Chapter Three
Khaun
He watched her face. Her eyes. Saw the glazed look of lust disappear, replaced by confusion. Knew she’d completed the transition from warm passionate female to unfeeling slave when she took a sip and then stared back at him over the rim of the goblet. She gave him a bright smile, but her eyes were cold.
Nice work, Brother. You’ve turned her back into an android.
He bristled at the tone of condemnation in Keir’s words. We’re not here for seduction. We need information. Now we know we can use sex to assure her cooperation. But it destroys my concentration – and yours, too. So let’s get on with the interrogation. We’ll have plenty of time to enjoy her afterward if we decide to sample those human charms.
If? Who are you kidding? After draping her over your lap and spanking her bare ass, your cock is so hard right now, it’s making my balls ache.
Shut up and let me get to work.
Khaun lifted the goblet to his own lips, leaned back on the cushions ,and took a long drink from it. “When we heard the Rapture Dome had a human consort, we just had to meet you, Saige. You’re quite a celebrity. As children, we were taught there were likely to be sentient beings on planets we had yet to discover but it’s still surprising how much like us you are. You call your world Earth, don’t you? I believe it’s on the other side of the galaxy. How did you end up here?”
She began a tale he suspected she’d rehearsed over and over, choosing her words to excite and arouse her male customers. “It was so horrible! I was navigator on a cruiser called the Luna, on a mission from Earth to explore this part of the galaxy. A vicious band of space pirates tricked us into letting them board our ship and took us captive. They were thrilled to find out we were an all-female crew. Their leader Magnus threated to have his crew rape and then kill us one by one until our commanding officer agreed to show them how to operate all the high-tech equipment on board.”
Her voice broke. She bowed her head, and one hand strayed to the bodice of her gown, adjusting it slightly as though reliving the moment, with him as the pirate and her an innocent maiden trying to cover herself from his lecherous gaze. He realized it was all part of an act when she peeked up to make sure he noticed when her fussing bared the upper edge of one nipple.
Dark pink. Not quite the color of a ganiberry but very nice. I wonder how it tastes. Keir’s voice came as an unwelcome intrusion in his head.
He shot his twin a warning look. It was hard enough to concentrate without the added distraction. “You must have been very frightened,” he said, making sure Saige caught his gaze traveling to its intended target. “What happened next? They didn’t rape you, did they?” He pretended to be eager for salacious details.
She shook her head. “No. Cass – our commander – did as they asked. She had no choice. Once they had control of the ship, they traveled from one planet to another, raiding small villages. Kidnapping female aliens, dragging them back to the Luna. They killed any males who tried to stop them. We went to your home. To Tharon. That’s where Cass managed to escape.” She glanced up at him. “Were you there when Magnus raided your world?”
“They attacked Tharon?” He hoped his voice held the proper note of surprise mixed with outrage. He turned to Keir. “It must have been after we were gone, Brother. By the Sacred Ones, I hope our warriors rained fire down on their heads.”
She shook her head. “They always struck at night. Bands of five or six pirates hitting small settlements all at the same time while the occupants were asleep. They’d be long gone before an alarm could be sounded. They murdered many of your Tharan males and kidnapped a dozen females,” she added.
“Stole Tharan females? What happened to them? Are the monsters who took them still at large?” Keir looked ready to dash out of the room after them.
“They’ve been caught,” she replied. “I heard one of your warships tracked them down. Killed Magnus and captured the others. As for the females, one of them ended up here with me. Magnus sold us to the Rapture Dome not long after he raided Tharon. I don’t know what happened to the others.” She regarded him suspiciously. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it.”
Keir stuck to the cover story they’d concocted. “We’ve been… out of touch.” He grinned. “My brother and I spent some time with a lovely Tharan female a while back. She was the mate of twins who were minor government officials. They caught us with her, and a fight broke out. We won that skirmish, but it turned out their fathers were major government officials. We were found guilty of half a dozen fictional charges, stripped of our warrior rank, and sent away. When we got out a couple of weeks ago, we came here.” He shrugged. “We weren’t exactly welcome back home. It’s tough to find work after you’ve done a stint on Pelonius. We’d heard Girra Sola’s management isn’t fussy about who it hires. Turns out time spent there is a plus when you apply for a job as overseer for a mining crew.”
