by Alyx X
I turned over, my knee hitting the floor as the springs inside my mattress parted. Fuck, I needed that bedframe. Maybe I could rig one together from anything I hadn’t already scrapped. My thoughts wandered back to the human female. I had to fix this. I wasn’t a people trafficker. I’d just been hungry and desperate.
I had to think. I still owed Satyan some money. Most of his deposit was still in my account, but I’d bought the equipment and supplies, so I couldn’t just tell him she’d died without paying him back what I owed. If I tried that, I’d probably be on the run forever—hungry and wanted by however many space pirates he sent after me.
If I took her back to her people, maybe I could make an extra stop and mine some steel. Or I could exchange her for the metal I needed to replace Satyan’s money. From the flurry of activity I’d seen surrounding her when she returned to her home with that creature, they clearly adored their female warrior. They’d happily pay for her safe return.
I almost smiled, and a relieved sigh slipped from my lips. Maybe this was the answer. Maybe I could return the female, gain the funds to pay Satyan back, and never try anything so fucking dumb ever again. At this point, working in that backwater bar where I’d met the Gurg who’d kicked this whole mess off seemed preferable. At least it was honest work, and no one got hurt who didn’t deserve it.
I quickly recapped my plan to myself. I’d turn the ship around, bargain for her return in exchange for some of that metal stories said the humans lived on top of, pay Satyan back, and slip away into whatever shadows I could find while I came up with plan B. Whatever plan B was, it wouldn’t be worth as much as training and selling human females, but maybe I could do that after all. It contradicted everything I thought I knew about myself every time I thought about giving up scrapping.
Thoughts of the black box I’d administered her shocks with filled my mind, nausea claiming my stomach. That guy wasn’t me. The guy I thought I was, anyway.
I rolled out of bed and grabbed some clothes out of my box, then pulled on the pants with the slightly wide legs that I used to hide my tail down one side or the other. It was easier to walk around as a man without my tail to distract other species. Besides, it was too sensitive to have on show for anyone but my mate.
Seeing the human was suddenly my top priority. I needed to fix things, to make them right, and I’d just come up with the plan to do that.
I walked with energy and a renewed sense of purpose now that I’d dug through all this shit and found myself again.
On the way to the hold, I ducked into the sick bay and grabbed a healing sleeve. Her wrist had looked pretty mangled yesterday, although she’d tried to hide it. And she’d probably broken her hand on my jaw, although she hadn’t shown any pain over that, either. Admiration for her stole through me. She really was a warrior. Humans had some of those left on their dying planet, and maybe TerraLink didn’t even know.
I slid the door open and the smell of the hold rushed out—rust, sweat, blood. She stood, half hanging, lounging against the wall like she was propping up at a bar someplace she knew was beneath her. She was working on removing the rest of her chains, and I almost chuckled. She really was unstoppable.
She looked at me, and there was deliberation in her gaze, like she didn’t even care that I had a front row seat to her escape attempt.
“Ugh. I can’t believe you’re back so soon. I didn’t exactly get very far, here.” She sounded unashamed, but her voice gave away how seriously she took this. “Seriously though, you’re pretty lucky. If you’d just given me ten or twenty more minutes, I’d have been following you up that corridor, ready to make good on my promises to end your life.”
She lunged forward suddenly and snapped her teeth, and I gasped and flinched backward.
She laughed; the sound harsh. “Stupid bastard. You’re just lucky you’ve still got your cock and balls.”
I relaxed, deliberately untensing my muscles in a display meant just for her. She was dangerous, but I was more so. No matter how beautiful she was, she was feral rather than organized.
I wasn’t going to show her any further weakness.
I gritted my teeth and my voice came out like tumbled gravel, “I’m sorry for earlier.” I sat in front of her and slipped the shock box from my pocket. I wasn’t dumb enough to be around her without it, that was for sure. “You see this?” I asked.
