CHLOE

Everything hurts.

I groan slowly, coming to in a throb of pain. Flashes of memory creep in as the pain does—Noku whipping me with his shock-stick, over and over again. Kicking me as I collapse in the elevator. Screaming at me because I won’t willingly spread my legs for him.

Then nothing.

There’s a heavy, warm weight against my side, and breath against my neck. I freeze, afraid to open my eyes. Is this Irita? Noku? Worse? What happened to me while I was out? I mentally catalog my injuries—everything aches, but I don’t feel pain in my pussy, so I don’t think I was raped.

I hope.

“I can feel you waking up,” a low voice murmurs in my ear. “Don’t get up just yet or we’ll have to put on a show.”

Put on a show? Maybe my brains are scrambled from the beating, but I don’t know who this is or what he’s talking about. I lick my lips, but that’s painful. One of them feels swollen and hot. “Um…who are you?”

“Sav Jutari Bakhtavis,” comes the soft voice. “But you can call me Jutari.”

Jutari. The big blue guy. My eyes snap open, and I glance around. I can see a hint of blue skin and feel a heavy arm thrown over my chest.

What…what am I doing here? With him? “I…I don’t understand,” I admit after a moment. “How did I get here?”

“Noku threw you in with us. Said we should use you hard.”

I begin to tremble at that, remembering Noku’s anger, his metallic stink, the painful strikes of the shock-stick. He…he’s thrown me in with the maximum security prisoners? Because I wouldn’t sleep with him?

Use me hard?

You can take my cock willingly or you can take dozens unwillingly.

He wants them to kill me. Oh god. I’m so scared I feel faint.

Jutari senses my fear. “I’m not going to hurt you, but I’m going to have to make it look like I’m claiming you in front of the others. Just go along with it, all right? And if you have to cry, cry. It’ll make it more believable.”

“Gee, thanks.”

I’m a little shocked when he grabs the collar of my uniform and tears at it, dragging the material open and revealing my breasts. I gasp and reach up to stop him, but he bats my hands away. What the fuck? I’m starting to panic.

He gives a loud groan and buries his face against my neck. “Sorry,” he murmurs in a near inaudible voice. “Have to make it look good to the others. Hate me later if you must.”

This is all part of his plan? I—I hate this plan! I give another cry as he rips my jumper further, all the way down to the crotch. I can’t stop the sob that rises in my throat. When he said he had to make it good, I didn’t think he meant this.

“Whatcha doing, Jutari?” comes a voice off to one side.

The big blue male covering me with his body snarls, his horns looking like deadly weapons as he moves his head. “Back the kef off, Ast.”

“Got it.” The other male moves away, and as he does, I can hear the murmur of others. Everyone’s watching us.

God. This is a nightmare. I want to close my eyes, but I don’t dare. Instead, I just stare in horror at the big blue male on top of me.

Jutari meets my eyes and undoes the front of his jumper. There’s a thump nearby, and he growls low again, revealing sharp fangs. He tilts his head, glancing over his shoulder. “Did I say anyone could watch?”

There’s a subtle menace in his voice that makes me shiver. The others in the cell shuffle, and then it’s silent. Jutari gives a grunt, as if finally approving, and then settles his hips on top of me.

I feel the hot press of flesh against mine and realize he’s naked. Oh my god. Also, there’s something hard pressing against my pussy that isn’t…human anatomy. I give a little squeal of shock and beat a fist against his shoulder again, but he smacks my hand away once more as if I’m nothing. “Fight if you like,” he tells me in a louder voice. “Just makes my cock harder.”

“I hate you for doing this,” I tell him.

He grunts and grabs my bare leg, hitching it around his hips. My jumper has practically fallen off my body at this point, and I’m naked under him. His body is angled strategically over mine, though, and when he settles his weight on top of me, I’m practically covered in a blanket of blue muscle.

A split second later, he grunts, and his hips surge against mine.

I suck in a breath, startled. I felt his cock push against my thighs, but he’s not inside me. Terrified, I wait for him to correct himself, to adjust things and sink deep and rape me. He does adjust himself, and the next time he pushes, I can feel the fabric of his jumper slide against my pussy.

He’s…deliberately blocking his dick from entering me. Like he said, this is all a show for the benefit of the others in the cell.

I choke out another sob again, though this one might be relief.

