Now I understand why my parents gave up everything to hide me on Yrdat.
I’m glad they are dead. If they were still alive, it would surely kill them to see their only daughter carried onto a Zalaryn warship—meant to pleasure an entire crew of rowdy warriors before being auctioned off to a permanent master.
Ingzan keeps a tight hold on my leash, making sure I am close enough to his side that our arms touch. His eyes dart around nervously, as if he expects the rest of the warriors to rise up in mutiny. He’s a thief, so he expects the rest of the aliens to steal me. He’s a coward, so he expects the flimsy pretext of his leadership to crumble the first time one of the stronger, braver aliens challenges him.
I try to look over my shoulder, to see if Kroda is following—but I’m rewarded with a jerk on the leash and Ingzan’s hand slapping my ass. “Walk faster,” he says. I quicken my pace, not wanting to feel his hands on me again. I felt safe with Kroda. I know that now. When he held my leash, I knew I was safe. Knew that he would protect me. That feeling of security is completely gone, and I feel its absence keenly.
I know it’s a foolish hope that Kroda would come rescue me. Even if he did, it would only be to recover his stolen property. Still, now that I’m in the clutches of Ingzan, I think I actually miss Kroda.
That can’t be the right word. Miss him?
I just miss the fierceness with which he guards his property. Because that’s all I am to him: property.
The ship is much like the one my family traveled on to get to Yrdat. There are many chambers and passages—many doors that open and close with a gust of cold air and a shweet sound. There are bright lights on all the ceilings—not lanterns or torches, but perpetual lights, fueled most likely by the Zalaryns’ mysterious qizo crystals. The light is steady, white and seems to produce no heat at all. It’s very strange.
Ingzan takes me down a long, narrow hallway, holding the leash even tighter. I walk in front of him and he grabs my wrist with his other hand. As if there’s anywhere for me to run. Then again, there are several escape hatches built into the interior of the ship. Pulling the lever and getting sucked out into the quiet nothing of space might be preferable to serving as the ship’s pleasure slave during their long and meandering voyage.
When my family traveled to Yrdat all those years ago, the pilot delighted in describing what would happen if you left the safety of the spaceship and ventured into the vacuum of space without a protective suit.
“The lack of pressure makes you use up your oxygen faster. You’d pass out from lack of oxygen in fifteen seconds,” he told me. “But that’s only if your lungs are empty. If you fill them with air and try to hold your breath, which is the natural instinct, the pressure causes the air to expand and your lungs will burst like an overfilled balloon. For some reason, if that didn’t kill you, the pressure differentials reduce the boiling point of your bodily fluids. If you did still happen to be conscious, you’d feel your saliva begin to boil on your tongue. Your blood, the urine in your bladder, the orange juice sloshing around in your belly—they would all boil you from the inside out. But don’t worry. You’d be dead long before that.”
I think I could deal with boiling blood, with burst lungs. You probably pass out after fifteen seconds, after all. I think these Zalaryns are going to keep me alive much, much longer.
The captain’s room is small, but I would imagine all rooms on a spaceship are small. Most of it is taken up by a large bed covered in many furs and silky pillows. Nothing like the hard-plank bunks I saw lining the walls of the other rooms. I guess that’s a benefit of being captain. That, and the opportunity to break in the new pleasure slave.
He pushes me into the room and my feet almost catch on the corner of a chair, but I keep my balance. “Wash,” he says. He’s talking to me like if he just speaks slowly and loudly enough, I’ll understand the Zalaryn language. He prods at me, and I see there is a small attached bathroom. It is sparkling white and there’s a commode, basin and spigot. Much nicer than anything I have at home. Anything I had at my former home, I correct.
I’m still not sure how I’m going to get out of this mess, but one thing’s for sure: I’m never going back to Yrdat ever again.
I step into the small washroom, but I’m not sure what to do. Back on Earth, we had a servant girl to help fetch and heat the water for us—or sometimes I did it myself. But we never had anything like this. A commode built inside the house? Where does the waste go? And a spigot sticking straight out of the wall? On a spaceship, no less. Do they travel with their own portable well of water? Does it flow through a pipe and out the bottom of the ship, spewing old bathwater and excrement into the galaxy?
The captain tugs at my purple garment. I know it’s his—some tapestry from his traveling pavilion, but I think of it as mine. It’s the only thing I have left. I lost my house. I definitely don’t have any dignity left. “Undress for me,” he says. “Wash.”
It takes me a moment to realize that he’s speaking English. Maybe he has a translator chip inside his ear. Or maybe he had the language procedure performed, but didn’t want to speak an inferior Earth language in front of his men.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. He’s standing there, watching me, expecting me to strip and bathe myself for his amusement.
I am definitely not going to do that.
I know what he’s going to do to me—it’s what all Zalaryns do to their female captives—but I’ll be damned if I’m going to perform for him. Not a chance.
“Undress,” he says again. “Wash your breasts. Then bend over and let me inspect you. You’re supposed to be a virgin. I want to see what a pure human cunt looks like. You might be clan property, and I might have to submit you to the auction house, but mark my words: I will buy you. I will own you. The first cock you feel piercing through your tight little hole is going to be mine.”
“No,” I say. I’m not sure what I’m saying ‘no’ to—then I realize I’m saying no to all of it.
He just laughs. “That’s not a word I like to hear. If I hear it too much, I might have to cut out your tongue. They used to do that to human slaves in the old days. But our race has gotten a bit weak. I’m trying to restore our glory, restore our warrior spirit. Purge the weak element from our society. Part of that includes showing our human slaves their proper place. You will obey me. You will service me and my crew. Defiance will not be tolerated.”
