Page 3 of Adtovar (The Alliance Rescue #1)

Mornings were my favorite time of day. Not that I was a morning person... far from it. The lack of coffee in the alien landscape was both ridiculous and maddening. Really? Aliens figured out how to do manned space flight and abduct humans, but they couldn’t make a cup of coffee?

Even without the creamy, bitter liquid that had been my addiction since practically birth, the first moment of the morning... the moment right before I opened my eyes when there was a split second where I could pretend all this horror was just a dream, remained my favorite time of time.

Then I opened my eyes.

Four gray stone stalls and a rickety door that a stiff wind would knock down assaulted my vision.

Above me, the gladiator arena where men—or males as aliens tended to refer to themselves—fought and killed was a bastion of gleaming metal and technology.

Down here, where we slaves lived, harkened back to the Middle Ages.

At least there was running water—for the most part.

My cell was one of the nicer ones, holding a table and chair, a cot with a lumpy, feather-stuffed mattress, a threadbare blanket, a stone sink with a rusty faucet that provided a trickle of brown water, and a hole in the floor lined by stones that stood in for a toilet.

Everything here, even the water, was dirty.

What I wouldn’t give for one more moment in my aunt’s garden.

Granted, it was the site of my now worst memory— I was walking in the garden when the weird cat-looking aliens abducted me.

My aunt’s house on Esplanade Avenue in the center of the New Orleans Garden District had always been a comfort to me.

No matter what utter shit my life became, just being in the garden behind her house, the air awash with the scents of herbs, gardenia, and bougainvillea, tiny pink, and white pea gravel crunching under my feet as I walked, and every worry melted away.

My aunt Juanita claimed it was the magic of New Orleans that made me feel like that.

Maybe it was. I know I’d practically kill to have that sense of peace and contentment just one more time.

I certainly wouldn’t find it here on this nasty desert planet.

I kicked the blanket off my feet carefully, so as not to make another hole through the threadbare fabric and climbed to my feet.

Getting dressed was more a state of mind than a physical action in this place.

The rough linen-like tunic and pants were my only set of clothes.

The tunic was sleeveless, splotched with dirt and the occasional drop of blood.

My pants were in worse shape. Sheared off about knee length, frayed, worn, and three sizes too big, held around my waist with a strip of cloth I’d salvaged from discarded gladiator gear.

At least the temperature in the place stayed around ninety, so there was no need to scrounge up a jacket.

Good grooming habits included visiting the toilet, washing my face and hands with brown water and an equally brown sliver of soap, brushing my teeth with the alien version of a toothbrush, which resembled a tooth-sized toilet brush, and combing my hair.

My hair.

Without product on this arid planet, there was nothing for it other than to corral the long, loose spiral curls to the best of my ability.

I pulled another piece of scavenged cloth from the small bag hanging by the sink and tied it around my forehead, forming a knot at the nape of my neck.

In the pit, function was more important than form.

I grabbed the battered leather satchel hanging behind the door, settling the strap on my shoulder.

Last night was prize night, which meant there would be cuts, bruises, and God knew what else to tend to.

My degrees in biotechnology and environmental health didn’t exactly prepare me to be a medic, but I was the best the females on this god-forsaken planet had. The only one they had.

My door swung open with a protesting creak, nearly falling from the hinges. The pit owner didn’t bother locking my door anymore, a fact that made me crack a smug smile as my steps kicked up the small gray pebbles littering the floor.

The layout of the arena underground was simple.

A long hallway stretched the length of the space, with a central dining area occupying one large room in the middle.

To the north lay a row of cells that housed the gladiators.

To the south, a similar row of sparse rooms housing the females.

They kept us apart... until they didn’t.

Rough stone lined the walls, dimly lit by flickering dark yellow lights that did little to combat the gloom.

Hearing the chatter of female laughter as I approached the dining hall lifted my spirits. The morning after the last prize night, there had been tears—a lot of tears. No one laughed when they got hurt.

The dining hall was a dimly lit cavern with uneven tables hewn from rough wood. The only air circulating in the underground came from vents overhead, drawn straight from the arena, which meant the scents of stale sweat and blood remained constant.

Food for us females consisted of nothing more than protein bars and a watery gruel that smelled like ass and tasted like cardboard.

The bars, as well as dining implements, got passed through a small serving window on the far wall.

Our water supply came from an underground spring collected in a small stone trough in the center of the room.

I wasn’t too sure how clean the water was, but at least it wasn’t brown.

Gladiators sat at most of the tables, shoveling down their meager meals as fast as they could.

Almost every day saw punches thrown because someone tried to steal another’s rations.

Most of the males sported cuts and bruises from the previous days’ battle, with a few cradling arms and other limbs twisted in unnatural angles.

The arena had its own medic, if you could call him that.

He was a short, squat, pale green alien with eight fingers on each hand and three eyes lined across his forehead.

I couldn’t attest to his medical prowess.

I only ever saw him passed out drunk in one spot or another.

Huddled in a dark, shadowy corner of the room sat the females.

Other than myself, six females called this place home.

Prizes, they were called. Objects to be won by victorious gladiators.

I grew up in New Orleans. Being around a whore house didn’t bother me, but this was another level of depravity…

a bordello from hell. There used to be seven prizes, but the pit owner Bozzo gave Iiayla to some grizzly bear-looking motherfucker a week ago, and she never returned.

I grabbed my morning ration of protein bar and water and joined them.

“So, how was it?”

“Not so bad.” Meeka, a slender figure with skin like delicate lavender petals and hair that resembled multicolored twisted wire, sported three party-hat shaped breasts protruding from her chest. A dark bruise shadowed one of her eyes, contrasting sharply with her fair skin.

“I got Roxxan this time. He didn’t hit me,” she insisted with a giggle. “I fell off the bed.”

“It was alright.” Teenalia, tall and slender with yellow scales and teal-colored curls, bled thick green drops from a split lip. “Darikja only hit me once last night,” she said, as though we should celebrate the gladiator’s restraint that he only hit her once.

The rest of them didn’t seem too worse for wear.

Sureeta, tall and muscled enough to be a gladiator herself, with deep red skin, purple eyes, and long purple hair that she wore in a mohawk, almost never got hurt.

Most gladiators feared Sureeta too much to challenge her.

Yet someone had hurt her… badly. The skin over her shoulder blades held hideous scars where once magnificent wings existed.

Kysia’s left cheek held a slight bruise, which she removed by shifting her scales from light yellow to dark green.

Emmiait was too beautiful to hurt. Tall, regal with light teal skin, deep purple eyes, and curls, her features were so human one could almost call her Romanesque.

Of course, her face was the only thing remotely human.

Emmiait had six breasts that she proudly wore uncovered.

Rumor had it she had two vaginas, but I’d never had occasion to check.

I pulled the pitiful cobbled together and scavenged medical supplies from my bag, doing what I could for each of them. Even Kysia, who thought it was funny to keep shifting the color of her scales to impede my rubbing salve on her bruise.

“I heard Ronco couldn’t get it up again last night,” Meeka commented to Emmiait as I dabbed at her black eye with a wet cloth to abate the swelling.

“Ronco can never get it up,” Emmiait laughed, rubbing a hand along her jawline. “I sucked him off half the night and nothing.”

“Darikja had issues, too,” Teenalia giggled, glancing at the other table where the gladiator in question gobbled down food like a pig in a trough.

“Keeliatt had no trouble.” Sureeta let her gaze wander over one of the finer specimens of maleness. “He fucks good.”

“So does Leibit,” Kysia touched her cheek. “He just gets a little rough.”