, Reina.”
I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly. Trust my silly, loving coworkers to try to blackmail/strong arm me into going home.
But as much as I wanted to resist, and as terrified as I was to return there, I couldn’t resist the sleep burrowing into every fiber of my being. I needed to be someplace warm and familiar where I could curl up and not have to worry for a while.
“Fine,” I said, grabbing my purse and standing carefully. “I’m heading home. But only because I want to. Not because I’m scared of cleaning up a little mess.”
“That is a good choice, miss. You are very responsible individual.”
I would have normally had a much snappier reply, but normally I wasn’t nearly intoxicated with sleepiness. I somehow maintained my composure as I walked out of the library, waving as I went, and then on the bus as I sat in my seat, patiently waiting to reach my stop.
But the moment I was inside of my apartment, I practically melted into the floor. Nothing felt more comfortable than the thin rug on her floor, the smell of coffee still rife in the air. A part of me wanted to make it to my bed, but another part of me knew that it didn’t matter because I was going to be deposited there by a strange man anyways.
The last of my thoughts before I slept drifted to Gabriel. There was now absolutely no doubt in my mind that he was real, as were my experience in whatever place I was being taken too. I could only hope that I could trust him, and the mysterious sphere that had melted into my hands. Otherwise, I was very, very alone in a world that suddenly didn’t make sense.
I supposed I wouldn’t find any answers while I was still conscious and in whatever reality it was I normally lived in, so I closed my eyes, and let myself fall.
Chapter Eight
I woke up in the same room I always had, but this time my clothes weren’t changed. Groaning, I sat up and tried to get my bearings. I was alone, for the moment, but that didn’t mean much as I usually was when I woke up and then one of two men would join me later. Gabriel, or-
As if on cue, the door at the end of the room slid open and the blond man -the first one I had encountered- stepped in. He was even taller than I remembered, and still looked as if he was chiseled from flesh colored stone.
Unlike before, he wasn’t dressed in highly artificial pants and pants only. Instead, he was wearing some sort of elaborate, almost royal robe.
“Come,” He said, offering me his large hand.
I looked from his hand to his face to his hand again before tentatively taking it. His strong fingers wrapped around my slender ones, and then he was leading me out of the room. It was the first time I had ever seen beyond the four walls and my heart started to pick up speed.
However, I didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t say I was scared of him exactly, but that something in my body was warning me that he wasn’t someone I could trust. And after everything that had happened lately, I was definitely going to trust my instincts.
We kept going through several dark, twisting hallways that looked like they belonged in some sort of very high-tech ship. My mind proposed all sorts of theories, but I kept them at bay until I got some real answers. Spending too much energy on them now would just be a waste of energy, and something was telling me that I needed to conserve as much as I could.
Finally, the tall, blond man lead me into a richly decorated room. The walls were covered in lush, elaborate tapestries that displayed art unlike anything that I had ever seen before. It was amazing, if not completely intimidating.
As my eyes scanned the room I noted the far wall was bare of any art, containing only what looked like shuttered metal not unlike what one would see sealing off a storefront after hours. Of course this version looked much thicker and stronger, but the resemblance was uncanny.
The blond man snapped his fingers on his free hand and suddenly that slatted wall began to retract into itself, rising bar by bar until finally a massive window was revealed. But the window wasn’t nearly as impressive as the sight it revealed.
“Oh my God…” I breathed, looking out into the vast expanse of space.
It was beautiful, truly beautiful. Stars winked at me in the distance, brighter than I had ever seen them, and the moon looked so large and pitted. Then, the main attraction of the view: Earth.
It hung there, an invisibly tethered ball in the vastness of space. Life seemed to radiate from it, glowing like a globe encompassing halo. I supposed that was actually the atmosphere, but I liked my simile for it better.
“I knew it!” I cried, giddiness rising up in me as I forgot myself for a moment. “Aliens! It’s aliens!” I turned to the blond man and laughed. “You’re an alien!”
“Yes, that is the word your people have for me, but I prefer to be called Adriel. King Adriel to those that do not know me as you do.”
“King, huh?” Suddenly the elation I had felt ebbed as I realized that all those crazy abduction stories I had read could be real. Those people who I had thought were insane and nothing like me… well, it looked like they could be exactly like me.
Which meant that this beautiful, striking man before me, the one who had ravished me so thoroughly, was probably just as dangerous as I had worried.
“What do you want with me?” I asked. “Why have you been kidnapping me?”
“Kidnap you?” He repeated, sounding hurt. “I apologize deeply if you think I meant you any harm, but I assure you that was not my intent.”
“You’ve been forcing me to fall asleep and taking me out of my bed every night? How could that be anything but!?”
Suddenly he was kneeling before me, taking both of my hands in his. “Darling Reina, is that not what a man and woman do when they are in love?”
