Chapter Six

 

 

Two servants attend to us during the meal. Neither of them speak, and I can’t discern whether they are male or female. They aren’t human or from the same race as Kenan. Short, bald, and with milky white skin, they glide in and out of the dining room bringing in new courses and taking away dirty dishes.

I’m so starved I devour everything placed in front of me. Nothing is recognizable, but it’s all quite delicious. I also indulge in two tall glasses of what tastes like wine. It makes my head buzz and leaves me relaxed. When I request a third glass, though, Kenan shakes his head, says something in his native tongue which I don’t understand, and the servant instead pours me water.

“I’ll not have you becoming inebriated, Laylah,” he says in a scolding, almost fatherly tone. “This yinsiza wine is strong stuff, and you don’t look like you weigh more than a hundred pounds. I doubt you can hold three glasses without getting sick.”

I stare across the table at him as I sip my water. I place the cup down and clear my throat. “I’m a hundred twenty-five pounds, actually,” I reply, as if claiming those extra twenty-five pounds would make him fear me, or respect me more. I’m ever aware of his great, intimidating size. Had I seen a man of his stature on Earth, I would have forgotten my manners and stopped to gawk. “So you know how to speak English perfectly, and you also know human standards and measurements?”

His visage darkens and he sets his utensils down. “My father raised me until I was twelve, rarely letting me see my mother. I endured a rigorous human education at the facility I was kept in until I was freed. I know more about Earth and the history of your planet than I care to.”

“I’m not your father, you know. Or any of the others who held you in that facility. What you did to me upstairs…” My voice trails off as my throat closes up.

“Your people came to Tallia not long after we settled here. Our numbers were smaller back then and we were weak, still recovering from a terrible war that we won, but only at great cost, with our home planet left uninhabitable. Then your people started capturing and experimenting on mine. We’ve spent the last few decades gathering our strength and rebuilding our last remaining warships in order to fight back against the human invaders. The resort town of Capital Acres has been demolished. All the human males have been killed, and the females captured will be used as slaves or mates. You ought to be thankful you survived the attack on the Stargazer.” He leans forward and his eyes glitter with madness. “You ought to thank me for saving your life, Laylah, and carrying you off the ship when I could just as easily have snapped your neck, or left you to die on the floor in your quarters.”

I push back from the table and start to leave the room, but I pause in the doorway and clutch the intricate molding. The last time I ran from Kenan, he punished me. I spin around and make my way back to the table, glaring at him with contempt as I return to my seat. “I don’t want to be here,” I say slowly, deliberately, “so perhaps you should have left me to die on the Stargazer. It’s preferable to this hell.”

He leans back in his chair and finishes off his glass of wine, his glowing purple eyes never leaving mine. A servant drifts into the room to refill his cup then quickly departs.

“Or,” I continue, “you can finish what you should’ve done in the first place. Go ahead. Snap my neck.” I’m being dramatic, perhaps even a bit childish, but I’m pissed off and want nothing more than to storm out of this room and slam a door somewhere. Then I remember all the doors in this house slide open and shut automatically and I clench my teeth until my jaw aches. I finger the stem of my glass of water, imagining the satisfaction I’d gain from hurling it into his smug face.

“If you throw water in my face, little human, I will turn you over my knee and spank your naughty bottom.” He’s using the scolding, fatherly tone again, as if I’m some errant child in need of correction.

I don’t like the way my behind tingles at his threat, or the heat that gathers and pulses between my thighs. With a frustrated sigh, I set the glass on the table and tuck my hands in my lap, away from temptation.

He dabs his mouth with a cloth napkin and nods toward the hallway. “If you’re done with your little temper tantrum, Laylah, you may be excused. There’s an invisible force field around the outside of the house, though, so don’t get any ideas about running away. You will only be able to cross through it when I am touching you, or in extremely close proximity to you. It’s a beautiful night. You may sit outside on the patio for a while if you wish. Or go back to your cage. Your choice.”

As I move to depart the dining room, he adds, “Do not attempt to speak with any of the servants. If one of the servants initiates a conversation with you, or touches you, which is expressly forbidden, I’ll expect you to report the incident to me at once. The only time it’s acceptable for you to speak to them is if they knock before entering our bedroom and you need to command them to enter, or to come back later. They are familiar with the rudiments of your language and should understand such basic commands. Do you understand, little human?”

