Page 2

Chapter Two

A nya

I’m not sure my life could get any weirder. The entire landscape of my existence has turned upside down in the last few hours. I don’t have the heart to even think about the goal of this little exercise, which must be to impregnate me with lion sperm. I don’t want to envision the half human/half lion whose cells might be multiplying in my uterus right this very moment. Despite my efforts, my mind flashes me a picture of an alien baby. A frisson of fear immediately bolts up my spine.

I’m trying desperately not to feel sorry for myself or worry about what the future holds or wonder where I am or where I’m being taken. I forbid myself to think of Mom, Dad, my two sisters, and my great friends back in Denver. I can mourn their loss later. I need to focus on this moment. Right now I need to pee, clean my leaky nether regions, and get back to the corner of my cell to take just a few minutes to cry. I think I’ve earned it.

After the peeing and cleaning, but before my well-earned complete nervous breakdown, I hear a commotion coming from down the hall. It’s impossible to know what’s going on. The solid walls between cells only allow me to see the metal wall through the front bars of my cell. It sounds like the guards are taking the girls out, then bringing them back. Whatever is going on out there, and however awful it is to be in this cell, fear flares, clenching in my belly.

Lion guy is lounging on the bed, leaning against the wall again. I can tell by his blank expression that he’s checked out.

“What’s your name?” If I don’t distract myself, I’m going to completely lose my mind. Besides, I’m tired of thinking of him as Lion Guy.

“Zar.”

“I’m Anya, thanks for asking,” I snap, then pause, wondering if more venom is going to spew out. I’m hovering between two emotions. I’m on the cusp of unleashing a blistering tirade at him, blaming him for the fact that his sperm is trailing down my thigh at this very moment. But I know he was no more a willing participant in what just happened than I was. The other part of me just wants to collapse in a heap on the floor and go completely catatonic.

“This is the worst day of my life.” I’m proud that didn’t come across as a moan or an accusation. It sounded factual, because it’s the truth.

I’m standing across from him, hands fisted to keep control of my emotions, which are toggling from abject fear to roiling anger. My teeth are clenched, and every muscle in my body is tightly coiled.

I’m about to launch into an angry monologue, then stop abruptly, like the wind unfurled from my sails. It’s not his fault. He didn’t ask for this any more than I did. Look at him. He’s in his own little world, no happier than I am. My emotional rollercoaster speeds right past anger and stops at sadness.

“Don’t cry, Anya,” I whisper to myself even as hot liquid gathers behind my eyes and my chin quivers. “Shit.” I don’t want to cry. Crying feels like weakness, but I can’t control the tears now snaking down my cheeks.

He shakes his head, bringing himself back to the present, then gives me full eye contact for the first time since we met. He stares for a long moment, then leans toward me, elbows on his thighs.

“There’s no way to make this easy for you.” His eyes search the ceiling as he appears to fish for something to say. “Being a slave is a hard life. It’s unpleasant to know you have no choices, no control over even your own body, that you must do everything the guards order. I’m sorry you had to endure…” He glances at the bed.

“I hate to be the one to tell you that your old life, whatever it was, will never return.” He looks at me directly and adds gently, “There is no escape.”

Two tusk guys are at the cell door as if on cue. Zar is already on his knees, facing the back wall, hands on his head. Perhaps I’m crazy, but I think he’s doing that to protect me, not himself. He didn’t comply with their order to get on his knees before they threw me in his cell.

The tusk guys force me down the narrow metal-walled hall at gunpoint to an exam room that’s apparently part of the medical facility. In one simple nanosecond, every single National Enquirer story I’ve ever read about alien abductions flashes through my mind. I can’t get the words “anal probe” out of my mind. My body shivers in fear.

The room is stark. Robotic, high-tech machines that look straight out of a sci-fi movie are attached to the wall.The alien doctor is waiting for me. He’s not wearing a white coat, just a navy-blue jumpsuit and the fakest, most smarmy smile I’ve ever encountered.

He’s way more humanoid than the tusk people. He’s human-sized, human-shaped, human in almost every way, except for the sky-blue skin. Slightly handsome, his face has those sunken cheeks and sharp blue eyes that are straight out of central casting for a generic movie villain of the good-looking variety.

“Hellooo,” he says cheerily. “Now who have we here?”

I give him an icy stare. I refuse to make this easy for him. He wants a complete chart on me? Wants my medical history? Well, they should have thought of that before they beamed me aboard.