“Cry all you want,” he says, and surges against me again. He keeps thrusting against me, hard enough to make my legs flail against his hips and my breasts jiggle. Our bodies are making a rather loud slapping noise, and it’s awfully quiet in the cell. I’m both mortified at the situation and horrified that it’s come to this.

On top of me, Jutari gives a loud grunt and then one last, long surge against my pussy, pressing hard as if emptying himself into me. I feel my cheeks heat with embarrassment as he collapses on top of me, holding on to my leg as if determined to keep me wrapped around him.

“Sorry,” he whispers against my neck. “Have to stake my claim on you or they’re all going to try and get a piece.”

“O-okay,” I whisper back. I give a mock-push at his shoulder, trying to make it look good, I guess.

He slaps my thigh. “Behave or you’ll get a second round even sooner.”

I squeak with alarm at that, and someone in the distance laughs, which makes me even more horrified. There’s no privacy here. I’ve been thrown in with a bunch of killers—murderers and rapists of the worst kind—and they’re all going to expect a turn unless Jutari can save me. I start feeling panic rise all over again.

He grabs a handful of my hair and tilts my head back, startling me. “Calm down.” His voice is calm, but not too quiet, and I wonder if this is the real Jutari or the pretend-rapist-Jutari. I guess it doesn’t matter. Having a panic attack in this cell wouldn’t do me any good. I swallow hard and nod.

“You belong to me,” he says in that same tone, still holding my hair in that way that forces me to make eye contact with him. “You look at another male in this cell and I’m going to rip his cock off. If another touches you, you tell me and he’ll be murdered within the hour. You belong to Jutari, and Jutari alone. Your cunt is my property. Understand?”

How utterly barbaric. I give a little nod.

“Say it,” he demands.

“I-I belong to Jutari and Jutari alone.”

“And?”

“And m-my cunt is your property.” My eyes are wide as I gaze up at him.

“Good.” He yawns and palms one of my breasts, and I’m startled to feel the nipple harden at his touch. Oh my god, is that throbbing in my pulse because I’m turned on despite myself? That is so sick in the head…

And yet…I can’t deny that it’s there. It must be adrenaline making me respond. It’s certainly not because a dozen horny potential rapists are staring, waiting for their chance. Ugh.

Things in the cell quiet down. Jutari doesn’t seem like he’s in any hurry to get off of me, and after a few minutes, his hand begins to stroke my bare thigh up and down once more. He’s watching me with a leisurely, possessive sort of gaze that makes my stomach do somersaults, and occasionally glances up to growl at the others just in case they’re watching. He’s making it clear that he’s not allowing anyone to get pleasure from me being here.

It’s kind of sweet…but I just hope he can back up that sort of thing. If they all rebel against him and take him down? I’ll be gang-raped.

Someone else must be thinking along the same lines, because a hand jerks at Jutari’s massive shoulder. “Share that piece of ass, friend. We’d hate to take her from you.”

The growl in Jutari’s throat is menacing. “Didn’t I say she was mine? Haven’t I made that clear since she arrived here?”

He has? I’m surprised to hear that, but it reminds me that Irita said he was asking about me. That the information had made it back to Noku and that was partially why he was so upset at me. Like I’ve encouraged any of this? I shouldn’t be happy to hear that at all, but I feel a strange sense of pleasure that Jutari’s claimed me as his since the moment he saw me.

All this Stockholm syndrome must be getting to me.

“Just thinking you should share, is all,” the green-skinned alien says. His voice is deep and frightening, and his skin is knobby and wart-covered. The eyes that watch me are avid and frightening, and he licks his lips with a fat black tongue. “We’d all like a taste.”

Jutari lifts himself off of me and throws his jumper down over me. “Cover yourself. That pussy’s only for my eyes. Got it?”

I nod wordlessly, sitting up and hugging the clothing to me.

He stretches to his full height and tilts his head back and forth, as if working out the kinks in his body. Slowly he moves forward.

