After what seemed an eternity of this peace-less slumber, the smooth paneling of her cell slid open with a mechanical whoosh, and the sound of heavy footsteps woke her.
She blinked her eyes open, not expecting the bright light that filtered into the darkness. It took her a moment to adjust. Her eyes squinted, and she strained to look up and see if perhaps she would finally get a glimpse of her captor, if perhaps she would see just who it was who had snatched her away. Perhaps she would learn the reason and purpose; it certainly wasn’t clear to her yet.
Standing in the doorway of her cell, was a large man. Or, she at least assumed it was a man; he had the obvious anatomy of one, but it was sometimes hard to tell when it came to aliens, and he clearly was one, if there was nothing else to indicated what he was. He must have been at least six feet tall, and was chorded in thick muscle. His skin was a strange coloring, a near shimmery, metallic blue, and from the sides of his head protruded long, pointed ears. He had a single, dark strip of hair from the front of his head going back, and his face an angular, high cheekbones and carved jaw.
He stared back at her, this tall, strange creature, clad in a black suit that conformed to his body. His eyes were light, a pale sort of green she had never seen. He was entirely otherworldly. Handsome, even, and she was quiet for a moment as she pondered that fact. She swallowed a bit, and when he said nothing, she gained her courage and spoke.
“Who are you?” she said first, gambling on if the man would even understand her at all. “What do you want with me? Why did you take me?!” Standard questions, she thought, for someone who had been captured and was now facing her captor.
The man didn’t say anything, for a moment. He merely stared back at her, his eyes narrowing as he looked her over. He stepped forward, and with every heavy fall of his footsteps, her heart echoed a nervous, pattering beat. She watched him unwaveringly as he came to her, stood over her. His form was imposing but she steeled herself. Certain he wouldn’t harm her now, if he hadn’t already? She nearly winced when he leaned over her, putting his face close to hers. He smelled strange… Earthy, almost. Natural. It pulled her strangely to him, but that pull lasted only a second, broken when he spoke to her.
“You will not speak.”
She was surprised that he spoke any Earth language, let alone in English, and that shock had her mouth agape. He seemed satisfied with her silence and smirked, nodding.
Kira watched as he stood at his full height once more, and kept her eyes on him as he moved a small distance away from her. His armed folded over his chest and his head tilted as he peered at her. Kira remained silent, waiting for him to say something before she dared speak back at him once more.
“You are mine,” he said finally. The statement sent a chill through her spine. “I have chosen you, as is my right as a warrior of Ka’thon. You will give me many sons. That is your purpose. We will be on Ka’thon soon. You will stay here until then.”
Kira didn’t even have a chance to be angry, or protest, or to even fully process the straight-forward way that he spoke to her, before he turned on her and left with little more than that.
~*~
The man didn’t return after that. The only company that Kira was left with was the dull hum of the ship, and the empty darkness that she had woken to.
She had heard of Ka’thon. It was a civilization that was… indeed different from most. Where most planets either fell on the ‘technologically advanced’ or ‘backwater’ spectrum, Ka’thon fell in the middle. Their way of life was barbaric. Men ruled, bred women like cattle, claimed territory for themselves and their clans. They were brutal in the way that they ruled, fearless and godless in their beliefs. That being said, they were also highly intelligent. Their battle ships and weaponry were vastly superior to systems with similar social practices. In that, they were ruthless beings; most systems tended to leave them to their own devices, not wishing to get involved with a race bred and born to fight, kill, breed, and repeat.
And she had just been captured by one.
Why this particular Ka’thon had chosen her, she didn’t know. But there was little that she could do about it now, when she was already on a ship bound for the planet. It would take a while before anyone noticed that she was gone in the first place, and she doubted that she would be able to just hot wire one of their cruisers and leave once she was on-planet. She knew enough, theoretically, of interstellar travel to write an essay about it, but she was woefully without practice. She could take a speeder for a wild ride on the weekend – space travel was a different story.
The thing that pressed most incessantly at her mind, then, was what the Ka’thon had told her. That she was his. That she would give him many sons. She didn’t know if the Ka’thon typically took women from other planets to breed with – though she studied many civilizations, Ka’thon was one that she less knowledge on; few had ever dared venture far enough to study its people first hand, and those that did rarely made it out alive. Her curiosity as a researcher, then, was there, but she wasn’t keen on the idea of the way she would potentially experience this ‘research.’
The tears that fell from her eyes were angry ones, hot as they ran down her face. Perhaps she wouldn’t be able to get off the planet… But certainly she could figure out a way to keep herself alive and well.
She had purpose, she decided. And it was to survive.
~*~
Kira lost track of time. There was little for her to do, or to plan, until she finally got a look of the planet Ka’thon. She slept. She woke. At some point, she realized that she was hungry, but her captor had not returned since coming in to see her, and she didn’t expect that he was going to anytime soon. He had said that they would arrive soon, but she had the feeling that her idea of soon and his were two completely different things. It was this cycle – the restless sleep and the hungry, foggy awake – that kept her company as she waited.
