by Sophie Stern
The transfer scanner beeps to let us both know the transfer is complete.
“Do you need to see your credit balance?” Janette asks politely. There’s a function on the scanner that will enable me to see my current balance. I nod, and she pushes a button, then holds out the scanner. Once more, I scan my card, but this time, I frown when I see the number.
It’s not much at all.
With only 4,000 credits left to my name, I have to wonder if this girl is worth it. I have to hope she’s worth it. I have to hope that above all else, she’s worth what I spent because I swear to dragons that if she bites me, it’s all over. I’ll let her loose and she can fend for herself on Dreagle.
Some Sapphirans like biting.
I am not one of them.
Erat brings the girl down from the stage. He guides her to me, then shakes my hand.
“Pleasure doing business,” he says politely.
“Fuck off,” I say. He might be the person in charge, but he’s still a huge dick. Stealing women? Really? That’s just not okay on any level. Eret looks surprised at my comment, but I’ve already paid, and he’s surprisingly non-aggressive as I take my new slave in my arms and carry her out of the auction house.
There are whispers as I leave and I know I’ve broken some sort of unspoken protocol. No one carries their girls. No matter how broken, how beat-up, how hurt they are, the women are expected to walk on their own.
After all, they have to take care of their master.
They have to do his bidding.
They’re bound to him for all eternity now, whether they like it or not.
Only, as I carry the young woman in my arms, self-hatred begins to grow. I can’t believe I fucking bought a woman. I can’t believe I took her. I can’t believe I thought I was saving her, so I purchased her like she was a book in a shop, like she was a meal I wanted for lunch.
I bought her like she was nothing but a monetary exchange.
I bought her like she wasn’t important.
I leave the auction house and continue my journey down the dark alley. It’s raining now, and I pull my coat around her as much as possible and put my hat on top of her head. It’s not much, and she’s still going to be completely soaked by the time we get back to my ship, but it’s something. It’s better than nothing.
“Thank you,” she whispers softly, and I don’t answer. To be honest, I don’t really know what to say to her. I don’t know how to say something that’s going to be helpful and not hurtful. I don’t know how to say something that isn’t going to be stupid.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and her body stiffens in my arms. I’m sorry for so many things. I’m sorry she was kidnapped. I’m sorry she was cut. I’m sorry she was injured and locked away. I’m sorry she was sold. I’m sorry I bought her.
I’m sorry she’s not living a normal life somewhere.
I’m sorry this is her life now.
“Are you going to kill me?” She whispers, and I’m so surprised that I nearly drop her.
“What? No!” I insist, but she doesn’t believe me. Her body shakes, quivering in my arms, and I struggle to hold onto her. “Please stop moving,” I say quietly, gently. “I don’t want to drop you.”
“What does it matter?” She’s definitely crying now. I walk faster because I’m worried that she’s going to attract attention and if there’s one thing you really, really don’t want to do on Dreagle, it’s get noticed. “What’s it matter if you do it here or back at your house? I can’t believe this is how I’m going to die. Years on Mirroean and all I wanted to do was see the world. All I wanted was someone to love me and someplace to belong and that’s all gone. It’s just gone.”
“Please,” I insist. “I’m not going to kill you, but you do need to be quiet.”
She keeps shaking in my arms and I’m not sure what to do. It’s raining hard, but if we pass someone, they’ll definitely hear her crying. They’ll definitely notice her. They’ll definitely remember the strange out-of-towner with the crying woman.
Desperate, I do the one thing I hate doing, the one thing I really, really don’t want to do.
I raise her hand to my mouth and I bite her wrist.
Hard.
Chapter 5
Fiona
“You bit me,” I blurt out.
I’m shocked into silence. I shouldn’t be. The tears should be coming quite freely at this point, but they’re not. They’ve stopped and I’m looking up at the dark-eyed man who purchased me.
“I did,” he says. “And I need you to be quiet now.”
“You’re blue,” I say next. Apparently, being bitten removes any filter I thought I had on my mouth. Damn. I don’t know why I said that. It’s just that I’ve never seen anyone with skin as gorgeous as his. His face is a dark blue and even in the dim light, I can see that his eyes are piercing.
Even his hair is blue.
I wonder if the rest of him is, too, but then I sort of hate myself for thinking that. I can’t be perverted. I can’t be. Shouldn’t be. This isn’t the type of thing that’s okay. This is the man who purchased me. This is the man who went to an auction house to buy a woman, a person, and who chose me.
This is the man who paid money to the people who kidnapped me.
This is the man who took me.
“Yes,” he says. “I am blue. No more talking.” I cradle my wrist with my other hand. Both of my palms are killing me from when one of the security guys used a knife to cut me. I know the blade wasn’t clean. I just know it was filled with bacteria and germs and probably weird diseases, but I can’t do anything about it now.
Now all I can do is sit here as this huge, monster alien carries me to his lair. He’s going to devour me. I just know it.