She did. Of course she did. Her eyes widened and she took a step backward so small that she probably didn’t even realize she did it.
“I’ve upped it to the highest shock level,” I warned her. It was a lie, but it would keep her as docile as she knew how to be, hopefully. I didn’t even think I could increase the shock level. It seemed to have two states—on or off, but that was good enough for my requirements. “If you try anything, you’ll be flat on your back.” I stroked my thumb over the box as I spoke.
She stood up taller, answering my challenge. “Yeah? You sure about that?”
I raised an eyebrow and leaned toward her. “Want to give it a shot?” Then I smiled.
She retreated against the wall, snapping and growling. Back to simply feral.
I didn’t want to get any closer, but I had to. If I was going to fix this in any way at all, I had to be close enough to her to do so. I clutched my black box of shocks in one hand, and I held the med kit in front of me in the other as I stayed in a low crouch and shuffled forward.
“What’s that?” She lifted her chin, nodding at the med kit, suspicion flashing in her eyes.
I set it down and reached for her hand, but she yanked it back.
“No, what is it? What are you doing?”
“Healing you. Fixing your wounds,” I explained. Maybe she didn’t have any medical knowledge at all.
She shrugged, but drew as far back as she could. “They’ll heal on their own. This one did.” She nodded at an old thick ridge on her forearm, and I recalled the other scars I’d seen on her body earlier. “We paste the openings and wait for the body to heal them. The skin is tougher after. Harder to hurt again.”
“You like your scars?” I probed, almost unbelieving. I liked to hear her speak. After so long being by myself, she felt like a hallucination, her voice a cruel trick.
“They show where I’ve been. I remember my pain, and the others, they see it.”
I nodded. Wounds as badges of honor. I’d read such primitive theories in Tryon’s history books. “We don’t do that anymore—not since we’ve developed the technology to heal skin like new. It’s different for you here, though. On your planet, on Earth, your body is used to the diseases and bacteria that fly around down there. Up here, particularly in this room, we need to take more care.” I gestured around. “Look at it, it’s old, it’s smelly, it’s dirty. There will be things in this air that you can’t see, but that your body won’t know how to deal with. We can’t take the chance that your injuries might get infected by something your body doesn’t know how to fight.”
“I’ve never met anything my body couldn’t fight.” She said it like a statement of fact, and I believed her.
Even an infection was probably no match for this warrior. “I don’t think we should take any chances, do you? You didn’t make it this far, getting one arm undone from my chains, to die. The last thing I transported in here might have shed a virus your body can’t handle.”
“You’re talking shit.” She ground her other wrist against her chains as she spoke, and I winced to see it. I could almost hear the skin splitting.
I shook my head. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen the last alien transported in here. He commanded quite a price.” I nudged the healing sleeve closer. “He was essentially a blob, most of his tissue was jelly, but he brought along a virus from his home planet that burned that jelly and melted it from his bones. We quarantined him in here, and I really can’t guarantee how well the room got cleaned after we jettisoned his remains.”
Without a word, she held her wrist out to me to clean.
I b
ent over it, preparing her skin so I could slip the healing sleeve into place.
“Why would you even put me in here if there’s so much danger in this room?” she asked, curiosity and taunting in her tone. “I mean, if I’m such valuable cargo, why risk my safety?”
I grinned but remained focused on her skin. “If you hadn’t attacked me on the bridge, you could have had a very different room to call your own for the rest of the journey.”
“Ha!” She barked out a laugh. “If you hadn’t kidnapped me, I wouldn’t have needed to attack you.” Her leg swung out suddenly, and I jumped out of the way, her attempted kick just swiping past me. I lifted the shock box and wiggled it a little, showing her I still had it and wasn’t afraid to use it.
A wide shit-eating grin filled her face, but she sank back down to sitting. Back to almost docile, seemingly, but I knew better.
“You might have control now,” she taunted me, “but I will make you regret taking me, so you might as well take me back right now.”