“Now,” he says, pausing to catch his breath. He’s gotten a little worked up. White, frothy spittle has gathered in the corners of his mouth. There’s a few dewy drops of sweat at his temple. “I told you to undress. Wash your breasts. Then bend over and present yourself for inspection. I need to get to the cockpit and set a course with our Admiral Superior, so I do not have time to take my pleasure of you—when I do that, I will need lots of time—but I do wish to look at your cunt and see what type of female I have captured. Remember what I said about the word I hate to hear.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. His words, so full of venom, compounded by the fact that they sound so bizarre with his harsh alien accent. Cut out my tongue? That might only be the first thing he can think to punish me. These bastards are creative in their violence, if nothing else. I know what they did to Delilah and Bert. Still.
“No,” I say. I am not going to start down this path of servitude. I might be wearing a collar and a leash, but I am no one’s dog. If I don’t resist, if I submit and say ‘yes’ this time, it will be all that easier to say ‘yes’ next time. And the time after that. And then I will cease to be a human. I will be a dog. His dog. “No,” I say again, louder, this time in the Zalaryn tongue. “Never.”
“You stupid whore,” he says. “I don’t have time for this.” He pulls back his arm to strike me, but I’m able to get my hand up just in time to shield the worst of it. Still, it hurts terribly. I feel like I was just kicked by an ornery donkey.
I stagger and fall to the floor. He pulls the purple garment from me and reaches for a control on the wall. The spigot begins to spray freezing cold water, colder than the water from the wells in Yrdat during our coldest winter months. He pulls the handle of the spigot out of the wall and sprays it onto me. The water pressure from the little hose is intense. It feels like I’m being stung by a hundred bees, all with icy-poison in their stingers.
I open my mouth to scream and he points the jet of water in my mouth. I gag on it, coughing and choking as it comes out my nose.
“I told you to wash away your filth,” he says. He kicks me while I’m on the ground, trying to ball myself up and protect my face from the harsh spray of water. After what feels like long minutes, the water turns off and he puts the hose back onto the wall.
“Wait until I come back,” he says. “You will learn obedience. I have all sorts of things to help you learn. And if you can’t learn…” he pauses, seeming to consider the disappointment he’d feel at such a wayward pupil. “I’ll throw you to the crew—and after they’ve used you up, you’ll go out the hatch into the void. And if anyone ever asks, I never captured a Marked female on Yrdat. That barcode on your shoulder will only protect you if I want it to. And right now, returning an escaped Marked female to the auction house would help my father’s cause to the High Throne. But if you become more trouble than you are worth, remember what I said: First to the crew. Then out the hatch. They’re a hearty and hale group of lads. When the last one’s done with you, the first one will be ready again. Think on this while I’m gone.”
He closes the door to the washroom, leaving me wet and shivering on the cold, white floor.
At least I’m clean, I think. I’m used to being cold, but clean? I haven’t been this clean in a long time. I get up to a sitting position and start to think. One thing is in my favor—he did not lock my collar in position. Kroda was able to set it to freeze in position, keeping me stuck in place. But the captain either doesn’t know how to do so, or doesn’t have the controls.
I run my hands along the washroom’s door panel, but can’t feel any latch or lock. There was a little box with buttons on the outside of the door that controlled the locks. Their technology is far, far more advanced than anything on Yrdat—but it’s also more advanced than anything on Earth. Even in my family’s large house, we didn’t have ever-glowing lights or magic buttons that turned things on and off.
I know that such things used to exist. I always kept up with my studies; my father insisted upon it. I know much about the history of Earth and the technology of the Pre-War Era. This door uses some sort of electrical conductor to work. I can make no guess at what material powers it, but it most certainly works with semi-conductors and circuit boards.
Both of which are ruined by water.
I take the water hose from the wall spigot and turn it back on. I blast myself in the face with another cold jet of water, but after tinkering with the buttons, I get it under control. I spray at the door for what seems like forever. The water level is rising inside the washroom, the water spraying at a faster rate than it is able to seep out under the door. The captain will come back and find his room a bit more wet than he left it. Maybe the rotten bastard will slip in a puddle and break his neck.
There is finally a crack and pop and then the stink of burning polymer. I have a moment of panic when I wonder if I broke the door lock and permanently locked myself inside this washroom. Would the captain take pains to break down the door and retrieve me? Or would a sadistic creature like him take pleasure in my slow death? Because it would be slow. In here, I have all the water I can drink. I’d last for a while. It might take me weeks or more to starve to death.
Still, I feel a smile spread across my face. That might not be as merciful as the boiling blood and exploding lungs of a free-fall in space, but I’d take that over whatever cruel fate is in store for me aboard this ship full of lustful warriors.
As soon as I have that thought, smoke starts to leak out from the crack of the door panel. I try to slide the door open—and to my surprise, it opens.
I rummage through the captain’s room to find a weapon. He always keeps that stick-thing on his belt, but maybe there’s something in the room I can use. I open his wardrobe closet and see he has many fine garments hanging up. His breeches are soft leather, but even with a belt there’s no way I can keep them up. The Zalaryns usually go shirtless, but he’s got a few billowy tunics hanging up—the white cloth seeming to glow in the dark cabinet. I throw one on and it comes to my knees. I wish I could have a pair of underwear or pants, but this tunic at least covers my body.
I scour the room but find nothing suitably sharp or heavy to use as a weapon.
The captain has a lot of furs and pillows and clothes and tapestries—but nothing I can use as a weapon against that giant brute.
I’m thinking that maybe I can strangle him with the end of my leash when I hear the boots echoing in the hallway. Heavy. Fast. Someone’s running.
And then, with one sickening blow that seems to rattle the marrow inside my bones, the door flies open.