Page 9 of Forced to Mate by the Mad Scientist (Kindred Tales Spicy Shorts #3)

9

SYLVIE

About an hour after the collection droid had made its appearance, another of Dr. Barbarous’s “treetures” came into the small, dim room. He was pushing a cart with five metal bowls and he also had an armful of clothing. He shoved the clothes at Sylvie.

“Change now. Dr. Barbarous says.”

Sylvie thought about telling him to fuck off, like she’d told the droid. But she was probably already in trouble for that little piece of noncompliance.

Unhappily, she slipped out of her protective white coverall. She was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and panties under it. But when she tried to leave them on, the treeture shook a long, branch-like finger at her and growled,

“All off! All off!”

Very unwillingly, Sylvie took off the rest of her clothes and quickly slipped into the garment he had brought her. It turned out to be the same kind of shift, made of tan plant fibers, the other women were wearing. The fibers were silky if you stroked with the grain but extremely rough and scratchy if she ran her fingers up the dress instead of down it. Sylvie felt incredibly vulnerable in it.

The treeture took away her clothes and boots and handed out the silver bowls. Then he pushed the cart out of the small room and shut the door behind him, locking them in again.

Dinner was some kind of protein mush served cold. It tasted as bland as cardboard and Sylvie didn’t really want it. But when she offered her portion to Lorna, the goat-girl’s slotted eyes went wide.

“Oh, no—you can’t give it away. You have to eat it,” she said earnestly, shoving the offered bowl away.

“But what if I’m not hungry?” Sylvie protested. She usually never skipped meals, but recent events had completely robbed her of her appetite. She felt like she might actually be sick if she tried to eat the bland protein mush.

“Doesn’t matter if you’re hungry or not—you have to eat every bite they give you,” Hersha lectured. “If you don’t want to end up like Grolla, over there.”

She nodded at the girl with long green and yellow hair who had been rocking and keening on the far bed when Sylvie first came in. Her skin was pasty pale though Sylvie couldn’t tell if it was her normal coloring or the pallor of long captivity. She was eating her own bowl of mush slowly but steadily, though her big green eyes were filled with tears that kept dripping down her cheeks and landing in the bowl. It was a pitiful sight and Sylvie wished she could help the girl, though she had no idea how.

“What…what happened to her? She refused to eat her meal?” she asked in a low voice.

“Refused for days and days. She was washing it down the sink or the toilet—trying to starve herself to death,” Hertha answered.

“Not that we blame her—Dr. Barbarous killed her fiancé when he captured their ship,” Shredda, the third goat-woman murmured.

“None of us said anything, but somehow Barbie found out,” Hertha said grimly. “And then he punished her.”

“Punished her how?” Sylvie demanded in a whisper. She wanted to know what kind of treatment she might receive herself for refusing to allow the collector to take samples from between her legs.

“He gave her to the treetures for breeding— all of them at once,” Hersha said and shivered. “They’re all male you know. He keeps trying to make a female one, but he can’t seem to get the formula right. So he lets them have one of us if we’re disobedient.”

“He what?” Sylvie felt all the blood drain out of her face. “You’re kidding!”

“Wish I was.” Hersha shrugged. “Bet you’re wishing you’d let the collector take those samples now, aren’t you?” she added, raising an eyebrow at Sylvie.

“Hush, Hersha—don’t be unkind,” Lorna said, frowning.

“So he just…gave her to them? All of them?” Sylvie remembered the huge member swinging between Manlow the moss-man’s legs and felt sick. To be used by a creature like that—something that wasn’t even fully humanoid…and not only one but all of them at the same time…

“He’s a sadistic bastard,” Hersha said angrily. “He claims to be ‘asexual’ and thinks he’s above it all just because he doesn’t assault us himself. But he loves to watch. Fucking creepy perverted asshole!”

“Hersha, be quiet! What if he’s listening through the screen?” Lorna hissed. “You don’t want to be chosen out of turn, do you?”

“Chosen out of turn? What does that mean?” Sylvie asked anxiously.

Hersha sighed.

“Every night one of us has to go service one of the treetures. Barbie mixes and matches us, hoping that one of us will get pregnant by his plant-based monstrosities. So far two of us have but both times we miscarried.”

“It happened to me,” Lorna said in a small voice. “The thing in me…it didn’t look humanoid at all . It was just a ball of bloody roots!”

Sylvie had been about to force herself to take another bite of the protein mush but she put her spoon back down in her bowl and winced.

“I’m so sorry—that’s horrible .”

“He keeps tweaking their DNA, trying to make changes so they can get us pregnant,” Shredda whispered. “He wants a plant-humanoid baby he can experiment on.”

“That’s why he went out of his way to capture me ,” Clemina spoke up for the first time, sounding more subdued than usual. “My people already have plant DNA in us,” she added, nodding at the tiny clusters of flowers growing from her knees. “But I don’t think I’m compatible with the treetures at all—my people’s heritage has been millennia in the making. His tree-men are artificially constructed—the two of us just don’t mix.” She sighed unhappily. “But that doesn’t stop him from trying.”

“I think he’s onto something new lately,” Hersha said darkly. “Maybe something even worse. I heard him saying something about a ‘personalized aphrodisiac’ last time he had me in the lab room. Something that would make a woman ‘unable to resist a male’s advances.’”

Sylvie couldn’t think of many things worse than being raped by a tree-man in order to make a half-plant/half-humanoid baby but there were other things she was worried about.

“What…what do you think he’ll do to Kross? To my protector?” she asked in a small voice. She’d told the other women about Kross and how the two of them had both been captured, but that the big Kindred had been dragged away to a separate room.

“Dunno.” Hersha shrugged.

“I hate to make you feel bad, but Barbarous killed Grolla’s fiancé,” Lorna said apologetically. “He said he had ‘no use for male specimens.’ Whatever that means.”

Sylvie felt her stomach clench. Surely the mad scientist wouldn’t just kill Kross out of hand, would he? Then she remembered what Barbarous had said.

“Wait—but he told his two uh, tree-men to lock Kross in the ‘new specimen room,’” she said. “He said he wanted to start working on him immediately.”

“Huh—well then, at least he’s probably still alive,” Hersha said. “Though I wouldn’t want to guess what’s happening to him.”

Sylvie wanted to cry.

“This is all my fault,” she whispered. Looking down, she stirred her protein mush aimlessly with her spoon. “I’m the one who insisted on coming to this horrible planet to look for the tangeline vine! Kross tried to warn me it was dangerous but I wouldn’t listen to him! If he is still alive, he probably hates me right now and I don’t blame him!”

“Oh now, you can’t—” Lorna began but just then the door to their prison opened once more.

There was a collective gasp and all the women shrank away as Manlow shouldered his way into the small, dim tree trunk room.

“You.” he pointed one stick-like finger at Lorna. “Come.”

“Me?” the goat-woman shrank back against the wall. “Please, no—it’s not even my turn!”

“You come now!” Manlow insisted. Charging forward, he gripped her by the arm and dragged her out the door.

The last thing Sylvie heard before it slammed shut was the sound of the other woman crying pitifully. The sound made her heart ache and her stomach clench.

Oh God, what was she going to do? How could she possibly get out of here?