by Stella Cassy
She went silent, not a breath audible, almost immediately hanging her head like she had been switched off. Only tiny puffs of air escaped her pouting lips, disturbing the hair on my arms. I buried my nose in the soft twirls of her hair, which smelled of fresh harvested plants and flowers.
She cried as though I were beating her, her breath fogging the porthole. The volume was piercing, louder than I thought a human capable. Her face turned a dull red. If she continued, I would have to transport her to the medical bay before she passed out. She would never have lasted with the Pax’s usual customers.
I glanced at the end of the hall. A group twice the size was gathered there, including two females whose expressions told me they were not happy with me. The males averted their eyes immediately, the way they did after someone had to be killed when it was regrettable but unavoidable. One of the young females eyed me with something close to horror, as though I were capable of killing an unarmed female with my bare hands. I met their gazes straight on. Masking their expressions as any Hielsrane soldier should, they scattered.
“Silence,” I hissed down at her. “You will acclimate.” I turned her around in my arms and gave her a little shake. Her head hung still.
“No, I won’t.” She sniffed and turned her wet face to me, taking big gulps of air.
I walked her around the corner and set her on her feet. She flattened against the wall, her breathing fast and hard, her eyes shining with moisture.
My lips pursed and I blew air across the tops of her cheeks before I could stop myself. “For the gods of Drakon.”
She patted her dry face and balled her small fist. She banged them back against the wall. “Why did you do that?”
“Why did you not come when I summoned you?”
She yanked up her garment up, which had exposed the top of her breasts, stared at the dried drops of blood on her talons. “I didn’t know you were speaking to me.”
“There was no one else in the vicinity and you are the only slave on board.”
She huffed and stared up at the ceiling.
“You pretend you do not have use of your tongue. You appear demure but fight like you have training. Which are you, warrior or slave?”
“Neither,” she said. “A hostage who wants to return home.”
“Hostages return after negotiations or die. You will do neither. You are Hielsrane property.”
“What are you going to do with me? Sell me to the highest bidder like that other cult was trying to do?”
“I don’t have any plans to do so.”
“I’d rather go out there, out the airlock.” She pointed out the portal.
As any true warrior would. She did not follow slave protocol, did not have the correct slave’s demeanor. She must be newly acquired from her planet. She was not well trained but possessed skills. Was she a slave or young cadet the Pax—“cult”— acquired by mistake? They would not knowingly acquire such a high-risk slave. Surely humans did not relinquish their females so readily?
“If you usurp my authority, you will be confined to your chambers.”
“Until when?”
“You are planning to flout my orders?”
“No.” She dropped her head again. “I won’t.”
“Do you know the way to your chamber?”
She hesitated then said, “No.”
I pointed down the corridor. “Turn left, then right, another right then a left.”
“Thanks.” She stepped away. I clamped a hand over her shoulder. Her muscles tensed. Her color was still not normal.
I steeled my fingers before I smoothed them out. “Repeat the directions.”
She lifted her eyes up to the ceiling and huffed out a small breath. “Left, right, right, left.”
“There will be none of that fighting like you did planet-side. Agreed?”
She widened her eyes as if she did not understand but nodded slowly and wrapped her arms around herself as if she were a paragon of docility and had not just ignored a direct summons. If I had not witnessed her inner warrior, I would have believed her.
“A verbal response is required.”
“Yeah.” She took off without being dismissed again. She looked back over her shoulder just before she vanished around the left bend.
5
Lara
Slave. I wiggled a finger under the collar. I wasn’t a hostage. Bejesus, I was in deep space crap.
Gasping for breath, I flopped on the hard foam bed and stared up at the light gray ceiling. Squeezing my eyelids together I counted to one thousand backwards, just the way my therapist taught me to stave off a panic attack.
The burgundy dragon had rescued me from a slave auction, but he really looked like he was going to kill the alien on the floor. Or throw him out of an airlock like he’d said in that calm serial killer voice of his.
I never played the role of a maid, a prostitute, a slut and certainly not a slave. My image was the opposite of all of that. I was strictly PG and it had kept me working steadily.
I shouldn’t have screamed at him like that. He didn’t seem the type to respond to hysteria. Besides, I didn’t scream at people or kidnappers—aliens, dragons? With no dog and no boyfriend for the past two years, there was no reason to scream. My housekeeper and gardener were too sweet to yell at, as good as my parents—better. They never asked for more than their normal salary.
Instead of yelling, I should have used one of my lines like I always did when I didn’t know what to say. None of my previous lines had to mind like they normally did. The perfect one usually surfaced in my memory automatically. Thousands of them clogged my brain.
He had helped me escape those slavers. He might help me get home. L.A. had never really felt like home until now. I had only ever associated the city with work ever since my parents left Michigan for good when I got my first part in a weekly TV show.
When the big burgundy guy lifted me up to the porthole and I looked outside, this nightmare and the threats became too real. He had threatened to eat me and throw me out there. Into space. It didn’t look like a warehouse. Those first tears were real but prolonging them for that long was a push even for my skills.