Khaun saw her eyes grow wide at the mention of the infamous prison asteroid. Rumor had it half the inmates sent there never made it back alive. Even the toughest miners refused to go up against someone who’d survived incarceration on Pelonius.
Great job, Brother. Now she’ll be motivated to follow our orders by fear instead of lust.
You’ll thank me later when she’s begging to suck your cock, Keir assured him. I don’t care what planet they’re from, all females secretly love bad boys.
Khaun took her hand. “Kidnapped by pirates then sold as a pleasure consort. How awful for you. How long have you been at the Rapture Dome?”
Saige
Too long, she wanted to scream. “About three months.”
He bent his head and kissed her hand. The warmth of his lips on her skin sent a wild shiver through her. It’s that gyron he mentioned, she told herself. Only the gyron. Purely a physical reaction.
“It pains me to hear that. Beauty such as yours is wasted on the scum who work at the mines,” he said. “All the miners we’ve met are lowlifes or criminals. Most of them wouldn’t know how to treat a female properly. I hope you haven’t been subjected to any… harsh treatment.”
She glanced up at him through lowered lashes. Yeah, they’re lowlifes and criminals. Just like you and your brother, even if you pretend to be gentlemen. Harsh treatment? Is that supposed to be my cue? You’re hoping I’ll tell you lurid tales of all the dirty things I’ve been forced to do. Get your cocks even harder than they already are. You’re sick perverts – just like all the others.
“On the contrary, my lords,” she replied. “It has been my honor to bring pleasure to my patrons. Now, enough about me.” She lowered her voice to a seductive purr. “Please, tell me all the ways you’d like me to serve you tonight.”
“I heard any fantasy we could ever imagine is available at the Rapture Dome,” Keir piped up. He glanced around, waved a hand at the plush bed covered with white satin sheets, the gleaming metal liquor cabinet. “This is a pleasant room with an inviting bed, but it’s rather tame. Tell us about the other accommodations available here. We might want to request a different room. My brother and I have a whole rotation cycle with you. We’d like to spend it exploring our darkest desires – and yours.”
He finished with a wicked grin that made her heart beat faster. Darkest desires? If they he only knew.
Hoping to hide her reaction, she searched her memory for the sales pitch she’d been forced to memorize when she first arrived. Bophe, the owner of the Rapture Dome, made sure his slaves never missed an opportunity to grow his fortune.
She’d only seen her alien owner once, when Magnus sold her and the Tharan female Aura to the Dome. Magnus had managed to catch up with Bophe on one of his rare visits to inspect his operation at the Rapture Dome. The pirate headed straight for the brothel after the Luna’s former commanding officer escaped on Tharon. Not only did Cass get away, she killed several of Magnus’s crew members who tried to stop her. Fearing that other captives would follow her lead and attempt an escape as well, Magnus decided to get rid of the strongest, most independent females as quickly as possible. The ones he thought were most likely to mobilize the others into action. Saige and Aura were the first to go.
Bophe was a cretin, a despicable creature who made his fortune trading on the misery of other sentient beings. Lady Zey often bragged that her employer was a shrewd businessman. According to Zey, he had his hand in many different enterprises, including an arena on his home planet of Tanis Major. There, other slaves he owned fought to the death against alien foes from galaxies all over the Universe for the amusement of paying spectators.
Saige remembered all too well her encounter with him. His misshapen body still held the powerful musculature of a slave who’d fought his way out of the arena to become its owner. His face was crisscrossed with scars, including one that ran across the empty eye socket on his left side.
Bophe ordered Magnus to strip her naked. He ran his hands over every inch of her body. Squeezing her breasts, shoving two fingers inside her, even forcing her mouth open to look at her teeth. Inspecting her like an expensive livestock purchase. Then he met her eyes and smiled. A cold smile that sent shivers down her back.