“Yes, I understand.” I leave him and find the patio easily enough.

It’s so pitch dark I can’t see the forest, but I hear it fine. The insects have grown louder and the occasional distant growl or screech carries over the singing bugs. Despite the force field, the breeze enters to caress my face and tousle my hair.

As I’m about to question the effectiveness of the barrier, one of the servants from the dining room walks through it and onto the patio. He, or she, is carrying a basket of fruit, and the force field shimmers green as he passes through.

He places the basket down on a small table and approaches me. I stare at him as he comes to a standstill directly in front of me.

Well, it would rude not to speak to the servants, I decide. Kenan’s not here. What the big brute doesn’t know won’t hurt him, and I’m still so livid with him that I want to defy him in some small way—as long as I don’t get caught. I peek over my shoulder to ensure he hasn’t ventured outside, and once I’m certain he’s still within the house, I return my gaze to the servant and give him a polite smile.

“Hello,” I say. “I’m Laylah. What’s your name?”

He reaches for my hand and gives it a squeeze. Before I can pull away, a name sounds in my mind.

Heggal. My name is Heggal, child.

I sense a laugh from within him. It tickles my brain, though I don’t quite hear it. I only hear words.

I am a male. All the females of my kind are gone. Only males are left.

“Can you speak aloud?”

No. My kind, the Ghessans, communicate telepathically. However, we’re able to communicate with most other races by touch.

“That’s amazing. It’s nice to meet you, Heggal.” If I’m to have any friends on Tallia, they’ll be servants, I suppose.

We can’t talk for long, but I want to show you something. Then, instead of words, images flash in my conscious. I shut my eyes to concentrate on the situation he replays like a movie.

It’s after the Stargazer has been conquered, and Kenan is carrying me toward a large tent on the surface of Tallia. Behind us rests one of the sleek gray ships. A doctor is walking behind him, I sense he’s a doctor from Heggal, and Kenan keeps shouting orders and threats to the elderly alien, who appears to be the same race as Kenan.

Though I know they are speaking Kleaxian and I can distinctly hear the words spoken in the alien tongue, I also hear the echo of the words translated in English, thanks to my telepathic friend.

“You must treat her now. Her pulse feels weak.”

“That’s not surprising. Humans are a weak species.” The doctor pales and quickly adds, “No offense to you, Prince Kenan.”

Prince? In my surprise, I struggle to keep up with the images.

Kenan snarls and walks faster. “You’ll treat her and mend all her injuries, or you’ll join her in death.”

The rest of the images come quickly.

Kenan, his face drawn with deep worry lines, paces beside a medical table as the doctor pumps something into my mouth, a mist I surmise is to heal my lungs. He holds various blinking scanners over my body, sometimes hovering over a specific part of me, like my throat, for several minutes at a time.

At last, the doctor places his instruments down and nods at Kenan.

“She might be tired when she awakes, but she’ll survive. I gave her something to keep her unconscious while I treated her lungs, so expect her to be out for quite some time.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Kenan stands over me and strokes my hair. Relief has replaced the concern in his eyes. The worry lines on his face also start to relax.

Laylah.

Heggal’s talking again inside my mind.

Don’t try to go through the force field that’s just beyond this patio and the walkways connecting it to other patios surrounding the house. Only Kenan and a few choice servants can pass through it freely. He’ll know if you attempt it. Don’t give him a reason to punish you. And don’t run from him. Whatever you do, don’t run from him. Don’t tell him I talked to you, or he’ll send me to work for one of his relatives on a faraway mountain. The other servants here are my friends and it would break my spirit to leave them.

Heggal releases my hand and the image of Kenan staring at me with relief fades. I open my eyes and I’m back on the patio, feeling as if I’ve just awoken from a dream. The nighttime bugs sound louder than before.

“Why did you show me that?”

The pale alien doesn’t reply, but gives me a knowing smile before retrieving his basket and entering the house, leaving me alone with my muddled thoughts.

It doesn’t make sense. During our dinner conversation, Kenan made it sound as if he’d almost left me to die in my quarters. But that isn’t true at all.

He worried about whether or not I would survive, and he’d threatened to murder a doctor if I didn’t live. My heartbeat quickens and I feel faint as I try to process this new information.

Kenan is an enigma.

I want to know more about him, as well as the mountain he calls home, but I’m still too frustrated and angry to seek him out, not to mention fearful. Is he really a prince? I stare into the dark forest as if it contains the answers to my questions.

