FOUR
“This is your spaceship?” Cara asked, her voice rising slightly in awe.
The towering alien behind her just ushered her along quickly, forcing her to approach the massive hunk of metal. There were larger ships in the docking bay—or wherever they were. But the majority were smaller, none of them even coming close to the size of this beast.
She must’ve been glancing at the smaller ships for a little too long because the surly alien next to her, who’d acted like a foul asshole all morning, grunted, “Do not try it, female.”
Cara blew out a short breath. Even if she did try slipping from his grip and stealing aboard a vessel, she wouldn’t get far. She knew nothing about their technology, had not even flown so much as a kite in her life. And even if she did somehow manage to pilot a ship? She would have no idea where she would go and would probably starve and get captured once again before she ever even made it out of the galaxy.
Fighting annoyance, she glanced back to his ship. It was a gleaming gunmetal gray and Cara couldn’t help but admire its lines. She’d often done that with her dad’s motorcycles. She’d stare for hours. And now, she was getting caught up in those same feelings.
Cara’s hood blocked some of her vision. The alien had insisted that she put it up that morning as they strode down the quiet streets of the colony in the early hours. The sunlight had been blocked by a heavy red cloud cover, casting the colony in bleakness. She almost felt sorry for the inhabitants that lived there. Almost.
The alien hit a button on the metal strap around his forearm and silently, a silver ramp edged towards the ground from the ship. The docking bay was deserted, thankfully, so no one was around to witness them stride inside the ship and seal it closed again.
The sudden hush and coolness that drifted past her cloak felt heavenly. After being in the humidity on this colony, and the heat on the Pit, and the damp muskiness of her cage, the inside of the ship felt like a breath of fresh, pure air. Cara longed to feel it on her face so she shook off her hood and closed her eyes. She was shocked when she felt a small smile cross her lips. It had been so long since she’d smiled. Guess it only took an agreeable temperature to make her happy…
When she opened her eyes, the alien was staring at her. Her breath hitched. The intensity in his gaze made her heart beat increase but she didn’t know if it was out of fear or something else entirely.
He jerked his head to the side, like he was forcing himself to look away, and then strode down a brightly lit hallway, the sides brushed with a matte black metal.
Cara followed after a moment’s hesitation, their footsteps the only sound between them. Cara’s feet were still bare and she didn’t want to think about everything she’d stepped in while on the colony.
The hallway led to an…elevator. A glass tube elevator that, when activated, shot them up two levels to the very top of the ship. Through the glass, she could see a small control room, not like anything she’d expect to pilot a ship that size. Then again, what did she know about alien technology?
There was a single panel that stretched the entire length of the room, full of buttons and tiny screens that reflected words in a language she couldn’t even hope to understand. A single steel chair was raised in front of it. It was scuffed from extensive use, the ends of the armrests worn. Along the other walls of the room, large machines whirred and flashed and beeped, but her alien captor paid them no mind as he stepped towards the controls.
He tapped a series a buttons and she heard a sound deep within the ship. Bright lights flickered on, making her squint, but she watched in amazement as what she’d assumed was a wall in front of the control panel began to lower, revealing the docking bay below.
Cara peered down and she realized they were a lot higher up than she’d originally assumed. Carefully, she watched his fingers flit over the buttons and screens, perhaps trying to catalogue and memorize his actions just in case.
He let out another huff from his nostrils when he saw her watching a little too raptly. She swore he was laughing at her behind those blue eyes when they connected with her own. He quirked his sparse brow, like he was daring her. That arrogance infuriated her but it didn’t stop her from tracking his movements. Infuriated and…excited her? No. That couldn’t be.
She ignored her treacherous body and focused. He must truly think that she wouldn’t be able to recreate his actions or else he wouldn’t have let her watch. But she had a good memory. She just might surprise him. And by the time he finally figured that out, hopefully she would be long gone.
Every time she had the chance, she would study this, study him.
Cara let out a gasp when the ship suddenly lurched forward, hovering above the ground, the cables that had been fueling it disconnecting all at once. The ship tilted and they began to move, slowly and steadily nearing a thick wall. Cara’s eyes widened, casting a nervous look at the alien, but before she could ask him what the hell he was doing, the wall peeled back.
To reveal space.
Space…with stars that didn’t twinkle like they did when their light filtered through Earth’s atmosphere. Terrifyingly beautiful space. Just inky blackness and stars.
Cara’s lips were parted as she stared. She’d never seen the view in front of her before, despite traveling to that colony from the Pit. The Baquarian had kept her locked away below. Always in darkness.
But he was letting her see it.
When her gaze tipped to him, he was looking at her. Cara knew he saw the awe etched deeply on her features. And the way he looked at her…it made her spine prickle with awareness.