“A first name at least,” he wheedles. “I’d hate to have to call you Patient C throughout the exam.”

Icy stare. Feet planted. Maybe it’s because we’re alone in this room with no boar people, or the fact that his collar controller is sitting on the counter a few steps away, but I’m feeling emboldened

“Well, let’s just get you up on the exam table.” He pats it twice, decisively.

Angry glare, feet still planted. I imitate Zar’s feral don’t fuck-with-me look. What do you know? It works. His shoulders sag and his eyes inspect the floor. I get the distinct impression he doesn’t want to be doing this any more than I do. His attitude is nothing like the aggressive, threatening guards.

“Look, Patient C, it is my job to ensure that intercourse and ejaculation have occurred in the proper, um, place. It will make it easier on both of us if you just,” he pats the table again, twice in quick succession, “hop up here and let me take a quick look.”

He has a speculum in hand and actually quacks it like a puppet mouth to emphasize the words, “quick look.”

“You’re a doctor? Where I come from doctors take an oath that says, ‘above all do no harm.’” I give him the full force of my patented stink eye. “You went to school to be a doctor, a healer? And your mission on this ship is to look up my vajayjay to make sure the alien I’ve been forced to mate with has ejaculated in the correct hole? Really? You can go fuck yourself.”

He looks at me, stricken. “Fuck? Myself?”

He’s incredulous, obviously not understanding the idiom. I’m getting to him. Maybe there’s no way to break out and pilot an alien spacecraft back to Earth, but perhaps I can connect with this guy. Maybe trigger his guilt and garner his help.

“Seriously, you went to years of school. Even though you’re from a different culture, you had to have wanted to be a healer when you were younger, right? You’re on a slave ship . You’re double checking the culmination of enforced rape . You understand you’re actively harming sentient beings, right? How do you look yourself in the mirror?”

Oh goodness, I really think I’ve gotten to him. His plastic happy look has completely evaporated, and his cheek muscle is twitching restlessly. He’s silent for a long while, his face stony. “Let’s get you up on the table.” He’s looking over my right shoulder, avoiding my eyes.

All right. I think I’ve pushed as far as I’d better go today if I want to stay alive. Perhaps, though, I’ve made him think.

I pull off my pants and hop up on the table. Although the doctor is blue and I’m on high alert, the procedure isn’t more uncomfortable than my annual exam back home. The entire assessment takes all of two minutes.

“The guards, the Urluts, will order you and your cellmate to have intercourse every day, and will bring you to me daily to confirm it. It would be much more pleasant for us both if you were to be more cooperative in the future.” He gives a slight bow. Still avoiding eye contact, he lets me pull my clothes back on and escorts me to the door.

S urprisingly, Zar’s facial muscles slacken in relief after the Urluts unceremoniously deposit me back into the cell. He’s crouched in my corner, a silent invitation for me to have the bed. I suddenly realize I haven’t slept in… I have no idea how long. But I’m tired and ravenous, as well as scared and angry and lonely for family and friends.

I see some kind of food bars on the floor of the cell. They must have tossed them in when they brought me back. I grab them, drop half in Zar’s lap, and plop on the bed.

“Are these edible?”

“They are nutritious, not delicious.”

I doubt they rhyme in his language, but they do in mine and at the moment, sleep deprived and hungry, it strikes me as utterly hilarious. I laugh for at least a minute, feeling more and more insane as the seconds tick by, but I just can’t stop giggling.

“You should eat, then sleep.” He pauses for a long time, then he asks, sincere concern radiating from his golden eyes, “What did they do to you?”

“No anal probe,” I say delightedly while waving my half-eaten bar, and then giggle some more. I can see he actually wants to know I’m okay, and my manic behavior is not reassuring him.

“Medical inspection to see we followed orders,” I add more soberly.

He nods, gaze skittering from mine. He probably suspected as much. It may be my first day in captivity, but it is certainly not his first time at the rodeo.

Zar

She wolfed down two food bars, opened the third, and fell asleep with it still in her hand. I do have empathy for this female. It’s clearly been a long, grueling day for her.

I don’t want to wake her, but I can’t sit here on the floor all night. We’ve already mated, so I don’t imagine crawling into bed with her would be all that upsetting. Moving over to the bunk, I gently slide in behind her, my back scraping the wall, then loosely hang my arm over her midsection. Before I lay my head on the mattress, I take a moment to observe her more closely.