Eventually, I shift my gaze to the sky and drink in the beauty of the two full moons. I’ve seen pictures before, of course, but glimpsing the bright orange moons of Tallia in person is so much more rewarding than any photo flashing across the television screen.

Before my parents tore up my acceptance letter to the art school, I frequently painted and sketched the two moons of Tallia. Once it became apparent that despite my love of painting and drawing, I wouldn’t be able to pursue a career as an artist, I decided if I couldn’t paint Tallia’s moons anymore, I would at least visit the planet one day, and perhaps, once my education was complete, make it my permanent home.

Now it’s my home for good, whether I like it or not.

“Goodbye, Mom. Goodbye, Dad,” I whisper to the stars. “Goodbye, Aunt Mabel.” Every time I remember I’ll never see my family and friends again, it’s a punch to the stomach. “Goodbye, Sheila.”

My best friend, Sheila, is three months pregnant right now. I was supposed to be Aunt Laylah to her little girl, or boy. I was supposed to be there for her as she embarked upon motherhood at a young age, mere months after graduating high school. Yes, I was going away to college soon, but I would have been a phone call away and also visited her as much as possible.

Only a handful of people know she’s expecting. What will she do without me?

I struggle to breathe and hunch over, wrapping my arms around myself.

What will I do without Sheila? Or Aunt Mabel?

My throat burns. Or my parents?

Sure, part of me resents my parents for strongly discouraging my interest in art, but I still love them and think they did the best job possible raising me under the circumstances, particularly after the tragic loss of my brother at such a young age.

I sigh and gaze longingly at the sky once more, wishing I could blink and my home planet’s moon would appear above me. Will Earth officials learn what happened to the passengers on the Stargazer and the humans on Tallia? Or will they simply discover the wormhole has closed and call it an unfortunate accident? Will they eventually realize the Kleaxians intentionally closed it?

The answers to these questions and so many more will forever remain a mystery. The not knowing part kills me. I long to see my parents once more to tell them how much I love them and promise I’ll be all right on Tallia, even if that last part is probably a lie.

It’s a cruel twist of fate that, a decade after losing my brother, they have lost me as well, especially after the lengths they went to ensure I never followed in his footsteps.

“Time for bed, Laylah.” Kenan’s deep voice pulls me from my miserable trance.

My spirits darken further. I don’t want to sleep in a cage. I don’t want to talk to him, either.

I rise, keeping my arms crossed, and stare at the ground as I move to walk past him. I can’t look at him. Not now. Not when I’m so vulnerable and lost.

But when he grabs my arm and tips my chin up, forcing my eyes to his, I’m powerless to stop him. I gulp, fearing he knows about my illicit talk with Heggal, but his next words abate this particular worry.

“I wouldn’t really have snapped your neck, Laylah.” His voice is gentle and his eyes gleam dark in the moonlight. “I wouldn’t have left you to die, either.”

My heart lurches. It’s the closest to an apology I can hope for. We both know it. I nod to acknowledge his little confession, not necessarily to accept it, and then he escorts me to the large master bedroom.

The door slides shut behind us and I tremble at being alone with him again, in the very room where not so long ago, he whipped and ravished me. A glance at the bed shows it’s been remade with clean covers. There’s no trace of blood anywhere. I wonder what the servants think of their master.

He pushes me toward the bathroom, and I venture inside and start preparing for bed. I wash my face first, and after I pat it dry I take comfort in the fact I don’t look as hellish as earlier. My eyes aren’t as red, and the pink mark from the slap has completely faded. In retrospect, he didn’t hit me hard enough to inflict any real damage. Not that it makes it okay.

I open drawers until I find a package containing what resembles a toothbrush. It’s larger than any toothbrush I’ve ever seen, but I use it anyway, along with a tube of something that smells minty. After cleaning up the sink area out of habit, I use the toilet, thankful he allowed the door to close behind me.

Pausing in the center of the bathroom, I stare at the door. I’m finished with my ablutions, but I’m not ready to face Kenan. Will he fuck me again? He’d also mentioned hurting me, not as punishment, but because he wants to hurt me, and that scares me even more than possibly having to spread my legs for him again.

It’s so fucked up. This whole day.