I sputtered, completely gob smacked for a solid few seconds. “You love me?”
“Of course. I have traveled the universe, covering vast expanses of space, and I have never seen one such as you. You are truly beautiful, and passionate, and words that I cannot even describe.” His words were so sweet but they seemed like a false flattery said by too slick an actor. I may have not been the most social of butterflies, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t read people -or aliens, I guessed.
“I apologize that maybe I did not go about this the best of ways, but I want you to come with me Reina. Travel the stars as my Queen. You will never know want, or hunger. Your life will be long and privileged. Anything you could possibly desire will be in the palm of your hand.”
I tried not to look suspicious, but it was so hard. There was a phrase ‘too good to be true’ and it was coming to mind quite strongly at the moment. “And what is the price for such a gift?”
“Price? Who said anything of a price. I simply ask that one day you love me as I love you. You lay with me and let you worship your body as you deserve. That you bare my children until we are old and tired.”
I was practically screaming inside but I forced myself to remain utterly still.
The man, Adriel apparently, stood once more. He seemed to take my silence as some sort of positive because he leaned forward towards me.
Oh goodness no, was… was he trying to kiss me?! There was a tie and the place and this was neither.
Abruptly all of my cool was gone. There was only so much a girl could take in one day after all. I reared back, ripping myself out of his grip and pressed down into my palm.
The result was almost instantaneous. Something clicked within me, almost like a button, and then a cloud of grey burst from my hand.
I was kn
ocked back by the sheer force of it, and suddenly that grey divided into hundreds of thousands little flying particles that swarmed the blond man.
“Nanobots?!” He screamed, stumbling back. “What the hell is this?”
I tried to answer him, tried to come up with some sort of explanation or witty comeback, but I could only watch in a strange mix of horror and surprise as he was pushed this way and that by the virulent cloud.
His screams were pretty satisfying considering how much terror he had put me through, but I couldn’t exactly revel in his discomfort for long. Whatever those things were that Gabriel had put into me were obviously meant to get me away from Adriel.
Unfortunately, I was still trapped in the room with him.
I struggled to my feet, adrenaline coursing through my body. I looked around, trying to find the door we came through only to see solid wall. Just when I was sure that there was no way out, a section of the wall blew, raining bits of debris down on the two of us. I threw up my arms to shield myself from the worst of it, and when the onslaught seemed to clear, I looked up to see Gabriel standing in the newly formed exit.
“Come with me!” He cried, extending his hand to me.
This time, I didn’t hesitate before I took it.
Chapter Nine
Gabriel practically yanked me from the room, pulling me into a sprint down another long set of corridors. As we ran, an ear-splitting alarm began to sound off, blue lights flashing every few seconds.
“What is happening?” I cried, trying to cover at least one of my ears with my free hand.
“I set the ship to self-destruct.”
“Self-destruct!?!” I echoed, only several decibels higher. “You do realize we are on said ship that is about to blow into a million pieces, and I would very much like to not be blown into a million pieces!”
“I am aware. That is why we’re running to the escape vessel I have been secretly preparing behind Adriel’s back. But we must hurry. Those nanites will not distract him for much longer and he will be very angry that I have stolen his latest breeding host.”
“Breeding host? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I will explain later. But first, we must run faster!”
I didn’t think it was possible, but he did indeed pick up the pace, forcing me to increase my strides as he pulled me along.
We turned down goodness knows how many corridors until we finally reached what looked like some super high-tech version of an elevator. We ran in, the doors sliding shut soundlessly behind us, then Gabriel ripped out what I was guessing was a control panel and started rearranging the crystals inside.
I watched, utterly fascinated, as he finished whatever sci-fi hotwire he was attempting and the ellipsis shaped capsule rocketed downwards.
Just when I thought we were done, something slammed into the side of the lift that we were in, knocking me into the far wall. Before I could even formulate a question, a fist punched its way through the transparent partition, reaching for me.
David reacted without hesitation, grabbing the arm then yanking on it several times, forcing Adriel’s face to slam into the outside of the elevator repeatedly.
But the blond man didn’t look like he was going to give up. The material began to buckle under his other hand, so I did the only thing I could do: I grabbed one of the spare crystals that Gabriel had out of the elevator console and stabbed it through the wall and into his palm.
He let out a cry and reared back, but that just caused him to lose his grip entirely. Mouth open, I watched him fall down into the depths.
“You…” Gabriel breathed. “Are amazing.”
“I try.” I gasped, a bit shocked at what I had done. “Now how about getting the hell out of here?”
“Right.”
Finally, the elevator lurched to a stop and the doors slid open, only sparking slightly. Then we were running again and didn’t stop until we reached what looked like a ship docking bay pulled from any Hollywood space opera.