Why was he looking at her like that?
Cara cleared her throat, her gaze returning to the scene laid out in front of her like a celestial buffet.
They didn’t speak as he piloted the ship further and further away from the colony behind them. When they veered, Cara caught her first glimpse of it from afar.
And it was completely unimpressive. It was smaller than she thought. Just a small little red planet, if it could even be called that.
Cara did notice, however, that the farther they flew from the planet, the more relaxed her captor became. The rigid lines of his shoulders eased and he leaned back deeper in his chair, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.
Cara asked, “You don’t like being on the colony. Why?”
He was silent for so long that Cara had already expected he wouldn’t answer her.
So, when he finally spoke, a few minutes had passed and he was typing in something on the largest control screen.
“I lived on Petrika once,” was all he said.
“You did?” she asked. For some reason, she was surprised but then she realized she shouldn’t be. He’d known his way around, had navigated the seedy, filth-strewn streets easily. The aliens there hadn’t dared to fuck with him, like they knew he was dangerous.
“Tev.”
She assumed that meant ‘yes’ in his language, had heard him say it before.
“I…” she started, I’m sorry on the tip of her tongue, because who in their right mind would want to live there? “Why? Where you born there?”
Another huff through his nostrils. “I lived there because I could go nowhere else.”
What does that mean? she wondered, frowning.
He stood, effectively cutting off her next line of questioning. She’d always been too curious for her own good.
“Come,” he said, his voice deepening, gesturing towards the elevator. “I will show you your quarters.” His gaze raked over her cloak. “You may wash. I will get you a clean tunic.”
Cara’s heart sped up. “Really?”
He simply inclined his head, frowning, and that was enough to boost her into action. She reentered the elevator and it shot both of them down one level, opening into another curved hallway.
“I haven’t seen any other…crew,” she finally decided on. “Is there anyone else on board?”
“Plotting your escape?” he rasped.
Cara’s eyes narrowed. “Always,” she hissed back, all feelings of gratefulness at the promise of a bath and clean clothes gone.
His gaze slid down to her and she fought a shiver that made her body heat. Though his face was grim, his strange, beautiful eyes were bright with…something.
“Good,” he grunted. “You should be.”
That surprised her, but she didn’t let it show on her face. Confusing, maddening alien.
“You wouldn’t punish me for trying to escape?” she asked. They were steadily making their way down the hallway, passing closed doors along the way.
“Nix,” he said. She watched as he raked a hand over one of his black horns and she inhaled a breath, feeling her nipples peak underneath her cloak. “I would not encourage it, however. You are safer with me.”
“I’ll decide that for myself,” she shot back.
She swore his lips quirked up, but she blinked and it was gone.
“There is no other crew,” he said, frowning over the word. “There is only you and me.”
Her newest captor halted suddenly in front of a black metal door. He palmed a code in on the panel just outside and the door swooshed open, revealing a small bedroom just beyond. He entered the room and she followed hesitantly, keeping her eye on him.
From a drawer, he procured a neatly pressed and folded cloth, which she realized was a shirt, similar to the one he wore. It was a light gray with no stains and it looked impossibly soft.
He set it on the small, clean bed and told her, “I have no leg coverings that would fit you. This will suffice.”
“Thank you,” she said softly, still eyeing the shirt. The moment she was bathed and freshly dressed, she wanted to burn the cloak she wore, wanted to erase every trace of what happened before that moment.
Next, he showed her the small bathroom that led off the bedroom. A glass tube, similar to the elevator but smaller, was situated in one corner. To her delight, the alien showed her how to work it with a swipe of her palm and she discovered it was a shower. With warm water.
“Do you have soap?” she asked, hating that her voice sounded hopeful. She didn’t want to rely on him for anything, but she would probably sell her soul for soap at that point.
He frowned at the word, but swiped his palm in the other direction on the shower screen. Her brow furrowed when she saw black particles fall from the water spout. When she reached out her hand into the stream and rubbed it between her fingertips, the particles lathered.
Nothing else mattered at that moment. She almost forgot that the alien still remained in the room when she began to undo her cloak, too eager to properly wash. With a hiss, he turned and left the room, just as her cloak hit the bathroom floor.
* * *
Hot lust swarmed his veins as Devix stumbled into the hallway. Images of his female’s bared back assaulted his mind, thickening his cock in his leg coverings that he felt the material rip slightly.
His Instinct demanded that he return to her. Its wicked desires battered at his chest, its fantasies fueling his own. He imagined returning to her, joining her in the washing stall, her skin slick and wet against his own. He imagined going to his knees before her and tonguing her between her thighs. He wondered what she looked like there, what she felt like, tasted like.