At first, I’d found her flat face and beige flesh to be singularly unattractive. Now I see tiny variations on her skin with interesting little brown dots on her cheeks and nose. Her features seem soft and sweet, especially when she’s sleeping. Short, light brown curls halo her face. Her pink mouth looked pretty when she smiled.

I lay down, pondering why, after all the males and females I’ve been forced to couple with, I’m feeling intrigued by this female. I thought sexual attraction was yet another emotion I had forced into the far recesses of my mind and completely locked away.

I clench my jaw and turn off all thoughts and feelings. I discovered annums ago that this is the best way to tolerate my captivity.

Anya

It’s almost as if someone has called me awake from inside my head. The words, “Wake up,” don’t come through my ears. My eyes pop open and the first thing I’m aware of is Zar’s warm, furred body wrapped around me like a second skin.

Outrage flares through me for half a second because his arm is slung across my waist. Then I realize this bunk is tiny, and he has at least as much right to it as I do. He’s taken no liberties, and truth be told, his soft warmth is reassuring.

I can’t shake the feeling I’m being stared at, so I glance out the front of the cell to see an elf-like creature. She’s three feet tall, maybe less. Her body appears lithe and graceful. Her eyes are uptilted and a shade of jade green so luminous they look lit from within. She has elf ears like in the movies—they’re oblong and point up and back. She catches me looking at her and returns my glance expectantly.

I silently wonder if she’s a prisoner or staff.

Prisoner. I hear inside my head.

You can hear my thoughts? I project the question toward her.

Yes, her voice, from inside my head, sounds as surprised as I feel.

How come you have the run of the ship?

I’m the captain’s pet. I’m so small and powerless they pay little attention. I have the captain’s protection.

I’m Anya. Nice to meet you.

Tyree.

Why did you wake me?

I just wanted to talk. I’ve never been able to have this kind of telepathy before. In the past, it’s only been if someone asked, and wanted it, like the captain. I’ve never been able to wake someone out of a sound sleep before.

This is blowing my mind, I admit.

Me too.

Tell me, is there any way off this ship? Any way to escape? I want to barrage her with a hundred other questions, but I quiet those thoughts.

I’ve been a slave for a long time. On this ship for about one of your years. I have some ideas, but I don’t think any would work.

Desperate, I pepper her with questions and learn a lot of useful information. It’s clear she isn’t any happier about being a slave than I am. She uses her budding powers of telepathy to cure the captain’s anxiety and chronic insomnia. She stays in his room every night, lying on the floor at the foot of his bed, and soothes him to sleep with her abilities.

Because she’s always been a model prisoner, she has the complete run of the ship. The guards treat her like she’s of no more consequence than a potted plant. The captain wants her on the bridge with him, where she calms him during the day.

Could you fly this ship? I ask boldly.

I’ve watched everything they do. I know a lot more than they suspect. But… I would never want to mislead you into thinking I could fly this ship on my own.

I’m sure she didn’t need her powers of telepathy to read my dejection.

You do want to escape? I ask.

Of course, I think all the slaves do. If it weren’t for the collars, I think we would have fought them a long time ago.

I’m not giving up, I tell her. There’s got to be a way out of here for all of us.

The cell block door opens and Tyree scurries into the shadows as an Urlut stomps through the hallway doing a bed check.

With Tyree gone and nothing to distract me, I find my attention completely consumed by my proximity to my feline cellmate. His heavy, furred arm cradles my waist and his muscled front is plastered to my back.

I don’t know what time it is, but my spidey senses tell me my bedmate has a severe case of “morning wood,” because it’s pressing insistently into the back of my thighs. He’ll need that in a few hours when the Urluts will force us to “complete the act.”

I drift back into an uneasy sleep with the words “surreal,” and “lion-man,” and “breeder” swirling through my dreams.

Zar

I’m rudely ejected from deep sleep to fully awake by the Urluts’ loud commands to mate. They inform us males that yesterday’s abnormal one-day vacation from the ludus, our gladiator school, is over and that they’ll take us to the gymnasium to work out as soon as we complete our bed duties.

That suits me just fine. I didn’t know what to do with myself yesterday with all that time on my hands and nothing to do. I’m used to lifting weights and sparring all day, every day. It’s good that way—less time to think. And besides, I have absolutely nothing to say to this female.

I watch as Anya wakes with a groan, her face constricted and agitated.