He had been bluffing or I had caught him off guard or I had been lucky. I had no means to stop him. Not the stun gun near my bed, the pepper spray in my purse or even the switchblade shaped like a platinum lipstick tube that even the TSA never flagged at the airport.
But he hadn’t actually done any of those things. When I scratched him, he didn’t retaliate. I lifted my finger and touched the dried orange spot on my nail. Orange blood.
Ragged breathing pulled me out of my thoughts and my eyes popped open. My captor stood breathing hard in the doorway, his hot breath warming the room as he crossed over the threshold and moved toward the bed.
“What?” I scooted away from him.
He frowned down at me. “Are you afraid of me now?”
Maybe I should be, but for some reason I wasn’t. Not a lot, anyway. “No.”
“Where is he? The guy on the floor.”
“He will not bother you ever again.”
I swallowed hard. “Jesus, did you kill him?”
“No,” he said, as if I had asked about the weather. “My men must respect me and what is mine and I do not want you to be afraid here.”
“Thanks.”
He opened his palm to me. “Give me your hand.” I placed my palm on his. He rubbed it between both of his. “It is steady now.” He actually seemed relieved.
“Thanks, again, for helping,” I said. “Are all of them like that?”
“No. None of them are used to humans. I should have prepared them for your presence.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Oh, okay.”
“Do you need to go to medical bay? I should have taken you straight there. My knowledge of human anatomy is nonexistent. You are still affected by your ordeal.” He sat on the bed beside me. “Your normal color has returned.”
I sat up, drawn to
his natural warmth. The permanent goose bumps on my upper body disappeared completely. I leaned closer. He was like a portable heater, the kind they sometimes had in my trailer on set that I could touch without burning myself.
Why had I wanted to lean into him, rest my head on his shoulder? My psychiatrist would tell me I was being brainwashed and manipulated like a prisoner or a child actor, who was the sole breadwinner of the family and whose parents had depleted her trust fund but felt entitled to a lifetime salary.
Aliens were supposed to be more advanced. The ones in my script were, except for a few rotten ones. Was he one of the rotten ones?
My instincts told me no, but my judgment off screen was crappy. He thought of me as a slave. As a nobody. The other alien had called me a slave, too. Most of the other aliens wouldn’t even look at me. That part wasn’t too bad. I barely knew what that was like. Even as a kid, people had stopped and pointed at me when I least expected.
Drawn by his warmth and curious about whether or not he was wearing makeup, I touched his face and ran my fingers over his ears, which were flat to his head. There was barely a canal sowing. Curious, I looked at my fingers. No makeup residue, no tackiness or grittiness, no color of any kind. He did not respond or stop me. I sniffed his neck. Makeup always had an odor. As a last resort, I touched those shiny iridescent scales on his chest and tried to put a nail under one. There was no under. I shivered.
“You were trying to scare me,” I said.
“You were clearly looking for me earlier,” he said. “Why?”
“Don’t call me the S word.” I scooted away from him. “My name is Lara.”
He just stared at me as if he didn’t understand, so I repeated it, “Lara. I was looking for you because I was cold and afraid. I need a jacket. It’s freezing in here. I’m only warm when I’m moving.”
Was he in some kind of alien trance?
“What should I call you?” I asked. “Even if we’re only going to temporarily have to call each other anything. It would be convenient if—”
“You may call me Commander, human, Lara —”
“Abernathy.”
Usually my name brought instant recognition. Even in incognito, most people recognized me whether I wanted them to or not. I didn’t ninety-nine percent of the time. He wasn’t part of my world at all. Literally.
“The one in the bridge. He called you Le-har.” Another hard stare, he leaned away. “Only mates exchange names.”
“What about your friends, family?”
“You do not fall in either category.” I sighed.
He stood. “How long since you left Earth?”
Earth. That was a word I never used much before I got involved in the alien movie that just might be starting without me.
“What are your people---kind—called?”
He stood taller, feet apart as if standing at attention in a military parade. “Drakonian, Hielsrane line.”
Maybe the space air was the problem. Or just canned air in some warehouse. He believed what he was saying. There were some crazies out there and he might be one of them. Yeah, kind of nice, but kind of crazy, too. Everybody knew most of the crazies were men. I could be live on the black web right now. If I got out of this alive, who knew what that would do to my career: plummet or catapult it into the stratosphere?
“I’m so tired.” It was like all the oxygen was draining from my lungs. I laid back on the bed and gazed up at him. “I can’t dream in my sleep if I’m already dreaming.”
“You appear to be awake,” he said.
“You’re real, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” He covered my forehead with his big hand and touched my hair. I didn’t even mind.
“Perhaps, you do need to see the healer after your encounter with the Pax Alliance.”
