I don’t think my stomach has felt this full in years. I’ve only eaten a few bites of this weird oily thing, but I’ve got a satisfied, lazy contentedness that takes my mind off of the bitter cold. If I overheard the aliens talking about how their food bars were made from crushed insects and goat entrails, I’d shrug and still keep eating.
I can’t eat more than a few bites, however. This thing is dense. I set it aside and lick the savory oil off my fingers. I rearrange my tattered nightgown. Earlier when we were marching, it slipped down off of my shoulder and I saw a fraction of the barcode tattoo on my shoulder. I feigned tripping so that I could twist and wriggle and get my nightgown to cover it back up again. As long as these Zalaryns don’t notice that I’ve been Marked, there’s a chance—thin though it may be—that I can still escape. But if they see who I am, there will be no hope.
And hope’s just about the last thing I have left.
I strain to overhear Kroda talking to the captain, but the other warriors in the camp are too loud. I can hear their lewd suppositions and jealous complaints just fine.
The snippets I do hear: Kroda is urging the captain to leave this planet, but the captain insists that they must go on. This makes me nervous. The column of lewd and jealous aliens is going to get more lewd and more jealous with every extra mile they’re made to march.
Then they’re going to look to blow off some steam.
I know Kroda’s a big enough bastard to knock the block off of anyone who would advance on me—but what if a group of them tried? I can’t even think about that.
Kroda is striding towards me, a look of hot fury in his eyes.
Maybe he needs to blow off some steam.
It’s obvious why he captured me. What he wants to do with me. What all these aliens would do with me if given a thin sliver of a chance.
I don’t know much about the act, besides clinical, textbook knowledge. I lived on Yrdat since I was thirteen, and there wasn’t what you’d call a big pool of eligible bachelors around.
I don’t know anything about courtship or relationships, but I do know about Zalaryns. They are governed by their wild desires. That’s why they take females from Earth. That’s why they scour the galaxy, looking for women to penetrate.
The main reason I never accepted Soryahn’s proposals is because I couldn’t stand the idea of having to lie underneath him—to let him enter me, pumping and panting like a jackrabbit.
But now it seems my time has come.
Kroda takes the block of food and his waterskin and pushes them away. He points at the bedroll. “Lie down,” he says to me. I almost do—something about the way his eyes lock onto mine. Something about the authority of his voice compels me to obey. But I remember that I can’t let them know I understand the language.
I stare at him, unable to take my eyes off of him. Something in him is stirred up and he seems to have grown taller—his shoulders broader, his hands stronger. He’s gigantic compared to me. His rippling muscles and towering height make me feel like I’m his small, cornered prey.
Mostly because I am.
He points at the bedroll again, but now I feel like I can’t move. The way he’s looking at me… Greed is gleaming in his eyes. No one has ever looked at me like this. My stomach is doing nervous flips.
But there’s something more.
A hot, fluttery feeling is spreading low in my belly. All of a sudden, a gust of wind blows and my skin breaks out into goosebumps. My nipples tingle, knotting up into tight little peaks beneath my nightgown. I know he can see the outline of them, hard and poking through the threadbare old grain sack.
And the most bizarre, nonsensical idea pops into my head.
I like the idea that he can see them. His eyes flick down and I can tell he’s looking at my hard nipples.
And I want him to look. I want him to desire me.
It’s all the rest that comes afterward that I’m not so sure about.
As ridiculous as it is, I can’t help it. It makes me feel good that someone would desire me. I know that’s stupid. Unfathomably stupid. It’s not me that he desires. Any female—human or otherwise—would elicit a lustful response from him. From any of them.
He crouches down on the bedroll and grabs onto my shoulders and gently pushes me down. Oh no, he’s going to do it here? With all the other aliens making camp around us? I never imagined that my first time would be like this.
My nightgown shifts up a little bit and I can feel the cold wind blow between my legs. It almost feels good and I realize it’s because I’ve grown hot and flushed.
A nervous sweat. That’s all.
He reaches out one of his giant red hands. The knuckles are thick and there’s a network of scars marring his skin. I shrink back instinctively, scooting backwards on the bedroll. As I do, my nightgown gapes open and the wind blows onto my breasts. This worthless nightgown is leaving me completely uncovered and he can see everything.