I was born into captivity, at least as far back as I can remember. Annums ago, after many unsuccessful attempts to escape, I gave up any hope of freedom. Anya has had only one day to become accept her new reality.

I can see by her tight muscles and angry eyes she desires no part of the Urluts’ breeding program, nor does she want any part of me. I don’t blame her. Neither of us wants anyone ordering us who to share intimacy with.

She walks to the toilet and gives me a scathing look, silently commanding me to look away. Her race must like privacy for that. I try to imagine a life where a person could have privacy for basic bodily functions. It must be nice.

Her cheeks already flushed with embarrassment, the color deepens as she shucks her pants and dives into bed. Covering her face with the blanket, she reaches between her legs and readies herself for me. I grab my length to stroke it, surprised to find it’s already standing proud and ready to perform.

I wait for her hushed, “I’m ready,” and join her under the blanket. She’s on her hands and knees, as I’d instructed her yesterday, but I find myself yearning to mount her from the front, to see her interesting face and expressions. I’m certain that would distress her, so I just cover her from behind, and get ready to complete the act.

I’m certain she wants to get this over as quickly as I do, so I don’t know what possesses me to touch one finger to her soft halo of brown curls or stroke her cheek with my knuckle. At first, she sucks in a breath and stiffens, but when I freeze and do nothing else, she calms herself, breathing more slowly, limbs relaxing.

I have no idea how to make this easier for her. Placing myself at her entrance, I notice her dampness there. I stroke the head of my cock back and forth, making sure she’s slick enough to accept me. Gently placing my hands on hers, I reassure her wordlessly. I enter her slowly, tenderly, then finish the act as quickly as possible to cause her the least discomfort.

Anya

It’s not that Zar, the Minute Man, and I have a relationship of any kind, but it hurts my feelings he can’t stand to be inside me for more than thirty seconds. I should be happy he’s so quick about his business. It’s ridiculous for me to feel insulted—but I am.

Peeking at the women in the two cells I pass on my way to medbay, I give them my wordless support. I’m glad to see “boxer girl” in the cell next to mine is now wearing a humongous blue jumpsuit. I would have hated to have to walk around with my boobs exposed, especially with so many alien eyes watching every move.

The enforced sex hasn’t been easy on any of us, but I think I heard her crying while “completing the act” this morning. I feel powerless realizing there’s nothing I can do to help.

Paying little attention to anything but ideas of how to escape, I keep my pace brisk as an Urlut forces me down the hallways at gunpoint. While we hurry through the corridors, I notice every doorway and every turn as I look for any crew I’ve never seen before.

If we were to stage a rebellion, we’ll need to know the guard-to-prisoner ratio. I forbid myself to even wonder if the others want to overthrow our masters. Rather than being negative, I force myself to focus on escape.

Yesterday, I wasn’t aware that every male prisoner is a full-fledged, trained, powerful gladiator. Zar explained this morning that the only thing they do all day every day is train and fight. No wonder the Urluts are so quick to use shock collars on them. Even though the guards are huge and armed to the teeth, it sounds like they would be no match for any of these warriors if they squared off in a fair fight.

My thoughts come to a halt as we arrive at medbay. Dr. Evil, who never introduced himself even though he was so insistent that I give him my name, tries to get me up on the exam table as fast as possible.

I decide to converse, even if it is one-sided, the whole time I’m in the exam room. I want him to realize he’s hurting us women—that we’re real people with emotions. Maybe I can reconnect him to his desire to be a helping professional.

“So, assuming at one point you wanted to heal people, what happened to you? How did you wind up serving on a slave ship?” How’s that for getting right to the point?

He pats the table, looking totally resigned to the fact that I won’t jump right up. We’re having a stare-down. He sighs, shrugs, and for some unknown reason, answers me.

“Student loans.”

“Say what?”

“You’re right. I always wanted to be a physician, a healer. Medical training doesn’t come cheap. I didn’t want myself or my family burdened with my loans, so I accepted this job. It was supposed to be a quick one annum tour of duty with the Urluts on a transport freighter to erase all my debt.

“I was told I would tend the vessel’s crew. I never dreamed the ship would transport slaves. Or that it would involve… ” He looks forlornly down at the speculum in his hand as if it’s the first time he’s ever seen one. “It was bait and switch, but the contract is ironclad.”

Those deep-set, piercing blue eyes look haunted for the briefest moment. Then he’s patting the table again.