She didn’t know it yet, but she’d just gifted me the perfect opportunity to enact my plan to return her. “Oh yeah? And how much will you pay me?” I glanced at her, meeting her surprised gaze.
But she recovered and laughed. “What the fuck…?” She trailed off then opened her mouth to try again. “Didn’t you see me down there? That planet I came from? We don’t have any money.”
I scoffed my disbelief. “Now you’re the one talking shit. You’re surrounded by money down there.”
She shook her head. “Maybe I did damage your mind when I attacked you. You’re talking absolute shit.”
Maybe she didn’t know the value of the steel. “You’ve got the metal,” I said. “That’s worth money. You can pay me for your return.”
“Not with that.” She laughed loudly this time. “That’s all sunburnt and worthless. The solar flares have weakened most of it, and the rest of it has already been harvested by wealthy people and even wealthier corporations. I can push my fingers right through what’s left. It’s only good for tricking children with these days—when I can snap a rod thicker than myself in half, they think I must be the strongest woman in the galaxy.”
I hid my grin. Those children probably weren’t far from the truth, but then my grin disappeared. If there was truly no worth left in anything on Earth, plan B wouldn’t work. There was no way to get myself out of this mess, and that meant… That meant I might need to train her for Satyan after all.
“So.” She broke the sudden silence. “How much do you actually need?”
I sighed. “A shitload. Humans are expensive to catch but valuable to sell.”
She tutted at me. “No wonder you have chosen this career then. Although I’m not seeing a whole lot of evidence you actually want to do this. Or that you’re even any good at it.” Her tone became sympathetic, and I shook my head.
I wasn’t falling for her mind-games again. Here she was, clearly prodding at my head, feeling around for cracks and self-doubt.
I slammed whatever door in my head she thought she was going to walk right through and blocked her out. I had to be strong and get this right. I couldn’t let her manipulate me. Satyan wouldn’t accept any excuses.
“None of that is your concern,” I said. “You only worry about learning your lessons for your next master. You have to be perfect.”
She shook her head and pulled the sheet from the floor to cover her body as if she’d suddenly become aware I could see her.
“Don’t confuse this act of kindness for weakness on my part,” I said. “You still need to do every single thing I tell you to do. You need to do it the first time, and you need to keep doing it until you get it right. You’re still mine to do with as I want.”
She huffed. “How the fuck can that be true if just now you were trying to get me to pay for my release? Both things can’t be true, you know. I can’t hold value to you as a prisoner if you don’t mind taking me back.”
Oh, how wrong she was. I shrugged. “Money is money,” I said shortly. “I don’t give a shit where it comes from, as long as I get paid. You clearly don’t want to be here, so if you can pay me instead of my client, you can go.” I shrugged again like I really didn’t care, but my stomach seemed to shrivel as I spoke the next words. “There are more women down there. More I can take, so I might as well offer you a way out. Call it generosity, but it’s a moot point now. You can’t pay, so you stay. That’s the deal.”
“Oh, really?” She nodded and ran her hand down her neck, pushing the sheet from her breasts as it travelled lower. Finally, it bunched in her lap and she pushed it impatiently away. Then she spread her legs, revealing her glistening pussy. “Is this what you want to see?” She lowered her gaze to me as her thumb grazed her nipple. “Are you going to fuck me first, or is that an honor you’re supposed to leave for the next guy? How far does this training go? Do you get to try me out?” She dropped her voice lower and met my gaze tauntingly. “Don’t you want to?” She almost breathed the words out.
She touched me, prodding my thigh with her fingers, walking them higher, and I shifted, trying to retain my focus on the healing sleeve.
She gyrated her hips and moaned like someone was touching her. “Are you going to show me what you have, alien? How are you built? Can you fuck a human woman? What are alien cocks like? Have you got more than one? Maybe it’s just short and shriveled and you couldn’t get it inside me if you tried.” She rubbed her tit again and gasped in mockery of arousal.
