by L P Peace
Please, please, please let her be safe.
Sakura, Danai and Ariana went to the same slave trader. Their destination, the meat market. A redhead, Zoe remembered her name was Calliope, a Latina woman called Aria, and Olivia Trent went next, to another slaver from the meat market. Olivia had worked on the Dynexium engine and was one of the high-ups in engineering. Reagan Miller, one of the ship’s medics, went next, along with Zariah Nadar, one of the cryptologic techs and finally, Caria Celik, one of the deck officers.
When the sales were made, the crowd cleared, leaving for the ship. Minutes later, Zoe and Daris stood alone. She stared at the floor where she had seen her friends, subordinates, and peers sold to aliens who would do god knows what to them.
Tears poured down her face. It was horrible; it was beyond horrible. How could sapient beings do this to each other?
Daris walked her back to his quarters. When the door closed, he pulled her in his arms and wrapped himself around her while she cried.
Please let Sophia make it. Please let Sophia make it. Please, god. Don’t let this happen to Earth.
It took a long time to calm his Zoe. He pulled her down on the bed and held her as she cried until she fell asleep.
He waited until the equivalent of night had fallen on the ship, then slipped to his own ship.
Nevalis was a shit heap. Still, as the first thing he had ever legitimately bought, Daris had a soft spot for the old Kathen hunk of junk.
The small docking ramp opened in response to his command and he climbed on board, closing the ramp behind him. He didn’t want to be away from his mate long. Despite the time of night, Zoe wasn’t safe while he wasn’t with her. However, he knew if he brought her to the ship, the people he had passed would quickly raise the alarm.
He went from the small cargo bay, up the spiral staircase to the single room above.
At the front was the small cockpit. It was two seats with a minor delineation of difference between that, and the living space behind it.
Gone were the bunks that had been on the ship when Daris bought it. Instead, a double bed was securely anchored to the floor and wall. The beautiful Amaran silk sheets were crumpled and covered in food and stains. Knowing Zoe would be here soon, he moved the human packet from the bed and quickly stripped it and threw the bedding in the cleaning unit. The rest of the mess—he viewed the rubbish strewn across the plush carpet—would have to wait. Moving past the black seating unit, with a table that doubled as a place to dine, Daris went to the pilot’s seat and downloaded the data packet his comm had informed him of.
The packet had to go through Tolomus’s ship to get to him. He hoped no one had actually looked at it. Especially when he activated it, and Natyr’s face appeared.
‘Daris, I hope this message finds you well.’ The black Hieladan sighed. ‘Adalth found out about the Enhari deal. He’s furious. He’s left the Malqara in his private shuttle to hunt you down. Daris, I’ve never seen him this angry.’ The Hieladan moved closer to the screen. In the background, Daris could see his long tail moving back and forth in an agitated line. ‘What happened? What could you have done to anger the Enhari king so badly? According to reports, he’s sent his general after you.’ Natyr moved closer to the screen, there was a pleading expression on his face. ‘Daris, come back to the Malqara. We can work this out.’
The message stopped, freezing the young Natyr’s black scaled face on the screen.
Golden eyes implored him.
Until this moment, Daris had been worried about leaving the Calidon syndicate. Now he was… sad? He liked Natyr. The young Hieladan had been saved from slavery by Makios. Later, Daris had helped Makios bring Natyr to the syndicate. His Kathen friend wasn’t happy about it, but it had been the price of him getting back to Rhona alive, the one time he’d brought her to Caras.
Bring the Hieladan Prince to his people. Adalth plans to kill the boy’s enemies and restore him to his throne. That’s how Daris had sold it to Makios when he had gone to call in the syndicate’s debt. Right from the start, Daris had liked the boy. The two of them were orphans, though unlike Natyr, Daris had no memory of his parents. He knew his mother’s name, Camina. He had no idea who his father even was.
Natyr, however, not only knew his parents but had watched them get slaughtered by their enemies, before being sold into slavery. These were rough times on the Hieladan homeworld.