He paid the price for my cooperation today. I quickly shuck my PJ bottoms, climb onto the table, and slip my feet into the stirrups. How come they’ve invented space flight and they still can’t figure out a way to warm those things?

“What are you going to do when you’ve paid your debt?” I ask afterward as I shrug into my clothes. I’m still trying to figure out how to use this information to my advantage.

“I originally thought I’d go back to Dacia, my home planet. But I could be charged with war crimes for this. They’ll never allow me to return without harsh punishment.”

Whoa, for being the one in total control of this situation, he certainly looks powerless and forlorn.

“I guess we’re all prisoners in one way or another,” I add faintly.

He breathes a deep sigh. We both know we’ll be continuing this conversation tomorrow.

When I’m back in my cell, I have nothing to occupy my mind. I think it’s been two days since I was kidnapped, but now my old life seems far away. I guess it is far away. I don’t know much about space travel, but I’m guessing I could be millions of miles from Earth by now.

The call center where I worked has probably already sent me a termination notice via email for my two unexcused absences. Kinda makes me all warm and fuzzy inside thinking about my relationship with my former employers. They didn’t have shock collars at my job, but it definitely felt like a master/slave relationship in other ways.

My fists ball in anger at myself. I hated that crappy job. Why was I sleepwalking through my life? I don’t know how it happened. I had plans to go to college after I moved away from home. Instead, I accepted a shit job to ensure a steady income. Before I realized, several years passed and I never did enroll in business school. My plans for my future got hazier, and I got caught up in the treadmill of just getting by.

If I ever do get back to Earth—like if this is a bad dream and I wake up any time soon—the first thing I’m going to do, if they haven’t already fired me, is quit that soul-sucking job and find something I’m passionate about.

I wonder if my parents and two sisters know I’m AWOL. My chin trembles as I realize they must be worried sick. What I wouldn’t give to FaceTime right about now.

That’s a depressing thought, which is doing me no good. I will not allow myself to fall down that rabbit hole. Switching gears, I nod my head in determination. I need to figure out how to escape.

We might actually have a chance. After all, we have a cadre of trained fighters who probably all want to be free. There’s a ship’s officer who hates what he’s doing, and, of course, little telepathic Tyree.

After the guards transport us to medbay and back, they’re pretty scarce. There doesn’t seem to be a vast army of them on board, so they must be closely monitoring the gladiators and not bothering with us puny Earth women.

Gingerly fingering my shock collar, I decide to take a risk. Moving to the front of the cell next to boxer girl’s compartment, I whisper, “What’s your name?”

No answer. Also, no shock. So, emboldened, I ask more loudly.

“Shhhh,” is her only reply. Then, after a moment while she’s probably waiting to see if one of us gets zapped, she answers, “Grace.”

“I’m Anya. It’s nice to know your name. I was tired of calling you ‘Boxer Girl’ in my mind.”

“I think of you as Moose,” she admits with a soft laugh. “I’m glad the doctor got me these clothes, even though I look like the doc’s Mini-Me in this rolled-up blue jumpsuit.”

“Yes, I was glad to see that. It must have been awful for you to have to walk around almost naked that first day.”

I pause a moment, wondering if I should mention my concerns, then barge ahead. “I’ve heard some… distressing noises from your cell. I’ve wondered if you’ve been crying. Is your guy treating you all right?” There is such a long silence I wonder if her collar’s been shocked.

“It’s awful,” her voice is rough with emotion.

I’m not surprised. From the sounds of things, I’d wondered if the guy with the red robotic eye had been considerate with her during our mandatory mating.

“Grace, I’m so sorry. Does he understand he’s scaring you? Hurting you?”

“He’s… I’m not sure if he has actual emotions other than anger. He doesn’t really talk. When I told him it hurt, he slowed down. I think he tried. He warns me they’ll punish us both if we don’t follow orders. Maybe he thinks he’s protecting me in some crazy way. I honestly don’t think he wants to hurt me. He’s just so… disconnected.

“I mean, have you seen his face? His arm? I’m not sure how much of him is human and how much is robot.”

“I don’t know how to help. Do you think my guy could talk to him at the ludus tomorrow? Urge him to be gentler? More considerate?”

“Anything’s worth a try.”

My head fills with selfish thoughts—like I’m so glad Zar has been kind. I try not to have any survivor’s guilt over my luck.

Luck, that’s a funny word to describe such an awful situation.