Her reprieve came in the form of the ship shaking, and the whoosh of her cell door sliding open once more. Kira looked up, her eyes red from the lack of decent sleep and they narrowed in suspicion. He seemed unperturbed by her discontent, and leaned against the wall. His eyes stayed on her, gaze unwavering, pondering almost. She wondered if he was as curious and wary of her as she was of him. Did he wonder what she was like as she did of him, considering the purpose that he had taken her for?
Their stalemate lasted moments, the two of them keeping their eyes on each other. The alien’s gaze was penetrating, unnerving. Kira steeled herself against the onlooking creature, and didn’t speak up.
He did instead.
“We’re descending into the atmosphere,” he said, in that rough voice. “You will accompany me to my clan. You will be silent until you’re spoken to. You will remain with me.”
Her brows furrowed then. So that was her place, then. A subservient role. She didn’t like that, not at all. She averted her eyes for a moment, thinking.
“Why?” she asked, turning her eyes back to him once more. She wanted explanation.
For a moment, she thought that he wouldn’t give it to her. His head tilted at her, and that pondering look remained on his face. He approached her, then, walking close to her. She stared up at him apprehensively as he leaned over her, and that scent that wafted off his skin tingled at her nose pleasantly once more.
She flinched when he took her face in one of his hands, but he didn’t hurt her despite the firm grip with which he held her. Warmth radiated from his fingertips, and rose an interest in her that she couldn’t quite place. A flush bloomed upon her skin, and that seemed to please him as he smirked in response.
“Because you are mine; the bond doesn’t lie.”
~*~
The bond doesn’t lie.
That was the phrase that the alien uttered to her, every time she asked him to explain to her what he meant. The bond doesn’t lie, he would say, and then go about her cell, opening panels, pressing blinking buttons, sliding his fingers over touch-pad surfaces. What
he was doing, she had no idea, but he was in no mood to tell her, that was for certain. It ate away at her curiosity – curiosity that she knew she should control, given her situation and what he had told her she was taken for – but she couldn’t help it. It was in her nature.
Perhaps it was that strange feeling that came over her when he got close to her and she could pick up his scent once more? How strange…
After a while, the creature left. With no windows in her cell, there was no way for her to see what was going on outside her bleak confines. She could feel the vibration of the ship, though, and stiffened a little when the whole thing jostled a bit.
Were they landing? Had they finally gotten to Ka’thon? What’s more… what awaited her when they departed? Her caution wove in and out of the curiosity she felt – curiosity over the man who had taken her, where they were going, the bond he claimed that they had. That one was the most persistent, and she couldn’t place it as to why. So she simply continued to lay against the slab, knowing that she would not get her answers until the alien man returned. He did so, a few moments after the strange jostling that she experienced.
“We have arrived,” he said, confirming her suspicions. “If you try to run, I will stop you.”
He didn’t need to tell her that for her to know it, but she watched him as he began to undo her bindings. He started with the ones across her chest, and arms, moving down to the binds that were at her legs. She remained perfectly still, only moving when his bare skin managed to touch hers and the warmth of him tingled against her. She wasn’t sure if the feeling of it should make her uncomfortable, but it gave the same effect as his scent did. She watched him, his movements. They were strangely fluid despite the solidness of his body and the sheer size of him.
The creature stood back when he was done, and Kira took this as a sign that she was allowed to sit up. She did so, wincing a bit; her back was stiff from how long she’d been strapped to the slab, and she rolled her neck, loosening herself up a little. With the light that was now in the cell, she could see herself reflected back at her in the surface of the black metal. Her bright red hair was a mess, and she was glad that her image was at least a little distorted in the metal. She didn’t want to know just how rough she looked, and she ran her hand through her hair a bit in an attempt to tame it.
Kira could feel the eyes of the alien on her as she did so. Despite the creeping red blush of heat that went up her neck, she chose to pretend to ignore it. She swung her legs over the side of the slab with the intention of standing on her own. The creature was at her side in an instant – did he think that she was going to run?
“I just wanted to stand up on my own.” She stepped a little away from him, and he took a step toward her. She tilted her head, silently measuring how much she was allowed to get away with. “Am I not allowed to walk?”
“Do not run,” he repeated.
“I wasn’t. I’m standing. Not running. Where am I going to run to, anyway?”
He seemed pleased by her assertion that she had, truly, nowhere to go at this point.
If she had expected the rest of the ship to be brighter than her cell, Kira would have been woefully disappointed. The hall was lined in the same black metal that her cell had been, and the only source of light came from strange, illuminated orbs that floated in the air of the hall.