Makios had been angry at Daris for getting involved in the syndicate. But while they were criminals, violent when necessary, they looked after their own and had become somewhat of a family to him.
His thoughts turned to his brief visit to the Enhari homeworld. Ganus was a foolish, selfish male, vain and twisted. He liked humiliating the females in his court. While Daris was there, he had forced one of his concubines to mount him in full view of the court. Daris disliked him intensely, but that wasn’t new. He had disliked many a male and been able to continue doing business with them. He could fake liking a male for the sake of a deal. If he really disliked a male, he could find ways to humiliate them without him being directly implicated. Occasionally he’d had to kill a few males, but Ganus was arrogant and paranoid. It was a bad combination.
You think I’m beneath you, the king had declared. He wasn’t wrong, but how had he figured it out? He was an arrogant fool.
‘According to reports, he’s sent his general after you.’
Arduan. Now that was interesting. Daris liked Arduan. The general was intelligent, astute, honourable. Ganus was lazy, and it showed in the softness of him. Arduan was strong and powerful, and Daris respected that. Arduan had been the Enhari to meet Daris at the border and carry him, ship and all, to the capital world. They had gotten on—sparring, gambling, and laughing late into the night. But Arduan was a man of his people. Daris didn’t expect that their growing friendship would mean a damn to the male, now that Daris was an enemy of the people.
When Daris left the ship, the Ledaan was leading the dark-skinned human to his own ship, which was sitting in a bay close to Daris’s.
The Ledaan pulled her roughly by her arm, but other than that, she looked unharmed. He breathed a sigh of relief; at least he could tell Zoe that much. The Ledaan glared at him and continued to his ship.
Daris stayed and watched the ship leave. Would Zoe ever forgive him for this?
Daris walked back through The Crucible, careful of the noise he made. When he slipped back into the room, he was relieved to see Zoe in bed, still asleep.
Putting down his bag, he gave into temptation and slipped into bed next to her. It felt like the most natural, right thing to do. He pulled her into his arms. She moaned but snuggled into his chest, never waking. He held her to him, taking in deep breaths and feeling her fill his senses. Gently, he rubbed his cheek against hers, blurring the lines of their scent between them. He’d only be truly happy when his seed had permanently changed it, announcing his claim on her. When he had rubbed his face as much as he dared, he sniffed her again. It would do, for now.
By now, his cock was throbbing in need. He slipped back out of bed and into the bathroom. Stripping, he turned on the shower and stepped under the water. He took himself in hand, feeling up the chambers of his glans between finger and thumb, exploring himself hard for the second time in his life. The tendrils around his cock unwound, exploring his hand before winding around the head of his cock once more.
The night he put Zoe in the cage, he dreamt of her and woke up with seed pumping out of him. It had surprised him, just how pleasurable that had felt. He enclosed his shaft in his fist and rubbed up and down, feeling his cock become harder under his fingers.
Human women had become something of an interest to the Hieladan of the Calidon syndicate, especially Adalth, who was becoming obsessed. The males who had spent time with them talked about their cunts being hot and wet. Daris put that information together with the face and body of his sweet Zoe. He leaned against the wall, his head leaning on his forearm as he imagined what it would be like to ha
ve Zoe mount him, the way the Enhari female had mounted the king.
‘Ung, vrok!’ He pumped into his closed fist as lightning struck the base of his cock. It bobbed angrily in his hand as he pumped his seed on the wall in front of him. A bonfire of pleasure surged through him, consuming him. ‘Vrok! Oh, vrok,’ he gasped, pumping his cock, even after the seed was spent, to drag out the pleasure.
There was a noise behind him. Daris turned to find grey eyes watching him, a dazed, wondrous look on her face.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, her eyes still on his cock. ‘I was wondering where you were…’
‘It’s all right, Zoe.’ Daris turned into the water and allowed it to clean him, then turned the water on his cum, which still slid down the wall. Daris turned back to see her reaction, but she was gone.
When he walked back into the main room a few metri later, she was back on the bed, her eyes watched him warily.