“I started out as a slave, just like you. I fought for my master, killing the most vicious creatures in the Universe before they could kill me. It took years, but eventually I earned my freedom.”
He tapped one gnarled finger against her skull. “I know what goes on in the mind of a slave. Forget any dreams of rebellion or escape. You belong to me, now. I own you. Prove your loyalty to your master, perform well for me, and one day you can rise in the ranks of my operation, just like Lady Zey has done. Give her any trouble, and I’ll personally toss you to the Gornian dragons in my arena. My customers enjoy seeing them tear their victims limb from limb before devouring them.”
“Are you deciding which dark desire you’d like us to fulfill first?”
Keir’s question brought her rocketing back to the present. She shot him a flirtatious smile. “On the contrary. I am here to serve your darkest desires, my lord.”
She went into the sales pitch. “The Rapture Dome offers an assortment of scenarios suitable for any fetish or fantasy. If this boudoir isn’t to your liking, you can choose spend time with me or any of the other consorts in a secluded beachfront cabin on the shores of a tropical lake. For patrons who enjoy an audience, there’s also a fully operational casino, where you can wager my services on the luck of the draw. If you win, I pleasure you right then and there in front of the other players. If you lose, you watch as the competitor who won the bet claims me. And there’s…”
Khaun interrupted her. “Tropical lake? Casino? What are you talking about? Unlike some of the more attractive bodies hurtling through space, from what we’ve seen of it, Girra Sola is a hellhole. It’s nothing but a sterile hunk of rock pocked with strip mines and craters made by colliding with other asteroids over the millennia.”
She nodded. “You’re right. But what it lacks in natural beauty, it makes up for in rare minerals. You said you’re new here. How much do you know about this whole operation?”
Keir shrugged. “Not much. When we signed on, we were more interested in hearing about the Rapture Dome and its consorts than the mines.”
Saige had learned all about the asteroid from her patrons. She’d discovered, like most of the men she’d known on Earth, alien males loved to show off for a female. Tell her top-secret information so they could brag about how knowledgeable and important they were.
Originally built for the miners on Girra Sola, the Rapture Dome began as a single gray bubble crammed with female slaves. But when word got out that money would get you anything you desired, customers began flocking there. Miners who’d been marooned for months on other gray rocks without seeing a single female of any species came in droves.
At first, his customers were content just to have a female they could fuck. But Bophe soon realized he could charge even more by offering fantasies they never knew they had until they were presented with the opportunity to live them out. “There’s more to this place than meets the eye,” she explained. “Like many other asteroids, Girra Sola started out with a small operation. It’s common for mining companies to lay claim to a stray hunk of rock hurtling through space, set up a rough camp, and drill test holes. They send samples back to their home planets to be tested while they drill more holes. Often, the substances they uncover can’t be identified because they’re found nowhere else in the galaxy. Rare minerals from the planets that spawned the asteroids. Planets that no longer exist.”
“My master, Bophe, started out small, too. He bought a plot of barren land from the mining colony, built a cheap enclosure on it, and brought in a few female slaves. He gave it the grandiose name The Rapture Dome, hoping to cash in on a bunch of horny males stuck on a barren pile of rock with minecoin in their pockets and nothing to spend it on.”
“He got lucky,” she continued. “The miners struck a vein of an incredibly dense mineral they called girranite. Scientists discovered a thin sheet provides superb protection to spacecraft entering a planet’s atmosphere at high speed. Apparently the substance has never been found anywhere else in the galaxy so that makes it quite valuable. The bigger the operation got, the more Bophe expanded to handle all the new customers coming here. Girra Sola is booming and because of that, so is the Rapture Dome.”
“We’ve seen the whole asteroid,” Khaun argued. “There’s no lake here. No elaborate casino.”