“This way,” Gabriel said, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards our destination.
We continued to race off, dodging between massive machines that I couldn’t begin to comprehend. They didn’t look like ships, but they didn’t look like much of anything else either.
Finally, when I was sure my lungs were going to burst from my chest, we reached what was definitely a small little flyer. Gabriel hit something on the technological looking bracelet he had and a hatch on the side slide open. I didn’t need him to tell me to jump in, and I quickly buckled myself into the of the seats.
“Hold on,” Gabriel ordered, sliding into the pilot’s chair across from me pressing what looked like a million and one inputs on the dash.
Greetings, Captain. A mechanical voice sounded all around us, nearly making me jump out of my skin. You have ten seconds until the self-destruct program you initiated with consume this ship in its entirety.
“I am well aware. Set a course for Earth, as fast as possible.
Of course, Captain.
The ship started to rattle and the engines to hum.
Lead Ship self-destruct in nine seconds.
“Hold on!” Gabriel ordered.
I had a snappy retort, but it quickly vanished as we suddenly hurtled downward. It was like the most intense rollercoaster I had ever been on, if only for the fact that it wasn’t actually a rollercoaster. My stomach in my throat, I was sure this was how I died when suddenly we came to a gentle stop in the dead of space.
Looking up, I saw a truly massive work of metal and chrome above me. It would have been impressive, if it wasn’t the place where I had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted.
Eight Seconds.
Gabriel hit another series on controls and then we were shooting forward.
“Computer, estimated clear time from blast.”
Seven Seconds.
“Estimated time until blast.”
Sev- Six Seconds.
“Dammit!” He pressed on some sort of hand control and I could feel my very bones accelerate.
Five seconds.
Suddenly Gabriel was looking to me, kind eyes layered with guilt. “I’m going to get you home.” He growled. “If it’s the last thing I do.”
I don’t know what compelled me, but I fought against the inertia holding me in place and reached out for him, placing my hand over his. “It won’t be.”
His smile was almost imperceptible, but I caught it as he returned to the help.
Three seconds.
“This is going to be close!”
Two seconds.
I didn’t think it was possible, but I gripped his hand and the arm rest even tighter.
One second.
Detonation.
Nothing could have prepared me for the space-shattering, concussive blasts that rocked the massive ship above us. Craning my neck around, I saw an insane myriad of colored flames erupt from the center of the vessel. Flames that were coming right towards us!
“This thing better go faster!” I cried.
Gabriel said nothing, but I could see the intense concentration on his face as we flew forward. The wall of combustion grew closer and closer, and I was sure we were dead. But instead of dying in a fiery blaze, we pulled past it, shaking like a bottle rocket the entire time until finally, we were out of it and floating gently through space once more.
“Oh my God!” I half laughed, half cried. “We did it! We’re alive.”
“I promised you I would get you home.”
“Yes, you did.” I admitted. “And now, you’re going to answer all of my questions. Who the hell are you? Why the hell did you guys want me? What did you do to me?!”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Only one at a time, please.”
“No.” I said, steel in my voice despite how drawn to him I was, especially with all that adrenaline pumping through my system. “You’ll answer all of them and now.”
“Alright.” He shifted in his seat so he could look a
t me comfortably. “My people, my species, is called the Uriel. We live for many of your Earth years, and spend most of our time fulfilling a particular quirk of our species.”
“And what quirk is that?”
“There is no Uriel version of a female. I don’t know whether this is due to evolution or some terrible calamity, but either way, my people has to breed with other species to survive. Normally, this is a peaceful process. We find suitable specimens, test that they are healthy and then remove only a couple of their viable eggs. The mother is none the wiser and wakes up with no difference in her biology other than being a little more well rested.”
“But that’s not what happened with me.”
“No. Unfortunately you caught the eye of Adriel, the leader of what we call the Riders. They travel non-space faring areas of the universe and collect women wherever they go. Instead of extracting the eggs as my people usually do, they prefer to have sex with their captive until fertlization takes place, from there they kill the mother and place the zygote in a birthing chamber.
You see, although they see every other species as breeding stock, they don’t believe that any are worthy of living with the Uriel. It’s supremacy at its peak, and it sickens me.”
“Then what was with him telling me he was a kind and promising me so much? Why woo me if he was just going to kill me?” I felt my mind race in a million different directions at this revelation. “None of this makes sense.”
“Your medical tests came back with an extremely high likelihood for twins. Not only would you need more gestational times before your progeny were old enough to be removed and placed into a birthing chamber, but someone such as you are a crowning jewel to an Uriel. Double the genetic output, half the work. He most likely was planning to keep your around through at least a few batches if he could.”
“Batches? Is that what your people call them?”
“Apologies. Perhaps much of what we do is easier when we use more clinical terms.”
Taken Hostage Page 7