I should have stayed quiet. He’s right that I deserved to be bitten. I know that, but I couldn’t help feeling scared. I’m small and he’s huge. I’m lost and he’s determined. He walked into an auction house and purchased a live, human being for his pleasure.
This isn’t the kind of guy I should mess with.
Still, he didn’t have to cover me with his jacket. He didn’t have to put his hat on me. I’m still cold and wet and my skin is clammy, but the gesture was sweet. It was weirdly sweet coming from someone who wants to kill, maim, or seriously injure me.
The thought of being tortured is fucking depressing, so finally, I close my eyes. I could try to escape from this guy. I probably should try to escape from him, but the truth is that I’m tired. I’m worn out. I’m exhausted. I already tried to run and I got caught. I was punched and hit and cut.
The security guys made sure I wouldn’t want to run again and I’d say they did a good job because now the idea of escaping seems like more trouble than it’s worth.
I could try.
I could try to run, try to flee from this blue-haired beast, but I wouldn’t get very far before he caught me. He’s huge. He’s a giant, really, and even though I’m not small for a human, I’m tiny compared to him.
I could try to escape, but he’d find me, and if he didn’t, someone else would. Dreagle is not the place lonely humans should be wandering around alone. It’s not a place anyone should be wandering around alone, and suddenly, I’m filled with concern for my family.
What happened to them?
What happened to my fiancé?
What happened to my parents?
Are they looking for me?
Or were they hurt, too?
I close my eyes tighter and try to remember to breathe. I can’t do anything about it. I can’t stop anything bad from happening to my family. I can’t stop anything bad from happening to Darin.
I need to start breathing before I completely freak out.
The man moves faster, jolting me around as he moves. He’s holding me tightly to his chest, so the movement is minimized, and I wonder why he’s doing this for me. Why is he being gentle and caring? Why is he trying to keep me dry if he’s only going to murder me?
If he’s going
to torture me, it won’t matter if I have pneumonia.
He turns down another alley, and then another. After a few minutes, he ducks inside a building and walks through, then exits through a different door.
“Secret passageway?” I ask quietly, wondering what that was all about.
“Something like that,” he says.
“You don’t want to be followed, do you?” I suddenly realize why he’s taking so long to get us back to his home. “You want your home to be a secret, right?”
He doesn’t say anything, but I just know I’m right, so I settle back in for the rest of the ride.
And then he stops.
“Be very quiet,” he says, and I hear him press a few buttons. Then a door opens. He carries me inside and I keep my eyes closed tightly shut. I don’t really want to know where we are or what kind of torture chamber we’re walking into. If this is the kind of place that ends with me being hurt or killed, I don’t want to know what it looks like. Then I’ll have to deal with being scared on top of being hurt, and that’s not something I’m interested in.
He moves quickly through the building, and after a minute, I forget to be cautious. I open my eyes. Nothing. There’s nothing. I can’t see anything at all. After blinking several times, I realize there’s nothing wrong with my eyesight. The room is simply shrouded in darkness.
“No lights,” I say, and he grunts.
He can see in the dark, then. He has to be able to. That must be it. I don’t know much about where he’s from or what type of extraterrestrial he is, but he’s moving silently through a pitch-black building in the middle of the night and he’s not tripping or falling or bumping into anything.
He can see in the dark.
Definitely.
That’s it.
“How can you see in the dark?” I ask, whispering. I probably shouldn’t be pressing my luck, probably shouldn’t be trying to get information about him. If I was stealing someone, I wouldn’t want to give them any information.
“My eyes are better than yours, human,” he grunts, and I nod silently.
“Can you turn on some lights?” I squeak out. “So I can see, too?”
He doesn’t say anything and for a second, I think he’s going to ignore my request, but then he moves, still carrying me, and I hear him pressing several buttons. Then the lights come on and my jaw drops open.
I can’t believe what I’m looking at.
Chapter 6
Quinn
I can smell the fear radiating off the little human and by the time we get inside the warehouse, she's practically catatonic. Then again, I'm not sure if it's the fear or the cold that's making her shiver. I can tell she's trying hard to calm herself down, trying hard to convince herself her situation isn't that bad.
Unfortunately for her, it is that bad. She should be scared. She ought to be afraid. She was stolen and sold and she has no idea what's going to happen to her. This isn't the time to put on a brave face. This is the time to be petrified.
Only something tells me she's not what I think she is.
Something tells me she's stronger than she looks.
The cuts on her hands tell a story of ferocity and bravery in the face of peril. The cuts are deep, but they tell me she's not afraid of what's going to happen to her. They tell me she's not afraid of the future. She's strong. She's going to fight. She's going to try to find a way to escape.
"It's a ship," she whispers, staring directly at my stolen vessel. It's floating in the center of the warehouse.
"Yeah, and it was a bitch to park here," I say, trying to lighten the mood. I want her to calm down, want her to feel comfortable. What has been through the last few days? She’s dirty and bruised. I doubt she even realizes what a mess she is. She’s still beautiful, despite the injuries. They couldn’t take that from her, but she’s hurt, and I need to help her heal.