The purring growl rose in his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut. It had been eight rotations since he’d last mated a female. His desires had been long dead, only to reawaken in full force when he found his fated mate. Sarkon had given him six spans to deliver the human to Azatia. Devix wondered if he would last six spans without going mad.
And what would become of him after six spans? Would he be able to return to his life on Rozun, knowing that he willingly traded over his destined female to another male, in exchange for his own peace?
Devix’s fist crashed into the side of the hallway, denting the hardened metal. He rammed his fists in it a second time until he felt the ache of it reverberate to his shoulder. The lust cooled slightly and he strode down the hallway, his legs eating up the distance quickly, before returning to the command center on the third level, anger burning in his veins.
Devix took a moment to compose himself and then he patched an image connection to Sarkon.
His employer’s face appeared on the control panel screen. Azatians were similar in appearance to Baquarians, with the same tilted eyes and slitted nostrils. Except Azatians were covered in hardened scales that acted like armor. It was why they were so difficult to kill.
“Devix,” Sarkon greeted in his language. “I was beginning to worry that the transaction did not go as planned.”
“I have the female,” Devix grunted, his fists clenching at his sides. “We have left Petrika.”
“Excellent,” Sarkon praised, his thin lips cracking into a smile that revealed grey, sharp teeth. His scales shifted back from around his mouth, only to return when Sarkon’s smile dropped. “What is she like?”
It took everything in Devix, every ounce of restraint and training that he’d endured on his home planet of Luxiria, not to punch the screen into shards.
“I have not noticed what she is like,” Devix responded, his voice sterile, controlled.
Sarkon made a sound in the back of his throat. “You have become predictable, Devix. You have not fucked a female in so long that I fear your cock has shriveled.”
“My cock is no concern of yours,” Devix gritted.
Sarkon’s scales peeled back again as he smiled. “I could pick no male better to bring me my human pleasure mate, it seems.”
Devix could see nothing but rage. It choked him. The possession in Sarkon’s eyes infuriated him to the point of breaking. But at the last moment, he remembered his place, remembered not to fuck up everything that he’d been working towards for the past six rotations, ever since Sarkon brought him off of Petrika.
Still, he was silent. He didn’t trust himself to speak and he prayed to the Fates that had abandoned him that the image connection was blurred enough so Sarkon could not see the way his body shook with fury.
“Six spans,” Sarkon reminded him. “Not a moment over.”
“I understand,” Devix forced out.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Sarkon murmured, letting the silence hang in the air briefly before continuing. “I have a gift for you. I have come by information about a Luxirian male you know.”
Devix’s eyes narrowed, his heart speeding in his chest. His blood brother?
“Who?” he bit out.
“A warrior called Pidixa.”
The air from his lungs rushed out at that familiar name. Old feelings of betrayal, of anger, of loss rushed him all at once until they constricted his breathing.
“What of him?” Devix rasped.
“A few of my scouts came across him off planet.” Devix doubted it was a random encounter. “It seems his tongue becomes loose with enough Brew. It becomes even looser with a few beatings as well.”
“What did he say?” Devix asked, his voice darkening. The sick part of him hoped that Sarkon’s scouts had made him bleed.
“You know what he said,” Sarkon’s voice becoming serious. Devix wasn’t surprised that Sarkon knew about his past, knew about the circumstances that led to his exile and not his execution. Sarkon had never asked and Devix had never offered the information. Yet, he knew that his employer had always known, perhaps even before he’d taken him off of Petrika. “He confessed to lying. He confessed that the mating he walked in on between you and his blood sister had been consensual and not forced. He confessed it all.”
Devix squeezed his eyes shut, his hand trembling when he smoothed it over his horn. After all that time…after the tribunal, the look on his blood brother’s face as he was sentenced to exile…Devix had begun to doubt his own innocence. He’d had his own people telling him that he’d raped Arvalla that perhaps a part of him had begun to believe that he had. It had sickened him. He’d become warped and twisted from the thought.
Hearing this now, it released something from him. But in its place, it brought the need for revenge.
“Is he still alive?”
“Of course,” Sarkon answered. His employer leaned forward so that the only thing Devix saw was his face. “And the moment you bring my human to me, he is yours, as is his confession. A parting gift, for all your hard work. A chance at clearing your name so that you may return to Luxiria, if you so wished.”
Devix’s breathing changed rapidly. Luxiria…his home. His home planet that had nourished his strength, made him into a proud warrior…that had turned its back when he’d professed his innocence in a heinous crime he hadn’t committed.
Devix straightened, looking at Sarkon steadily. Never had Devix wanted anything more…except perhaps the human female that resided on his ship at that very moment.
An impossible choice.
“Six spans, Luxirian,” Sarkon said.
And then the image line went dead.