“No,” I didn’t want any strange being poking at me again. “Just sleep”
He moved away from the bed and came back and draped some gauzy, cool fabric over me. I pulled it up to my chin and tucked legs up to my chest. Some of the chill that had permeated my bones left. “Thank you, Lehar, Drakonian, Hielsrane line.”
6
Lehar
For three solars, I did not see my slave in the flesh, but caught glimpses of her daily excursions. She showed up during the same time slot on the same monitors as though she were memorizing the route.
She wandered throughout my ship, touching every surface she could reach, while distancing herself from the male crew which was the only reason I gave her such unlimited freedom. It was not as if she could escape. She stopped and talked to one of the female crew who pointed her in the opposite direction. Did she lose her way again?
“Bad news from Tarion?” Dashel asked from behind me. He sat and glanced at my wings, which had expanded an eighth of the way. Again. I retracted them. Even after a lengthy separation from the human, her scent lingered in my nose and her words bounced in my ear as if she were in the room. The novelty of her presence had interrupted my schedule.
“No.” I left the bridge in my nephew’s capable hands and went to her quarters, where she always took her midsolar meal.
Her quarters were empty. Her nourishment tray had not been accessed. I drew in air inside and outside her chambers, hoping to catch her scent. She had not been there for at least an hour.
I waited for her to return and ordered my meal from there. By the time I had finished, she had not appeared.
If I asked the system to identify her location, Dashel and my first crew would know. I should know where she was. I left her chambers. Once again, I found myself tracking her down.
I walked out onto the mezzanine. Only Hielsrane grays and blacks were visible. I stepped to the railing and looked amongst groups of two or more in case she was stationary and her small frame was hidden.
I continued in a slow circle, scanning the lower level hallways. Catching sight of her orange garment out of the corner of my eye, I unfurled my wings and took flight, landing softly behind her.
“Why have you neglected your midsolar nutrition? Are you testing the pedestrian exit again?”
“I took a wrong turn, that’s all.” She looked down at her soft shoes then up at me as if she were contrite. “It’s big in here and everything is the same shades of gray and black. My sense of direction is off. Not that it’s that good anyway.”
My instincts told me she was lying, but I had watched her explore every part of the ship. Not that I was worried that she could do any harm.
“We can remedy that.” I contacted Dashel and informed him I was unavailable for nonessential communication until after the lunar meal.
We made our way down another level. I pointed out the male and female chambers and the nutrition bay. On the next level, I pointed to an open doorway on the right. One of the female crew stared out at us while talking to First Medic. “The medical bay.”
“I came this way at least three times but I’ve never seen it.”
“It’s occupied only when needed.”
We walked to the lowest level. “The recreation bay.” I gestured to the main recreation bay in the middle of the room on the bottom level.
She leaned over the railing. “How do you get down there?”
“You will not be able to go alone, but I’ll give you a tour.” I glanced around and waited until the area was clear. “I’ll have to carry you.”
“Like before?” She rolled her lips into her mouth and pulled up the top of her garment.
“No one shifts inside. Most interiors could not accommodate it.” I extended my hand and led her away from the railing.
She looked behind her and up at me, her mouth open. “Are you going to turn into your, uh, dragon?”
Once we were at the farthest point possible from the recreation bay, I dropped her hand and opened my arms. “Come.”
She walked into my arms, and I pulled her up close against my chest. She squeezed her legs around me. My body tensed immediately. She rested her lips against my neck, and my nose buried
in her floral hair. I jogged lightly in the direction of the lower level, expanded my wings fully and sprinted up to the railing, which I used to catapult into the lower level.
She gasped as we sailed over the recreation bay, circled it and descended. I set her on her feet and steadied her.
“You flew.” Her face beamed up at me. “With me.” The pleasure in her laugh wrapped around me and I found myself smiling down at her.
The room was occupied by two crew members performing mandatory training exercises.
“Clear the bay.” Both ran in tandem to opposites sides of the room, their wings whipping my human’s hair back. They took off and ascended straight out of the pit in opposite directions.
She clapped. “It was like a Cirque du Soleil performance without any safety harnesses.”
“Computer, display Thirren.” A large, blood-orange sun filled the room, tinting the computer-generated sky orange, much like the color of Lara’s dress. Lush green and yellow vegetation surrounded us and the air warmed, mirroring the humid heat of one of my favorite spots on my home planet. Lush green, blue and yellow vegetation surrounded the image of a hot spring, flanked by a large dormant volcano.
She reached out to touch the projections, which sometimes fooled even my eyes.
She threw herself against me briefly. “Thanks,” she murmured into my chest, then danced away, hands outstretched as if she were there among the plants of my home planet.
For another hour, she pointed out every plant and animal that was similar or completely dissimilar to her planet’s ecosystem. Then I flew us back to the upper level.
She padded ahead of me up to the next level, barely making a sound in her soft shoes. Another breach of slave-owner protocol. I needed additional time to instruct her more thoroughly.
“You should be no further ahead of me than at my side when we are outside of chambers.”