The green alien takes a few steps backward, uncertain. He glances at the other aliens in the cell, but no one will meet his eyes. “Now, Jutari,” he begins. “All we’re askin’ for is a taste—”

The fist that plows into the green alien’s face is a blur. I swallow back the little scream that threatens to erupt from my throat. Jutari’s large body slams the green alien against one of the stone walls and his fist slams into the alien’s face again. And again. The green pushes against him, and one big hand slams into Jutari’s chest. There’s a loud crack, and the green alien howls with pain, holding his hand. That doesn’t stop Jutari, though. The big blue demon pins him against the wall and slams his fist into the creature’s face once more. Then again. Over and over, he pummels the alien’s face in a savage display of brutality. I’m utterly shocked at the display. How can he be so kind to me and so completely ruthless otherwise?

The green alien slumps to the ground, and still Jutari doesn’t get off of him. He hovers over him, his fist slamming into the other man’s face yet again. Blood flies, spattering the dark blue skin, but still Jutari doesn’t stop.

I’m so transfixed with the fight that I don’t notice another alien is creeping up next to me. A tentacle brushes over my bare shoulder and then slides down over my breast. I scream in horror, batting it away even as the man pushes me over, trying to knock me onto my hands and knees. He’s attacking me while Jutari is distracted.

A snarl of rage echoes in the cell, and the alien is knocked aside. I watch as Jutari grabs him by the tentacle—attached to his face—and flings him across the room. The tentacle snaps in a shower of goo, and the creature collapses, holding his face.

Jutari barely looks winded. He’s splattered with blood, but none of it seems to be his. He wipes a hand across his cheek, gazes coolly at the smears, and then turns to look at the others in the cell. He’s completely naked, his tail flicking back and forth across a tight blue butt with clear agitation. “Anyone else want to fight?” Silence. “Anyone else think I should keffing share?”

It’s utterly quiet. No one makes eye contact with him—or me.

Jutari grunts, pleased. He turns back toward me, and I get a full-frontal view of the man’s equipment. His big blue chest is heavily plated, I see, something I hadn’t noticed when he was, ahem, on top of me. His arms look like they’re covered in thick natural body plates as well, and I see more of them on his thighs and brow. I thought they were just ridges, but judging from the crack that the green alien’s hand made, I guess they’re natural body armor of some kind. He’s in fantastic shape, too—not an ounce of fat on him, and his thighs are enormous and strong. His stomach is a rippling six-pack, and his obliques are so defined that you could see them in the dark. Most startling is his male equipment, though.

Maybe it’s the wide-eyed human in me, but I didn’t expect alien dick to look so…different. Jutari’s a big guy—at least seven feet tall, not including the horns—and his enormous dick reflects that. He’s not cut, but that’s not the thing that keeps me staring. Nor is it the sheer size and girth of him.

He’s got ridges all down his hard, erect length, just like the rippling plates on his brow, his arms, and his chest. Something tells me the ones on his junk feel rather different than the ones on his arms, and I shiver at the sight of them.

That’s not the weirdest thing, though. He’s got a hard, knobby protrusion about the size of a thumb just above his cock, and that’s something I’ve never seen before in my life. I have no idea what it would be used for, and I can’t stop staring.

Jutari pretends not to notice my gawking. He moves back to my side, puts a gentle hand on my shoulder, and pushes me back down to the floor. “Spread your legs,” he commands me.

I suck in a breath, clutching the uniform to my body as I lie back. Jutari “mounts” me again—and I notice his skin is soft like velvet—and begins to simulate sex once more, grabbing my leg and hitching it up against his hip.

This time, when he’s “done,” no one comes over to ask for a turn.

JUTARI

Over the course of the night, I mount the female human a good seven or eight times to let the others know that she’s mine and I don’t intend on tiring of her. No one else challenges my claim, not after the beating I gave Zzixl and Tkarl. Good. Noku doesn’t return either. If he watches any of the security feeds from the cell, he’d see me claiming the human over and over again, which is just what I want him to see.

There’s no privacy to take the woman aside and comfort her, so I hope she understands that this display of force is necessary to ensure her safety.

She’s a brave little thing, though, and I feel a swell of pride as I watch her small, bruised face as she sleeps. She hasn’t protested my “claiming” of her and has even made feeble struggles to make the deception look real. She’s smart enough to know that I’m keeping her safe this way, and if my cock’s hard as I rub it against her cunt, I’m not going to abuse my position.

No matter how much I want to sink into her, I won’t. But I can’t help if my shaft responds to her warmth, and the pre-cum that slicks the head of my cock just adds to the deception.