‘Up until the moment I first smelled my mate,’ he started, realising he’d have to address this. ‘I was male, but not,’ he looked at her, searching for the right words, ‘sexually mature.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, her voice soft.
‘What you just witnessed, I had neither the inclination nor ability to do.’
‘You never masturbated before you met your mate?’
‘Masturbated? What a clinical term.’ Daris took in a breath as he sat down. He didn’t want to tell her what she was to him yet, but if he lied, why should she ever trust him? ‘I’ve never pleasured myself before tonight,’ he admitted.
Zoe’s eyes widened. It reminded Daris of the look on her face when he turned around in the shower. He realised his mate had witnessed him pleasuring himself for the first time and found he was immensely pleased by the thought. More than pleased, he felt a promising throbbing in his cock as it began to harden.
‘Do you masturbate?’
Her face flushed a delightful red, and she shook her head. ‘Humans don’t talk about things like that.’
Daris chuckled. ‘I forget how modest humans are.’
‘You know Rhona Desares,’ she said, the scepticism on her face clear. ‘Surely she taught you that?’
Daris remembered his brief stint on the Tala five-years previously and compared it to the brief meet-up he and the Tala had weeks before when he and the pair planned how he was going to help the golden Aavani escape.
‘Makios and Rhona soundproofed their suite in the Tala so that the rest of the crew could sleep at night.’ He laughed. ‘Rhona always seemed more annoyed when people mentioned the—’ Daris paused for effect, ‘excessive amount of noise coming from their suite, then embarrassed by it.’ Makios was naturally happy, hopeful. Rhona brought fire, and Makios’s fire had been enlivened by it. ‘In truth.’ Daris sobered. ‘I aspire to a relationship as dedicated as the two of them have.’
‘Don’t you have that with your mate?’
Daris couldn’t repress the soft smile. His mate was fishing. ‘She is not ready for me yet,’ he said. ‘But I am a patient male and she is worth waiting for.’
Zoe blushed. ‘What if she’s never ready?’
Daris swallowed the lump that formed in his throat. He had considered the possibility.
‘On my world, when animals mate.’ She glanced at him. ‘For life?’
‘For life,’ he confirmed.
‘If their mate dies, so do they.’
‘If my mate refuses to take me, or if she took me and died, I would survive,’ Daris smiled, but there was no humour there now. Whether or not he would want to was another matter.
‘Is that something that happens a lot on your world?’
‘It can.’ Daris swallowed again. When it did, some chose to end their own lives or lost the will to live, like Camina. Daris often wondered, did her mate die? Is that why she died? Could she not find consolation in her son? Daris had searched for records. But despite the advancement of Maruzen society, they cared little for the poor and records about them were poorly kept. He had found several Caminas among the poor of the capital city, but only managed to trace three of them, all living. She hadn’t even given a surname. Harvalen, Daris’s surname, was one he adopted later, which was better than the one he’d been given in the home. Fanish, which meant bastard.
‘It is late.’ Daris stood and began to assemble the things for his bed on the floor. ‘We should sleep. Tomorrow, Tolomus will be delivering clothes for you, and we will take our first walk through the ship.’
Zoe looked like she wanted to say something but instead lay down.
Daris settled on the floor and looked at the bed, Zoe was on the edge, watching at him.
‘How do you feel?’ he asked. ‘About earlier?’
‘Numb,’ she admitted.
‘We’ll get them back, Zoe,’ he promised.
‘There were one hundred and forty-three people aboard Endurance,’ she whispered. ‘Can you ensure you’ll get all of them back?’
He couldn’t lie to her. ‘We can try.’
‘How did this happen?’ she looked at him. ‘How did this guy, this slaver, find out about us?’ She shook her head. ‘We were moving in secret. We had escorts. The Halidan ship abandoned us right before it happened. Why?’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘How did this happen, Daris? Why?’
Daris slipped into the bed beside her, and for the second time, she fell to sleep crying in his arms.
‘The clothing they sent was unsuitable.’ Zoe heard the voice through a thick fog. ‘So I went and picked these out for her. There is a special market for clothing for human slaves.’