She took in as much of the ship as she could, on their journey down the hall, but there was truly very little to see. All of the walls were the same smooth paneling that her cell had been. Every few feet were panels of blinking buttons, and she could only assume that there were rooms on the other side – perhaps more cells. She wondered idly how many women from other worlds had been taken and boarded on this ship, and she decided that she’d rather not think about it, save for the hope that maybe there’d be women like her, that perhaps she wouldn’t be so alone, that maybe she’d be able to learn a little more given her captor certainly wasn’t one to willingly offer up information.
They came to the back of the ship quickly. The creature’s strides practically drug her along; his legs were considerably longer than hers. He placed one of his large hands on a touch-pad along the smooth expanse of the ship. Kira watched, mouth open in awe, as the entire back wall of the ship dematerialized before her eyes. In preparation for the flood of light from the outside, she squinted, though the action was unnecessary.
It was night.
Darkness encompassed the outside, and she opened her eyes fully when she realized this. She could see the faint glow of light from more of those strange lit orbs. She wasn’t given much time to consider this, as the creature started to walk forward, taking her with him.
From what Kira could make out with the light, they were at the edge of a village. Stepping onto the ground from the ship, the terrain was rocky. Further ahead, where there was a higher concentration of those shiny orbs, and Kira could make out large, high-reaching shapes against the blackness of the night.
Her captor didn’t let her have much time to take anything more in. His hand gripped her forearm, and he pulled her along a rocky path, leading towards the dark shapes and the concentration of the shiny orbs giving off light. Her eyes strained to make out much else, but she could hear the sounds coming from the group of strange shapes. She could have sworn it was talking, but it didn’t sound like any words that she had heard in her life.
Kira was led down the path, into the first grouping of the buildings. They were tall, black things, jutting up from the ground like sharp slates of the same kind of metal that the ship was made of. The rocky path gave way to a smoother kind of stone beneath her feet, along these stone walkways tread more creatures like the one who held her then.
They were all male. Kira couldn’t make out a single female in all the silvery-blue-skinned men around her. They were all as tall, some slimmer and some just as thick as her captor, but they were all of the same race, that was certain. They turned interested, shining eyes towards the two of them, and spoke in that strange language that Kira didn’t know – couldn’t even make out perhaps a single, earthen English word. She felt totally exposed, their continuous, open, unashamed gazes making her feel as if she were walking among these people completely nude, devoid of any covering or modesty.
Instinctually, this caused her to press close against her captor, as if he would protect her. She felt as though there was more to their looks than mere curiosity; there was a hunger there that she could not place, and her mind went back to what she had been told she’d been taken for. Was it because there were no women here? Her mind went back to what her captor said, and what she knew of Ka’thon. Certainly she wasn’t meant for… all of them?
As they continued to walk, bypassing the first cluster of those strange jagged buildings and the smooth stone streets, one of the others approached Kira and her captor. He was as large as her captor was, with thick hair on his head. He wore the same dark, conforming clothing that her captor did. Oddly, the newcomer was more intimidating than he was, and she found herself pressing closer to the one who held her arm, once more lulled by the scent around him.
The two exchanged words. More than once the newcomer gestured to her, and Kira could only imagine that they were speaking about her. The newcomer eyed her an awful lot as they spoke; her captor didn’t seem to like that at all. She didn’t, either. The way he leered at her made her feel even more exposed, and the fact that her captor was displeased with this fact made her feel only marginally safer.
Kira noticed, the more they spoke, the more their tones rose and the more people stopped among the buildings to stare, gather around. Kira began to feel herself get lightheaded. So much heady scent was all around her, so many pulsing hormones. It was like alpha against alpha and the more the two argued back and forth, the worse it got, the more she pressed into her captor’s side –
Kira didn’t know that she had fainted, until she opened her eyes. She was no longer in the middle of the cluster of buildings, but rather in one, she assumed.
She looked around, curious, even in her situation. The bed was in the center of the area she was in. A single, red-wooded chest rested at the end of it, and a large mirror was across from it. All along the wall, hung a number of weapons. Sharp and wicked blades, and blasters the likes of which she’d never seen, but they made her curious to their uses and firepower nonetheless.
The wall behind all of these contraptions was smooth, like in the ship, and there was a large rectangular opening there that she could see led out into a hallway. She imagined that it functioned much like the paneling of her captor’s ship, and noted the hand-sized panel to the side of it, indicating that she was right.
Kira saw hide nor tail of her captor, however, and wondered where he must be – and if she should get up and look for him or remain in place. She had no idea why she had passed out during his argument with the other – nor had she any explanation for the strange way that his scent affected her so. It had been all that raging testosterone-fueled arguing that had made her all lightheaded. But that was so strange…
She shook her head. It had to be some weird alien thing. They were obviously the more… instinctual sort of creatures. She was also quite sure that she knew the reason that the two of them had been arguing over her in the first place.
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