It’s early in the morning, and I know she must be exhausted and hurting. She dozes fitfully, her body tucked against the wall with my bigger form on the outside, protecting her from the others. I don’t sleep. I’m expecting someone to try something again, for a shiv to end up between my ribs the moment I close my eyes. A female, especially one as attractive as this one, is worth dying for.

I won’t sleep as long as I know she’s not safe. My own safety is only worthwhile as long as I can protect her.

Even though I’ve always had a plan to escape, ever since I arrived here, I wasn’t sure I cared enough to try. It always seemed wiser to bide my time and look for better opportunities.

With Kloo-ee here, though, I have something worth fighting for. Worth protecting.

Worth escaping for.

Because I can survive here, but she can’t. It doesn’t matter how “gently” I treat her, something’s going to give at some point. I’m going to have to sleep. A bigger, badder bastard than me might be transferred to my cell.

Noku might decide he wants her back.

I need to get her out of here, and the sooner the better.

I rub my tongue over the small disk implanted on the inside of my cheek. It’s made of illegal, non-detectable material that scanners can’t trace. It’s my “emergency” out and is something I had worked up when I started my mercenary stint. I knew at some point, shit would catch up to me. Shit always does. So I created a bug-out kit of data—a tracker with information for a new identity, a boat-load of credits to start my new life, and a ready-made message to go out to my brother (and fellow pirate) Kivian the moment I’m free. He’s family. He’ll come for me. I’ve bailed his ass out of shady situations before, and he can repay the favor by picking me up from the surface of this shitball of a planet the moment I break free from the prison confines.

Well, picking me and my girl up, I amend, and stroke a hand down the female’s arm, feeling a surge of possessive lust. She may not know it yet, but I plan on keeping her even after we’re gone from this place.

Her eyes open, and I’m struck by how unusual and lovely they are. She blinks in surprise, and then her body stiffens as she realizes where she’s at.

I put a finger to my lips, indicating quiet, and then stroke her arm again. I can feel the prickle of eyes watching us, so I casually cup her breast and rub my thumb over the soft nipple. She’s built differently than messakah females, and I love how soft she is. She tries to push my hand away, but I flick her hand aside and return to toying with her breast. Even though the situation is a frightening one for her, she responds to my touch, her little nipple stiffening as I rub it. Her breathing grows sharp, shallow, and the look in her eyes worried.

She knows she’s responding, and she’s not sure she likes it.

I need to stake my claim on her fully, though, and if it means touching her all over, it’s a task I’ll gladly endure. “Do your bruises hurt?” Her face is swollen and discolored, along with her shoulders and stomach. The sight of her injuries makes my anger rise. I’m going to kill Noku, I decide. Painfully.

“Of course they hurt,” she whispers angrily. “They’re bruises.” She peeks over my shoulder and then looks back at me. “Can you take your hand off my boob?”

“Not if you want to stay safe.”

“I don’t like it,” she says, dropping her voice lower so no one can hear her but me.

“I think the problem is that you do like it, and you don’t want to,” I murmur. “But you’re going to have to belong to me in all ways, my pet, if I’m to keep you safe.”

She makes a face, and I bite back the urge to laugh. When I continue to play with her sweet little nipple, she makes a frustrated sound in her throat and squirms against me.

My cock aches at the sight. “If you keep doing that, I’m going to have to mount you again, Kloo-ee.”

The look on her face is surprised. “You know my name?”

“I have paid a great deal of favors to find out more about you.” I stroke the smooth curve of her breast, fascinated by her softness. I drag a finger between her breasts, and she’s soft here, too, her body naturally unarmored. It makes her even more vulnerable.

“Me? Why?”

“Because I knew when I saw you, that you would be mine. Messakah can be very possessive, and there was something about you that called to me. We are an advanced race, but sometimes we still have primitive instincts.” And I will happily give in to mine to possess her and her sweetness. Every moment that I am with her just emphasizes how right this is. It does not matter that we are in a prison or that most people never leave this place alive.

She’s mine, and I’ll die to keep her safe.

Kloo-ee swallows hard at my words and squirms again when I go back to playing with her nipples. “So you’re just being nice to me because you want to get in my pants?”

