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The stage is huge, surrounded by a cavernous ceiling looming high above me. There’s no curtain separating the stage from the audience, but that doesn’t concern me because I can’t evenseethe audience right now. A disrupter field shimmers in front of me, turning the air opaque. That’s what’s used as a stage curtain here, and I know on the other side of the impenetrable air are the braying crowd of Toads and Bullfrogs impatiently awaiting the show.

My legs shake. I steel myself, walking forward and taking in my surroundings. The floor looks like it’s crafted from white-veined marble, but it’s spongy and has a strange give to it. The air surrounding me clings to my skin – the dampness penetrating the pleasure dress and dulling the intensity of the squirming fabric.

In the middle of the stage rears a tall, wooden post. I swallow hard. Ropes dangle from it – and I know what twisted purpose they’re designed for.

Those ropes that are going to hold me in place in front of the crowd. My legs will be spread for the Aurelian warriors to use me, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll be helpless and trapped as the three, towering Aurelians lose themselves to the mating frenzy and fuck me like beasts. There’ll be nothing left of the calm, implacable Marcel – who watched me so protectively while I slept, with the tender gaze of a protective angel. There’ll be no biting quips or mocking confidence from Lucius, or the reserved, haunted sensitivity of Quint.

All three of them will descend into feral need – replacing the noble warriors with three brutal beasts who only have one need and nothing stopping them from fulfilling it.

The need to fuck me and seed me.

A shudder runs down my spine, and the pleasure dress starts up again; the squirming fabric teasing my body, touching and tantalizing every forbidden cleft the sheer material clings to.

Then, my eyes go wide, and the sensuality of the pleasure dress loses its edge. I’ve seen something even more compelling.

There’s a long splinter of wood sticking from the side of the towering post. I see it just as the doors open on the other side of the enormous stage, and out waddles Lord Oblog himself.

As I turn to face him, I dart my hand out – snatching the splinter of jagged wood and tearing the last of its roots from the tall post. Suitably armed, I palm the jagged, wooden spear against the inside of my wrist.

My mind is racing. I’m weaker and more vulnerable than any Toad, but that can work to my advantage. Lord Oblog has already demonstrated his confidence around the Aurelians. He probably doesn’t even look at me – a mere human slave girl – as any threat whatsoever.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Ling taught me well, and if I can get close enough to use this jagged splinter of wood, it might change everything.

All I’ll need is one, hard thrust – stabbing the wood right into one of Oblog’s bulbous eyes and deep into the brain matter beneath…

Ling always told me to visualize an attack before undertaking it, and I use her advice. As the Toad Lord shuffles onto the stage, licking his thick lips, I imagine everything about what I intend to do.

I visualize getting close enough, and waiting for him to turn his attention away from me for just a second. Then, I imagine thrusting this hard splinter of wood deep into his eye – sinking it deep with a single, powerful thrust.

If I don’t kill him, more’s the better. I’ll take his eye, and then hold the wooden shard deep into the wound - demanding he release Tessa, the Aurelians, and me. If he doesn’t, I’ll take his sight – and then his miserable life.

I know it’s a long fucking shot – but it might be the only one I get.

Oblivious to my deadly scheme, Lord Oblog waddles forward toward me, his long legs testing the ground with each step. I know he could hop across to me with a single bound, but instead he keeps a dignified pace – as dignified as a massively overweight, slimy Toad can be.

As he lumbers forward, Oblog stares at me with those bulbous, alien eyes. He might be only five-feet in height, but he’s got a significant weight to him; and I’m not just talking about his near thousand-pounds of muscle and fat.

With the wet snap of his slimy fingers, Lord Oblog could have any man on this ship killed instantly. He’s one of the ten most powerful Toads in the universe – subservient to only the Toad King himself.

So, what does he want from me?

Why was I brought here without the Aurelians? Why is this powerful, cunning Toad coming out onto the stage to meet me? All alone, with no bodyguards in sight?

With each lumbering step Oblog takes towards me, my resolve weakens. He’s got hundreds of pounds of fatty, muscled flesh over me – flesh which covers his obscene, distended body like glistening, gelatinous armor. His only weak spots are his eyes and mouth, and compared to the rest of him, they’re very small targets.

If I do this, I have to do it right. If I don’t hit Oblog with perfect aim, he’s going to throw me aside as if I’m weightless, and then pin me down on the floor of this stage and crush me with his bulk. I can only imagine the horror of the breath being forced from my lungs beneath that warty body – or the sledgehammer impact of those big, spindly-fingered fists as he pummels the last of the resistance out of me.

He stops just a couple of feet in front of me – and while he has to look up to meet my gaze, I feel dwarfed by his immense, muscular bulk.

“Well, well, well,” Lord Oblog gurgles. “If it isn’t Jamie.” He laughs – a sinister, guttural chuckle that’s about as comforting as the sound of a garbage disposal. “There’s a Bullfrog on this ship who’d give a month’s wages to slit your pretty little throat.”

I shudder.

He knows about me. He knows my past.

He knows about the Bullfrog with the scar – and my history with him. That disgusting, sadistic bastard is on this ship, somewhere.