He grabs hold of my nightgown and to my complete shock, he pulls it closed, covering up my breasts. That’s when I notice that he’s got something tucked into his waist-pouch. He takes it out and shakes it loose.
It’s a thick purple blanket, I think. He leans in close to me and wraps it around my shoulders. I can smell the sweat on his neck as he reaches behind me with the blanket. It’s a sharp smell, but not altogether unpleasant—like black pepper.
When the blanket is covering me up, he reaches his hand underneath it, trailing up my leg.
His hand is hot and dry, sweeping up my thigh, leaving a warm tingle in its wake. He takes a fistful of my nightgown in his hand and pulls it hard. The last tired stitches give up and it’s yanked free from my body.
There’s a surge between my legs. Instant. Urgent. Why is my body betraying me? Nude, under the blanket, his big hand cups my calf. It lingers there just a beat too long, his thumb sweeping back and forth across my skin. Part of me wants his hand to creep back up towards my thighs.
The treacherous part of me.
The rest of me is furious at myself for reacting in this way to the brute who’s been leading me around on a leash all day.
All of a sudden his hand is gone—the spot where he was touching me seems to burn in its absence. But that’s not the only place that’s feeling a little warm. A little tingly. My heart is racing and I can feel the beat throbbing throughout my body, coalescing into an urgent little ache between my legs. I’m so mad at myself. So confused. I never felt like this before, all fluttery and hot and…
I realize that I’m not scared. I have an odd, calm certainty that he’s not going to hurt me. That nothing bad could happen while I’m under his protection.
Then he takes out a small length of rope.
He circles it around my body and I realize that he’s dressing me. Not undressing me.
He appropriated a blanket and is trying to fashion a robe out of it—something decent and warm.
I feel my eyes grow hot with tears, but I blink them back. I can’t let one act of kindness change my opinion of him.
I am still his captive. He still has a collar around my neck.
And there’s only one reason a Zalaryn male takes a female captive.
“That should be warmer,” he says. Then he wraps each of my feet in smaller pieces of the same purple material, winding a thin leather strap around my ankles to keep everything in place.
I have to force myself to concentrate on my words. I haven’t spoken a single syllable since I was taken. The language procedure makes it so I can understand any language, but it also makes it so that when I speak, my words will automatically be spoken in the target language. Unless I focus, I will start speaking the nasty Zalaryn language.
“Thank you,” I say in English. I can tell that he doesn’t understand, so that’s good. But I had to thank him.
He lies next to me on the bedroll and puts a thick fur over us. The fur blanket is warm but itchy as hell. It might still have the original fleas on it. But the heat is incredible. I thought I’d never be warm again.
Then he does the last thing I expect: he turns over and goes to sleep.
I’m confused, as I thought he would surely begin to paw at me underneath the blanket. But I’m so exhausted, I fall into a deep sleep almost immediately.
Sometime in the night, the cold wakes me. There’s a gust of wind as sharp as a knife slash. I curl up, but the chill is still inside my bones. Desperate for warmth, I wrap my arms around Kroda and pull him tight against me. His body radiates so much heat, it’s like lying next to the stove. My body craves it—purely for survival, don’t get me wrong. The way you will eat sour, mealy lemons when your body is depleted of vitamin C.
He stirs in his sleep, mumbles something, and rolls over on his other side. His face is close to mine, our noses almost touching. I can feel the gentle puff of air on my cheeks as he exhales. It smells nice, a faint smell that reminds me of the forests behind our home on Earth.
I don’t remember much about that house. It was big, with many rooms for me to explore, and surrounded by tall trees that survived the war. My father was an engineer, trying to rebuild the ruins of Earth. I always had private tutors; my mother always had a girl or two to help her with the cooking and cleaning. Privileged, I know that now—but it’s hard to feel very privileged when your toes are like ice and your neck is ringed by electronic, alien bondage.
I look at Kroda’s sleeping face. He somehow manages to look angry and dangerous even in the deepest reaches of sleep. Sleep has done nothing to smooth away the deep creases across his forehead, the furrows between his eyes, the tightened lips.
