Page 22 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

It was the scalpel, still bloody from his surgery on me.

I tucked it away in my pocket, hoping it wouldn’t slice open my leg.

Why was this doctor giving me a weapon? Why was he apologizing?

And was that advice on what to do against the ugly gray creatures?

Biding my time seemed like a really sucky plan.

I didn’t get it until one of the Krektar—the huge one—approached and snapped a collar around my throat.

It was a black metal band with a small box with lights attached to it.

He pointed at an identical one around the doctor’s throat.

“Listen, little slave, this is a pain collar.” He held up a small remote.

“One flick of this button, and this is what happens.” The ugly creature then pointed the remote at the doctor and, with a mean grin, turned it on.

Immediately, the anthracite-colored male grunted, his eyes scrunching closed while his whole body tensed up.

Then, he dropped to his knees and only just caught himself with clenched fists, his entire body shaking with pain.

He didn’t immediately start screaming, but as the Krektar appeared to dial it up, the doctor lost the fight.

He screamed out hoarsely before biting down hard on his bottom lip with teeth far too sharp to be human.

It looked like he bit down so hard that he bled, red blood pooling on the metal floor in front of him.

I stared in horror, torn between abject fear for myself and the need to stop this horrid slaver from inflicting pain on someone, —even if that someone had just inflicted terrible pain on me.

Thankfully, one of the other Krektar intervened.

“Farn, you idiot! That’s enough! He still needs to make the fertility drug.

He can’t if you make the weakling pass out. ”

Farn, the biggest Krektar, lowered the remote. He moved it towards me with an unpleasant grin, and I had time to see that the dial was turned nearly all the way up. If he made me experience that, I had no doubt I’d pass out in seconds. I wouldn’t hang in there for nearly a minute as the doctor had.

He was already struggling back to his feet, but his creepy black eyes looked shiny with unshed tears.

When the mangy one, Frek, gave him a shove, he stumbled toward the panel near my side, right next to the wall with the creepy robotic arm.

With shaking hands, he worked the touchscreen until, with a hissing sound, a panel opened below.

“This should work,” he said through bloodstained lips.

With a deep breath, he got his shaking hand under control and lifted a small metallic cylinder from the panel.

“It’ll only sting a little,” he murmured, and then he brought the thing down to my belly, unceremoniously rucking up my blouse and blazer to jam the thing into my tender skin.

I hissed in shock, but as promised, it barely hurt at all.

“Done?” demanded one of the Krektar males.

When he nodded, they started unstrapping me and, without a backward glance, dragged me out of the medical room.

I struggled at first, terrified of wherever they were taking me.

None of them had said what I was there for.

Then Farn waved a meaty fist holding the remote in my face, and I stopped fighting, allowing them to escort me through several metal hallways in various stages of dirty and disgusting.

I was relieved that I was still wearing my uncomfortable but hella pretty black stilettos because the floor looked like it had been sprayed with blood in several places. Oh crap. Where were they taking me? It was getting progressively worse.

Another wave of fear swamped me, and I felt my eyes fill with tears; I furiously fought against those. Crying was not going to help me. I hadn’t cried when the slave doctor had performed surgery on me without anesthesia. I wasn’t going to cry now, though I really wanted to have a nervous breakdown.

A massive metal door barred our progress when we turned a corner, and Farn, who was in the lead, keyed in a series of symbols on the small screen next to it.

I was close enough to easily see what he did and tried my hardest to memorize the ten-digit code.

At least, I assumed those were alien digits, because that touchpad looked remarkably like any digital lock I knew back on Earth.

At my job at the bank, I coasted by—at least in the numbers department—because I had a head for them.

I remembered numbers as easily as I remembered my name.

Memorizing ten numbers? That should have been easy, but these were strange, foreign symbols, and I had to visualize them over and over in my head.

My numbers quirk didn’t help when I didn’t actually know which numbers I was remembering. Whatever translator tech the Doc had installed only translated what I heard, not what I saw, unfortunately.