I should be enjoying a relaxing bath in my suite at the Tallia Grand in Capital Acres, the most popular tourist destination on the most southern continent, my virginity still intact. I should be planning which excursions into the wilds of Tallia I’m going to join during the next three months, pouring over brochures and booking the most exciting adventures.

But Capital Acres is gone, and I’m the prisoner of an alien who harbors an intense dislike for humans, despite being half-human himself. I have no idea on which continent I’m currently residing, and tonight I will have to sleep in a cage.

The door slides open when I finally work up the courage to return to the bedroom. Kenan is dressed in nothing but a pair of tight black underwear that clings to him like a second skin. This surprises me. Somehow, I’d expected him to go shamelessly commando.

The soft glow of the sconces lining the walls accentuates his spectacular physique. He probably doesn’t have an ounce of fat anywhere on his huge, muscular form. He looks like a dark-haired, reddish Viking warrior, with his immense build and the savage force emanating from him.

He disappears into the bathroom for several minutes, and I stand in the center of the room, reluctant to enter the cage and not daring to crawl into the bed.

When Kenan returns, he closes the space between us, and I shiver as he reaches for the tie holding my robe together. He yanks it loose and pushes the garment off my shoulders, leaving me completely bare to his carnal gaze.

Unable to hold his stare, I drop my eyes to his red, chiseled chest and stand absolutely still, waiting for whatever’s to come with a cold sense of dread. Exhaustion weighs me down and I suddenly long to curl up on the mattress in my cage.

In sleep, he can’t hurt me.

I hope he’s quick this time.

His hands travel down from my shoulders to cup my breasts. A hiss escapes me; I’m still terribly sore from his belt. His touch is gentle, though, to my relief, as he inspects each fading welt, even lifting my breasts to examine the damage done to the soft undersides.

I quiver and once again berate myself for the heat gathering in my loins. It’s difficult to remain indifferent when the warmth radiating from his body and his woodsy masculine scent entice me to lean into him.

Deep breaths. I concentrate on inhaling and exhaling, long and slow, to keep myself from surrendering to his careful touch.

Holding my right breast in one hand, he steps closer and wraps his free arm around me, giving my bottom a squeeze. I gasp as his hardness presses against my stomach.

“I know these hurt.” He gives my bosom a delicate caress, running his fingers along the most painful welt. “However, I’m not going to apply the healing salve to them as I did to your pussy. You’ll wear the marks from this punishment until they fade on their own, to remind you I expect your complete obedience. And to remind you to whom you belong.”

I stiffen and try to step back, but he strengthens his hold on me. “I’m very tired. Please, Kenan.”

He rearranges me in his arms and yanks on my hair, but not as hard as earlier. It’s a gentle yank that feels oddly intimate. He simply wants me to look at him.

My eyes collide with his stern gaze and a shiver ripples down my spine to clash with the ever-present aching in my core. The ache prevails and steals the momentum of that shiver to pulse faster and hotter.

I’m powerless to stop the spell he’s cast on me, a dark spell that makes me crave the very things I fear most—loss of control, loss of freedom, and pain followed by his gentle caresses. The comfort he gave me after whipping my breasts, and again after fucking me, is the only drug that’ll ease my trembling and calm the throbbing between my thighs.

“You’re lucky I was so lenient with you.”

“Lenient?” I can’t keep the note of disbelief from my tone, and I try to break the spell brought on by his nearness. He’s manhandled me, slapped me, whipped me and more, and he thinks he was lenient. I shouldn’t be surprised by his declaration, but I am.

“Yes, lenient. I could have made you bleed, little human.” His gaze darkens and the fist in my hair tightens. “Perhaps I should have. You don’t seem very appreciative.”

You did make me bleed. When you stole my innocence.

An exacerbated snort breaks from me before I can stop it. “If you’re waiting for me to thank you for not whipping me until I bled, you’ll be waiting a long time. Where I come from, it’s considered wrong for a man to treat a woman with such brutal disregard and violence.”

In the back of my mind, a little voice pleads for me to shut the fuck up. But I don’t listen, and I press on even as anger flares hotter and darker in his purple eyes.

“On my world, men like you are locked up. You’re the one who belongs in the cage, Kenan. Not me.”

I expect him to hit me, or pull my hair harder, or angrily toss me into the cage. But he releases me entirely and moves to turn down the bedcovers. “Get in, Laylah.” When I hesitate, he adds, “I’m not going to hurt you or fuck you again tonight. I give you my word.”