‘I know it,’ another voice said. She recognised it, but it sounded off. Thick. Emotional. ‘You want her walking through the ship in these?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well.’ There was a sigh.
‘When will that be?’
‘She had a bad night.’ This voice was Daris. ‘It’s to be expected. She was free. Now she’s a slave. She has to adapt. Occasionally, there will be setbacks.’
‘She’s taking to the submission training?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Daris said. ‘Beautifully.’
‘Your instincts are good,’ The first voice said. Zoe still hadn’t identified it.
‘I am Maruzen.’
It was strange. Daris was like a bright light, a beacon in the fog. Slowly, she was orienting to him.
‘Have you pleasured her yet?’
Hang on?
‘In a few rotes,’ Daris said. There was the hint of longing in his voice.
‘She is not ready for me yet. But I am a patient male and she is worth waiting for.’
‘My methods of domination,’ the first voice paused, ‘are a little rougher than she could handle, I think.’
‘She is fragile,’ Daris said. ‘Mentally, as well as physically.’
‘There is an Ualha on the station, a prostitute. I can be rough with him. He enjoys it. While I was vrokking him last night, I realised I don’t know how to dominate a human female.’ Another pause. ‘Near the end of her training…’
‘When she has accepted her place, and her transference to you, I had planned on inviting you to join us,’ Daris said. ‘I can teach you how to handle her. Zoe needs…’ another pause ‘…soft touches. Control. Orders. Not pain. She would wither in rough hands.’
Zoe felt her chest tighten. She remembered Daris’s hand around her neck, the way he held her hands behind her back. She remembered feeling herself get wet. The throbbing sensation began anew between her legs. She was still listening in on the conversation, so all she could do was put up with the sensation.
‘You had planned on inviting me to join you.’ The voice was suggestive.
‘I am happy to let you watch,’ Daris said, ‘to watch. But I am only interested in females.’
‘What if I made it a condition of the deal?’
‘Will you?’
There was another long pause. ‘No.’
‘Good,’ Daris said. ‘I’d hate to ha
ve to walk away and let you stumble through this on your own. I feel an obligation to little Zoe now.’ Another pause. ‘She needs to submit. It’s written in her psyche. When she does, she will enjoy it. She deserves to enjoy it.’
‘When will you be taking her out?’
‘We’ll see,’ Daris said. ‘I’ll get her breakfast first. Training. Then dress her, let her get used to the outfit. Then, if she’s up to it, take her out.’ A sigh. ‘It’s not in Zoe’s nature to be the centre of attention. This outfit will bring a lot of attention. She’ll adapt. But it may take time.’
‘Will you let me know when you take her?’ The voice, Tolomus, sounded eager.
‘Of course,’ Daris said. ‘I wouldn’t want you to miss it when all of your crew sees it.’
‘I want to bite her,’ Tolomus said.
‘You want to claim her, make her yours,’ Daris said. ‘The instinct is natural. But you told me yourself if you bite her, it’ll be during sex. If you have sex with her now, she’ll fight. Struggle, you’ll lose her trust. Now is not the time.’
‘During the training?’
‘When she is ready to be transferred to you, she’ll be ready for sex and the bite.’
‘Perhaps you would like to join us,’ Tolomus said. ‘I don’t mind sharing her. My bite will ensure it’s only my children she’ll have. That’s what I want.’ There was a deep longing in Tolomus’s voice.
‘Once you have her, there’s nothing to stop you breeding her right away,’ Daris murmured.
If Zoe hadn’t heard the reluctance, the emotion in Daris’s voice, she would have been worried. She wondered how Tolomus didn’t hear it. Or maybe she just wanted to hear it.
‘I’ll have breakfast sent to you.’ Tolomus’s voice seemed to have thickened further. ‘I want daily updates.’
‘Of course.’ There was the sound of movement. Tolomus had been standing inside the room, watching her while he thought she slept. ‘I enjoy our little chats,’ Daris said.
Zoe heard the sound of a door close. There was a pause, then Daris approached the bed.