The door slid open with a groaning sound, its mechanism clearly struggling. It became obvious why only when I was ushered through the door: two massive dents near eye height disfigured the frame.

Beyond the portal lay what could only be described as a wholly medieval-looking cellblock.

No futuristic lights or panels, no white walls like in the medical area—just gray metal walls and a ceiling that stretched far higher than could be properly illuminated, not with the small, yellowed, and dirty floor lights that lined the hallway leading away between the two rows of cells.

The cells themselves consisted of metal walls on three sides and a barred front with no apparent door.

The cell nearest the door seemed empty, holding only a small cot with a blanket and what appeared to be a metal bowl meant for waste.

From its dirt-encrusted state, I could tell it was one of the chief causes of the horrid stench that filled the place.

It was clear that none of these cells had been on the receiving end of a cleaning product in a long time.

“Are you sure about putting her in with the Beast, Farn?” the mangy, whiny one asked from my left.

“If he tears her to shreds, those hundred credits are a complete waste!” Those words did not fill me with confidence.

Tear me to shreds? What the hell was the Beast—which was clearly pronounced with a capital B?

“Oh, shut it, Frek,” one of the others growled back.

“It’s not as if you wanted to pay your share of those credits anyway!

The Beast is unique. We’re going to get massively rich selling his offspring!

” I could practically hear them salivating at those words and see the dollar signs in their freaky yellow eyes.

Except it sounded like they were planning on using me as a broodmare for whatever creature this Beast was, just to get rich.

Was that the fertility shot the doctor had given me?

To help get me pregnant? The thought of some creepy alien using me, and then these evil bastards taking the resulting offspring, was awful.

God, these were terrifying thoughts. I actually considered fighting them so they would end up killing me.

Then there were the occupants of the cells; they were enough to give me nightmares.

While the first two cells had been empty, the next four held a prisoner each.

As it was very dark in each cell, some occupants were hard to make out, but a few came all the way to the front, to the bars, so I had a good view.

While the Krektar were ugly, they were bipedal and still appeared very humanoid.

Some of these prisoners barely resembled humans at all.

I saw one male who was completely covered in a thick pelt, and his head was shaped almost entirely like a fox’s, with mobile ears, fox-like coloring, and a thick tail included.

As I passed his cell, he licked his snout and leered from an impressive height straight down my half-open shirt.

And he was clearly male because the scrap of cloth that covered his sex was barely adequate.

Another male had skin that so closely resembled rock, it was uncanny, and his legs were shaped like a lion’s.

His face was twisted in grotesque lines, with fangs, tusks, and horns.

Huge, leathery bat wings with clawed tips spread out behind his back.

If gargoyles were real, this was exactly what one would look like.

I breathed a sigh of relief each time we continued past another cell with yet another terrifying creature.

The end of the hallway opened into a slightly larger cell, and I had a sinking feeling we were headed for that one.

It was completely swathed in shadows, so I couldn’t tell much about its occupant except for two glowing, emerald-green eyes.

That wouldn’t be too terrifying on its own if it weren’t for the fact that these eyes were at least seven feet off the ground.

Whoever those eyes belonged to was humongous.

Now Farn paused, licking his fat gray lips while giving me a leer. “It occurs to me,” he growled with annoyance, “that we should have sampled her ourselves before getting Doc to give her the fertility shot. After the Beast is done with her, she’ll be ruined...”

There was some groaning and grumbling from the other three Krektar, who, I noted, stayed well out of range of the long-armed reach of the occupants of the cells.

I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or not that they now couldn’t risk knocking me up themselves.

Probably relieved—one rapist was better than five, right?

“Rise and shine, ugly!” Farn eventually yelled.

He unhooked a long stick with metal prongs on one end from his belt and banged it against the bars of the largest cell at the end of the hall.

“Show your ugly mug, Beast. Let your baby momma see what she’s in for before we lock her in the dark with you. ”