I want to snort at that, but do not want to give away our conversation to the others. It’s late, and the cell is quiet, the only sound being Ast’s noisy snoring. “If I wanted to get ‘in your pants,’ Kloo-ee,” I say, and tweak her nipple, “then I would have already been deep inside your cunt many times over. I do not want just your body, but your spirit. You’re going to be mine.”

“Your what?”

“My everything. Mate, wife, whatever your people call it.”

Her eyes widen. “Jeez, you move fast.”

Fast or not, she is mine. I stroke a hand down her belly.

“Chloe,” she whispers. “Irita says my name wrong. It’s Chloe.”

Chloe. It’s a gentler sound than what I’d thought. It suits her. “Greetings, Chloe.”

She stifles a small chuckle and slides a little closer to me. “Is it weird that I’m not losing my shit down here? I think I’m getting numb to all the terrible crap that’s been happening to me. Because if I was in my right mind, I’d be catatonic with fear about now.”

“What are the bad things that happened to you? How did you get so far away from your homeworld?” I ask, wanting to know more about her. I want to know everything. She fascinates me, from the dark sweep of her lashes to the rosy nipples that grow tight as I touch her. I stroke them again, and her breath catches.

“It’s a long story.”

“Do I look as if I’m going anywhere?”

“I guess not.” She gives me a little smile, and I am enchanted at the sight of her. As I pet her soft, soft skin, she tells me her story—of the slavers who took her from her home and sold her as a plaything to Tritarian diplomats. Of killing one of them and the others dying in unison. It’s something I’ve heard before. That’s why Tritarians make terrible mercenaries and wonderful assassination assignments. Three times the targets. She tells me of being shuffled to the prison, and Noku’s unnatural interest in her. As she speaks of him, she creeps closer to me, and I feel a protective surge ripple through me.

No one is ever going to hurt her again. Not if I can help it.

“You’re with me now, Chloe,” I reassure her. “You’re safe.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe again,” she whispers. “What about you? What’s your story?”

I debate what to tell her. The truth about me might frighten her. I’m not a male with no blood on my hands. I’ve lived a hard life and made difficult choices. I don’t want to scare her—or worse, make her hate me—but I have to be honest with Chloe. She needs to be able to trust me fully if we’re to escape this place together. “You won’t like it.”

“I don’t like any of this,” she admits. “What’s one more thing?”

“Well,” I say slowly, taking my time to think of the proper words in her strange language. “I was a soldier for a very long time, until the war ended and I was discharged. There were no jobs, so I became a mercenary for a variety of space stations. Those jobs became…darker,the assignments became deadlier. It wasn’t long before I killed for money.”

She stiffens against me. “You’re an assassin?”

“I was for a time, yes. It was not work that agreed with me. I did not like to kill simply because a fat rich man on one planet decided he did not like a fat rich man on another planet. There is no honor in that. I turned down my employer when he offered me another contract, and so he had me hunted.” I shrug. “I killed them all and took their ship and sold it for scrap.”

Her eyes go wide. “If you’re so deadly, how did you end up here?”

A rueful smile curves my mouth. “How does anyone end up here? I got caught.” I gloss over the fact that I was already dead inside, full of despair after my father’s death. That a life of piracy meant nothing when the greatest pirate I’d ever met—a man larger than life—was now gone. That I’d fallen into the depths of depression and grief and that nothing mattered. “I…was shuttling cargo on my new ship and ran into an asteroid field. Hull took some damage, so I had to stop at the closest space station. Turns out that the man there working the docks was someone that served with me in the war. Saw that my ID was fake and things got unlucky from there.” I crook a grin at her to hide my feelings, because looking back on it, I was a fool. “Deadliest man in three galaxies taken down by a shipping jockey.”

Chloe doesn’t laugh. She looks worried.

I stroke her belly, smoothing my hand over her silky skin. “You do not have to fear anything from me. My reputation will keep you safer than most.”

“And when it doesn’t?” she asks.

I slide a hand between her thighs, cupping the little patch of fur there. It’s fascinating to me, because it’s something that the females of my race lack. “When my reputation doesn’t protect you, I will be there to ensure that you’re safe. I mean it when I say you are mine for now and for good, Chloe.” I stroke a finger through her folds, and she gasps at the touch.

I just smile, pleased, because she’s wet under my touch. She can say she fears me all she likes or that she doesn’t like that I’m a mercenary. Her body likes my caresses.

I can woo her mind. It’ll just take a bit longer.