My hands trembled as I continued to try to ignore her prodding while I fought to get the healing sleeve sitting in the right place. Every time she moved, it shifted, and I cursed.
She could probably sense my temper was growing, because she carried on the way she had the last time, when I left the room and yelled about it all the way back to the bridge. But I wouldn’t give her that satisfaction this time. I had better self-control than that now that I knew what she was playing at. She clearly thought she could manipulate me with sex, and to my shame she wasn’t far from the truth.
She carried on. Prod. Prod. Prod. I shook my head. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to train some human woman to have sex with an alien. She prodded again. The last time.
I pushed her against the wall, my hand at her throat. Not only that, but I flicked my tail out of my pants like a whip, wrapping it around her legs, holding her down—the other thing it came in useful for. A mobile restraint, although usually one for a hell of a lot more fun.
She glanced down at her bound legs and gasped before her eyes met mine slightly more fearful than before. My tail pulsed where it rested against her soft, smooth skin, and I closed my eyes as my breathing grew faster.
9
Piper
Before I even had time to sink into the satisfaction and pride of getting such a reaction from him, shock took their place. His reaction had been aggressive, violent. Maybe I was too good at provoking him.
I tried to heave in a breath, but I couldn’t around his hand on my throat. Either that, or fear had made me weak. My legs were pinned by a tail… an actual tail… and that wasn’t something I’d ever had to worry about escaping from. It was long, nearly as long as his legs, it seemed. The green cord was thick, about the width and firmness of a—I gulped—penis. The end of it even came to a rounded head.
Fear and panic flashed through his eyes, and I froze. That look. It was the same look I’d seen in a desert lion’s eyes when I’d cornered him. I’d stalked him without thinking it through. He was the end game, but I hadn’t worked out my plan.
I’d been almost as surprised as the lion when I finally had him in a position where he couldn’t escape. So, the lion’s last move had to be desperation, something wild and unpredictable, and that was how this guy looked now. It seemed like if his tail was out, he had nothing left to lose, probably because it was fragile. Or sensitive.
This guy was one move away from killing me.
I had nothing l
eft to lose either. So, I just kept prodding. Why the fuck not?
I shifted, opening my throat the fraction I needed. “You’ve got this abduction thing down, big boy. This is exactly the way a master treats his slave. Squeeze harder. I’ll be dead before you know it.” My voice was raspy, but he got the message. “What good am I to you then? Oh…” I paused, pretending to think about my next words. “This is just you having a little fun. What are you going to do next? Beat me? Fuck me?”
He’d tightened his hand as I spoke, and the last words came out in a gasp. But I was winning again. He was shaking, his fingers trembling against my skin, and a low growl started in his chest.
“What’s the plan?” I taunted him again with the last of my precious air. Nothing left to lose.
His hand tightened as that half-crazed look raced through his gaze again, then he pushed me harder against the wall as he stepped back, flinging me away. I dropped to the floor, and it would have knocked the air from my lungs, but I had none left. Despite that, I smiled, coughing and choking.
“You’re trying my patience,” he barked. “And you do not want to try my patience, little human. That is a very dangerous game.”
I grinned wider and sucked in huge gasps of air, chuckling at his show of strength. I doubted this alien was as dangerous as he claimed to be. Even if it was true, trying his patience was exactly the point. So far, it seemed to be the only thing keeping me alive.
Before I could laugh again, or maybe before I could breathe again, he grabbed me around my throat, and he using his tail, pulled against my legs to get them to bend awkwardly underneath me. I couldn’t fight him. His tail was like a band of muscle, and he had incredible control over it.
He watched me critically, using the blasted tail to adjust my kneeling position, hesitating, almost as if he didn’t know whether he was right.
“This feels so good,” I whispered. “Real good. Yeah, just like that.” My throat dried and I licked my lips. I wouldn’t show him my fear. It was more fun to keep pretending this was erotic, when it most definitely wasn’t.