"How did you get it inside?" She looks around the room. "It's too big to fit in the doorway."
"Thank you, Captain Obvious," I say before I can stop myself. She cocks her head and looks up at me, trying to figure out what the hell I'm talking about. The look of confusion on her face is too much, and I burst out laughing. “It’s a joke,” I say, but she doesn’t seem to understand. "My brother and I like to watch old Earth films," I admit quietly. I lower my voice, as if this is some sort of dark secret, and she nods solemnly.
I wonder if this woman has ever seen an Earth film. She's human, of course. It's obvious. Her pale pink skin and gentle scent give that away. Still, maybe she wasn't on Earth before it was destroyed. She's young. I'd bet anything she was born a refugee, born on another planet that took in humans during the wars that raged on Earth for years.
"That wall," I jerk my head toward the back of the warehouse. "Is a door. It slides over and opens into an open space."
"So you can fly your ship out there," she says.
"Yeah. It gives me the perfect spot to leave from, actually."
I was lucky to find this place, but I don't tell her that. That's not something she needs to know right now. She's scared enough with needing my baggage on top of that. She's scared enough without needing to know that I'm scared, too, that I'm running for my life, that if the wrong people find me, they'll torture both of us.
They'll hurt her just for being near me.
No, she doesn't need to know that.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
"May I get down?" She asks politely, but I shake my head.
"You're going to cut your feet," I say. "Let's get you on the ship first. Then I'll let you down."
"What's your name?" She whispers as I approach the ship.
"Quinn," I tell her.
"Quinn?"
"Is there something wrong with my name?" I ask. I press a button on the bottom on the ship and input a series of numbers that lowers a small ladder so we can climb up. "Hold on tight," I say, and she wraps her arms around my neck as I climb up the ladder.
"No," she says. "There's nothing wrong with Quinn. It's just different than I thought."
"What did you expect my name to be, little human?"
"I'm not little," she wrinkles her nose, as if the idea is distasteful to her.
"You're small to me," I insist.
"Maybe," she says doubtfully. "I thought your name would be hard to pronounce. Maybe something with a lot of vowels. I'm not sure."
"I'm simple," I say. We reach the top of the ladder and step inside. As promised, I set her down on the floor of the ship.
"Oh!" She says quickly, staring at the floor.
"What's wrong?"
"It's warm."
"Yeah, it's heated," I tell her.
"Most floors feel cold to stand on."
"What can I say? I like to be comfortable," I say, and she smiles at me. It's a real, genuine smile, and it warms me more than it should.
"Me, too," she says.
Then, just as suddenly as her smile appeared, it vanishes. The scent of fear fills the air and I realize she's suddenly wondering what I'm going to do to her.
"I'm not going to hurt you," I say.
"That's what they all say."
"Do you trust me, little one?"
"No," she shakes her head, but stares at the floor.
"Look at me when you speak to me." Her eyes meet mine and I see a fire there, a passion. I see a burning sense of rage and excitement and horror.
"No," she says again.
"What's your name, human?"
"Alice," she says quickly.
I raise an eyebrow and wait for her to try again.
"Megan," she says, rolling her eyes.
Still, I wait, and finally she takes a deep breath.
"Fiona, all right? Happy now?"
"That's a beautiful name."
"It's fine, I guess."
"It's beautiful, like you."
She looks at me then, stares at me like she's not sure what's going to happen, and I reach for her hand. She takes mine and I lead he
r down the hallway of the ship. We pass several doors and she tries to contain her curiosity, but I see her peeking into each room we pass. If she's looking for a torture chamber, she won't find one.
There's not one here.
I've looked.
The man who owned this ship was hiding something and I intend to find out what it is. I don't know what he's got on here or why it's so damn important, but before I return to Sapphira, I expect to find out exactly what it is.
I expect to find out exactly what he's been hiding.
After a few minutes of walking, I stop in front of a door.
"Where are we?"
"Your room."
I press my hand to a panel and input the password. She watches curiously as I do, then stands back as I motion for her to enter the room.
"Go on, now. It won't bite."
"I don't want to go in there."
"Come on, now. We need to get those cuts cleaned up."
She looks at her hands in shock, as if she's forgotten how bad her wounds are.
"And you need some clothes," I say gently, trying to coax her into the room. She still seems scared, nervous, and I intend to help her get over that. If we're going to be together on this ship for awhile, she's going to have to start trusting me, and this is the perfect chance for that.
"I am cold," she admits, and she walks into the room. She looks around for a second, like a cat exploring a new cage, and sits on the bed.
I don't want her to feel like a prisoner, so I gave her the best room on the ship. She is a prisoner, though. There's no way to get around that. If I let her go, something worse will happen to her, something bad and terrible. Something will happen that I'll never be able to forgive myself for.
I open a cupboard and pull out a blanket, then drape it around her.
"Will you be okay for a minute?" I ask. "I'm going to go get some medication for your hands."
"Yeah," she says quietly. "I won't go anywhere."