“Bu-but I-I thought the cage w-was…” In my nervousness, my shaky voice trails off before I can say my bed.

“Most Kleaxian females sleep in a cage at the end of their mate’s bed, but now that I have you as my mate, Laylah, I think I prefer you to share my bed.” He pauses and levels a serious look on me. “You have much to learn about Kleaxian ways. Our females are expected to be obedient and sweet at all times, and the slightest offenses are punished severely. Had another Kleaxian male taken you from the Stargazer, you’d probably have been beaten bloody by now, Laylah.” There’s truth in his dark eyes. “The rest of the human females captured are likely not faring as well as you.”

A shudder courses through me, and I wrap my arms around my center, not to hide my nakedness, but because I’m falling apart. In the weeklong trip from Earth to the wormhole, I hadn’t really gotten the chance to know anyone aboard the ship. It was so crowded that every time I left my quarters I found myself awash in a sea of strangers, most of whom were wealthy tourists.

Over six hundred souls had been aboard the Stargazer, about half of them women. Though I hadn’t gotten to know any of them well, my heart aches for the horrible fate that has befallen them. I stare at Kenan as my throat constricts.

“Will some of them be hurt badly?” I ask. “The human females. Will any of them be killed if they aren’t…obedient enough?”

He shakes his head. “It’s forbidden to kill a female. In fact, the penalty for killing a female or causing her permanent damage is death. You will probably find this hard to believe, but we do treasure our females, our mates, even those from other alien races, like the humans.”

“You’re right. I do find it hard to believe.”

“By claiming you today, here on this bed, Laylah, you legally became mine. Until death parts us. I will treasure you.” He takes a deep breath and for the first time since I met him, he appears vulnerable. “I do treasure you. You aren’t Kleaxian, so you cannot feel it, but a bond has formed between us. You are my treasured mate, and I will spend the rest of my days caring for you.”

“You forced yourself on me, Kenan,” I whisper shakily.

“Would you rather I waited to claim you, so another Kleaxian male could challenge my ownership of you? Though my home is well protected, I did not want to take the chance. Once a Kleaxian claims his female, a light blue aura appears around her, which tells all other males to stay away. You can’t see it, because you’re human, but I can see it. You’re surrounded in a faint blue glow, Laylah, because you belong to me.”

I don’t know what to say, so I walk around him and crawl into bed. He tucks the covers up to my neck and gazes down at me with a tenderness akin to affection. Reverence, even. But, as soon as the emotion flickers into his eyes, he stands up and strides around the bed then slides in next to me under the covers.

His legs tangle with mine, so warm and so solid, and he props himself up on his elbow and reaches for my hair. But I stop him by touching my hand to his. I’m curious about his seven digits, and I thread my fingers through his and gaze intently at his hand.

“How many fingers do full Kle-Kleax …”

“Kleaxians. My mother was a Kleaxian princess.”

So it’s true. About him being a prince. Tearing my gaze from his hand, I peer into the recesses of his dark visage. “Do full blooded Kleaxians have seven fingers?”

When he shakes his head, his black wavy locks tumble over his shoulders. “Kleaxians of royal blood, like my mother, have eight fingers on each hand and eight toes on each foot. Kleaxians of the lower classes only have six. The half-human, half-Kleaxians can have anywhere from five to seven.”

I’m fascinated, and I want to know more about his people, but my eyelids grow heavier with each second. I cover a yawn and the urge to curl up against his chest falls over me.

But I can’t forget what happened the last time I was in this bedroom, and I draw away from him, wondering if perhaps I would be better off in the cage.

He stiffens.

“Laylah, you have nothing to fear if you obey me.”

“That’s not true. You said you would hurt me sometimes, simply because it pleases you.”

He strokes my hair behind my ears and his breath fans against my face like a soft, warm whisper. “Perhaps I didn’t choose my words very carefully at the time. I will hurt you sometimes, yes, for no other reason than it pleases me to redden your bottom or make you squirm and plead a little before I claim you, Laylah. But those aren’t the times you should fear me. Now, close your eyes and sleep. Tomorrow is a big day…the first day of your new life on Tallia.”

I open my mouth, preparing to ask about tomorrow, but his stern look silences me.

He draws me deeper into his embrace and my eyes flutter shut.

As the waves crash against the alien shore and the night insects buzz louder, I drift to sleep in the arms of my captor.