She nodded. “That’s part of Bophe’s genius,” she explained. “Once an area has been completely stripped of any substance of value, he leases it from the mining company for a pittance. He builds his fantasy worlds inside the abandoned domes that were erected so the miners could work in an artificial atmosphere. From the outside, all you see are gray shells surrounded with jagged outcroppings of rock so they blend into the surface of the asteroid. The miners hear tales of these secret places on Girra Sola. Fantastic places.”
“Places they’ll only see if they pay the price,” Khaun broke in. “Is that part of your job? Selling us an upgrade?”
Even though her Tellex chip was translating the sounds he uttered, she could pick up a note of disapproval in his voice. She had to tread lightly. She’d witnessed other slaves being beaten. She didn’t dare risk having these two go back to Lady Zey with a complaint.
“No, my lord, not at all. I was merely answering your brother’s question about other accommodations.” She reached out and ran a hand up his thigh. “Seeing to your pleasure is my only goal.”
“Well, you answered my question – and you’ve certainly caught my interest,” Keir burst in before his brother could say another word. “I wouldn’t mind taking a dip in a tropical lake with you. Can we go there now?”
“You must ask Lady Zey. She will let you know if your request can be accommodated tonight. All you need do is summon her with the device she gave you when you arrived.”
Keir pulled a communicator out of his pocket and pressed the button. The knock on the door came so swiftly, Saige wondered if her keeper had been lurking in the hallway outside to listen in on their conversation.
“Come in,” Khaun called out.
The door opened slowly, and Lady Zey made her entrance. The Dome mistress never simply walked into a room. That wouldn’t suit her. Instead, she commanded everyone’s attention by sweeping in, holding the long train of her black gown up with one jewel-bedecked hand. The severe garment covered her from head to toe, skimming over her tall frame to outline surprisingly generous curves underneath it.
Zey never competed for attention with the pleasure slaves under her command by wearing revealing clothing. Instead, she moved with the confidence of a woman who knew if she were in a room full of half-naked females, male heads would swivel to catch a glimpse if she so much as flashed a bare ankle.
“How may I be of service, gentlemen?”
Zey’s tone was deferential, but she shot a malevolent glare at Saige, prepared to blame her for anything that might be amiss.
“Our lovely consort told us you have a tropical lake where we could enjoy our time with her in a secluded cabin. Is that accommodation available for the remainder of our time here?”
Lady Zey curled her thin blood-red lips into a smile. “For you, certainly.” She lowered her voice and leaned in conspiratorially. “You must promise not to tell anyone I allowed you access to that area of the Rapture Dome on your first visit. It is normally only available to our most loyal patrons.” She turned so her cold smile encompassed both brothers. “Although I’m certain two such virile males as yourselves will soon be at the head of that list.”
She headed for the door then stopped. “I’ll see to it that your accommodations are properly prepared. An attendant will escort you there shortly. I take it you’ve requested the lake for a reason. Is there any special… equipment… you’d like me to make available for you?”
“Equipment?” Keir sounded puzzled.
“Bondage gear, perhaps, for breath play in the water? It’s a favorite activity of one of our best customers. I’m sure you’d find it quite entertaining with Saige. I don’t think she’s ever been subjected to it.” Zey cocked her head, as if a though had just occurred to her. “I believe that makes her a breath-play virgin, doesn’t it?” She gave them a conspiratorial wink. “You might want to take advantage of that. We don’t have many virgins here – at least, not for long.”
Delighted with her own wit, she gave a tinkling laugh as she made her way to the door. “I’ll make sure the necessary restraints are there, just in case you decide to indulge yourselves.”
Saige fought down a panic attack by sheer force of will. She couldn’t let the twins sense her fear. Some patrons who came here were so vile they’d jump at the chance to see the terror in her eyes building as they took her to the brink of suffocation underwater.
Thankfully, these two didn’t seem to be among them. Keir watched the Dome Mistress leave the room then grinned at her and his brother. “I can see why that ghoul doesn’t work as a consort. She’d send half her customers running for the door. She even scares me a little!”