This close up, I see he looks much more human than I previously thought. His head is bald, but he has eyebrows and eyelashes. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived half my life on a desolate planet with no one else my own age, but I think Kroda could be considered handsome.
I hear the other aliens toss and turn on their bedrolls. It’s too cold to sleep. They’re too angry to sleep. I heard them arguing earlier. They’re upset and disappointed that there wasn’t anything to plunder.
Compounding their anger is the fact that Kroda was the only one to find anything good.
Yeah. What a compliment.
Kroda stirs a little bit, coughs, then puts his arm around me. I fit my head into the crook of his arm and weave my feet between his.
For warmth. Only for the warmth.
I’m drifting back off to sleep, marveling at how a full stomach and warm bed can go a long way towards making me feel normal again.
Then I hear footsteps. Whispers.
In an instant it happens. Four other aliens descend on our bedroll. Kroda thrashes his arms, but the others already have him pinned to the ground. Someone drags me out of the bedroll and the cold air is like a knife in the heart. Like the knife I should have put in my own heart back when I was hiding in the closet.
“Get her down on the ground,” one of them says. “Hold her legs.” I recognize the voice. It’s Zuro.
“The captain goes first,” another one says. It’s easy for me to recognize that foppish voice as belonging to their captain. “Then the rest of the lads can have a turn. That will perk your spirits back up, won’t it boys?”
A raucous cheer goes up. The yellow light from the campfire casts long shadows on the ground, and it seems I’m surrounded.
“You will pay for this,” Kroda shouts. I hear the meaty squelch of a fist driving into his face. The captain approaches me and starts to untie the rope holding my makeshift robe closed.
“Is this my tapestry?” the captain says. “You thief.” He pulls the robe off of my body and tosses it to a waiting warrior. “Put this back in my tent. Hang it up.”
Kroda stole the captain’s tapestry so I could have something warm to wear?
I don’t have much time to examine that thought, because once again, my nude body is exposed—and there is an entire regiment of ravenous aliens looking at me.
But this time is different: I don’t have Kroda to protect me.
The captain kneels before me, a petulant smile on his face. The smile of someone saying ‘I told you so.’
I go into a crazed spasm of terror, kicking my legs and thrashing my arms—but they’re holding me down tightly. I don’t have a chance.
“Save your energy,” Zuro says. “There’s a lot of us. You’re going to be busy for quite a while.”
I scream out, knowing it’s futile. Knowing that Zuro is right.
“You better shut your mouth,” Zuro says. “Or one of us will teach you how to properly use it.”
“If you please me,” the captain says, stroking my leg. His touch is revolting, the tips of his fingers like the legs of a poisonous spider, “you can sleep in my tent instead of that flea-ridden bedroll. Unlike Kroda, I will actually be able to protect you.” He starts to unbuckle his belt.
Just then, the alien holding down my left arm gasps. “Hey, Captain,” he says, his voice sounding very young. “Look here. On her shoulder.”
“What is it?” the captain says. He’s not paying attention to anything but getting his breeches off. But Zuro is listening.
“Captain,” Zuro says. “She is Marked.”
“Marked?” the captain says, irritation clear in his voice.
“Marked,” Zuro repeats. “The barcode is on her shoulder. She is the rightful property of the Zalaryn Clan. We cannot take her.”
“Who cares about the Clan? We’re overthrowing those weaklings, remember?” the captain says. But he’s stopped fiddling with his belt.
“Your father Noxu, the rightful and true High King,” Zuro says, choosing his words carefully, “will claim his seat at the throne soon enough. You will not want it said that his son flaunts the laws and customs of the land. His reign will be under the greatest scrutiny since he’s taking it under… nontraditional methods. She needs to be screened for DNA compatibility and auctioned off, as is the custom. Her purity must remain intact.”
“Are you saying that since my father is stealing the throne, his son cannot be seen stealing Marked females?” the captain looks like he wants to clout Zuro on the head.
“Yes,” Zuro says. “I speak plainly because I believe in your father. I want to see the weaklings purged from our race. I want to see him on the throne, and while long may he reign, years from now I want to see you on the throne.”
“You might have a point,” the captain says. He stands up and buckles his belt. I let out a long breath. “But there’s no reason I can’t keep her for now. Sorry lads. She’s mine.”